adopted from Mr. Bichens with certain alterations and additions, instead of that which he will find in my Dissertation Vol. II. p. 87. In the year 1789, the earthquake commenced; and in it fell a tenth part, the only remaining tenth part, of the great Roman city: that is to say the French monarchy, the only one of the ten original regal horns then in existence. This circumstance, added to the chronological era to which the earth quake is assigned, namely the close of the second woe or a period subsequent to the permitted season of Ottoman conquest, might in itself be sufficient to teach us, that the French Revolution can alone be intended in this prediction. But the prophet adds even a yet more decisive mark: "in the earthquake", says he, "were slain seven thousand names of men”. The expression is remarkable and full of meaning. In common earthquakes or political revolutions, men alone are ordinarily slain; but in the present earthquake their very names are to be slain: and the number of their names is said to be seven thousand, or seven multiplied by a thousand, the usual аросаlyptic method of describing a great multitude. Now it is a remarkable circumstance, that not merely names or titles of nobility in general should be slain or abolished by the earthquake of the French Revolution, but that precisely seven such names or titles should be then abolished: 1. Prince*; 2. Prelate; 3. Duke; 4. Marquis; 5. Count; 6. Viscount; 7. Baron. All these names were slain *It is observable, that in the English nobility the title of Prince is not recognized: even the heir apparent is a peer only as Duke of Cornwall. in in the course of the earthquake, which overthrew the only remaining tenth part of the Roman city, or the monarchy of France: for the first shock of the earthquake took place in the year 1789; and the last, on the memorable 10th of August 1792. Thus are we alike directed by chronological and circumstantial evidence to apply this prediction to the French Revolution. It was to be fulfilled after the Ottoman power had ceased to be victorious: it was to be fulfilled in one of the ten original borns of the beast: it was to be fulfilled in the downfall of the monarchy symbolized by that tenth born, and in the abolition of precisely seven names or titles of nobility. No event, except the French Revolution, answers to all these particulars: and it does exactly answer to them all: consequently we have as much certainty as can be attained in these matters, that the French Revolution is here foretold by St. John*. 10. Since I published my Dissertation, I have read Chandler's Paraphrase of Joel, and am more convinced than ever I was, that the locust-army described by that prophet cannot mean a flight of * See Bichen's signs of the times, p. 38-42, 95-97. The name of king was abolished by the fall of the tenth part of the city or the French monarchy itself: and in the same earthquake were slain the seven orders of nobility temporal and spiritual. Bishops were afterwards restored by the republican rulers, but not in their former capacity of ecclesiastical peers. The number of the names or titles is seven: and this number is multiplied by a thousand to describe how great a multitude the ancient French nobility constituted. It is well known, that they were the most numerous of any country in Europe, Germany alone perhaps excepted. mere mere literal locusts as he supposes, but must denote, like the parallel prophecy in Rev. ix, a flight of symbolical locusts; which symbolical locusts the whole context of the prediction teaches us must mean the desolating armies of Antichrist. This point is discussed at large in my unpublished Work on the Restoration of Israel; as also the war of Gog and Magog predicted by Ezekiel, which I am clearly of opinion is the same as that predicted by St. John, and consequently takes place at the end of the Millennium as Mr. Lowman and Abp. Newcome rightly suppose, not at the beginning of it as Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton suppose. 11. In my Dissertation, Vol. I. p. 350, I speak of Buonapartè in such a manner as might induce the reader to think that by the infidel king or Antichrist I understand the individual usurper himself. It may not be amiss therefore to repeat, what I had previously stated in the note at p. 326, that by the infidel king I mean the atheistical power of France since the Revolution broke out; and that I speak of the actions of Buonapartè, just as I should of those of Robespierre or of any other villain who has been at the head of the French Government, only as being a portion of the public actions of the infidel kingdom. Neither the Corsican, nor any other individual, is intended by Daniel's wilful king. 12. In my Dissertation, Vol. II. p. 349, I conjecture that the kings of the East are the Jews; I should have expressed myself with greater accuracy if I had said that the lost ten tribes are probably intended. But, as I have already observed, I wrote under the impression that the ten tribes would be restored no otherwise than as lost in the tribe of Judab. X Judab. I misapplied Isaiah vii. 8. Ephraim being no more a people relates to their union with Judah after their restoration, as of old in the time of David and Solomon. The best comment on this text is Ezek. xxxvii. 15-22. 13. I have given in my Dissert. Vol. I. p. 199, 200, and elsewhere, too extensive a meaning to these wonders and these things mentioned in Dan. xii. 6, 7. They do not, I believe, denote all the matters previously foretold by the prophet, but only those which are comprehended within the space of the 1260 years, which may properly be termed the period of the wonders. I Now enter on a part of my subject that requires I shall no ordinary delicacy and discretion, endeavour to treat it with as much caution and prudence as I can. My Dissertation was published just as the intelligence of the fatally decisive battle of Austerlitz arrived. The rumours of a directly opposite purport, that prevailed while the last sheets of the Work were printing, had led me to conclude that the time was not yet arrived when the wilful tyrant should be identified with the Carlovingian bead of the beast; for, though I fully expected for reasons already stated that sooner or later that time would arrive*, I had no warrant from prophecy to say when it would arrive. At length we received intelligence of the disastrous issue of a campaign, which has made the atrocious wretch, whom I doubt not to be an *See my Dissert. Vol. II .p. 363, 364. and this Pamphlet. instrument X 2 |
