the flesh and those according to the spirit, under great bondage and oppression, and shall be going onwards in his mad career against God and his anointed, and shall find the nations summoned and inspired of these three spirits of evil, all ready to muster under his eagle banner, when the Lion of the tribe of Judah shall come up from the swellings of Jordan to the habitation of the strong, bringing along with him those kings who came to the brightness of his rising; by whom he shall be discomfited as in Perazim and in the valley of Gibeon, as Belshazzar was by Cyrus, and the Assyrian by the breath of the angel of the Lord. Which being accomplished, the seed of Israel which were held captive under Babylon; that is, the remnant of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin which have for two thousand years been as it were entombed within the bowels of Rome; shall be set free by these kings from the rising of the sun : and the temple shall be built, and Jerusalem the blessed shall be raised up again in her beauty and her holiness, in her mighty strength and glorious magnificence, which "shall no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall her name any more be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah; for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married." And here the parallel ends; for with the destruction of the mystical Babylon these kings from the rising of the sun having nothing at all to do, as Cyrus had nothing at all to do with the destruction of the literal Babylon, which came not about till many centuries thereafter. Not so, however, with the mystical Babylon, which is destroyed under the next vial, and that by her own ten horns or kings,

under the instigation of Antichrist their head, before he is himself destroyed. By which you will understand that the whore or papal apostasy is destroyed by him, in order to make way for his personal usurpation of the power of Babylon, which the drunken woman heretofore overruled; in which having securely seated himself, he becomes the antitype of Sennacherib the Assyrian, and Belteshazzar the Babylonian, seated in the temple and worshipped as the one God, oppressing all the people who will acknowledge only the true God; and then it is when our Cyrus, with his kings from the East, cometh up against him to the habitation of the strong from the swellings of Jordan, by whom he is utterly overthrown, and the children of the Lord set free.

Now if any one ask me why I parallel these actions of Cyrus with that contained under this vial; 1 answer, that the language was my first guide, which is manifestly the language of that event; and being thereby led to examine the prophecies which have respect to Cyrus, as the subverter of the Babylonian power and the redeemer of God's people, I find it to include under it, and expressly to mention, this last deliverance which shall be accomplished by the tribes of Israel. The prophecy of the xlv th chapter of Isaiah, is every where too large and capacious for Cyrus, though to Cyrus it be given by name, and doubtless for Cyrus in the first instance written. For example, ver. 13, 14, "I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts. Thus saith the Lord, the labour of Egypt, and merchandize of Ethiopia, and of the Sabeans, men of

stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee, and there is none else; there is no God." This was not fulfilled of Cyrus, of whom it never could be said with any propriety that he was raised up in righteousness, being an idolater from his birth even to his death. Nor was the Jerusalem whose building he set on foot ever so triumphant, or so honoured among the nations; but perpetually vexed, plundered, and destroyed. And that which follows, in the 16th and 17th verses, was still less fulfilled: "They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols: but Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end." Neither, on the one hand, have idolaters all been ashamed and confounded together; nor, upon the other hand, hath Israel been saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. And the same may be said of all that strain of prophecy which occurreth from the xlv th to the xlix th chapters, concerning the destruction of Babylon, that Cyrus and his army are not able to do,-no human power is able to do the things which are foretold, and were foreshadowed under that great historical act of Cyrus, the shepherd of the Lord.

But this conviction, however strong, would not have borne out the conclusion that he was typical of Christ, and his army of the restored tribes of Israel, which we gather from the addi

tional light cast upon this subject by the prophet Jeremiah, in the 1th and list chapters, which are wholly dedicated to the overthrow of Babylon. In the former of which chapters, after the Lord had sufficiently described the northern nations which were to be the instruments of the destruction of the literal Babylon, and set forth her utter ruin for all her evil deeds, he proceedeth, in the latter of these to touch an higher strain, and fetch a further compass into the deep and veiled mysteries of future times; shewing us the mystical Babylon of the Apocalypse, with her golden cup (ver. 7), even she that dwelleth upon many waters (ver. 13), and thus describeth the instruments of her destruction: "The Portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance; the Lord of hosts is his name. Thou art my battle-axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations; and with thee will I destroy kingdoms; and with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider with thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid: I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers. And I will render unto Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea, all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the Lord." (ver. 19-24.) Than which passage nothing can be

more demonstrative of the use which the Lord shall make of "Jacob, his portion, and Israel, the rod of his inheritance," in the overwhelming of the last king of Babylon, and the redemption of his people from her bondage. This shews us of whom the northern nations, with Cyrus at their head, were typical; even of the tribes under the leading of Him whose name is the Lord of Hosts. The same inference is to be derived from the xiii th chapter of Isaiah, which consisteth of two parts, the universal overthrow of nations in the day of the Lord, and the particular overthrow of Babylon by the Medes; which yet are not separate subjects, but one subject, the thing typified and the type, the general rule and the individual example. Now, those who are to do in the general what the Medes do in the particular are thus described: "Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land." (ver. 2-5.) These names, "my sanctified ones,-even them that rejoice in my highness," I can apply only to the Jewish tribes; and if any will apply them to the idolatrous Medes and Persians, I ask when did they do those mighty and wonderful things which are