88 Memoir of John Napier, 



such premises, nor even examine too punctiliously, if the 

 number, already very considerable, of the elements admitted 

 as bases, increased, in the course of discussion, by a sufficient 

 number of other hypothesis, has not very much weakened, 

 speaking in a worldly point of view, the mathematical pro- 

 bability of the final deductions. I admit, then, if necessary, 

 all this ; confessing myself unable to dispute it ; and I shall 

 thus be forcibly conducted to the necessary logical conclu- 

 sion that the Pope is certainly Antichrist ; that he is also 

 Gog, as the emperor of the Turks is Magog, and his soldiers 

 the locusts of the Apocalypse. Besides that, there have 

 been twenty-two popes, horrible necromancers, who were 

 obliged to become perpetual slaves of the devil, in order to 

 become popes ; as this is equally established in the book of 

 Napier, prop. xxv. The beast with two horns is antichrist 

 alone and his kingdom, p. xxvii. The pope alone is the 

 antichrist, particularly predicted by the prophets, p. xxxii. 

 Gog is the pope, and Magog, the Turks and Mahometans ; 

 twenty-two popes, necromancers and slaves of the devil, 

 p. xxxvi. The locusts are the Turks. 



But, among his conclusions, there is one which ought to 

 be equally indubitable, and which, by its logical connexion 

 with the others, evidently communicates to them its char- 

 acter of necessity. It is that, according to the 14th propo- 

 sition of Napier, " the Day of Judgment ought to happen 

 between the years of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1688 & 1700; " 

 from which, according to the 10th proposition, " the end of 

 the world terminates in 1786, and rather before than after 

 it." This is a consequence of which I cannot, it is true, 

 contest the truth, as it follows logically from the premises, 

 but, I confess, that it appears to me difficult to receive it ; 

 and it is, perhaps, because it produces the same effect upon 

 other simple minds, that the Commentary of Napier upon 

 the Apocalypse is not read so frequently, at present, as 

 might be desired, as his biographer complains. Newton, 

 also, it is known, has commented on the Apocalypse, but 

 he has not undertaken so extensive a field as his Scotch 

 predecessor. " The folly of preceding interpreters," says 

 he, (folly is a strong word) " has been in wishing to predict 

 times and things by their prophecies, as if God had designed 

 to make them prophets." Thus, Newton confines himself 



