fhall perish; thofe kingdoms fhall be utterly wafted, as those nations were that rejected Nebuchadnezzar's yoke. But as it is, the kings of the earth that fhall hate the whore, and burn her with fire, it is plain that these kings will fight for the Lord against all thofe kings and kingdoms that fight against him for Antichrift. Moreover, when the fulness of the Gentiles come to Zion's light, kings fhall come to the brightness of her rifing; yea, it is added, and kings fhall be thy nurfing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers. Nor will the world be left without princes; for the Father's promife to Chrift is, that instead of thy fathers (fuch as Adam, Noah, Abraham, isaac, Jacob, David, &c.), fhall be thy children, whom thou mayeft make princes in all the earth. Nor fhall the world be without officers, nor yet without taxgatherers. I will aljo make thine officers peace, and thine exators righteousness. Viclence fhall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy wall falvation, and thy gates praife. The Lord fhall be unto thee an everlafting light, and thy God thy glory; thy people also fball all be righteous; they fall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one fhall become a tboufand, and a fmall one a strong nation: I the Lord will baften it in his time. Ifa. lx. 17-22. Let none of us liften to our charmers, our enchanters, and dreamers, who have got nothing in their heads but anarchy, nor any thing in their hearts but ftrife

and

and contention; for civil rulers fhall rule, in defiance of all the unruly, till Christ comes to judge the world. But every man in his own order: Chrift the first fruits, afterward they that are Chrift's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he fhall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign til he hath put all enemies under bis feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. I Cor. xv. 23-26.

Thus I have fhewed you, that those nations that fubmitted to the Babylonian yoke ftood, and fo fhall that nation that fubmits to Chrift and his word. Those nations that refused Nebuchadnezzar's yoke were deftroyed; and thofe nations that refufe the yoke of Chrift fhall be utterly wafted. Thofe of God's profeffing people who obeyed the Lord's voice, and fell away to the Chaldeans, lived, and returned again; and thofe who obey the Lord's voice now, and keep the word of his patience, and be fubject to the higher powers, fhall be kept from. the hour of temptation. The difobedient and gainfaying Jews fell by the famine, peftilence, and fword. And the unruly now, who are difobedient to God refufe to obey his word, and refift the powers, fhall be taken in this hour of temptation, and shall receive to themselves damnation.

Moreover, I have fhewed you, that, from the time that the Jews fell away to the Chaldeans unto the time of their return to their own land, was

seventy

feventy years; and if the man of fin was revealed or manifested to the world, fo as to be seen and known to be the son of perdition, in the year 606, as many affirm, it is plain, that as he is to continue but 1260 years, that from the time of the beginning of this hour of temptation to his destruction will be the fame date; fo that 67 or 68 years more will bring him to his own place: his time now is within the age of man. But the difference between the eastern way of reckoning and ours, or the difference which the folar and lunar years may make, I must leave to the learned.

When the Jews went into captivity, all the threatenings of heaven against Babylon were fent to Babylon after them in a book, which was to be read in Babylon, and then it was to be bound up with a stone in it, and to be cast into the midst of Euphrates, and it was to be faid, Thus fhall Babylon fink, and shall not rife from the evil that I will bring upon her. Jer. li. 63, 64. This is repeated against mystery Babylon. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great milftone, and caft it into the fea, faying, Thus with violence fhall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and fhall be found no more at all. Rev. xviii. 21. There were fome few even of the falfe prophets who imbibed Jeremiah's doctrine, and advanced it; but God's word in their mouth was neither a hammer nor a fire; and therefore thefe did not efcape: I am against the prophets, faith the Lord, that fteal my word every one from his neighbour. Jer. xxiii. 30. Hence the

flying roll pursued thefe as well as the others; for the curfe was not only to enter into the houfe of him that sweareth falfely, but into the house of the thief alfo. Zech. v. 4.

The ministry of Jeremiah was to feparate the obedient from the difobedient. Therefore thus faith the Lord, If thou return, then I will bring thee again, and thou shalt ftand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall, and they fhall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to fave thee, and to deliver thee, faith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the band of the terrible. Jer. xv. 19-21. The vile from the precious were to be known by their fubjection or non fubjection to the higher powers. The highest ruling power then in the world was the king of Babylon, and God had made him fo, though he was nothing but a poor pagan. Those that believed the word of the Lord, and fell to the Chaldeans, were the precious; and those who rejected the word of the Lord, and fought against the king of Babylon, were the vile. These, and all the heathen nations that difobeyed the Lord, were doomed to deftruction, To destroy these rebels afterwards was the work of the Lord; and every one that held back his fword from them was to be curfed of God. Curfed be be that doeth the work of

the Lord deceitfully; and curfed be be that keepeth back bis fword from blood. Jer. xlvii. 10.

I have had fome of the fame fighting against me as Jeremiah had against him. There was a knot of wife men among us, who were great young readers and admirers of Tom Paine; and when

they became ftrong in the bonds of iniquity, Satan found accefs to their hearts, and by him they conceived no fmall degree of envy; and their malice and prejudice began to rife fo high against me, that fome of them could hardly keep filence in the house of God. My difcourfe on the Books and the Parchments exafperated them to the highest pitch of defperation and madness; and when that fon of Belial came among you from Plymouth Dock, they then thought to feek revenge, or to avenge themfelves on me;. the fecret leaven of malice and wickedness that had long worked within them boiled up, and ran over, the cockatrice eggs were broken, and out came the vipers. He whofe batred is covered with deceit, bis wickedness fhall be fhewn before the whole congregation. Prov. xxvi. 26. God had fhewn me this, nine months before it happened, in a dream, which I then told to Mr. Morgan and Mr. Winkworth. And at this time he gave me also another dream fimilar to the former, which fhewed me what we were to do; God had then discovered the vile, and we were to feparate them from the precious, while the Spirit of God in the fouls of the righteous, feparated them from their affections: