are declared to be myfteries by God himself, in the facred fcriptures. They are great mysteries under the moral government of God. That a religion fo true, fo pure, fo excellent as the Chriftian, fhould be neglected, misunderstood, and despised by fo many; that fo few, comparatively speaking, fhould be renewed by the Spirit of God in the Spirit of their minds; that the Jews, the antient people of God, fhould remain fo long in a ftate of infidelity; that those who profess a great regard for Mofes and the prophets fhould not believe in Jefus, of whom Mofes and the prophets teftified; that they fhould for fo long a time remain diftinct from all the nations of the earth, and yet live in no country as a diftinct nation; that it fhould be fo many hundred years before all the Gentile nations fhould be converted to that divine religion, whofe very doctrines prove it to be of God, and which calls upon men only to be wife, to be good, and to be happy, whilst it offers them the best means and aids for becoming fo; that fuch a hierarchy of fuperftition, idolatry, worldly pomp, and perfecution as the church of Rome exhibits, fhould arife in the world, bear the name of Chrif tian, and continue for fo many hundred years; that after fo many hundred years, the overthrow of that hierarchy, the bringing in of the fullness of the Gentiles, the converfion of the Jews, and that uncommonly great influence of the Spirit of

God

God upon the minds of men, in renewing them, making them clearly perceive the truth and excellency of the gospel of Jefus and heartily embrace it, should all happen at the fame time, are great mysteries. These are myfteries under the moral government of God. These are myfteries, at many of the reafons of which we might hazard many probable conjectures, if to do fo were right; but all the reafons of which fhall fully appear to no man, until the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when this mystery of God fhall be finished. When Antichrift fhall be finally overthrown, when the fullnefs of the Gentiles fhall be brought in, the Jews, seeing that Chrift's kingdom is triumphant over the Roman empire and all the other kingdoms of the world, fhall receive him as their fpiritual king; and when the religion of Jefus, in its fcriptural and divine purity, fhall become univerfal and triumphant in the world, then fhall it clearly appear, that all these myfteries arofe from the wifeft and beft reafons. Then fhall the contemplation of thefe predictions and events improve the heads and the hearts of men, and fill their mouths with fongs of praise to that God, all whofe works, even the moft myfterious, are done in wisdom."

That the mystery of God fhould not be finished till the voice of the feventh angel, is a declaration exactly agreeable to the predictions of the prophets who wrote on this fubject, before John wrote

this

this book. Thus, Daniel chap. vii. 23,-27. exprefly declares, that it fhall be a time and times and half a time, from the day in which the faints of the Moft High fhall be delivered into the hands of the laft head of the Roman government, to the day, in which the mystery of God fhall be finished, that is, the space of 1243 years. It fhall afterwards be fhewn in its proper place, that that space of time fhall run down exactly to the days of the voice of the feventh angel. The fame thing is foretold by the apostle Paul in Rom. xi. 25,-26. and in 2 Theff.ii. 1,-10. Let us here obferve and admire the exact correfpondence among the writers of facred fcripture; a correspondence which proves, that they all wrote under the inspiration of the fame unerring fpirit of God; a correfpondence, which, by comparing one of them with another, leads the candid and ftudious mind to their real meaning.

Verfes 8th, 9th, 10th. And the voice which I heard from heaven, fpake unto me again, and faid, Go, and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the fea, and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he faid unto me, Take it, and eat it up;

and it

fhall

fhall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth fweet as honey and as foon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.

John is commanded to take the little opened book which is in the hand of Chrift, and eat it up. And he takes it, and eats it wholly up. As the food of the body must be eaten before it can afford any nourishment to the body; hence, to ftore up and digeft knowledge in the mind, which is the food of the foul, is expreffed in the fymbolical language by eating. This fymbol is very common in prophetic writings, and its meaning is uniformly the fame. To eat words, is to know their meaning, store them up in our memory, and apply them to their proper ufe. Jerem. xv. 16. "Thy words "were found, and I did eat them." To eat a roll or book, is to study it diligently, ftore up its meaning in our memory, and digeft it fully: Ezek. iii. 1. "Moreover he faid unto me, Son of man, eat "that thou findeft; eat this roll, and go and fpeak unto the house of Ifrael."

66

When all the fix preceeding feals were open. ed in their order, John faw what was written upon those parts of the roll, which were unfolded

by

by the opening of these feals, and he related exactly what he had feen written upon them. When this seventh feal was opened, he read and confidered this little book, digefted fully its meaning, and narrated the contents of it, at great length, in fymbolical language, in many of the following chapters of this book.

When he eat this book, it was fweet as honey in his mouth; but it was afterwards bitter in his belly. The acquifition of knowledge is pleasant. There is a natural curiofity in man, which makes him pry into futurity with keennefs and pleasure, and renders every discovery pleasant at first, merely because it is new. Great are the charms of novelty to a mind fo conftituted, that what it knows bears little proportion to what it knows not. But, after it is attained, the knowledge of futurity is often diftreffing to the mind. The knowledge of all the calamities and viciffitudes of his life at one view, before they actually approached him, would diftrefs and overwhelm the ftrongest of men. The foreknowledge of the wickedness which, to fuch a degree, and for fo great a length of time, fhould prevail in the world, under the reign of fuperftition, idolatry, and tyranny, of the perfecutions and calamities, to which the faints, of whom the world was not worthy, fhould be expofed fo long, must certainly imbitter and diftrefs the mind of John. The

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