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Richard Brothers
(1757-1824)
Revealed Knowledge of Prophecies
(U. S. reprint: W. Springfield MA, 1797)

  • Book 1 Title Page   Preface
  • pg. 16: Brothers a prophet-messiah
  • pg. 43: Restoration of Israel
  • pg. 47: Discerning Israelite lineage

  • Book 2 Title Page   Preface
  • pg. 03: Brothers' revelations
  • pg. 56: Elijah the prophet
  • pg. 86: Discerning Israelite lineage

  • Transcriber's Comments


  • Nathan B. Halhed:  Testimony of Richard Brothers  |  Calculation of the Millennium


    This web-document is still under construction
     

    A

    R E V E A L E D   K N O W L E D G E

    OF  THE

    PROPHECIES  AND  TIMES.


    BOOK  THE  FIRST.


    WROTE  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF

    T H E  L O R D  G O D,

    AND  PUBLISHED  BY  HIS  SACRED  COMMAND;
    IT BEING THE


    F I R S T  S I G N  O F  W A R N I N G
    FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL NATIONS.
    CONTAINING, WITH OTHER


    GREAT AND REMARKABLE THINGS,

    Not Revealed to any other Person on Earth,


    THE
    RESTORATION  OF  THE  HEBREWS

    To JERUSALEM, in the Year 1798;

    Under their Revealed
    PRINCE AND PROPHET

    R I C H A R D   B R O T H E R S.


    W E S T - S P R I N G F I E L D:
    P R I N T E D  B Y  E D W A R D  G R A Y.
    For ASAPH CHILSON of Buckland, and to be SOLD
    by said CHILSON by the dozen or single.
    M,DCC,XCVII.



     

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    P R E F A C E


    WHEN I was commanded to write the Chronology of the World, I was immediately after instructed by Revelation how; without which I could not, nor could any other Man on the face of the Earth with certainty, however eminent, for Wisdom and Learning he might be: after it was done, the Lord God said to me in a vision at night, -- That is the true age of the World, and the generally computed one is erroneous.

    As the SCRIPTURE is the only great fountain of Knowledge, or Book of written Truth in the World; as it contains the sacred Records of these things which GOD has pre-determined shall be hereafter -- as well as those which have been already; and as it contains the history of our own Creation, with that of every living thing besides, it alone, in preference to any man's opinion, ought to be, without the least doubt, freely believed and confidentially depended on.

    Although I am enabled from revealed knowledge, to write, considerably more than what this Book contains, and which in justice to the Divine Spirit of GOD, who instructs me in all Things, that I may shew an example of precision to the learned, and be admired for it by the wise; that I may give instruction to the poor, and demonstrate the certainty of what I do write to every Man that has the least knowledge of his Creator, commands me to additionally seal its Truth by that great testimony of scriptural evidence which no nation can deny, and which no human arguments can oppose.

     



    iv                                 PREFACE.                                

    Therefore, having Authority, I proceed through the Scripture, regularly uncovering, by revealed knowledge as I go, its sacred Records WHICH HAVE BEEN PRESERVED FOR ME, holding each one up for public view, beautiful and clear to the open mind; that all men may behold and examine them, that all men may perceive their truth, and admire at this late hour of the world, not only what was wrote by Daniel at Babylon, EXPLAINED IN LONDON, but likewise a similar communication of REVEALED KNOWLEDGE,





     

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    IN obedience to the sacred command of the Lord God, whose servant and prophet I am, I publish this writing, that it may be translated into all languages, for the information and benefit of all nations.



    under construction

     



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    In the 4th year and 2d month of Solomon's reign, the foundation of the Temple was laid.

    under construction

     



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    THE first knowledge of that Law,which was committed to writing by Moses, was given to Abraham, at the age of 99: -- of the world 2047.

    The Gospel of Salvation was first preached by Christ, at the age 30, of the world 4149.

    Jerusalem was besieged and taken three different times by Nebuchadnezzar. The first was in the reign of Jehoiakim, when several of the Princes and Priests were carried away to Babylon: among the former was Daniel, and among the latter was Zekiel: -- both Prophets. The second was in the reign of Jehoiachin, when the Recorded captivity began; and the third was in the reign of Zedekiah, when the Temple and City were levelled with the ground.




    O F   T H E   M E S S I A H.

    The Prophet Daniel, Chap. ix.

    Verse 25. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore, (meaning the captivity) and to build Jerusalem to Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three-score and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.

    Seven weeks, and three-score and two weeks is meant for a time of four hundred and eighty-three years; which commenced in the first year of Cyrus over Babylon, when he issued the proclamation to restore the captivity, and concluded at the birth of Christ.

     



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    Two years after the Jews returned from Babylon to Jerusalem they laid the foundation of the second Temple, but were so much interrupted in the building as not to be able to complete it until the expiration of eighty-two years.

    26. And after three-score and two weeks (which is four hundred and thirty-four years, meaning from the time the Temple was finished to the death of Christ) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the Prince that comes, (meaning the Romans) will destroy the city and the sanctuary; it will be done like the overflowing of a flood; and to the end of war, their desolation is determined

    While the war continues in the world, Jerusalem, the capital of the King of Peace is decreed to lie desolate: the restoration of the Jews will commence with the destruction of war, to favour their return and build the city, and once more receive from Jerusalem the commands of the living God.

    The Prophet Isaiah, Chap. vii.

    14. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

    This was the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born of the Blessed Virgin, called Mary.

    Chap. ix. 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

     



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    This was the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Messiah and King of the Jews.

    7. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgement and justice, from henceforth, even for ever: the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.

    The Prophet Zachariah, Chap. xii.

    13. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look to me that was pierced; and shall mourn like him that mourns for his only son: and shall be in bitterness, like him that is in bitterness for his first born.

    This verse will be fulfiled by the Jews, after their return, it means the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified at the age of thirty-three years and four months. Told me by Revelation.


    The DEPARTURE of the HEBREWS from all
    Nations, their return to Jerusalem.
    Chap. xii.

    From the Three Thousand Six Hundred and Seventeenth Year of the World, which was the third year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, when the Vision was shewen to Daniel, of Jerusalem's future desolation, the last dispersion of the Jews, and their being trod under foot in all nations, -- to the time of their return to the later days; -- is two thousand three hundred years.

    To make the Vision of Daniel which was explained to me, by Revelation from the Lord God, to be more easily understood, -- read what follows.

     



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    The Prophet Daniel, after describing the succession of Cryus and Alexander, goes on to the time of Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem, and how long it is to lie desolate; the dispersion of the Jews, and how long they are to be trod under foot in all nations.

    Chap. viii. v. 11. Yea he magnifieth himself, even to the Prince of the Host; by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

    12. And a Host was given him against the daily sacrifices by reason of transgression: and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practiced and prospered.

    13. Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said to that certain saint which spake, how long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the Sanctuary and the Host to be trodden under foot?

    One angel was asking another in the presence of Daniel, that he might hear and be informed to write down what was said.

    The sanctuary means the second temple, though not built when this vision was shewn to Daniel; the Host the multitude of the people, or the whole nation.

    How long shall be the vision, means how long is it from this time or year of shewing the vision tom Daniel until it is fulfilled by the restoration of the Jews in the latter days of the world, when the curse for transgression which made the city desolate will be removed, and the ground of the sanctuary cleaned.

    14. And he said to me, unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleaned.

    Days are mentioned by the angel instead of years,

     



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    to conceal the meaning of the prophecy until the proper time is fulfilled, and the appointed person made known for it to be revealed to: the present is the time that was then intended; I am the appointed person made known for it to be revealed to and the Prophet commanded to make it known

    3617 -- The year of the world when the vision to Daniel, of Jerusalem's future desolation, and how long.

    2300 -- From the year of shewing the vision to the restoration of the Jews when it will be fulfilled.

    5917 -- The year of the world when the Jews will be restored to Jerusalem, which answers to the year of Christ --   --   1798.




    The return of the JEWS to their own Land in the latter time of the world, recorded by Moses and the other Prophets.

    This song of Moses in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, is the written testimony, given then, between God, as Christ, and his people, until their return to Jerusalem in the latter days of the world. It begins with describing Christ preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of heaven, afterwards the great destruction of the Jews, which was fulfilled by the Romans, and their dispersion over the world: the latter part means their restoration, which invites all nations to rejoice with them for the abundant mercy of God, and his goodness to their land.

    Deuteronomy, Chap. xxxii.

    1. Give ear, O ye Heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

    2. My doctrine shall drop as the rain: my speech

     



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    shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.

    3. Because I will publish the name of the Lord; ascribe ye greatness to our God.

    4. He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he.

    Compare this part to the preaching of Christ in the beginning of the fifth chapter of the Gospel by St. Matthew. and see how nearly they agree.

    21. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to Jealousy with those which are not a people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

    22. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

    23. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

    24. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

    25. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

    26. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

    27. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the

     



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    enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely; and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord has not done all this.

    28. For they [are] a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

    Had God in his great anger destroyed the Jews entirely by the Romans, they would have ascribed it to their own power, and after nations would not believe their ever had been such a people on the face of the earth: for which he dispersed them over the world, and to be travelling signs of warning to all nations until the determined time of their punishment is expired, when he will, to fulfil the scripture, recal them with mercy and everlasting love.

    29. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

    30. How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up.

    36. For the Lord will judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

    37. And he shall say, where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted.

    38. Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

    39. See now that I, even I, am he, (meaning God as Christ, the Messiah,) and there is no God with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

    40. For I lift up my hand to Heaven, and say, I live for ever.

     



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    41. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

    42. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain, and of the captives from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

    43. Rejoice, O ye Nations, with his People, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.


    The Prophet Isaiah, Chap. ii

    2. And it shall come to pass In the Last Days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

    3. And many people shall go and say, come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

    And he (This Prophecy, as every man of understand[ing] in the Scriptures must acknowledge, has never been fulfilled yet: for the time alluded to by the Prophet, is according to his own words in the 2d. and 4th. verses, in the latter days of the world: it is a Man that is alluded to, composed of flesh and blood, of the tribe of Judah, of the Family of David, and not the Lord Jesus Christ as all European nations suppose, that is to fulfill this very exalted character; going forth by Command and under the mighty power of God, as his Elijah the last prophet and Messenger to warn all nations -- to turn the Fathers to the

     



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    Children, and the Children to the Fathers: -- to prepare them by universal Peace, receive a second time Christ their God and Creator) shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into reaping hooks; nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

    All the nations of Europe acknowledge Christ for the Prince of Peace, and that his doctrine prohibits war; yet to the shame of all nations, they refuse to obey his commands -- For which, as he beseeched before, and no nation would obey, he will soon command, when all nations must obey, or be burnt with fire.

    Chap. xii. 1. And there shall come forth a Rod out of the Stem of Jesse, and a Branch (meaning myself) shall grow out of his Roots:

    2. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the Spirit of Wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of Counsel and Might; the Spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord;:

    3. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not Judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his Ears:

    4. But with righteousness shall he judge the Poor, and reprove with Equity for the Meek of the Earth: and he shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

    5. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

    6 The Wolf also shall dwell with the Lamb, and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid; and the

     



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    Calf, and the young Lion, and the Fatling together; and a little Child shall lead them.

    7. And the Cow, and the Bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the Lion shall eat straw like the Ox.

    8. And the Suckling Child shall play on the hole of the Asp, and the Weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den.

    9. They shall not destroy nor hurt in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord; as the waters cover the Sea.

    10. And in that day there shall be a Root of Jessee (meaning myself) which shall stand for a Sign to the People (meaning the Jews) to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his Rest (meaning his Government at Jerusalem) shall be glorious.

    When I was writing the first edition of this Book for public information, I said to God, almost similar to what the Prophet Samuel said when he was commanded to anoint David to be king of Israel during the life-time of Saul; for indeed I was fearful of being used ill, I shall be called a false Prophet, and every body will say I am arrogating to myself the place of Christ: for the English and other European nations professing Christianity, have always supposed that the Rod out of the Stem of Jessee alluded to in this Chapter meant the Lord Jesus Christ: Indeed it does not, but a man composed of Flesh and Blood like one of themselves, who is to be the greatest under heaven, and more power given to him from God than ever was -- or ever will be to any other.

    Like King David he will be empowered to command, and like the Prophet Elijah he will be empowered to execute

     



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    The Lord God commands me now to mention these things to acknowledge the error, (though permitted to remove my unjust apprehensions for the consequences) and with shame my own criminality, for doubting when he told me, and when I knew from his many revealed promises to myself -- that he was bound by the sacred truth of his Words to fulfill his covenant and protect me,

    This writing I sign and date by command of the Lord God, -- to remove my feeble error, and [--ostitute] without disguise (for the false opinions of men are to be changed) his just and powerful truth,
                        RICHARD BROTHERS.
    LONDON, 10th of the Month
          called July, 1794.


    11. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will set his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people which are left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the Islands of the sea.

    12. And he will set up an ensign for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

    The first captivity of the Jews was by Nebuchadnezzar, and the second by the Romans; their residence in Egypt not being the consequence of conquest, is not accounted as a captivity, because they willingly entered into that country, to be relieved from the distresses of famine in their own. The hard bondage they were oppressed with proceeded from the Egyptians growing jealous of their quick multiplication and great numbers: but that did not take place until the death of Joseph, and until such a considerable time after had elapsed as to wear away

     



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    all remembrance of his name and gratitude for his kindness.

    13. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

    14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Moab and Edom; and the Children of Ammon shall obey them.

    15. And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea; and with his mighty wind he will shake his hand over the river, and smite it in the seven streams that men may go over dry shod.

    16. And there shall be a high way from Assyria for the remnant of his people which are left; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

    Chap. xii. 1. And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comforteth me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

    3. Therefore with joy ye shall draw water out of the Wells of salvation.

    4. And in that day ye shall say, Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the People, and make mention that his name be exalted. Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done excellent things; this is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout,

     



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    thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy one of Israel in the midst of thee.

    Chap. liv. 1. Sing, O Barren, thou that didst not bear; brake forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travel with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.

    The married wife means Jerusalem at a former time, when rich and full of inhabitants; the desolate wife means Jerusalem at present; although she is a heap of rubbish and levelled with the ground, the Jews will return in such great multitudes. that when rebuilt, her extent and number of people will be far greater than at any former period.

    This is the true meaning of the prophecy, and not the Gentiles deliverance, as is placed at the head of the chapter in the Bible.

    2. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;

    3. For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

    4. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.

    5. For thy maker is thine husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall he be called;

     



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    6. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused.

    7. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee.

    8. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee, for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on thee, says the Lord thy Redeemer.

    9. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should not go over the earth any more; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.

    10. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, says the Lord that hath mercy on thee.


    Chap. lx. 1. Arise, shine; for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

    2. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord will rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

    3. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

    8. Who are these that come as a cloud, and that fly as the doves to their windows?

    9. Surely the Isles shall wait on me, but the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from afar, their gold and silver with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.

    10. And the sons of strangers shall build up thy

     



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    walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee; for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour I will have mercy on thee.

    11. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day or night; that men may bring to thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.

    12. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

    13. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the Fir-tree, the Pine-tree, and the Box together, to beautify the place of my Sanctuary; for I will make the place of My Feet glorious.

    14. The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending to thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee -- The City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

    15. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee; I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.

    16. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles; and shalt suck the breasts of kings: and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

    17. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver; for wood brass, and for stones iron, I will also make thy officers Peace, and thy exactors Righteousness.

    18. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.

     



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    19. The sun shall be no more thy light by Day, neither for brightness shall the Moon by Night; but the Lord will be to thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.

    20. Thy Sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord will be thy everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

    21. Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, and the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.

    22. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in due time.


    Chap. lxii. For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burns.

    4. Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed desolate; but thou shalt be called Hepzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delights in thee, And thy land shall be married.

    8. The Lord hath sworn by his Right hand, and by the Arm of his strength; Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thy enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall no more drink the wine for which thou hast laboured:

    9. But they that gather it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that bring it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness.

     



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    10. Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people.

    11. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold thy salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.

    12. And they shall call them, The Holy People, the redeemed of the Lord; and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A City not forsaken.


    Chap. lxv. 17. For, behold, I create new Heavens and a new Earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

    18. But be ye glad, and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

    19. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be joyful in my people: the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

    23. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for nothing; for they are the seed which the Lord has blessed, and their offspring with them.

    24. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

    25. The Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together, and the Lion shall eat straw like the Bullock; and dust shall be the Serpent's meat. They shall not destroy, nor hurt in all my Holy Mountain, says the Lord.

    This last verse is an allusion to the peace and great

     



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    happiness that will be in the land of Israel when the Jews are restored.


    Chap. lxvi. 10. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad all ye that love her; rejoice with joy all ye that have mourned for her,

    11. That ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.

    12. For thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream; then shall ye suck -- ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees.

    13. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

    14. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, but his indignation toward his enemies.

    15. For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render anger with fury, and his rebuke with a flame of fire.

    16. For by fire, and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord will be many.

    20. And they shall bring all your Brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots; upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the House of the Lord.

    21. And I will also take of them for Priests and for Levites, says the Lord.

     



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    22. For as the new Heavens and the new Earth which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.

    23. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all people shall come to worship before me, says the Lord.

    24. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; that they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

    The new Heavens and the new Earth, mean an entire regeneration of man through the power and knowledge from the Spirit of God. At present, all nations oppose the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven in the two most essential commands for them to obey, which are, War -- and Swearing. Remember that form of praying called the Lord's Prayer; which says, Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. There is no war in heaven, neither is there any swearing: how is it then that the people of Europe, the most numerous professing Christianity, and certainly the most enlightened with knowledge of any in the world, can seriously say to God, Th[y] will be done on Earth, when they are instructed by their public laws and forms of worship to oppose it?

    Although national laws are undesignedly made to oppose Christ, it is a duty incumbent on the people to take care that none of their prayers are: but that every supplication, and all their forms of Worship are, as they should be -- in strict obedience to his blessed Gospel of Peace.


    The Prophet Jeremiah, Chap. xxiii.

    3. And I will gather the remnant of my flock

     



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    out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.

    4. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, says the Lord.

    5. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

    6. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name wherewith he shall be called, The Lord's Righteousness. (But not the Lord our Righteousness.)

    7. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no more say, the Lord lives that brought up the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt;

    8. But, The Lord lives who brought up and who led the seed of the House of Israel out of the North Country, and from all countries whither I have driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.


    Chap. xxxi. 1. At the same time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

    2. Thus says the Lord, The people which were left of the sword, found grace in the wilderness, even Israel when I went to cause him to rest.

    3. The Lord hath appeared to me of old, saying, Yes, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.

    4. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be

     



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    built, O Virgin of Israel; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances like them that make merry.

    5. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria, the planters shall plant, and shalt eat them as common things.

    6. For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on Mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God.

    7. For thus saith the Lord; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people the remnant of Israel.

    8. Behold, I will bring them from the North Country, and gather them from the Coasts of the East; the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and her that travails with child together: a great company shall return thither.

    9. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications; I will lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way where they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born.

    10. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it to the islands afar off; and say, he that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock.

    11. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.

    12. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord; for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock. and of the herd:

     



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    and their souls shall be as a watered garden, and they shalt not sorrow any more at all.

    13. Then shall the Virgin rejoice in the dance, with young men and old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

    14. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the Lord.

    15. Thus says the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachael weeping for her children, refused to be comforted because they were not.

    16. Thus says the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thy eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, says the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

    17. And there is hope in thy end, says the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.

    18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.

    21. Set the[e] up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thy heart toward the highway, even the way which thou went: turn again, O Virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities.

    22. How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the Earth, a woman shall compass a man. (It means Christ being born of the blessed Virgin.)

    23. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; as yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah, and in the cities thereof, when I bring again their captivity: The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of Holiness.

     



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    24. And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks.

    25. For I will refresh the weary soul, and I will comfort every sorrowful soul.

    31. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah:

    32. Not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant they broke although I was a husband to them, says the Lord:

    33. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel; after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

    34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

    35. Thus says the Lord, who gives the Sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the Moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divides the sea when the waves of it roar: the Lord of Hosts is his name:

    36. If those ordinances depart from before me, says the Lord, then the Seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before me for ever.

     



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    37. Thus saith the Lord; If Heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.

    38. Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when the city shall be built to the Lord, from the Tower of Hananeel to the gate of the corner.

    39. And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shalt compass about to Goath.

    40. And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook of Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be Holy to the Lord; It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.


    The Prophet Ezekiel, Chap. xvi.

    59. For thus says the Lord God: I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which has despised the oath by breaking the Covenant.

    60. Nevertheless I shall remember my Covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, but I will establish unto thee an everlasting Covenant.

    61. Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou receive thy sisters, thy elder and thy younger: and I will give them to thee for daughters; but not by thy former Covenant.

    62 And I will establish my Covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord:

    63. That thou may remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, says the Lord God.

     



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    Chap. xxxiv. 11. For thus says the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search for my sheep, and seek them out.

    12. As a shepherd gathers his flock in the day that his sheep are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

    13. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and make them inhabit the waste places of the country.

    22. Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.

    23. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

    24. And I the Lord (meaning Christ) will be their God, and my servant David (meaning his descendant) a Prince among them: I the Lord have spoken it.


    Chap. xxxvi. 6. Prophecy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus says the Lord God; behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen:

    7. Therefore thus says the Lord God: I have lifted up my hand, surely the heathen that are about you shall bear their own shame.

    8. But ye, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come.

     



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    12. Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess thee, thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave them of men.

    33. Thus says the Lord God; in the day that I clean you from all iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the waste places shall be built.

    34. And the desolate land shall be tilled, which lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.

    35. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities are fenced, and are full of inhabitants.

    36. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know, that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.

    37. Thus says the Lord God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.

    38. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord.


    Chap. xxxvii. 20. And the sticks which thou write on shall be in thy hand before their eyes.

    21. And say to them, Thus says the Lord God; behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whither they are gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:

    22 And I will make them one nation in, the

     



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    land, upon the mountains of Israel; and there shall be one king to them all: they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

    23. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and clean them; so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

    24. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, to do them.

    25. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, in which your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children, and their children's children for ever; and my servant David (meaning his visible descendant) shall be their prince forever.

    The vision of Ezekiel, relative to Jerusalem, alludes to the grandeur and extent of it when rebuilt by the Jews, after their return, in the year of one thousand and seven hundred and ninety-eight: it will be the capital of the world, and from it will go once more, to all nations, the commands of the living God.


    The Prophet Hosea, Chap. ii.

    18. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the earth; and they shall lie down with safety.

    19. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea,

     



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    I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in truth; in loving kindness, and in mercies.

    20. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord.

    23. And I will sow her unto me in the earth, and I will have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy; (meaning Jerusalem;) and I will say to them which were not my people, (meaning the Jews during their dispersion,) Ye are my people; and they shall say, Thou art our God.


    Chap. iii. 4. For the children of Israel shall be many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:

    5. Afterwards the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and they shall fear the Lord, and shall know his goodness in the latter days.


    The Prophet Joel, Chap. iii.

    1. For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I bring again the captivity of Judah to Jerusalem,

    2. I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, to plead with them there for my people, for Israel my heritage, whom they have scattered among the nations, and for dividing my land.

    9. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:

    10. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your reaping hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

     



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    11. Assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen; and gather yourselves together round about; thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord.

    12. Let the heathen be waked, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for it is there will I sit to judge all the heaven round about.

    14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

    After the restoration of the Jews, the barbarous nations will send great armies to invade their lands; God will permit them to advance, that he may destroy them with his fire from heaven.

    15. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

    16. The Lord will roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth shall shake, but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

    17. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God (directed to all nations) dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.

    18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth from the House of the Lord, and water the valley of Shittim.

    19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, and shedding their innocent blood in the land.

     



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    20. But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

    21. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the Lord dwells in Zion.


    The Prophet Amos, Chap. ix.

    8. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom: and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; but I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord.

    9. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a si[e]ve, yet lest the grain shall not fall upon the earth.

    10. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

    11. In that day, will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, (meaning the restoration of his descendant to the government of the children of Israel) and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and build it as in the days of old:

    12. That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen which are called by my name, says the Lord, who does this.

    13. Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sows the seed; the mountain shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with milk.

    14. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine them; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

     



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    15. And I will plant them upon their own land, they shall no more be pulled up out of their own land which I have given them, says the Lord thy God.


    The Prophet Obediah, Chap. i.

    8. Shall I not in that day, says the Lord, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau.

    9. And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed; to the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.

    10. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.

    15. For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done to thee; thy reward shall return on thine own head.

    16. For as ye have drunk on my holy mountain, (meaning the Turks) so shall all the heathen drink continually; yea, they shall drink and they swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

    17. But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and on it shall be holiness; for the house of Jacob shall possess all their possessions.

    18. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame: and the house of Esau for stubble: they shall kindle in them, and devour them; there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it.

    19. And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plains, the Philistines: they shall possess their field, and Ephraim the fields of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

     



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    20. And the captivity of the Host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even to Zarapath, and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south.

    21. And saviours shall come on mount Zion, to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.

    The Turks are descended from Esau, the brother of Jacob; but their Emperor, and his family, are descended from Jonathan, the son of Saul, king of Israel. Told me by Revelation.


    The Prophet Micha, Chap. iv.

    1. But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established upon the top of the mountains, it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow to it.

    6. In that day, says the Lord, I will assemble her that has halted, and I will gather her that was driven out, and her that I have afflicted;

    7. And I will make the remnant that halted, and her that was cast far off, a strong nation; and the Lord will reign over them in mount Zion, from henceforth, even for ever.


    The Prophet Nahum, Chap. i.

    15. Behold upon the mountains, the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publishes peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows; for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.

    The beginning of this verse means Christ, preaching the Gospel of peace; the latter part, when the Jews are established at Jerusalem, after their next restoration.

     



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    The Prophet Zephaniah, Chap. iii.

    13. The remnant of Israel shall not commit iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

    14. Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.

    15. The Lord has taken away thy judgments, he has cast out thy enemy; the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.

    16. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not; and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.

    17. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

    18. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assemblies who are of thee, to whom the reproach of thee was a burthen.

    19. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflicts thee; and I will save her that is stopped, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and renown in every land, where they have been put to shame.

    20. At the time that I bring you again, even the time that I gather you: for I will get you a name, and make you to be praised among all people of the earth, when I turn away your captivity from before your eyes, says the Lord.

     



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    The Prophet Haggai, Chap. ii.

    20. And again the word of the Lord came unto Haggai, in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying,

    21. Speak to Zerubbable, governor of Judah, and say, I will shake the heavens and the earth;

    22. And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them: their horses and riders shall come down, every one by the sword of the other.

    The time alluded to by the prophet, is that which is immediately before the restoration of the Jews, in the latter days of the world; -- the present is it.

    23. In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, I will take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, and will make thee a signet; for I have chosen thee says the Lord of Hosts.

    The meaning of this verse is, that when the former part of this prophecy is fulfilling, Zarubbable will be revived in his descendant, who will be like himself, the visible prince and governor of the Jews; the time is nearly come for this man to be openly revealed, and to have, in all other respects, this very gracious and very wonderful promise from God fulfilled.


    The Prophet Zechariah, Chap. viii.

    7. Thus says the Lord of Hosts; Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country;

    8. And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.

     



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    Chap. x. 6. And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to replace them; for I will have mercy on them, and they shall be as if I had not cast them off; for I am the Lord their God, and I will hear them.

    7. And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their hearts shall rejoice as through wine; yea, their children shall see it and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the Lord.

    8. I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase as they have increased.

    9. And I will sow them among the people; and they shall remember me in far countries, and they shall live with their children, and turn again.

    10. I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon, and place shall not be found for them.


    Chap. xii. 1. The burthen of the word of the Lord for Israel: says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundations of the earth, that forms the spirit of man within him.

    2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the people round about, and when they shall be in the siege, both against Judah and against Jerusalem.

    3. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burthensome stone for all people; all that burthen themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

    4. In that day, says the Lord, I will smite every

     



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    horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.

    5. And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be our strength in the Lord of Hosts, our God.

    6. In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among wood, like a torch of fire in a sheaf; they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again, even Jerusalem, in her own place.

    7. The Lord also will save the tents of Judah first, to preserve the distinction of the house of David, that the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not exalt themselves against Judah.

    8. In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them, in that day, shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God; as the angel of the Lord before them.

    This prophecy means the same time, and the same invasion of Judah by the Geathen, as that mentioned by the Prophet Joel, in the third chapter; which is explained already.

    9. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will destroy the people of all the nations, which are come against Jerusalem.

    10. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look to me that was pierced, and shall mourn like him that mourns

     



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    for his only son; and they shall be in bitterness, like him that is in bitterness for his first-born.

    11. In that day, there shall be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimon, in the valley of Megiddon.

    12. And this land shall mourn, every family apart; The family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart, the family of Nathan apart, and their wives apart.

    13. The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shemei apart, and their wives apart.

    14. All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

    When the Heathen armies invade the land of Israel, it will be with a resolution to seize on every moveable thing, and destroy the people; the Jews, then acknowledge the Messiah as God, will believe, under an excess of grief, that he was crucified. Sensible of their perilous condition, and knowing that it is he only can save them, they will, every man and family, implore him for compassion and deliverance.

    The Hebrews will be delivered and the Heathen entirely destroyed.


    The Prophet Malachi, Chap. iv.

    5. Behold, I send you Elijah the Prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

    6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

    The great Prophet alluded to in this chapter, is the same that will be revealed to the Jews, to order

     



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    their return to Jerusalem before the expiration of one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight; he will possess the spirit of God, and the power of fire, equal to Elijah, that all nations may be benefitted, and may endeavour to survive then, when they are commanded to be fulfilled.

    The alterations I have made in copying some of the prophecies, is by the direction and command of the Lord God.



    THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD.

    THE very loud and unusual kind of thunder that was heard in the beginning of January, 1791, was the voice of the angel mentioned in the eighteenth chapter of the Revelation, proclaiming the judgment of God, and the fall of Babylon the Great: it was the loudest that ever was heard since man was created, and shook the whole earth every time the angel spoke; it roared through the streets, and made a noise over London like the falling of mountains of stones.

    Many buildings were damaged at the time of this thunder, and many persons were frightened by it; the great flashes of lightening proceeded also from the angel, and was according to the first verse, reflected from the brightness of his glory.


    Revelation to St. John, Chap. xviii.

    1. And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power: and the earth was lightened with his glory.

    2. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, (meaning the thunder) saying, Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, &c.

     



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    3. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

    4. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

    5. For her sins have reached up to heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

    6. Reward her, even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double.

    7. How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

    8. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burnt with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

    The Lord God was so exceeding angry at the time of the loud thunder I have mentioned in the preceding part, that he determined to leave his other judgments unfulfilled relative to London, and burn her immediately with fire from heaven: soon afterwards I was informed by revelation of what the thunder meant, and was commanded to go from London beyond the distance of eighteen miles, I had, similar to the prophet Daniel at Babylon, an attending angel to explain all the visions, and support me under the grief I was loaded with for its approaching fall.

     



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    The Lord God knowing that I loved him with all my heart, and had often resisted the calls of hunger and distress, rather than comply with customs that would offend him, pitied me; for I had beseeched him to let me inform the people of London of their danger, and try by all possible means to save them; but was refused permission, because they would imprison and use me very ill for it.

    In addition to all that God had promised and repeated by his angel to make me happy, he was now pleased to give me another proof of his unalterable regard, and convince me by it, that, although he could not in justice to his recorded judgments spare London, yet, for my sake, he would shew mercy to some: and take care, that by sickness and other causes, to remove the persons, I desired should be saved, to a sufficient distance beyond the limits to be destroyed and sunk. After thanking the Lord God, I mentioned several, both men and women, and called the remembrance of his mercy to others whose names I did not know, but pointed them out in my mind.

    Among those I mentioned, was William Pultney, William Pitt, Gilbert Elliot, Charles Gray, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, the Marquis of Lansdown, the Earl of Chatham, Maitland, now called Earl of Lauderdale; Henry Phipp, for I remembered his brother to have done me an act of friendship; John Dalrymple, John Griffin Griffin, Abraham Pickett, because that during his mayorality he opposed by a public advertisement the frequency of taking oaths; in doing so he honoured that all-remembering God, who will in due time as publicly honour him for it. Wilberforce, Bastard, Sheridan. Philip Stephens, Charles Fox; John Luke, a poor Quaker; Samuel Hood; the King and his family, for they were to be gathered into London: Ponsonby, for whom I conceived an esteem, from observing in his countenance openness & honesty;

     



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    and possessing, as I thought, a heart similar to my own, I was to lead to entreat for him: until last year I could assign no other reason for mentioning that name than what I have given; but the true one is, that as God had determined not only to keep in London the people then in it, but likewise to allow great multitudes to be drawn to it from all parts of the country, he would be found among the number to be destroyed; for which, to prevent his death in such a place, the Lord God influenced me to regard him, that I might afterwards remember such a person, and be mindful of his safety.

    I am not in the least acquainted with the man I have mentioned, whom God was pleased to distinguish by so great a testimony of his regard, but although I am not, and our names are different, he is, as well as myself, descended from David, king of Israel. The Countess of Buckinghamshire, whom I am no more acquainted with than the strangers I mentioned before, is likewise descended from David, king of Israel; the family she is married into are also of the Hebrews, and are descended from Joseph the once president of Egypt.

    There are many families of the same origin as those three I have named, made known to me by revelation, but I am forbid to mention any of them at present for public knowledge.

    After entreating for the persons I have set down, and pointing from my mind to numbers besides, whose names I did not know, I was, to prepare for the designation of God, carried up to heaven in a vision, and saw on my right side, at a small distance, a beautiful silver-white bird in the shape of a Dove, but a little larger; it was the Holy Ghost, and it was the very same that descended on the head of my blessed Saviour, when he came up from being baptized in the river Jordan;

     



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    he kept between me and Satan, who was then revealed that I might witness it, and great power given him to visit the earth. The Lord God then spoke to me from the middle of a white shining cloud.

    After this I was in a vision, having the angel of God near me, and saw Satan walking leisurely into London; his face had a smile, but under it his looks were sly, crafty, and deceitful. On the right side of his forehead were seven dark sports; he was dressed in white and scarlet robes.

    Again I was in a vision, and saw London a scene of confusion: it was effected on a sudden; all the people were armed and appeared quite furious: I was carried through the city in the Spirit of God to see all things that were designed should come to pass, and be informed how quick they could be accomplished.

    After this I was in vision, and saw a large river run through London coloured with human blood.

    Exceedingly unhappy for all that I saw, and which I knew would soon be fulfilled; I prayed and entreated the Lord God to give me one more instance of his mighty regard, by sparing London, and the great multitude in it. I said I acknowledge, O Lord my God, that the people do very wrong, but it is through compulsion, and for want of knowing better.

    The Lord God was so highly displeased, that I should, after all his former kindnesses, strain his affection and to entreat him to annul his recorded judgment, as to stop me, and in a voice of great sharpness and anger, say, They have my blessed Gospel, and will not obey. The angel that was appointed to give me instruction forsook me in an instant on hearing this answer. I trembled for my life, and seemed to be another man; for I was afraid of being destroyed with the city. It was three days after this before the Lord

     



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    God would be reconciled to hear my prayers, and speak to me with his former kindness.

    In ten days after the three I was in a vision, and being carried up to heaven, the Lord God spoke to me from the middle of a large white cloud, and said in a strong clear voice -- All, All. I pardon London and all the people in it, for your sake: there is no other man on earth that could stand before me to ask for so great a thing

    For ever, O Lord my God, I will praise and thank you for this great instance of your blessed regard; all Nations will hear it, and may all Nations honour you by their obedience; your great mercy is over them all, and by its goodness the world is now safe.

    Had London been destroyed in the year 1791, the place where it stands would have formed a great bay, or inlet of the channel: all the land between Windsor and the Downs would have been sunk, including a distance of eighteen miles each side, but considerably more towards the sea coast: It would be sunk to the depth of seventy fathoms, or four hundred and twenty feet, that no traces of the city might be ever found, or even so much as looked for.

    21. And a mighty angel took up a flame, like a great mill-stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

    That all men of wisdom and discernment may understand, on reading the revelation, that there are two cities mentioned in it spiritually, under the names of Babylon the Great, I will assist them by clearly marking out the distinction.

    Rome, the spiritual Babylon, mentioned in the seventeenth chapter, is described, in the third verse, to

     



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    be a way into the wilderness; meaning by the words into the wilderness, that the city is situated inland.

    But London, the spiritual Babylon, also mentioned in the eighteenth chapter, is described, by St. John, as the greatest sea-port for ships, wealth, and commerce, in the world.

    11. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandize any more:

    12. The merchandize of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

    13. And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

    14. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

    15. The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar off, for the fear of her torment, weeping, and wailing,

    16. And saying, Alas! alas! that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! for in one hour, such great riches is come to nought.

    17. And every ship-master, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

     



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    18. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, What city is like unto this great city.

    19. And they cast dust on their heads; and cried, weeping and wailing, says Alas! alas! that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea, by reason of her costliness: for in one hour she is made desolate.

    20. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.

    Read attentively the eighteenth chapter; and you will perceive described in it, the prodigious wealth, grandeur, and commerce of London: then remember, that the very great thunder and lightning I have mentioned, was in the depth of winter, an unusual time of year for the like; but they were as St. John exactly describes them, in the first and second verses. Meditate on these things, weigh them attentively in your mind, and all I have wrote besides; and the Spirit of God, if you love wisdom, will enlighten your understanding to see, and will also strike you with a conviction of their truth.

    The following would have been the condition of England, which the Lord God shewed me in the month of July 1791, had his judgment of desolation on the world been suddenly fulfilled at the appointed time in 1793.

    I was in a vision, and was carried away by the Spirit of God to a field of young wheat, which was grown about four inches high from the ground: an elderly English woman stood by me; she had no covering on her head, but over her arms was an old black silk clo[a]k; it was worn threadbare, and rent in many places. While I was observing the dress and poverty of the woman, the wheat sprung up in an instant,

     



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    and shot out the size of full ears, the largest I ever saw in my life: astonished at such a sight, and wondering what it should mean, I stooped to feel some with my hand; when I had, the woman looked down to me with a countenance expressive of great distress to implore my pity and assistance, then turned her face away to the east, and afterwards looked up to heaven as if she wanted rain and a cool wind.

    After this I cast my eyes over the surface of land; it was scorched to a dark brown, and awful to look at; I could see no grass in the meadows, and the bushes in the hedges were all burnt brown: so great and mighty was the heat: I could see no beasts in the fields, and the fowls of heaven were all flown away.

    The judgment of desolation being suspended, is the reason that this vision of famine and disress is also; when it takes place, England, like the woman and her cloak, (for she was an illusion to this country) will be very poor, worn out, and rent in many places.

    After this I was in a vision, and saw aÊlarge sword unsheathed in heaven; soon after I saw a large cup, full of red wine, and much froth on the top, lifted up, and held out to all nations.




    The JUDGMENT of DESOLATION on all Nations.

    The thunder that was heard in the evening of the third of August 1793, was the voice of the angel, mentioned in the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation, standing in the sun.

    Verse 17. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, (meaning the thunder) saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God:

     



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    18. That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

    The dead will increase so fast, and be in such prodigious numbers, when this judgment takes place, that the living will not be sufficient to bury them, but will leave the bodies exposed to the fowls of heaven for meat.

    The second thunder, that gave notice of God's approaching judgment, was on Wednesday evening the 7th of August 1793, as is mentioned in the seventh of the Revelation, and was the voice of the angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.

    Verse 2. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice (the thunder) to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea;

    3. Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

    The flashes of lightning, which issued during the time of this thunder, proceeded likewise from the glory of the angel, and resembling in colour fine amber.

    The next and last thunder, (if the judgment had not been suspended for my sake) would be on the 11th of August following, and would have been according to

     



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    the sixteenth chapter of Revelation, the fourth angel pouring out his vial on the sun.

    VERSE 1. And the fourth angel poured out his vial on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire.

    9. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, who has power over these plagues; and they repented not to give him glory.

    The flashes of lightning, during this thunder, which would continue many hours, would likewise proceed from the glory of the angel, and would be, in strength and colour, like the burning flame.

    This thunder would be accomplished by a violent storm of large hail stones, which, with the lightning, would kill multitudes of people, and destroy the harvest in many countries.

    Soon after this thunder, (the short time of four days only) the judgment of God on the world would begin to be fulfilled. The winds would be suspended in the firmament, according to the seventh chapter, that breathing might almost cease; the great body of heat, that would immediately after be poured down from heaven on the earth would be as fierce and powerful as to move the world, and every living thing, both man and beast, exposed under it in open air. The trees, bushes in the hedges, grass in the meadows, and what corn was left from the hail, would be cut off and destroyed by this great and mighty heat. Most of the ships would be destroyed at sea, and all the fish near the surface killed. Millions of the human race would die in all nations from this burning heat, and many plagues it would produce.

    The 19th, 7th, 18th, 6th, 8th, and 14th chapters, mean the same time, the same things; and are as one chapter, to fulfil the judgments of God.

     



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    The 15th of August 1793, was the time appointed by the Lord God to fulfill the parts of the Revelation I have mentioned, and punish the world with desolation; but from his great mercy and regard for me, that I may be esteemed in this country, and by all others, when I am revealed, suspended his judgment for a time -- it hangs however over all nations.

    Look at the age of the world; read attentively the chapters I have mentioned, with what I have wrote besides; and you will discover in your own breast a light to see and believe by.

    That light, I mean, which is often called a certain something, an internal monitor, that applauds man for courting wisdom, for being just, and doing good; but that never fails to reproach him for embracing folly, and doing evil; it is indeed no other than the spirit of the living God.

    All the prophecies, given in visions from God, are concealed from the knowledge of man by mysterious allusions, until the proper time, and the appointed person for them to be revealed to. For it is not in the cunning of any one man, even assisted by the wisdom of all the rest on earth, to search out the deep secrets of God, or with truth to unfold the meaning of his visions; they are wonderful; they cannot be discovered until God himself pleases to remove the covering of secrecy; and through an appointed person, blesses the world with a knowledge of their true meaning.

    The fulfilling of the judgments of God, however destructively they may prove to the governments and nations which they are directed against, are not allowed to affect my personal safety, nor operate in the least to my prejudice: for the certainty of my elevation, to the greatest principles that ever will be in the world, cannot be prevented by the rise or fall of

     



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    any human power on earth; because it is the repeated covenant of God to my forefathers, and his sacred promise now by revelation to myself.

    The obscurity of David was no objection, with a discerning God, to make him the monarch of Israel, and afterwards promise the succession to his family for ever; neither is mine now to his fulfilling that promise, and holding me up to the world, as the visible governor of the Jews. For all the works of God are wonderful, and very far exceed the capacity of man to know where they begin, how they are directed, on whom, or which way they will end: I that have more knowledge of them, and of futurity, revealed to me, than any other under the whole heaven, observe the operation of every new one with more amazement than the former.

    Therefore my present poverty is no obstacle to my future elevation, neither is it of much concern to myself, for the time of my being revealed, with power from heaven, is nigh; when God, to manifest his regard, will give me favour with many, and influence all the people of London to help me.

    I am the prophet that will be revealed to the Jews, to order their departure from all nations, to go to the land of Israel, their own country, in a similar manner to Moses in Egypt, but with additional power.

    I was an officer in the British navy, and necessarily so, although I did not know it, that the judgment of God on David, king of Israel, might be fulfilled, which was, that the sword should never depart from his house.

    It is fifteen hundred years since my family was separated from the Jews, and lost all knowledge of its origin; the last on record, in the Scripture, is James: chap. xiii. 55 ver. of St. Matthew. Told me by revelation.

     



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    The government of the Jewish nation will, under the Lord God, be committed to me, that the everlasting covenant from him to David may be manifested in the visible Prince and Governor of the Jews.


    Second of Samuel, Chap. vii.

    16. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee; thy throne shall be established for ever.

    17. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David.


    Jeremiah, Chap. xxxiii.

    17. For thus saith the Lord: David shall never want a man to sit on the throne of the House of Israel;

    19. And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying,

    20. Thus says the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season;

    21. Then may also my covenant be broke with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites, the Priests, my ministers.

    22. As the Host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister to me.

    23. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

     



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    24. Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord has chosen, he has even cast them off. Thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

    25. Thus says the Lord, If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;

    26. Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant; so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.

    A knowledge of the Scriptures, the prophecies I have mentioned, and all that I have wrote besides, have been communicated to me through visions and revelations from the Lord God: the Prophet Daniel, and St. John the Apostle, were instructed, in the same manner, to write what they have.

    It is by the saving of multitudes: by revealing not only a true interpretation of the prophecies, but also a knowledge of the times, and those secret parts of the Scripture which are not made known to any other man under heaven, that the Lord God begins with announcing to the world a knowledge of his mighty judgments, the return of his former mercy to the Hebrews, their speedy restoration to Jerusalem, and the rise of a favourite family.
                              RICHARD BROTHERS.
    LONDON, No. 57, Paddington Street,
    3d of the month called January, 1794.




    Revelation to St. John, Chap. xvii.
    OF  ROME.

    1. And there came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying to me,

     



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    come hither; I will shew thee the judgment of the great whore (meaning Rome) that sits upon many waters, (meaning her government over many nations.)

    2: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, (meaning, they have been seduced to imitate her evil practices) and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication (meaning, they are likewise deluded to drink deep to a state of insensibility from her vain doctrines.).

    A remarkable instance of this way very largely practiced, and really fulfilled at Naples; which, although governed by a king, is notwithstanding in the see of Rome, and about sixty miles distant. In consequence of a violent irruption of fire out of Mount Vesuvius, which is but a few miles from Naples, the similitude of a human head, called St. Janarius's, was carried in procession, lifted up, and held out, fully believing, that by honouring the saint, through even this small part of his image, he himself in heaven, would be influenced to intercede with God, to stop the great rivers of fire which issued from the burning mountain.

    For a people, calling themselves Christians, which have had the Revelation so long to warn, and the blessed Gospel so long to instruct them, to embrace, at this late hour of the world, such an act of superstition and delusion, is indeed astonishing. But it is a part of that great chain of errors, still continued, which the Roman government, at a former period, most wickedly bound its people in all nations, but clergy in particular with; and which is plainly foretold by St. Paul, in the fourth chapter of his First Epistle to Timothy, verse 1. Now the Spirit (which is the Holy Ghost) speaks expressly, that in the latter

     



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    times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils:

    2. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron.

    3. Forbidden to marry, &c.

    The papal authority does not allow its clergy to marry, from a belief that a man, by living in a state of separation from a woman, is better qualified to fulfill the duties of a priest, more acceptible to God, than a man that is a husband and father. Such doctrine is an evident proof to every discerning person, that there is a great departure or falling away, from the true faith; to continue then in the practice, after it is explained and made public by Divine command, is preferring darkness to light, the doctrines of devils to the good works of God: it is giving a willing heed to the seducing spirits that St. Paul alludes to. Christ, the saviour of our world, who left his gospel of the kingdom of peace for the direction of all men, never made any such distinction; for some of his apostles were married, and some were not: and he, as God the Father, in the beginning of the creation, blessed Adam and Eve, saying to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, &c. repeating the same after the flood, to Noah and his sons; he never ordered, nor never intended, the cruel imposition of celibacy on his immediate servant, nor any other description of men.

    It is also an abomination to him, because inconsistent with the design of his creation, that any description of women, under the vain pretence of what is falsely called religion and piety, of leading a more holy life, of serving God better, should be shut up for ever in monasteries, inhumanely deprived of becoming wives and mothers.

     



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    I am commanded to say, it is grievous and sorrowful to the Lord God to see nations, which acknowledge him , and which have the whole Scripture to inform them of his will, paying a blind, an idolatrous obedience to human ordinances, supported by bad oaths, and sinful vows, in direct opposition to what he designs, and what in the beginning, the covenant of his blessing prescribes.


    Chapt. xvii. continued. 3: So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, (meaning into the country, as if far inland from the sea) where I saw a woman (meaning Rome) sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, (meaning the Pope) full of names of blasphemy, (his titles) having seven heads (alluding to the seven hills on which the city stands) and ten horns (meaning the Cardinals.)

    4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication:

    5. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery -- Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots (meaning that she as a mother stood exposed for corrupting with her evil doctrines many cities to the condition of harlots)T and abominations of the earth.

    6. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered, greatly astonishing.

    This Babylon the Great, this mother of harlots, means Rome; but is spiritually called by those names as an allusion to her excess of guilt as a Babylon, and corruption of doctrine as a mother.

    St. John mentions in the third verse, that he was

     



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    carried away into the wilderness to see Rime; meaning by the words into the wilderness, that Rome, the city he goes to look at, is situated inland: this description is given to make a distinction between it and London, the maritime Babylon, full of ships, seamen, and commerce, mentioned in the eighteenth chapter.

    The scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, with seven heads and ten horns, means the Pope -- in this chapter only, and not in any other part of the Revelation, is the Pope alluded to under any name -- or under any signification whatever: neither is Rome but in one part, which is the sixteenth chapter and middle of the nineteenth verse. The Pope in addition to his many names of blasphemy, likewise assumes the powers and prerogatives of God, calling himself, instead of his blessed Saviour, The Supreme Head of the Church: as such, he pretends, for it is only pretension to deceive the ignorant, to be infallible, and to pardon the commission of sin in others: again, as if sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and commanded immediately from God to impart freely his mighty blessing and his mighty spirit to whom he pleases, he ordains as it is called Bishops, laying hands on them, and saying at the same time receive the Holy Ghost; he likewise claims the pre-eminence of holiness in his person, and obedience to Christ in his actions, above all the rest of mankind.

    There is no man spiritual that is not sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and no man is sanctified that teaches by his doctrines -- or recommends by his prayers opposition to Christ the Saviour, and disobedience to his Gospel of Peace; for it is through and by Christ the blessed spirit is given, that sanctifies, which every man that believes in him, and obeys his commands, may have -- may partake of its blessing and sweets; some more, some less, in all things, and for all occasions, as the Lord himself judges proper; but it will

     



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    be given in such sufficiency as to make him abundant in knowledge and teaching him clearly the ways of salvation.

    Man may give to man a title, but it is God only that can make man spiritual; it is he and none else that can give the Holy Ghost, the Divine Spirit of Truth; all other givers among mankind, who say, "by the imposition of our hands receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins thou dost forgive, they are retained;" are but as so many false Christs -- vain pretenders -- blasphemously endeavoring to imitate the true One.

    For a man to attempt to do what the true Christ only can, is attempting an imposition, and justly constitutes a false Christ. For a man to kneel down to a man to receive the Holy Ghost, and then going forth by the authority of this false Christ; teaching and preaching under the name of the true Christ, but in opposition to his commands; deluded by an opinion that he is spiritual because his maker imposed on him to believe so, when in reality he is not, constitutes a false Prophet.

    Those are the kind of people that the Lord Jesus Christ alludes to in the twenty-fourth Chapter of St. Matthew, and warns the world to beware of.

    There are many that preach and write under the name of Christ, without being influenced by his spirit, or commanded by his word: for which, observe all you that love him, that read this book, that he will not give his blessed spirit, which is indeed the Holy Ghost, to any man exalted in pride and living under names of blasphemy; praying for the success and aggrandizement of particular men in war, at the expense of ruin, and destruction to others. And yet the Pope, to impress the multitude round him with

     



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    reverence and awe, is entitled Holiness, the Vicar of Christ, successor to St. Peter, and is accounted infallible; all such names are an evident demonstration of pride and falsehood; and as such, he has neither holiness from Christ in his person, nor obedience to the Gospel of Truth in his actions.

    It is for blasphemy, idolatry, deceit, teaching rebellion against Christ, and for being a shedder of blood by war, that the Pope is called in the Revelation from God, a scarlet coloured beast; under that dreadful height of Heaven by titles, he sinks down into perdition; he is a fallen man, and is adjudged by that already testimony of St. John, to suffer the punishment of everlasting fire.

    7: And the Angel said unto me, wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, (meaning that governs her) which has the seven heads, and ten horns.

    8: The beast that thou saw, was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life, from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

    War, oaths, violence, and bloodshed, in opposition to the commands of Christ in his gospel of the kingdom of peace, they belong to Satan and his government of darkness,


    St. Matthew, Chap. iv.

    8. Again the devil takes him up to an exceeding high mountain, and shews him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

     



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    9. And says to him, all these things I will give thee; if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

    10. Then says Jesus to him, get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve.

    The Popes rose to what they are, and established their power by the sword, is the reason that God mentions in this part of the Revelation to St. John, the beast; or papal authority, to ascend from the bottomless pit: in the beginning they were great military princes, and governed with large armies; but latterly their power became weak, and their consequence small; yet notwithstanding, the vain titles, pageantry, and military parade, is still preserved and closely embraced by the present.

    Chap. xvii, continued. 9. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

    The woman means Rome, and the seven mountains or hills on which the city is built, are meant by St. John as the seven heads of the Pope.

    10. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is and the other is not yet come; and when he comes he must continue a short space.

    These seven kings, mean seven powerful military Popes: they are denominated kings, because they were warlike men, and in other respects governed with the sword like them.

    11. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eight, and is of the same as the seven, and goes into perdition.

    This means the last military Pope of Rome: for as

     



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    popedom has rose by the sword, by the sword also it will fall; and the last pope alluded to in this verse, as well as the first military one alluded to in the eighth verse; goes into perdition

    12. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

    13. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength to the beast.

    These two verses mean the cardinals, who are compared to kings in name; but not in power: they are great, but not independent; they have a great name, but no independent sovereignty: they are called, like the German electors to the Emperor, as is mentioned in the seventh chapter of Daniel, the horns of the beast; because they assist the Pope with their counsel and authority.

    14. These shall make war with the Lamb, but the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they that are with him, are called, and chosen, and faithful.

    The pope and cardinals, by their teaching, practice, and government, are in a state of opposition to Christ; that is, they practice and encourage, to support their form of government, swearing and war; the two principal things which Christ, above all others, prohibits in the most positive terms. It is for this opposition to his commands in the Gospel, that they are represented as making war against him; they are permitted, through the patient suffering of God, to do so, until he can bear no longer with their rebellion; when, to fulfil this prophecy and his decreed judgment, they will be entirely cut off. Christ, as supreme head of the church, acknowledges no religion but what he

     



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    has taught by his Gospel, which is Christianity; for there is no kind of church but one, and that is visible man: it consists of one person, as well as a whole congregation; of one just man in a room, as well as a million any where else; he came into the world to save sinners, and redeem them from the chains of eternal death: the blessed Gospel is the great bond of his promises, now put into the hands of all men that will receive it for their instruction; for which, all that read or hear it, ought to remember their solemn covenant in baptism, and take care that on their part, the terms of his salvation are complied with. To do which, man must, to fulfill the design of his creation, endeavour to live long, and live happy; to do that, he must abolish war, and live in constant peace; he must likewise abolish swearing of every kind, because it leads to falsehood and perjury: and make the innocent words of Yes and No, the solemn bond of this public truth.

    The men that are called preachers of Christianity, instead of assuming vain titles and lofty political names; instead of assisting in any way at councils of state, the ought to stand between princes and war, between men and strife, between nations and bloodshed; they should be true teachers of the Gospel; and like the immediate disciples of their blessed Saviour, always the ministers of peace.


    The Gospel of St. Matthew, Chap. v.

    9. Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God.

    Chap. vi. 7. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking;

    8. Be not ye therefore like to them; for your Father knows what things ye have need of before ye ask him.

     



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    9. After this manner therefore pray ye: "Our Father, who art in heaven: hallowed be thy name;

    10. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, &c.

    The kingdom of God, which is asked for every time this form of prayer is said, is to live in peace and righteousness: the government of God in heaven, is peace: and his will is, that man on earth should have the same. It is prayed for every Sunday throughout Europe; and yet, to the blushing shame of man, in a minute after he forgets it, forsakes the kingdom of peace, and fervently prays to the same compassionate God to go forth with fleets and armies.

    St. Paul to the Galations, Chap. i.

    2. Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

    8. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

    To prevent the destruction of man, by war and falsehood, Christ, who shed his blood for the redemption of man, prohibits, in the most plain, clear, and positive words, all kind of strife, that it should not increase to war; and all kind of swearing, that it should not multiply into falsehood. These two evils, enforced by law, and encouraged by religion, under the time of Christianity, and in contradiction to the blessed Gospel of truth, are the two principal fountains that deluge the world with sin, and deprive heaven of many.


    St. Matthew, Chap. v.

    19. Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

     



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    33. Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, (meaning the teachers formerly under the law) Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform to the Lord by oaths:

    34. But I say to you, swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne.

    35. Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.

    36. Neither must thou swear by thy head, because thou cannot not make one hair white or black.

    37. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; and Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil.

    38. Ye have heard that it has been said, (meaning under the law of Moses) an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;

    39:. But I say to you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

    43. Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy.

    44. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

    45. That ye may be the children of your father, which is in heaven.


    St. James the Apostle, Chap. v.

    2. But above all things, my brethren, swear not; neither by heaven. neither by the earth, neither by any other oath; but let your yea, be yea; and your nay, nay; least ye fall into condemnation


    The Gospel of St. John, Chap. xii.

    48. He that rejects me, and receives not my words, as one that judges him: the word that I have spoken

     



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    (which is the Gospel) the same shall judge him in the last day.


    St. Pau, Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, Chap. v.

    7. And to you, who are troubled, rest with us; when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.

    8. In flaming fire, taking revenge on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    As circumcision to the Jews was the seal of their covenant with God, and promise of obedience to his law, so is baptism with Christians the seal of their covenant with Christ, and promise of obedience to his commands.

    When teachers professing Christianity, have their maintenance and elevation in the world, dependent on great political warlike government, and want to do, from interested motives, what the blessed Gospel prohibits to, and plausibility to their delusive reason, as in the legal and religious case of swearing oaths; they go back to the law of Moses for a precedent, to justify their apostasy and conduct. The law was for the Jews alone, under the appointed administration of the Levites and elders, in their own country; nevertheless, when strangers acknowledge God, and submitted to its rites, they were also allowed the freedom of its benefit; but when Christ came into the world, for the redemption of man, he abolished the law, which was temporary, and in its place gave the Gospel; which is everlasting. That is, he removed the form of worshipping God by sacrifice; the form of coming at the truth by swearing; and that of obtaining justice for injury, by reprisal and violence.

    We all admire the Lord Jesus Christ for his humility and affection, the goodness and wisdom that breathes throughout his Gospel, and the sacrifice of himself for our salvation; yet the generality of the

     



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    world, as if unmindful of this wonderful influence of Divine love, not only refuse what they promised in baptism to obey, but likewise seek, by opposition and war, to destroy his salvation and happy government of peace. What does a man require from his wife in marriage, but to love and be faithful to him only? Would he not be jealous, and very angry, if she obeyed any commands in opposition to his, and honoured another with the endearing name of husband? By the same rule, all that are baptized are, by covenant, comparatively married to Christ; for the name of Christian implies a belief in him, and obedience to his words. Is it wise or just then, to obey a doctrine contrary to the commands of thy blessed Lord and acknowledged Saviour? And is it not unkind in thee, O man, to honour thy equal with his sacred name?

    As a man cannot, in justice, be considered as a servant, any longer than while he obeys the commands of his master, so neither can a man, in truth, be regarded as a Christian, any longer than while he obeys the commands of Christ.

    Hear therefore, all nations, what the Lord God commands me to write, and be warned by it; that, as a master is compelled to withdraw his allowance of food, and discharge from his house a servant that will not obey him, so will he withdraw his loving kindness of peace, and in anger remove from the face of the earth, that man or family, city or nation, that will only acknowledge Christ in word, but in practice refuse to obey his commands.


    Revelation, xvii. Continued.

    15. And he says to me, the water which thou saw, where the Whore sits, are people, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

    16. And the ten horns (meaning the cardinals) which thou saw upon the beast, (meaning the Pope)

     



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    these shall have the whore, (meaning Rome) and shall make desolate and naked; and shall eat her flesh and burn her with file.

    The cardinals will disagree and quarrel; then Rome will be convulsed by parties: and plundered alternately by each; (which means eating her flesh) destroy it. In due time after this, the latter part of the nineteenth verse in the sixteenth chapter, will be fulfilled on Rome, spiritually Babylon, the capital of Italy; when by a mighty earthquake, the city, with the ground it stands on, will be lifted up, shook violently to pieces, and utterly overthrown.

    17. For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

    The Cardinals will continue in subjection to the Pope, and agree, in their measures of government, assisting him also with their advice and power until the time already determined is expired, which is nearly so now; that done, the minds of the people will be changed, and another spirit will be given to them, to fulfill the judgment of God, according to this prophecy.

    I was not permitted to join this addition to this Book, when first printed, which is the reason that it was passed over; but now I am commanded by the Lord my God, to print and join it to the former part, therefore I do.
                                  RICHARD BROTHERS.
    LONDON, 20th of the month
    called September, 1794.





     

    
    A
    
    R E V E A L E D   K N O W L E D G E
    
    OF  THE
    
    PROPHECIES  AND  TIMES.
    
    PARTICULARLY  OF  THE
    
    PRESENT TIME, THE PRESENT WAR,
    
    AND  THE
    
    PROPHECY NOW FULFILLING.
    THE YEAR OF THE WORLD 5913.
    
    
    BOOK THE SECOND.
    Containing, with other great and remarkable things,   not revealed to any other person on earth, the sud-   den and perpetual fall of the Turkish, German, and   Russian Empires. WROTE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
    T H E L O R D G O D, AND PUBLISHED BY HIS SACRED COMMAND; IT BEING A SECOND SIGN OF WARNING FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL NATIONS. By the Man that will be revealed to the Hebrews as their P R I N C E A N D P R O P H E T.
    W E S T - S P R I N G F I E L D: P R I N T E D B Y E D W A R D G R A Y. For ASAPH CHILSON of Buckland, and to be sold by said CHILSON by the dozen or single. M,DCC,XCVII.

     

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    P R E F A C E.


    LENGTH of time, change of countries and governments. corruption of language, and hasty copies in writing, before the more exact method of printing became generally used, has been the means of not only introducing, without design, into the Hebrew Bible, an insertion of some new words, but likewise the expulsion of some of the old, which produces a disagreement in some few parts, and makes it differ now from what it originally was in the times of David, Solomon, and at the commencement of the Babylonian captivity: some parts of the English translation are consequently erroneous; but they are so immaterial as not to affect, in the least, the truth of its sacred Records, or the tendency of its divine instruction. The few parts of the English translation, which I am instructed to alter in my writings, the propriety will be allowed by every person that has discernment to perceive, or conviction to believe: -- beyond the limits of my authority, for it is prescribed, I am not suffered to proceed in any word   or in any whatever.

    The following are the words which the Lord God spoke to me in a vision, soon after I was commanded to write and make known his judgments, for the good of London and general benefit of all nations: -- There is no other man under the whole heaven that I discover the errors of the Bible to, and reveal a knowledge how to correct them, so that they may be restored as they were in the beginning, but yourself.

    Moreover, when I began to write I believed it necessary to adopt the same language as the Scripture

     



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    does, regularly imitating it in the words -- ye, thee, and thou; but God spoke to me in a vision of the night, and said -- Write in the same manner as I always speak to you; write as other men do; write according to the custom of the country you live in; you will then be better attended to, and what you write will be more easily understood.

    A man that had been an officer in the navy, whose immediate ancestors have been separated from the Jews such a considerable length of time as to make them forget they ever belonged to the name, such a man declaring himself openly to the world a Prophet of God, the revealed Prince allotted to order the sudden return of the Hebrews from all nations, and govern them in the land of Israel, will, with some reason, I allow, excite both astonishment and doubt; but from the multiplied recorded testimonies I produce, which no other on earth can, it ought not to prevail with any person as a just objection against believing what I write.

    For observe, some hostile profession was necessary for me to be engaged in, to fulfil the recorded judgment on the family I am designed to represent in the seat of government; therefore, with all the certain proofs I have and will constantly bring forward, with all the just reasons I advance, the surprise and doubt, entertained at the beginning, ought to vanish in as little time as would be requisite to read again the book which contains the account,

    But remember likewise, from the records of Scripture, that Moses was taken away in his infancy, and remained separated from his brethren for eighty years: the first forty of which he was reared in the palace of the king of Egypt, and educated in the language and customs of the country like one of its Israelites

     



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    as the prophet of God, to order their asty departure from Pharoah's bondage, and afterwards to conduct them to the promised land...

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    9. Behold, a son shall be born to thee...

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    both are regarded alike...

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    IN obedience to the sacred command...

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    The lion means George the Third...

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    The Lord God permits this opposition...

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    pf God, under what -- or how....

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    his mouth; and all the fowls...

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    (meaning the electors) with its feet...

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    Chap. xccvii. 9. Thus says the Lord...

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    He begins with seizing on the electorate...

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    11. And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah...

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    the addition of three electorates...

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    The Spanish Monarchy will cease...

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    The Dutch will acknowledge the French Republic, and also make a hasty peace with it; the Portuguese will do the same.




    To The KING and PARLIMENT of
    GREAT BRITAIN.

    Hear what the Lord God additionally says to me...

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    enter into a fresh one...

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    me; for at that time, the war was not...

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    the 17th following, and acquaint the members...

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    from this place...

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    The twp parts of the REVELATION, to be fulfilled in LONDON and the ENGLISH PARLIAMENT, according to the Judgment of God, but are immediately suspended for my entreaty.

    Chap. xi. 3. And I will give poweer...

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    The Prophet Malachi Chap. iv.

    5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

    6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

    The Elijah mentioned in this chapter, and the messenger mentioned in the first verse of the third chapter, mean two distinct persons. The one was the immediate messenger of Christ, when he came for the salvation of mankind; the other, is recorded prophet, to pronounce his judgments, and warn the world, before he comes to destroy it.

    This is that great prophet, alluded to in the chapter, under the name of Elijah, and not St. John the Baptist: he will possess the Spirit of God equal to Elijah, and have the power of his fire in the same manner. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers; that is, he will suppress war and violence, which sets the old against the young and the young against the old. He will command peace, and by the great power given him from heaven, enforce an obedience wherever he comes.

    The appointment of this prophet, being to invite first, and compel after, all nations to come into the kingdom of peace, as a necessary preparation to meet Christ, when he comes to visit and judge the world: St. John the Baptist, for being appointed to prepare for Christ, preaching the same kingdom of peace, and promising, by baptism. mercy to all that would believe, is the real and very reason, that Christ, in the secenteenth chapter of St. Matthew, calls him Elias.

     



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    At the former time, when I was entreating God to spare London. I mentioned no man by his title: but when I was writing an account of it for public information, he said to me, "unless you write their titles, they themselves won't know who you mean." It will appear strange, because I am not acquainted with any of the distinguished persons alluded to; but I knew every one by some particular act that caught my approbation, and made me remember them then. It seemed as if God had done this on purpose, for he has often said to me since, in visions and revelations at night, You must be a wall of defence and safety to many a great man; -- yes, even to some that despise you now. At that time, after mentioning the name of William Pitt, I passed by that of his brother; immediately after, the Lord God reminded me of it, and, in a voice of great softness and good nature, said, There is John Pitt, won't you mention him? You don't know who he is I forgave.

    In the year 1790 the Spirit of God begun first, (although I always had a presentment of being sometime or other very great) to enlighten my understanding, and teach me to distinguish right from wrong. At that time I was an officer in the navy and considering that voluntary swearing, which I was obliged to comply with, every six months as a qualification to receive my pay, was unnecessary, unjust, and wicked, I requested to be indulged with permission to receive it without; stating at the same time, the concealed and unheeded cruelty of the oath, with my own reasons for objecting to the form: when I was told, in answer to my request, that there was an order of council to take the oath, and that it was not in the power of the admiralty to dispense with it.

    Soon after this I made another request, supporting my objections to voluntary swearing, with observing,
     



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    her to astrict account for shedding not only the blood of this righteous man, but likewise all his other faithful witnesses. I know likewise, by revelation from the Lord God, and am commanded to write it down, that John Maximilian Daut was sanctified by the Divine Spirit of Truth, and prophesied, under its sacred direction, in the year of 1709. He has also testified of me under different names

    The Lord God commands me to inform you, John Wright, that you are of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Levi, descended from Aaron the high priest, by Phineas, Zadok, and Ezra; for which the covenant to your forefather, Phineas, of an everlasting priesthood, is renewed, given to you, to be manifested in you.


    Numbers, Chap. xxv.

    10. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

    11. Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake, among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.

    12. Wherefore say, behold I give him my covenant of peace.

    13. And he shall have it, and his seed after him; even the covenants of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.

    This is the recorded testimony which the Lord my God commands me to give; and to say to you likewise, you are sanctified by the Holy Ghost, the Divine Spirit of Truth.

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    direction, acknowledged to be of the Hebrews, decended from Israel; for your children after you, are some of his chosen people; not to take up, in obedience to any law or human power, whatever, warlike arms, to shed blood, or commit violence, in consequence of the approaching calamities which he will most surely bring on this Egyptian land.

    Neither mind the people that blaspheme God, and revile you for believing in his testimonies; the wicked have always rose against the righteous, and this land, like Egypt of old, has many task-masters to abuse and oppress in it. Therefore comfort yourselves in the knoeledge of the promises of God to his servants: For I declare, by his sacred command, that the visible Jews are but few in number, compared to the great multitude professing Christianity, but all descended from the former Jews in the land of Israel, the forefathers of the present visible ones; which were, at different times, led captive into all nations: your lives are long, their's but short; you are the holy seed, the people and saints of the Most High: to whom, and your children for ever, belongs the possession and government of his kingdom.

    The Lord God, who was the Lord Jesus Christ, commands me now, and not until now, to insert the following testimonies, as a warning to all blasphemers, and as a reason to all men, that do not know, why he said to me, in the preceeding part of this book, you may inform the king of England that I call you my nephew.


    The Gospel of St. Matthew, Chap. xii.

    46. While he (meaning Christ) yet talked to the people, behold his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

     



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    part of the sixth chapter in the Revelation to St. John, will be fulfilled before the expiration of seven months from this day. And also my revelation to the Hebrews, as their prince and leader, according to the twelfth chapter of the prophecy of Daniel; to the king and people of England, and the people of all nations, as their ruler -- for -- and immediately under God, according to the twenty-second chapter of the second book of Samuel; to all nations, as the promised Spirit of Peace, according to the second chapter of Haggai; and as Elijah, to the wicked, the revilers, and blasphemers against God, according to the fourth chapter of Malachi.
                                  RICHARD BROTHERS.
    No. 57, Paddington Street,
    5th of the month called November.


    The king and duke of Portland, as secretary of state,
    were wrote to at the same time.


    Revelation, Chap. xi.

    15. And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
                                  RICHARD BROTHERS.

    The man that will be revealed to the Hebrews as their prince; to all nations as their governor; according to the covenant to king David, immediately under God.

    LONDON, No. 57, Paddington Street,
    10th of the month called February, 1795.



    T H E   E N D.






     

    Transcriber's Comments


    Richard Brothers (1757-1824)


    Early Years of Richard Brothers

    Lieutenant Richard Brothers came to London from Canada (as a semi-retired naval officer during a lull) in the Continental wars. His life in the British Navy had not been a pleasant one, and he came away from that experience with an abiding repugnance for wars and blasphemy, especially for Christian prayers for military success and mandatory sacred oaths for military allegiance. At some point in his career (perhaps about 1789) Brotehrs became convinced that God was speaking to him personally, through divine revelation, and that he had been called as a latter day prophet and eventual messiah.

    Born in Newfoundland, on 25 Dec. 1757, to an English soldier garrisoned there, Richard Brother's citizenship was British, but his origin technically Canadian. He is often cited as being the first Canadian to establish a new religious sect. As a child he was sent to England for his education, and apparently remained there, becoming a midshipman in the Royal Navy at age thirteen. The budding prophet retired from the Navy as a half-pay officer (potentially available for recall to service) in 1784. His activities and whereabouts for the next five years remain a mystery, be he reportedly served on merchant ships, traveling in the Mediterranean to ports in France, Italy and Spain.

    Around 1789-90 Brothers found himself back in England, in the region of London. Here it was that he became convinced that he was a modern prophet and a favorite of the Judeo-Christian God. At one point, following unusually severe thunderstorms in 1791, he fled London, believing that God was about to destroy that city for its wickedness. When London was not, in fact, destroyed, Brothers attributed its temporary salvation to his own intercession with God for its deliverance.


    The "Nephew of The Almighty"

    At about this same time Brothers became convinced that he was a chosen Israelite of the House of David, impowered to call the Jews and other Israelites out from their dispersion among the nations and lead them back to Jerusalem in Turkish Palestine. Claiming a pedigree from King David via the same lineage as that of Jesus Christ, Brothers felt he was descended from Jesus' Brother James the Righteous -- and thus a "Prince of The Hebrews" and rightful latter day King of Judah. Brothers extended his hopeful claims to being something of a messiah -- or, at least the destined ruler of all Israel, reigning in a restored royal city of Jerusalem. After making these claims, the new prophet was sometime called the "Nephew of the Almighty," apparently by his growing band of followers as well as by those who branded him a religious fanatic and a madman.

    Brothers' revelations (accompanied by his own commentary on selected biblical texts) began to appear in print at the beginning of the 1790s and some were compiled into a booklet for public sale in London as early as 1794. This volume, A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies... was reprinted in Albany, New York that same year, introducing the American Colonials to Brothers' strange pronouncements and dire predictions. However, in the course of proclaiming himself God's chosen one, Brothers managed to offend the British King George III (having prophesied that the Royal family would have to step down from that dignity at the imminent coming of the "King of Heaven and Earth") and soon received an unprophesied punishment. Escaping a sentence of treason, he lost his Lieutenancy he was committed as a lunatic to an asylum in Canonbury Tower. This was in May 1795, by the King's Privy Council -- for teaching seditious nonsense and claiming that God command England refrain from military action against Republican France. The "Nephew of God" cooled his heels in the English asylum for eleven years. He was finally released in 1806, when his keepers decided he was no longer a menace to society.

    Prior to his confinement Richard Brothers had prophesied that he would lead all the world's scattered Israelites back to Palestine and there rebuild Jerusalem. He was less specific as to whether he would have the Jerusalem Temple rebuilt once he began his reign of glory there. Evidently Brothers saw his planned restoration of Israel as a preliminary event in the long hoped-for establishment of the Judeo-Christian "Kingdom of God." His theology more or less "promoted" Jesus Christ into being God the Father -- so perhaps Brothers viewed his own paradisical reign and new world order as being a sort of replacement for popular notions regarding an expected millennial rule of Christ on Earth.


    Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott

    Brothers' lengthy imprisonment, of course, greatly delayed his anticipated restoration of Israel. During his confinement, in 1801, another budding "chosen one" was sought out by some of the prophet's followers. This was Joanna Southcott, already independently something of a prophetess herself among a radical branch of the British Methodists. She inherited a number of Richard Brothers' tenets and was viewed by many followers as being his prophetic successor.

    Besides being widely reprinted under his own name, a good deal of Brothers' innovative tenets were further publicized throughout the world in 1795 by their promulgation in a popular rendition of apocalyptic predictions entitled The World's Doom. However, by the first years of the new century, popular faith and interest in Richard Brothers' claims to a divine mission had cooled considerably. Perhaps his envisaging a never-fulfilled earthquake judgment that would level St. Paul's Cathedral and destroy the English Parliament distroyed Brothers' religious reputation among patriotic Englishmen caught up the the fervor brought on by the Napoleonic wars. The "Nephew of God" left what little remained of legacy to the growing Southcott movement. He also no doubt helped influence the thought of later proponents of the "Anglo-Israelite" theories explaining the fate of the Ten "Lost" Tribes of Israel. But, as a would-be prophet in his own right, Richard Brothers' name soon slipped into obscurity and his life into oblivion. He died in England, unremembered, in 1824.


    Richard Brothers and Mormon Origins

    Given the exstensive (and potentially fruitful) field comprised by Richard Brothers' "prophetic" claims, tenets, and activities, it is rather remarkable that no previous writers on American churchly history have thought to compare and contrast his religion with that of the equally "prophetic" early Mormons. Both Richard Brothers and Joseph Smith, Jr., after all, did claim respectively to speak for God, delivering to their followers timely and exclusive latter day "revelation." Both men asserted that they and/or their coreligionists could discern previously undiscovered signs of "Israelite" descent in persons otherwise counted as "Gentiles." Both men sought to gather and restore a scattered Israel previous to establishing the Kingdom of God in a new world order, ruled over from a holy city of refuge. Both men found reasons to re-write passages of scripture from the Authorized Version of the Bible, to suit their own opinions and needs. Both men made use of many of the same predictive biblical prophecies to support their own religious programs. Both laid claim to a religious or churchly authority superior to that of an "apostate" Roman Catholic Church, etc., etc.

    Probably the very short prophetic career of Richard Brothers, conducted on another continent and two decades previous to the rise of Joseph Smith, has escaped the attention of religious historians. If so, it is perhaps a mistake worth correcting by contemporary students of Mormon Origins.

    The first writer to mention Richard Brothers and Jospeh Smith in the same breath, figuratively speaking, was Professor Jonathan B. Turner, in his 1842 book, Mormonism in All Ages... In that early study of the Mormons, the writer seeks to compare the Latter Day Saints to the deluded followers of past false prophets and their "absurdities." He says:

    In 1792, Joanna Southcote [sic], a servant maid of Exter, England, assumed the character of a prophetess, and pretended that she was the woman of the wilderness, and could give the seal of eternal life to her followers. Like Smith & Co., she uttered dreadful prophetic denunciations upon her opposers and the unbelieving nations, and predicted the speedy approach of her millennium. Of course her thousands of followrers found all her predictions fulfilled. In the last year of

    her life she secluded herself from the world, and especially from the society of the other sex, and gave out that she was with child of the Holy Ghost, and that she should give birth to the Shiloh promised to Jacob before the end of the harvest, which would be the second coming of Christ. Harvest, however, came and went, but no Shiloh appeared. She died on the 27th of the following December. Her disciples refused to bury her. They waited four days for her resurrection and the birth of the Shiloh, until she began to rot. They then consented, with much reluctance, to a post-mortem examination, which fully refuted their belief. Her disciples then, with still greater reluctance, buried her body, but not their faith either in her or the promised Shiloh. On the contrary, they continue to flatter themselves that she will yet, in some way, reappear, and that with her will come their long expected Shiloh, and their Mormon gathering and millennium of Mormon glory.

    In the same year, 1792, Richard Brothers published a book of prophecies and visions, and an account of his daily intercourse with God in London. Among his followers was a member of the British parliament, a profound scholar, and one of the most learned men of his time. He made a speech in the house of Commons declaring his full belief in one of the greatest absurdities ever presented to the British populace.
    (pp. 94-95)
    Other early writers would echo Turner's opinions regarding Joanna Southcott, but practically all subsequent reports on the Mormons made no mention of her precursor, Richard Brothers. In later years, Brothers' name seems to have been linked to that of Smith only in very obscure articles, like the one on "Impostors" which has appeared in verious editions of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

    Under this heading we may notice a certain number of objectionable characters who, while not of sufficient importance to claim separate treatment, have at various epochs so far achieved notoriety...

    Passing over a certain number of religious enthusiasts who may in various degrees have been self-convinced and who range from the crazy hallucinations of Joanna Southcott (died 1814), who believed she was to bring forth the Messiah, or of Richard Brothers, the Divinely crowned descendant of King David and ruler of the world (c. 1792), to the miracle-working claims of Anna Lee (died. 1784), the foundress of the American Shakers, we will pause only to say a word of Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the first apostle of Mormonism. It cannot be doubted that this man, who after a dissolute youth professed to have visions of a golden book, consisting of metal plates inscribed with strange characters, which he dug for and found, was a deliberate impostor. Smith pretended to decipher and translate these mystic writings, after which the "Book of Mormon" was taken back to heaven by an angel...
    The first modern scholar of Mormon Origins to connect Richard Brothers with the phenomenon of Mormonism was D. Michael Quinn, in his 1987 Early Mormonism and the Magic World View.

    ...Richard Brothers published his visions, prophecies, and revealed expansions of biblical texts in multiple during the 1790s in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts during the 1790s. He claimed that in 1791, "I was in a vision, and being carried up to heaven, the Lord God spoke to me from the middle of a large white cloud." His publication reached such hinterland towns as Hanover, New Hampshire, where Hyrum Smith attended school near the Joseph Smith family residence (Richard Brothers A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times. 2 vols. in 1 -- West Springfield, MA: Edward Gray, 1797, 1:49; National Union Catalog of Pre-1956 Imprints 78:366; Catalog of Books, for Sale at the Bookstore... on the road leading to Lebanon -- Hanover, NH, n.p., 1799, 6; Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches... 1853, 59-60...). Brothers was an English sectarian, yet such testimonies of theophany were even more common among early American evangelicals....
    (p. 14, rev. 2nd. ed., 1998)
    While Quinn's report was a welcome addition to the sparse knowledge available concerning Richard Brothers' impact on the northeastern US at the end of the 18th century, Quinn missed making the obvious connection between the availbility of A Revealed Knowledge... in Hanover, New Hampshire and an outbreak of Brothers-like religious frenzy in adjacent central Vermont at nearly the exact same time (1799-1800) -- the infamous "Wood Scrape."

    Although Quinn writes knowledgeably in his book about the Nathaniel Wood "New Israelite" sect of Middletown, Vermont, he apparently does not discern the evident parallels that outbreak of religious fanaticism in New Emgland with the nearly simultaneous religious performance by Richard Brothers in "Mother" England.

    One scholar who has made the Brothers-Wood Scrape connection is John L. Brooke. In his 1994 The Refiner's Fire, Brooke relates that "The Masonic-millenarian connotations in Brothers' tracts... circulating in New England in the 1790s... Masonic millenarianism also seems to have shaped the hermeticism and restorationism of the New Israelite cult of Middletown, led by the Wood family..." Indirectly Brooke lays the ground-work for his readers' realization that Nathaniel Wood and his followers in Middletown, Vermont in 1799-1800 would have had ready access to the Richard Brothers book in nearby Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Brothers' book was circulating throughout New England during this period and the Wood group members probably would not have needed to travel even so far as Hanover's bookshops (which grew up in the shadow of that town's Dartmouth College) to obtain A Revealed Knowledge...

    The pertinent passages penned by Brooke on these matters are as follows:

    ... attracting several English Swedenborgian millenarians who a few years later became followers of the prophet Richard Brothers. In the midst of threats of war in 1794, Brothers, a former naval officer living in London, pronounced himself the "Prince and Prophet of the Hebrews" and predicted the coming of the kingdom of God and the return of visible and "invisible" Hebrews to a New Jerusalem to be rebuilt in the Holy Land. Confined as insane, Brothers would lose some of his followers to Joanna Southcott, "the woman clothed with the sun," who carried the renewed English tradition of the restoration of the Kingdom of God, dormant since the 1650s, into the nineteenth century (Clark Garrett, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England -- Baltimore, 1975, 97-120, 171-223; John F. C. Harrison. The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850, -- New Brunswick, 1978, 57-85; Schuchard, Freemasonry, Secret Societies, and the Continuities of Occult Traditions, 402-17)
    (p. 97)

    Other, more ephemeral writings drawing upon Masonic and millennial themes appealed to a much broader audience. The rise of revolutionary France, its dramatic confrontation with the British-led alliance, and its ramifications in American politics inspired a wave of militantly pro-French sentiment and shaped an audience eager for premillennial predictions and prophicies Among these, the prophecies of London's "Prince and Prophet of the Hebrews," Richard Brothers, were widely read in at least eleven American editions published from 1795 to 1797 in Philadelphia, New London, Worcester, West Springfield, and Albany, where it was put out by a Freemason, Thomas Webb. In Connecticut, the Reverend David Austin translated visions and a growing mental instability into a series of published sermons and treatises on millennial and Masonic themes during the 1790s, literally obsessed with the notion that the "Millennial Door" was opening. (In general, for these themes, see Ruth Bloch, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756-1800 -- New York, 1985, 150-68; David Austin, Masonry in Its Glory, or Solomon's Temple Illuminated (East Windsor, Conn., 1799)

    Many of these prophecies focused on legendary artifacts. Brothers' followers from the Masonic Avignon Society had accepted him as a true prophet, based on prophecies popularly ascribed to Christopher Love, an English Presbyterian executed for conspiring against Cromwell in 1651. Love's "Prophecies," which included references to an engraved pillar of brass erected by patriarch Seth and the prophet Enoch...
    (p. 99)

    ... Asel [Smith] drew language from Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the Book of Daniel: "I believe that the stone is now cut out of the mountain without hands, spoken of by Daniel, and has smitten the image upon his feet." This language had once been deployed by radical English sectarians, and was soon to be taken up agains in his grandson's Church of Latter-day Saints; in the 1790s it could be found in the English prophet Richard Brothers' "Revealed Knowledge," where the stone signified the restored Kingdom of God, soon to destroy all other kingdoms, as Asael hoped the stone would destroy "all monarchical and ecclesiastical tyranny." (Asael Smith's letter to Jacob Towne, Jan. 14, 1795, in Anderson, Joseph Smith's New England Heritage, 119; Richard Brothers, Revealed Knowledge... -- Philadelphia, 1795, 51)

    The Masonic-millenarian connotations in Brothers' tracts, along with those of Christopher Love's writings and the anonymous "Remarkable Prophecy." all circulating in New England in the 1790s, could well have shaped Asael's writing, complementing the alchemical connotations that this passage would have had for a family still in communication with the Townes, once owners of the Topsfield copper lots. ("Brothers' Prophecies" was one item listed in a Catalogue of Books, for Sale at the Bookstore in Hanover... -- Hanover, NH, 1799)

    The Masonic millenarianism also seems to have shaped the hermeticism and restorationism of the New Israelite cult of Middletown, led by the Wood family, recently moved from Norwich, Connecticut. One nineteenth century account places Joseph Smith Sr. himself among the New Israelites. If true, it would have taken him about fifty miles from his young family in Tunbridge. In any event, Joseph would boast in the 1830s in Ohio that his divining career had begun decades before in Vermont. (Quinn, Early Mormonism, 22, 31-2; Hill, Joseph Smith, 67; Ronald W. Walker. "The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting," BYU Studies 24, 1984, 444; Stephen Green, "The Money-Diggers," Vermont Life 24 (1969), 48; Hemenway, ed., Vermont Historical Gazetteer, 3:1089.)
    (p. 133)

    William Cowdery was deeply involved in the New Israelite movement... There were other elements to this complex tangle of Freemasonry and millenarism in the New Israelite towns. In 1823 Ethan Smith, the Anti-masonic Congregational minister in Poultney, published a text entitled "View of the Hebrews, or the Tribes of Israel in America." As had Richard Brothers, the English Prophet of the 1790s, Ethan Smith emphasized that the millennium and the restoration of the Kingdom of God depended on the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. In particular, the fulfillment of ancient prophecy required the return of the Ten Lost Tribes to Israel. On the basis of a report of a parchment book found in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (William Miller's birthplace), and stories of metal artifacts and plates recovered from Indian burial mounds in western New York and Ohio, Ethan Smith was concinced that the American Indian peoples were the Lost Tribes... (Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon, esp. 5-8; ...)
    (p. 142)

    ... the Mormon message also resonated with a centuries-old radical religious culture. British converts to Mormonism were in great measure already committed to millenarian, primitivist, and even magical religious sensibilities that had been circulating through orbits of radical religion ever since the seventeenth century. Revitalized in the decades following the 1790s by prophets such as Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott, millenarianism and restorationism had persisted in odd corners of post-Restoration England, entangled with the hermetic pietism of Jacob Boehm, the Philadelphian Society, and Emmanuel Swedenborg... (J. F. C. Harrison, The Second Coming --New Brunswick, 1979; Clark Garrett, Respectable Folly -- Baltimore, 1974; W. H. G. Armytage, Heaven Below: Utopian Experiments in England, 1560-1960 -- London, 1961, 32-73, 259-71; William H. Oliver, Prophets and Millennialists: The Uses of Biblical Prophecy from the 1790s to the 1840s -- Aukland, 1978...)
    (p. 238)


    British Cartoon depicting Richard Brothers as a Mad Moses


    Richard Brothers and the American Zion

    The important point that Brooke seems to have missed here is that the leaders of the Nathaniel Wood cult formed their own Yankee-Israelite theology in the midst of much the same kind of tense, pre-millennialistic expectations as did Richard Brothers. There were biblical prophecies regarding the restoration of Isreal which must be fulfilled prior to the coming of a paradisical Kingdom of God on Earth -- and, since the Jews in 1800 were not "restoring" Israel, it was up to Gentiles of forgotten Israelite descent to take up that awesome end-times task.

    Like Richard Brothers in England, leaders of the Wood group were pronouncing Israelite lineage upon their disciples.Like Richard Brothers in England, leaders of the Wood group were also applying apocalyptic biblical predictions to their own neighborhood -- far from the Holy Land. Nathaniel Wood quite likely borrowed his European-Israelite ideas from Richard Brothers' book or from Richard Brothers news reports printed in New England newspapers. The Wood group made use of divining rods to confirm that European-descended Vermonters were indeed "Israelites" unaware of their origin and destiny. But it appears that Nathaniel was also claiming to receive direct revelation from God, just as Richard Brothers was doing at roughly the same time in England. If so, Wood could have dispensed of his witch hazel stick and pronounced Israelite genealogies, commands to gather, and directions to build a New Jerusalem directly from his own mouth -- just as Prophet Brothers was doing.

    One of Richard Brothers' great innovations was to bring biblical predictions home to his own land and people. While other would-be prophets no doubt did much the same in ages past, Brothers' immoderate interpretation of ancient scripture and claims of divine revelation struck a religious response both in England and in far off New England. If Brothers could claim revelations from God predicting an impending all-destructive earthquake on his home ground, 'why could not Nathaniel Wood, In Middletown, Vermont not do the same? If Brothers could call for a pre-millennial gathering of the chosen of God at his end of the Atlantic, why could not Yankee religious extremists do the same at their end of the Ocean?

    The Nathaniel Wood group may have not copied Richard Brothers line for line and precept for precept, but he is a likely source for several of their own innovations in Middletown at the end of the 18th century. The one compelling element they added to this heady mix was the notion that a gathering of Israel could be carried out on American soil -- without the need of a migration all the way back to restore the old Jerusalem. In fact, a NEW Jerusalem could be built in America, populated by newly minted Yankee Israelites. All that was missing from the Wood group's doctrine was the belief that American Indians were also Israelites, equally entitled to gather with their white brethren to a New World Zion. Twenty years later that missing tenet would be supplied by Mordecai M. Noah -- completing the foundation for the later Mormon doctrine of an Israelite gathering and latter day temple-building "on the borders of the Lamanites."


     
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