to evince his real nature and character, and to establish the truth and completion of prophecy. And the benefits of these presages and warnings to the afflicted churches, which have been exposed to the fraud and malice of the Archdeceiver for twelve centuries, is not easily ascertained at this distance both of place and of time. They may have contributed to support them under their sufferings, and to preserve them from delusion; and they may enable them, at no distant period, to turn all the force of truth realised, and of prophecy completed before their eyes, against the hollow and treacherous subtleties of the false prophet. Even to us the subject is neither deficient in interest nor devoid of instruction. It shows the wisdom and foreknowledge of God; his care for his truth, and his love of his church. It unfolds the deepest fraud and malice of the devil, and evinces the most deadly craft and cruelty of the serpent. We witness in it the triumph of Christian truth even in the too general apostasy of its former friends, and the shortlived successes of its enemies. We trace the meaning and the motive of the sacred premoni

γαμειν,

diction, 1 Tim. iv. subverted and prevented marriage, kwλVOVTWV yaμay, "preventing or hindering marriage," not forbidding it according to our translation; polygamy breaks the marriage ring, and violates the marriage bed; it destroys its REALITY as well as its purity, which can only subsist between one man and one woman; whilst, at the same time, it does not FORBID it.

tions and the prophetic warnings, and we are enabled to thread and to disentangle the mazy plan of Providence, to adjust the true use, and to contemplate and to admire the profound scheme of prophecy * †.

ተ.

* "Commanding to abstain from meats." 1 Tim. iv. 2. See White's Bampton Lectures, Sale's Koran, Mills's History of Mahometanism, Neale, Hippolytus, Ephrem Syrus, Irenæus de Antichristo, Andreas Cæsariensis, Chrysostom, Augustine, Theodoret, and in general the fathers on the same subject. Jerome on Daniel. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ix.

† St. Peter and St. Jude unite in depicting and characterizing the blasphemy and apostasy of Mahometans; they both confessedly refer to the same subject, and to the same individuals, who were to commit the same excesses and to be guilty of the same crimes-to deny the only Lord Jesus Christ, and to turn the grace of God into wantonness, going after strange flesh like the people of Sodom; to despise authority, that is, lawful authority, by promoting rebellion; or if Kupшτntos be understood of the Lordship of Christ, it will denote that they deny his majesty and his divinity; to blaspheme or speak evil of dignities, dokas, which with Ecumenius, Stockius, and others, we must understand of the angels or bishops of the churches, who are the stars in Christ's right hand, and are said by St. Paul to be "the glory of Christ *,"" the glory of the stars is the beauty of heaven +;" and Philo says, "I consider the hosts which surround thee and attend thee to be thy glory," and we know how greatly the ministers of Christ are reviled and persecuted by Mahometans. They are likewise said to promise pardon for the most flagitious vices and the greatest atrocities, to foam out their own shame, to be wandering stars or false prophets, a star

* δοξα Χριστου. † ουρανου καλλος δοξα αστρων. Η δοξην δε σην ειναι νομιζω τας σε δορυφορουσας δυναμεις.

being the symbol of a prophet or teacher, as appears from the Apocalypse; to speak" most extravagantly proud things *;" the very word made use of in the Septuagint, to express the blasphemies of Antichrist and of his followers; they are also called" scoffers," or "mockers +," because they scoff at the Resurrection of Christ, and deride his coming to reward his followers, and to judge the world, the grand truth of the Gospel, and the chief hope and consolation of the church calling those who believe it and expect it" Christian dogs," &c. &c. ; they were, moreover, typified by Cain, the murderer; by Balaam, the false prophet, teaching fornication; and by Korah rebelling against Moses, and constituting himself the high priest of the Lord. From all which it appears that both those Epistles, together with Enoch himself, spoke of those men who were so far to incense the Most High, as to furnish a particular motive and reason for hastening his coming to punish their blasphemies and to destroy the world.

SECTION VI.

THE FOUR MONARCHIES.

THAT the four metals of gold, silver, brass, and iron, in the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, in his celebrated dream, recorded in the second chapter of Daniel, and the four beasts seen by the prophet himself in his seventh chapter, in different ways betokened and characterized the four grand successive monarchies of the world, is almost universally admitted; it is asserted in the prophecy itself, and is evinced and explained at great length by various writers on the prophecies, viz. Bishops Chandler and Newton, Mr. Mede, Dr. Moore, and the commentators in general. These four great kingdoms, or monarchies, viz. the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman empires, had been most signally favoured by Providence, and peculiarly honoured above all others of their respective rank and times. They had been blessed with the bright beams of truth and virtue, and the invaluable advantages of revealed religion. They had been in the immediate vicinity of the church of God, and in actual contact with it; they had enclosed it within the precincts of their sway, and had involved its fates and fortunes in the various cir

cumstances of their history. They were, therefore, in this way closely and deeply connected with the best interests of our being, and the most essential and important objects and prospects of mankind and as they greatly affected the condition, and influenced the extension and the prosperity of the church and people of God, they had more than once attracted the notice, and engaged the attention and the investigation of the prophets, and are repeatedly symbolized and delineated in their visions and parables. They are hence seen also by the prophet Zechariah, and denoted by four chariots drawn by red, black, white, and grisled and bay horses, variously to represent and distinguish them. And no other kingdoms, or monarchies, were foreshowed or regarded by the spirit of truth and of prophecy, because no other were so intimately associated with the designs of Providence for the preaching of the truth, and the well-being of religion; nor were so instrumental in promoting the advancement, and the establishment, of Messiah's kingdom and glory in the world. And so far most prophetic writers and interpreters are agreed. But it seems not to have been generally observed nor admitted by them, that they are again seen and symbolized by the last and the apostolic prophet in the Apocalypse, and are presented in vision to St. John, not, as before, under the symbols of four wild beasts, or four chariots, but under those