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according to Ezekiel, the expedition of Gog and Magog takes place after the restoration both of Israel and Judah, and when they have long been dwelling confidently in their land: the restoration of Israel however does not take place till after the overthrow of the Antichristian confederacy; and the very gathering together of the Antichristian confederacy to the place of its destruction does not commence till after the overthrow of the Ottoman empire*: what possible connection then can Gog and Magog have with the Turks, whether we place their expedition before or after the Millennium? A commentator, who lives in the present day, might further observe, that we have little cause indeed to believe that Turkey will ever head † a grand expedition like that of Ezekiel's Gog and Magog: but mere probabilities or improbabilities, deduced from the passing aspect of affairs, and as yet hid in futurity, I am unwilling to build upon; we have sufficiently decisive scriptural evidence without them.

Here it may be asked, How are we to understand the reference which Ezekiel himself gives us to others who have foretold this same war of Gog

* Isaiah lxvi. 19, 20-Rev. xvi. 12—16.

+ It is not impossible, that some individual Turks and other Mohammedans may be in the army of Antichrist; but this falls very far short of Ezekiel's description, which plainly represents Gog, whoever he may be, as the head of an expedition undertaken by various different nations.

and

and Magog, if we place it at the end rather than at the beginning of the Millennium?" Thus saith "the Lord: Art not thou he, of whom I have

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spoken in old time by my servants the prophets "of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years, that I would bring thee against them ?" Mr. Mede is of opinion, that Ezekiel alludes in this passage to Isaiah xxvii. 1. with the two last verses of the foregoing chapter; to Jeremiah xxx. 23, 24; to Joel iii. 1. and the following verses; and to Micah v. 5, 6, 9, 15. In all these references I certainly think Mr. Mede mistaken, because I believe that the war of Gog and Magog will take place at the close of the Millennium, whereas the events predicted in the passages to which he refers will come to pass immediately before the commencement of the Millennium. Isaiah xxvii. 1. relates to the subversion of the Egyptian government, at the period of the restoration of Judah, and during the time of unexampled trouble mentioned by Daniel *. Jeremiah xxx. 23, 24. relates to the overthrow of the Antichristian confederacy at the same era, that is to say, at the end of the 1260 years: and, after it is thus overthrown, the prophet foretells, in perfect accordance with Isaiah†, the restoration of Ephraim or the kingdom of the

*

Compare Isaiah xi. 10-16. xvii. xviii. xix. xxvi. 19, 20, 21. xxvii. 1, 6, 7, 12, 13. Dan. xi. 42, 43. xii. 1, 2, 7.

+ Isaiah lxvi. 7-24.

VOL. II,

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ten tribes. Joel iii. 1. likewise relates to the overthrow of the Antichristian confederacy. And Micah v. 5, 6, 9, 15, equally relates to the same event, describing the chief of the Roman Babylon, as he is elsewhere described by Isaiah *, under the mystic name of the Assyrian. On the whole, since we undoubtedly find nothing in our present Hebrew Scriptures that at all resembles the remarkable prophecy of Ezekiel respecting Gog and Magog; whence Eichhorn naturally observed, that, as far as we can discern, this great piece is entirely new and peculiarly his own†: on the whole, I say, Abp. Newcome's opinion seems to me the most probable, that the prophets of Israel, alluded to by Ezekiel, are those, "whose predictions on this "subject were never committed to writing, or are now lost." Yet I think we may discover a remote hint of the war of Gog and Magog in Daniel vii. 12, 13, 14. The prophet, having foretold the destruction of the great Roman beast in all his members and of his tyrannical little horn, in other words, of the Antichristian confederacy of the beast, the false prophet, and the kings of the

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* Isaiah xiv. 4, 25.

+ “In many poems, as far as we can discern, he is really new. The great piece of Gog and Magog is his own." Eichhorn's Introduct. to the Old Testament, cited by Abp. Newcome, Pref. to Ezekiel, p. xxvii.

Translation of Ezekiel in loc.

Latin

Latin earth, informs us concerning the rest of the beasts, namely the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, and the Macedonian, that, although their dominion should be taken away, yet their lives should be prolonged for a season and a time; and he afterwards declares, that he beheld in the night visions the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. How then can we understand the prolongation of the lives of these three beasts after the overthrow of the Roman confederacy by the Ancient of days, and to the period of a certain subsequent revelation of the Son of man, except that the future inhabitants of those three empires should be preserved after the destruction of Antichrist, and during the millennian reign of the saints, and that they should at length make their appearance upon the stage as a second grand Antichristian confederacy termed by Ezekiel and St. John Gog and Magog?

Still on a subject, so confessedly difficult and mysterious as that respecting which we are treating, the reader may continue to have his doubts, and may be disposed to ask; Why may not Ezekiel's Gog and Magog be, not indeed the Turks, for that is plainly impossible, but the great Antichristian confederacy which will be destroyed at the era of the restoration of Judah? They have certainly many points of resemblance in common: they both invade Palestine from the north; they both attack the Jews; and they both perish partly supernaturally,

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turally, and partly by internal discord *. Why then may we not suppose them to be the same: and consequently that Mr. Mede is at least right in that part of his scheme, which makes the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel to be entirely different from the Gog and Magog of St. John?

To this I answer, that the two expeditions of Ezekiel's Gog and Magog and the Antichristian confederacy certainly resemble each other in these points, although even in these the resemblance is far from being perfect; for Gog and Magog invade Palestine, not merely from the north, but (as it appears from the description of their allies) from the east, the south, and the west, that is (in the language of St. John) from the four quarters of the earth; whereas the Antichristian confederacy invades Palestine solely from the north, and, after passing through it in the full tide of success, subjugates Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia †, But, whatever partial resemblance there may be between the two expeditions, since they differ in the three grand points of time, of persons, and of circumstances, it is not easy to conceive how they can be identified-Their difference in time has already been shewn. The Antichristian expedition takes place during the restoration of Judah, and prior

Compare Ezek. xxxviii. 21, 22. with Zechar. xii. 4, xiv. 3,

4, 12, 13.

+ Dan. xi. 43.

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