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BRIEF COMMENTARY,

&c. &c.

CHAP. I.

A Summary of the prominent Events contained in the Apocalypse.

BEFORE I proceed to the awful task I have

undertaken in the title-page, it seems not improper to lay before the reader a summary view of the contents of the Apocalypse. It will disclose to him a series of wonderful events, foretold in the first century, and which have come to pass since that time, during the course of one thousand seven hundred years; and in the exact chronological order in which they were foretold. It will enable him to judge of the unity, the sublimity, and excellence of this sacred record of the providence of God, and

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convince him that no power, save a God of infinite wisdom, can be the author of it. It will, moreover, assist him in his judgment upon the propriety of my explication of the marks and signs contained in it, which refer to the present times, and upon my application of them to their proper events.

The Apocalypse, then, is the most important, sublime, and awful theme, that ever employed the mind of man. It contains the PRO

PHETICAL HISTORY OF ALL THE PROMINENT EVENTS, IN WHICH THE CHURCH OF CHRIST WAS TO BE CONCERNED, FROM HER RISE TO HER FINAL CONQUEST AND TRIUMPH OVER ALL HER OPPONENTS AND ENEMIES, IN THE STRENGTH AND BLESSING OF HER GLORIFIED REDEEMER, THE SON OF GOD; AND TO THE CONSUMMATION

OF ALL THINGS. In this grand and sacred theme the principal characters are

1. The I AM that I AM, "The Alpha "and Omega, the beginning and the ending, " and which is, and which was, and which is "to comet" the one, supreme, uncreated, self-existing GOD; the Creator and Ruler of all things.

2. JESUS CHRIST, the ever blessed Son of GOD, and Redeemer of a fallen world.

3. The Two WITNESSES of GOD §.

*Exod. iii. 14. Matth. xvii. 5.

Rev. i. 11. xxi. 5, 6.

§ Rev. xi. 3.

4. SATAN, the fallen spirit, and the origin of all evil, the great enemy, the tempter, and deceiver of the whole world.

5. The DRAGON†, or the powers of paganism, the agents and ministers of Satan, and the opposers and persecutors of the church of Christ.

6 The great sensual apostate ‡, MOHAMED, in the East, and the great idolatrous apostate§, the Pope, in the West, the contemporary destructive enemies of the church.

7. THE "BEAST OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT ||,' or the Beast of the earth," or the powers of atheism, established by revolutionary France; another agent of Satan, and yet greater enemy of God and man.

8. BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH ¶; a mighty power to be formed hereafter by Satan, to consist of a confederacy of all the before-mentioned enemies of the word of God, and church of Christ.

9. GOG AND MAGOG **, another mighty power, which is to be formed under the banners of Satan, by a combination of all the wick

* Rev. xii. 9. xx. 2. Rev. ix. 1, 2.

Rev. xi. 7.

Rev. xx. &

Ezek. xxviii. 3. Rev. xii. 9. A Rev. xiii. 1.

Rev. xvi. 13. xvii. 5.

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