'fies perhaps a perfect and durable nulling all fuch offices

Of Dr. Goodwin's ideas fome found admiffion into the mind of bishop Newton, though, on the abolition of Titles, he is completely filent. From princes and from courts his expectations of reformation were indeed principally derived. Speaking of the papacy, the bishop of Bristol fays, fome of the kings who formerly loved her, ⚫ grown fenfible of her exorbitant exactions and oppref'fions, shall hate her, shall strip, and expose, and plun

der her, and utterly confume her with fire. Rome 'therefore will finally be destroyed by fome of the ' princes, who are reformed, or fhall be reformed from ⚫ popery and as the kings of FRANCE have contributed greatly to her advancement, it is not impoffible, that fome time or other they may also be the principal ⚫ authors of her deftruction 19.'

On St. John's prediction of the symbolic earthquake, DR. PETER JURIEU, or, as he is more frequently called, M. Jurieu, has very largely insisted, in his work entitled The Accomplishment of the Scripture-Prophecies. Whilst the university of Sedan continued in the hands of the Proteftants, Jurieu maintained there a very high degree of reputation from the lectures which he delivered as the Hebrew and Divinity profeffor; and fuch was the celebrity of his Accomplishment of the Prophecies in his own time, that it excited Boffuet, the eloquent bishop of Meaux, to enter with him into the lifts of controversy1. Many

27 Myft. of Iniq. p. 408.

18 Vol. III. p. 292. The fame opinion may be seen in Christopher Nefs on Antichrift, 1679, p. 89.

19 To overturn its credit by the petty artillery of a pamphlet, the prelate knew to be a vain attempt, though no man could have conducted the attack with superior skill. He therefore published, in answer to Jurieu, a la

boured

Many, fays Jurieu in the second edition 20 of this work, have remarked, that I have fpoken over-positively and with too much confidence.-Perhaps fome time or 'other, men fhall know the principal reason, which 'made me speak in so confident a manner and with fuch tokens of affurance21. That he has fpoken of future events in general, in a manner thus pofitive and peremptory, he does, however, deny; though he hesitates not to avow, that his conclufions respecting the Reformation of France, and its forfaking of the papal religion, are regarded by him as founded on fomewhat more than mere conjectural criticism. 'We fhall fee,' fays he, fuch an admirable agreement, between the events and the prophecies ex"plained, that shall abundantly convince, that what I

boured explication of the apocalypfe. By this artful polemic our author's Paftoral Letters to the Proteftants were alfo combated. What degree of impreffion these publications produced, I have not been informed; but of this we are affured, that a performance of our proteftant divine, entitled A Prefervative against Perfons changing their Religion, arrefted the successful career of the Expofition of the Catholic Faith, a work of the bishop of Meaux, which had not only been approved by the clergy and prelates of France, by the pope and cardinals of Rome, but had been written with fuch confummate art, as to have induced almost all perfons of rank among the French proteftants to renounce their religion, But our author's literary glory was purchased at no small expence. Apprehensive of violence, he was obliged, in 1681, to abandon his native land, and to retire into Holland for shelter, where he immediately received the offer of a professor's chair in the univerfity of Groningen. Declining however this invitation, he became minister of the proteftant church at Rotterdam, and profeffor of divinity at the Schola Illuftris, which was then erected there in favour of him and of the celebrated M. Bayle.

20 This French edition, which is in my poffeffion, was published at Rotterdam in 1686. But, that there might be no fufpicion of the ideas of Jurieu having been accommodated to the actual state of recent affairs in France, all the extracts, which are given by me, have been copied, without any variation, from an English translation of the work, which, in the year 1687, was published in London, in two vols. 8vo.

2 Vol. II. p. 277

H

am

am about to fay, is not fimple conjecture22.' But fo numerous are his reafons for applying this prophecy to France, that I can yield admiflion only to a comparatively few paffages.

Having obferved, that feveral events, related in the xith ch. of the apocalypfe, and there reprefented as preceding the Revolution in the Tenth Part of the City, are predictions of the tyranny exercised over the witnesses in FRANCE; Jurieu of courfe afcribes to the fame nation the remainder of the prophecy. Certain it is, that the number of faithful witneffes to the rights of conscience has been greater in France than in any other country; and of this every reader of history must be apprized, who has a tolerably accurate view of the long and unrelenting perfecutions which have heretofore raged with so much violence in that kingdom against the Waldenfes and the Proteftants. Surely,' fays Dr. Goodwin, the Place of killing the witneffes must be where moft witnesses are 23. If this propofition be admitted, it evidently follows, that FRANCE must be the country pointed out in ch. xi. of the apocalypfe.

Mede24 and bp. Newton 25 decide, that the prediction of the Second Angel, occurring in the xivth ch. of that facred book, refers to those inhabitants of France, who, under the name of Waldenfes and Albigenfes, roused a fpirit of inquiry, and firft fhook the power of the papacy by boldly pronouncing it to be antichriftian and idolatrous. By Dr. Goodwin this interpretation of the paffage is deemed indubitable; and he declares it to be cer

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22 Vol. II. p. 68.

23 P. 165. Dr. Goodwin himfelf obferves (p. 176), that the witnesses

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of the truth in France did not only fuftain the great heat in the Morning

• of Perfecution,' but that ever fince they have shared in it more largely than thofe of any other nation.

24 P. 644.

25 Vol. III. p. 244.

tain, that the foundation of the ruin of Antichrift was then laid in France 26. That other, and greater, tranfactions in the fame country may elsewhere be noticed in the apocalypfe, he accordingly very naturally concludes. .

८

To the Waldenfes and Albigenfes More 27, Fleming 28, and Vitringa 29, think the reprefentation of the witneffesinch. xi. particularly suitable; and Mr. Whiston, in ftating that it ought to be referred to them, fays, their 26 P. 84. 'Conftans upon the Apocalypfe fhews, that the reformation of 'the Western church began in France by the means of Waldo, and that 'from this fource it fpread itself through the rest of Europe.' Perrin's Hift. of the Waldenfes, p. 13. From Perrin alfo the paffages that follow are taken. 'Thomas Walden, who wrote against Wickliffe, faith, that the • doctrine of Waldo was conveyed from France into England. To which agrees le Sieur de la Popeliniere, in his Hift. of France, who adds, that 'the doctrine of the modern Proteftants is but little different from that of 'the Waldenfes, which having, faith he, been received in the quarters of · Alby, and communicated by the Albigenfes to the English their neighbours, when the English held Guienne in their poffeffion, was infused * into the understandings of fome perfons, who brought it into England, ' and was as it were handed down to Wickcliffe,-who, by his eloquence ' and extraordinary doctrine, fo won upon the hearts and understandings ' of several Englishmen, even of the greatest quality, that a scholar brought ' to Prague a book of Wickliffe, intitled the Univerfats, which being diligently read by John Huss, increased and explained the doctrine, sowed a long time before in Bohemia by the Waldenses.-Cardinal Hofius faith, 'that the leprofy of the Waldenfes did spread its Infection throughout all Bohemia, when, following the doctrine of Waldo, the greatest part of 'the kingdom of Bohemia separated from the church of Rome.' Perrin's Hift. of the Waldenfes, p. 18. The monk Rainerius was a cruel perfecutor of the Waldenfes. In his treatife refpecting them is the following passage. Of all those that have rifen up against the church of Rome, 'the Waldenfes have been the most prejudicial and pernicious, forafmuch as they have oppofed it for a long time. Secondly, because that fe&t is univerfal; for there is fcarce any country where it hath not taken footing. 'Thirdly, because all others beget in people a dread and horror of them 'by their blafphemies against God: but this on the contrary hath a great appearance of godliness, because they live righteously before men.' See Perrin, p. 11, 27.

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27 Myft. of Iniq. p. 406.

28 P. 51. H 2

29 P. 277, 458.

• churches

31

'churches were never wholly enflaved to the idolatry and tyranny of the church of Rome: as the most learned Dr. Allix has proved at large in two distinct treatises 3°.' Mr. Whifton alfo and bp. Lloyd were of opinion, that St. John's account of the witnesses had a particular reference to the Proteftants of Savoy; and it is remarkable, that the effects of the French revolution have extended to that country, and that, in confequence, religious toleration has been there established. That the prophetic narrative of the witneffes has long been deemed applicable to the Waldenfes and the Proteftants of France, appears from the mention of this opinion in the Synopfis of Poole, a work printed in 1676. The learned Daubuz, when fpeaking of those who have borne teftimony to the truth in France, not only directs the reader on this point to ch. xi. of St. John, but refers him for fuller fatisfaction to the work of M. Jurieu31. It is remarkable,' fays a late anonymous writer, that ARCHBISHOP USHER, whose character for fagacity, learning, and piety, 'ftands deservedly high in the fcale of merit, fhould deliver it as his opinion, that the two witneffes were to be flin, not by the pope, but by the kings of France.' Another much earlier anonymous writer, the author of a Differtation shortly to be quoted, after observing that France was the country, where the witneffes bore their firft teftimony against the papal corruption; and—that they principally fuffered here,' fays, it feems highly probable to conclude, that it fhall be likewife here, that these fame witnesses fhall afiend; and that they are to afcend by, or upon, the overthrow of thofe very 'enemies, fron whom they have principally fuffered: providence, by this method, coming home to the perfecutors, and revenging the quarrel of his faithful wit

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30 Whifton, p. 204.

31 P. 658.

'neffes