There seems to be such a concurrence of causes and predictions centring in this time, that it looks very much like the approach of those days before spoken of, out of divine writ. To those before mentioned, I will add part of a prophecy, as it is given us by the author of the Turkish Spy, who says that he met with a person at Astracan, called the Travelling Jew, who positively asserted in the open streets, that after the year 1700, the Turks shall overflow Christendom like a mighty torrent, when there will be a great desolation in Hungary, Germany, France, and other regions in the West; but above all others, Italy will be made a perfect wilderness; that England shall become the refuge of all that escape the calamities overwhelming the adjacent countries; and there (he says) they will be shewn a new pattern of the Law of JESUS, or rather the old and true one, freed from the corruptions and errors which have been superinduced for many ages, when the Jews will be convinced of their infidelity, and chase away darkness and superstition from the earth. In those days (says this Jew) foreign princes shall send their ambassadors to the king of Great Britain for holy and pious teachers to instruct them. Mighty armies shall be raised in the North, which shall be joined by a prodigious army, collected in other parts of Christendom, which shall drive out the Turks, recover from them the Holy Land, and gloriously rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and make a worthy and excellent Englishman Patriarch of the same. Then shall the eyes of us Jews (says he) be opened; and we shall all acknowledge JESUS to be the true MESSIAS.
MOORE in his observations says, that these times look something like a preparation for the destruction of Antichrist. We know his destiny is near at hand; and it is with good reason expected, that great advances will be made towards that good work this very year (viz.) 1750.
The Turks have a traditionary prophecy among them which says that they are at last to be destroyed by a Northern nation, which have a white and yellow hair.
The pious Archbishop Usher was of opinion, that the last persecution would fall upon all the Protestant churches in Europe, but with this difference: in the former, the most eminent Ministers and Christians did generally suffer; but in this last persecution, these shall be preserved by God; which shall immediately follow as soon as the storm is over, which shall take away the hypocrites and formal professors of Christianity.