" and laws," and "fpeaking great words against "the Most High." All which fuit the bloodthirsty cruelty, the unequalled arrogance, and blafphemous impiety of the bishops and church. of Rome to the greateft exactnefs. It is there faid, that he should not "regard the defire of

26

women," which plainly points out the prohibition of marriage; that he fhould "honour" "gods-protectors," that is, tutelar faints, and a god, whom his fathers knew not," a wafergod, of which god fome thousands are made in one day by the priests, and eaten, and digefted by the people. See alfo 1 Tim. iv.

I

In the Apocalypfe, chap. xi, xii, &c. it is copiously defcribed, where it is reprefented under the appearance of a monfter, or "wild beaft," whose seven heads" fignify, as afterwards explained, the feven hills upon which Rome was built, and "ten horns" the ten kingdoms, in-' to which the Roman empire was divided, whofe

blafphemous names" are notorious, as of God's vice-gerent, Our lord god the pope, Vice-god, and the like, who "wars with the "faints, and overcomes them," who receives "power over the nations," and is "worship"ped" by them. The fame is also afterwards represented under the character of the " great "harlot," or idolatrefs, with whom the " kings "of the earth have committed fornication," that is the idolatry of worshipping the images of faints, and kneeling to the hoft. She is afterwards reVOL. II. presented.

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prefented as "drunk with the blood" of the martyrs of Jefus. The kings of the earth are afterwards mentioned as "giving their power to "the monster," as it is notorious that most of the kings in Europe acknowledged the pope for their lord god, and held their crowns of him, as fome of them do ftill. The fame power is likewife held forth under the figure of a great city, the feat of wealth, luxury, pleasure, riches, and commerce, one article of which commerce, peculiar to Rome papal, is her trade in the "fouls " of men."

And by the apostle Paul this fatal delufion is called The man of fin, or the very abstract and quinteffence of iniquity, a character fit only for the popish religion, as it alone of all religions contains an affemblage of all that is most exquifitely wicked, beyond what could have been thought within the reach of human invention unaffifted by dæmons. Of which the infernal court of inquifition is a pregnant proof; where cruelty, the difpofition the moft oppofite to all good, is carried to that diabolical excefs, that few hearts are hard enough to bear the mere defcription of it. in a book. The propriety of giving the appel-. lation of The man of fin, to the Romish impofture, appears from confidering, that it has had the peculiar curfed art not only to turn the mildest of all religions into a scene of the most horrible barbarity; but to make the most pure and heavenly fyflem of doctrines and laws, which ever

were,

Y

were, or will be, given to men, an authority for establishing for points of faith the most hideous abfurdities, and contradictions to common fense; and for licensing every abominable wickedness that has ever been thought of or practifed. Infomuch, that the fixed rates of abfolution, for the most horrid and unnatural vices, ftand appointed by their popes, and published in different editions. By which means, the great defign of Chrif tianity, which was to teach men, to deny ungodlinefs and worldly lufts, and to live foberly, righteously, and godly, is defeated among the deluded profelytes to that infamous religion. For instead of this, popery teaches, that any man, who pays handfomely, may have an indulgence for any number of years to live in all manner of abominable impiety, profaneness, and impurity. Is not this The man of fin?

Whoever would fee how exactly the Scripture. predictions are fuited to represent this diabolical delufion, has only to read the hiftories of popery, and accounts of the inquifition. There he will find what hideous ravage has been made by it in different countries. Witness their infamous croifades; the maffacres of the Waldenfes, and Albigenfes, of whom almost a million were reckoned to be flain. In thirty years from the founding of the order of the Jefuits, above eight kundred thousand proteftants were put to death by, the hand of the executioner only. The bloody butchering duke of Alva used to make it his

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boast

boaft of having cut off in a few years thirty thousand proteftants in the Netherlands. The deftruction of helpless victims facrificed to that infernal fury the inquifition in one period of thirty years, is reckoned at one hundred and fifty thousand. Is not this dreadful and wide-wafting mifchief, this terror of human nature, this hell on earth, properly reprefented as a monster, or wild beaft, with iron teeth to devour and destroy, as drunk with blood, and afpiring to an authority above all that is called god, or is worshiped, that is, above all other power and government, challenging the privilege of the grand tyrant and destroyer?

These are only a few among many inftances of the unequalled horrors of this fatal delufion, and of the exactness of the Scripture predictions, which can be applied to nothing elfe, that ever was heard of upon earth. And if in the days of the authors of the above predictions, there was nothing known among mankind, which might give the hint of fuch a power as that of Antichrift, or popery; and if no account of this power in our times, when it is fo well known, can in prophetic ftyle more clearly defcribe it, than we find it reprefented in the predictions of Scripture, let the oppofers of prophecy account for this wonderful agreement between the prediction and the completion, as they best can.

These are a few, among almoft innumerable predictions of future events, of which holy

Scripture

Seripture is full. And, as these fhew themselves. clearly to be genuine revelations from God; the others contained in the fame writings may in reafon be fuppofed to be of the fame original, tho' the times when they were given, and the exactness of their refpective completions, fhould be more fubject to cavil, than thefe here quoted. And the oppofers of the revelation, in which thefe predictions are contained, are in reason obliged to give some plaufible account, how they came there, if not by Divine infpiration.

Let Christianity have been introduced into the world when it would, it is impoffible to give any rational or fatisfying account of its prevalence and establishment, but its being a Divine inftitution. For fuppofing it forged in any age before or fince the received date of about feventeen hundred years ago, it will be equally impoffible to conceive how it should come to pafs upon mankind, if it was a fiction. The Chriftian religion has been established upon the ruins of the national religion of every country, in which it has been received. It had therefore the united forces of regal power, facerdotal craft, and popular fuperftition to bear down, before it could get footing in the world. Its character is directly oppofite to the fordid views and fecular interefts of mankind, and acceptable to none but virtuous and elevated minds, which in all ages and nations have ever been comparatively a very fmall number of the fpecies, and not fit, nor difpofed

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