This Most Beautiful System Of

The Prophecies Of Daniel Are All Of Them Related To One Another, As If They Were But Several Parts Of One General Prophecy, Given At Several Times. The First Is The Easiest To Be Understood, And Every Following Prophecy Adds Something New To The Former.

The Kingdoms Represented By The Second And Third Beasts, Or The Bear And Leopard, Are Again Described By Daniel In His Last Prophecy Written In The Third Year Of Cyrus Over Babylon , The Year In Which He Conquered Persia. For This Prophecy Is A Commentary Upon The Vision Of The Ram And He-goat.

I See I Have Made Myself A Slave To Philosophy, But If I Get Free Of Mr. Linus's Business I Will Resolutely Bid Adew To It Eternally, Excepting For What I Do For My Private Satisfaction Or Leave To Come Out After Me. For I See A Man Must Either Resolve To Put Out Nothing New Or To Become A Slave To Defend It.

[1.] And First I Suppose That There Is Diffused Through All Places An Aethereal Substance Capable Of Contraction & Dilatation, Strongly Elastick, & In A Word, Much Like Air In All Respects, But Far More Subtile. 2. I Suppose This Aether Pervades All Gross Bodies, But Yet So As To Stand Rarer In Their Pores Then In Free Spaces, & So Much Ye Rarer As Their Pores Are Less ... 3. I Suppose Ye Rarer Aether Within Bodies & Ye Denser Without Them, Not To Be Terminated In A Mathematical Superficies, But To Grow Gradually Into One Another.

Henceforward The Christian Churches Having A Form Of Godliness, But Denying The Power Thereof, Came Into The Hands Of The Encratites: And The Heathens, Who In The Fourth Century Came Over In Great Numbers To The Christians, Embraced More Readily This Sort Of Christianity, As Having A Greater Affinity With Their Old Superstitions, Than That Of The Sincere Christians; Who By The Lamps Of The Seven Churches Of Asia, And Not By The Lamps Of The Monasteries, Had Illuminated The Church Catholic During The Three First Centuries.