ruin'd and destroy'd, by Fire, Swo

Earthquakes, Inundations, Famines, 2 Pestilences. The Air shall be corrup: and peftilential; sometimes there i be scorching Heats, then pinchirg Co. oc. so that the Earth fall not brir.. forth Fruit; the Corn shall be blighted the Trees and Vines shall fail THSprings and Rivers shall be dried up: 1

that the Beasts shall die upon the Ear. 'the Fowls in the Air, and the Fishe

the Sea. A little after he speaks of False Prophet; how that he fall Sealth that obey him; shall burn the Holy Sc. ptures, and make the World defolate: Forty Two Months, &c. St. Cyril of J. falem, Cat. 15. after he had spoken large of Antichrift, adds, “This is the cu

Beast, the great Dragon, fighting again,
Mankind, being ready to devour them

therefore the Lord knowing the Pow: ' of the Adversary, commanded the Chr

stians that should live in those Days, flee to the Mountains, Matth. 24. 16. Bc: if any one knoweth that he hath Strengi enough to resist the Devil, let him ftar for I do not despair of the Strength C

the Church : But let the fearful tak: ' heed to themselves, for then shall be Tribulation, such as never was since the

Beginning of the Creation to this pr: ' fent Time, nor never shall be. My dea

Brethren, (says Ephrem Syrus, Serm. Antichristo, P: 222.) then shall there be a

great Trial upon all Men, but especially

C

the Faithful and the Saints, and great Tribulation shall there be in those Days, when great Signs and Wonders shall be wrought by the Power of that Hellish Beast, Antichrist. (A little after) Who, my Brethren, amongst you all, shall be found at that Day so compleatly armed with the Shield of Faith, as to be fully persuaded in his Mind, that the Coming of the Son of God is nigh, when he shall see this inexpreflible Tribulation upon every Soul of Man, without any Allay of Reft or Comfort; when thou shalt see the whole world in Confusion (for every one shall flee to the Mountains for shelter ;) when thou shalt see some perishing for Hunger, others languishing with intolerable Thirst, and none to pity them? (A little after) There shall be at that time no Rest upon the Earth, but great Tribulation, Trouble and Confusion, Famine and Death, in all the Corners of the Earth. Then shall the Saints shed Rivers of Tears, and flee to the Deserts. They shall hide themselves in the Mountains, and in the Valleys, covering their Heads with Dust and Ashes, praying to be delivered from the Beast. The Mountains, the Hills and Trees of the World shall mourn. The Lights of Heaven shall mourn, because Men have forsaken their God, and believed the De

ceiver, &c. And in many other Instances does likewise this Holy Father elegantly bęwail the Miseries of that Time : A's

does

ic

Some Ol..

upon the

,

the Mark

ز

does also St. Auguftin, Lib. 20. Cap. 8. St. ? rom in the urth and 12th Chapters of Dars. St.Cyril, Lib. 11. in Gen. St. Gregory, Lib.14 Moral

. and Lib. 32. Cap. 12.

21. Upon the aforegoing Quotation servations I cannot but observe, I. That Hippolytus preceding asserts, that the Means whereby the Churc, Quotati- (or Christans of that time, which are nr ons, and counted worthy to escape) shall be deci concerning ved by Antichrift, will be by his offeris

them Food in that great Famine. Whi of the

same thing is attested by Anaftafius Sina: Beaft.

( Contempl. in Hexaemer. Tom. I. Bib. Pa : 327:) in these Words: God said to the Serpent, He shall bruise thy Head, and tha shalt bruise bis Heel; i. e. The extrem Parts of the Body of Christ, which is be Church; so that the Heel' shall be cha Presence of Antichrist in the last Times and the evil Serpent waits for that Tim when he may again supplant the Churu by offering them Food, when there shal

be a great Famine. So that they whe have not Faith to believe that man det not live by Bread alone, but by every Word the proceedeth out of the mouth of God, shall no have Patience to expect God's Accomplishment of his Promises, that God wil at last be Jealous for his Land, and pity has People, and send them Corn, and Wine, and Oil, to satisfie them therewith, *x 2. 18, 19. They, I say, that will not for this wait upon God, shall trangress the Law of their God, and pollute the Ho!

One, for handfuls of Barley and pieces & may not this Food he the Philereng

unerikturae pt Polity which are go?? was

a embered

Bread

,

Bread, Ezek. 13, 19. II. That those who thus Apoftatize and go over to the Enemy, shall be sealed with the Mark of the Beast ; concerning which the Holy Scriptures and Fathers speak exprefly, only with this difference, that as the Scripture attributes this Sealing to the Eastern Beast, or False Prophet, Rev. 13. 16. The Fathers attribute it to Antichrist himfelf; understanding, I suppose, the Falfe Prophet, as being in the Spirit of Antichrist, to be as the Instrument by which he Seals them (even as we are sealed by the Spirit of God to the Day of Redemption, Eph. 4. 30.) That the Impression of this Seal, and the Number of the Beast, are both one, is generally supposed by Ancient Writers ( as may be seen at large) who therefore use them promiscuously. But what that Seal, Mark, or Number is, or wherein it confifts, is hard to determine. Most of the Ancients suppofed that it was to be a Name composed of the Numeral Letters which compose , 666. Of which' sort many , are reckoned up by Hippolytus, Irenæus and others, to the Number of Sixteen or Seventeen, many of which are most violently drawn in, and there is indeed so great a Latitude in that way of Interpretation, that fome of the later Writers of the Church of Rome have made Luther and Calvin bear the Name of the Beast: And when Monsieur Jurieu, Minister of the French Church at Rotterdam, upon the Authority of Irenæus, had asserted that Axl6yG was it, his Ad

versaries

1

versaries found that Rotterdam was com-
prized in the same Number, and asserted
that to be the Name of, the Beast. In
short, by this way we may make any thing
out of any thing; for which very Reason
Hippol;tus, p. 39. owns he does not under-
stand it. A very probable Hypothesis was
that of the Learned Dr. Potter, who assert-
ed that the counting of it consists in ex-
tra&ting the Root of it, which is 25, that
being the only. Number, which by being
multiplied into it self, makes the Square
Number 666, when the Fraction (which
is 41 in this Operation ) is added to it,
which is what is meant by the Square Root
of a Number. And this, as for

many other
Reasons reckoned up by that excellent
Writer, so especially for this, that the
Number 25 has always been esteemed by
Sacred and Prophane Writers, who had ne-
ver thought of Antichrist or his Kingdom,
to be mysteriously Evil; and to be an Hie- :
roglyphical Character of some unhappy,
desperate, deplorable, and apoftate State
of the Church, because it is an oddly un-
even Number, which is unevenly measured
by an odd Number, so uneven indeed, that
no square perfect Number can arise out of
ir, but what is made up of fractional Ad-
ditions. Whereas, on the contrary, the
Number 12, the Root of the Pure Church,
is an even Number making 144000, it's
Square perfectly and entirely, to shew the
Perfection, Entireness, and Agreeableness

of