Destroyer is directly oppofite to Jefus the Saviour; but he who in his character is directly oppofite to Jefus Chrift is the Antichrift.

In 2 Theff. ii. 3. Antichrift has the fame name given him as in this hieroglyphic. He is called the fon of perdition, the very fame Apollyon in the Greek language which is applied to him here: But that paffage in 2 Theff. ii. 1,-12. fhall be fully confidered when we come to chap. xiii.

Thefe locufts were not, like the natural locufts, to hurt the grafs of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only men. By this part of the hieroglyphic it is declared that they are not natural locufts, but only perfons fymbolically reprefented by them. They were not to hurt the faints, but they were to hurt the citizens of the Roman empire. They were to hurt only thofe men who have not the feal of God in their forehead. All thofe fealed ones mentioned in chap. vii. that is, all real Chriftians, whom the Lord knows to be his, and who naming the name of Chrift depart from iniquity, fhould receive no real hurt from thefe locufts and fcorpions.

It was not the intention of thefe locufts to abftain from hurting the fealed fervants of God, nor to hurt the citizens of Rome; but they were commanded to do in fact the very oppofite of what they intended to do, and probably believed they were doing. Their errors and vices fhould be

overruled

overruled and reftrained by the unfeen fuperintending hand of Divine providence, fo as to fave from their infectious influence all real Chriftians.

During this period, they should have no power to kill men; but they fhould vex and torment them in fuch a manner as to render life itself a burden to them; and to make them even wish for death, rather than live in such torment.

This particular power of tormenting men was granted to them for the space of five months. This period of five months is infeparably connected with two things: First, with the power granted to the locufts to torment men, as diftinguished from and opposed to the power of killing them, verse 5th. And fecond, with the character of their king as a ftat or minifter of religion, as diftinguished from and oppofed to his character as a beast of prey or temporal king, ver. 10, 11. But what period of time is fignified by five months, and when do these five months commence and terminate? Without a precife answer to each of these questions, the time of five months mentioned in this hieroglyphic cannot convey any information to our minds. A precife and determinate anfwer may be given to them both. In the fymbolical, which is the language of prophecy, five months fignify 150 years. Thefe 150 years were to commence at the time the star fhould fall from heaven to the earth, and at the time,

time when the locufts fhould receive power to torment men, which two events fhould be contemporaneous.

Having thus fixed their commencement, it must be evident that their termination must be juft 150 years after that time. But their termination is fixed alfo by two contemporaneous events. The one is the time when these locufts shall have power not only to torment, but also to kill men; and the other is when their king should not only be a star but also a beaft of prey. The first of these events being fixed for the commencement, and the laft for the termination of the five months; if it fhall appear from the hiftory of thefe events that there were exactly 150 years between them, that fact must prove that this account of the time fignified by the fymbol five months, is the right one.

As we shall frequently meet with predictions of times in this book, as the right knowledge of the fymbolical or prophetic manner of expreffing times is one of the beft helps to understand this book, and every other prophetic book in which periods of time are mentioned; and as this is the first place in which a period of time is mentioned in this book, it will be neceffary and proper that 1 here explain the nature of the fymbolical language relative to time.

It was formerly fhewn in what manner, in that language, intellectual, moral, and fpiritual objects are fignified by material and visible ones. But fometimes

sometimes it is neceffary to reprefent an object by a fymbol of the fame fpecies with the thing fignified by that fymbol. In particular this is the cafe with time. Of abfolute time our idea is as inadequate and confufed as it is of eternity, which probably is the best expreffion for abfolute time. Our idea of time therefore, fo far as it is adequate and diftinct, is of relative time. And this idea is formed by fome meafure of a certain definite proportion of time. The moft natural measure of relative time, and which all nations have adopted, is the circuit of this globe from one point in the ecliptic until it returns to the fame point, by which a folar year is meafured. This, as being a kind of natural, or at leaft univerfal measure of time, is called a time in the fymbolical language. It is thus ufed in chap. xii. 14. and in Daniel vii. 25. Thus a time fignifies a year, not a natural nor civil year, but a prophetic year, that is, a year confifting of 360 prophetic days. When any thing is re prefented by a fymbol of the fame kind with itfelf, the greater is always reprefented by the leffer. The reafon of this is, that the fymbolical language, when written in its proper characters, was a kind of painting or drawing, and that the pictures might be contained in any convenient bounds in the books: written in that language, it was neceffary that they fhould always be much lefs than the things they reprefented. Hence in the fpoken fymbolical lan

guage,.

guage, the symbol is always the leffer, and is called the leffer; and the thing fignified is the greater; and is called the greater, whenever the fymbol and the thing fignified are of the fame fpecies. Thus, if one city is reprefented by another, a Small city is the fymbol of a larger city. Thus ancient Babylon, for her idolatry, luxury, and oppreffion of the people of God, was the symbol of Papal Rome. Thus chap. xiv. 8. Rome is called Babylon that great city, and chap. xvii. 5. Babylon the great, to fhew that it is not antient Babylon which is meant, but the city and empire of which antient Babylon was the fymbol. Thus, with refpect to time, a day is the fymbol for a year, because both of them are measured by the revolutions of the fame planet; the former by its diurnal, and the latter by its annual revolution; and as the former is the leffer, it is, according to the idiom of that lan guage, the symbol of the latter, which is the greatAccordingly, in facred fcripture we are repeatedly told, that a day fignifies a year in prophetic language, Numbers xiv. 34. "After the "number of the days in which ye fearched the "land, even forty days, each day for a year,

er.

fhall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years. "Ezek. iv. 4.--0. "Lie thou alfo upon thy " left fide, and lay the iniquities of the houfe of If"rael upon it, according to the number of the days "that thou shalt lie upon it, thou fhalt bear their “iniquity,

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