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Collins, Shaftesbury, Herbert, Hume, and Bolingbroke, were Antichristian indeed. Yet their operations and writings did not mark the rise of Antichrist. They were destitute of that unity and efficiency of operation. Many of their first principles counteracted each other. And they matured no powerful, systematic opposition to the cause, which they individually hated. It remained for Infidels within the region of Popery to remedy this happy defect. The latter were not only to propagate real Infidelity, in a far more energetic system; but were to furnish a fatal plan of uniting their minions and sophists of impiety against the cause of Christ; and to secretly inure their hearts to cruelty, and deeds of violence, till they should be prepared to burst upon the Christian and civilized world, like an overwhelming torrent of burning lava from a volcano! The uniting of their rivulets of Infidelity into a powerful current, and swelling the latter, by the confluence of numberless streams, into an overwhelming flood; and directing this mighty deluge against the principles of the Christian religion, and of all virtuous civil government; this was to be the develope. ment of the infidel Power under consideration; this the Antichrist of the last times.

CHAP. II.

The last days have arrived; and an ineeptive fulfilment of the predictions concerning Antichrist is now manifest before our eyes.

THIS I shall endeavor to evince in the following sections.

SECTION I.

Chronological Calculations

THE Church of Christ was to remain in the wilderness, after being given into the hands of the Papal horn, 1260 years.* Mr. Faber is confident, that this giving of the saints into the hands of the Papal power was A. D. 606, when Phocas constituted the bishop of Rome, universal bishop. A former English writer, noted with approbation in Pool's Annotations, by the name of Stephens, was of the same opinion. This opinion appears highly probable. If the saints were to be given into the hands of the Papal horn 1260 years; the giving of them into his hands surely must mark the commencement of the 1260 years. And the constituting of the bishop of Rome universal bishop, appears to be the very act of giving the saints into his hands. In A. D. 606 then, we must probably date the beginning of the 1260 years. Much evidence in

favor of this period, Mr. Faber attempts to adduce from the predictions concerning the Mohammedan imposture. This, and the Papal imposture, he thinks, were to commcace, continue, and close their existence, together. But Mohammed began his diabolical system A. D. 606; the very year in which the saints were given into the hands of the Papal horn.

* Dan. vii, 25, and Rev. xii, 6.

Another argument in favor of this period the above named author adduces from the period assigned (Dan. viii, 14) for the termination of Mohammedism. The period there assigned is 23 hundred years, from some noted period; 22 hundred years, in some ancient Hebrew copies; which Mr. Faber thinks to be the true reading. But calculating as he supposes we ought, from the time the he-goat attacked the ram, (Dan. viii, 7) 334 years before Christ, the 22 hundred years, for the close of Mohammedism, terminate A. D. 1866; which is the very period made by the addition of the 1260 years to 606, when both Popery and Mohammedism may be said to have commenced. These three coincident arguments that author conceives to amount to pretty full evidence, that A. D. 1866 will be the end of the 1260 years, or the wilderness state of the Church.

As

Another argument in favor of this period, I apprehend, is to be found in the number of the Papal beast, which is 666. Writers have supposed, that there is a number of the beast, and a number of his name. to the number of his name, it is ascertained that the numerical letters in Greek, which form Lateinos, contain the number 666. Latinus, (or, as the name was anciently written, both in Latin and Greek, Lateinos,) king of Latium, was before Romulus; and was the first founder of Rome, either real or fictitious. Accordingly the ancient Romans were called Latins; and their language was denominated Latin. And this is the appellation, by which the inhabitants of the south west of Europe are known in the east, the Latins; particularly the Italians, French, and Spaniards, are denominated the Latins.† And the Papal church is there known by the distinction of the Latin ehurch. And in this church every thing is latinized; mass, prayers, hymns, litanies, canons, decretals, Papal bulls, are all in Latin. The business of Papal councils was transacted in Latin. And their Scrip+ Faber, vol. ii, p. 175.

*Rev. xiii, 8.

tures were read in no other language. Lateinos contains the number 666.

The word

L-30
A- 1
T-300

E- 5

I- 10

N- 50

0-70

S-200

666

Thus the Latin church is this second beast; the number of his name being found in Lateinos, according to the Greek numerals,

And with respect to the number of the beast; the author before mentioned in Pool, by the name of Stephens has attempted to shew, that A. D. 606, when the saints were given into the hands of the Papal horn, was according to Daniel's chronology, the year 666; or was the year 666, from the time, when the Roman power first invaded the Church of God. And this he states to have been, when Cicero and Antonius were consuls, 60 years before Christ. These 60 years added to 606, make 666. So that the number of the beast is the number of years, from the time the Church of God fell into the hands of the Romans, 60 years before Christ, to the time, when the Christian Church fell into the hands of the Papal beast; which number of years was 666. It appears a striking coincidence, that from the time the Church of God fell into the hands of the Romans; (if the above author be correct) to the year 606, when the Christian Church was in a formal manner, given into the hands of the Papal beast, there were 666 years; and that this very number is taken to designate the Papal beast, or as one of his descriptive marks. I cannot well conceive what circumstance shall be more likely to unfold the true sense of the passage. And if it be the true sense, it affords an ad

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