An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in…

The Ruin of the popish Interest is but a small Part of what is requisite, in Order to introduce and settle such a State of Things, as the World is represented as being in, in that Millennium that is described Rev. xx. wherein Satan's visible Kingdom is every where totally extirpated, and a perfect End put to all Heresies, Delusions and false Religions whatsoever, through the whole Earth, and Satan thenceforward deceives the Nations no more, and has no Place any where but in Hell. This is the Sabbatism of the World; when all shall be in a holy Rest, when the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb, and there shall be nothing to hurt or offend, and there shall be Abundance of Peace, and the Earth shall be full of the Knowledge of the Lord as the Waters cover the Seas, and God's people shall dwell in quiet resting Places. There is not the least Reason to think, that all this will be brought to pass as it were at one Stroke, or that from the present lamentable State of Things, there should be brought about and completed the Destruction of the Church of Rome, the entire Extirpation of all Infidelity, Heresies, Superstitions and Schisms, through all Christendom, and the Conversion of all the Jews, and the full enlightening and Conversion of all Mahometan and Heathen Nations, through' the whole Earth, on every Side of the Globe, and from the North to the South Pole, and the full Settlement of all in the pure christian Faith and Order, all as it were in the Issue of one Battle, and by Means of the Victory of the Church in one great Conflict with her Enemies. This would contradict many Things in Scripture, which represent this great Event to be brought to pass ⟨p. 151⟩by a gradual Progress of Religion; as Leaven that gradually spreads, 'till it has diffused it self through the whole Lump; and a Plant of Mustard, which from a very small Seed, gradually becomes a great Tree; (Matt. xiii.31, 32, 33.) and like Seed which a Man casts into the Ground, that springs and grows up, Night and Day; and first brings forth the Blade, then the Ear, then the full Corn in the Ear. And especially would this contradict the prophetical Representation in Ezek. xlvii. where the Progress of Religion is represented by the gradual Increase of the Waters of the Sanctuary; being first a small Spring issuing out from under the Threshold of the Temple;