N04757:216
An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in…
An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in extraordinary prayer for the revival of religion and the advancement of Christ's Kingdom on earth, pursuant to Scripture-promises and prophecies concerning the last time. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Minister of the Gospel at Northampton. ; With a preface by several ministers.
printed for D. Henchman, 1748
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
As to his particular Scheme of the seven Periods, so divided and limited, and so obviously ranked in such Order, and following one another in such direct and continued Succession, and each ending in a State of Peace, Safety and Happiness to the Church of God, it seems to me to be more ingenious than solid, and that many Things might be said to demonstrate it not to be founded in the Truth of Things, and the real Design of the divine Author of this Prophecy. But now to enter into a particular and full Examination of it, would be to lengthen out this Discourse far beyond it's proper Limits. I would only observe (which directly concerns my present Purpose) that to make out this Scheme, Mr. Lowman supposes that the fifth and sixth Trumpets, that bring on the two first Woes, and the whole 9th Chap. of the Revelation, altogether respects the Saracens. But it appears to me not very credible, that the Saracens should have so much said of 'em in this Prophecy, as to have a whole Chapter taken up about them, and not a Word in the whole Prophecy be said about the Turks, who immediately succeeded them *in the same Religion, ⟨p. 145⟩and proceeding on the same Principles, and were so much more considerable, and brought vastly greater Calamities on the christian World, and have set up and long maintained one of the greatest, strongest and most extraordinary Empires that ever the World saw, and have been the most terrible Scourge to Christendom, that ever divine Providence made Use of, and one of the greatest of all God's Plagues on the World of Mankind.
- *For tho' it be true, that the Reign of Othman, or Ottoman, who began what they call the Ottoman Empire, was a long Time after this; yet the Turks themselves, under other Princes, in the Government they set up in Territories that had formerly been possess'd by Christians, and in their over-running and ravaging Christian Countries, immediately succeeded the Saracens; and from thenceforward have been a terrible, and almost continual Scourge to the Church.