Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES LOUIS EDMUND WOOD PENSHURST r SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S DANIEL AND THE APOCALYPSE WITH AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY OF THE NATURE AND THE CAUSE OF UNBELIEF, OF MIRACLES AND PROPHECY BY SIR WILLIAM WHITLA M.P., M.D., D.Sc., LL.D. MERITU3 PROFESSOR QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST HON. MA., M.D., LL.D., AND D.SC. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W, 1922 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO WILLIAM BRAMWELL BOOTH GENERAL OF THE SALVATION ARMY WHO WITH HIS ILLUSTRIOUS FATHER HAS ACCOMPLISHED SO MUCH AMONG THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD TOWARDS THE HASTENING OF THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM PREDICTED IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY AND REVERENTLY DEDICATED 2000003 FOREWORD " AMONG these are certainly some rather dry and unattractive questions, in respect of which we must arm ourselves with pa- tience ; but they are all of the greatest practical importance. You meet a thousand times in life with those who, in dealing with any religious question, make at once their appeal to reason, and insist on forthwith rejecting aught that lies beyond its sphere, without however, being able to render any clear account of the nature and proper limits of the knowledge thus derived, or of the relation in which such knowledge stands to the religious needs of man. " I would invite you, therefore, to inquire seriously whether such persons are not really bowing down before an idol of the mind, which, while itself of very questionable worth, demands as much implicit faith from its worshippers as divine revelation itself." THEODORE CHBISTLIEB, D.D. Vll PREFACE IT had been the intention of the author of the following lectures to issue a reprint of the forgotten classic of the great astronomer and philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, entitled Observations upon the Prophecies oj Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, published in 1733. The great astronomer died in 1727, having left the work in manuscript. It was printed in London as a small quarto. (It was included in Horsley's Collection 1779). A very considerable amount of its letterpress was in Latin, consisting of the quotations from the Edicts of the Emperors, and the Bulls of the Popes, as well as extracts from the early Fathers of the Christian Church, historians and Church Councils. Though it was very desirable that the reprint should be presented as an exact facsimile of the original volume, upon serious consideration it appeared necessary to have the Latin text translated into English, otherwise these portions of the book would have been intelligible only to scholars. It is needless to say that this decision was arrived at with regret, and only after balancing the arguments in favour of an exact facsimile which would be more acceptable to scholars and book-lovers with the advantages which ranged themselves on the side of practical usefulness. Accordingly, the translation of the Latin portions has been entrusted to Mr. W. H. Semple, B.A., assistant to the Professor of Greek at Queen's University, Belfast. Otherwise the reprint is an exact reproduction save for the substitution of modern type and the omission of the old f's. The frequent use of italics throughout the pages is in accordance with the MSS. of Sir Isaac Newton. x PREFACE In these days of highly expensive printing, another difficulty was encountered ; if the book was to reach any considerable number of readers, its price must be made as moderate as possible. This obstacle is met by the issue of the present volume at a price not above the cost of publication. A word of explanation is necessary regarding the origin of the introductory portion of the book. A few months ago the writer was earnestly requested to deliver an address on the book of Daniel to the members of the church to which he belongs by their minister. After considerable hesitation he assented, but on sitting down to think over such an address, its execution became an evident impossi- bility ; to say anything intelligible or helpful to an audience of laymen within the compass of a single communication or speech about the prophecies in the book was not possible without an attempt to clear away the doubts and mists of unbelief with which the Higher Critics had succeeded in enveloping this sacred record. The solitary address gradually lengthened itself into a series of five lectures, and still left the undertaking far from completion. The lectures are printed verbatim, as they were delivered ; they are not to be taken in any sense as an attempted com- mentary or series of explanatory notes on the work of the illustrious philosopher. Such a presumption never once entered into their author's mind, and he hopes it will not seem an absurdity or folly that his more or less crude reflections should be placed inside the same cover in proximity with the august and scholarly researches in this two-hundred-year-old gem of Biblical literature. His only excuse or apology might be stated to lie in the fact that, when this antique volume was written, the destructive German critic had not appeared above the horizon. If a devout student of the present time should succeed in arriving at a clear understanding of the truths entombed in the book of Daniel he would soon meet some confident mentor who would be certain to assure him that all his labour was folly, as the scholars had proved the book PREFACE xi to be a forgery, .and the higher critics had long since entirely demolished its authenticity. These lectures are an attempt to make clear the unreality of the modern criticism, and to leave open the study of the book of Daniel as it was when Newton in strong and childlike faith lent his mighty intellect to the study of this fascinating record. Should the introductory portion of this volume prove an entire failure, there is left to the author the solid conso- lation that he has been highly privileged in his Master's service by being permitted to restore to the Biblical student Sir Isaac Newton's valuable contribution to the study of the Babylonian prophet. WILLIAM WHIT-LA. LENNOXVAXE, BELFAST. March 1922. CONTENTS PART I INTRODUCTION TO SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S DANIEL AND THE APOCALYPSE CHAPTER I SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF Spiritualism, Rationalism The Supernatural, natural laws, miracles Views of scientific men Dallinger on the harmony of miracle and science Vegetable life a miracle Christianity rests on a miracle Evolution Theory and the Genesis record Einstein Theory Ether and God pp. 3-17 CHAPTER II THE HIGHER CRITICISM IN RELATION TO UNBELIEF Two types of Higher Criticism : the English and German Textual criti- cism most valuable A warning The Shakespearean theories The Higher German Criticism The result not the cause of unbelief Cheyne and Driver and Farrar Failure of the Higher Criticism, and Emil Reich's verdict pp. 18-26 CHAPTER III THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF Unbelief very often unconsciously assumed Study of the commonest type of infidel or rationalist The five special senses: abnormalities of these; colour-blindness and music-deafness Theologians' views of faith Belief, or faith, a sixth special sense Analogies with the other composite senses Atheist as a God-blind or God-deaf person with imperfectly developed brain-centre for belief faculty Responsibility Inspiration, Prophecy, miracle, prayer (wireless telegraphy) considered from this point of view ........ pp. 26-44 xiii xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF Nature and function of prophecy, not mere foretelling Classification : Fulfilled and unfulfilled predictions Vital importance of a knowledge of the former group Prophecy-mongering Higher Criticism views Date of the older books Lost book of the Law a forgery Debt to the Hebrew race ........ pp. 45-66 CHAPTER V THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES Modernist views Symbolic Prophecy Messianic prophecies to be studied as a complete picture and not piecemeal Necessity for cryptic language List beginning in Paradise Events from birth of Christ till the Ascension foretold Genealogy of Matthew and Luke contrasted Passion, Cruci- fixion, Burial predictions Psalm xxii. analysed Summary of fulfilment pp. 57-69 CHAPTER VI THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF Sketch of period Gap between Old and New Testament history Antio- chus Epiphanes Testimony of Ezekiel Pseud epigrapha Testimony of Christ on the authenticity of the book .... pp. 70-77 CHAPTER VII DANIEL AND THE CLOSING OF THE CANON Testimony of Josephus and of the writer of Esdras The Great Synagogue The Hagiographa Evidences of date from Maccabees, Baruch, Sirach and other Apocryphal books Josephus and Alexander the Great Evolu- tionary theory of the Modernists ..... pp. 7885 CHAPTER VIII ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL German critics and the authorship and date of Daniel Surrender of Jehoiakim Identity of Balshazzar proven by monumental evidence Darius the Mede and the tablet of Cyrus Ezra, chap. v. Objections based on philology disproven Doctrine of Angels . . pp. 86-94 CONTENTS xv CHAPTER IX THE PROPHECIES IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL Nebuchadnezzar's dream The Kingdom of Christ The vision of the four beasts The little horn of the fourth (Roman) beast Identification of this with the Papacy Kingdom of Christ again foretold Time and times and half a time Revelation xiii. The prophetic " year" Vision of ram and he-goat The little horn of the Greek goat The prophetic time in the last verses of the book Vision of the tenth chapter Alex- ander's generals Other prophecies in this chapter . . pp. 95-116 CHAPTER X THE PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS Daniel's prayer and the period of the Desolations This prophecy the Keystone of Christianity Isaac Newton's view of the starting-point The Second Advent The 62 weeks of verse 26 The four decrees of the Persian Emperors Sixty-nine weeks fulfilled to the day in the pro- clamation of the Messiah The different messiahs of the German critics : Cyrus, Zerubbabel, Onias and Seleucus Philopater The Seventieth Week still unfulfilled .1 ...... pp. 117-128 PART II PART I OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL CHAPTER I Introduction concerning the Compilers of the Books of the Old Testa- ment .... pp. 139-148 CHAPTER II Of the Prophetic Language . ..... pp 149-153 xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER III Of the vision of the Image composed of four Metals . pp. 154-156 CHAPTER IV Of the vision of the four Beasts ..... pp. 157-159 CHAPTER V Of the Kingdoms represented by the feet of the Image composed of iron and clay pp. 160-169 CHAPTER VI Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast pp. 170-187 CHAPTER VII Of the eleventh horn of DANIEL' 8 fourth Beast . . pp. 188-197 CHAPTER VIII Of the power of the eleventh horn of D ANIEL' s fourth Beast, to change times and laws .... .... pp. 198216 CHAPTER IX Of the Kingdoms represented in DANIEL by the Bam and He-Goat pp. 217-224 CHAPTER X Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks . . . . pp. 225-234 CHAPTER XI Of the Times of the Birth and Passion of Christ . . pp. 235-250 CHAPTER XII Of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth . . .pp. 251-266 CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER XIII Of the King who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every God, and honoured MAHUZZIMS, and regarded not the desire of women pp. 267-272 CHAPTER XIV Of the MAHUZZIMS, honoured by the King who doth according to his will pp. 273-291 PART II OBSERVATIONS UPON THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN CHAPTER I Introduction, concerning the time when the APOCALYPSE was written pp. 295-307 CHAPTER II Of the relation which the APOCALYPSE of JOHN hath to the Book of the Laws of MOSES, and to the worship of God in the Temple . pp. 308-321 CHAPTER III Of the relation which the Prophecy of JOHN hath to those of DANIEL ; and of the Subject of the Prophecy . . . .pp. 322-342 ADVERTISEMENT The last pages of these observations having been differently drawn up by the author in another copy of his work ; they are here inserted as they follow in that copy, after the 37th line of the 312th page foregoing. pp. 343-351 INDEX pp. 353-356 2 PART I INTRODUCTION TO SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S DANIEL AND THE APOCALYPSE BY SIR WILLIAM WHITLA CHAPTER I SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF AT no period in the history of Christianity since Pentecostal days has there been such a widespread spirit of unbelief as exists at the present time. In passing, let me remind you that this has been foretold as an unmistakable sign of the " latter days " which are to terminate the present dispensation. Alongside of this unbelief there has arisen, because of the late war and its aftermath of unrest and sorrow, an earnest desire upon the part of many thoughtful people to look more deeply into the problems of life and of the hereafter. It is perhaps true to say that at no period in the history of the human race has there been manifested a more intense longing to pierce the veil which divides us from the spirit-land, and to catch a glimpse if happily we may find it into the future destiny of the world on which we live. We see these longing desires manifested in the remarkable activity in thought and in research directed to the domains of Spiritualism and Prophecy. In the present stage of our knowledge, or rather of our ignorance, both of these are commonly regarded as belonging to the sphere of the super- natural. Though it is with the domain of Prophecy that the following pages have to deal, a brief word may be permitted in passing on the present position of the so- called science of Spiritualism. The current literature of the day is teeming with reports some of which are emanating from men eminent in science and literature about researches and investigations in the realm of the spirit world. A much larger proportion of these however owe their origin 3 4 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF to untrained and unscientific minds which are bringing the entire subject into ridicule and even obloquy, just as the past and present prophecy-mongers have brought derision upon those devout scholars who have attempted to illuminate the field of unfulfilled prophecy. Upon the whole the results of experimental research in the spirit sphere must be regarded at the present stage of investigation as disappointing, a careful sifting out of the facts already discovered when separated from the mass of theories and assumptions regarding thought-reading, thought-transference, telepathy, suggestion and other functions of the subconscious mind should compel the searcher after truth to adopt the attitude of "an open mind " till conclusive proof of communication with the spirits who have passed over has been demonstrated. This cannot be said to have been proven by the results so far achieved. If we can ever hope to arrive at the final haven of truth it can only be by steering straight between the whirlpools of credulity and scepticism ; it is difficult to estimate which is the more formidable peril a gross state of super- stition which greedily accepts every marvel or a self- satisfied rationalism which scornfully rejects every fact and problem not susceptible of solution by the unaided reason. We shall deal at length with these mental pecu- liarities or configurations later on. Our present purpose is to deal with that form of unbelief which tends towards the rejection of Divine inspiration as revealed in the Scrip- tures of the Old and New Testaments. The most disquieting fact however lies not in the mere increase in the number of unbelievers. The position of to-day as contrasted with that of a quarter or half a century ago consists in the fact that the moral leprosy has eaten into the very heart of the Church itself. As we shall see, the spread of unbelief amongst the multitude who seldom attend the service of any church is more apparent than real. We constantly hear the anointed ambassadors of Christ unblushingly deny the inspiration SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 5 of the Bible, the possibility of prophecy and miracle, and the divinity of our crucified and risen Saviour. There is however one gleam of comfort to my auditors, in the deep gloom surrounding the political situation in our beloved island when we deplore such falling off. I am convinced that the Protestant Churches in Ireland are still cherishing, and as they never cherished before, their strong faith in God and in His revealed will. Doubt- less our advanced brethren in England pity us as being quite behind the times in this respect. God grant that we ever shall remain so, without any haze of Modernism or cloud of Rationalism to weaken our vision of His radiant presence. Time does not permit me to enter into an elaborate analysis of the degrees or varieties of unbelief scepti- cism, atheism, pantheism, deism, agnosticism, materialism, rationalism, etc. The parent of all these is rationalism, and it may in a general sense be made to stand for them all. As commonly defined : Rationalism is a system which makes reason supreme in all matters oj religion. Rejecting revelation, it attempts to derive all truth Jrom mere human reason. To make our subject as simple as possible, it will suffice to confine our attention to a still shorter definition : Rationalism or Unbeliej denies the possibility oj the Super- natural. This brief sentence brings the conception of the nature of unbelief within the compass of a nut-shell. Put out of your thoughts the numerous confusing and conflicting *' isms " and grasp the simple truth that the absence of faith, or unbelief, for all practical purposes simply means inability or incapacity to accept the supernatural, and in its most advanced form means inability to accept the existence of a personal God and of His Son, Jesus Christ, made manifest in the flesh. We must next consider what is meant by the word " supernatural." It is something which is beyond or above the established course or laws oj nature. 6 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF Perhaps no scientific man of the present day would venture to affirm that he thoroughly understands or knows all that may ultimately be expected to be known about any single law of nature. Some event, appearance, or phenomenon which our reasoning powers fail to explain as being the result of the operation of any known natural law is regarded as supernatural. Science discovers the unknown and mysterious law to-morrow and the " marvel " is relegated properly to the domain of the natural, and can be reproduced and repeated at the will of the discoverer. This is observed in the development of the new popular science wrongly called " Spiritualism." Many of the phenomena about whose reality there cannot be a shadow of doubt are obviously the result of the operation of some natural law or laws of which we at present know absolutely nothing. For example, a chair, table, or other piece of furniture is seen suspended in mid-air, without any visi- ble aid, in opposition to the law of gravitation. In this position it is photographed by an honest photographer. The votaries of spiritualism affirm that the material object is raised and supported in space by the aid of departed spirits. Just as reasonably might they maintain that the suspension or so-called levitation was due to the pattern of the wall -paper of the room in which the experiment was conducted. You tell the pedantic rationalist of this marvel ; he denies it ; he confidently affirms no such thing ever happened, or ever can happen. You show him the photograph ; he scornfully glances at it and replies with a sneer that it is " faked," the story is a lie, a fraud, or a mere delusion, like the appearance of the angelic host at Mons or the presence of the Angel at Euston Railway Station as reported a few months ago. I wish you to notice that this is the exact attitude of the rationalistic unbeliever with regard to miracles. He denies the possibility of such a phenomenon, simply because his reason fails to explain how it was brought about, and he almost feels himself to be worthy of being regarded as a man of science by denying it. Before viewing SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 7 the subject of miracles, in the searching light of true and most advanced science, permit me to quote the powerful pronouncement of an able and scholarly divine, the Rev. A. H. T. Clarke, in The Nineteenth Century, January 1921 : " The miraculous means the impinging of what we call the Supernatural order upon the so-called Natural order. In theory we may say that in the Supernatural order God acts directly, in the Natural indirectly. But what after all is the so-called Natural order ? It is no more than the few sequences of phenomena we are able with our local instruments to observe and classify. A miracle according to Hume's ingenious sneer is contrary to human experience. And if it were not, it would cease to be a miracle. If so, then before the microscope was invented we must have disbelieved in the animalculae that inhabit our bodies, or before Newton was born we must have denied gravitation, or, before Huxley had grown old, the fact of radium ! And there are still some who deny such modern discoveries of psychic research as the fact of levitation. With St. John, miracles are no isolated wonder. They are natural radiations from the personal magnetism of the eternal Son, displaying not casual proof of superhuman power, but visible flashes of that really abiding deathless world which was His home. And how could such a person come into our world as the universal Church bears witness that He did and display the perfect freedom of His own perfect will without (to us miraculously) disturbing the orderly sequence of His own creation ? If miracles did not happen, then He never ' dwelt amongst us ' and His Church is built either upon a pleasant dream or a deliberate lie when it proclaimed Him, in the words of Anselm, Aut Deus aut non bonus. On this ground of the miraculous so confidently denied by some modernist Bishops, and some modernist Deans, as true representatives of the modern logic-ridden mind the Church of the Future must be prepared to give battle, or go down to the dust- heaps of a benighted superstition." Let us now look at the subject of miracles from the 8 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF standpoint of the scientist who still retains his belief in a personal God, for we must not lose our sense of pro- portion ; because hostile critics glibly quote scientific statements which often they do not understand, this is no reason why one should think that revealed religion and science are antagonistic, or opposed to each other. On the contrary, many of the greatest men of science that the world has ever known were men with the strongest faith in God and the most devout believers in the inspiration of the Bible. It is generally, indeed, nearly always, the man with a superficial acquaintance with the laws and facts of science who holds forth loudly against belief. In no other sphere or domain of knowledge is the truism so appli- cable A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Bacon, who is often called the Father of Science, said the same thing and applied it to the influence of a knowledge of science upon the conception of God : " A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." One hundred years later we find the greatest human intellect, possibly, with the exception of that of Shakespeare Sir Isaac Newton devoutly unfolding the secrets of Daniel's mys- terious prophecies and visions with a simple childlike faith that has never been excelled. I shall have the privilege at a subsequent lecture of surprising you with some of his discoveries in the domain of interpretation as handed down to us in the forgotten English classic written by our greatest astronomer and scientist. It was a joy in my own life to have possessed the sacred friendship of one of the most original of our medical scientific pioneers. In the earlier years of our intercourse I can recall his attempts in solemn or serious conversation to explain the miracles by the application of the ordinarily accepted methods of obtaining results by man's ingenuity SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 9 in employing natural laws. For example, he Sir Lauder Brunton was quite convinced that Joshua, the son of Nun, was an expert sapper and miner who mined the foun- dations of the walls of Jericho before submitting them to the powerful trumpet-blasts and the loud rhythmic shouts of the myriads of fighting men. As my friend grew older and his scientific researches led him more deeply into the secrets of nature and nearer to the heart of the great Creator he found complete rest by accepting the divine record without reservation. It was my great privilege to be with him towards the end of his saintly and pure life, and I almost felt that it would not have been an incon- ceivable thing for a chariot of flame to have carried him home in triumph. Some of us are old enough to remember the tempest of indignation which was aroused in our Belfast religious world by the Presidential Address of Professor Tyndall when the British Association visited our city in the early seventies of last century. It was banned as subversive of all faith in God and the author was held up as infidelity and atheism incarnate in most of our churches, and we still occasionally hear his name paraded by rational- ists as one of the champions of unbelief. Many years afterwards when he revisited Belfast he was suffering from an incurable form of insomnia or sleeplessness. I was introduced to him by his kind host as a physician who might be able to afford him some relief. He was profoundly depressed, and shaking his head despairingly he replied by stating his malady was beyond the range of art ; but suddenly looking up intently he exclaimed : " Yes, you can do me some good ; if you are a religious man you can pray for me." In after-years, as I got to know him more intimately, I am convinced that he spoke from deep con- viction. A friend of his early days has related to me that on one occasion, after many conversations with Professor Tyndall on the subject of religion, he said to him seriously, ** Ah, my friend, you have got something which I don't possess." There was a deep meaning in this expression, if you recall it to memory after our next lecture. I 10 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF mention these incidents which may seem trivial because public utterances of the man of science should not be accepted without a study of their context, when they refer to matters of faith ; often they are but a protest against some ignorant credulity or superstition, which is itself always an injury to true belief. We may well wish that many of our religious teachers were as true in their belief as was the greatest popular exponent of science of the last century. I should weary you by the mere enumeration of men of science who were at the same time men of strong religious faith. We are sitting almost within sight of the statue erected to the memory of the illustrious Lord Kelvin, who was a devout believer and student of the sacred oracles, and anyone who had heard his opening prayer at the com- mencement of his daily lecture in the University of Glasgow could never doubt his sincerity. I was recently struck by a remarkable utterance of Herbert Spencer made in his later years. We hear his views quoted like those of Tyndall in support of unbelief . He says: " Thus I have come more and more to look calmly on forms of religious belief to which I had in earlier years a pronounced aversion." Professor Arthur Thomson, one of our greatest authorities in Natural Science and an exponent of Darwinism and Evolution, stated recently : "Nor can it be said that science engenders an irreverent spirit ; the biographies of all the greatest scientific investigators show the reverse. The irreverent and the unwondering are to be found amongst those who know least, not among those who know most." When we realize the high position of this authority in the world of science, we are justified in stating that this is the most convincing pronouncement ever made on behalf of science harmonizing with belief and religion. The unbeliever of the type mentioned, i.e. one of " those who know least," boasts that he cannot understand and there- fore does not believe his Bible. He exclaims, " I reject it : I worship what I can and do understand. My God is Science." Let such a one listen to what Lord Kelvin said SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 11 in his advanced age : " One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly during fifty-five years ; that word is ' failure.' I know no more of electric and mag- netic force or of the relation between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter than I knew when I tried to teach my students fifty years ago, in my first session as Professor." As far as I can remember in recent years, the Methodist Church could boast of only one distinguished man of science. He was however unique inasmuch as, whilst a minister of the Gospel, he occupied the high position of President of the London Microscopic Society. Dr. Dallinger was the first exponent of science to place in its proper light the relationship of the miracles recorded in the Bible with the principles of the laws of advanced science. It is with the miracles of the Bible that the man who has got a smattering of science has the bitterest quarrel. The common definition of a miracle is that it is something caused by a suspension, alteration, or reversal of the laws of nature. Such a definition could never be accepted by the scientific mind. The laws of nature can never change. It was Dallinger who altered this old conception of a miracle and smoothed away all difficulties and obstacles which had hitherto stood in the way of a recognition of the possibility of the fact of a miracle being accepted by science. The true scientist now looks at this matter in a totally different light. He is daily investigating and experimenting with these laws of nature, testing and weigh- ing them. He has learned that they were first called into being by some almighty Power for a beneficent object. What so natural to realize, what so obviously true, as that the great Creator of these laws can in a moment at His will control or so direct their operation as to produce any result which He requires ? Thus in Dallinger's view no miracle was ever performed by any change, suspension, or reversal of a natural law. Its accomplishment was always effected in full accordance with the operation of nature's laws divinely guided by 12 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF their Author and Creator for some special purpose or emergency. One might safely go further and reverently affirm that should any scientist discover, understand, and make him- self master of these laws he would be able to reproduce many of the miracles chronicled in the sacred record. It is impossible however to conceive that he could ever hope in his wildest dreams to attempt to perform the com- monest of all miracles prophecy. There is therefore nothing whatever to be said by science antagonistic to the possibility of miracles as the word is now understood. Nay, more, I believe that it is probable, if a miracle had never been performed on earth, and if the speculative question had been raised in an assembly of scientific men, " Is such a thing possible ? " the men of science would have answered in the affirmative. To the unbeliever well might we exclaim, Oh, foolish man, what is bewitching you ? You reject the Divine record of every miracle which cannot be explained by your own limited reasoning powers whilst every day before your eyes the little grain of wheat on being cast into the ground springs up into a plant bearing a hundredfold ; or the acorn drops upon the sod and there arises the stately oak of the forest. Truly you strain at the gnat and you swallow the camel. Do you look for the solution of the mystery in some generating influence in the seasons, or in some chemical action in the soil ? You can get your answer to the first question from the poet Thomson, who addresses the Seasons thus : These, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing spring Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm. Then comes Thy glory in the summer months With light and heat effulgent. Then Thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year. Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 13 Does the theory of some chemical action between the constituents of the soil and the germ in the seed satisfy you ? Pause and think ; into the same patch of brown mother-earth the gardener scatters a handful of mixed seeds, and there arise bells of beaten gold, chalices of burn- ished silver, blushing roses, and stately lilies decked with greater beauty than the rarest gems of earth, wafting odours of heavenly fragrance and shining with a lustre that vies with the loveliness of the stars " when only one is in the sky " ; fruits and flowers more gorgeous in their fresh- ness than all the panoply of the gaudy Court of Solomon. Then pause again and think if the Son of the great Creator during His brief sojourn on earth had thought it necessary to stretch forth His almighty hand in Palestine and com- mand a single petal to change its shape or colour the poor infidel of to-day would arise and blatantly protest that such a thing was impossible of belief. It is necessary to emphasize the folly of denying the truth of the recorded miracles, because very often if not always this is inseparable from the state of mind which rejects the very existence of a personal God. Moreover the founda- tions of Christianity rest on a miracle the keystone of the arch of our religion is a miracle the resurrection of our blessed Redeemer the stone which the builders rejected. It is one of the best-attested facts in history. Upon the truth of it rests our hope of immortal life. For if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your jaith is also vain. It was only the other day that I was struck during my study of the Gospels by what was to me a new aspect of this miracle. The *' raisings " from the dead recorded in the New Testament occur in persons who had died from disease and not from injury. This gives some ex- cuse to the sceptical mind for believing that the individuals were not really dead, but in a state of coma or trance, from which a natural recovery was possible. Even the case of the youth who fell from the upper story whilst Paul was preaching at Troas was not a case of raising, for the Apostle assured his auditors that " his life was in him." 14 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF In the example of Christ on the cross, the soldiers were satisfied that His injuries were already mortal, but in order that no possible doubt should ever arise, we have the witness of the beloved disciple John who tells us that he himself had witnessed the spear-thrust of the Roman soldier and the blood followed by water which flowed from the wound after the withdrawal of the weapon. The spear had certainly, from either the right or left side of the chest pierced the Saviour's heart, after entering the membranous sac or envelope which loosely surrounds the heart. Thus all conceivable doubts about the reality of absolute death are annihilated. It would be presumptuous of me to appear before you as a scientist in the sense in which I have used this term, but pardon this reference to myself when I explain that for more than half a century it has been my lot to be engaged as a student, practitioner, writer and professor of the science of medicine the one science which utilizes the results and discoveries of every other department of scientific activity. Almost, I may say hourly, it has been my duty to sift and weigh the value of evidence in the work- ing of the laws of nature in the human organism, in health and disease. Keeping always before my mind the subject on which I am now speaking, I have lately read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation three, times, and I have failed to find a single statement which is not reconcilable with the most recent advances in scientific discovery. Once only had I any difficulty when I came upon the passage " Thou sun, stand still on Gibeon," till I realized that this was merely a quotation from the lost book of poetical rhapsodies by Jasher. I find nothing in the Bible at vari- ance with the evidence marshalled in favour of the Theory of Evolution, the age of man on our planet, or with the history of the earth as told by the oldest and newest geo- logical formations. There is nothing in the history of controversy since its beginning about which so much so-called " scientific " SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 15 nonsense has been written as about the first chapter of Genesis. Science tells us uncontrovertibly that millions of years elapsed during the formation of the rocks before man appeared. The unbelievers rejoiced that each geological discovery demolished more and more completely the Biblical narrative, leaving not a fragment to survive. They forgot or overlooked the trifling point of punctua- tion. The sacred record begins thus : " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And we have a full stop after the word "earth," and there follows a new sentence, " And the earth was waste and void." There is no denial here of any necessary millions of years during the creation, and who is to limit the millions of years between the full stop and the next sentence ? Then again between the second and third verses there is another full stop or period indicating a further gap of possibly millions of years between the brooding over the face of the water and the creation of light. The word " moved " is translated properly in the margin as " was brooding upon " and im- plies continuous action. Here no reconcilement between religion and science is necessary. From the first line in the sacred oracle there is complete harmony. Then the Darwinian Theory of Evolution was sprung upon the Christian world on the top of innumerable discoveries of the remains of primitive man in the shape of beautifully chipped arrow-heads and cave decorations, which are believed by scientists to date back probably hundreds of thousands of years. "Here," they say, "we have the Bible proved at last to be a fable, and we need not wait to produce the ' missing link.' " Let us accept every item in the whole evolution doctrine, and agree that life first began in a little shapeless mass of unorganised protoplasm, and from its lowliest form in this, up the highest developments in the apes and gorillas, reached its fullest development in man, capable of endow- ment with such faculties as enabled him to chip flints for his arrows. These he learned the necessity for, in order to 8 16 SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF kill his prey, fight his enemies, protect his mate and defend his offspring. Science has been unable to give us any sugggestion or evidence that his higher moral faculties his sense of real right and wrong, his consciousness or sense of a higher invisible Power with whom he could hold communion, and whose will he was bound to obey that these Divine attri- butes could evolve, like his courage, instinct of self-preserva- tion, from the necessities of his environment. Even when we accept the evolution theory in its most advanced form, we are driven to acknowledge that at some developmental stage after the ape form a special miracle was necessary to introduce into primitive man's brute nature the Divine element or attributes. Genesis gives us the account of this missing link in his nature the soul added to the beast : 'i God said, Let us make man in our own image. . . . And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul. A hurricane has swept over the whole fields of science which marks 1921 as a most memorable year in the annals of philosophy. Einstein has launched his theory of space-time, fourth dimension, or relativity. This promises to shake many a scientific theory. I am not going to discuss it, for the simple reason that I am not yet able to grasp its vast possibilities for influencing human thought and reasoning processes. It will however interest you to know how it is likely to influence our conceptions of God and what effect it may probably have upon our faith and our interpretation of God's will as set forth in the inspired volume. Doctor Weldon Carr, Professor of Philosophy in the University of London, who has already been expounding the Einstein Theory in a volume published soon after the theory was launched, has within the past month been interviewed and reported in the Press as saying that : " it is going to produce a revolution in religious thought. Whilst drawing from the idea of a separate or transcendent SCIENCE AND UNBELIEF 17 God, it interprets and throws light upon the idea of an immanent God and can only be interpreted in terms of an immanent God a reality which in its very nature is life and consciousness. This leaves Materialism, as a world- view, in the air." This view of the Professor of Philosophy tempts me to accompany him in his aerial flight, and give utterance to a conception which has occupied my mind before relativity was sprung upon the scientific world, though I am sure it would excite a smile from the most speculative disciple of the doctrine of the fourth dimension. It is that the mysterious something which we call ether and which pervades the entire universe beyond the range of the fixed farthest star, which is at once as dense as steel and lighter than the faintest shadow of a cloud may yet be proved by science to be God Himself Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent or, if you choose to think of God residing in His heaven with Christ by His right hand, you may think of the ether as that Divine Spirit which pervades all space, all time and eternity, all dimensions, and capable of conveying to the throne of the Eternal every prayerful vibration of the believer's heart. Such a view (unlike that of Professor Carr's above mentioned) is not necessarily a pantheistic conception ; it is quite compatible with the belief in the existence of a transcendent personal God in opposition to the philosophy of Spinoza or of Hegel. CHAPTER II THE HIGHER CRITICISM IN RELATION TO UNBELIEF IN seeking an explanation of the spreading growth of unbelief, it is therefore, as we have seen, not to be found in any antagonism between faith and the rapid advance of scientific discovery ; we must look in another direction. It unquestionably will be found in the teaching of the Higher Criticism. Here at the start there must be no room left for mis- understanding. There are two distinct kinds of Higher Criticism. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, has been much illuminated by severe and searching criticism in the light of the increased knowledge of the day, especially in the researches made in the domains of ancient history, philology, monumental discovery, and the unearthing of the sites of past civilizations. It would be a poor guide to erring man if the sacred book failed to respond to the ordeal of the most exacting scrutiny upon the same princi- ples of strict and severe criticism as are to-day being ap- plied to writings of a merely secular character. The grand old book comes out of this test as gold refined in the furnace. As far as one has been able to judge, not a single inscription unearthed from the ruins of the cities of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt or Palestine has contradicted any statement in the Divine record. On the contrary, the monumental evidences hidden for thousands of years under the ruins of the cities of the East are now testifying to the accuracy of, or casting fresh light upon, the inspired chronicles. It is true we may have had to alter our views about the dates, arrangements or structure and even in a few cases of the authorship of one or two of the books in the Old Testament, 18 THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND UNBELIEF 19 as for example there is a very considerable agreement amongst scholars that the book of Isaiah was not all written by the son of Amoz, and that a section of it was written at a later date than that of the prophet's lifetime. This change of view should however excite no fear or uneasiness in the mind of any Christian. It may afford some comfort to those who are not familiar with this kind of criticism if I say that after a careful survey of the results of this minute examination of the Bible, line by line, I find my own faith strengthened and not weakened. More- over, I am absolutely convinced that the results of this severe, but fair scrutiny of the sacred volume has never made one believer into an infidel or atheist. Therefore I am compelled to say that we must still look in another direction for the cause of the spread of unbelief in these days. I cannot however leave the subject of this kind of criti- cism which starts with the sole object of testing and illumi- nating the truth without urging a caution. It may sound absurd and presumptuous in a layman to attempt a criti- cism of those scholarly men who have devoted their whole lifetime to the study of the Bible, and of the ancient languages interwoven in its fabric. It chanced to happen that before I commenced to look into the subject of the Higher Criticism I had been deeply interested in the endless controversy about the authorship of the works of Shake- speare, the dates and composite nature of some of the plays. I would not intrude this subject upon you were it not that it bears most closely upon any consideration of the question of judging the accuracy of the Bible from its own internal evidence. The early books of the Bible are given to us as the work of Moses, who lived 3,500 years ago, and they are written in a partially lost tongue. Shakespeare's works were printed only 800 years ago, and in our own language. Nearly every literary scholar in England for the last half- century has been studying the plays and poems. When these experts find some play which they think is due to the joint work of Shakespeare and some other dramatist of 20 THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND UNBELIEF his time, they proceed to examine it, line by line, so as to apportion the work to each. And what do we get as the result ? The parts which one weighty authority picks out as unquestionably Shakespearean are often the very lines selected by another great authority to demonstrate the fact that Shakespeare never saw the play. The Baconian theory is now discarded utterly. In 1914 we had an attempt made to prove that Sir Walter Raleigh was the real author. In 1919 a very able volume was published by Professor Abel Lefranc of Paris powerfully supporting the claims of William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby, under the title of Sous le Masque de Shakespeare. To prove still further the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding this comparatively simple problem, in 1920 a masterly volume appears from the pen of Looney, most plausibly and to many rather convincingly urging upon internal evidence that the entire plays and poems were the sole product of the genius of the Earl of Oxford of that day. Almost precisely the same results are seen in the attempts of those good men who have been led in the confidence of their great scholarship to piece out certain books, nay even to piece out certain chapters or verses of the Bible which they believe to be the sayings of different men living at different times. One Biblical scholar maintains confidently that this psalm was written by David, another of equal weight affirms from some slight peculiarity of style or structure that it was written after the Exile 500 or 600 years later. When one considers the difficulties of analysing a modern work like Shakespeare written in our own tongue and con- trasts them with the insuperable problem of dealing with writings in a partially lost language of 3,500 years ago we may well refuse to let our faith be disturbed by any Biblical alterations founded on points of philology or peculiarities of language. Many of these so-called alterations, though accepted as orthodox by scholars, are at their best but guesses. Their authors have been sometimes, apparently, merely casting THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND UNBELIEF 21 lots for pieces of the one seamless garment of eternal truth which refuses to be made by man into a patchwork. We now come to the consideration of another kind of criticism which we must unhesitatingly affirm to be the main cause of the unbelief of the present age. It is the source of all the poison which has paralysed the faith of hundreds of thousands. It is as different from the system about which I have been speaking as darkness is from light. For all practical pur- poses we may term it the German Higher Criticism, re- membering that there are still a very few eminent scholars in that land of " Kultur " who reject it just as there are, alas, very many in England who greedily accept its teach- ing and some who even outvie in credulity their most advanced continental leaders. Let us make no mistake the difference between the two systems of criticism is not one of degree ; it is a radical one. This is not merely a matter of opinion, but one capable of proof to a demonstration. I was about to say that at every point you could divide these two systems with a knife-edge, but I would rather put it that they are as widely divided as the Eastern and Western Hemispheres are separated by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The one system which, for convenience, I shall term the Old English Higher Criticism approaches the examination of the sacred oracles with the object of arriving at the truth and abiding by the results of the investigation. The other starts in sheer case-hardened unbelief, consciously or unconsciously denying absolutely the possibility of the supernatural. It may strike you as paradoxical that I should ask you to believe that these men are honest and actuated by a high motive. I believe that they are, or the majority of them are ; we can arrive at this conviction from a study of their psychological or mental state later on. Starting with a calm and firm belief that there cannot possibly be such a thing as divine revelation or inspiration, miracle or prophecy, they are convinced that the Bible 22 THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND UNBELIEF has been wrongly interpreted by the poor credulous people who swallow such impossibilities. Beginning with what is a pure assumption and having human reason for their sole deity, everything in the Old Testament which clashes with this foregone conclusion or assumption must be ruthlessly denied, destroyed, or explained away. It seems incredible to conceive the maze of absurdities in which they lose themselves ; at almost every turn they find themselves brought up suddenly by a granite rock of truth in some verse. This they lightly dispose of by some such stereo- typed phrase as, " Oh, this is obviously an interpolation, or addition, or gloss, by some later scribe, about which all scholars are agreed." The cardinal fact to be remembered is that never was one of these so-called German scholars turned from a believer into an atheist, infidel, sceptic or deist by the results of his investigations. Unbelief was the origin and cause of his criticism from the start. It cannot be too strongly reiterated that the German Higher Criticism is the fruit of unbelief. It was not their tearing of the Bible to pieces which made them unbelievers, but it was because they were infidels that they tried to tear it into fragments. Professor Pusey has pointed out that " this is simply an historical fact ; a matter of chronology. German unbelief was older than the modern German criticism. German rationalists were forced on their criticisms by the necessity of their position." Their confident assertions are most unfortunately accepted by those who regard these German atheists as scholars or men of learning without examining their methods minutely or plumbing their shallowness. So the poison is poured out from many an English pulpit, and on being swallowed by a man whose conscience tells him hourly that he is living at enmity with God it sears his conscience as does a red-hot iron his body and leaves him deaf to the still small voice within. This is not the occasion to criticize these critics ; perhaps in a future lecture I may take you over the ground covered by what is known as the Vatke-Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen-Stade rationalistic doctrine of the Pentateuch. I must content myself at present with only a few sentences summarizing my own experience of a searching study of this theory, which however I must say is not regarded in the light of a theory, but a series of established facts. Hearing from time to time quotations and scraps of this type of criticism which disquieted me not a little, I shrank from an investigation of it. About three years ago I become convinced that my attitude of mind was a cowardly one. If the orthodox Biblical view was fallacious it seemed better after all to know this than to live in a fool's paradise. I made the plunge and decided to abide by the consequences. I devoutly thank God that I did so. The light which I feared turned out to be not merely a will-o'-the wisp, but a mirage of the most silly speculations and groundless assertions, such as I had never before encountered in the study of any other subj ect . I found that the German Higher Criticism had nothing better to give me than the baseless assertion, unsustained by a single fact or sane argument, that no such personages as Abraham, Joseph, Joshua, Moses, or even David had ever existed. They were really astral myths, like Jupiter, Mars and Her- cules. Our own Canon Cheyne, who had written the lives of some forty of these expositors, out-Herods them all in some of their most advanced assertions ; and mark the deadly nature of his poisonous stuff. He states that " one of my chief grounds for advocating such a criticism is that it appears to me to be becoming more and more necessary for the maintenance of true evangelical religion." Evan- gelical religion ? If Abraham be a myth where is our hope to rest ? Destroy Abraham, and what becomes of our hope as Gentiles " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed " ? Do away with Abraham and Moses and you do away with Jesus Christ. Later on, when we approach the study of Daniel, we shall have to deal with others of our Anglo-German Higher Critics like Archdeacon Farrar, who calmly assures us that part of the book of Daniel is only a religious romance after the manner of one of Shakespeare's 24 THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND UNBELIEF plays, whilst Professor Driver on the same book stultifies himself in his feeble attempts to reconcile the views of the unbelievers with those of the true Christian. Pushed to their logical end, there is no escape whatever from the conclusion that according to the German Higher Criticism the whole of the Old Testament is a forgery. Lest some of you should think that my language is unwarrantably severe, let me conclude with a few remarks from Doctor Emil Reich, who has written several works on history and who candidly states that in his earlier years he fully believed in the " scientific character " of the Higher Criticism, but having learned more about Life and Reality, he has " come to the conclusion that it is bankrupt as a method of research and pernicious as a teaching of religious truth, a perversion of history and a desecration of religion, a method long abandoned and despised by all real students of history. It is as antiquated and obsolete as it is unsound and perverse, and stands condemned by history fully as much as by true religion." He says : " It must be made clear to the millions of honest people who want to use their Bibles as their strongest and most comforting consolation for life and after-life, that all the arguments of the Higher Critics have so far not been able to move a stone from the edifice inside which over a hundred generations have sought and found their spiritual bliss." To myself the view presented by the critics' reconstructed Bible appears exactly comparable with the descriptions of an harmonious landscape given by a man who has been blind from his birth, and I pledge myself to fairly demon- strate the truth of this simile later on. You will ask your- selves, how is it possible to apply such unqualified censure to the laborious researches of a host of men, many of them entitled to be called scholars ? After all, some of you may say these questions are matters of opinion and one side may be as well qualified to arrive at the truth as the other. Is there any possible explanation which can convince us that this type of criticism is out of court ? Is there any solution of the riddle that can convince a doubter that THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND UNBELIEF 25 these men are unworthy of serious attention and credence ? Remember there can be no compromise or reconcilement of the Higher Criticism of German origin with Christian belief ; there is no half-way house. I can confidently answer this question in the affirmative ; in the next lecture by the use of scientific methods I hope to explain the nature and cause of unbelief. CHAPTER III THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF WE come now to a study of the real nature, origin, and meaning of unbelief, keeping in mind our definition that Unbelief is the incapacity of the sceptical mind to accept or understand any phenomena belonging to what is usually understood as the Supernatural Sphere, in which are included our conception of a personal God, inspiration or revelation, miracles, prophecy, and prayer. A close observation and study of human character and mentality convinces us of two prevailing errors the ideal or typical infidel and the real genuine hypocrite are sup- posed to be common types of men this is not so ; both are comparatively rare. They are not to be met with at every street corner. It is a cheering reflection that we meet with very few Uriah Keeps and with comparatively few religious hypocrites men who steal the livery of heaven in order that they may wear it in the service of the devil the majority of those whom the world regards as hypo- crites are specimens of weak Christians, often with high ideals up to the standard of which they are unable to live, and their frequent falls are accepted as proof of their utter insincerity and hypocrisy, whilst we should consider them as objects of pity demanding help instead of scorn. We shall see presently how similar considerations apply to the type of a good man commonly regarded as an infidel. If unbelief then be a comparatively rare thing, why all this hubbub about its rapid spread inside and outside the Church ? Real Unbelief cannot be propagated like a mushroom or fungus. There must be no confusion here : the German Higher Criticism is the product of unadulterated 26 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 27 infidelity, as explained in the former address. Men living at variance with the will and laws of God seize gladly upon its crude theories and baseless assertions, greedily swallowing them in order to set conscience asleep, just as the opium-eater dopes himself with laudanum to indulge in a few hours of lethe. The clear thinker will presently see that the narcotic laudanum corresponds in the simile, not with real infidelity or atheism, for it is something very different. If we change the simile to a metaphor, still using medical phraseology, we may call this something " conscience salve.'" Everyone meets with men who delight in aggressively and often offensively airing their opinions on the absurdity of accepting any of the before-mentioned varieties of super- natural phenomena included in our definition of Unbelief. We leave out of consideration the honest doubter. He is in another category, and moreover, he is, as a rule, ominously silent about his religious or spiritual perplexities. It is the privilege of the observant physician to see deeper into true character than most men, even including clergymen. How often do we find the boastful or blatant unbeliever change his note on the advent of some suddenly prostrating illness, and notice how he blanches in terror when " the dark messenger, cloaked from head to foot," is waiting for him in the antechamber to lead him to the Judgment- seat of his Creator ! (The totally God-blind sceptic or rationalist has no bands in his death.) As a general rule you may take the following to be an explanation of the condition of heart and mind of the type of man commonly regarded as an infidel, or rationalist, or as he delights sometimes to call himself, a free-thinker. He is a man with a conscience which tells him daily and hourly that he is living in open or secret sin in violation of God's laws. He has always a fair and often a good knowledge of these laws ; probably, in his better days, he has struggled hard against his moral weakness, but he has long since g iven up the struggle as hopeless. As he feels the worm 28 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF gnawing at his heart, his only relief is to borrow and wrap himself in the mantle of unbelief. It is his great comfort to hold forth loudly on the doctrine of the non-existence of a God, so as to silence the still small voice that will make itself heard. As he talks and declaims he gets ease. If you happen to have such a friend watch him closely ; the more vocal his infidelity becomes the more certain you may feel that your friend has a skeleton in his cup- board ; and the more hopeful you may become that the worm is biting deeper and the brighter grows the prospect of his being enabled to snap his bonds asunder. Though few things give him such joy as to gloat over the fall of some prominent Christian or the moral wreck of some professing friend's life, don't be tempted to give up such a man as hopeless he is not altogether bad. Always remember that it is the germ of belief within him which makes him repulsive to you ; be sure he is closely watching every action of your own life and perhaps without a word spoken by you, your consistent conduct may save an immortal soul. But I am preaching, and must return to the consideration of real unbelief from a scientific standpoint. Though the view I shall strive to put before you is derived from my own professional experience, I do not venture to expound it without having given it years of serious reflection ; and do not fear to criticise it closely. Though I may have to speak to you of facts in anatomy, histology and physiology, I shall avoid if possible using medical terms and strive to keep the subject within the grasp of anyone who knows nothing of these 'ologies or sciences. You all know that we keep up our relationships with the outer world through our five special senses sight, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. Probably some of the inferior animals, such as the dog, are endowed with additional senses which we humans cannot yet comprehend or under- stand. I propose to draw your attention to some abnor- malities, deficiencies, or partial failures in these senses, especially hi those of sight and hearing ; but be it remem- THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 29 bered that corresponding irregularities are common to all the senses, only the train of thought and argument will be more easily understood and followed if we confine our remarks to the senses of sight and hearing. The senses are not the simple attributes which many people think. They are composite gifts ; all of them have two or more functions or offices to fulfil. They are each beautifully elaborated or developed in accordance with the beneficent design of an all-wise Creator, so that His creatures may be enabled to enjoy the wonderful glory of beauty and harmony with which He has so bountifully clothed the earth. Thus in the case of sight it is not merely a sense of light or its negative, darkness, but the power of appreciating all the beauties of every shade of colour and infinite perspective. The ear is not merely a register- ing organ for noise or silence ; such qualities of sounds as rhythm, harmony, pitch and timbre or quality are capable of being differentiated and appreciated by this organ when in a state of perfect development. Apparently the simplest sense is that of touch ; but here again it is not only a matter of registering whether an object is rough or smooth, hard or soft, but also we are able to appreciate its temper- ature and other physical qualities. Similarly the tongue is required not only to tell us whether a substance is bitter or sweet, but also in conjunction with the palate, it gives us accurate knowledge of a long range of flavours. The same laws hold good for the function of smelling, which to some fortunate individuals opens up a world of gratifying odours from which many less favoured individuals are more or less shut out. Let us first look at the interesting defect in vision known as colour-blindness. You have all heard something about it, or possibly have known some friend who tells you that the scarlet berries of the holly are, to him, of the same colour as the bright green leaves surrounding them. Few people outside the ranks of the specialist or physician can be aware of the various varieties of this visual deficiency, nor would it be profitable for you to listen to a lecture on 80 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF the scientific divisions or classifications of colour-blindness based upon an analysis of the colours in the rainbow; fortunately this is not necessary for our purpose. Note the first point which constitutes an important link in our chain of argument or evidence. The defect is con- genital that means that the individual is born with the deficiency. It is seldom hereditary, which means that it is not often handed down from parent to offspring. It has no connection with disease and no relation whatever with the jaundiced eye, which is supposed to see every- thing as yellow or green a mere poetic fallacy. It is a fairly common condition in its minor forms, and may exist in a person who is unaware of his defect till he be called upon to undergo the eye test necessary for all who wish to enter the naval or railway services. Instead of giving you a lecture on colour-blindness I shall simplify the whole matter by selecting, out of many, one marked instance occurring in a highly intellectual Christian gentleman whom I have very intimately known for many years. In his early days in the Royal Navy he won the prize for his ship for rapidity and accuracy in reading the colour- signals. This seems a marvellous and almost incredible achievement for a colour-blind youth. I mention it to emphasize the almost abnormal acuteness of his vision, and in some respects it will help you to realize the good qualities of his mental equipment, which enabled him to allow quickly for his own conscious deficiency in being able to recognize the colours of the various flags. I felt that possibly he exaggerated his own defects unconsciously. One bright autumn day we were standing in the porch of his house on a pavement of richly coloured encaustic tiles, when it occurred to me to try a very simple experi- ment by way of a test. There was a glorious blue tile at his feet, and plucking a single leaf of the small-leaved Virginia creeper of the brightest vermilion red, I placed it in the centre of the blue tile and asked him what he had to say about their colours. He laughed heartily and ex- claimed, " Doctor, you have made a mistake this time ; you THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 81 thought to catch me, but this is a leaf and therefore I know it must be green." " But what about the colour of the tile ? " "It is the same," he said, "as the leaf, only one is a little darker or lighter than the other ; now when I look closely at them I think they are of the same colour which my wife called grey when she was showing me some ribbons lately." (The recognition of the mere name of a colour affords no test.) Scientists know that the seat of this defect is situated in the delicate screen or thin layer at the back of the eyeball the retina, or possibly in the nerve of sight, somewhere between the eyeball and the brain. Some minute cells or fibres or an infinitesimally small amount of a chemical substance is absent which should be present in the perfectly developed visual organ and which the microscope up to the present fails to locate. Let us next examine the hearing sense. The instances here of a very special defect are as numerous as black- berries and the degrees in the extent of the deficiency are also very varied. Everyone is familiar with individuals who possess an indifferent, poor or bad ear for music ; but few who have not specially studied the subject can realize the extent to which this deficiency may be present without the individual being conscious of his deprivation. We call the defect in its advanced form music-deafness. It is in no way associated with ordinary deafness, or dulness of hear- ing, or with intellectual obtuseness in distinguishing sounds which are non-musical. It is a very simple thing ; it means inability to distinguish differences in pitch, which is quite a different matter from failure to recognize delicate shades of differences in tone, timbre or quality in two given sounds. As in colour-blindness the individual is born into the world with this defect ; probably it is more frequently hereditary or handed down from parent to offspring than is the visual incapacity to recognize colours. We see many cases however crop up in the families of highly musical parents where one child is found to be totally music-deaf, 4 32 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF and that one is often the smartest in the group, with the keenest hearing power, and he may even be dreaded by the elders as " the smallest pitcher with the largest ears." We may briefly study music-deafness by looking at a rather exaggerated instance of it, in an individual known intimately by me during almost the entire length of my own life. Therefore I can go into details with confidence. He was brought up from infancy in a highly musical family, taking part in a domestic concert of sacred music nearly every sabbath, where there were usually three or four different musical instruments sounding. He was for between two and three years the head-boy in a large public school, where music was also taught. I know however that he often shirked the routine music lesson as only a head-boy could. One day the class was practising a song whose words appealed to his fancy or imagination, and he was singing loudly and with zest, when the teacher severely rebuked him for mocking, and serious trouble resulted. The court-martial which followed revealed to the lad's amazement that to sing up the musical scale was not to begin almost inaudibly and sing louder and louder, ending with a kind of war-whoop or loud shout. His attempt to reproduce the note of a tuning fork was ludicrous, and he was puzzled and hurt to see all the boys in the school laughing at him. He has never been able to distinguish any single tune from another. Once I saw him in presence of Majesty at a garden festival wearing his hat while the band was playing the National Anthem and he only dis- covered his mistake by seeing the others unbonnet. The further details of this youth's hearing powers must be mentioned ; they are not trivialities, but bear upon our line of argument. His school was on a hill, and on the plain below and far out of sight a weekly fair or market was held, at which usually two fiddlers, one a man and the other a woman, performed. He could easily distinguish and differentiate the tone of one fiddle from the other, having once watched the players at close quarters. Visiting the Crystal Palace he accidentally wandered into a large con- THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 83 cert-hall, where some hundreds of singers were joining in a sacred chorus, when without a programme he recognized amidst the babel of voices that of Foley or of Santly, whom he had once heard before, and he was able to locate the singer and hear his voice as it were separately from all others in the orchestra. He could probably have earned a living by judging the tones of old violins, though he could not recognize a single note. His master informed me that he was not only the best reader of poetry he had ever known, but he had utilized his marvellously accurate ear in awarding the reading prizes to other boys. How then can we account for his defect ? Science tells us that it is due to the arrested development of a small group of minute nerve-cells, not in the hearing machine within his ear, but in the brain itself. This we call the hearing or auditory centre. The absence of these cells as far as I know has not been demonstrated in any music-deaf subject nor do I know that the investigation has ever been pursued, but what equally helps us in working out such a problem is the fact that this hearing centre in the brain is found to be withered up or wasted in people born deaf. It is interesting to notice that it is not far removed in situa- tion from the centre which enables us to exercise the faculty of speech. This boy had been born minus a portion of this minute group of nerve-cells, probably not larger than a big pin's head, and consequently he has not been able to identify a single musical note ; he has during his life been shut out from the whole world of harmony and song. If you know such a one do not judge him hardly by the strict dogma laid down by the author of The Merchant of Venice ; rather pity him. Though he hath no music in himself he has the power of being moved with concord of sweet ^sounds. How can a study of these abnormalities of the special senses help us in getting a knowledge of the nature of Un- belief or understanding the fallacies of the German Higher Criticism ? 84 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF Some philosophers attribute the power of believing in a God to what they call an innate idea, or conscience or instinct, others think the conception may be arrived at through the operation of the reasoning powers. Instead of using such terms as "innate ideas," "con- science," and "instinct" let us boldly regard the faculty by which we are enabled to believe in God as man's sixth sense, and see where this lands us. If the analogy of belief with the other five senses is correct, we must be able to prove its universal distribution. I think you may safely accept the fact that no people or race of savages has been discovered where minute investigation has not proved that there existed an individual conception of a God amongst them as soon as the explorer has been able to overcome the language difficulty of communicating freely with them. I remember reading about half a century ago how a tribe was found in the centre of a continent in which no sense of a divine being could be made out amongst them. But a traveller rediscovered them soon after and found that the leaders of the tribe had buried their gods or idols on the approach of the first traveller. I arrived at the idea that the power of accepting the supernatural should be regarded as an extra one of the five special senses from an anatomical or physiological standpoint ; but I was unconscious of the fact that the theologians had arrived at a somewhat similar goal by travelling on a different road. Thus a few weeks ago I was surprised to find Ian Maclaren had a chapter in The Mind of the Master entitled, " Faith, the Sixth Sense." He defines faith as the instinct of the spiritual world ; the sixth sense the sense of the unseen ; one of the senses of the soul : " it is the religious faculty." This encourages me in the belief that I am not straining a point by insisting on the strict analogy. Though I do not forget that whilst each of our five special senses possesses a receiving ap- paratus at the periphery, and a registering machine in its brain-centre, my hypothetical brain-centre which registers our belief in God is not in communication with any peri- THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 85 pheral machinery simply because, as for the functions of all the higher brain-centres, no peripheral apparatus is required. If the scientific man rejects the strictness of the analogy between this sense and the five special ones he can reject the term " special " as applied to it. We have instances of people being born blind and deaf, some incapable of distinguishing odours or flavours, and some even with remarkable obtuseness of the sense of touch amounting in rare varieties to almost absolute absence of sense of touch or temperature. Still more striking is the analogy with those instances of only partial defect of the special sense of seeing and hearing, for we meet with similar partial defects in the unbelieving individual. If we elaborated the different forms of scepticism, as we have considered the different phases of imperfection of sight and hearing, we get a flood of light upon such medleys as atheism, deism, rationalism, etc. The real atheist or total unbeliever is a man born God-blind or God-deaf. He is no more able to accept the supernatural than the music-deaf man is able to comprehend the meaning of a symphony of Beethoven or the colour-blind man to criticize a canvas of Raphael or Rubens. He stands before a page of Isaiah or Daniel, exactly in the same difficulty as my friend was in when he stood in the porch of his residence, and he is equally insensible of his loss, save that the latter has learned that there is some defect in his vision which he cannot entirely comprehend, whilst the former is quite satisfied that the accumulated testimony of countless millions of Christians in all ages is the result of a delusion produced by credulous expounders of a fraudulent Bible ; firm in his one religious belief that he alone with his few spiritually blind brethren is the only true interpreter of the Divine Will as revealed to His chosen people in the sacred oracles of God. There is probably not a single German Higher Critic of the Bible belonging to the type or class under considera- tion who does not give incontestable proof on almost every page of his writing that he is totally God-blind or nearly 86 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF so. As I have stated before, he starts his work in absolute unbelief, and builds up a cardboard palace that has no more foundation than the baseless fabric of a vision, with the result that, though he does not in the least believe in miracles himself, he nevertheless is the author of the greatest miracle of the twentieth century, for I can conceive of no greater miracle than to expect that any ordinary being is able to subscribe to such a tissue of puerile assumptions as goes to the making up of this so-called " criticism." I am speaking of those totally God-blind critics who go the entire length of denying the existence of a personal God and Saviour. There are others (like the colour-blind individual, who is able to recognize some primary colours, or like the partially music-deaf man who can imperfectly learn a few tunes) who have some belief in an all-wise Deity, but who are incapable of believing in the inspiration of the Bible. Others there are again whose faith may be equal to accepting the reality of God and inspiration or prophecy, but are wholly incapable of conceiving of the possibility of miracle, and so on through the entire gamut of infidelity from atheism to deism, agnosticism, rationalism, material ism, free-thought, and the minor or more diluted and fanciful varieties of Unbelief as the fashionable clerical type mask- ing under the name of Modernism. The God-blind man is probably an honest man, and I am convinced he is generally acting according to his light and with the aim which he thinks is the spread of what he calls " truth." But what are we to say of the trimmers at home who, desiring to be considered broad scholarly men of German culture, swallow this trash without examining or digesting it and sow the seeds of doubt in the hearts of their simple-minded hearers this part of the Pentateuch is probably true, that is false, this book is possibly inspired, that is certainly a forgery without the support of a single argument save that which gives away the possibility of inspiration or revelation altogether ? I am conscious that these are sweeping accusations, but when we come to con- THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 87 sider the manner in which the critics attempt to disprove the date and authenticity of anyBiblical book which clashes with their crude unbelief, you will be satisfied that we are more than justified. I know some of you are thinking hard things of me, and feel that it is a terrible doctrine which implies that our Heavenly Father will allow beings to be brought into the world so malformed as to be incapable of believing in Him and in His beloved Son. It will scarcely satisfy you if I point out that in violation of the developmental laws which He laid down at the creation, the lame, the halt and the deaf, the blind, and the dumb children with- out legs or arms, and with other hideous deformities appear on the earth through some variation or interference with the operation of these beneficent laws. It is not an answer to our difficulty to ask, like the foolish disciples, "Did this man sin, or his parents, that he was born blind ? " We see similar developmental deformities in tame and undomesticated animals, in birds, in flowering plants, and in insects. There is, my friends, a much weightier question here. It is that of personal responsibility. Is the man born without his sixth sense responsible for his own unbelief? Is he doomed from his cradle to eternal death, or can we help him? Speaking with all reverence, I feel confident that there is a satisfactory answer to this solemn question, if we face the problem boldly and in all its bearings. From what we have learned about colour-blindness and music-deafness in the fullest degrees, you should be prepared to accept the state- ment that the most persevering training, teaching, or prac- tice can never be expected to make a colour-blind man paint a picture or a music-deaf boy sing in tune. The machinery by which these faculties are exercised or en- joyed is totally absent in these cases, and by nothing short of a real miracle can the sense be created or replaced. It is however different with minor cases of deficiency in these senses : here the mechanism is present in a nidi- 88 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF mentary form or undeveloped condition, and by careful and persevering training the faculties may be cultivated to a fair extent. Every good gift which God has entrusted to man is left in our own hands, either that we may bury it in a napkin and let it decay by disuse or augment it to perfection by continuous exercise. This was the idea embodied in the teaching about the spiritual gifts enumerated by Paul in the twelfth and subsequent chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, as it was also in the mind of our blessed Redeemer when in the parable of the talents He said : " Unto every one that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not even that which he hath shall be taken away." Let us return to the consideration of the God-blind un- believer and see if there is room for hoping for his salvation and wherein we may be able to help him. Hard and irre- verent it may seem to be, that one should feel it more likely that a totally God-blind man can be more easily convinced of his deficiency than it is for the partially defective sceptic ; just as it is easier to convince the completely music-deaf or completely colour-blind person of his developmental imperfection than it is to enlighten his only partially affected brother who is able to appreciate in some dim way variations in pitch or marked differences of colour. Let us pause and consider how we may utilize this con- ception of a sixth sense in any attempt to help an honest unbeliever. If you approach a typical sceptic by the ordinary methods of argument and reasoning and strive to convince him that everything in the world around him and in the heavens above him proclaims the reality and the existence of a personal God, he only laughs at you 01 pities your credulity and ignorance. He tells you, as he tells himself, that he sees all these things and that his own reason- ing powers are quite as good as your own (indeed, he is almost certain to feel that his are better since he has prob- ably accepted reason as his sole deity) and he will tell you that, having examined every theological argument, he has thoroughly convinced himself irrevocably by his reason THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 89 that there is no proof of such a doctrine. Against the weapons of the Christian's reasoning and experience he is clad in triple mail. Confront him with the sword of the Spirit and show him, by reasonable analogy, that faith, or belief the power of accepting or understanding the supernatural may after all be due to the presence of a sixth special sense of which he happens to be born deficient like the colour-blind or music-deaf man. That, this being so, he might as reasonably be expected to understand or to see God as to hear a pic- ture, see a harmony or taste an odour. If he be open- minded he should be staggered, if a reasonable and honest man desiring to find truth. But holding fast to his own god of reason he will probably affirm that his logic does not teach him such nonsense ; your blow has rung upon his shield and the next one should cleave his helm or pierce his breast-plate. Now comes in the grave question of his responsibility. His confidence arises very much from his conviction that he cannot in any case be held responsible by any higher being, if there be such, so long as he honestly submits himself to the strict guidance of his reason exer- cised along logical lines. Oh, yes, my friend, you are logical, and reasonable just to the same extent as a colour-blind man, guided by his reason, might enter our National Gallery and start to destroy the glorious masterpieces there, exclaiming, "I have as good or better sight than any of you, and there is no such thing as col our these paintings are fabulous." Yes, just as logical and delightfully reasonable as the music-deaf coxcomb who would endeavour to break up the performance of an oratorio on the ground that his own hearing powers were perfect and therefore there cannot be such a thing as musical harmony within the limits of his narrow logic-ridden mind. God has endowed mankind with reasoning powers which are able to demonstrate to every fair-minded, sane indi- vidual his deficiency of any special sense if such an im- perfection has been inflicted upon him by some inter- ference with developmental law. Should he ignore lightly 40 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF the accumulated testimony of the many millions of believers down the centuries who have died affirming that they have known God and held close communion with Him, that they had constantly approached Him in prayer and suppli- cation, and that in innumerable instances these prayers had been answered, then most certainly the gravest responsi- bility rests upon him for seeking out every explanation of his being unable to find out God for himself. This is the attitude of the truly scientific mind of the great thinker, who when these experiences were unfolded to him by a pious friend found expression in the confession : " You have got something which I have not got." Upon these grounds, therefore, there is humanly speaking every hope for the atheist as soon as his intellect and reason accept the solemn reality of his deprivation, just as the colour-blind and music-deaf individuals must do, unless they be imbeciles or fools. He may say, " If I accept the fact of the existence of a God I cannot accept the Bible, because there are miracles recorded throughout its pages, and these phenomena are antagonistic to all the laws of nature." You explain that science teaches us that there can be no real change, sus- pension or reversion of these laws, for, as we saw in our previous address, every miracle must have been performed through the operation of these very laws, guided by the unerring hand of Him who first called them into being before the dawn of creation. If he accept this, he may next ask, "Do you expect any intelligent creature to believe that if there be a Creator in some distant planet, where He has His heaven, He can communicate with man and hear his feeble voice ? Therefore, as this is scientifically impossible, I cannot believe in either Inspiration or Prayer." Ah, my friend, only yesterday look at the teaching of your idol, Science you were informed that two men had talked across two continents with an ocean rolling between, by means of wireless telegraphy, and scientists say that in the ether there is no obstruction ; a million miles are as one furlong, and THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 41 we are trying to get a message back from Mars. It requires an instrument at each end properly attuned ; but alas, poor unbeliever, your receiver is imperfect or broken. He shifts his position again and exclaims, "Do you expect me to swallow such a heresy as Prophecy ? " Yes, my friend, few things are easier if you only accept the Bible as you accept many other far less authenticated histories, and reject any record in it which is of doubtful date, so that you can be certain that the event did not occur before the prophecy was uttered. You will find there things fore- told from 500 to 1,000 years before they were fulfilled to the letter and to the very day. To summarize, even at the risk of wearying you by repe- tition, I have attempted to give you a theory or working hypothesis that belief in God and in revelation is a special sixth sense breathed into man at that stage of evolution where the Genesis narrative comes in, when he was trans- formed from a member of the brute creation and became a living soul. We have looked into the composite nature of the two most important senses sight and hearing. The aberra- tions or anomalies which we met with in the cases of colour- blindness and music-deafness I have tried to show you are analogous to what we meet with in individuals who have been born without a perfect development of this sixth or God-sense which, like the other senses, is a more or less composite one. It may have struck you that it would have simplified matters merely to compare God-blindness, say, with the case of those individuals born totally blind or deaf. I did not do so because, in the first place, the comparison would not be likely to convince the unbeliever who never dreams that he has any defect whatever in his senses ; just as every colour-blind and music-deaf person has to wait for years before he discovers his deficiency, and many of them go to the grave without suspecting their deprivations. In the second place, you will remember that at the start I warned you that I considered it a rarity to find a man 42 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF born totally God-blind. Such an individual is a sort of " freak " ; possibly no man is born absolutely God-blind. Every degree of imperfection exists, and by reasoning from strict analogy we can in this way explain every variety or shade of unbelief. Since the eighteenth century Germany has occupied the unenviable position of standing at the head of the list of nations in which unbelief had reached its highest develop- ment. It is an interesting fact that Germany stands at the head of all other countries to-day in the enormous number of her inhabitants who are myopic, or short-sighted. We have lately witnessed, for the first time in history, vast armies of be-spectacled men. Some of you may like to ask me, " Is there any relationship between their deficiency in the seeing sense and of the special sense about which we have been speaking ? " I would not like to push the analogy. Whether we regard this as a coincidence or as what a philosopher would classify as a correlation of growth, of one thing we can feel certain their incapacity of accepting God, because of their unbelief, turned the entire nation on the path of the discovery of a new deity. Him they found, him they enthroned, and him they worshipped as the god of Might. This moral myopia or short-sightedness was permitted by the far-seeing Ruler of the Universe to lead them a certain distance, but no further, towards world-empire. We cannot but believe that the poisonous effect of the Higher Criticism had sapped the moral fibre of the people of Germany, and was the main cause of its ruin. It can safely be predicted that this ruin shall characterize the Republic till it returns to the acceptance of the true God and obeys His laws. We might as safely predict that the entire fabric of German criticism awaits a similar fate; probably, in a comparatively short time, few, if any, entitled to call themselves scholars will be found to support its assumptions. Before we dismiss Rationalism, which is the parent or starting-point or excuse for all the varieties of Unbelief, THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF 43 and which has led its votaries far beyond the bounds of reason and sane sense into a soul-destroying quagmire, let us not forget that there is a higher Rationalism that of the true Christian believer who accepts the Divine Reve- lation. This is forcibly and truthfully put by Sir Robert Anderson when he says : " The position of the Christian is an intelligible one. Though he believes in the Unseen and unprovable, his faith is strictly rational ; for, assuming a Divine Revelation, belief is the highest act of reason. The Christian maintains such a claim and that, if it be assented to, his position is unassailable. But if God speaks, then scepticism gives place to Jaith. Nor is this a mere begging of the question. The proof that the voice is really Divine must be absolute and conclusive. In such circum- stances scepticism betokens mental or moral degradation, and faith is not the abnegation of reason, but the highest act of reason." One word in conclusion the possession of this sixth special sense we may rightly regard as a gift from our Heavenly Father, co-equal with the gift of His Only- begotten Son. Indeed with all reverence we might say it is a greater boon bestowed upon mankind than the cross and the empty sepulchre ; because had He not endowed us with this divine faculty or sense which enables us to believe, the Atonement would have been a failure man would have been utterly unable to accept for himself the fact of the redeeming sacrifice. We should regard it as the Holy Spirit within us which alone can bring us to Christ " No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost " ; so our conception of Belief is certainly not at variance with Paul's teaching. As we realize the value of this sense our hearts should continually go out in grateful thanks to the Giver of every good thing. But I must utter a word of warning lest anyone should mistake my meaning. If my words have been helpful to any honest doubter, if they have given confidence to any auditor who has felt that his faith was weak, something more remains for me to say. The sense, power or capacity 44 THE SCIENCE OF UNBELIEF of accepting the fact of a living personal God and His revealed word never yet has saved a soul from death or added a single star to the Saviour's glittering crown. It is only by fully exercising this gift or sense once and for all, coming confidently to Jesus as a little child and taking His yoke upon you that you can become sons of God and joint heirs of eternal life with Him. We must ever keep in mind that this sixth special sense has been given to us so that we may be able to believe in the truth of the revelation of Himself which He has de- livered to His chosen people. Our possession of it in no way lessens the importance of, or necessity for, revelation, but without it revelation would be valueless. I have spoken of the responsibility of a God -blind or a God-deaf man, but reflect how awful is our responsibility if we be already in possession of this gift of faith-sense. During this feeble appeal of mine He has been knocking at the door of some sinner's heart and stretching out the everlasting arms of love to receive him. I appeal to any doubter or hesitator reached by my words to exercise his faith and accept Him now and for ever. Step across the threshold of this world's slavery and sadness, and enter into a new and glorious Kingdom of liberty and joy to reign with Him through all eternity. CHAPTER IV PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF THE following brief study of the nature and functions of Prophecy is necessarily more or less incomplete, as the main object before us is to clear the way for the better understanding of the predictions contained in the book of Daniel. The common view, not only the view of the man in the street, but often that also of the man in the pew, is that Prophecy is mainly a matter of the foretelling of events. If you take this narrow view you are liable to find yourself confusing Prophecy with soothsaying, divination, and fortune-telling and the various methods of prying into the future which are forbidden by the law of Moses, and which history proves were practised by the heathen peoples from the earliest times. The Bible tells us also that these practices were resorted to by the Israelites themselves. We need not pause to speculate about the possibility of a faculty being possessed by some aberrantly-developed individuals, or mediums, by means of which they can fore- tell future events. If such a power exists and it is more than doubtful it is something very different, being con- demned by that very law which was the governing principle in the conduct and life of every true prophet in the Old Testament record, save perhaps Balaam. " There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination " ; and then follows the denunciation of six other special methods of spying into the unknown future. Primarily the prophet's function was to instruct the people by revealing God's law to them, to unfold the meaning of His Kingdom, and His dealings with them, and 45 46 PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF especially to warn them of the results of disobedience and idolatry. The mere prediction or foretelling of events still in the future, and of stating when these events would occur, must be regarded as of great, but yet of less, import- ance than the revelation of Himself and of His Kingdom. The first cardinal point in the study of Prophecy is to grasp that the prophetic office was confined or limited to the Hebrews. These were a chosen race, an elect people, a pure Theocracy a state or nation with God Himself as their ruler or head. There is no instance in the Bible of a prophet being sent to the heathen world with a message save in the case of Jonah. Many predictions occur about the fate of heathen nations, but these always had close relationship with the destinies of Israel, and they never were propagated as a gospel to those nations. Daniel had his visions and wrote his prophecies in Babylon, the then home of the Jews. We may regard the entire machinery of Prophecy con- tained in the Oracles of God as a mighty organ with the pipes as the long succession of men from Enoch to Malachi, and onwards to John of Patmos. God stretches forth His hand, from time to time, and touches the keyboard when the mighty diapason rolls out with the thunder of Sinai, unfolding the Law, or the plaintive notes of Jeremiah bewail the sins and desolations of His people. Anon come pealing forth stern notes of anger, or trumpet tones of warning ; but ever in the interludes He plays on those keys which breathe sweet symphonies of hope and comfort predicting the coming of a Messiah and swelling into the triumphant promises of a return of His chosen people to the cherished land that He had sworn to be the heritage of their ancestors and their descendants for ever. I employ this figure not as a mere poetic flourish, but because my study of Prophecy has convinced me that the prophets were the mere mouthpieces of God's revelation and that in many cases, especially in their remote prophe- cies, they had little or possibly no understanding of the PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF 47 real meaning of the message delivered through them, as we observe in some of Daniel's visions. They spake as the Holy Spirit breathed upon them in sleep, in dreams, or visions of the night, or, as in the wakeful hours He played upon His chosen instrument. The communication was, however, always accompanied by an unmistakable sensa- tion which convinced the prophet that God had spoken to him directly and given him the command immediately to arise and proclaim the message which he had received. The nature of our brief survey compels me to confine myself to that part of Prophecy which is entirely concerned with prediction, or the foretelling of events. L6oking at the subject from this narrower standpoint, we can easily divide these prophecies into two groups : Those which are as yet unfulfilled, and Those which have already come to pass. The unfulfilled predictions apply to the latter days to the time of the end ; this is a department of theology usually termed Eschatology and Apocalyptic. As it does not im- mediately concern us directly, a few brief remarks will enable us to put it aside till we arrive at Daniel's predictions. There are four chief unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible : (1) That foretelling the return of the Children of Israel to the land of promise not to Palestine, but to that larger tract of country extending from the river Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea, at present occupied by British troops and capable of supporting, several times over, the numbers of Jews scattered throughout the world at present. This is a prophecy repeated and re-repeated over and over again, and running through many of the books in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It is one of the most definite and unmistakable predictions in the sacred record. (2) The fall of Antichrist the first little horn of Daniel believed by the majority of Biblical students, since the Reformation, to refer to Papal Rome ; but this view is stoutly opposed by many profound scholars. (3) The fall of Daniel's second little horn arising in 5 48 PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF the north-west. This is regarded by many as applying to the Mohammedan Power. (4) The Second Coming of Jesus Christ : " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven ? This Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven." I think it is certain that all these four predictions will be fulfilled about the same time at the termination of the Gentile period. To-morrow morning we may see Him come in the clouds, or it may be that this glorious sight is reserved for our descendants a thousand years hence. I have my own deep convictions on the subject, which are interwoven with every fibre of my being. But I know that millions of devout Christians during the last nineteen centuries have had similar convictions as they pondered over the closing words in the sacred volume : " Yea ; I come quickly. Amen ; come, Lord Jesus." The fulfilled prophecies stand upon an entirely different plane. They are so numerous that it is difficult to count them. When I sat down yesterday to think over this ad- dress I foolishly thought of enumerating them, with a brief remark on the most important ones ; but time will only permit a few words to be said of their general character. If I voiced a feeling which has been growing stronger in my breast of late years it must be in words which would sound as an indictment of the teachers of all our Christian Churches. If I accuse them of a grave dereliction of duty I shall state the reasons of my charge, and, if I be doing them an injustice, may God forgive my presumption and erroneous judgment. I regard these fulfilled prophecies of the Bible as only third in value to the gift of Jesus and to our sixth special sense of faith in God ; indeed, I am tempted at times to appraise them equally, but I think this is probably going too far. I cannot remember ever hearing a single sermon preached in any church on the value or general importance of the testimony of these fulfilled purposes of God. We hear incidental references to a few of them, and of course PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF 49 powerful discourses upon one or two of the Messianic prophecies ; but, for the most part, my personal experiences lead me to believe that their value as a whole is taken for granted. The honest doubter who approaches the study of this subject with a perfectly open mind will find not only enough to give him faith, but as he profoundly studies all these fulfilled predictions, even his newly acquired faith will develop into a certainty, and he will lift his hands in grateful adoration, crying out, " Oh my God, Thou hast planted my feet upon a rock which never can be moved. I know now that everything which can happen to me and to the whole human race since the dawn of creation has been beneficently planned by Thee from the beginning. Not a sparrow can fall without Thy knowledge and con- sent." How comes it, then, that so little is made of these price- less treasures ? Two reasons for this neglect are forth- coming. One is that the entire subject of unfulfilled pro- phecy has become a matter of ridicule and jest, because of the writings of the prophecy - mongers who constitute themselves, not interpreters, but prophets who fix with confidence and certainty the exact date to the day and hour when these predictions shall see their accomplishment. There has perhaps been no year since the days of Gregory the Great (who was the predecessor of the first Pope), which has not been singled out by these fanatics and con- fidently prophesied as the terminal year of this planet's existence ; nay, even the very day being fixed with cer- tainty. For the greater part of my own life I was under the influence or spell of this well-merited ridicule and prevented from making any serious study of Prophecy. I shall give you one of several personal experiences with these modern prophets. Some years ago, on my visiting a professional friend and devout Christian gentleman who had seen a good deal of the world and come into contact with several of the religions of the East, he solemnly 50 PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF informed me that the end of the world was to be exactly six or eight weeks from that day and at the hour of noon. I had no other reason to doubt his sanity, but in order to test his sincerity I reminded him that a week previously he had told me that he was negotiating for a lease for his residence. His reply was that he was compelled to do this to satisfy his wife, who had not mastered the science of Prophecy as he had. About ten days afterwards he drove up very hurriedly to my door and, bursting into my study, he proclaimed that he had news for me from London. That morning he had got a circular letter from the secretary of his school of prophets, which showed that a serious mis- take had been made in their calculations. They had for- gotten to allow for the loss of the day when the sun stood still on Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. Therefore the final catastrophe would be deferred for twenty -four hours more, and he was anxious that I should not suffer disappointment on the particular Wednesday which he had previously named. I recalled to memory a book which I had read in my boyhood, the title of which was, I think, Louis Napoleon the Destined Monarch oj the World, and another by Piazzi Smyth, F.R.S., on the pre- dictions enshrined in the great pyramid, and I thereupon vowed that if any of these modern prophets came before me, as a physician, I would not hesitate to sign a committal for admission to a mental hospital. Quite a large crop of them has sprung up during and since the war. If by any flight of imagination I could conceive myself in the exalted position of a minister of the Gospel, I think I could not muster up enough moral courage to preach on these apocalyptic or eschatological predictions, forecasting the time oj the end in the face of the discredit and ridicule at present existing. I might feel constrained to speak about the end of the times, which is quite another matter. The subject is one which should only be approached by what I would call level-headed people, and we are distinctly told that the wise shall understand them in the latter days though the language is purposely couched in words of PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF 51 mystery so that we may not know the exact time or the particular manner in which the fulfilment is to be accom- plished. When the accomplishment is effected, every wise man and fool will be convinced that these final happenings were planned and predicted by the great Architect of the Universe many thousands of years before. Some of the fulfilled prophecies were clothed in the same mysterious language, as we shall see later on, and for similar reasons. The second cause of the neglect of the study and teaching of the fulfilled prophecies is a very interesting and important one, and requires to be considered at greater length. Here we are brought up directly face to face with the German Higher Criticism and its methods, and have to confront the host of Deists who, though they acknowledge the exist- ence of a God, deny the possibility of all inspiration and hence of Prophecy. According to this system, if any event the subject of a prophecy comes to pass, its fulfilment must be a pure co- incidence, or the prediction must have been such as any wise human seer might have made from his knowledge of the trend of events occurring around him, or it was a fraudu- lent record of an event which had already happened before the prediction was made. This latter is the favourite method employed by the Higher Critics and by which they have erected their baseless fabric which is to replace our Bible. With an ingenuity which one would say was truly Satanic or diabolical only we must give Satan his due ; whatever we may think of his Majesty, he is not a German critic with this cunning these philosophers have altered the chronology of nearly every book in the Old Testament, including the Pentateuch, which must have been written, they say, after the return from the Babylonian Exile, about 500 years B.C. ; that is more than a thousand years after the time of Moses and Moses, you will remember, with these critics, was never a personality, only an astral myth. 52 PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF At first this theory about the date of the earlier books was built upon what they called the " fact " that there was no possibility of such a thing as writing in the time of Moses, much less in the age of the patriarchs. But the explorer brought to light a long document written on stone by Amraphel, one of the kings mentioned in the Genesis account of Abraham's great battle. Nothing daunted by this incontrovertible evidence, they proceeded to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that all the older books were written at least 1,000 years after Moses. The former theory having been thus exploded, a new one had to be discovered ; this was entirely speculative, and absolutely visionary. I must digress for a moment as the mention of this futile argument has a distinct bearing on our subject. These unbelieving critics denying revelation maintain that the religion of the Hebrews gradually grew, evolved or developed entirely by human aid, out of the ancient myths of the old heathen nations surrounding them a kind of adaptation of the Darwinian theory applied to the growth of religion. Therefore it was utterly impossible that the advanced ideas of a personal God recorded in the first five books of the Bible could have been known or current before the period of the Exile. Therefore these books were most certainly written after the return, and in this sweeping assumption is included even the book of the Psalms. Our next silencing fact which these critics had to face is a Biblical record so exact and minute that one is almost forced to believe that it was inserted by the finger of God Himself, who had foreseen the appearance on the earth during the later days of this type of Antichrist. Israel had lapsed into the grossest forms of idola- try during the centuries between the death of Solomon and the Exile. The temple worship and the edifice itself were falling into ruin when, about 50 years before the Cap- tivity, the good king Josiah ascended the throne of David in Jerusalem and started to repair the dilapidations in Solomon's Temple. In a partially ruined portion of the sacred building Hilkiah the priest discovered the long-lost PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF 58 book of the Law, Deuteronomy. He brought it to the king ; Huldah the prophetess, the scribes, elders, priests and the entire congregation of Jews were summoned to hear the lost Lawunfolded daily to them, and a great religious revival sprung up. How do the critics meet this succinct narrative ? They unblushingly affirm, in order to support their dogma about the date of the Law, that the book was a forgery, a fraud of the priests, in order to impose on the people better terms for their own material or worldly prosperity. That a palpable fraud of this kind could have succeeded is beyond the belief of any fair-minded man ; moreover, the position of the priests suffered rather than gained by the discovery of the lost book. Not one scintilla of evi- dence or even of probability has ever been produced of the fraudulent nature of this incident ; nevertheless, with even greater unanimity than is visible in their other fictions, the forgery is not put forward as a theory or hypothesis, but as an unquestionable fact. It is one of the foundation- stones of their creed and they constantly reiterate " that it is a fact now accepted by all scholars ("all scholars" may be accepted as meaning all unbelievers who scribble on only purely rationalist lines). I believe that I have duly examined every argument of these men, and I have not found a single statement regarding the date and authenticity of the first six books of the Bible which rests upon any firmer basis than this subterfuge of regarding the lost book of the Law being a palpable forgery. We shall now exa- mine their next argument or assumption. The Higher Critics, having established to their satisfaction that the Hebrews had no law for the guidance of their Theocracy till the book of Deuteronomy, forged by the High-priest Hilkiah, was given to them in the reign of Josiah (640 B.C.), next proceed to wipe out every inspired or prophetic element in the remaining books, including the laws for the priestly offerings of the Temple as laid down in Leviticus. This they achieve by a similarly convenient theory of forgery by assuming that this book, with the chief parts 54 PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF of Exodus and Numbers, was written by Ezra (about 460 B.C.), and imposed upon the Jews on his return to Jerusalem as the genuine Law of Moses. A recent writer Rev. J. Politeyan, 1 refutes this assumption by archaeological evidence of an indisputable nature. A colony of Jews existed in Elephantine^ in Southern Egypt, in the Pathros district. They are mentioned as early as the time of Hosea, who prophesied before the reign of Uzziah, and more specifically they are named in the first verse of Jere- miah xliv., and also in Isaiah. The colony therefore existed some centuries before the time of Ezra. A few years ago some papyrus letters were found in the ruins of Elephantine showing that they possessed a temple like that of Jeru- salem, dedicated to Jehovah " in the times of the Kings of Egypt " certainly before Persian rule. These letters show that they had also the three principal Jewish sacri- fices named in words identical with those described in the book of Leviticus Meal Offerings, Incense, and Burnt Offerings. These sacrifices were conducted, as in Leviticus, by the priests. Another letter states that they kept the Feast of the Passover. Thus Mr. Politeyan states that *' All this shows us that Elephantine Jews had their temple in the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs, and observed the Mosaic Law as regards sacrifices and priests a long time before Ezra lived. Neither were these novel practices, for the people were deeply affected at their inability to keep the old Mosaic Law. So the Law of Moses must have existed a long time before Ezra lived ; therefore the assump- tion of the Higher Critics has no foundation in fact ! " Thus, one by one, the assumptions of the destructive critics are being proved to be baseless, by monumental or archaeological evidences brought to light by the spade and pickaxe of the explorer. When we come to examine their so-called " evidence " of the forgery of the book of Daniel, four hundred years after his time, we shall see how every shred of their arguments is met by the stern 1 Biblical Discoveries in Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia, 2nd Edition, 1921. PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF 55 truths written on stone during the lifetime of the Jewish exile and prophet. This method of destroying our Bible has at least the merit of simplicity, as most ingenious devices turn out ultimately simple when analysed. Make the date of the books as written one thousand years after they were in reality composed by their inspired authors, and you enable the destructive critic to affirm that the fulfilled prophecies which are contained in them were obviously not predictions at all, but fraudulent nar- ratives written after the facts or events had happened. Not all the predictions however, for we have for example the Messianic prophecies, which we shall examine carefully in detail. These they attempt to discredit by an even bolder method : they deny that they have any reference to Christ at all, being figurative references to various condi- tions of the Jewish nation or individuals, wrapped up in the extravagant imagery of the ancient Hebrew seers. When a specific utterance is met with which cannot be explained away by these ordinary assumptions there is usually little hesitation in condemning it as a later gloss or interpolation, or minimizing its importance by some generalization as that employed by Canon Cheyne when he says that " Jewish literature is mostly borrowed mytho- logy." I fear that many of our religious teachers feel that if they employ as a text any of these early prophecies, such as the dying predictions of Jacob or that of the 430 years in Egypt, they are likely to be reminded of the opinion of a great Biblical scholar like Stade that there is no evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt at all. A similar objection may be made about expounding the prophecies regarding Canaan, Shem, Ham, Japhet, Esau, Ishmael, and other patriarchs. It would seem that the present-day attitude is to regard any teacher who would attempt to draw a lesson from the fulfilment of these prophecies in Genesis as a man behind the times and ignorant of the advances made by modern rationalistic scholars and 56 PROPHECY AND UNBELIEF accepted authorities. Shift the dice-box as they may for it is a pure game of guess with these critics and there stares them in the face such an utterance as : The sceptre shall not depart from Judah Nor a lawgiver from between his feet Until Shiloh come ; And unto him shall the obedience of the people be. But for what we have received through the promise made to Abraham "in thee shall all the peoples of the earth be blessed " we, to-day, would know probably as much about God as Stanley's little men of the forest did or the American Indians when discovered by Columbus. Let us cease to despise the poor Jew. Let us remember that of the sixty-six books of our Bible, every one was written by a descendant of Abraham, except the Gospel of Luke and the Acts (Job's author was almost certainly a Hebrew). Let us not forget that the early Christian Church was almost entirely composed of Jews. We are too apt to forget that the religion of the Hebrews, as laid down in the Old Testament and perfected and consummated in the New, is now the religion of all the civilized nations of the earth. CHAPTER V THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES THE central pivot on which the whole scheme of Divine Revelation rests or revolves is to be found by a study of the prophecies which foretold the advent of Jesus Christ. Professor Flint, in his St. Giles Lecture, condenses the whole subject into a few pregnant sentences : " All the parts of the Old Testament system contribute each in its place to raise, sustain, and guide faith in the coming of a mysterious and mighty Saviour a perfect Prophet, perfect Priest, and perfect King, such as Christ alone of all men can be supposed to have been. This broad general fact, this vast and strange correlation of correspondence cannot be in the least affected by questions of the Higher Criticism as to the authorship, time of origination, and mode of composition of the various books of the Old Testament. . . . Answer all these questions in the way which the boldest and most rationalistic criticism of Ger- many or Holland ventures to suggest ; accept in every properly critical question the conclusions of the most advanced critical schools, and what will follow ? Merely this, that those who do so will have, in various respects, to alter their views as to the manner and method in which the ideal of the Messiah's Person, work and Kingdom was, point by point, line by line, evolved and elaborated. There will not, however, be a single Messianic word or sentence, not a single line or feature the fewer in the Old Testament." As I said once before, as regards fundamentals, in contrast to these alterations of dates, textual corrections, etc., there can be no compromise with the German Higher Criticism. 67 58 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES Either the Book of God, as we call it, is an inspired record or it is a fraud like the lost book of the Law found in the dilapidated Temple or the imposition of the other books of Moses on the Jewish people by Ezra. If you wish a demonstration of where the compromising spirit will lead you, read some of the papers, delivered recently at the Conference of Churchmen at Girton College, Cambridge. The pure, undiluted doctrine of advanced Unitarianism is unblushingly unfolded, running through some of the addresses I have read every one of them in the official report. There is advanced the compro- mise " Jesus was the Son of God," but every Christian is also a Son of God in the same sense, and so on, and so on. Pages of hair-splitting metaphysical speculation about the extent of His much manhood and little Godhead. How His knowledge of the demoniacal possessions which He con- quered was no better than that of the men around Him, and His knowledge of the future was limited and imperfect. But, incredible as it may seem, though there are sceptical references to the Virgin Birth which cannot be proved, there is scarcely a word about His own prediction of His death and rising again in three days, or of the unquestion- able fact of His resurrection and ascension witnessed by so many. We cannot but hang down our heads in shame when we think that the repudiation of such heresy was left to the prelates of the Roman Church. We can distinguish a distinct difference between the aims or objects of the old prophecies. Whilst all of them differed widely from the heathen soothsaying, in being never employed with the intention of satisfying an idle curiosity, but for the revelation of divine truth and for the furtherance of the Kingdom of God, nevertheless we constantly find short-timed predictions which have no relationship to that one divine event to which the whole creation moves. Such are the prophecy of Sennacherib's catastrophe, the speedy death of the false prophet in 1 : Kings xiii., the fate of Jezebel, and scores of others in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Chronicles. THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES 59 These predictions were made obviously to establish the authenticity of the divine message by the prophet, and their speedy fulfilment was a guarantee of the weightier mes- sages, delivered by the same herald, being directly from God Himself. The same object was clearly visible in some of the long- timed predictions. Thus Daniel foretold the fate of the Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Greek Empires. It was probably the divine intention that, as these predictions were fulfilled to the very letter during the succeeding centuries, the faith in a coming Messiah would grow stronger and stronger up till the Roman period. Much has been written about the style of the language used in Biblical Prophecy. As a rule, it may be said, when the predicted event is close at hand the language is so clear and unmistakable that the event, when it happens, is immediately recognized as the subject of the prediction. It is usually otherwise when the events foretold are very remote : here the prophet is face to face with the difficulty of expounding a message or vision which has no resemblance to the things around him in words which would be intelli- gible to his auditors or cotemporaries. As in the vision of St. Paul, the revelation was in unspeakable words which it was not lawful for man to utter. Hence the introduction of symbols, and it is the use of symbolic language which has made the book of the Revelation of St. John almost a sealed oracle. No one can treat the subject of Prophecy without having ever in his mind the Messianic predictions. We may perhaps best get a view of their importance to mankind by striving to conceive what would be left to us if they were removed from the Old Testament. Truly a mighty maze without a plan a world without sun, moon or stars. And yet the very existence of these prophecies has been disputed and has proved a difficulty, a stumbling-block and a rock of offence to many thousands of earnest and honest doubters, who have grieved in bitter anguish, as they found it impossible to believe that any single one 60 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES of them bore an unmistakable message from God about a future Redeemer of sinful men. The unbeliever acclaims that if God meant that these special predictions should be applied to the coming of His Son, Jesus Christ, the lan- guage in which they were couched must have been clear, definite, and unmistakable. Many a believer, moreover, has grave doubts about some few of them which have been insisted upon by divines as tests of orthodoxy. I shall meet these difficulties at once by accepting the argument about the vagueness of many of the prophecies affirmed by various commentators as belonging to the Messianic group. Nay, I shall go further, and shock some of my auditors by condemning the attitude of any Christian who holds to each single Messianic prediction as if his eternal salvation depended upon the acceptance of it. It was an absolute necessity that there must have been a free-will choice given to every Jew to accept or reject the Messiah. If Daniel, Isaiah, or any other great prophet had proclaimed in clear and unmistakable language the year, the day, the hour, and the exact spot on the earth where Christ's birth was to take place, His mission would have been a failure an impossible thing. The Jewish hierarchy would have immediately accepted Him, and the entire Jewish race would have followed their lead like a flock of sheep through a gap and there would have been no scope for the exercise of a personal faith. Exactly the same thing would have taken place as that which caused the greatest catastrophe which the Christian world has ever witnessed. When the Roman Emperor issued his decree that paganism was to be rejected and every citizen was to become a Christian, the Church almost perished. If you look at any ancient map you will see that the entire Mediterranean littoral was thickly studded with virile church centres, which extended eastwards into the hinterland of Syria and Asia, southwards into Africa, and northwards into Europe. There was no room left for the growth of individual faith, which almost immediately began to wither and gradually moral death set in to pre- THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES 61 pare the way for the false faith of Mohammed and his king- dom. The Messianic prophecies were obviously therefore for a wise purpose clothed in obscure language. If we attempt to put ourselves mentally in the position of a devout Jew of, say, 3,000 years ago, we certainly would have got a firm hold of the cardinal belief that a deliverer or Messiah was to come some time in the near or distant future. But under what conditions His Kingdom was to be established, what His personality was to be like and with what attributes He would be endowed, these indeed were almost inscrutable mysteries. It seems impossible that the Jewish mind could have conceived the idea that their deliverer was to suffer the ignominy of a criminal's death, notwithstanding the warnings in the Psalms and in the book of Isaiah. Yet every one of these obscure or mysterious predictions, with His advent, became as luminous as the sun. They fulfilled to the letter the divine purpose and effected their object to put the seal of incontrovertible testimony on His personality and mission, once He had appeared. Taken together, they form the most marvellously com- plete demonstration of the fulfilment of any scheme or plan, either human or divine, which has ever been witnessed in the world's chequered history. You are all familiar with the toy maps made in detached pieces of wood to teach children something of the geography of the earth's surface. If you had only one of these pieces in your hand you could make little, or nothing of it, but all pieced to- gether, give you a perfect picture of each continent, ocean, sea and island. So God intends that we should view these different predictions which have been revealed to His children and thus get a complete view of the oneness of the Old and New Testaments, which is the rock on which Christianity is built. Let us glance briefly at the complete picture, dealing only with the most striking pieces of the divine mosaic. Beginning with the primeval promise made to Adam before his expulsion from the garden that his seed should bruise 02 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES the serpent's head, we trace it through Noah, Abraham and Isaac. In Jacob we get the definite promise that the Deliverer was to arise from amongst the tribe of Judah. Moses tells the chosen people that the Lord God would raise them up a Prophet like unto himself, and there was not a prophet who ever resembled Moses till Jesus came. Next God speaks through the heathen Balaam, and tells Balak that " Behold, a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel." It was the frequent references to the sure covenant which the Lord had made with David, whose throne was to last for ever and ever, which we get in Samuel and the Psalms and in Isaiah, which led the devout Jews to look for the coming Messiah as springing from the lineage of David. Here I would like to touch upon a matter which has proved a sore trouble and difficulty to many a sincere believer. I refer to the two genealogies of Jesus Christ : one given by Matthew and contradicted in several important links by Luke's family tree. Out of this both Jews and infidels have attempted to make great capital. It is a very difficult subject to investigate, and I have gone into each link in both the chains and I feel certain that it can be thoroughly established that Matthew's genealogy is that of Joseph, and Luke's is that of Mary. Here again we can get perfect harmony in a matter of vital importance to the funda- mentals of Christianity. Let us return to the Old Testament prophecies regarding the more personal or individualist details. Isaiah (vii. 14) foretells, " The Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Be- hold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." His home was to be in Galilee, " where the people who walked in darkness " were " to see a great light." He was however to be born in Bethlehem, as prophesied by Micah, about 700 years before His birth, in the remarkably specific statement : " And thou Bethlehem Ephratah, which are little to be amongst the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES 63 to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." Between the time of His birth and that of His ministry he was to be " called out of Egypt." He was to " preach good tidings unto the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, and the acceptable year of the Lord." Zechariah prophesies, " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; behold thy King cometh unto thee ; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall speak peace unto the nations, and His dominion shall be from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth." Isaiah foretells that He was to be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men would hide their faces. He was to be wounded for our transgressions, a lamb led to the slaughter and dumb before his shearers. He was to be scourged, and by His stripes we are to be healed. He was sold, as prophesied in Zechariah xi. 12 for thirty pieces of silver, which were to be cast to the potter. In Matthew this prophecy (xxvii. 9) of the betrayal is quoted as from Jeremiah (as sometimes the Jews loosely referred to the division of the Bible containing the works of the prophets as the book of Jeremiah, because the writing of this prophet stood first on their list). We have the remarkable prediction detailing His death with the wicked and His burial in the sepulchre of the rich Arimathean in Isaiah liii. 9. The Psalmist tells us that His soul was not to be left in Sheol ; moreover, He was to arise again, for His body was not to suffer corruption (Psalm xvi. 10). In the first verse of Psalm ex. there is a prophecy which is of much importance and of the greatest value : He was to sit on the right hand of the Lord in heaven till His enemies became His footstool. That this verse in its peculiar wording is to be regarded as a prophecy, not only of His ascension, but of His Divinity, is proven by the Redeemer's own quotation of it when, 6 64 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES arguing with the unbelieving Pharisees, He put the ques- tion to them, "What think ye of Christ ? Whose Son is He ? " as narrated in Matthew xxii. 45. The writer to the Hebrews uses this same verse as proof of the divine nature of Christ in the first chapter of his Epistle. In addition to these specific prophecies we have many others which were regarded as fulfilled at the Crucifixion ; as, for example, the figurative directions given about the paschal lamb for the Passover feast in Exodus xii. 46 : " Not a bone of Him shall be broken " (see John xix. 36), and again in Zechariah xii. 10, " They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced." I have left one prophecy to the last. It is for me the most interesting in the Old Testament, for reasons which I shall mention presently. It is the twenty-second Psalm. Here we get a startling and thrilling picture of the Cruci- fixion, as if it were painted by an eye-witness, though written more than 1,000 years before the event. Let us note, before we read it, that in all human probability death by the method of crucifixion had never been wit- nessed by a Jew in the time of David ; as you know, their death sentence was carried out by stoning, though they did not hesitate to hang their captive enemies. I can find no evidence in Josephus or any other ancient historian which could lead one to suspect that the Israelites were practically acquainted with this mode of punishment ; the ferocious Assyrians probably practised it occasionally, as the " cultured " Germans are said to have revived it in the early stages of the late war. If we are correct in this assumption it will greatly en- hance the value and force of the prophecy. Let us solemnly strive to visualize the crucifixion scene, though it cannot be done without harassing our feelings. We see Jesus for hours nailed to the cross by hands and feet, tortured with pain ; suffering parching thirst ; naked under a burning Eastern sun. Below a jeering rabble bitterly mocking Him with taunts to come down and save Himself ; vinegar and gall are thrust up to His scorched lips. A small group THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES 65 of mercenary wretches are struggling to secure possession of the few articles of clothing which had been removed from His body before the nailing process and the elevation of the cross into the hole in the ground. Think of the agony caused by the penetration of the coarse and strong nails or bolts as they are driven in through flesh and bones, and the awful jar to every nerve, joint, bone and muscle, as the heavy cross of wood, with its victim attached, is lifted up and suddenly dropped down into the deep hole or socket in the ground. More than a thousand years before, God had placed His fingers on the keyboard of His great organ of prophecy and there pealed forth in notes of human anguish and woe words which we have no difficulty in realizing as if we were hearing our blessed Redeemer Himself cry out from the cross. Let us reverently and with awe listen to Him : But I am a worm, and no man ; A reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn ; They shoot the lip, they shake the head, saying. Commit thyself unto the Lord ; let Him deliver him ; Seeing He delighteth in him. They gape upon me with their mouth, As a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint ; My heart is like wax ; It is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd ; And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws ; And Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me ; The assembly of evil-doers have inclosed me ; They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones ; They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture do they cast lots. . . . They shall come and shall declare His righteousness Unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done it. In the sixty-ninth Psalm we find the only missing detail : 66 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES Reproach hath broken my heart ; And I am full of heaviness ; I looked for some to take pity, But there was none ; And for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat ; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Heaven forbid that I should raise a doubt in the mind of any believer ; if what I am now going to say should do so, I shall lay the doubt at once. There was only one verse in the Bible which made my faith waver. It was the dying cry from the cross as recorded by Matthew and Mark : " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." I believed in the Divine nature of Jesus Christ, I believed that He was the Son of God, but how was it possible, being so, that He should accuse His Father of jorsaking Him ? though we who believe in His Divinity have no difficulty in realizing the reality of His bodily suffering because of His human incarnation. The only refuge seemed to lie in the hope that these words were never uttered or were in- accurately reported a method of interpretation which we condemn in the Higher Critics. Some theological con- troversialists attempt to explain this dying exclamation by pointing out that Christ's death, being an offering for sin and, as representing sin itself, must have produced a temporary alienation for the moment from God. Such an assumption or theory, to most simple minds, can bring little comfort or light, and to me appeared both unnatural and irreverent. Here was this twenty-second Psalm of minute and de- tailed prophecy of the Saviour's death ; how often must He have read it and pondered over it during His sojourn on earth ! Does it throw any light upon His mysterious death cry ? I shall never forget the time and the place when this light burst upon myself on an afternoon in London when reading over the late Primate Alexander's Lectures on the Psalms. This psalm opens with these exact words from the cross : " My, God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me," and I had not noticed the fact till then. THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES 67 With this light we can feel that we are eye-witnesses of the scene so minutely detailed and can fancy that we hear Jesus after uttering this cry, just before He expires, exclaim : " Read the twenty-second Psalm and you must now believe at last that it has all been foretold there ; and I am He of whom your prophet spoke." We need have no difficulty in realizing that this opening verse of the psalm was merely David's own personal note of sorrow expressed in the figurative language of the Hebrew pro- phets, directing attention to the divinely inspired message which he had received, probably without his having any clear conception of the depth of the marvellous revelation vouchsafed to him. We thus see that a careful study of the picture-map of the world's Redeemer as constructed by the Old Testa- ment prophets gives us minute details, many hundreds of years before His advent, of His Birth. Divinity. Ministry. Betrayal. Passion. Crucifixion. Death. Burial. Resurrection and Ascension. Is there anything missing in this wondrous series of predictions which we have but too briefly summarized ? Is there anything wanting to convince the most hardened unbeliever or the most unreasonable doubter ? If there is, it can only be that a definite notification of the exact date of the Messiah's expected arrival on our planet is not included in the series of prophecies. This was left to the prophet Daniel to foretell. Not to the year, month or week, but to the very day and hour was the Divine Sacrifice predicted in the great central 68 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES prophecy of the seventy weeks made by the Babylonian captive. This, we shall see and minutely examine in a future study of the book of Daniel, but you must expect to find it veiled in language so mysterious that the believing Jew and the Gentile could only be certain of the truth of the tremendously important utterance after its actual occur- rence. I have classified Prophecy as divisible into the two Bibli- cal groups those which have been already clearly and unmistakably fulfilled, and those still awaiting their fulfil- ment. There is a small group which belongs to either or both these groups. Let me conclude this lecture on Pro- phecy with an example. I leave it with you, as a message from the lips of Messiah Himself. Without it the unity of the Old and New Testaments could hardly be said to be complete. It is contained in a text with which every one of you is familiar since childhood, but perhaps few have ever realized or recognized it as a prophecy or prediction. I never fully identified it as such till one never-to-be-for- gotten spring afternoon in Palestine, though it is the most typical prophetic utterance handed down to the sons of men through our Bible. Strive to visualize the back- ground which enabled it to start forward before me as a prophecy. I had walked over a part of the road travelled by His blessed feet from Nazareth village to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, when the sacred associations of the spot enabled me to call up a picture which was at first almost repellent, of Him who was the despised and rejected of men a fugitive and according to the respectable people of that time a vagabond who had not where to lay His head, who wandered about accompanied by a small rabble of peasant fishermen. I see Him lift up His hands and hear Him utter a cry which must have sounded to those about Him as the ravings of a distracted mind. It has already been fulfilled, and is to-day being fulfilled, and shall be continued to be fulfilled down the ages till we see Him THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES 69 coming back again in the clouds. Think of it as a prophecy, as you walk home let each of us ask himself, " Has it been fulfilled in me ? " " Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My labour is light." Don't be tempted to hesitate or procrastinate by the erroneous conception of the yoke don't confuse it with the idea of the " cross." It is but that kindest of all contrivances which makes the burden to be scarcely felt. CHAPTER VI THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF LET us glance for a brief moment at that portion of the history of the Jews which relates to the personality of Daniel and the date and authenticity of his book. I shall trouble you as little as possible with dates and will use only round numbers. Nebuchadnezzar invested Jerusalem about 600 B.C. in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, and then commenced the period known as the " Servitude." He allowed the conquered king to remain in Jerusalem and only carried away Daniel and a few other royal youths of the Jewish Court to Babylon. Eight years afterwards, the Jews having proved rebellious, there was a second siege, and most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem were carried with their king to Babylon. This commences the period known as the " Captivity." Nebuchadnezzar placed the wicked and treacherous King Zedekiah on the Jewish throne to rule over the remaining worthless rem- nant, who sank into base idolatry. A third siege fol- lowed, and the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, its inhabitants, its Temple, by sword and fire ; they left the whole land of Judea a barren wilderness. From this dates the period of the " Desolations " (587 B.C.), which lasted seventy years, as prophesied by Jeremiah, and the ful- filment was to the very day. The Jews began to return after the decree of Cyrus, who had conquered Babylon, and finally the walls of Jeru- salem were rebuilt by Nehemiah (445 B.C.). From this period onwards we have practically no Bible history of the Jews. There is thus a chasm of silence from Malachi till the advent of Christ. It was not only a dumb period of 70 THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF 71 four to five hundred years in Jewish history, but it was a time of silence with God : He ceased to speak to His people through any prophet. Our own countryman, Archdeacon Charles of Westminster Abbey, has shown by his elaborate researches into the Apocryphal books that this so-called silent period was a time of intense religious activity and expectation, especially in the regions about Galilee, which contained numerous schools of seers. The Jewish people remained after the time of the return from the Captivity under the rule of the kings of Persia till the rise of the Greek Empire as foretold by Daniel. Alexander the Great, from about 330 B.C., and his generals and their descendants became the masters or rulers of the earth, including of course the Jews. Under the various Greek kings of Syria and Egypt the Jews enjoyed great favour and free liberty to worship and carry out the various ceremonial ordinances of their religion till the advent of the descendant of one of them Antiochus Epiphanes (176- 164 B.C.). When this monster of wickedness and cruelty ascended the Syrian throne and reversed the policy of all his predecessors, he persecuted the Jews with great severity, forbade the rite of circumcision to be performed, compelled them to eat swines' flesh, and when they resisted he besieged Jerusalem, defiled the Temple, and set up a statue of Jupiter on the Altar there. His oppressions led to the rising of the Jews and the Maccabean wars, when the Jewish people under Judas Maccabeus retook the city of Jerusalem and cleansed the Sanctuary (165 B.C.). Soon after this the Jews may be considered as a free nation more or less, and were ruled over by the descendants of the Maccabeans, either as High-priests or Kings, for 100 years till Pompey captured Jerusalem for the Romans. About a quarter of a century afterwards finds Herod King of Judea, which brings the history down to the advent of Jesus Christ. A great deal of interest surrounds the per- sonality of the wicked Antiochus Epiphanes in connection with the book of Daniel, as the Higher Critics contend that it was in the time of his reign that the book was really 72 THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF written. The eleventh chapter of Daniel deals with the various wars between the predecessors of Antiochus, and the prophecies are so marvellously precise that some of the more moderate critics find great difficulty in believing that they were issued before the events. In this connection we have the edifying spectacle of one set of the critics complaining that Daniel's prophecies are so vague as to be unintelligible, whilst another set maintain that they are so specific and precise as to be utterly incredible. From what we have seen of the methods of the German critics and of those English Biblical scholars who blindly follow their lead, it becomes obvious why the book of Daniel is singled out for attack by every rationalistic writer who refuses to acknowledge the supernatural. This book contains a minute narrative of some of the most striking miracles recorded in the Bible, and a whole series of pro- phecies so marvellously precise in the date of their fulfil- ment that, if its genuineness can be proven, the whole case for the German Higher Criticism falls to pieces. If its authenticity can be clearly established the book becomes the most valuable of all the oracles of God, and any denial of its divine inspiration and revelation becomes a sheer absurdity. This is the clear issue before any student who attempts a serious study of this short book of only twelve chapters. Cyrus returned from his Eastern campaign to reign in Babylon in the year 536 B.C., and soon after Daniel finished his book. The German critics affirm that they have satis- fied themselves the book was written by the pseudo (or false) Daniel about the year 165 B.C., in the reign of the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes, and about the time of his death. You will observe by selecting this later date, which is nearly 400 years after the time of the real Daniel, they hope at one stroke to prove that, the prophecies at that time having been fulfilled, the predictions were fraudulent having been made after the event. You will now under- stand that the term " avowed fiction," applied to the book THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF 78 of Daniel by Canon Farrar, is a kind of apology for the forger, and here let me remind you of what I laid down in a previous address that there can be no compromise whatever between the rationalistic doctrine and the Chris- tian belief : we are dealing with either the truth or a lie. It is this spirit of compromise which all through Professor Driver's book on Daniel makes it such very sad reading. Common honesty compels you to take one side or the other ; there can be no such thing as reconcilement between the rationalist who rejects inspiration and the Christian whose faith is based on revelation. However, I hope to show you, later on, that we can meet the sceptic on his own selected ground of battle, and prove that even his own chosen late date of the book leaves predictions un- touched which came to their true fulfilment a century and a half after. I have been studying the book of Daniel for only the short period of three years, but I have been closely reading a great deal of the literature and criticism of scholars who have spent ten times this period in researches concerning its contents and their historical background. I have seldom missed an opportunity of asking help from any religious teacher with whom I came in close contact, and I have been amazed at the almost invariable result. All have accepted it as a fact that " the scholars " had firmly established the date of the book as long after the events prophesied in it had been fulfilled, and that it was written by some other person than the Babylonian statesman ; that it was full of historical inaccuracies, and contradictions ; some confessed candidly that they had ceased seriously to read it many years ago, and had never preached a sermon from it. At this stage of our study I wish to say that my own modest attempt to get into the heart of Daniel, after care- fully weighing all the evidence and assumptions put forth to disprove its genuineness, has firmly convinced me that at the present time every argument and assumption has been fairly and unanswerably met. I arrived at 74 THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF this conclusion before I had seen the two small volumes by Sir Robert Anderson, whose official position in the Secret Service of England, had for many years educated and trained him in the grave science of sifting out and weighing the value of evidence, as few men have ever been trained. He has so covered the broad field of contro- versy in his book entitled Daniel in the Critic's Den and in The Coming Prince 1 that I should not have thought of addressing any audience on the subject of Daniel unless I attempted to deal with several aspects of the question which he has not touched, and I might say in passing that I find it impossible to agree with some of his views about the unfulfilled or apocalyptical prophecies in the book. Grattan Guinness is here a truer interpreter on some points. But with this subject we have nothing to do at present. I was moreover encouraged to come before you, after seeing a paragraph in one of the books just mentioned : " True prophetic study is an inquiry into these unsearch- able counsels, these deep riches of Divine wisdom and knowledge. Beneath the light it gives the Scriptures are no longer a heterogeneous compilation of religious books, but one harmonious whole from which no part could be omitted without destroying the completeness of the revelation. And yet the study is disparaged in the Churches as being of no practical importance. If the Churches are leavened with scepticism at this moment, their neglect of prophetic study in this its true and broader aspect has done more than all the rationalism of Germany to promote the evil. Sceptics may boast of learned Professors and Doctors of Divinity among their ranks, but we may chal- lenge them to name a single one of the number who has given proof that he knows anything whatever of these deeper mysteries of revelation." To review all the arguments, serious and frivolous, which the German Higher Criticism has brought forth against the authenticity of Daniel would occupy at least 1 Published by Pickering and Inglis, 75, Princes Street, Edinburgh. THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF 75 half a dozen of such addresses as our time permits of during these pleasant evenings. Any student who wishes to see the entire question thoroughly and exhaustively examined should read the classic work of Doctor Pusey, Professor of Hebrew at Oxford. I can only attempt to deal with the more serious arguments and assumptions put forth by the rationalist critics. First, let us look at the personality of Daniel himself, though Canon Farrar is doubtful if such a person ever existed, and many of the German Higher Critics hold the same view. As he tells us in his own story, he was an exile living in Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, and into the reigns of the first Persian monarchs. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel were his cotemporary patriots, living through the exile period along with the great inspired scribe, Ezra. The date and genuineness of the book of Ezekiel has not been seriously disputed. He mentions Daniel in chap- ter xiv. 14 and following verses, where he is bracketed between two other great Biblical worthies Noah, Daniel and Job singled out for their righteousness. And again, in chapter xxviii. 3, when censuring the vanity and pre- sumption of the Prince of Tyre, he ironically says, " Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel ; there is no secret that they can hide from thee." Note that Daniel is here singled out for his wisdom and his faculty of revealing secrets. It strikes me that had the prophet only wanted a representa- tive of wisdom he would have chosen Solomon ; but no other personality in Biblical history so fitly represents the double qualification of deep knowledge and the power of finding out the most profound or mysterious truths as does Daniel. Thus then we have absolutely incontestable testimony that there existed before or during the lifetime of Ezekiel somewhere in Israel a man endowed with these two gifts which are so strikingly manifested in the book whose veracity is challenged, and the name of this person was Daniel. The date of the book of Ezekiel is between 500 and 600 B.C. From the time of the heathen writer Porphyry, who 76 THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF died about A.D. 300, after years of virulent abuse of Chris- tianity, till quite modern times, the above testimony of the prophet Ezekiel was accepted as sufficient identification of the author of the book of Daniel. Mark the ingenuity of the German critic : he cannot deny or explain away Ezekiel, but he affirms that because of this mention of the name of Daniel by him, some writer 400 years afterwards signs a book under the name of Ezekiel's hero. Archdeacon Charles is brought to the aid of these critics with the very ingenious theory that after the line of the true prophets had died out, anyone who dared to speak as a prophet would have been regarded as an impostor and stoned, and hence pseudepigrapha, or writings under assumed names, came into being. It has apparently not occurred to the critical mind that this argument is a two- edged weapon and can be used with greater force on the other side. If in the second century before Christ, pseu- donymous or fictitious names were recognized as the rule amongst the men who wrote about the remote future, most certainly their works could never have got included hi the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament. Our next argument cannot fail to appeal as conclusive to every true Christian believer. We must reject the " avowed fiction " or " religious romance " assumption as well as the more subtle pseudonymity theory (as far as the latter applies to Daniel), and face the question as Pro- fessor Pusey does : " The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a most frightful scale, ascribing to God pro- phecies which were never uttered and miracles which are assumed never to have been wrought. In a word, the whole book would be one lie in the name of God." Now let us turn to our New Testament and read the words in Matthew xxiv. 15 : " When therefore you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel. . . ." These are the words of Jesus Christ the Son of God ; can any follower of His permit himself to believe that Christ would have set His seal on a lie THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND UNBELIEF 77 or a forgery ? Note that this is not even an ordinary quotation, as if He had repeated a line of the Psalms, nor is it a passing quotation from a prophecy ; He stamps Daniel as an authority " When therefore ye see " ; and observe He calls him a prophet this writer under a fictitious name who wrote 400 years after the prophets had ceased. The teaching of Daniel is so interwoven into the entire fabric of the New Testament, both through the Gospels and in the utterances of Paul and Peter, and more especially in the book of Revelation, that to reject Daniel would shatter belief in it. Thus the main question amongst the critics regarding the genuineness of the book of Daniel is its date. This we must carefully consider as time will permit. All the Ger- man Higher Critics, and alas most of our own Biblical teachers, following blindly their lead, place the book in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and at about the years 168-164 B.C. CHAPTER VII DANIEL AND THE CLOSING OF THE CANON THE crucial point in the controversy is the determination of the date when the Old Testament Canon was finally closed. If this should be proved to have occurred during the lives of the latest prophets the Ezra-Nehemiah period the question is settled for all time. I shall have to use this word " Canon " often. It simply means, as ordinarily used, the list of the books of the Old Testament which were judged to be inspired and were regarded as the divine standard for the regulation of the life and faith of the Jewish people. There was probably always a Canon or list from the time of Moses, notwithstanding the dogma of some extreme critics who are foolish enough to assume that all the earlier books so called were really written after the Exile. But this question of the exact date at which all the Old Testament books were examined and pronounced to be the product of Divine inspiration and incorporated as we now find them in our Bibles has become a huge subject in the hands of the Higher Critics. From a study of the very extensive literature of the controversy I believe that the old traditional or accepted date would never have been seriously questioned but for the presence of Daniel's book in the Canon. This book had to be discredited and brought into line with the late Apo- cryphal books by those who rejected it as a true narrative and inspired revelation. In order to establish its claim as " a religious romance " the date of the closing of the list of books (or the Canon) had to be ruthlessly shifted 300 years nearer to the Christian era. Josephus, the Jewish historian, writing during the life- 78 THE CLOSING OF THE CANON 79 time of St. John of Patmos, emphatically states that the Canon was finally closed in the reign of Artaxerxes, in the time of Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi. He not only makes the statement on his own account but affirms that this was an implanted belief of all the Jews, for which they would gladly die. There are some undoubted inaccuracies in Josephus's History and any statement of his which stands in the way of the assumptions of the Higher Critics they never hesitate to reject. Professor Alexander points to stronger evidence still in the steadfast tradition of the Jews, which ascribes the closure of the Old Testament Canon to Ezra, who after the rebuilding of the Temple associated with himself for this purpose a number of learned and devout Jews. After examining the grounds for this fixed tradition he thinks that to call it in question would be to exhibit a degree of scepticism such as, in all other questions of a similar kind, would be thought unreasonable and absurd. The Fourth Book of Esdras, written at the end of the first century B.C., testifies to the existence of this tradition, and the scholars associated with Ezra were known as the Men of the Great Synagogue. Moreover, Josephus emphatically states that during the four and a half centuries wh^ch had elapsed from Ezra's time till the date at which he wrote no one had dared either to add to or to take from or to alter anything in the sacred books. When we consider that amongst the Jews no writing was accepted as divinely inspired unless written by an accredited prophet, and since the Hebrews, in their later writings, testify to the fact that there was no prophet after Malachi, the evidence is overwhelming that the book of Daniel was in existence at least 400 years before Christ. There is strong testimony to be derived from the Apocryphal books which proves that the Canon was closed before the date assigned by the critics to Daniel's writings. Thus the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, written in the 7 80 THE CLOSING OF THE CANON second century B.C. and translated by his grandson, proves incontestably that the Canon was then closed. Professor Pusey and Sir Robert Anderson affirm that this book settles the date of Daniel. The Jews group the Old Testament books into three divisions : the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The last group only need be mentioned here. It was usually known as the Hagiographa, or Sacred Writings. It is in this division that Daniel's book is placed. The Higher Critic tries to make much of this. He affirms that its exclusion from the group of the Prophets proves that Daniel was not regarded as a prophet. Certainly in the sense in which these groups were defined he was not. The Sanhedrim, or the Men of the Great Synagogue, only regarded a man as an inspired prophet who devoted himself to the office of teaching and expounding to the people the messages he had received. Daniel was a great statesman, and in no sense an official prophet living amongst and ministering to the people. King David is likewise excluded from the before-mentioned group of the Prophets, and his writings are included, like the book of Daniel, in the Hagiographa. Let us examine a statement made by the greatest scholar in the Church of England. Archdeacon Charles says, speaking of this group : " To this third division of the Canon books were admitted down to A.D. 100, and the last were Canticles, Ecclesiastes and Esther." Mark closely what follows : " Daniel was admitted to this third Canon at some period in the second century B.C. in the beliej that it was written by the ancient worthy of that name, but not amongst the Prophets ; for the prophetic Canon was closed." I quote this authority because, as far as I can find, it is the most recent statement on this question, being issued in 1914, and we must fairly weigh it. The quotation is from his book entitled, Religious Development between the Old and the New Testaments, page 43. In the same volume on page 27 he gives the date of the book of Daniel as about 168-165 B.C. This date defines the " some period in the second century bejore Christ " to be at the utmost sixty -five THE CLOSING OF THE CANON 81 years from the writing of the book till its acceptance by the jealous custodians of the Canon who he tells us believed it to have been written nearly 400 years bejore. In the first place, if we take this statement as accurate, it stamps the book as a forgery ; it is even possible that the man who wrote it a devout Jew, if he were a young writer was actually alive when the fraud of its inclusion in the Canon was perpetrated. A fraud it certainly was, especially if anyone then living knew of its authorship. But is it possible for anyone to conceive of the possi- bility of such an imposture ? The Archdeacon has laboured to prove that it was the general custom of the apocalyptic writers to put an assumed name to their works, and here is one brought before the learned scribes and members of the Sanhedrim, who are supposed to be aware of such a custom, and it is accepted apparently without question. What a startling and priceless discovery such an ancient manuscript must have appeared to be to those devout Jews of thatiperiod, described as one of the most progressive and studious in their religious history, and always intensely jealous of the custody of their sacred Scriptures. It is with extreme reluctance that I call your attention to the writing of this illustrious prelate, for whom I have the deepest respect. But it is painfully necessary for me, to give you the very last word from the criticism of those who believe that they are advancing the cause of truth by the production of " evidence " of this kind. You will remember how the keystone of the arch of the German Higher Criticism which puts forwards the date of the Pentateuch a thousand years consists of exactly the same kind of material. The lost book of the Law dis- covered in the dilapidated Temple by Hilkiah during the reign of the good King Josiah was in the opinion of all these critics decidedly a forgery executed by the fraudulent priests, whose material interests were injured by it ; not however that I wish to mention our great English divine in company with such sceptics. Before I leave the consideration of the position of the 82 THE CLOSING OF THE CANON book of Daniel on the list of the Hagiographa, if the ex- planation which I have given of why he was not included under the Prophets leaves any doubt on your mind, I may tell you that Professor Alexander brings forward very cogent reasons for believing that in the early years the book was placed amongst those of the Prophets; but though the Jews guarded the Canon with the most jealous care, they more than once after the advent of Christianity changed the grouping of the books. I pass over a number of proofs to be found by a close examination of other Apocryphal books that show how the Canon must have been closed long before the critics' date of 165 B.C. e.g. the mention of the book of Daniel by Mattathias in 1 Maccabees. The third Sibylline book and the book of Baruch contain many of the phrases of Daniel ; but the Higher Critics try to nullify this evidence by stating that Daniel copied from Baruch. The prayers of Nehemiah are believed by Professor Pusey and others to establish the fact that he was familiar with that wonderful prayer in chapter ix. of Daniel's book, whilst they give good reasons why Daniel did not copy Nehemiah. The critics attach the greatest weight to the fact that the book of Sirach, known also as Ecclesiasticus, is silent about Daniel. It is believed to date about 200 B.C., and they affirm that, when mentioning the other great worthies, he omits Daniel ; therefore the book was unknown 200 B.C. The argument of " silence " is undoubtedly the weakest of all evidence, and the value of the omission is entirely nullified by the fact that he also omits all mention of Daniel's cotemporary, Ezra one of the most famous of all the Biblical chroniclers after Moses. In reading the works of Josephus I came on a passage which surprised me. I see it barely mentioned in the controversy, but I feel that the testimony would be un- questioned if it were produced as evidence on any point of history in which the Bible was not concerned ; for the general attitude of the sceptical mind is to reject, not only everything in the oracles of God involving acceptance of the THE CLOSING OF THE CANON 88 supernatural, but every historical statement in the Bible which cannot be corroborated by cotemporary historians. Sometimes when they meet with such corroboration they reject it, solely because it supports the Divine record which they say must be wrong. In the Antiquities of Josephus, written about the close of the first century A.D., in Book XI, chapter viii, page 5, he relates that Alexander the Great, after his siege and capture of the city of Tyre, marched southwards with his invincible army on Jerusalem. The Jews, seeing resistance to be impossible, decided to surrender, and at once accepted his sovereignty. He was met on the road to the city by the High-priest, Levites and principal men of Jerusalem, and Josephus states, in the following words : " He [Alexander] went up to the Temple and offered sacrifices to God. And when the book of Daniel was showed to himwhereinDaniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians he supposed that him- self was the person intended, and he was then glad and he dismissed the multitude." This was about 330 B.C., and 165 years before the Higher Critics state that the book of Daniel was written. We ask ourselves is this a wicked invention of the Jewish historian, or a true narrative of a tradition carefully and piously handed down from one devout Jew to another for several successive generations ? When we come to examine the prophecies contained in the book of Daniel we shall find that he accurately foretold 200 years before that a great Greek king was to arise and conquer the world, and that one of his successors (not his lineal descendant) would mercilessly oppress the chosen people. It would be decidedly unjust to brand every critic who denies the true date of the book of Daniel as an unbeliever in the ordinarily accepted meaning of that term. There is a large and increasing number of pious and godly men (I believe many of them call themselves Modernists) whose devout study of the Bible has led them to arrive at very remarkable and interesting conclusions. 84 THE CLOSING OF THE CANON They say, and no doubt very plausibly, that the sacred books should be restudied in the light of the increased knowledge of modern days. Mark the source of this increased knowledge, or new light. They apply a sort of evolutionary or Darwinian hypo- thesis to Prophecy and Inspiration, and believe that the Holy Spirit, indwelling in every true believer, confers upon him the power of developing a more and more perfect knowledge of God and of His laws than was possible to those living in former days, and that this accumulated experience amounts in the long run to a degree of inspiration or some- thing which they mistake for it. This is the only explana- tion that I can give you for the enormous importance which some of these philosophers attach to the Apocryphal books. Not however confining this doctrine to the operation of such an evolutionary process affecting the minds of men since the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, they apply the theory to the old prophets, who were the direct instru- ments or mouthpieces of God. They believe that the later prophets improved in this way upon the older ones, and reinterpreted the unfulfilled prophecies of their prede- cessors to make them fit in with later conditions. This doctrine is different, but only in degree, from the wild theory of the gradual development of the Jewish religion from pagan ideals held by the German Higher Criticism which denied the possibility of Divine revelation and re- jected the idea of God having ever spoken directly to the patriarchs Abraham, Jacob and his descendants. This led to their rejection of the personalities of these worthies, and even of Joshua, Moses and David, whom they trans- formed into astral myths. It is not difficult to see how this latter theory, on being pushed too far in the case of the prophets, makes it difficult for them to accept the advanced and precise prophecies of Daniel delivered so early as in the reign of Nebuchad- nezzar, or the first Persian kings. The difficulty is got over in two ways first by making the date 400 years later, and THE CLOSING OF THE CANON 85 secondly by denying that it contains any true prophecies whatever. Without our rejecting the doctrine that even amongst the individuals of the line of true prophets there was a gradual or progressive development in their personal faith and godliness, and that there was an increasing clearness and precision in their predictive utterances, it should be enough for us to believe that these holy men spoke as God dictated to them at the time, and that usually the message was tempered according to the spiritual condition of the chosen people at the age in which it was delivered, unless in those unmistakable instances where the Divine Ruler veiled His message in language which was intentionally mysterious, so that after the prophecy had been fulfilled His chosen people would be convinced that the event was specially planned for their instruction, their deliverance or punishment. CHAPTER VIII ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL WE come next to investigate some grave charges which have been made and widely accepted against the authenti- city of the book of Daniel. Higher Critics, both German and English, have proclaimed that the historical state- ments therein made are false, and that these inaccuracies or misstatements render it impossible for any scholar to believe that the book could have been written at the period claimed, and by the great statesman who held such an important and responsible position in the mighty Baby- lonian Empire. Let us fancy a book written by our present gifted Prime Minister or by the late Sir Robert Peel ; it only comes to see the light about A.D. 2500, and it is found on examina- tion that the assumed writer was ignorant of the names of the sovereigns under whose reigns he had been actively administering the affairs of the United Kingdom. Would any sane man be found to accept the dubious volume as the work of either of these great statesmen ? This is no exaggerated parallel of the charges made by the critics. I shall be able to prove to your satisfaction that each of these allegations has been refuted, and that in a way which demonstrates unpardonable ignorance on the part of the critic. Before we look into the charges we should remember that the book of Daniel makes no pretence to be regarded as a history in any sense of the term. Part of it is written in Hebrew, and part in the Chaldean or Aramaic language. In the narrative certain historical personages are mentioned. The critics commence their attack on the book at the 86 ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES 87 very first verse, where the author states that in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, Nebu- chadnezzar, King of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem ; the subsequent verses tell us that he carried off Daniel and a few other royal youths. It is affirmed that there was no siege or capture of Jerusalem in this particular year. By Jeremiah xxv. 1, we find the first year of Nebuchadnezzar corresponds with the fourth year of Jehoiakim, for the Babylonian Prince- Royal and general only became king after the taking of Jerusalem : this fact is established by the historian Berosus and by Clinton. By a study of Jeremiah xxv. 1, Jeremiah xxxv., 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 6, taken along with the state- ment from Josephus derived from the lost history of Berosus (a Babylonian priest who lived 300 B.C.), Sir Robert Anderson has proved to a demonstration that this first verse of Daniel, when submitted to the severe test of chronology, is absolutely accurate, and that all statements in the above-mentioned Biblical books are in complete harmony with it. We come next to a more serious charge, which if estab- lished, as the critics maintained, would damage the relia- bility of Daniel's accuracy. Recall the narrative of the capture of Babylon and the dramatic incident of the finger writing on the wall and the death of Belshazzar the same night. The critics have said for many years that this account of the death of the last King of Babylon proved conclusively that the book was a fraud ; because the last King of Babylon was undoubtedly Nabonidus, as confirmed by secular history, and that consequently Belshazzar was a fiction. There is no doubt that Nabonidus was the last real king, and therefore there was no room for such a personage as Belshazzar. Daniel makes the queen speak of this mythical personage as the son of Nebuchad- nezzar a still worse blunder. God certainly moves in a mysterious way. In the old ruins of the Babylonian Empire Sir Henry Rawlinson has discovered cylinders of 88 ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES clay in which this last king gives the name of his son as Belshazzar. Nabonidus calls him his eldest son and the offspring of his heart. Next we find the wonderfully interesting discovery of what is known as the Annalistic Tablet of Cyrus, who conquered the Babylonian Empire. It is imperfect, but the portion remaining to us tells us that when the general of Cyrus entered Babylon the king's son died (Professor Driver, a hostile critic, interprets the inscription as saying that Gobryas made an assault and slew the king's son). This recently discovered tablet of Cyrus clears up the whole matter. It tells us that Cyrus himself, with the great Persian army, was pursuing Nabonidus, who had evidently taken the field with the Babylonian army, leaving his eldest son, Belshazzar, to defend the city of Babylon. He was almost certainly associated in the government with his father. This is the inference derivable from Daniel's statement that he himself was proclaimed the same night by Belshazzar as " third ruler " or " one of three rulers," it matters not which form of words, Nabonidus the King being first, his son with the courtesy title of " King Bel- shazzar " being second, and Daniel third. As regards the queen addressing Belshazzar as the " son of Nebuchadnezzar " there need not be the slightest difficulty. Nabonidus had (as was a constant custom amongst the Eastern monarchs) married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar to strengthen his dynasty, in which case, the recognized Hebrew habit of addressing the grandson as son would be an obvious explanation. Rawlinson, in his History, makes no difficulty about accepting the above explanations when he writes : " Nabonidus had associated with him in the government his son Belshazzar or Bel-shar-uzur, the grandson of the great Nebuchadnezzar, and in his father's absence Belshazzar took the direction of affairs within the city." A most interesting research of Professor Wilson of Princetown should be here referred to. He shows, as stated by Professor Orr in his Problem of the Old Testament, that the Aramaic word for king ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES 89 is the equivalent for the Assyrio-Babylonian words sarru, malku, pahatu, bel pahate and hazannu. Each of the bearers of these titles would also be a " ruler," and the last three would be called " magnates of the king " (Daniel v. 1). Any of these Assyrian words might be rendered into Hebrew also as " king." He shows that this will explain the title " king " in the case of both Belshazzar and of Darius the Mede. A third very serious charge is made against this mys- terious person who had written the book of Daniel. From the vehemence with which this argument is pressed home by the German School, after being routed from every other position, it is evident that they consider this their last line of trenches. Briefly stated, the objection is the following. Cyrus conquered the Babylonian kingdom, and his general, Gobryas, entered the city of Babylon on the night when Belshazzar was slain. Cyrus was therefore the first king, but Daniel immediately after the passage narrating the death of Belshazzar states in the last verse of the fifth chapter : " And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about three score and two years old." According to Daniel Darius the Mede was the first king, and the first verse of the sixth chapter proceeds to tell how he set the aged prophet and statesman at the head of the 120 satraps in company with two other presidents. There is no mention made in history or in any list of the Medo-Persian monarchs of this so-called "Darius the Mede." (We must not confound him with later rulers to whom the title of Darius was given.) The critics say this is a funda- mental objection, and conclusive evidence that whoever wrote the book under the name of Daniel was in profound ignorance of the most rudimentary knowledge of the time of which he professed to write. The historical integrity of Daniel is thus filed down to the answer of the query, Who was Darius the Mede ? Let us note that the word Darius was a throne-name, something like Kaiser, Czar, or Pharaoh. When Cyrus 90 ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES conquered Babylon he marched northward and eastward to subdue Asia. Though his wars are treated in a fabulous manner by the old historians, and many of their reports are myths, we know that he conquered and reigned over what is now known as Afghanistan. For the period of his absence it was necessary that he should appoint a temporary ruler or viceroy to administer the affairs of Babylon; whom did he appoint? His own monumental tablet answers the question : " Peace to the city Cyrus did establish. Gobryas his Governor proclaimed peace to all the province of Babylon. He [Gobryas] appointed Gover- nors in Babylon." In a previous sentence of the inscription Cyrus tells us who Gobryas was. He was the Governor of Kurdistan, and hence a Median Prince, who reigned as viceroy over Media and had resided in the capital of that country in the city of Ecbatana. Can anything appear to be more natural than that, on the return of Cyrus from his first Eastern campaign, Gobryas should drop his temporary title and return to his own province and city of Ecbatana, or Achmetha, to resume his sovereignty or former rule ? Now I wish to show you that this assumption is rendered almost a certainty by one of the most striking links in the chain of evidence, as if God had taken precaution to silence every doubt. If you turn to the fifth chapter of Ezra you read how Cyrus, after the Babylonians had been defeated, had issued a decree permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem and build the Temple. They returned and were for years prevented by the wicked inhabitants of the surrounding country, when an appeal was made to a new King of Babylon and a fruitless search was made amongst the archives of the city for the old decree of Cyrus which was forgotten and lost. The first verse of the sixth chapter relates how the roll was finally discovered in the palace of the viceroy at Ecbatana the home of Gobryas, who had naturally carried back to his own city the records of his brief reign as Darius the Mede in Babylon. ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES 91 You will thus observe that every single objection made by the critics against the accuracy of the historical state- ments in the book of Daniel has been fairly and con- clusively met. Their objections have been demonstrated to be founded on ignorance of secular history and a lack of sound investigation of those passages of the contemporary sacred writers which bear upon the years of the reign of Jehoiakim. It is true that the finding of the lost decree of Cyrus, in the city of Ecbatana, cannot fairly be considered as a demonstration that Darius the Mede was Gobryas ; but we must remember that the Cyrus tablet distinctly states that Gobryas appointed the Governors of Babylon, and Daniel just as distinctly affirms that these subordinate rulers were appointed by Darius the Mede. It seems that the only reasonable conclusion to arrive at is that Gobryas and Darius were one and the same person. In this har- monizing conclusion we can confidently rest till the pick- axe and spade of the explorer restore further monumental proofs which must drive the unbelieving German critics from their last line of trenches. We next shall glance at objections against the date of Daniel, and consequently against the authenticity of his book, derived from internal evidence arising from a con- sideration of various points of philology, or a study of words. This need not delay us, nor put any serious tax on your attention. Formerly the literature of this part of the controversy was most voluminous, but it has now dwindled into nothing, as the critics have in despair abandoned one position after another. You will remember that a portion of the book was written in Aramaic or Babylonian or Chaldean, and another part in Hebrew. The most intensely hostile critics of Daniel were Dean Farrar and Canon Cheyne; these sur- passed the wildest German opponents of the genuineness of the book. Dean Farrar was forced to admit that per- haps nothing certain can be inferred from a philological examination either of the Hebrew or Chaldee portions of the 92 ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES book. " The character of the language proves nothing." Canon Cheyne was also compelled to make a similar ad- mission. These admissions might be regarded as settling the question ; but Professor Driver, in his unfortunate desire for compromise, holds that the Hebrew of Daniel supports the theory of a later date ; while Professor Pusey, also a professor of Hebrew, entirely neutralizes the value of this opinion by telling us that the Hebrew of Daniel corresponds to the time of about 550 B.C., when the book was really written. Many years ago the German Higher Critics trumpeted forth a blast of victory Daniel was once and for all finally discredited. A great discovery had been made. They found in the book a number of Greek words. As Greek was not spoken in the East till after the time of Alexander this was conclusive evidence that the book must have been written after his time 330 B.C. These words, said to be pure Greek words, have been submitted to the most minute examination by scholars hostile and friendly alike, and there is now a consensus of opinion that the long list must be cut down to two Greek nouns, which are the names of two musical instruments. And a no less distinguished scholar than Professor Pusey seems to doubt the Greek origin of these two words. Still the critics, like drowning men, cling tenaciously to these two substantives. It must seem to you almost unbelievable that scholarly men should attempt to shatter the belief of 2,500 years by such cobweb arguments, and it must tax your credulity to believe that I am not consciously or unconsciously withholding something which would exonerate these men from such puerilities. Leaning on the broken reed of these two words, names of two musical instruments, Professor Driver hobbles along through his textbook on Daniel on this crutch. The subject is not one for ridicule when we reflect that his treatise is, I believe, accepted as the standard in most of the Protestant Colleges of Theology in England. He declares that the presence of these Greek words " de- ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES 93 mand " a date for the book of Daniel after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great. I wish to point out to you that this is not a question for scholars at all, but one to be decided by common sense, as insisted upon by Sir Robert Anderson. Let us assume that the names of all the musical instruments mentioned in the third chapter of Daniel trumpet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer were Greek words. We must take this as proof that the instruments were of Greek origin or manufacture, and their names would travel from Greece to Babylon along with the instrument. From the time of Solomon at least the coast and sea and over- land trade was most intimate and extensive. His fleets swept the Mediterranean Sea, in its eastern end. Professor Sayce tells us that there were Greek colonies in Palestine as early as the reign of Hezekiah. The commerce between Babylon and Greece was very active, even before the time of Solomon, and it would appear obvious that any musical instrument in use in Greece would very soon find its way to Babylon and carry its Greek name along with it, cen- turies before the time of Alexander. Persian words are found in Daniel ; these are few, how- ever, and as the great statesman of the Babylonians must have had constantly to communicate with the surrounding nations and as he lived and administered under the first Persian kings, it is little short of absurdity to suppose that he was entirely ignorant of the Persian language. Professor Pusey, after a critical examination of every word and idiom in Daniel, states " the language, then, is one mark of the genuineness set by God on the book. Rationalism must rebel, as it has rebelled, but it dare not now with any moderate honesty abuse philology to cover its rebellion." The critics have attempted to show that the frequent mention of angels in Daniel is indicative of a late date, since this implies that the writer had borrowed his views from the religion of the Persians. When all this is in- vestigated, we arrive at the fact that Daniel is the first to give names to two of these ministering spirits Michael 94 ALLEGED HISTORICAL INACCURACIES and Gabriel, both mentioned afterwards in the New Testa- ment ; and he tells us that God so far cared for the heathen nations, Persia and Greece, that they had each an angel watching over their welfare. The assumption that the doctrine of the book, which implies that there are gradations in the ranks of these ministering spirits, is especially a doctrine of Daniel is quite frivolous. There is nothing in the book about angels which is not in complete harmony with the innumerable narratives of these celestial messengers all through the Old Testament and the New. Michael appears to be almost certainly the personality designated in the earlier writings by the title " The Angel of the Lord." CHAPTER IX THE PROPHECIES IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL HAVING now given you a sufficient summary of all the assumptions and arguments of the unbelieving critics, and of the so-called " Modernist School " of reinterpretes of Divine Revelation, we may begin the study of the prophe- cies in the book of Daniel with our minds undimmed by a single doubt about its date and genuineness. We leave that part of the controversy behind us, and we leave to the Higher Critic and the Modernist his right to say, " I do not believe in Daniel or in his book," but we cannot refrain from replying to him : " If you continue to affirm this in order to weaken the faith of others we demand that you must advance new arguments and dis- cover to us somejacts to support your assumption, for every single statement which you have hitherto made has been fairly and squarely met." When I say we leave the controversy behind us, we shall ever have before our minds, as we proceed, the momentous conviction that the study of each prophecy affords in itself incontestable proof of the Divine origin of the work. The late Grattan Guinness, who with his talented wife had made a life-long study of Daniel, in the preface to his book entitled Light JOT the Last Days, states what we may fairly accept as an introduction to our own study of the subject : " The prophecies of Daniel stand pre-eminent amongst all others in their evidential value. It is an astounding fact that not only does his brief book give a fore-view of twenty-five centuries of Jewish and Gentile history, includ- ing the first and second advents of Christ, but that it also 8 90 96 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL fixes the chronology of various episodes of the then un- known future with a simple certainty which would be audacious if it were not Divine. " Would any man dare to foretell not only a long succes- sion of events lying far in the remote future, but, in addition, the periods they would occupy ? This Daniel has done, and the predictions have come to pass." The first chapter in the sacred book gives a narrative of what befell Daniel and his three companions at the Court of Babylon, of their education and training there. The second opens with the wonderful story of the forgotten dream of King Nebuchadnezzar which Daniel reproduces, and interprets with the solemn assurance that the revela- tion came to him directly from God Himself. " Thou, O king, sawest and behold a great image. This image, which was mighty, and whose brightness was ex- cellent, stood before thee ; and the aspect thereof was terri- ble. As for this image his head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces. " Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors ; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. " This is the dream ; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art king of kings, unto whom the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory ; and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the heaven hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all : thou art the head of gold. " And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 9T thec ; and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron ; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things ; and as iron that crush- eth all these, shall it break in pieces and crush. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay, and part of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom ; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. " And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly brittle. " And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men ; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron doth not mingle with clay. " And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people ; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. " Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold : The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter ; and the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof is sure." This dream of the king with Daniel's interpretation of it is the key to all the other prophetic visions in the book. Its meaning is as clear as the noonday sun when no cloud is in the sky. It is only the miasma of unbelief which can veil its brilliance. The head of gold is the Babylonian Empire, as at that time, represented by Nebuchadnezzar himself. His king- dom is to perish, and to be succeeded by that of the Medes and Persians. This is represented by the breast and arms of silver of the image. The Persian Empire in its turn was to fall before the might of Greece, led by its young King 98 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL Alexander the Great, represented by the belly and thighs of brass. A fourth mighty kingdom the greatest the world has ever seen, was to arise and crush all other nations, king- doms and peoples. This was unquestionably the Roman Empire, which first split into two as represented by the legs, and finally into ten separate kingdoms figured by the ten toes of the image of iron and clay. Many inter- preters who interpret Daniel's interpretation of the dream insist that these ten nations or kingdoms into which the great Roman Empire divided, constituting a common- wealth of kingdoms, paying a voluntary submission to Rome, have maintained themselves for the last thirteen centuries as ten kingdoms sometimes one more or less, but at an average of ten during all the varying changes of power and of dynasties in Europe. Other scholars of the Bible believe that this latter part of the prophecy refers to events still to come, to those days which shall immediately pre- cede the termination of the Gentile period, when there shall be a revival of the ancient Roman Empire, divided into ten new kingdoms with a fierce King or Kaiser controlling their united might. This is the personage which Sir Robert Anderson regards as the " Coming Prince " and Antichrist, who shall reign for the brief 'period of three and a half years, before the second coming of Christ. In the dream these kingdoms are to remain till the end ; they certainly in any case correspond, or are identical with, the ten horns of the great beast to be met with in a later vision. Now comes the stone, which, cut out of the moun- tain, is to break up and utterly consume all these kingdoms ; and note that this new Kingdom set up by God is to last for ever and ever. No Christian doubts that this new power is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ ; though there are difference* of opinion amongst Biblical scholars as to whether the Kingdom as now established and recognized is the stage of its existence referred to in the text. Sir Robert Ander- son points out that the final crash which is to overwhelm THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 99 the ten kingdoms is to come at a time when the brittle empire had already become divided, and hence he thinks it does not apply to the first advent of Christ, but to a tune still future. We need not pause to consider the arguments in favour of accepting the words literally that this new Kingdom is to be one which shall break and crush these other kingdoms in a physical sense or to be a spiritual Kingdom ruling in the hearts of men over all the earth. Probably both results are implied. For us it is enough to be convinced that without a shadow of doubt the prediction specifically refers to Christ, and Professor Pusey's remarks are worth quoting here. He says that, " strange enough, no one has been found to doubt that it is the Kingdom of Christ. It is owned by those who set these prophecies at the very latest that, nearly two centuries before our Lord's ministry began, it was foreshown that the Kingdom of God should be estab- lished without human aid, to replace all other kingdoms, and to be replaced by none ; to stand for ever and to fill the earth. Nineteen centuries have verified the prediction of the permanency of that Kingdom, founded as it was by no human means, endowed with inextinguishable life, ever conquering and to conquer in the four quarters of the world ; a Kingdom one and alone since the world has been ; embracing all times and climes, and still expanding ; un- worn by that destroyer of all things human, time ; strong amid the decay of empires ; the freshness and elasticity of youth written on the brow which has outlived eighteen centuries. This truth, so gigantic, so inconceivable "^beforehand, so inexplicable now except by the grace of God was (it is granted), foreseen, foreknown. Nay, more," remarks the same authority, " it is granted that the prophet believed that He, the King of this new Kingdom, was to be more than man." Well may we say that did the whole book of Daniel contain nothing else but this single prophecy of the King- dom made without hands, we should regard it as one of the 100 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL most priceless of all the utterances of the inspired Hebrew prophets. It seems almost inconceivable that the destructive critics cannot give credit to Daniel as foreknowing anything about the rise of the Roman Empire, which was in his day still in the womb of futurity. Though they dare not deny the truth of the prediction of Christ's coming Kingdom, they most unreasonably, and it would appear absurdly, maintain that this fourth empire must therefore be the Grecian and not the Roman power. We shall meet this objection again ; the succeeding visions prove, to an absolute demonstration, that this fourth composite king- dom can be no other than the Roman power. We come next to the examination of what is known as Daniel's First Vision, given in the seventh chapter of his book as occurring in the first year of Belshazzar. " I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven brake forth upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings ; I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand upon two feet, as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second like to a bear, and it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in his mouth between his teeth : and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl ; the beast had also four heads ; and dominion was given to it. ** After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly ; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet ; and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it ; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 101 roots ; and behold in this' horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. " I beheld till thrones were placed, and one that was ancient of days did sit ; his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool ; his throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him ; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him ; the judgment was set, and the books were opened. I beheld at that time because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake ; I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and he was given to be burned with fire. And as for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away ; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. " I saw in the night visions, and behold there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him ; his dominion is an ever- lasting dominion, which shall not pass away and his king- dom that which shall not be destroyed." It is perfectly clear and certain that this vision is a repetition of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and the four beasts here take the place of the four different parts of the metallic image. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome are all again portrayed. Daniel inquired particularly about the fourth kingdom, and he was told almost in the same words as in the dream of the king that it was to be different from all other kingdoms, and was to devour the whole earth, to tread it down, and to break it in pieces. As for the horns these certainly correspond accurately to the ten kingdoms represented by the ten toes of the image. Daniel is told that they represent ten kings (kingdoms) which shall yet arise. He is informed that the " little horn " shall arise after 102 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL them, and shall be diverse from them and shall put down three kings. We ask ourselves what is this little horn ? Ever since the Reformation it has been held by nearly all Protestant interpreters of the Scripture to correspond to the New Testament Antichrist, and to be Papal Rome. We shall minutely look into the marked characteristics of this little horn as drawn for us in the seventh chapter of Daniel, and you can test them or contrast them with the history and character of the Papal power as you know it, and I shall leave you to judge for yourselves. Sir Robert Anderson strongly, and I may say vehemently, opposes the view which identified these two powers, whilst Grattan Guinness is equally positive on the other side. In the eighth verse we are told it came up amongst the ten other kingdoms (of the Roman Empire), and that it plucked up three of these. Sir Isaac Newton, two hundred years ago, tells us that early in the eighth century the Pope of Rome rooted up and subdued the three kingdoms : (1) the Exarchate of Ravenna ; (2) the Kingdom of the Lombards ; and (3) the Dukedom of Rome ; acquired Peter's Patri- mony out of these dominions, and thereby rose up as a temporal prince, king, or horn of the fourth beast. These victories were achieved and secured through the military aid of Pepin and Charles the Great, kings of France : from this time forwards the Popes, being temporal Princes, ceased in their Bulls to note the years of the Greek Emperors as they had hitherto done. This same eighth verse tells us that this small horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things ; in the twentieth verse these characters are repeated, with the addition that his look was more stout than his fellows. In the next verse he is stated to have made war with the saints, and prevailed against them till the Ancient of Days came ; there is no necessity to dwell further on this identification mark, and quote statistics of the millions of martyred Christians who suffered under the various Papal persecutions. In the twenty-fifth verse he shall speak words against the Most High and shall wear out His THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 108 saints ; and he shall think to change the law and they shall be given into his hand until a time, times and half a time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end. Libraries have been written by the devotees of the Vatican to prove that this little horn of Daniel cannot by any means possibly represent their infallible Vicar of Christ. It has just been mentioned that his identification with the little horn of the fourth beast in the vision has received very general acceptance since the Reformation. Doctor Newton, Bishop of Bristol, writing soon after Sir Isaac, tells us that a treatise was published as early as A.D. 1120, that is not long after the Norman Conquest, in which was advanced the view that Antichrist had already long ago arrived ; he was not however represented by a single person- age, but by the men then constituting the Church, " that man of sin and son of perdition who is exalted above every God, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, that is the Church, showing himself that he is God : who is now come with all kinds of seduction and lies in those who perish." But I find in history a much earlier record of this inter- pretation of Antichrist, or Daniel's little horn, and that from a source less to be expected than any other under heaven. For we get the earliest and perhaps the truest decision on this debatable subject from Rome herself. Were it not such a grave and solemn subject we might be tempted in the light of these later days to regard it as a comedy. We must go back to the sixth century, to the time of a great and good man, Gregory the Great, who died in the year A.D. 604. He was the last Bishop of Rome ; he it was who took such a deep interest in the evangelization of Britain. The history of the Popedom is a long and highly contentious one. The Vatican claims an unbroken suc- cession of Popes, beginning with St. Peter, whom they allege reigned as Pope from A.D. 41 till 66, though the great majority of Protestant scholars maintain that 104 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL there is no proof that St. Peter was ever in Rome at any time. When the site of Empire was shifted from Rome to Constantinople there was a Bishop (or Patriarch) in the city on the Bosphorus. There was also a Bishop at Rome, and between these two worthy ecclesiastical authorities there were some not very edifying struggles for supremacy. These culminated towards the close of Gregory's last years of the Roman Bishopric, when the Bishop of Constanti- nople (known as John the Faster) attempted to assume the title and office of Universal Bishop over all Christendom. Gregory the Bishop of Rome considered it to be his duty to fulminate against this outrage on the Church ; he boldly affirmed that whoever took the title of Universal Bishop "doth forerun Antichrist." Writing of his rival, John the Faster, he says : " By this pride of his, what thing else is signified but that the time of Antichrist is now at hand ? The King of pride (that is Antichrist) approacheth and that is wicked to be spoken, an army of priests is prepared." This was the first attempt to set up a Pope, that is a Universal Bishop (call his predecessors what you will), and it appears to have failed. Three years after Bishop Gregory's death, the Emperor Phocas, being upon the im- perial throne after murdering every one of the seed and remote kinship of the late Emperor, proclaimed Bishop Boniface III of Rome Universal Bishop, with jurisdiction over all Christendom. He was thus the first real Pope, and around the years of his office centre many interesting points concerning the date of the final fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy. He ascended the newly established Papal throne in A.D. 607. Whether we are to take this year or the subsequent date when the Papacy became first established as a temporal power, after conquering the three Italian kingdoms in the eighth century, has long been a debatable point. But we must not overlook the fact that these various horns signify, not personal potentates, but kingdoms. To return to an examination of the characters of the THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 105 four beasts mentioned in this first vision, history gives us remarkable and startling corroboration of the identity of each. The first, Babylon, is symbolized as a lion the king of beasts represented in the dream of the king as interpreted by Daniel, who addresses him as the king of kings. Note that at the time of this vision, in the reign of the last ruler of Babylon, the empire was already tottering to its fall. The wings of the lion were already plucked, and its great lion heart was replaced by a weak human one. We can hardly forget that our own British Empire has for its national symbol the lion ; just as certainly shall our own Lion of the Sea get its wings plucked when in unbelief he turns his back upon the Almighty Being who has for His great ends placed him at the head of all the great powers of the earth. So shall a weak man's heart be given to him when that day comes that he ceases to sway his sceptre in accordance with the demands of impartial justice and righteousness, but lowers it to the pressure of unbelieving factions that recognize no God but the god of might and worship to no sound but to that of the mad mob's million feet. Persia in the vision is represented by the slowly moving bear ; history corroborates this figure, by her descrip- tion of the tardy advance of her armies, sometimes consisting of millions of men, slowly and steadily marching to their doom. In her mouth, between her jaws, as if " not belonging to her own proper body " she is portrayed as carrying the three nations which she had subdued but had never been able to assimilate Lydia, Babylonia and Egypt. Mark how truly Daniel represents Greece as the swift and ferocious leopard, ever on the spring, as the young Alexander pounces upon his prey, almost before his enemies have got information of his presence or advance. Note how this kingdom has four heads and four wings, which accurately signifies how, after the brief reign of Alexander, the empire was to be, almost immediately, divided into lOfl THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL four kingdoms, by his four great generals each ascending his own self-appropriated throne. This is more specifically stated in subsequent visions, and is of great value as show- ing that Greece is not the fourth kingdom. The fourth beast Pagan Rome is again described, as hi the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, as terrible, powerful and strong, breaking the nations to pieces with its great iron teeth, devouring them, and stamping the residue to powder with its feet. The description reminds one of that ugly modern composite machine with its huge teeth of iron employed to tear up our roadways before they are submitted to the crushing of the powerful steam-roller following in its track. Let us return to the consideration of the specific time allotted to the reign and duration of the little horn of the fourth, Roman beast. In the twenty-fifth verse Daniel is told that the times and the law which he shall think to change shall be given into his hands until " A TIME, AND TIMES, AND HALF A TIME." What does this mysterious form of expression mean ? It is obvious that it represents some definite period of time, purposely veiled by God so that it should not be under- stood or measured by the people living on the earth at the period when the vision was vouchsafed to Daniel. We may even speculate upon the improbability of the prophet himself having any conception of its meaning, though he is told in the same words again by the angel in the last chapter of his book. To the Jews it must have been inscrutable for at least 600 years after it was written. It is the most interesting and important pronouncement of any epoch hi the Bible except the " seventy weeks " mentioned in Daniel's Messianic prophecy. Its concealed meaning is revealed by St. John in the book of Revelation. In the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, the woman, after the birth of her man-child, fled into the wilderness from the great dragon, and she is nourished there for 1,260 days (which are of course to be interpreted, in the words of sym- THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 107 bolic prophecy, as 1,260 years). In a subsequent verse of the chapter this same identical period of sojourn in the wilderness is given in Daniel's words exactly : " time, and times, and half a time." We have here the key which opens the lock that had remained closed for nearly six centuries. The word " time " is to be taken as signifying a period of one year, times as signifying two years, and half a time as half a year ; added together, we get three and a half years. That these three and a half years are years of days is proven by the first measure of the period given as 1,260 days, which is the exact number of days contained in three and a half luni-solar or prophetic years. But for this remarkably specific prophecy of John we probably never might have guessed correctly the period of time allotted by God for the lifetime of this little horn, but the same date mentioned in the two apparently different and contradictory terms gives us the clue to Daniel's mysterious unit of time. Do not attempt to confuse the question of the identity of this dragon with Daniel's little horn belonging to the fourth or Roman beast ; our present purpose is to get certainty about this vague-looking period really meaning 1,260 years. Let us note a still more remarkable corroboration of this identity. In the thirteenth chapter of Revelation we have Daniel's little horn evidently identical with a head of the beast there described in the opening verse. It has also ten horns, and has seven heads ; one of his heads is seen as though it had been smitten to death, and there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blas- phemies, and he made war with the saints and overcame them, and there was given to him authority to continue forty and two months. You may well wonder at the mar- vellous minuteness and care exercised by God in giving His children glimpses into the remote future thousands of years in advance. Now this period of forty-two months is three and a half years, or 1,260 days, or times, and times, and half a time. There can here be no possibility of a 108 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL mistake ; no reasonable mind can call this remarkable juxtaposition of symbols a coincidence. The only thing left for us to consider in connection with this prophecy is the length of these years. The Jewish year consisted of only 360 days, and the Babylonian year was the same. There are good reasons for believing that all the ancient peoples of the East divided their year into this even number of days. The Jews have a tradition that Abraham reckoned his year in like manner. If there had been any room for a doubt on this subject it has been set aside by the accuracy and thoroughness of Sir Robert Anderson ; he found, when investigating for himself the prophecy of Jeremiah which allotted 70 years as the period during which the Jews were to suffer the desolations, that not only were the starting-point and the fulfilment date clearly denned so that the accuracy of the prediction could be easily tested, but the 70 years which came true to the very day are years of 360 days each. This then is the luni-solar year, the old Jewish, Abrahamic, Chaldean, as well as the prophetic year. Grattan Guinness, by working out the terminal periods of all Daniel's specifically timed predictions in these luni- solar years and also both in lunar years and calendar years, obtains an almost bewildering array of dates which some- times produces most startling results, and often leaves the mind of the Biblical student in doubt whether " he has not proved too much." We need not pause long to satisfy ourselves about the meaning of the word " day " in these prophecies. By common consent all Biblical scholars agree that, in sym- bolic prophecy, the day is to be accepted as a year of 860 days. You need not be puzzled or confused by an apparent contradiction here. We have just spoken of Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 years of the desolations of Judah. It was this very prediction which caused Daniel to approach God in supplication for the restoration of his people, and he evidently had no doubt of these years being literal years, and not " years of days," because Jeremiah's prediction THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 109 was in no sense a symbolic prophecy. In the symbolic foretellings of Daniel and John a day is always a year of 360 days, and a week means 7 years, and consequently 70 weeks signify 490 years. Now you will naturally expect that I am going to tell you (since we have settled that the 1,260 years allotted to the lifetime of the power of this little horn of Daniel's fourth beast is thus confidently settled), the exact date of the extinction of Papal Rome, if Papal Rome is signified by the prophecy. I am not going to attempt what would really be a prophecy. If we knew the exact date for a starting-point we have only to count forwards 1,260 luni-solar years and so arrive at the day or year of his doom. But the precise date is concealed from us, evidently for good reasons. We do not know exactly when the power of Popedom can be considered as fully established ; should we start with the year of the edict of Phocas or with that period about two centuries later when temporal power was conferred upon it ? We started out mainly with the intention of sur- veying the marvellous mine of wealth which God, in His love for us, has bequeathed in His revealed Word ; and which, in my humble judgment as a layman, is not being studied, explored or worked as He intended it should be. It is in the prophecies which have been already fulfilled that we can realize the inestimable value of His gift. They are the rock under our feet on which we can firmly stand, supported in strong faith in these terrible days of world upheaval and unrest and under the dark clouds which threaten our own beloved island. Yea ; they are the ever- lasting rock on which the true believer may rest unmoved by the Higher Criticism and every other phase of unbelief as he anticipates the approaching wreck of matter and the crash of worlds. Therefore I hesitate to obscure my aim by dwelling upon speculations about the exact dates when these unfulfilled eschatological predictions shall see their full accomplish- ment. Not one jot or tittle can fail ; and that these pro- 110 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL phecies referring to the latter days shall be fulfilled is more certain than the rising and setting of to-morrow's sun. I would not be speaking candidly however if I refrained from saying that my own study of prophecy has convinced me beyond all doubt that we are near, possibly on the eve, of the most momentous happenings that have ever taken place on our planet. In the meantime we shall glance at the next vision of Daniel. This occurred during the third year of Belshazzar as recorded in the eighth chapter of the book. In it the Medo-Persian Kingdom is represented as a ram with two unequal horns ; the greater horn coming up last represented Persia, which was soon to supersede the dual kingdom. The he-goat with one large horn between his eyes repre- sents the new empire of Alexander the Great, before which was to fall in humiliation the Persian ram. Four horns arise from the forehead of the Greek goat after the first solitary one had been broken. There cannot be any doubt that these four horns represent four new Greek kingdoms appropriated by Alexander's generals soon after his early death. We are told in the twenty-second verse that " four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power." It is therefore obvious that this second vision is a repe- tition and an amplification of the second and third king- doms (Medo-Persian and Greek), previously depicted in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and sketched in outline in the first vision. But a new nation or kingdom is de- scribed in the eighth verse : " Out of these notable four horns came forth a little horn which waxed exceedingly great toward the South, and toward the East, and toward the glorious land [Palestine]." This power is usually referred to as " Daniel's second little horn," and must not be confounded with the little horn .which arose out of or amidst the ten horns in the fourth beast (Pagan Rome) in the previous vision. This is an offshoot of the third or Grecian kingdom and arises in some part of the earth at that time ruled over by one of the THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 111 successors of the great Alexander's four generals. Its origin must have been in the north-west. In the twenty- third verse of this chapter viii. he it is who is believed to be signified in the following words : " And in the latter time of their kingdom [Greece], when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and under- standing dark sentences shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power ; and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and do his pleasure ; and he shall destroy the mighty ones, and the holy people. And through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand ; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and in their security shall he destroy many ; he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes ; but he shall be broken without hand." In the previous verses Daniel was told that he would take away the continual burnt offering, throw down the sanctuary, and tread the host underfoot unto 2,300 days, when the sanctuary was to be cleansed. This was the transgression that maketh deso- late. There are serious difficulties in identifying this little horn of the Grecian beast. Professor Pusey glosses over all difficulties and simply refers to it as Antiochus Epiphanes. Josephus, the Jewish historian, and St. Jerome accepted the same interpretation and are followed by many other scholars of prophecy in modern times. Some students get over all difficulties by regarding the little horn as a type of Antichrist. The more closely we examine the history of Antiochus by the Maccabean writers and by secular historians the more certain we become that, what- ever power is signified by this little horn, it does not stand for Antiochus Epiphanes. The arguments in favour of this view appear to be all based upon superficial ana- logies or weak similitudes. The horns of Daniel never represent personages, but always signify kingdoms. The kingdom of Antiochus was one of those already represented by one of the horns. He did not throw down the sanc- tuary, or destroy it ; he certainly defiled it, but his dcfile- 9 112 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL ment, instead of lasting for 2,300 years, was permitted to remain only about three years, till the purification by the Maccabeans. All the power he exercised was his own. The only single characteristic which fits Antiochus is his perse- cution of God's people, and this mark he shares with a large number of other kings and powers. Bishop Newton, quoting the words, " Four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation," argues that this implies that the fifth (the little horn) kingdom was not of the nation. He brings very cogent reasoning to show that this new kingdom was the Roman power, in its infancy commencing in the heart of the Grecian Empire, and he remarks that " Sir Isaac Newton, with that sagacity which was peculiar to him, and with which he penetrated into Scripture as well as into nature, perceived plainly that this little horn could not be drawn for Antiochus Epiphanes, but must be designed for some other subject." When we turn to the examination of Sir Isaac's book we find that he regards it as the kingdom of Macedonia, from the time that it became subject to the Romans, because this kingdom ceased to be one of the four horns when the Romans conquered its king, Perseus. Hence this little horn became a king- dom of a new sort, a horn of the goat, which grew mighty, but not by his own power, a horn which rose up and grew potent under a foreign power, the power of the Romans ; and following its development in ancient history, he finds that it answers all the characteristics in the prophet's utterances. Henceforward, he states, the last horn of the goat continued mighty under the Rpmans, till the reign of Constantine the Great and his sons ; and then, by the division of the Roman Empire between the Greek and Latin Emperors, it separated from the Latins, and became the Greek Empire alone, but yet under the dominion of a Roman family ; and " at present it is mighty under the Turk.'* Now if we could feel justified in accepting the Moham- medan power as the modern or present-day representa- tive of this little horn much of the difficulty which has THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 113 surrounded the interpretation of this vision would disap- pear, because when you turn to a survey of the condition of events in the Eastern world you will find that it has been foretold. To permit ourselves to be swayed by present appearances in weighing the meaning of any cryptic prophetic utter- ance is likely to tempt us to interpret wrongly. It is the rock upon which many an adventurous prophecy-monger's bark has been wrecked. To study minutely the past history or present condition of some world-power or king- dom and then to ransack the Scriptures for some prophecy which may be twisted or made to fit in with the history is never a safe proceeding. It is obviously more reasonable first to scrutinize minutely and ponder over the Biblical text till we arrive, if we can, at its Divine meaning, and then to look around at past or present conditions and see if these defeat or support our conclusions. Our own human, and therefore weak, speculation about what is likely to occur in the near future, reasoning from present conditions or appearances, is almost certain to lead us into a blind alley. To do so, indeed, is to make ourselves not into interpreters, but to become prophets. The problem immediately before us is one which may well make us pause and inquire Is it conceivable that a Baby- lonian prophet, writing 500 years before Christ, could have foretold anything about the rise or fall of the Mohammedan power, which was not to come upon the stage for more than 1,000 years later ? The answer is very easy he foretold in a similar manner the rise of the Roman kingdom cen- turies before it became a power. When we once accept inspiration or prophecy, it is childish to attempt to limit its range of prevision. Is there anything to be found elsewhere in the book of Daniel which can convince a reasonable inquirer that his scope of prophecy touches the Turkish Kingdom ? Were we able to find such, then we could affirm that it required no stretching of our belief to conclude that this second little horn arising somewhere within the kingdom 114 of the Greek goat may, or verily does, signify the power of Turkey at the present stage of the world's history. I find an extraordinary event and a still more extra- ordinary coincidence of dates which no writer on prophecy had ever dreamed of before, and which bear very directly upon this subject. Let us turn to the last two or three verses with which Daniel concludes his volume of prophecy, and we read : " But the wicked shall do wickedly ; and none of the wicked shall understand ; but they that be wise shall understand. And from the time that the continual burnt offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days." It was generally accepted that these verses referred to dates which were to start with the Saracen or Turkish invasion of Jerusalem, A.D. 637, and the erection of the Mosque of Omar on the Temple plateau. But the significance of the last date a date of four figures, 1,335 was an impenetrable mystery. We have quite recently learned that, when in the later stage of our world -wide war, General Allenby signed his order or proclamation to advance and capture Jerusalem, the hand on the dial of the clock of doom stood at the year 1335, according to the Turkish calendar, which measures its time from the flight of the False Prophet. We ask ourselves, Is the marvellous falling together of these two dates a mere coincidence or another signal proof of the accuracy of Divine inspiration ? Let each of you answer it according to his own degree of faith. I think we may regard it as a demonstration of the correct- ness of the theory that this second little horn of Daniel's Greek goat is the kingdom of Turkey, fast hastening to its final dissolution. THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 115 Daniel's next vision is recorded in the tenth chapter. It begins with some further details about the same two powers symbolized by the ram and the goat, viz. Persia and Greece, and the further identification of this latter power is strengthened by the statement in chapter xi. 4. Here Alexander's kingdom is to be broken and divided towards the four winds of heaven, " but not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion wherewith he ruled." His son died and his generals divided his kingdom between them. This long chapter contains in its forty-five verses a wonderful series of prophecies ; these for the most part are so specifically detailed that they have been regarded by the Higher Critics as strong evidence against the genuineness of the whole book ; they affirm that where they are to be accepted as meaning anything, the predictions must have been made after the events had actually oc- curred. They referred to the wars and conquests made by the successors and descendants of the four generals of Alexander. The history of the doings of these Greek kings of Syria and Egypt and of their theatres of war is more full and complete in the book of Daniel than in secular history either Jewish, Roman, Greek or Chris- tian. To study each prophecy and to trace out its actual fulfilment as corroborated by historical research would necessitate a separate series of lectures. The student who wishes to pursue the subject will find each prediction carefully verified in its fulfilment to the minutest detail in the work of Sir Isaac Newton, who apparently had devoted years of laborious research in exploring and examining every corner of the historical records dealing with this part of the world from the time of the death of Alexander the Great till the rise of the Roman Empire. This eleventh chapter deals largely with the doings of Antiochus till the thirtieth verse is concluded. After this we are told " Arms shall stand on his part, and they shall profane the sanctuary and take away the continual burnt offering and set up the abomination that maketh desolate. 116 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL And they that be wise among the people shall instruct many ; yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil many days. Now when they fall they shall be holpen with a little help : but many shall join themselves unto them with flatteries." There is a general agreement amongst scholars that " Arms " signifies the Roman Kingdom, and these desolations, with their persecutions and sanctuary desecrations, foretell the sufferings of the Jews and of the early Christians under the emperors of Pagan Rome till the advent of Constantine, when they were to be holpen with a little help. The king in verse 36 is believed to signify a type of Antichrist ; if this king or kingdom also stands for the Mohammedan power, one might suggest that the last two verses had their initial fulfilment in a crucial phase of the late war : " But tidings out of the East and out of the North shall trouble him ; and he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many. And he shall plant the tents of his palace between the sea and the glorious holy mountain ; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him." CHAPTER X PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS You will note that Daniel did not record his prophecies or visions in chronological order, as they were vouchsafed to him. I have left to the last the most important of them all. It is what is known as the " Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks," recorded in the ninth chapter. Perhaps no prophetic utterance in the Bible has attracted such atten- tion and minute scrutiny. Since the time of the pagan Porphyry, believers and infidels innumerable have waged war around this ninth chapter of the book of Daniel. Let us glance for a moment at the background of the picture. The aged statesman is recalled to his high office after a long period of rest and comparative obscurity, just as Cyrus had conquered Babylon. He must have arrived at the age of almost ninety years, as he had been an exile during all the years usually regarded as the allotted span of life. The periods of the Servitude and of the Cap- tivity had now come to their termination. Why should he prostrate himself in an agony of prayer with fasting, sack- cloth and ashes ? His prayer is one of the most sublime and at the same time most pathetic that ever fell from human lips, but its entire purpose or spirit is nearly always lost sight of by the commentators who overlook the deep meaning of the second verse of the chapter : " I, Daniel, understood by the books, the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years" (the constant confusion of the periods of the Servi- tude, Captivity and Desolations is most regrettable). The Captivity term had already come to its end. He knew that 117 the period of the Desolations had many weary years to run out before Jeremiah's prophecy would be fulfilled. Daniel had probably been dead fifteen years when the term specified in the prediction had expired during which Jerusalem was to remain like a ploughed field and the whole land of Judea a howling wilderness. Hence his grief when he appeals to God, exclaiming : " For under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem." Whilst acknowledging the gross sins of the Jewish people, and the righteousness of their punishment, he throws himself upon the Divine mercy and cries out, *' O Lord, hear ; O Lord, forgive ; O Lord, hearken and do ; defer not ; for Thine own sake, O my God, because Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy name." And whilst he was speaking and beseeching, the prayer was answered by Gabriel being sent from heaven to touch him. The answer was certainly not such as could have been expected even by the mighty faith of the great prophet. It was, as Professor Pusey says, a prediction single and alone in tune, reaching on through eternity. From eternity to eternity there hath not been nor shall be its like. Such is the vision or prophecy of the seventy weeks a promise of absolute forgiveness of transgression and sin. The following is the text of the Authorized Version, chapter ix. : Verse 24. "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. " 25. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jeru- salem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks ; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. " 26. And after threescore and two weeks [note the Re- PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS 119 vised Version translates the text "after the threescore"] shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself [R.V. " shall have nothing "] ; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary ; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. " 27. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week : and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the over- spreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate [R.V. " and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate ; and even unto the consummation, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolater "]." Many volumes have been written on these four verses and their interpretation. We shall glance first at the central element in the prophecy the prediction of a Messiah who was to come, and to be cut off after sixty-nine weeks or, according to another rendering of the text, after sixty-two weeks. No true believer doubts that the Messiah here mentioned is Jesus Christ, and that consequently these verses contain a prophecy which has been fulfilled. But he should be able to show a good reason for the faith that is within him. Mark the importance of this decision : if it can be proved that the fulfilment of the prophecy occurred at the time predicted by Daniel, it matters not whether the prediction was made 560 years or 160 years or even 160 days before the event. This is meeting the unbelieving critic on his own selected ground, for in any case the event was foretold long before the Christian era. This will stamp the book of Daniel as Divine in accordance with the seal set upon it by Christ Himself as recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Moreover, the issue is more important still, for another reason : it may be regarded as the keystone of the edifice of the Christian religion. If centuries previously a Redeemer of the human race was 120 PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS predicted to come upon the earth, and if He came at the period foretold and offered up His life at the precise date foretold, then are His identification and His Divine mission hallowed by a certainty which belongs to no other incident in the long history of the world, and our faith can rest upon this rock of ages. Let us not forget for the moment that every important epoch in our Saviour's life from His birth till His ascension had been foretold by the Hebrew prophets. Their pre- dictions, placed side by side, give us the marvellously complete picture which we studied a few weeks ago. One detail only was lacking which the most unreasonable sceptic could demand a prediction of the exact time of His advent ; and Daniel gives us this. By the common consent of all scholars of the Bible, believers and unbelievers alike, the seventy weeks or 490 days are accepted as days of years. Hence the period under scrutiny is a period of 490 years of 360 days each, according to the unquestionable practice of the Jews and Chaldeans, in the calculation of the length of their year. We cannot do better, in commencing our study, than to quote from the earliest of the modern school of inter- preters, Sir Isaac Newton, in the lost classic on Daniel and the Revelation : " Seventy weeks are cut upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish transgression, etc. Here, by putting a week for seven years, were reckoned 490 years from the time that the dispersed Jews should be reincorporated into a people and a holy city, and until the death and resurrection of Christ ; whereby transgression should be finished and sins ended, iniquity be expiated, and everlasting righteousness brought in and the vision be accom- plished and the Prophet consummated, that Prophet whom the Jews expected ; and whereby the most Holy should be anointed, he who is therefore in the next words called the Anointed, that is, the Messiah or the Christ. For by joining the accomplishment of the vision with the expiation of sins the 490 years ended with the death of Christ. PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS 121 " Now the dispersed Jews became a people and city when they first returned into a body politick ; and this was in the seventh years of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when Ezra returned with a body of Jews from captivity and revived the Jewish worship, and by the king's commission created magistrates in all the land to judge and govern the people according to the laws of God and the king (Ezra vii, 25). There were but two returns from captivity, Zerubbabel's and Ezra's ; in Zerubbabel's they had only commission to build the Temple, in Ezra's they first became a polity or city by a government of their own. Now the years of this Artaxerxes began about two or three months after the summer solstice and his seventh year fell in with the third year of the eighteenth Olympiad ; and the latter part thereof wherein Ezra went up to Jerusalem was in the Julian period 4257. Count the time from thence to the death of Christ and you will find it just 490 years. " If you count in Judaic years, commencing in autumn and date the reckoning from the first autumn after Ezra's coming to Jerusalem when he put the king's decree in execution, the death of Christ will fall on the year A.D. 34. But if you had rather place the death of Christ in the year before, as is commonly done, you may take the year of Ezra's journey into the reckoning." '* Look next at verse 25 : Know therefore and understand, that jrom the going forth of the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed the Prince shall be seven weeks." After the word " weeks " Sir Isaac places a full stop. In the Revised Version there is a semicolon ; in the Authorized Version there is a comma ; in the Vulgate or Douay Bible there is no stop of any kind between the word " weeks " and what follows (a fact I have not seen noticed by critics). The Catholic Bible translated from the Latin Vulgate, revised and annotated by authority under Leo XIII in 1893, reads thus : " From the going forth of the word to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the Prince there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks." 122 PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS Sir Isaac interprets the words " seven weeks " with a full stop after them as a period belonging to the Second Coming of Christ as the Prince ; the former part of the prophecy refers to His first advent as a Prophet, for Daniel's prophecies he tells us reach to the end of the world, and there is scarce a prophecy in the Old Testament concerning Christ which doth not in something or other relate to His Second Coming. This interpretation, worked out by the great astronomer, two hundred years ago, has a deep interest for us, for to-day when we realize the after-effects of the great world war, and it has been entirely lost sight of by all recent controver- sialists. This view you will notice is based on the meaning of the words " to return and to build Jerusalem," which Sir Isaac believed referred to the latter days. It is to precede the Second Advent seven weeks, or forty-nine years. Such a final rebuilding had been predicted by Micah, Amos, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and by Tobit who wrote at least two hundred years after Nehemiah's rebuilding. Let us keep in our minds the mandate accepted by Great Britain over Palestine and listen to a sentence written 200 years ago by Sir Isaac, which sounds more like a pro- phecy than an interpretation : " Since the Commandment [Mandate] to return and to build Jerusalem precedes the Messiah the Prince forty -nine years, it may perhaps come forth, not from the Jews them- selves, but from some other kingdom friendly to them, and precede their return from captivity and give occasion to it." It requires a mental effort to realize that there are two rebuildings of Jerusalem included in the prophecy ; note that one is distinguished from the other by the speci- fication that it (Nehemiah's) was to be built in troublous times. A difficulty confronts the ordinary reader when he comes to verse 26 : " And after the threescore and two weeks shall the anointed one be cut off " (Revised Version). In the previous verse it reads, " seven weeks, threescore PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS 128 and two weeks," sixty-nine in all till the Messiah, as is accepted by most modern Biblical scholars. In this verse at first sight it would appear that He should be expected to be cut off at the end of sixty-two weeks. The most recent as well as the most painstaking and accurate of all modern investigators of these four verses is Sir Robert Anderson, and if we accept his rendering of these words all difficulty vanishes. I feel confident his is the only correct interpretation of the text. He affirms without any doubt or hesitation that the sixty-two weeks here obviously mean sixty-nine, the seven mentioned in the preceding verse are clearly meant to be included, making sixty-nine. I shall quote his own words : ** Not after sixty-two weeks which might mean sixty-two weeks reckoned from the beginning of the era but after the sixty- two weeks which follow the seven, i.e. at the close of the sixty -ninth week of the era." After pondering over the words of this prophecy for the past three or four years, and weighing most of the writing devoted to it in Biblical literature, I cannot feel that this rendering is straining a point, especially when one realizes that there were the grave reasons, mentioned in a former lecture, for veiling it in language which would leave doubts about its meaning till the prophecy was eventually fulfilled. Notwithstanding such veiling, there were, as we know from the Gospels, devout Jews who expected the advent of the Messiah about the time predicted. Let us now look at the starting-point for these sixty- nine weeks and see where the figures will land us. Of the four decrees of the Persian monarchs, conferring privi- leges upon the emancipated Jewish exiles, the first was that of Cyrus, who after conquering the kingdom and city of Babylon, promptly issued an edict permitting the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem, as prophesied by Isaiah, who not only foretold this, but who predicted the advent of Cyrus himself. This is recorded in chapter xliv. 28 (believed to be the writing of Isaiah II). You will remember how, in a former address, we noticed 124 PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS that this decree was lost and forgotten, but was eventually discovered in the palace of Darius the Mede in his own city of Ecbatana. It was then confirmed by Darius Hystaspis, a king who had succeeded Cyrus, and this confirmation or second decree was also limited to the rebuilding of the Temple. A third decree issued by Artaxerxes Longimanus in his seventh year merely gave permission and aid for decorating the Temple and the carrying out of some ceremonial rites. The fourth decree or commandment was made by this same king, at the request of Nehemiah, during the twentieth year of his reign. This was the only decree which permitted the returned Jews to rebuild the streets, walls, moat or ramparts of the city of Jerusalem. Therefore, in strict adherence to the text of Daniel, this must be taken as the starting-point for the sixty-nine weeks as laid down in verse 25. " From the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem " shall be sixty-nine weeks, unto the Messiah, and it shall be built again, with street and moat, in troublous times, and after these sixty -nine weeks the Messiah was to be cut off. We have the exact date of this decree given in the first chapter of the book of Nehemiah ; this corresponds to our date of March 14, 445 B.C. This therefore beyond any doubt is the point from which we are to count sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years. How are we to fix the terminus of this period ? As forcibly pointed out by Sir Robert Anderson, there is only one day in the lifetime or ministry of our Lord when He permitted Himself to be proclaimed as the Messiah. Prior to this day He had repeatedly commanded the disciples not to speak of His identity or reveal Him. This was the day on which He was greeted by the hosannas of the multi- tude on his entry into the city of Jerusalem, riding on the colt of an ass, as foretold by Zechariah (chapter ix. 9) : " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter Jerusalem; behold thy King cometh to thee: He is 'just, and having salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt, the foal of an ass, , , . . And He shall vb ' i ^M^"* ir? * v T! - UjUf. *<- T;., -U - > \(f PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS 125 speak peace unto the nations, and His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth." (It is a most noteworthy fact that in the centre of this prophecy Zechariah foretells that Jerusalem herself was to be cut off.) Luke minutely relates how Christ fully acquiesced in the proclamation and wept over the coming Desolation of the city, because of its rejection of Himself. The date of this public entry and proclamation is fixed by exact chronological research ; it corresponds in our calendar with April 6, A.D. 32. Now note the fact that I am going to mention, for herein is revealed the very heart of all Daniel's prophecy, and the most important proof given to us that the inspiration of the book came from God Himself. From the date of the decree till the proclama- tion of His Messiahship was exactly as worked out by Anderson, 173,880 days or seven times sixty-nine prophetic years (483 years) of 360 days each. The entry was on Sunday, tenth Nisan,andthe crucifixion was on the fifteenth. There is here no juggling with figures, as is so constantly observed with the prophecy-mongers, or the Higher Critics, who first select some historical date and twist every other date or period so as to make it fit in with their own often vain and fanciful interpretation. Sir Isaac Newton's interpretation does not in reality clash with this ; he arrives at the same goal but by a slightly different route. Whilst the mighty fact of the exact fulfilment of the " seventy weeks " prophecy is clearly proven, I would venture the suggestion that these three verses are so saturated with the Divine light of inspiration that they may ultimately yield us further knowledge. For example, a painstaking calculation of the exact time when Nehemiah had finished the rebuilding of the city and its walls and returned to Babylon gives us a date from which, if we count forwards, sixty-two weeks of years brings us to the year of the Re- deemer's birth. It is thus quite conceivable that we may find in this fact an explanation of why the sixty-nine weeks period is split up into seven and sixty-two. 126 PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS It is interesting to turn aside and glance at what the unbelieving German critics give us for light upon these three verses. The result of their interpretations is more than surprising ; it is to the Christian student of Daniel, incredible. Only upon one point are they in agreement with each other Jesus Christ must, by every conceivable means, be excluded from the prophecy. It was a super- natural phenomenon that Daniel could have had any knowledge of a coming Messiah ; therefore the conception of these verses containing a prophecy is impossible. Professor Pusey has tabulated the different interpre- tations of about twenty of these Higher Critics. Seldom do we find two of them agree about how the specified time is to be twisted and tortured so that the sixty-nine or seventy weeks should end with the death of the tyrant King Antiochus, and he says that " the failure in account- ing for the periods of time mentioned in the prophecy is the least portion of their failure. The heterogeneousness of the events which they bring together, the unmeaningness of the whole, the impossibility of bringing the parts into any one connection, or so as to bear at all on the situation of Daniel or the people, evince yet more that the un- meaningness which they have brought into the prophecy cannot be its meaning. Look steadily at the emptiness, irrelevancy, inharmoniousness of those things which men have fastened not meanings but unmeaningnesses on the book of Daniel, and then look how that book lights up with its true meaning, reflecting beforehand Him who had not yet risen ; and you cannot hesitate to choose between darkness and light." Up to this stage of our study of the date, authenticity and meaning of the book, I have endeavoured to put fairly before you the arguments and assumptions of the German critics, and then to place alongside them the historical facts culled from the writings of secular and sacred writers which confute them. So I would like to give you their individual interpretations of these three verses, but it would require at least half a dozen addresses in order PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS 127 to dissect and lay naked before you the puerilities and absurdities in the attempts of these men endeavouring to prove that this prophecy has no reference to Christ. Only a brief outline of their methods need detain us. They say that the twenty-fifth verse refers to one messiah, and the great majority of them declare that he is Cyrus, though others of them claim Nebuchadnezzar, Zerubbabel, Onias, Joshua, and even the weak and traitorous creature King Zedekiah ; each has his favourite messiah. More ludicrous still, in the next step, they affirm that the messiah mentioned hi the twenty-sixth verse is a different messiah from the one in the twenty-fifth. Here they are more evenly divided in their choice of this saviour of the Jewish nation. Eight select Onias, a deposed High-priest, mur- dered by a Syrian governor about 171 B.C. ; nearly as many (six) choose Seleucus Philopator, who happened to be poisoned (cut off) by his treasurer four years before. He was a weak, insignificant king who immediately preceded Antiochus Epiphanes, who is of course the prince that is to come. Others of these critics select Alexander, and various members of the priesthood after Jason, as their second messiah. To detain you with these childish speculations I feel would be a waste of time. We must next glance at the remainder of the prophecy in verse twenty-six. After the Messiah is to be cut off, Gabriel tells Daniel that " the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary ; and the end thereof shall be with a flood ; and even to the end shall be war ; desolations shall be determined. (27) And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week ; and for the half of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease ; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate ; and even unto the consummation, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolater " (or desolate). There are three methods of interpretation applied to this latter prophecy: (1) That of the Higher Critics who affirm that the prince who was to come and to destroy the 10 128 PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS sanctuary and the city and to cause the sacrifice and obla- tion to cease is AntiochusEpiphanes, who defiled the Temple and set up an idol on the altar. He died 165 B.C. (He defiled the sanctuary for three years, but did not destroy it or the city.) (2) The old orthodox school who believed that Titus and the Roman invasion is here predicted, when in A.D. 70 the Temple was destroyed by fire and more than one mil- lion Jews were massacred. (3) The modern scholars who interpret these predictions as yet to be fulfilled in the latter days at the end of the Gentile period, when there shall be yet another siege of Jerusalem about the time of Christ's Second Coming. This latter view harmonizes with the interpretation of Sir Isaac Newton, and with that of Sir Robert Anderson, who affirms confidently after a close study of Daniel's prophecies that there can be no doubt that after Christ's crucifixion at the end of the sixty-ninth week there is left a long blank period. This gap includes all the world's history since then (A.D. 32), and after this break or gap shall commence the beginning of the literal fulfilment of the last or seventieth week. This is a period of seven years, during which there shall be a restoration or new formation of the remnants of the old Roman world into ten new kingdoms, with a powerful King, Kaiser, Emperor, or Czar, who shall enter into a cove- nant with the Jewish people at Jerusalem, and that after three and a half years he shall betray them, but shall be himself finally destroyed by the miraculous intervention of Jehovah on behalf of His chosen people. I make no comment on these unfulfilled prophecies. They appear to apply to the end of the present dispensation, and only the future can reveal their deep meaning. Their interpretation in no way hangs upon that of the sixty-ninth week. I trust I have convinced you that it is a fulfilled prophecy a prediction fulfilled to the letter and to the very day in the coming and death of the world's Redeemer. This was the object I had before me when we commenced these lectures, and now my pleasant task is ended. OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF T>A N I E L, AND THE APOCALYPSE OF St. JOHN. OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF T> ^ N I E L, AND THE APOCALYPSE OF St. J H N. In Two PARTS. By Sir ISAAC NEWTON. London Printed by J. Darby and T. Browne in Bartholomew-Close. And sold by J. Robert* in Warwick-Lane, J. Thonson in the Strand, W. Innys and R. Manby at the West End of St. Paul's Churchyard, J. Osborn and T. Longman in Pater- Noster-Rovf, J. Noon near Mercers Chapel in Cheapside, T. Hatchett at the Royal Exchange, S. Harding in St. Martins-lane, J. Stagg in Westminster-Hall, J. Parker in Pall-mall, and J. Brindley in New Bond-street. MDCCXXXIII. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE PETER LORD KING, BARON OF OCKHAM, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT-BRITAIN. My Lord, I shall make no Apology for addressing the following Sheets to Your Lordship, who lived in a long Intercourse of Friendship with the Author ; and, like him, amidst occupations of a different nature, made Religion your voluntary Study ; and in all your Enquiries and Actions, have shewn the same inflexible Adherence to Truth and Virtue. I shall always reckon it one of the Advantages of my Relation to Sir Isaac Newton, that it affords me an opportunity of making this publick acknowledgment of the unfeigned Respect of, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, and most humble Servant, BENJ. SMITH. 133 CONTENTS PART I OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL CHAPTER I Introduction concerning the Compilers of the Books of the Old Testament pp. 139-148 CHAPTER II Of the Prophetic Language ..... pp. 149-153 CHAPTER III Of the vision of the Image composed of four Metals . pp. 154-156 CHAPTER IV Of the vision of the four Beasts ..... pp. 157-159 CHAPTER V Of the Kingdoms represented by the feet of the Image composed of iron and clay pp. 160-169 CHAPTER VI Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast pp. 170-187 CHAPTER VII Of the eleventh horn of DANIEL'S fourth Beast . pp. 188--197 CHAPTER VIII Of the power of the eleventh horn of DANIEL'S fourth Beast, to change times and laws pp. 198-216 135 136 CONTENTS CHAPTER IX Of the Kingdoms represented in DANIEL by the Ram and He-Goat pp. 217-224 CHAPTER X Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks . . .pp. 225-234 CHAPTER XI Of the Times of the Birth and Passion of Christ . . pp. 235-250 CHAPTER XII Of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth . . -pp. 251-266 CHAPTER XIII Of the King who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every God, and honoured MAHUZZIMS, and regarded not the desire of women pp. 267-272 CHAPTER XIV Of the MAHUZZIMS, honoured by the King who doth according to his will pp. 273-291 PART II OBSERVATIONS UPON THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN CHAPTER I Introduction, concerning the time when the APOCALYPSE was written pp. 295-307 CHAPTER II Of the relation which the APOCALYPSE of JOHN hath to the Book of the Law of MOSES, and to the worship of God in the Temple . pp. 308-321 CHAPTER III Of the relation which the Prophecy of JOHN hath to those of DANIEL ; and of the Subject of the Prophecy . . pp. 322-351 PART I OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL CHAPTER I WHEN MANASSES set up a carved image in the house * of the Lord, and built altars in the two courts of the house, to all the host of Heaven, and us'd inchantments and witchcraft, and familiar spirits, and for his great wickedness was invaded by the army of ASSERHADON King of ASSYRIA, and carried captive to BABYLON ; the book of the Law was lost till the eighteenth year of his grandson JOSIAH. Then HILKIAH the High Priest, upon repairing the Temple, found it there : and the King lamented that their fathers had not done after the words of the book, and commanded that it should be read to the people, and caused the people to renew the holy covenant with God. This is the book of the Law now extant. When SHISHAK came out of EGYPT and spoil'd the temple, 1 and brought JUDAH into subjection to the monarchy of EGYPT, (which was in the fifth year of REHOBOAM) the JEWS continued under great troubles for about twenty years ; being without the true God, and without a teaching Priest, and without Law : and in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants oj the countries, and nation was destroyed oj nation, and city oj city, Jor God did vex them with all adversity. But when SHISHAK was dead, and EGYPT fell into troubles, JUDAH had quiet ten years 4 ; and in that time ASA built fenced cities in JUDAH, and got up an army of 580,000 men, with which, in the 15th year 2 Chron. xxxiii. 5, 6, 7. 1 2 Chron. zxxiv. 2 Chron. xii. 2, 3, 4, 8, 9. and xv. 3, 6, 6. 2 Chron. xiv. 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12. 139 140 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i of his reign, he met and overcame ZERAH the ETHIOPIAN, who had conquered EGYPT and LYBIA, and TROGLODYTICA, and came out with an army of 1,000,000 LYBIANS and ETHIOPIANS, to recover the countries conquered by SESAC. And after this victory l ASA dethroned his mother for idolatry, and he renewed the Altar, and brought new vessels of gold and silver into the Temple ; and he and the people entered into a new covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers, upon pain of death to those who worshipped other Gods ; and his son JEHOSAPHAT took away the high places, and in the third year of his reign sent some of his Princes, and of the Priests and Levites, to teach in the cities of JUDAH : and they had the book of the Law with them, and went about throughout all the cities of JUDAH, and taught the people. This is that book of the Law which was afterwards lost in the reign of MANASSES, and found again in the reign of JOSIAH, and therefore it was written before the third year of JEHOSAPHAT. The same book of the Law was preserved and handed down to posterity by the SAMARITANS, and therefore was received by the ten Tribes before their captivity. For when the ten Tribes were captivated, a Priest of the captivity was sent back to BETHEL,* by order of the King of ASSYRIA, to instruct the new inhabitants of SAMARIA, in the manner oj the God of the land ; and the SAMARITANS had the PENTATEUCH from this Priest, as containing the law or manner of the God oj the land, which he was to teach them. For they persevered in the religion which he taught them, joining with it the worship of their own Gods * ; and by persevering in what they had been taught, they preserved this book of their Law in the original character of the HEBREWS, while the two Tribes, after their return from BABYLON, changed the character to that of the CHALDEES, which they had learned at BABYLON. And since the PENTATEUCH was received as the book of i 2 Chron. xv. 3, 12, 13, 16, 18. 2 Kings xvii. 27, 28, 32, 33. 1 2 Kings xvii. 34, 41. CHAP. I] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 141 the Law, both by the two Tribes and by the ten Tribes, it follows that they received it before they became divided into two Kingdoms. For after the division, they received not laws from one another, but continued at variance. JUDAH could not reclaim ISRAEL from the sin of JEROBOAM, and ISRAEL could not bring JUDAH to it. The PENTATEUCH therefore was the book of the Law in the days of DAVID and SOLOMON. The affairs of the Tabernacle and Temple were ordered by DAVID and SOLOMON, according to the Law of this book ; and DAVID in the 78th Psalm, admonish- ing the people to give ear to the Law of God, means the Law of this book. For in describing how their forefathers kept it not, he quotes many historical things out of the books of EXODUS and NUMBERS. The race of the Kings of EDOM, before there reigned any King over ISRAEL, is set down in the book of GENESIS, xxxvi. 31. and therefore that book was not written entirely in the form now extant, before the reign of SAUL. The writer set down the race of those Kings till his own time, and therefore wrote before DAVID conquered EDOM. The PENTATEUCH is composed of the Law and the history of God's people together ; and the history hath been collected from several books, such as were the history of the Creation composed by MOSES, GEN. ii. 4. the book of the generations of ADAM, GEN. v. 1. and the book of the wars of the Lord, NUM. xxi. 14. This book of wars contained what was done at the Red-sea, and in the journeying of ISRAEL thro' the Wilderness, and therefore was begun by MOSES. And JOSHUA might carry it on to the conquest of CANAAN. For JOSHUA wrote some things in the book of the Law of God, JOSH. xxiv. 26. and therefore might write his own wars in the book of wars, those being the principal wars of God. These were publick books, and therefore not written without the authority of MOSES and JOSHUA. And SAMUEL had leisure in the reign of SAUL, to put them into the form of the books of MOSES and JOSHUA now extant, inserting into the book of GENESIS, the race of the Kings of EDOM, until there reigned a King in ISRAEL. 142 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i The book of the JUDGES is a continued history of the JUDGES down to the death of SAMPSON, and therefore was compiled after his death, out of the Acts of the JUDGES. Several things in this book are said to be done when there was no King in Israel, JUDG. xvii. 6. xviii. 1. xix. 1. xxi. 25. and therefore this book was written after the beginning of the reign of SAUL. When it was written, the JEBUSITES dwelt in JERUSALEM, JUD. i. 21. and therefore it was written before the eighth year of DAVID, 2 SAM. v. 8. and 1 CHBON. xi. 6. The books of MOSES, JOSHUA, and JUDGES, contain one continued history, down from the Creation to the death of SAMPSON. Where the PENTATEUCH ends, the book of JOSHUA begins ; and where the book of JOSHUA ends, the book of JUDGES begins. Therefore all these books have been composed out of the writings of MOSES, JOSHUA, and other records, by one and the same hand, after the beginning of the reign of SAUL, and before the eighth year of DAVID. And SAMUEL was a sacred writer, 1 SAM. x. 25. acquainted with the history of MOSES and the JUDGES, 1 SAM. xii. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. and had leisure in the reign of SAUL, and sufficient authority to compose these books. He was a Prophet, and judged ISRAEL all the days of his life, and was in the greatest esteem with the people ; and the Law by which he was to judge the people was not to be published by less authority than his own, the Law-maker being not inferior to the judge. And the book of JASHER, which is quoted in the book of JOSHUA, JOSH. x. 13. was in being at the death of SAUL, 2 SAM. i. 18. At the dedication of the Temple of SOLOMON, when the Ark was brought into the most holy place, there was nothing in it but the two tables, 1 KINGS viii. 9. and there- fore when the PHILISTINES took the Ark, they took out of it the book of the Law, and the golden pot of Manna, and AARON'S Rod. And this and other losses in the desolation of ISRAEL, by the conquering PHILISTINES, might give occasion to SAMUEL, after some respite from those enemies, to recollect the scattered writings of MOSES CHAP. I] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 143 and JOSHUA, and the records of the Patriarchs and Judges, and compose them in the form now extant. The book of RUTH is a history of things done in the days of the JUDGES, and may be looked upon as an addition to the book of the JUDGES, written by the same author, and at the same time. For it was written after the birth of DAVID, RUTH iv. 17, 22. and not long after, because the history of BOAZ and RUTH, the great grandfather and great grandmother of DAVID, and that of their con- temporaries, could not well be remembered above two or three generations. And since this book derives the genealogy of DAVID from BOAZ and RUTH, and omits DAVID'S elder brothers and his sons ; it was written in honour of DAVID, after he was anointed King by SAMUEL, and before he had children in HEBRON, and by consequence in the reign of SAUL. It proceeds not to the history of DAVID, and therefore seems to have been written presently after he was anointed. They judge well therefore who ascribe to SAMUEL the books of JOSHUA, JUDGES, and RUTH. SAMUEL is also reputed the author of the first book of SAMUEL, till the time of his death. The two books of SAMUEL cite no authors, and therefore seem to be originals. They begin with his genealogy, birth and education, and might be written partly in his life-time by himself, or his disciples the Prophets at NAIOTH in RAMAH, 1 SAM. xix. 18, 19, 20. and partly after his death by the same disciples. The books of the KINGS cite other authors, as the book of the Acts of SOLOMON, the book of the CHRONICLES of the Kings of ISRAEL, and the book of the CHRONICLES of the Kings of JUDAH. The books of the CHRONICLES cite the book of SAMUEL the Seer, the book of NATHAN the Prophet, and the book of GAD the Seer, for the Acts of DAVID ; the book of NATHAN the Prophet, the Prophecy of AHIJAH the SHILONITE, and the visions of IDDO the Seer, for the Acts of SOLOMON ; the book of SHEMAJAH the Prophet, and the book of IDDO the Seer concerning genea- logies, for the Acts of REHOBOAM and ABIJAH ; the book 11 144 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART 1 of the Kings of JUDAH and ISRAEL for the Acts of ASA, JOASH, AMAZIAH, JOTHAM, AHAZ, HEZEKIAH, MANASSEH, and JOSIAH ; the book of HANANI the Seer, for the Acts of JEHOSAPHAT ; and the visions of ISAIAH for the Acts of UZZIAH and HEZEKIAH. These books were therefore collected out of the historical writings of the ancient Seers and Prophets. And because the books of the KINGS and CHRONICLES quote one another, they were written at one and the same time. And this time was after the return from the BABYLONIAN captivity, because they bring down the history of JUDAH, and the genealogies of the Kings of JUDAH, and of the High Priests, to that captivity. The book of EZRA was originally a part of the book of the CHRONICLES, and has been divided from it. For it begins with the two last verses of the books of CHRONICLES, and the first book of ESDRAS begins with the two last chapters thereof. EZRA was therefore the compiler of the books of KINGS and CHRONICLES, and brought down the history to his own time. He was a ready Scribe in the Law of God ; and for assisting him in this work NEHEMIAS founded a library, and gathered together the Acts of the Kings and the Prophets, and oj David, and the Epistles oj the Kings concerning the holy gifts, 2 MACCAB. ii. 13. By the Acts of DAVID I understand here the two books of SAMUEL, or at least the second book. Out of the Acts of the KINGS, written from time to time by the Prophets, he compos'd the books of the Kings of JUDAH and ISRAEL, the CHRONICLES of the Kings of JUDAH, and the CHRONICLES of the Kings of ISRAEL. And in doing this he joined those Acts together, in due order of time, copying the very words of the authors, as is manifest from hence, that the books of the KINGS and CHRONICLES frequently agree with one another in the words for many sentences together. Where they agree in sense, there they agree in words also. So the Prophecies of ISAIAH, written at several times, he has collected into one body. And the like he did for those of JEREMIAH, and the rest of the Prophets, down to the days of the second Temple. The book of JONAH is CHAP, i] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 145 the history of JONAH written by another hand. The book of DANIEL is a collection of papers written at several times. The six last chapters contain Prophecies written at several times by DANIEL himself ; the six first are a collection of historical papers written by others. The fourth chapter is a Decree of NEBUCHADNEZZAR. The first chapter was written after DANIEL'S death : for the Author saith, that DANIEL continued to the first year of CYRUS ; that is, to his first year over the PERSIANS and MEDES, and third year over BABYLON. And, for the same reason, the fifth and sixth chapters were also written after his death. For they end with these words : So this Daniel prospered in the reign oj Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Yet these words might be added by the collector of the papers, whom I take to be EZRA. The Psalms composed by MOSES, DAVID, and others, seem to have been also collected by EZRA into one volume. I reckon him the collector, because in this collection I meet with Psalms as late as the BABYLONIAN captivity, but with none later. After these things ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES spoiled the Temple, commanded the JEWS to forsake the Law upon pain of death, and caused the sacred books to be burnt wherever they could be found : and in these troubles the book of the CHRONICLES of the Kings of ISRAEL was entirely lost. But upon recovering from this oppression JUDAS MACCABEUS gathered together all those writings that were to be met with, 2 MACCAB. ii. 14. and in reducing them into order, part of the Prophecies of ISAIAH, or some other Prophet, have been added to the end of the Prophecies of ZECHARIAH ; and the book of EZRA has been separated from the book of CHRONICLES, and set together in two different orders ; in one order in the book of EZRA, received into the Canon, and in another order in the first book of ESDRAS. After the ROMAN captivity, the JEWS for preserving their traditions, put them in writing in their TALMUD ; and for preserving their scriptures, agreed upon an Edition, and 146 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PARTI pointed it, and counted the letters of every sort in every book : and by preserving only this Edition, the antienter various lections, except what can be discovered by means of the SEPTUAGINT Version, are now lost ; and such marginal notes, or other corruptions, as by the errors of the transcribers, before this Edition was made, had crept into the text, are now scarce to be corrected. The JEWS before the ROMAN captivity, distinguished the sacred books into the Law, the Prophets, and the HAGIO- GRAPHA, or holy writings ; and read only the Law and the Prophets in their Synagogues. And Christ and his Apostles laid the stress of religion upon the Law and the Prophets, MATT. vii. 12. xxii. 40. LUKE xvi. 16, 29, 31. xxiv. 44. ACTS xxiv. 14. xxvi. 22. ROM. iii. 21. By the HAGIO- GRAPHA they meant the historical books called JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH, SAMUEL, KINGS, CHRONICLES, EZRA, NEHEMIAH, and ESTHER, the book of JOB, the PSALMS, the books of SOLOMON, and the LAMENTATIONS. The SAMARI- TANS read only the PENTATEUCH : and when JEHOSAPHAT sent men to teach in the cities, they had with them only the book of the Law ; for the Prophecies now extant were not then written. And upon the return from the BABY- LONIAN captivity, EZRA read only the book of the Law to the people, from morning to noon, on the first day of the seventh month ; and from day to day in the feast of Tabernacles : for he had not yet collected the writings of the Prophets into the volume now extant ; but insti- tuted the reading of them after the collection was made. By reading the Law and the Prophets in the Synagogues, those books have been kept freer from corruption than the HAGIOGRAPHA. In the infancy of the nation of ISRAEL, when God had given them a Law, and made a covenant with them to be their God if they would keep his commandments, he sent Prophets to reclaim them, as often as they revolted to the worship of other Gods : and upon their returning to him, they sometimes renewed the covenant which they had broken. These Prophets he continued to send till the days CHAP, i] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 147 of EZRA : but after their Prophecies were read in the Synagogues, those Prophecies were thought sufficient. For if the people would not hear MOSES and the old Prophets, they would hear no new ones, no not tho' they should rise from the dead. At length when a new truth was to be preached to the GENTILES, namely, that Jesus was the Christ, God sent new Prophets and Teachers: but after their writings were also received and read in the Synagogues of the Christians, Prophecy ceased a second time. We have MOSES, the Prophets, and Apostles, and the words of Christ himself; and if we will not hear them, we shall be more inexcusable than the JEWS. For the Prophets and Apostles have foretold, that as ISRAEL often revolted and brake the covenant, and upon repentance renewed it ; so there should be a falling away among the Christians, soon after the days of the Apostles ; and that in the latter days God would destroy the impenitent revolters, and make a new covenant with his people. And the giving ear to the Prophets is a fundamental character of the true Church. For God has so ordered the Prophecies, that in the latter days the wise may understand, but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, DAN. xii. 9, 10. The authority of Emperors, Kings, and Princes, is human. The authority of Councils, Synods, Bishops, and Presbyters, is human. The authority of the Prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion, reckoning MOSES and the Apostles among the Prophets ; and if an Angel from Heaven preach any other gospel, than what they have delivered, let him be accursed. Their writings contain the covenant between God and his people, with instruc- tions for keeping this Covenant ; instances of God's judgments upon them that break it : and predictions of things to come. While the people of God keep the covenant, they continue to be his people : when they break it they cease to be his people or church, and become the Synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not. And no power on earth is authorized to alter this covenant. 148 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PART i The predictions of things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages : and amongst the old Prophets, DANIEL is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood : and therefore in those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the rest. CHAPTER II OF THE PROPHETIC LANGUAGE FOR understanding the Prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the figurative language of the Prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly, the whole world natural consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, con- sisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is con- sidered in the Prophecy : and the things in that world signify the analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them ; and the earth, with the things thereon, the inferior people ; and the lowest parts of the earth, called HADES or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them. Whence ascending towards heaven, and descending to the earth, are put for rising and falling in power and honour : rising out of the earth, or waters, and falling into them, for the rising up to any dignity or dominion, out of the inferior state of the people, or falling down from the same into that inferior state ; descending into the lower parts of the earth, for descending to a very low and unhappy estate ; speaking with a faint voice out of the dust, for being in a weak and low con- dition ; moving from one place to another, for translation from one office, dignity, or dominion, to another ; great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, for the shaking of kingdoms, so as to distract or overthrow them ; the creating a new heaven and earth, and the 150 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i passing away of an old one, or the beginning and end of the world, for the rise and ruin of the body politic signified thereby. In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of dreams, put for the persons of Kings and Queens ; but in sacred Prophecy, which regards not single persons, the Sun is put for the whole species and race of Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal power and glory ; the Moon for the body of the common people, considered as the King's wife ; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for Bishops and Rulers of the people of God, when the Sun is Christ ; light for the glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and illuminate others ; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness and ignorance ; darkning, smiting, or setting of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the darkness ; darkning the Sun, turning the Moon into blood, and falling of the Stars, for the same ; new Moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a body politic or ecclesiastic. Fire and meteors refer to both heaven and earth, and signify as follows ; burning any thing with fire, is put for the consuming thereof by war ; a conflagration of the earth, or turning a country into a lake of fire, for the consumption of a kingdom by war ; the being in a furnace, for the being in slavery under another nation ; the ascending up of the smoke of any burning thing for ever and ever, for the continuation of a conquered people under the misery of perpetual subjection and slavery ; the scorching heat of the sun, for vexatious wars, persecu- tions and troubles inflicted by the King ; riding on the clouds, for reigning over much people ; covering the sun with a cloud, or with smoke, for oppression of the King by the armies of an enemy ; tempestuous winds, or the motion of clouds, for wars ; thunder, or the voice of a cloud, for the voice of a multitude ; a storm of thunder, lightning, hail, and overflowing rain, for a tempest of CHAP, n] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 151 war descending from the heavens and clouds politic, on the heads of their enemies ; rain, if not immoderate, and dew, and living water, for the graces and doctrines of the Spirit ; and the defect of rain, for spiritual barrenness. In the earth, the dry land and congregated waters, as a sea, a river, a flood, are put for the people of several regions, nations, and dominions : embittering of waters, for great affliction of the people by war and persecution ; turning things into blood, for the mystical death of bodies politic, that is, for their dissolution ; the overflowing of a sea or river, for the invasion of the earth politic, by the people of the waters ; drying up of waters, for the conquest of their regions by the earth ; fountains of waters for cities, the permanent heads of rivers politic ; mountains and islands, for the cities of the earth and sea politic, with the territories and dominions belonging to those cities ; dens and rocks of mountains, for the temples of cities ; the hiding of men in those dens and rocks, for the shutting up of Idols in their temples ; houses and ships, for families, assemblies, and towns, in the earth and sea politic ; and a navy of ships of war, for an army of that kingdom that is signified by the sea. Animals also and vegetables are put for the people of several regions and conditions ; and particularly, trees, herbs, and land animals, for the people of the earth politic ; flags, reeds, and fishes, for those of the waters politic ; birds and insects, for those of the politic heaven and earth ; a forest for a kingdom ; and a wilderness for a desolate and thin people. If the world politic, considered in prophecy, consists of many kingdoms, they are represented by as many parts of the world natural ; as the noblest by the celestial frame, and then the Moon and Clouds are put for the common people ; the less noble, by the earth, sea, and rivers, and by the animals or vegetables, or buildings therein ; and then the greater and more powerful animals and taller trees, are put for Kings, Princes, and Nobles. And because the whole kingdom is the body politic of the 152 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PAKT I King, therefore the Sun, or a Tree, or a Beast, or Bird, or a Man, whereby the King is represented, is put in a large signification for the whole kingdom ; and several animals, as a Lion, a Bear, a Leopard, a Goat, according to their qualities, are put for several kingdoms and bodies politic ; and sacrificing of beasts, for slaughtering and conquering of kingdoms ; and friendship between beasts, for peace between kingdoms. Yet sometimes vegetables and animals are, by certain epithets or circumstances, extended to other significations ; as a Tree when called the tree of life or of knowledge ; and a Beast, when called the old serpent, or worshipped. When a Beast or Man is put for a kingdom, his parts and qualities are put for the analogous parts and qualities of the kingdom ; as the head of a Beast, for the great men who precede and govern ; the tail for the inferior people, who follow and are governed ; the heads, if more than one, for the number of capital parts, or dynasties, or dominions in the kingdom, whether collateral or succes- sive, with respect to the civil government ; the horns on any head, for the number of kingdoms in that head, with respect to military power ; seeing for understanding, and the eyes for men of understanding and policy, and in matters of religion for 'E7ri next beyond the DANUBE ; from whence ODOACER then carried his people into ITALY. TATO overthrew the kingdom of the HERULI beyond the DANUBE. WACHO conquered the SUEVIANS, a kingdom then bounded on the east by BAVARIA, on the west by FRANCE, and on the south by the BURGUNDIANS. AUDOIN returned into PANNONIA A. C. 526, and there overcame the GEPIDES. ALBOIN A. C. 551 overthrew the kingdom of the GEPIDES, and slew their King CHUNNIMUND : A. C. 568 he assisted the GREEK Emperor against TOTILA King of the OSTROGOTHS in ITALY ; and A. C. 568 led his people out of PANNONIA into LOMBARDY, where they reigned till the year 774. According to PAULUS DIACONUS, the LOMBARDS with many other GOTHIC nations came into the Empire from beyond the DANUBE in the reign of ARCADIUS and HONO- RIUS, that is, between the years 895 and 408. But they might come in a little earlier : for we are told that the 186 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i LOMBARDS, under their captains IBOR and AVON, beat the VANDALS in battle ; and PROSPER placeth this victory in the Consulship of AUSONIUS and OLYBRIUS, that is, A. C. 879. Before this war the VANDALS had remained quiet forty years in the seats granted them in PANNONIA by CONSTANTINE the great. And therefore if these were the same VANDALS, this war must have been in PANNONIA ; and might be occasioned by the coming of the LOMBARDS over the DANUBE into PANNONIA, a year or two before the battle ; and so have put an end to that quiet which had lasted forty years. After GRATIAN and THEODOSIUS had quieted the BARBARIANS, they might either retire over the DANUBE, or continue quiet under the ROMANS till the death of THEODOSIUS ; and then either invade the Empire anew, or throw off all subjection to it. By their wars, first with the VANDALS, and then with the BULGARIANS, a SCYTHIAN nation so called from the river VOLGA whence they came ; it appears that even in those days they were a kingdom not contemptible. 10. These nine kingdoms being rent away, we are next to consider the residue of the WESTERN EMPIRE. While this Empire continued entire, it was the Beast itself : but the residue thereof is only a part of it. Now if this part be considered as a horn, the reign of this horn may be dated from the translation of the imperial seat from ROME to RAVENNA, which was in OCTOBER A. C. 408. For then the Emperor HONORIUS, fearing that ALARIC would besiege him in ROME, if he staid there, retired to MILLAIN, and thence to RAVENNA : and the ensuing siege and sacking of ROME confirmed his residence there, so that he and his successors ever after made it their home. Accordingly MACCHIAVEL in his FLORENTINE history writes, that VALENTINIAN having left ROME, translated the seat of the Empire to RAVENNA. RH^TIA belonged to the WESTERN Emperors, so long as that Empire stood ; and then it descended, with ITALY and the ROMAN Senate, to ODOACER King of the HERULI in ITALY, and after him to THEODERIC King of the CHAP, vi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 187 OSTROGOTHS and his successors, by the grant of the GREEK Emperors. Upon the death of VALENTINIAN the second, the ALEMANS and SUEVIANS invaded RH.ETIA A. C. 455. But I do not find they erected any settled kingdom there : for in the year 457, while they were yet depopulating RH.STIA, they were attacked and beaten by BURTO Master of the horse to the Emperor MAJORANUS ; and I hear nothing more of their invading RH^ETIA. CLODOV^EUS King of FRANCE, in or about the year 496, conquered a kingdom of the ALEMANS, and slew their last King ERMERIC. But this kingdom was seated in GERMANY, and only bordered upon RH^ETIA : for its people fled from CLODO- VJEUS into the neighbouring kingdom of the OSTROGOTHS under THEODERIC, who received them as friends, and wrote a friendly letter to CLODOV^EUS in their behalf : and by this means they became inhabitants of RH.STIA, as subjects under the dominion of the OSTROGOTHS. When the GREEK Emperor conquered the OSTROGOTHS, he succeeded them in the kingdom of RAVENNA, not only by right of conquest but also by right of inheritance, the ROMAN Senate still going along with this kingdom. There- fore we may reckon that this kingdom continued in the Exarchate of RAVENNA and Senate of ROME : for the remainder of the WESTERN EMPIRE went along with the Senate of ROME, by reason of the right which this Senate still retained, and at length exerted, of chusing a new WESTERN Emperor. I have now enumerated the ten kingdoms, into which the WESTERN EMPIRE became divided at its first breaking, that is, at the time of ROME'S being besieged and taken by the GOTHS. Some of these kingdoms at length fell, and new ones arose : but whatever was their number afterwards, they are still called the TEN KINGS from their first number. Now (chap. vii. 8.) Daniel, considered the horns, and behold there came up among them another horn, before whom there were three of the first horns pluckt up by the roots ; and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, - and (ver. 20, 21.) his look was more stout than his fellows, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them : and one who stood by, and made DANIEL know the inter- pretation of these things, told him (ver. 24.), that the ten horns were ten kings that should arise, and another should arise after them, and be diverse from the first, and he should subdue three kings (ver. 25.), and speak great words against the most High, and wear out the saints, and think to change times and laws : and that they should be given into his hands until a time and times and half a time. Kings are put for kingdoms, as above ; and therefore the little horn is a little kingdom. It was a horn of the fourth Beast, and rooted up three of his first horns ; and therefore we are to look for it among the nations of the LATIN Empire, after the rise of the ten horns. But it was a kingdom of a different kind from the other ten kingdoms, having a life or soul peculiar to itself, with eyes and a mouth. By its eyes it was a Seer ; and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and laws, it was a Prophet as well as a King. And such a Seer, a Prophet and a King, is the Church of ROME. A Seer, '.ETricr/coTro?, is a Bishop in the literal sense of the word ; and this Church claims the universal Bishoprick. With his mouth he gives laws to kings and nations as 188 CHAP, vnj PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 180 an Oracle ; and pretends to Infallibility, and that his dictates are binding to the whole world ; which is to be a Prophet hi the highest degree. In the eighth century, by rooting up and subduing the Exarchate of RAVENNA, the kingdom of the LOMBARDS, and the Senate and Dukedom of ROME, he acquired PETER'S Patrimony out of their dominions ; and thereby rose up as a temporal Prince or King, or horn of the fourth Beast. In a small book printed at PARIS, A. C. 1689, entitled, An historical dissertation upon some coins of Charles the great, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius, and their successors stamped at Rome, it is recorded, that in the days of Pope LEO X, there was remaining in the VATICAN, and till those days exposed to public view, an inscription in honour of PIPIN the father of CHARLES the great, in these words : Pipinum pium primum fuisse qui amplificandce Ecclesice Romance viam aperuerit, Exarchatu Ravennate, & plurimis aliis oblatis ; " That PIPIN the pious was the first who opened a way to the grandeur of the Church of ROME, conferring upon her the Exarchate of RAVENNA and many other oblations." In and before the reign of the Emperors GRATIAN and THEODOSIUS, the Bishop of ROME lived splendidly ; but this was by the oblations of the ROMAN Ladies, as AMMIANUS describes. After those reigns ITALY was invaded by foreign nations, and did not get rid of her troubles before the fall of the kingdom of LOMBARDY. It was certainly by the victory of the see of ROME over the GREEK Emperor, the King of LOMBARDY, and the Senate of ROME, that she acquired PETER'S Patrimony, and rose up to her greatness. The donation of CONSTANTINE the Great is a fiction, and so is the donation of the ALPES COTTI^: to the Pope by ARIPERT King of the LOMBARDS : for the ALPES COTTI.E were a part of the Exarchate, and in the days of ARIPERT belonged to the GREEK Emperor. The invocation of the dead, and veneration of their images, being gradually introduced in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries, the GREEK Emperor PHILIPPICUS 190 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i declared against the latter, A. C. 711 or 712. And the Emperor LEO ISAURUS, to put a stop to it, called a meeting of Counsellors and Bishops in his Palace, A. C. 726 ; (SiGONius, de Regno Italice, ad Ann. 726.) and by their advice put out an Edict against that worship, and wrote to Pope GREGORY II. that a general Council might be called. But the Pope thereupon called a Council at ROME, con- firmed the worship of Images, excommunicated the GREEK Emperor, absolved the people from their allegiance, and forbad them to pay tribute, or otherwise be obedient to him. Then the people of ROME, CAMPANIA, RAVENNA and PENTAPOLIS, with the cities under them, revolted and laid violent hands upon their magistrates, killing the Exarch PAUL at RAVENNA, and laying aside PETER Duke of ROME who was become blind : and when EXHILERATUS Duke of CAMPANIA incited the people against the Pope, the ROMANS invaded CAMPANIA, and slew him with his son HADRIAN. Then a new Exarch, EUTYCHIUS, coming to NAPLES, sent some secretly to take away the lives of the Pope and the Nobles of ROME : but the plot being discovered, the ROMANS revolted absolutely from the GREEK Emperor, and took an oath to preserve the life of the Pope, to defend his state, and be obedient to his authority in all things. Thus ROME with its Duchy, including part of TUSCANY and part of CAMPANIA, revolted in the year 726, and became a free state under the government of the Senate of this city. The authority of the Senate in civil affairs was hence- forward absolute, the authority of the Pope extending hitherto no farther than to the affairs of the Church only. 1 At that time the LOMBARDS also being zealous for the worship of images, and pretending to favour the cause of the Pope, invaded the cities of the Exarchate : and at length, viz. A. C. 752, took RAVENNA, and put an end to the Exarchate. And this was the first of the three king- doms which fell before the little horn. 1 In the year 751 Pope ZECHARY deposed CHILDERIC, a slothful and useless King of FRANCE and the last of the 1 SIGONIUS, ib., ad Ann, 726, 762. SIQON., ib., Ann. 750. CHAP, vii] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 191 race of MEROV.EUS ; and absolving his subjects from their oath of allegiance, gave the kingdom to PIPIN the major of the Palace ; and thereby made a new and potent friend. 1 His successor Pope STEPHEN III, knowing better how to deal with the GREEK Emperor than with the LOMBARDS, went the next year to the King of the LOMBARDS, to per- suade him to return the Exarchate to the Emperor. But this not succeeding, he went into FRANCE, and persuaded PIPIN to take the Exarchate and PENTAPOLIS from the LOMBARDS, and give it to St. PETER. Accordingly PIPIN A. C. 754 came with an army into ITALY, and made AISTULPHUS King of the LOMBARDS promise the surrender : but the next year AISTULPHUS on the contrary, to revenge himself on the Pope, besieged the city of ROME. Where- upon the Pope sent letters to PIPIN, wherein he told him that if he came not speedily against the LOMBARDS, " he should be banned from the Kingdom of God, and eternal life : that is he should be excommunicated." PIPIN therefore, fearing a revolt of his subjects, and being indebted to the Church of ROME, came speedily with an army into ITALY, raised the siege, besieged the LOMBARDS in PAVIA, and forced them to surrender the Exarchate and region of PENTAPOLIS to the Pope for a perpetual possession. Thus the Pope became Lord of RAVENNA, and the Exar- chate, some few cities excepted ; and the keys were sent to ROME, and laid upon the confession of St. PETER, that is, upon his tomb at the high Altar " for a token of lawful and perpetual lordship, and by the King's freely-rendered devotion," as the inscription of a coin of PIPIN hath it. This was in the year of Christ 755. And henceforward the Popes being temporal Princes, left off in their Epistles and Bulls to note the years of the GREEK Emperors, as they had hitherto done. 1 After this the LOMBARDS invading the Pope's countries, Pope ADRIAN sent to CHARLES the great, the son and successor of PIPIN, to come to his assistance. Accordingly CHARLES entered ITALY with an army, invaded the LOM- 1 SIOOK., ib., Ann. 753, 754, 755. SIQON.. ib., Ann. 773. 14 192 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i BARDS, overthrew their kingdom, became master of their countries, and restored to the Pope, not only what they had taken from him, but also the rest of the Exarchate which they had promised PIPIN to surrender to him, but had hitherto detained ; and also gave him some cities of the LOMBARDS, and was in return himself made PATRICIUS by the ROMANS, and had the authority of confirming the elections of the Popes conferred upon him. These things were done in the years 778 and 774. This kingdom of the LOMBARDS was the second kingdom which fell before the little horn. But ROME, which was to be the seat of his kingdom, was not yet his own. 1 In the year 796, LEO III being made Pope, notified his election to CHARLES the great by his Legates, sending to him for a present, the golden keys of the Confession of PETER, and the Banner of the city of ROME : the first as an acknowledgment of the Pope's holding the cities of the Exarchate and LOMBARDY by the grant of CHARLES ; the other as a signification that CHARLES should come and subdue the Senate and people of ROME, as he had done the Exarchate and the kingdom of the LOMBARDS. For the Pope at the same time desired CHARLES to send some of his Princes to ROME, who might subject the ROMAN people to him, and bind them by oath in fide & subjec- tione, in fealty and subjection, as his words are recited by SIGONIUS. An anonymous Poet, publish'd by BOECLERUS at STRASBURG expresseth it thus : " And he admonished him with pious entreaties to send certain of his princes and subdue the ROMAN people to himself, and, by enforcing a treaty inviolate, to ensure such a measure of fealty on the guarantee of solemn oaths.' * Hence arose a misunderstanding between the Pope and the city : and the ROMANS about two or three years after, by assistance of some of the Clergy, raised such tumults against him, as gave occasion to a new state of things in all the WEST. For two of the Clergy accused him of crimes, 1 SIQON., de Regno I tod. ad Ann. 796. CHAP, vii] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 198 and the ROMANS with an armed force, seized him, stript him of his sacerdotal habit, and imprisoned him in a monastery. But by assistance of his friends he made his escape, and fled into GERMANY to CHARLES the great, to whom he complained of the ROMANS for acting against him out of a design to throw off all authority of the Church, and to recover their ancient freedom. In his absence his accusers with their forces ravaged the possessions of the Church, and sent the accusations to CHARLES ; who before the end of the year sent the Pope back to ROME with a large retinue. The Nobles and Bishops of FRANCE who accompanied him, examined the chief of his accusers at ROME, and sent them into FRANCE in custody. This was in the year 799. The next year CHARLES himself went to ROME, and upon a day appointed presided in a Council of ITALIAN and FRENCH Bishops to hear both parties. But when the Pope's adversaries expected to be heard (vide ANASTASIUM) the Council declared that he who was the supreme judge of all men, was above being judged by any other than himself : whereupon he made a solemn declaration of his innocence before all the people, and by doing so was looked upon as acquitted. Soon after, upon CnRiSTMAS-day, the people of ROME, who had hitherto elected their Bishop and reckoned that they and their Senate inherited the rights of the ancient Senate and people of ROME, voted CHARLES their Emperor, and subjected themselves to him in such manner as the old ROMAN Empire and their Senate were subjected to the old ROMAN Emperors. The Pope crowned him, and anointed him with holy oil, and worshipped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old ROMAN Em- perors ; as the aforesaid Poet thus relates : kt Wherefore when the King's praises had been spoken, he was worshipped e'en by that exalted prelate, as was the manner due of yore to ancient Emperors." The Emperor, on the other hand, took the following oath to the Pope : "In the name of Christ, I, CHARLES, 194 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PAET i Emperor, before God, and the Apostle PETER, vow and pro- mise that I shall protect and guard this HOLYROMAN CHURCH in all times of need, to the best of my knowledge and ability, in as far as I be upheld by Divine Help." The Emperor was also made Consul of ROME, and his son PIPIN crowned King of ITALY : and henceforward the Emperor stiled himself : " Most serene CHARLES, AUGUSTUS, the crowned of God, the Mighty, the Peacemaker, Governor of the Empire of ROME or Emperor of the Romans," and was prayed for in the Churches of ROME. His image was henceforward put upon the coins of ROME : while the enemies of the Pope, to the number of three hundred ROMANS and two or three of the Clergy, were sentenced to death. The three hundred ROMANS were beheaded in one day in the LATERAN fields : but the Clergymen at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned, and banished into FRANCE. And thus the title of ROMAN Emperor, which had hitherto been in the GREEK Emperors, was by this act transferred in the WEST to the Kings of FRANCE. After these things CHARLES gave the City and Duchy of ROME to the Pope, subordinately to himself as Emperor of the ROMANS (SiGON., de Regno Ital.); spent the winter in ordering the affairs of ROME, and those of the Apostolic see, and of all ITALY, both civil and ecclesiastical, and in making new laws for them ; and returned the next summer into FRANCE : leaving the city under its Senate, and both under the Pope and himself. But hearing that his new laws were not observed by the judges in dictating the law, nor by the people in hearing it : and that the great men took servants from free men, and from the Churches and Monasteries, to labour in their vineyards, fields, pastures, and houses, and continued to exact cattle and wine of them, and to oppress those that served the Churches : he wrote to his son PIPIN to remedy these abuses, to take care of the Church, and see his laws executed. Now the Senate and people and principality of ROME I take to be the third King the little horn overcame, and CHAP. TII] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 195 even the chief of the three. For this people elected the Pope and the Emperor ; and now, by electing the Emperor and making him Consul, was acknowledged to retain the authority of the old ROMAN Senate and people. This city was the Metropolis of the old ROMAN Empire represented in DANIEL by the fourth Beast ; and by subduing the Senate and people and Duchy, it became the Metropolis of the little horn of that Beast, and completed PETER'S Patrimony, which was the kingdom of that horn. Besides, this victory was attended with greater consequences than those over the other two Kings. For it set up the WESTERN EMPIRE, which continues to this day. It set up the Pope above the judicature of the ROMAN Senate, and above that of a Council of ITALIAN and FRENCH Bishops, and even above all human judicature ; and gave him the supremacy over the WESTERN Churches and their Councils in a high degree. It gave him a look more stout than his fellows ; so that when this new religion began to be estab- lished in the minds of men, he grappled not only with Kings, but even with the WESTERN Emperor himself. It is observable also, that the custom of kissing the Pope's feet, an honour superior to that of Kings and Emperors, began about this time. There are some instances of it in the ninth century : PLATINA tells us, that the feet of Pope LEO IV were kissed, according to ancient custom, by all who came to him : and some say that LEO III began this custom, pretending that his hand was infected by the kiss of a woman. The Popes began also about this time to canonize saints, and to grant indulgences and pardons : and some represent that LEO III was the first author of all these things. It is further observable, that CHARLES the great, between the years 775 and 796, conquered all GERMANY from the RHINE and DANUBE northward to the BALTIC sea, and eastward to the river TEIS ; extending his conquests also into SPAIN as far as the river EBRD : and by these conquests he laid the foundation of the new Empire ; and at the same time propagated the ROMAN Catholic religion into all his conquests, obliging the SAXONS 196 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i and HUNNS who were heathens, to receive the ROMAN faith, and distributing his northern conquests into Bishopricks, granting tithes to the Clergy and PETER- PENCE to the Pope : by all which the Church of ROME was highly enlarged, enriched, exalted, and established. In the forementioned dissertation upon some coins of Charles the great, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius, and their successors, stamped at Rome, there is a draught of a piece of MOSAIC work which Pope LEO III. caused to be made in his Palace near the Church of JOHN LATERAN, in memory of his sending the standard or banner of the city of ROME curiously wrought, to CHARLES the great ; and which still remained there at the publishing of the said book. In the MOSAIC work there appeared PETER with three keys in his lap, reaching the PALLIUM to the Pope with his right hand, and the banner of the city to CHARLES the great with his left. By the Pope was this inscription, " OUR MOST HOLY LORD POPE LEO " ; by the King this, " TO OUR LORD KING CHARLES " ; and under the feet of PETER this, "BLESSED PETER, GRANT LIFE TO POPE LEO, AND VICTORY TO KING CHARLES." This Monument gives the title of King to CHARLES, and therefore was erected before he was Emperor. It was erected when PETER was reaching the PALLIUM to the Pope, and the Pope was sending the banner of the city to CHARLES, that is, A. C. 796. The words above, " our most Holy Lord Pope LEO to our Lord King CHARLES," relate to the message ; and the words below, " Blessed PETER, grant life to Pope LEO, and victory to King CHARLES," are a prayer that in this undertaking God would preserve the life of the Pope, and give victory to the King over the ROMANS. The three keys in the lap of PETER signify the keys of the three parts of his Patrimony, that of ROME with its Duchy, which the Pope claimed and was con- quering, those of RAVENNA with the Exarchate, and of the territories taken from the LOMBARDS ; both which he had newly conquered. These were the three dominions, whose keys were in the lap of St. PETER, and whose Crowns CHAP, vn] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 197 are now worn by the Pope, and by the conquest of which he became the little horn of the fourth Beast. By PETER'S giving the PALLIUM to the Pope with his right hand, and the banner of the city to the King with his left, and by naming the Pope before the King in the inscription, may be understood that the Pope was then reckoned superior in dignity to the Kings of the earth. After the death of CHARLES the great, his son and successor LUDOVICUS Pius, at the request of the Pope, confirmed the donations of his grandfather and father to the see of ROME. And in the confirmation he names first ROME with its Duchy extending into TUSCANY and CAMPANIA ; then the Exarchate of RAVENNA, with PENTAPOLIS ; and in the third place, the territories taken from the LOMBARDS (Confirmationen recital Sigonius. lib. 4. de Regno Italice, ad An. 817.). These are his three conquests, and he was to hold them of the Emperor for the use of the Church sub integritate, entirely, without the Emperor's medling therewith, or with the jurisdiction or power of the Pope therein, unless called thereto in certain cases. This ratification the Emperor LUDOVICUS made under an oath : and as the King of the OSTROGOTHS, for acknowledging that he held his kingdom of ITALY of the GREEK Emperor, stamped the effigies of the Emperor on one side of his coins and his own on the reverse ; so the Pope made the like acknowledgment to the WESTERN Emperor. For the Pope began now to coin money, and the coins of ROME are henceforward found with the heads of the Emperors, CHARLES, LUDOVICUS Pius, LOTHARIUS, and their successors, on the one side, and the Pope's inscription on the reverse, for many years. CHAPTER VIII OF THE POWER OF THE ELEVENTH HORN OF DANIEL'S FOURTH BEAST, TO CHANGE TIMES AND LAWS IN the reign of the GREEK Emperor JUSTINIAN, and again in the reign of PHOCAS, the Bishop of ROME obtained some dominion over the GREEK Churches, but of no long continuance. His standing dominion was only over the nations of the WESTERN EMPIRE, represented by DANIEL'S fourth Beast. And this jurisdiction was set up by the following Edict of the Emperors GRATIAN and VALEN- TINIAN (see the Annals of BARONIUS, Anno 381. sect. 6.) : " If any one has been condemned by the Court of DAMASUS, which he held with a Council of five or seven Bishops, or by a Court or Council consisting of Catholics ; and if such an one duly wish to cleave to the Church on the ground that he did not absent himself from the Ecclesiastical Court out of contempt for it : it is our will, that he be remitted to the Episcopal Court by an exercise of authority on the part of the Prefects of the PR^TORIUM of GAUL and ITALY (or by the Legates thereof or their deputies) to the end that he may come to the City of ROME under escort. Or if in districts more remote, an act of such recklessness be committed by anyone, let a full statement of his case be submitted to the examination of the Metropolitan Bishop. Or if he be a Metropolitan himself, let him without fail make all speed to come to ROME, or to whatever Judges the Bishop of ROME shall direct. But if the impartiality of the Metropolitan Bishop, or of any priest whatever, be questioned, or corruption suspected, let him have right of appeal to the Bishop of ROME, or to a duly convened Council of fifteen neighbouring 198 CHAP, vni] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 19 Bishops : only after the holding of the inquiry let not a matter which has been settled be again opened." This Edict wanting the name of both VALENS and THEODOSIUS in the Title, was made in the time between their reigns, that is, in the end of the year 378, or the beginning of 379. It was directed to the PREFECTS of the PR^TORIUM of ITALY and GAUL, and therefore was general. For the PRE- FECT of the PR^ETORIUM of ITALY governed ITALY, ILLYRI- CUM OCCIDENTALE and AFRICA ; and the PREFECT of the PR^ITORIUM of GAUL governed GAUL, SPAIN, and BRITAIN. The granting of this jurisdiction to the Pope gave several Bishops occasion to write to him for his resolutions upon doubtful cases, whereupon he answered by decretal Epistles ; and henceforward he gave laws to the WESTERN Churches by such Epistles. HIMERIUS Bishop of TARRACO, the head city of a province in SPAIN, writing to Pope DAMASUS for his direction about certain Ecclesiastical matters, and the Letter not arriving at ROME till after the death of DAMASUS, A. C. 384 ; his successor SIRICIUS answered the same with a legislative authority, telling him of one thing : " Since the General Decrees sent to the provinces by my predecessor LIBERIUS of revered memory forbid this thing to be done." Of another : " Let them take note that by the authority of the Apostolic See, they are deposed from their ecclesiastical position, of which they have made improper use." Of another : " The chief Prelates of each province will hereafter bear in mind, that if it is further proposed to admit to holy orders any man of such a class, a suitable pronouncement must be issued by the Apostolic See, not only with regard to the status of such a one, but also, as to the status of those others whom they have already advanced contrary to Canonical Law and our interdictory decrees." And the Epistle he concludes thus : " Dearest Brother, I have, as I think, explained those general matters which formed the body of your grievance ; and with regard to those particular questions which you referred to the ROMAN Church, as to the head of your body, the answers I have returned 200 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i will, as far as I can see, prove sufficient. Now we do earnestly and yet more earnestly exhort you, and your brethren, to keep the Canons and to hold fast by our decretal findings ; moreover cause that these directions, which form our reply to your questions, be conveyed to the knowledge of all your fellow-bishops : and not only to the knowledge of those who are stationed in your own diocese ; but also to all those of CARTHAGE, Borne A, LUSITANIA and GAUL, that is to your neighbours, in the provinces on either side of you, let these arrangements, ordained by us for your welfare, be sent under cover of your letters, and although it be not permissible for any priest of God to be ignorant of the Statutes of the Holy See and the venerable enactments of the Canons, yet, perchance it will not be without advantage and (in virtue of your long service to the Church be it said) highly complimentary to your loving zeal towards ourselves, if those general replies, sent specifically to yourself, should be brought to the notice of our brethren at large by your earnest sympathy with our objects. Wherefore let those decisions which we have determined upon, not rashly but with forethought, and much caution and deliberation for the welfare of all, remain inviolate, and for the future let all possibility of claims for exemption be debarred, such being a plea which henceforth will not be accepted by us. Given on the llth of February in the Consulship of the distinguished AECADIUS and BAUTO, A. C. 885." Pope LIBEEIUS in the reign of JOVIAN or VALENTINIAN I. sent general Decrees to the Provinces, ordering that the ARIANS should not be rebaptized : and this he did in favour of the Council of ALEXANDRIA, that nothing more should be required of them than to renounce their opinions. Pope DAMASUS is said to have decreed in a ROMAN Council, that TITHES and TENTHS should be paid upon pain of an ANATHEMA ; and that GLORY BE TO THE FATHER, &c. should be said or sung at the end of the PSALMS. But the first decretal Epistle now extant is this of SIRICIUS to HIMERIUS ; by which the Pope made HIMERIUS his Vicar over all SPAIN CHAP, viii] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 201 for promulging his Decrees, and seeing them observed. The Bishop of SEVILL was also the Pope's Vicar sometimes, for SIMPLICIUS wrote thus to ZENO Bishop of that place : " Rejoicing therefore in such evidences, we have thought it fitting that you should be supported by the vicarious authority of our See ; protected by the strength whereof suffer not the decrees ordained by the Apostolic See or the limits fixed by the Holy Fathers to be overstepped in the least particular." And Pope HORMISDA made the Bishop of SEVILL his Vicar over BCETICA and LUSITANIA, and the Bishop of TARRACO his Vicar over all the rest of Spain, as appears by his Epistles to them (HORMISD. Epist. 24. 26.). Pope INNOCENT the first, in his decretal Epistle to VICTRICIUS Bishop of ROUEN in FRANCE, A. C. 404, in pursuance of the Edict of GRATIAN, made this Decree : "If there shall arise any suits or differences between clerics, whether of high or low rank, let the matter in dispute be settled before the Bishops of that Province in Council assembled according to the directions of the NICENE Synod : and be it not permitted to any without the authority of the ROMAN Church (reverence for which must in all cases be safeguarded) to leave these priests, who in that Province, are with Divine assent the Governors of the Church, and seek shelter in other Provinces. But if perchance, he have so presumed, let him be regarded as deposed from his clerical office and as guilty of outrage. But if cases of larger import be the subject of examina- tion, subsequent to trial by the Bishops, let them be referred to the Apostolic See in accordance with the decrees of the Synod and the exigencies of a hallowed custom." By these Letters it seems to me that GALLIA was now subject to the Pope, and had been so for some time, and that the Bishop of ROUEN was then his Vicar or one of them : for the Pope directs him to refer the greater causes to the See of ROME, according to custom. But the Bishop of ARLES soon after became the Pope's Vicar over all GALLIA : for Pope ZOSIMUS, A. C. 417, 202 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i ordaining that none should have access to him without the credentials of his Vicars, conferred upon PATROCLUS the Bishop of ARLES this authority over all GALLIA, by the following Decree : " Zosimus to all the Bishops established throughout the Province of Gaul, and the Seven Provinces. " The Apostolic See hath resolved that, if anyone from any quarter of GAUL whatsoever, or of any ecclesiastical rank so ever be minded to come to us in ROME, or purposeth to go to any other place on earth, he may not set forth except he have received credentials from his Metropolitan Bishop, whereby he may notify what is his priestly office or the ecclesiastical position that he holdeth, the Bishop's writing affirming these facts. *' This decree have we graciously ordained for that many masquerading as bishops, or presbyters, or ecclesiastics, do now steal into an honourable title, and win unmerited respect, because no documentary credentials are in exis- tence by which they might be exposed. If anyone there- fore, dearly beloved brethen, be he bishop, presbyter, deacon, or of humbler position, come to us without the herein said credentials, be it known to him, that he can by no means obtain recognition. This command we have sent everywhere, manifestly to the end, that all districts may know that our decree is in anywise to be kept. But if anyone of his own accord essay to violate these decrees, enacted for the common welfare, let him know that he is banned from communion with us. This privilege of granting credentials, we have conferred upon our Holy Brother and Fellow-Bishop PATROCLUS, in special recog- nition of his services." And that the Bishop of ARLES was sometimes the Pope's Vicar over all FRANCE, is affirmed also by all the Bishops of the Diocese of ARLES in their Letter to Pope LEO I. A Bishop, say they, " upon whom this further degree of honour and prestige has been conferred not CHAP, vni] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 208 only to govern these provinces in virtue of his own authority but also to keep in subjection to every eccle- siastical rule all the Province of GAUL entrusted to his tutelage as Vicar of the Apostolic See." And Pope PELAGIUS I. A. C. 556, in his Epistle to SAPAUDUS Bishop of ARLES : " By the efficacy of the Mercy of God, we desire to tread in the footsteps of our predecessors, and under Divine scrutiny to imitate their actions in all matters. Wherefore do we entrust to you as our Vicar, the authority of the Apostolic See (over which by the Grace of God we preside) in so far as it doth apply to the whole of GAUL." By the influence of the same imperial Edict, not only SPAIN and GALLJA, but also ILLYRICUM became subject to the Pope. DAMASUS made ASCHOLIUS, or ACHOLIUS, Bishop of THESSALONICA the Metropolis of ORIENTAL ILLYRICUM, his Vicar for hearing of causes ; and in the year 382, ACHOLIUS being summoned by Pope DAMASUS, came to a Council at ROME. Pope SIRICIUS the successor of DAMASUS, decreed that no Bishop should be ordained in ILLYRICUM without the consent of ANYSIUS the successor of ACHOLIUS. And the following Popes gave RUFUS the successor of ANYSIUS, a power of calling Provincial Councils : for in the Collections of HOLSTENIUS there is an account of a Council of ROME convened under Pope BONIFACE II. in which were produced Letters of DAMASUS, SIRICIUS, INNOCENT I. BONIFACE I. and CJELESTINE Bishops of ROME, to ASCHOLIUS, ANYSIUS and RUFUS, Bishops of THESSALONICA : in which Letters they com- mend to them the hearing of causes in ILLYRICUM, granted by the Lord and the holy Canons to the Apostolic See thro'out that Province. And Pope SIRICIUS saith in his Epistle to ANYSIUS : " 'Tis long, my dearly beloved brother, since we sent a letter by Bishop CANDIDIANUS (who has gone before us to the presence of God) to the effect that no licence should be granted for the ordination of Bishops in ILLYRICUM without your consent being previously obtained. I have never been able to learn, however, if this letter ever reached you or not. For 204 OBSERVATIONS UPONTHE [PART i many of the actions of the Bishop in the matter of the filling of offices show a lack of harmony a fact which you my dear brother know better than I." And a little later : " You must never relax your diligence (the Holy Spirit working fervently within you) in suppres- sing all this outrageous conduct. Wherefore, you yourself, if possible (and otherwise, those Bishops whom you regard as suitable) must in writing direct with your full consent who is to be invested with powers to ordain, in the stead of him who has died or has been deposed from office, a Catholic Bishop, a man of tried life and morals, a priest who has well served the Clergy, in accordance with the Statutes of the NICENE Synod and of the ROMAN Church." And Pope INNOCENT I. saith in his Epistle to ANYSIUS : " My immediate predecessors in the Bishoprick, men whose pre-eminence and qualities are well known, DAMASUS, of sainted memory, SIRICIUS and he whom I mentioned above, wrote you to the effect that they consigned the supervision of all that was done in those parts, to your Holiness and your abundant sense of justice." And in his Epistle to RUFUS, the successor of ANYSIUS : " So let it be taken to heart, that the interest of Churches separated from me by long distances must be consulted. Wherefore it is my resolve (the Lord Christ approving thereof) that you, a man of prudence and steadiness, should be entrusted with the care of any suits that may arise throughout the sphere comprised by the Churches of AciLfiA, THESSALY, old and new EPIRUS, CRETE, CENTRAL DACIA, DACIA on the DANUBE, MCESIA, DARDANIA and PR^IVALUM. We say with the approval of the Lord Christ : for of a truth, it is upon His most sacred in- junctions that we lay the charge upon your Holiness's most excellent prudence and virtue : nor is this decision of ours an innovation : we do but act on the precedent of your Apostolic predecessors, who decreed that a similar charge should be laid upon the sainted ACHOLIUS and ANYSIUS in reward of their services." And BONIFACE I. in his decretal Epistle to RUFUS and the CHAP, viii] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 205 rest of the Bishops in ILLYRICUM : " Let no one, as we have often said before, take upon himself to celebrate the ordination of any cleric without the knowledge of the Bishop of THESSALONICA, to whom as previously said we entrust all our powers as our Vicar." And Pope C^LESTINE, in his decretal Epistle to the Bishops thro'out ILLYRICUM, saith : " You will know that our powers have been entrusted to RUFUS as our Vicar ; and so my dearly beloved brethen, if there be any differences among you, let them be referred to his j udgment. Without his cognizance let no one be admitted to clerical office. Let no one without his knowledge presume to appropriate these his peculiar duties or dare to convene a Council except by his consent." And in the cause of PERI GENES, in the title of his Epistle, he thus enumerates the Provinces under the Bishop : " To RUFUS and the other Bishops established throughout MACEDONIA, ACH^A, THESSALY, Old and New EPIRUS, PRJSVALUM, and DACIA." And Pope XISTUS in a decretal Epistle to the same Bishops : ** In accordance with the precedents set by our predecessors and with our own action in the past, all the Churches of ILLYRICUM do hereby come under the supervision of the Bishop of THESSALONICA, that by his earnest attention he may discriminate and give judgment in any disputes that arise, as arise they will, among the brethren and let any suit promoted by an individual priest be referred to his decision. Let a Council be held as often as disputes arise, and as often as he shall so decree, in view of the exi- gencies of the situation." And Pope LEO I. in his decretal Epistle to ANASTASIUS Bishop of THESSALONICA : " In the same way as individual Metropolitan Bishops are vested with the power of ordination in their own provinces, so we decree that these Metropolitan Bishops be in turn ordained by you ; only let your choice be on mature and considered judgment." OCCIDENTAL ILLYRICUM comprehended PANNONIA PRIMA and SECUNDA, SAVIA, DALMATIA, NORICUM MEDITER- RANEUM, and NORICUM RIPENSE ; and its Metropolis was 206 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PARTI SIRMIUM, till ATTILA destroyed this city. Afterwards LAUREACUM became the Metropolis of NORICUM and both PANNONIAS, and SALONA the Metropolis of DALMATIA (vide CAROLI A S. PAULO, Geographiam sacram, pp. 72, 73.). Now the Bishops of LAUREACUM and SALONA received the PALLIUM from the Pope : and ZOSIMUS, in his decretal Epistle to HESYCHIUS Bishop of SALONA, directed him to denounce the Apostolic decrees as well to the Bishops of his own, as to those of the neighbouring Provinces. The subjection of these Provinces to the See of ROME seems to have begun in ANEMIUS, who was ordained Bishop of SIRMIUM by AMBROSE Bishop of MILLAIN, and who in the Council of AQUILEIA under Pope DAMASUS, A. C. 381, de- clared his sentence in these words : " Capital of ILLYRICUM there is none, but the city of SIRMIUM. Therefore I am the Bishop of ILLYRICUM. Whosoever doth not confess the Son of God, as eternal and co-eternal with the Father (who is from everlasting to everlasting), let him be accursed." The next year ANEMIUS and AMBROSE, with VALERIAN Bishop of AQUILEIA, ACHOLIUS Bishop of THESSALONICA, and many others, went to the Council of ROME, which met for overruling the GREEK Church by majority of votes, and exalting the authority of the Apostolic See, as was attempted before in the Council of SARDICA. AQUILEIA was the second city of the WESTERN EMPIRE, and by some called the second ROME. It was the Metro- polis of ISTRIA, FORUM JULIUM and VENETIA ; and its subjection to the See of ROME is manifest by the decretal Epistle of LEO I. directed to NICETAS Bishop of this city ; for the Pope begins his Epistle thus : " My son ADEODATUS, the Deacon of our See, upon his return to us reported your request to be vested with the authority of the Holy See to deal with matters which appear to present great difficulty in decision." Then he sets down an answer to the questions proposed by NICETAS, and concludes thus : " Now as to this letter of ours which we have sent, in answer to your brotherly inquiries, you will see that CHAP, vin] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 207 it reach all the brethen and the Bishops of your Province, so that by the universal observance thereof, the authority granted you may be of advantage. Given under our hand on the 21st March in the Consulship of MAJORANUS AUGUSTUS A. C. 458." GREGORY the great (Greg. M., lib. 1. Indie. 9. Epist. 16.) A. C. 591, cited SEVERUS Bishop of AQUILEIA to appear before him in judgment in a Council at ROME. The Bishops of AQUILEIA and MILLAIN created one another, and therefore were of equal authority, and alike subject to the See of ROME. Pope PELAGIUS about the year 557, testified this in the following words : "It was the ancient custom," said he " that it being burdensome, in view of the length and difficulty of the journey to ROME for these Bishops to be ordained by the Apostolic See, they themselves should in turn, ordain each other to the Bishoprick of AQUILEIA or MILLAIN " (Apud Gratianum de MEDIOLANENSI & AQUILEIENSI Episcopis). These words imply that the ordination of these two Bishops belonged to the See of ROME. When LAURENTIUS Bishop of MILLAIN had excommunicated MAGNUS, one of his Presbyters, and was dead, GREGORY the great absolved MAGNUS (Greg. M., lib. 3. Epist. 26. & lib. 4. Epist. 1. Greg., lib. 5. Epist. 4.) and sent the PALLIUM to the new elected Bishop CONSTAN- TIUS ; whom the next year he reprehended of partiality in judging FORTUNATUS, and commanded him to send FORTUNATUS to ROME to be judged there : four years after he appointed the Bishops of MILLAIN and RAVENNA to hear the cause of one MAXIMUS (Greg., lib. 9. Epist. 10. & 67.) and two years after, viz. A. C. 601, when CON- STANTIUS was dead, and the people of MILLAIN had elected DEUSDEDIT his successor, and the LOMBARDS had elected another, GREGORY wrote to the Notary, Clergy, and People of MILLAIN, that by the authority of his Letters DEUSDEDIT should be ordained, and that he whom the LOMBARDS had ordained was an unworthy successor of AMBROSE : whence I gather, that the Church of MILLAIN had continued in this state of subordination to the See of ROME ever since 15 208 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART I the days of AMBROSE ; for AMBROSE himself acknowledged the authority of that See. " The Church of ROME," saith he, " has not this custom and its example and model do we in all matters observe " (AMBROS., 1. 3. de sacramentis, c. 1.) And a little after : " In all things 'tis my desire to copy the Church of ROME." And in his Commentary upon 1 TIM. iii. : " Though the whole world be the Lord's yet is the Church called His house, whereof the present ruler is DAMASUS." In his Oration on the death of his brother SATYRUS, he relates how his brother coming to a certain city of SARDINIA " summoned the Bishop of the place and inquired of him whether he agreed with the Catholic Bishop, or in other words, with the Church of ROME ? " And in conjunction with the Synod of AQUILEIA A. C. 381, in a synodical Epistle to the Emperor GRATIAN, he saith : " Claim had to be made upon your clemency, not to permit the ROMAN Church, as head of the whole ROMAN world, or the sacred Apostolic faith to be disturbed. For 'tis from your clemency, that justice is vouchsafed to all of the Holy Communion." The Churches therefore of AQUILEIA and MILLAIN were subject to the See of ROME from the days of the Emperor GRATIAN. AUXENTIUS the predecessor of AMBROSE was not subject to the see of ROME. and consequently the subjection of the Church of MILLAIN began in AMBROSE. This Diocese of MILLAIN contained LIGURIA with INSUBRIA, the ALPES COTTIJE and RH^ETIA ; and was divided from the Diocese of AQUILEIA by the river ADDUA. In the year 844, the Bishop of MILLAIN broke off from the See of ROME, and continued in this separation about 200 years, as is thus related by SIGONIUS : "In the same year ANGILBERTUS, Archbishop of MILLAIN, seceded from the See of Rome, for some reason not sufficiently authenticated ; and such a precedent did he set his succes- sors, that not till 200 years did the See of MILLAIN return to the obedience and authority of the See of ROME " (SIGONIUS, de Regno Italics, lib. 5.) The Bishop of RAVENNA, the Metropolis of FLAMINIA and EMILIA, was also subject to the Pope : for ZOSIMUS, CHAP, vm] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 209 A. C. 417, excommunicated some of the Presbyters of that Church, and wrote a commonitory Epistle about them to the Clergy of that Church as a branch of the ROMAN Church : " In their own Church," saith he, " and by that is meant in our ROMAN Church." When those of RAVENNA, having elected a new Bishop, gave notice thereof to Pope SIXTUS, the Pope set him aside, and ordained PETER CHRYSOLOGUS in his room (see BARONIUS, Anno 433, sect. 24.) CHRYSOLOGUS in his Epistle to EUTYCHES, extant in the Acts of the Council of CHALCEDON, wrote thus : "In view of our zeal for peace and for the faith, we cannot hear cases on matters of faith, without the consent of the Bishop of the ROMAN State." Pope LEO I. being consulted by LEO Bishop of RAVENNAabout some questions, answered him by a decretal Epistle A. C. 451. And Pope GREGORY the great, reprehending JOHN Bishop of RAVENNA about the use of the PALLIUM, tells him of a Precept of one of his Predecessors, Pope JOHN, command- ing that all the Privileges formerly granted to the Bishop and Church of RAVENNA should be kept : to this JOHN returned a submissive answer : and after his death Pope GREGORY ordered a visitation of the Church of RAVENNA, confirmed the privileges heretofore granted them, and sent his PALLIUM, as of ancient custom, to their new Bishop MARINIAN. Yet this Church revolted sometimes from the Church of ROME, but returned again to its obedience (Greg. M., lib. 3. Epist. 56, 57. & lib. 5. Epist. 25, 26, 56.). The rest of ITALY, with the Islands adjacent, containing the suburbicarian regions, or ten Provinces under the i a temporal Vicar of ROME, viz. CAMPANIA, TUSCIA and 3 45 UMBRIA, PICENUM SUBURBICARIUM, SICILY, APULIA and 8 78 CALABRIA, BRUTII and LUCANIA, SAMNIUM, SARDINIA, 9 10 CORSICA and VALERIA, constituted the proper Province of the Bishop of ROME. For the Council of NICE in their fifth Canon ordained that Councils should be held every spring and autumn in every Province ; and according to 210 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i this Canon, the Bishops of this Province met at ROME every half year. In this sense Pope LEO I. applied this Canon to ROME, in a decretal Epistle to the Bishops of SICILY, written in the Consulship of ALIPPIUS and ARDABUR, A. C. 447 : "It having been most wisely decreed by the Holy Fathers, that two Councils of the Bishops must be held every year, let three of your number always come to ROME for the 29th of September as associates with the permanent Council. And let this custom be preserved by you without subterfuge, since (the Lord graciously assisting us) it would be the more easily effected that no scandals or heresies should arise in the Church ; for (in the presence of the Apostle PETER be it said) it hath ever been the purpose of our coming together that all the Canonical Decrees should remain inviolate with all the priests of God." The Province of ROME therefore comprehended SICILY, with so much of ITALY and the neighbouring Islands as sent Bishops to the annual Councils of Rome ; but extended not into the Provinces of RAVENNA, AQUILEIA, MILLAIN, ARLES, &c., those Provinces having Councils of their own. The Bishops in every Province of the ROMAN EMPIRE were convened in Council by the Metropolitan or Bishop of the head city of the Province, and this Bishop presided in that Council : but the Bishop of ROME did not only preside in his own Council of the Bishops of the suburbicarian regions, but also gave Orders to the Metro- politans of all the other Provinces in the WESTERN EMPIRE, as their universal governor ; as may be further perceived by the following instances. Pope ZOSIMUS A. C. 417, cited PROCULUS Bishop of MARSEILLES to appear before a Council at ROME for illegitimate Ordinations ; and condemned him, as he mentions in several of his Epistles. Pope BONIFACE I. A. C. 419, upon a complaint of the Clergy of VALENTIA against MAXIMUS a Bishop, summoned the Bishops of all GALLIA and the seven Provinces to convene in a Council against him ; and saith in his Epistle, that his Predecessors had done the like. Pope LEO I. called a general Council CHAP, vni] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 211 of all the Provinces of SPAIN to meet in GALL.ECIA against the MANICHEES and PRISCILLIANISTS, as he says in his decretal Epistle to TURRIBIUS a SPANISH Bishop. And in one of his decretal Epistles to NICETAS Bishop of AQUILEIA, he commands him to call a Council of the Bishops of that Province against the PELAGIANS, which might ratify all the Synodal Decrees which had been already ratified by the See of ROME against this heresy. And in his decretal Epistle to ANASTASIUS Bishop of THESSALONICA, he ordained that Bishop should hold two Provincial Councils every year, and refer the harder causes to the See of ROME : and if upon any extraordinary occasion it should be necessary to call a Council, he should not be troublesome to the Bishops under him, but content himself with two Bishops out of every Province, and not detain them above fifteen days. In the same Epistle he describes the form of Church Government then set up, to consist in a subordi- nation of all the Churches to the See of ROME : " As a result of this form of Church government," saith he, " there has arisen a distinction (in rank and authority) between the Bishops ; and by a broad arrangement, provision has been made against the confliction of interests, it being decreed, that in the various provinces there should be individual Bishops whose opinion should have precedence among their brethren ; and further, that a still larger responsibility should devolve on certain Bishops established in the larger cities, and that through them the government of the Church at large should ultimately centre in the See of PETER alone, to the end that no member of the Body Ecclesiastic should be at variance with its Head. "Whosoever therefore is set in authority over others, must not be indignant if another be set in authority over him ; but should render in his turn the obedience he demands from others ; and as he himself has no inclination to bear a heavy burden, let him not dare to lay on others a weight they cannot support." These words sufficiently shew the monarchical form of government then set up in the Churches of the WESTERN 212 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i EMPIRE under the Bishop of ROME, by means of the imperial Decree of GRATIAN, and the appeals and decretal Epistles grounded thereupon. The same Pope LEO, having in a Council at ROME passed sentence upon HILARY Bishop of ARLES, for what he had done by a Provincial Council in GALLIA, took occasion from thence to procure the following Edict from the WESTERN Emperor VALENTINIAN III. for the more absolute establishing the authority of his See over all the Churches of the WESTERN EMPIRE : " The Emperors THEODOSIUS and VALENTINIANUS to the renowned ^Enus, Count, Master of Horse and Foot, and Patrician. " Of a surety the sole defence of our selves and of our Empire rests in the favour of Almighty God, favour the meriting of which is especially promoted by the hallowed Christian faith and religion. Since therefore the pre- eminence of the Holy See (as the tribute due to St. PETER, who is chief of the Episcopal Body and the glory of the ROMAN State) has received additional confirmation from the authority of the Sacred Synod let not anyone * ; in presumption attempt to make any arrangement in any matter wherein he hath no powers without the authority of that See. " For peace will be secured throughout all the churches only when the Church as a whole acknowledges its Governor. Though these rights have so far been guarded from violation, HILARY of ARLES, as we understand from the faithful report of the Venerable LEO Pope of Rome, hath insolently and outrageously essayed to usurp certain offices, whereto he hath no right ; and for this cause the TRANS- ALPINE Churches have been visited by an accursed tumult whereof a late example is the best witness. " For HILARY styling himself the Bishop of ARLES, with- out consulting the Pontiff of the Church at ROME, assailed the prerogative of the ordination of Bishops, usurping on his own authority an office to which he had no claim. CHAP, vin] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 213 Some he deposed on insufficient grounds ; others with unseemly force he ordained against the will and in face of the opposition of the laity. And when an electorate which had no part in the election, refused to receive those Bishops, he gathered together an armed band, and like an enemy laid siege to their defences or stoned and forced them ; and so by acts of war installed in his See a man who was to preach a gospel of peace. These and such like actions perpetrated against the Majesty of the EMPIRE and in disrespect to the Apostolic See, have been reviewed and examined by the Court of the Pope of ROME and a definite decision has been adopted against him, with regard to those Bishops whom he wrongly ordained. This decision would undoubtedly have been valid throughout the length and breadth of the GALLIC Provinces even without our Imperial Sanction. For what that the Pontiff approves could be condemned ? But our additional authority hath been given for the following purpose Be it henceforth illegal either for HILARY (who remains in possession of his title of Bishop, only by the kindly and considerate permis- sion of the Holy Father) or for any other whatsoever to settle ecclesiastical matters by military force or to oppose the precepts of the ROMAN PONTIFF. For by such pre- sumption, the fealty and reverence due to our EMPIRE are violated. Nor is this the only abuse (and it indeed is most criminal) that we order to cease : but further lest any trivial quarrel rise amongst the churches or the religious discipline in any case be seen to relax, we do thus resolve with permanent sanction ; that no one, be he a Bishop of GAUL or of the other provinces, attempt aught contrary to the established customs, without the authority of the reverend Pope of the Eternal City : but let all that the authority of the Apostolic See has sanc- tioned or will sanction, be as law both to them and to all and sundry. " Wherefore if any of the Bishops being summoned to the Court of the ROMAN PONTIFF, neglect to come, he must be compelled to present himself by the Governor of that 214 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i same Province : and in all we charge thee ^Eiius, dearly beloved father of AUGUSTUS, that the rights which our sainted predecessors conceded to the See of ROME be maintained and protected. To assist your Highness in effecting by means of the authority of our present Law and Edict, the observation of the above statutes, a fine of ten pounds hi gold will be imposed on every Judge who permits the violation of our Decrees. And may Heaven preserve you for many years, dear Father ^ETIUS. " Given on the 6th June at Rome, in the Consulship of VALENTINIANUS AUGUSTUS A. C. 445." By this Edict the Emperor VALENTINIAN enjoined an absolute obedience to the will of the Bishop of ROME thro' out all the Churches of his Empire ; and declares, that for the Bishops to attempt any thing without the Pope's authority is contrary to ancient custom, and that the Bishops summoned to appear before his judicature must be carried thither by the Governor of the Province ; and he ascribes these privileges of the See of ROME to the concessions of his dead Ancestors, that is, to the Edict of GRATIAN and VALENTINIAN II. as above : by which reckoning this dominion of the Church of ROME was now of 66 years standing : and if in all this time it had not been sufficiently established, this new Edict was enough to settle it beyond all question thro' out the WESTERN EMPIRE. Hence all the Bishops of the Province of ARLES in their Letter to Pope LEO, A. C. 450, petitioning for a restitution of the privileges of their Metropolitan, say : " Through Blessed PETER, the Prince of Apostles, the Holy ROMAN Church used to hold the primacy over all the churches of the whole world." And CERATIUS, SALONIUS and VERA- NUS, three Bishops of GALLIA, say, in their Epistle to the same Pope : " We your servants cannot contain ourselves, with great and inexpressible thanksgiving that the letter of private guidance which you gave us, is in the Councils of all the churches acclaimed so heartily that judgment thereon is unanimous in its declaration that the Primacy CHAP, vin] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 215 of the Holy See has been deservedly established in ROME, whence it will be possible for the revelations of the apostolic spirit to be conveyed as far as here " (Epist. 25. apud HOLSTENIUM). And LEO himself in his Epistle to the Metropolitan Bishops, throughout ILLYRICUM says : " Because our supremacy has now extended over all the churches, as is required of us by our Lord, who entrusted to the Blessed Apostle PETER, as the reward of his faith, the pre-eminence in Apostolic rank, he being the secure foundation upon which the whole Church is built." While this Ecclesiastical Dominion was rising up, the northern barbarous nations invaded the WESTERN EMPIRE, and founded several kingdoms therein, of different religions from the Church of ROME. But these kingdoms by degrees embraced the ROMAN faith, and at the same time submitted to the Pope's authority. The FRANKS in GAUL submitted in the end of the fifth Century, the GOTHS in SPAIN in the end of the sixth ; and the LOMBARDS in ITALY were conquered by CHARLES the great A. C. 774. Between the years 775 and 794, the same CHARLES extended the Pope's authority over all GERMANY and HUNGARY as far as the river THEYSSE and the BALTIC sea ; he then set him above all human judicature, and at the same time assisted him in subduing the City and Duchy of ROME. By the conversion of the ten kingdoms to the ROMAN religion, the Pope only enlarged his spiritual dominion, but did not yet rise up as a horn of the Beast. It was his temporal dominion which made him one of the horns : and this dominion he acquired in the latter half of the eighth century, by subduing three of the former horns as above. And now being arrived at a temporal dominion, and a power above all human judicature, he reigned (DAN. vii. 20. ver. 25. ) with a look more stout than his fellows, and times and laws were henceforward given into his hands, for a time, times and half a time, or three times and an half ; that is, for 1260 solar years, reckoning a time for a Calendar year of 860 days, and a day for a solar year. After which 216 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PART i (ver. 26.) the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion, not at once but by degrees, to consume, and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall, by degrees, be given unto the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. CHAPTER IX OF THE KINGDOMS REPRESENTED IN DANIEL BY THE RAM AND HE-GOAT THE second and third Empires, represented by the Bear and Leopard, are again represented by the Ram and He-Goat ; but with this difference, that the Ram repre- sents the kingdoms of the MEDES and PERSIANS from the beginning of the four Empires, and the Goat represents the kingdom of the GREEKS to the end of them. By this means, under the type of the Ram and He-Goat, the times of all the four Empires are again described (chap. viii. 3.) : / lifted up mine eyes, saith DANIEL, and saw, and behold there stood before the river [Ulai] a Ram which had two horns, and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. - And the Ram having two horns, are the kings of Media and Persia : not two persons but two kingdoms, the kingdoms of MEDIA and PERSIA ; and the kingdom of PERSIA was the higher horn and came up last. The kingdom of PERSIA rose up, when CYRUS having newly conquered BABYLON, revolted from DARIUS King of the MEDES, and beat him at PASAR- GAD^:, and set up the PERSIANS above the MEDES. This was the horn which came up last. And the horn which came up first was the kingdom of the MEDES, from the time that CYAXARES and NEBUCHADNEZZAR overthrew NINEVEH, and shared the Empire of the ASSYRIANS between them. The Empires of MEDIA and BABYLON were contemporary, and rose up together by the fall of the ASSYRIAN Empire ; and the Prophecy of the four Beasts begins with one of them, and that of the Ram and He-Goat with the other. As the Ram represents the 217 218 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i kingdom of MEDIA and PERSIA from the beginning of the four Empires ; so the He-goat represents the Empire of the GREEKS to the end of those Monarchies. In the reign of his great horn, and of the four horns which succeeded it, he represents this Empire during the reign of the Leopard : and in the reign of his little horn, which stood up in the latter time of the kingdom of the four, and after their fall became mighty but not by his own power, he represents it during the reign of the fourth Beast. The rough Goat, saith DANIEL, is the King of Grecia, that is, the kingdom ; and the great horn between his eyes is the first King : not the first Monarch, but the first kingdom, that which lasted during the reign of ALEXANDER the great, and his brother ARIDJEUS and two young sons, ALEXANDER and HERCULES. Now that [horn] being broken off(ver. 22.) whereas four [horns] stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation [of the GREEKS], but not in his [the first horn's] power. The four horns are therefore four kingdoms ; and by consequence, the first great horn which they succeeded is the (first great kingdom of the GREEKS, that which was founded by ALEXANDER the great, An. NABONASS. 414, and lasted till the death of his son HERCULES An. NABONASS. 441 . And the four are those of CASS ANDER, LYSIMACHUS, ANTIGONUS, and PTOLEMY, as above. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the trans- gressors are come to the full, a King [or new kingdom] of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up : and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power (ver. 23.). This King was the last horn of the Goat, the little horn which came up out of one of the four horns, and waxed exceeding great. The latter time of their kingdom was when the ROMANS began to conquer them, that is, when they conquered PERSEUS King of MACE- DONIA, the fundamental kingdom of the GREEKS. And at that time the transgressors came to the full : for then the High-priesthood was exposed to sale, the Vessels of the Temple were sold to pay for the purchase ; and the High-priest, with some of the JEWS, procured a licence CHAP, ix] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 219 from ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES to do after the ordinances of the heathen, and set up a school at JERUSALEM for teaching those ordinances. Then ANTIOCHUS took JERU- SALEM with an armed force, slew 4000 JEWS, took as many prisoners and sold them, spoiled the Temple, interdicted the worship, commanded the Law of MOSES to be burnt, and set up the worship of the heathen Gods in all JUDEA. In the very same year An. NABONASS. 580, the ROMANS conquered MACEDONIA, the chief of the four horns. Hitherto the Goat was mighty by its own power, but hence- forward began to be under the ROMANS. DANIEL dis- tinguishes the times, by describing very particularly the actions of the Kings of the north and south, those two of the four horns which bordered upon JUDEA, until the ROMANS conquered MACEDONIA ; and thenceforward only touching upon the main revolutions which happened within the compass of the nations represented by the Goat. In this latter period of time the little horn was to stand up and grow mighty, but not by his own power. The three first of DANIEL'S Beasts had their dominions taken away, each of them at the rise of the next Beast ; but their lives were prolonged, and they are all of them still alive. The third Beast, or Leopard, reigned in his four heads, till the rise of the fourth Beast, or Empire of the LATINS ; and his life was prolonged under their power. This Leopard reigning in his four heads, signifies the same thing with the He- Goat reigning in his four horns : and therefore the He-Goat reigned in his four horns till the rise of DANIEL'S fourth Beast, or Empire of the LATINS : then its dominion was taken away by the LATINS, but its life was prolonged under their power. The LATINS are not comprehended among the nations represented by the He-Goat in this Prophecy : their power over the GREEKS is only named in it, to distinguish the times in which the He-Goat was mighty by his own power, from the times in which he was mighty but not by his own power. He was mighty by his own power till his dominion was taken away by the LATINS ; after that, his life was prolonged under 220 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i their dominion, and this prolonging of his life was in the days of his last horn : for in the days of this horn the Goat became mighty, but not by his own power. Now because this horn was a horn of the Goat, we are to look for it among the nations which composed the body of the Goat. Among those nations he was to rise up and grow mighty. Chap. viii. 9. he grew mighty towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land ; and therefore he was to rise up in the north-west parts of those nations, and extend his dominion towards EGYPT, SYRIA and JUDEA. In the latter time of the kingdom of the four horns, it was to rise up out of one of them and subdue the rest, but not by its own power. It was to be assisted by a foreign power, a power superior to itself, the power which took away the dominion of the third Beast, the power of the fourth Beast. And such a little horn was the kingdom of MACEDONIA, from the time that it became subject to the ROMANS. This kingdom, by the victory of the ROMANS over PERSEUS King of MACEDONIA, Anno NABONASS. 580, ceased to be one of the four horns of the Goat, and became a dominion of a new sort : not a horn of the fourth Beast, for MACEDONIA belonged to the body of the third ; but a horn of the third Beast of a new sort, a horn of the Goat which grew mighty but not by his own power, a horn which rose up and grew potent under a foreign power, the power of the ROMANS. The ROMANS, by the legacy of ATTALUS the last King of PERGAMUS, An. NABONASS. 615, inherited that kingdom, including all ASIA MINOR on this side mount TAURUS. An. NABONASS. 684 and 685 they conquered ARMENIA, SYRIA and JUDEA ; An. NABONASS. 718, they subdued EGYPT. And by these conquests the little horn waxed exceeding great towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land. And it waxed great even to the host of heaven ; and cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them (chap. viii. 9, 10.), that is, upon the people and great men of the JEWS. Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the Host, CHAP, ix] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 221 the MESSIAH, the Prince of the JEWS, whom he put to death (ver. 11.), An. NABONASS. 780. And by him the daily sacri- fice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down, viz. in the wars which the armies of the EASTERN nations under the conduct of the ROMANS made against JUDEA, when NERO and VESPASIAN were Emperors, An. NABONASS. 815, 817, 818. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered (ver. 12.). This transgression is in the next words called the transgression of desolation ; and in DAN. xi. 31. the abomination which maketh desolate ; and in MATTH. xxiv. 15. the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place. It may relate chiefly to the worship of JUPITER OLYMPIUS in his Temple built by the Emperor HADRIAN, in the place of the Temple of the JEWS, and to the revolt of the JEWS under BARCHOCHAB occasioned thereby, and to the desolation of JUDEA which followed thereupon ; all the JEWS being thenceforward banished JUDEA upon pain of death. Then I heard (viii. 13, 14.), saith DANIEL, one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain Saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot ? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days ; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. DANIEL'S days are years ; and these years may perhaps be reckoned either from the destruction of the Temple by the ROMANS in the reign of VESPASIAN, or from the pollution of the Sanctuary by the worship of JUPITER OLYMPIUS, or from the desolation of JUDEA made in the end of the JEWISH war by the banishment of all the JEWS out of their own country, or from some other period which time will dis- cover. Henceforward the last horn of the Goat continued mighty under the ROMANS, till the reign of CONSTAN- TINE the great and his sons : and then by the division of the ROMAN Empire between the GREEK and LATIN Em- perors, it separated from the LATINS, and became the 222 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i GREEK Empire alone, but yet under the dominion of a ROMAN family ; and at present it is mighty under the dominion of the TURKS. This last hornisbysome taken for ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, but not very judiciously. A horn of a Beast is never taken for a single person : it always signifies a new kingdom, and the kingdom of ANTIOCHUS was an old one. ANTIOCHUS reigned over one of the four horns, and the little horn was a fifth under its proper kings. This horn was at first a little one, and waxed exceeding great, but so did not ANTIOCHUS. It is described great above all the former horns, and so was not ANTIOCHUS. His kingdom on the contrary was weak, and tributary to the ROMANS, and he did not enlarge it. The horn was a King of fierce countenance, and destroyed wonderfully, and prospered and practised ; that is, he prospered in his practises against the holy people : but ANTIOCHUS was frighted out of EGYPT by a mere message of the ROMANS, and afterwards routed and baffled by the JEWS. The horn was mighty by another's power, ANTIO- CHUS acted by his own. The horn stood up against the Prince of the Host of heaven, the Prince of Princes ; and this is the character not of ANTIOCHUS but of ANTICHRIST. The horn cast down the Sanctuary to the ground, and so did not ANTIOCHUS ; he left it standing. The Sanctuary and Host were trampled under foot 2300 days ; and in DANIEL'S Prophecies days are put for years : but the profanation of the Temple in the reign of ANTIOCHUS did not last for so many natural days. These were to last till the time of the end, till the last end of the indignation against the JEWS ; and this indignation is not yet at an end. They were to last till the Sanctuary which had been cast down should be cleansed, and the Sanctuary is not yet cleansed. This Prophecy of the Ram and He-Goat is repeated in the last Prophecy of DANIEL. There the Angel tells DANIEL (DAN. xi. 1, 2.) that he stood up to strengthen Darius the Mede, and that there should stand up yet three kings in Persia, [CYRUS, CAMBYSES, and DARIUS HYSTASPIS] and CHAP, ix] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 223 the fourth [XERXES] should be far richer than they all ; and by his wealth thro' his riches he should stir up all against the realm of Grecia. This relates to the Ram, whose two horns were the kingdoms of MEDIA and PERSIA. Then he goes on to describe the horns of the Goat (ver. 3.) by the standing up of a mighty king, which should rule with great dominion, and do according to his will ; and by the break- ing of his kingdom into four smaller kingdoms, and not descending to his own posterity. Then he describes the actions of two of those kingdoms which bordered on JUDEA, viz. EGYPT and SYRIA, calling them the Kings of the SOUTH and NORTH, that is, in respect of JUDEA ; and he carries on the description till the latter end of the kingdoms of the four, and till the reign of ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, when transgressors were come to the full. In the eighth year of ANTIOCHUS, the year in which he profaned the Temple and set up the heathen Gods in all JUDEA, and the ROMANS conquered the kingdom of MACEDON ; the prophetic Angel leaves off describing the affairs of the kings of the SOUTH and NORTH, and begins to describe those of the GREEKS under the dominion of the ROMANS, in these words : And after him Arms [the ROMANS] shall stand up, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength (DAN. xi. 31.) As ->DO signifies after the king, DAN. xi. 8 ; so here UDD may signify after him : and so nntfmD may signify after one of them, DAN. viii. 9. Arms are every where in these Prophecies of DANIEL put for the military power of a kingdom, and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. The ROMANS conquered ILLYRICUM, EPIRUS and MACEDONIA, in the year of NABONASSAR 580 ; and thirty five years after, by the last will and testament of ATTALUS the last King of PERGAMUS, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all ASIA on this side mount TAURUS : and sixty nine years after, they conquered the kingdom of SYRIA, and reduced it into a Province : and thirty four years after they did the like to EGYPT. By all these steps the ROMAN arms stood up over the GREEKS. And after 95 years more, by making war upon the JEWS, they polluted 16 224 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PART I the sanctuary of strength, and took away the daily sacrifice, and, in its room soon after, placed the abomination which made the Land desolate : for this abomination was placed after the days of Christ, MATTH. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor HADRIAN, A. C. 132, they placed this abomination by building a Temple to JUPITER CAPITO- LINUS, where the Temple of God in JERUSALEM had stood. Thereupon the JEWS under the conduct of BARCHOCHAB rose up in arms against the ROMANS, and in that war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men slain by the sword : and in the end of the war, A. C. 136, they were all banished JUDEA upon pain of death ; and that time the land hath remained desolate of its old inhabitants. Now that the prophetic Angel passes in this manner from the four kingdoms of the GREEKS to the ROMANS reigning over the GREEKS, is confirmed from hence, that in the next place he describes the affairs of the CHRISTIANS unto the time of the end, in these words (chap. xi. 33, &c.) : And they that understand among the people shall instruct many, yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days. Now when they shall fall they shall be holpen with a little help, viz. in the reign of CONSTANTINE the great ; but many shall cleave to them with dissimulation. And some of them of understanding there shall fall to try them, and to purge them from the dissemblers ; and to make them white even to the time of the end. And a little after, the time of the end is said to be a time, times, and half a time : which is the duration of the reign of the last horn of DANIEL'S fourth Beast, and of the WOMAN and her BEAST in the APOCALYPS. CHAPTER X OF THE PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS THE Vision of the Image composed of four Metals was given first to NEBUCHADNEZZAR, and then to DANIEL in a dream : and DANIEL began then to be celebrated for revealing of secrets, EZEK. xxviii. 3. The Vision of the four Beasts, and of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, was also given to DANIEL in a dream. That of the Ram and the He-Goat appeared to him in the day time, when he was by the bank of the river ULAY ; and was explained to him by the prophetic Angel GABRIEL. It concerns the Prince of the host, and the Prince of Princes : and now in the first year of DARIUS the MEDE over BABYLON, the same prophetic Angel appears to DANIEL again, and explains to him what is meant by the Son of man, by the Prince of the host, and the Prince of Princes. The Prophecy of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven relates to the second coming of CHRIST; that of the Prince of the host relates to his first coming : and this Prophecy of the MESSIAH, in explaining them, relates to both comings, and assigns the times thereof. This Prophecy, like all the rest of DANIEL'S, consists of two parts, an introductory prophecy and an explanation thereof ; the whole I thus translate and interpret. ' Seventy weeks are l cut out upon thy people, and upon * thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end 1 Cut upon. A phrase in HEBREW, taken from the practice of numbring by cutting notches. 9 Heb. to teal, i. e. to finish or consummate : a metaphor taken from sealing what is finished. So the JEWS compute, ad obsignatum MISNA, ad obsignatum TALMUD, that is, ad abaolutum. 225 226 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i 4 of sins, to expiate iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 4 righteousness, to consummate the Vision and 1 the Prophet, 4 and to anoint the most Holy (chap. ix. 24, 25, 26, 27.). 4 Know also and understand, that from the going forth of 4 the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem, 4 unto * the Anointed the Prince, shall be seven weeks. 4 Yet threescore and two weeks shall ' it return, and the 4 street be built and the wall ; but in troublesome times : and 4 after the threescore and two weeks, the Anointed shall be 4 cut off, and s it shall not be his ; but the people of a Prince 4 to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary : and the 4 end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war, 4 desolations are determined. 4 Yet shall he confirm the covenant with many for one week : 4 and in half a week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation " 4 to cease : and upon a wing of abominations he shall make * it desolate, even until the consummation, and that which is 4 determined be poured upon the desolate.' Seventy weeks are cut out upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, &c. Here, by putting a week for seven years, are reckoned 490 years from the time that the dispersed JEWS should be reincorporated into 4 a people and a holy city, until the death and resurrec- tion of CHRIST ; whereby transgression should be finished, and sins ended, iniquity be expiated, and everlasting righteous- ness brought in, and this Vision be accomplished, and the Prophet consummated, that Prophet whom the JEWS expected ; and whereby the most Holy should be anointed, he who is therefore in the next words called the Anointed, that is, the MESSIAH, or the CHRIST. For by joining the accomplishment of the vision with the expiation of sins, the 490 years are ended with the death of CHRIST. Now the dispersed JEWS became a people and city when they first returned into a polity or body politick ; and 1 Heb. the Prophet, not the Prophecy. 8 Heb. the Messiah, that is, in GREEK, the Christ ; in ENGLISH, the Anointed. I use the ENGLISH word, that the relation of this clause to the former may appear. 3 JEKUSALEM. * See ISAIAH xxiii. 13. CHAP, x] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 227 this was in the seventh year of ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS, when EZRA returned with a body of JEWS from captivity, and revived the JEWISH worship ; and by the King's commission created Magistrates in all the land, to judge and govern the people according to the laws of God and the King, EZRA vii. 25. There were but two returns from captivity, ZERUBBABEL'S and EZRA'S ; in ZERUBBABEL'S they had only commission to build the Temple, in EZRA'S they first became a polity or city by a government of their own. Now the years of this ARTAXERXES began about two or three months after the summer solstice, and his seventh year fell in with the third year of the eightieth OLYMPIAD ; and the latter part thereof, wherein EZRA went up to JERUSALEM, was in the year of the JULIAN PERIOD 4257. Count the time from thence to the death of CHRIST, and you will find it just 490 years. If you count in JUDAIC years commencing in autumn, and date the reckoning from the first autumn after EZRA'S coming to JERUSALEM, when he put the King's decree in execution ; the death of CHRIST will fall on the year of the JULIAN PERIOD 4747, Anno Domini 34 ; and the weeks will be JUDAIC weeks, ending with sabbatical years ; and this I take to be the truth : but if you had rather place the death of CHRIST in the year before, as is commonly done, you may take the year of EZRA'S journey into the reckoning. Know also and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem, unto the Anointed the Prince, shall be seven weeks. The former part of the Prophecy related to the first coming of CHRIST, being dated to his coming as a Prophet ; this being dated to his coming to be Prince or King, seems to relate to his second coming. There, the Prophet, was con- summate, and the most holy anointed : here, he that was anointed comes to be Prince and to reign. For DANIEL'S Prophecies reach to the end of the world ; and there is scarce a Prophecy in the Old Testament concerning CHRIST, which doth not in something or other relate to 228 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i his second coming. If divers of the antients, as l IREN^EUS, 1 JULIUS AFRICANUS, HIPPOLYTUS the martyr, and APOL- LINARIS Bishop of LAODICEA, applied the half week to the times of ANTICHRIST ; why may not we, by the same liberty of interpretation, apply the seven weeks to the time when ANTICHRIST shall be destroyed by the brightness of CHRIST'S coming ? The ISRAELITES in the days of the antient Prophets, when the ten Tribes were led into captivity, expected a double return ; and that at the first the JEWS should build a new Temple inferior to SOLOMON'S, until the time of that age should be fulfilled ; and afterwards they should return from all places of their captivity, and build JERUSALEM and the Temple gloriously, TOBIT xiv. 4, 5, 6. : and to express the glory and excellence of this city, it is figuratively said to be built of precious stones, TOBIT xiii. 16, 17, 18. ISA. liv. 11, 12. REV. xi. and called the Nero Jerusalem, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Holy City, the LamVs Wife, the City of the Great King, the City into which the Kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour. Now while such a return from captivity was the expectation of ISRAEL, even before the times of DANIEL, I know not why DANIEL should omit it in his Prophecy. This part of the Prophecy being therefore not yet fulfilled, I shall not attempt a particular interpre- tation of it, but content myself with observing, that as the seventy and the sixty two weeks were JEWISH weeks, ending with sabbatical years ; so the seven weeks are the compass of a JUBILEE, and begin and end with actions proper for a JUBILEE, and of the highest nature for which a JUBILEE can be kept : and that since the commandment to return and to build Jerusalem, precedes the Messiah the Prince 49 years ; it may perhaps come forth not from the JEWS themselves, but from some other kingdom friendly to them, and precede their return from captivity, and give occasion to it ; and lastly, that this rebuilding of JERUSALEM and the waste places of 1 IBEX. Hcer. 1. 5. c. 25. Apud HIEBON. in h.l. CHAP, x] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 229 JUDAH is predicted in MICAH vii. 11. AMOS ix. 11, 14. EZEK. xxxvi. 33, 35, 36, 38. ISA. liv. 3, 11, 12. Iv. 12. Ixi. 4. Ixv. 18, 21, 22. and TOBIT xiv. 5. and that the return from captivity and coming of the MESSIAH and his kingdom are described in DANIEL vii. REV. xix. ACTS i. MATT. xxiv. JOEL. iii. EZEK. xxxvi. xxxvii. ISA. Ix. Ixii. Ixiii. Ixv. and Ixvi. and many other places of scripture. The manner I know not. Let time be the Interpreter. Yet threescore and two weeks shall it return, and the street be built and the wall, but in troublesome times : and after the threescore and two weeks the Messiah shall be cut off, and it shall not be his ; but the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, &c. Having foretold both comings of CHRIST, and dated the last from their returning and building JERUSALEM ; to prevent the applying that to the building JERUSALEM by NEHEMIAH, he distinguishes this from that, by saying that from this period to the Anointed shall be, not seven weeks, but threescore and two weeks, and this not in prosperous but in troublesome times ; and at the end of these weeks the Messiah shall not be the Prince of the JEWS, but be cut off ; and JERUSALEM not be his, but the city and sanctuary be destroyed. Now NEHEMIAH came to JERUSALEM in the 20th year of this same ARTAXERXES, while EZRA still continued there, NEHEM. xii. 36, and found the city lying waste, and the houses and wall unbuilt, NEHEM. ii. 17, vii. 4. and finished the wall the 25th day of the month ELUL, NEHEM. vi. 15. in the 28th year of the King, that is, in SEPTEMBER in the year of the JULIAN PERIOD 4278. Count now from this year threescore and two weeks of years, that is 484 years, and the reckoning will end in SEPTEMBER in the year of the JULIAN PERIOD 4712 which is the year in which CHRIST was born, according to CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, I REN^EUS, EUSEBIUS, EPIPH ANIUS, JEROME, OROSIUS, CASSIODORUS, and other antients ; and this was the general opinion, till DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS invented the vulgar account, in which CHRIST'S birth is placed two years later. If with some you reckon that 230 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i CHRIST was born three or four years before the vulgar account, yet his birth will fall in the latter part of the last week, which is enough. How after these weeks CHRIST was cut off, and the city and sanctuary destroyed by the ROMANS, is well known. Yet shall he confirm the covenant with many for one week. He kept it, notwithstanding his death, till the rejection of the JEWS, and calling of CORNELIUS and the GENTILES in the seventh year after his passion. And in half a week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease ; that is, by the war of the ROMANS upon the JEWS : which war, after some commotions, began in the 13th year of NERO, A. D. 67, in the spring, when VESPASIAN with an army invaded them ; and ended in the second year of VESPASIAN, A. D. 70, in autumn, SEPT. 7, when TITUS took the city, having burnt the Temple 27 days before so that it lasted three years and an half. And upon a wing of abominations he shall cause desolation, even until the consummation, and that which is determined be poured upon the desolate. The Prophets, in representing kingdoms by Beasts and Birds, put their wings stretcht out over any country for their armies sent out to invade and rule over that country. Hence a wing of abominations is an army of false Gods : for an abomination is often put in scripture for a false God ; as where CHEMOSH is called the abomination of MOAB, and MOLECH the abomination of AMMON (1. KINGS xi. 7.). The meaning therefore is, that the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the sanctuary, and abolish the daily worship of the true God, and overspread the land with an army of false gods ; and by fetting up their dominion and worship, cause desolation to the JEWS, until the times of the GENTILES be fulfilled. For CHRIST tells us, that the abomination of desolation spoken of by DANIEL was to be set up in the times of the ROMAN EMPIRE, MATTH. xxiv. 15. Thus have we in this short Prophecy, a prediction of all the main periods relating to the coming of the MESSIAH ; the time of his birth, that of his death, that of the rejection CHAP, x] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 231 of the JEWS, the duration of the JEWISH war whereby he caused the city and sanctuary to be destroyed, and the time of his second coming : and so the interpretation here given is more full and complete and adequate to the design, than if we should restrain it to his first coming only, as Interpreters usually do. We avoid also the doing violence to the language of DANTF.T., by taking the seven weeks and sixty two weeks for one number. Had that been DANIEL'S meaning, he would have said sixty and nine weeks, and not seven weeks and sixty two weeks, a way of numbring used by no nation. In our way the years are JEWISH LUNI-SOLAR YEARS/ as they ought to be ; and the seventy 1 The antient solar years of the eastern nations consisted of 12 months, and every month of 30 days : and hence came the division of a circle into 360 degrees. This year seems to be used by MOSES in his history of the Flood, and by JOHN in the APOCALYPSE, where a time, times and half a tame, 42 months and 1260 days, are put equipollent. But in reckoning by many of these years together, an account is to be kept of the odd days which were added to the end of these years. For the EGYPTIANS added five days to the end of this year ; and so did the CHALDEANS long before the times of DANIEL, as appears by the JERA of NABONASSAB : and the PEBSIAX Magi used the same year of 365 days, till the Empire of the ARABIANS. The antient GREEKS also used the same solar year of 12 equal months, or 360 days ; but every other year added an intercalary month, consisting of 10 and 11 days alternately. The year of the JEWS, even from their coining out of EGYPT, was Luni- solar. It was solar, for the harvest always followed the Passover, and the fruits of the land were always gathered before the feast of Tabemadee, LEVTT. nriii. But the months were lunar, for the people were commanded by MOSES in the beginning of every month to blow with trumpets, and to offer burnt offerings with their drink offerings, Not. x. 10. xxviii. 11,14. and this solemnity was kept on the new moons, PSAL. Ixxxi. 3. 4. 5. 1 CHRON. xxiii. 31. These months were called by MOSES the first, second, third, fourth month, Ac, and the first month was also called ABIB, the second Zrr, the seventh ETHANM, the eighth BULL, Exon. xiii. 4. 1 KINGS vi. 37, 38. viii. 2. But in the BABYLONIAN captivity the JEWS used the names of the CHALPEAN months, and by those names understood the months of their own year ; so that the JEWISH months then lost their old names, and are now called by those of the CHALDEANS. The JEWS began their civil year from the autumnal Equinox, and their sacred year from the vernal : and the first day of the first month was on the visible new moon, which was nearest the Equinox. Whether DANIEL used the CHALDAICK or JEWISH year, is not very material, the difference being but six hours in a year, and 4 months in 480 years. But I take his months to be JEWISH : first, because DANIEL was a JEW, and the JEWS even by the names of the CHATJIFAIT 282 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i weeks of years are Jewish weeks ending with sabbatical years, which is very remarkable. For they end either with the year of the birth of CHRIST, two years before the vulgar account, or with the year of his death, or with the seventh year after it : all which are sabbatical years. Others either count by Lunar years, or by weeks not JUDAIC : and, which is worst, they ground their interpretations on erro- neous Chronology, excepting the opinion of FUNCCIUS about the seventy weeks, which is the same with ours. For they place EZRA and NEHEMIAH in the reign of ARTAXERXES MNEMON, and the building of the Temple in the reign of DARIUS NOTHUS, and date the weeks of DANIEL from those two reigns. The grounds of the Chronology here followed, I will now set down as briefly as I can. The PELOPONNESIAN war began in spring, An. I. OLYMP. 87, as DIODORUS, EUSEBIUS, and all other authors agree. It began two months before PYTHODORUS ceased to be ARCHON, THUCYD. 1. 2. that is, in APRIL, two months before the end of the OLYMPIC year. Now the years of this war are most certainly determined by the 50 years distance of its first year from the transit of XERXES inclusively, THUCYD. 1. 2. or 48 years exclusively, ERATOSTH. apud CLEM. ALEX, by the 69 years distance of its end, or 27th year, from the beginning of ALEXANDER'S reign in GREECE ; by the acting of the OLYMPIC games in its 4th and 12th years, THUCYD. 1. 5 ; and by three eclipses of the sun, and one of the moon, mentioned by THUCYDIDES and XENOPHON. Now THUCYDIDES, an unquestionable witness, tells us, that the news of the death of ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS was brought to EPHESUS, and from thence by some ATHE- understood the months of their own year : secondly, because this Prophecy IB grounded on JEREMIAH'S concerning the 70 years captivity, and there- fore must be understood of the same sort of years with the seventy ; and those are JEWISH, since that Prophecy was given in JTJDEA before the captivity : and lastly, because DANIEL reckons by weeks of years, which is a way of reckoning peculiar to the JEWISH years. For as their days ran by sevens, and the last day of every seven was a sabbath ; so their years ran by sevens, and the last year of every seven was a sabbatical year, and seven such weeks of years made a JUBILEE. CHAP, x] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 283 NIANS to ATHENS, in the 7th year of this PELOPONNESIAN war, when the winter half year was running ; and therefore he died An. 4 OLYMP. 88, in the end of An. J. P. 4289, suppose a month or two before mid-winter ; for so long the news would be in coming. Now ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS reigned 40 years, by the consent of DIODORUS, EUSEBIUS, JEROME, SULPITIUS ; or 41 according to PTOL. in can. CLEM. ALEXAND. 1. 1. Strom. Chron. Alexandr. ABULPHARAGIUS, NICEPHORUS, including therein the reign of his successors XERXES and SOGDIAN, as ABULPHARAGIUS informs us. After ARTAXERXES reigned his son XERXES two months, and SOGDIAN seven months ; but their reign is not reckoned apart in summing up the years of the Kings, but is included in the 40 or 41 years reign of ARTAXERXES : omit these nine months, and the precise reign of ARTAXERXES will be thirty nine years and three months. And therefore since his reign ended in the beginning of winter An. J. P. 4289, it began between midsummer and autumn, An. J. P. 4250. The same thing I gather also thus. CAMBYSES began his reign in spring, An. J. P. 4185, and reigned eight years, including the five months of SMERDES ; and then DARIUS HYSTASPIS began in spring An. J. P. 4193, and reigned thirty six years, by the unanimous consent of all Chrono- logers. The reigns of these two Kings are determined by three eclipses of the moon observed at BABYLON, and recorded by PTOLEMY ; so that it cannot be disputed. One was in the seventh year of CAMBYSES, An. J. P. 4191, JUL. 16, at 11 at night ; another in the 20th year of DARIUS, An. J. P. 4212, Nov. 19, at ll h 45' at night ; a third in the 81st year of DARIUS, An. J. P. 4223, APR. 25, at 11^ 80' at night. By these eclipses, and the Prophecies of HAGGAI and ZECHARY compared together, it is manifest that his years began after the 24th day of the llth JEWISH month, and before the 25th day of APRIL, and by consequence about MARCH. XERXES therefore began in spring An. J. P. 4229 : for DARIUS died in the fifth year after the battle at MARATHON, as HERODOTUS, lib. 7, and PLUTARCH mention ; 234 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PART i and that battle was in OCTOBER An. J. P. 4224, ten years before the battle at SALAMIS. XERXES therefore began within less than a year after OCTOBER An. J. P. 4228, suppose in the spring following : for he spent his first five years, and something more, in preparations for his expedi- tion against the GREEKS ; and this expedition was in the time of the OLYMPIC games, An. 1. OLYMP. 75, CALLIADE ATHENIS ARCHONTE, 28 years after the REGIFUGE, and Consulship of the first Consul JUNIUS BRUTUS, Anno Urbis conditce 273, FABIO & FURIO Coss. The passage of XERXES' s army over the HELLESPONT began in the end of the fourth year of the 74th OLYMPIAD, that is, in JUNE An. J. P. 4234, and took up one month : and in autumn, three months after, on the full moon, the 16th day of the month MUNYCHION, was the battle at SALAMIS, and a little after that an eclipse of the sun, which by the calculation fell on OCTOB. 2. His sixth year therefore began a little before JUNE, suppose in spring An. J. P. 4234, and his first year consequently in spring An. J. P. 4229, as above. Now he reigned almost twenty one years, by the consent of all writers. Add the 7 months of ARTABANUS, and the sum will be 21 years and about four or five months, which end between midsummer and autumn An. J. P. 4250. At this time therefore began the reign of his successor ARTAXERXES, as was to be proved. The same thing is also confirmed by JULIUS AFRICANUS, who informs us out of former writers, that the 20th year of this ARTAXERXES was the 115th year from the beginning of the reign of CYRUS in PERSIA, and fell in with An. 4 OLYMP. 83. It began therefore with the OLYMPIC year, soon after the summer Solstice, An. J. P. 4269. Subduct nineteen years, and his first year will begin at the same time of the year An. J. P. 4250, as above. His 7th year therefore began after midsummer An. J. P. 4256 : and the Journey of EZRA to JERUSALEM in the spring following fell on the beginning of An. J. P. 4257, as above. THE times of the Birth and Passion of CHRIST, with such like niceties, being not material to religion, were little regarded by the CHRISTIANS of the first age. They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the cardinal periods of the year ; as the annunciation of the Virgin MARY, on the 25th of MARCH, which when JULIUS CAESAR corrected the Calendar was the vernal Equinox ; the feast of JOHN Baptist on the 24th of JUNE, which was the summer Solstice ; the feast of St. MICHAEL on SEPT. 29, which was the autumnal Equinox, and the birth of CHRIST on the winter Solstice, DECEMB. 25, with the feasts of St. STEPHEN, St. JOHN and the INNOCENTS, as near it as they could place them. And because the Solstice in time re- moved from the 25th of DECEMBER to the 24th, the 23d, the 22d, and so on backwards, hence some in the following centuries placed the birth of CHRIST on DECEMB. 23, and at length on DECEMB. 20 : and for the same reason they seem to have set the feast of St. THOMAS on DECEMB. 21, and that of St. MATTHEW on SEPT. 21. So also at the entrance of the Sun into all the signs in the JULIAN Calendar, they placed the days of other Saints ; as the conversion of PAUL on JAN. 25, when the Sun entred AQUARIUS ; St. MATHIAS on FEB. 25, when he entred PISCES ; St. MARK on APR. 25, when he entred TAURUS ; CORPUS CHRISTI on May 26, when he entred GEMINI ; St. JAMES on JULY 25, when he entred CANCER ; St. BARTHOLOMEW on AUG. 24, when he entred VIRGO ; SIMON and JUDE on OCTOB. 28, when he entred SCORPIO : and if there 235 286 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i were any other remarkable days in the JULIAN Calendar, they placed the Saints upon them, as St. BARNABAS on JUNE 11, where OVID seems to place the feast of VESTA and FORTUNA, and the goddess MATUTA ; and St. PHILIP and JAMES on the first of MAY, a day dedicated both to the BONA DBA, or MAGNA MATER, and to the goddess FLORA, and still celebrated with her rites. All which shews that these days were fixed in the first CHRIS- TIAN Calendars by Mathematicians at pleasure, without any ground in tradition ; and that the CHRISTIANS after- wards took up with what they found in the Calendars. Neither was there any certain tradition about the years of CHRIST. For the CHRISTIANS who first began to inquire into these things, as CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, ORIGEN, TERTULLIAN, JULIUS AFRICANUS, LACTANTIUS, JEROME, St. AUSTIN, SULPICIUS SEVERUS, PROSPER, and as many as place the death of CHRIST in the 15th or 16th year of TIBERIUS, make CHRIST to have preached but one year, or at most but two. At length EUSEBIUS discovered four successive Passovers in the Gospel of JOHN, and thereupon set on foot an opinion that he preacht three years and an half ; and so died in the 19th year of TIBERIUS. Others afterwards, finding the opinion that he died in the Equinox MAR. 25, more consonant to the times of the JEWISH Passover, in the 17th and 20th years, have placed his death in one of those two years. Neither is there any greater certainty in the opinions about the time of his birth. The first CHRISTIANS placed his baptism near the beginning of the 15th year of TIBERIUS ; and thence reckoning thirty years backwards, placed his birth in the 43d JULIAN year, the 42d of AUGUSTUS and 28th of the ACTIAC victory. This was the opinion which obtained in the first ages till DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS, placing the baptism of CHRIST in the 16th year of TIBERIUS, and misinterpreting the text of LUKE iii. 23. as if JESUS was only beginning to be 30 years old when he was baptized, invented the vulgar account, in which his birth is placed two years later than before. As therefore relating to these things there is no tradition CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 237 worth considering ; let us lay aside all and examine what prejudices can be gathered from records of good account. The fifteenth year of TIBERIUS began AUG. 28, An. J. P. 4727. So soon as the winter was over, and the weather became warm enough, we may reckon that JOHN began to baptize ; and that before next winter his fame went abroad, and all the people came to his baptism, and JESUS among the rest. Whence the first Passover after his baptism mentioned JOHN ii. 13. was in the 16th year of TIBERIUS. After this feast JESUS came into the land of JUDEA, and staid there baptizing, whilst JOHN was baptizing in J^NON, JOHN iii. 22, 23. But when he heard that JOHN was cast into prison, he departed into GALILEE, MAT. iii. 12. being afraid because the Pharisees had heard that he baptized more disciples than JOHN, JOHN iv. 1. and in his Journey he passed thro' SAMARIA four months before the harvest, JOHN iv. 35. that is, about the time of the winter Solstice. For their harvest was between EASTER and WHITSUNDAY, and began about a month after the vernal Equinox. Say not ye, saith he, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest ? Behold I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest ; meaning, that the people in the fields were ready for the Gospel, as his next words shew. 1 JOHN 1 I observe, that CHRIST and his forerunner JOHN in their parabolical discourses were wont to allude to things present. The old Prophets, when they would describe things emphatically, did not only draw parables from things which offered themselves, as from the rent of a garment, 1 SAM. xv. from the sabbatic year, ISA. xxxvii. from the vessels of a Potter, JEB. xviii. &.c. but also when such fit objects were wanting, they supplied them by their own actions, as by rending a garment, 1 KINGS xi. by shoot- ing, 2 KINGS xiii. by making bare their body, ISA. xx. by imposing significant mum s to their sons, ISA. viii. Hos. i. by hiding a girdle in the bank of EUPHRATES, JER. xiii. by breaking a potter's vessel, JER. xix. by putting on fetters and yokes, JEH. xxvii. by binding a book to a stone, and casting them both into EUPHRATES, JER. li. by besieging a painted city, EZEK. iv. by dividing hair into three parts, EZEK. v. by making a chain, EZEK. vii, by carrying out houshold stuff like a captive and trembling, EZEK. xii. Ac. By such kind of types the Prophets loved to speak. And CHRIST being endued with a nobler prophetic spirit than the rest, excelled also in this kind of speaking, yet so as not to speak by his own actions, that was less grave and decent, but to turn into parables such things as offered them- 288 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PARTI therefore was imprisoned about NOVEMBER, in the 17th year of TIBERIUS ; and CHRIST thereupon went from JUDEA to CANA of GALILEE in DECEMBER, and was received there of the GALILEANS, who had seen all he did at JERUSALEM at the Passover : and when a Nobleman of CAPERNAUM heard he was returned into GALILEE, and went to him and desired him to come and cure his son, he went not thither yet, but only said, Go thy way, thy son liveth ; and the Nobleman returned and found it so, and believed, he and his house, JOHN iv. This is the beginning of his miracles in GALILEE ; and thus far JOHN is full and distinct in relating the actions of his first year, omitted by the other Evangelists. The rest of his history is from this time related more fully by the other Evangelists than by JOHN ; for what they relate he omits. selves. On occasion of the harvest approaching, he admonishes his dis- ciples once and again of the spiritual harvest, JOHN iv. 35. MATTH. ix. 37. Seeing the lilies of the field, he admonishes his disciples about gay clothing, MATTH. vi. 28. In allusion to the present season of fruits, he admonishes his disciples about knowing men by their fruits, MATTH. vii. 16. In the time of the Passover, when trees put forth leaves, he bids his disciples learn a parable from the fig-tree : when its branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh, &c. MATTH. xxiv. 32, LUKE xxi. 29. The same day, alluding both to the season of the year and to his passion, which was to be two days after, he formed a parable of the time of fruits approaching, and the murdering of the heir, MATTH. xxi. 33. Alluding at the same time, both to the money-changers whom he had newly driven out of the Temple, and to his passion at hand ; he made a parable of a Noble-man going into a far country to receive a kingdom and return, and delivering his goods to his servants, and at his return con- demning the slothful servant because he put not his money to the ex- changers, MATTH. xxv. 14. LUKE xix. 12. Being near the Temple where sheep were kept in folds to be sold for the sacrifices, he spake many things parabolically of sheep, of the shepherd, and of the door of the sheepfold ; and discovers that he alluded to the sheepfolds which were to be hired in the market place, by speaking of such folds as a thief could not enter by the door, nor the shepherd himself open, but a porter opened to the shepherd, JOHN x. 1. 3. Being in the mount of OLIVES, MATTH. xxxvi. 30. JOHN xiv. 31. a place so fertile that it could not want vines, he spake many things mystically of the Husbandman, and of the vine and its branches, JOHN xv. Meeting a blind man, he admonished of spiritual blindness, JOHN. ix. 39. At the sight of little children, he described once and again the innocence of the elect, MATTH. xviii. 2. xix. 13. Knowing that LAZABUS was dead and should be raised again, he discoursed of the resurrection and life eternal, JOHN xi. 25, 26. Hearing of the slaughter of CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 239 From this time therefore JESUS taught in the Synagogues of GALILEE on the sabbath-days, being glorified of all : and coming to his own city NAZARETH, and preaching in their Synagogue, they were offended, and thrust him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which the city was built to cast him headlong ; but he passing thro the midst of them, went his way, and came and dwelt at CAPERNAUM, LUKE iv. And by this time we may reckon the second Passover was either past or at hand. All this time MATTHEW passeth over in few words, and here begins to relate the preaching and miracles of CHRIST. When Jesus, saith he, had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee ; and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt at Capernaum, and from that time began to some whom PILATE had slain, he admonished of eternal death, LUKE xiii. 1 To his fishermen he spake of fishers of men, MATTH. iv. 10. and composed another Parable about fishes, MATTH. xiii. 47. Being by the Temple, he spake of the Temple of his body, JOHN ii. 19. At supper he spake a parable about the mystical supper to come in the kingdom of heaven, LUKE xiv. On occasion of temporal food, he admonished his disciples of spiritual food, and of eating his flesh and drinking his blood mystically, JOHN vi. 27, 53. When his disciples wanted bread, he bade them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, MATTH. xvi. 6. Being desired to eat, he answered that he had other meat, JOHN iv. 31. In the great day of the feast of Tabernacles, when the JEWS, as their custom was, brought a great quantity of waters from the river SHILOAH into the Temple, CHRIST stood and cried, saying, // any man thirst let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall jlow rivers of living water, JOHN vii. 37. The next day, in allusion to the servants who by reason of the sabbatical year were newly set free, he said, // ye continue in my word, the truth shall make you free. Which the JEWS understanding literally with respect to the present manvimission of servants, answered, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man : how sayest thou, ye shall be made free ? JOHN viii. They assert their freedom by a double argument : first, because they were the seed of ABRAHAM, and therefore newly made free, had they been ever in bondage ; and then, because they never were in bondage. In the last Passover, when HEROD led his army through JUOEA against ARETAS King of ARABIA, because ARETAS was aggressor and the stronger in military forces, as appeared by the event ; CHRIST alluding to that state of things, composed the parables of a weaker King leading his army against a stronger who made war upon him, LUKE xiv. 31 And I doubt not but divora other parables were formed upon other occasions, the history of which we have not. 17 240 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i preach and say, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, MATTH. iv. 12. Afterwards he called his disciples PETER, ANDREW, JAMES and JOHN ; and then went about all Galilee, teaching in the Synagogues, and healing all manner of sickness : and his fame went thro' out all Syria ; and they brought unto him all sick people, and there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan, MATTH. iv. 18, 25. All this was done before the sermon in the mount : and therefore we may certainly reckon that the second Passover was past before the preaching of that sermon. The multitudes that followed him from JERUSALEM and JUDEA, shew that he had lately been there at the feast. The sermon in the mount was made when great multitudes came to him from all places, and followed him in the open fields ; which is an argument of the summer-season : and in this sermon he pointed at the lilies of the field then in the flower before the eyes of his auditors. Consider, saith he, the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven, &c. MATTH. vi. 28. So therefore the grass of the field was now in the flower, and by consequence the month of MARCH with the Passover was past. Let us see therefore how the rest of the feasts follow in order in MATTHEW'S Gospel : for he was an eye-witness of what he relates, and so tells all things in due order of time, which MARK and LUKE do not. Some time after the sermon in the mount, when the time came that he should be received, that is, when the time of a feast came that he should be received by the JEWS, he set his face to go to JERUSALEM : and as he went with his disciples in the way, when the SAMARITANS in his passage thro SAMARIA had denied him lodgings, and a certain Scribe said unto him, Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest, Jesus said unto him, The foxes CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 241 have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head, MATTH. viii. 19. LUKE ix. 51, 57. The Scribe told CHRIST he would bear him com- pany in his journey, and CHRIST replied that he wanted a lodging. Now this feast I take to be the feast of Taber- nacles, because soon after I find CHRIST and his Apostles on the sea of TIBERIAS in a storm so great, that the ship was covered with water and in danger of sinking, till CHRIST rebuked the winds and the sea, MATTH. viii. 23. For this storm shews that winter was now come on. After this CHRIST did many miracles, and went about all the cities and villages of Galilee, teaching in their Synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness, and every disease among the people, MATTH. ix. he then sent forth the twelve to do the like, MATTH. x. and at length when he had received a message from JOHN, and answered it, he said to the multitudes, From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence ; and upbraided the cities, CHORAZIN, BETHSAIDA, and CAPERNAUM, wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not, MATTH. xi. Which several passages shew, that from the imprisonment of JOHN till now there had been a considerable length of time : the winter was now past, and the next Passover was at hand ; for immediately after this, MATTHEW, in chap. xii. subjoins, that Jesus went on the sabbath-day through the corn, and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat, - rubbing them, saith LUKE, in their hands : the corn therefore was not only in the ear, but ripe ; and consequently the Passover, in which the first-fruits were always offered before the harvest, was now come or past. LUKE calls this sabbath SemepoTrptorov, the second prime sabbath, that is, the second of the two great feasts of the Passover. As we call EASTER day high EASTER, and its OCTAVE low EASTER or LOWSUNDAY : so LUKE calls the feast on the seventh day of the unleavened bread, the second of the two prime sabbaths. 242 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i In one of the sabbaths following he went into a Syna- gogue, and healed a man with a withered hand, MATTH. xii. 9. LUKE vi. 6. And when the Pharisees took counsel to destroy him, he withdrew himself from thence, and great multitudes followed him ; and he healed them all, and charged them that they should not make him known, MATTH. xii. 14. Afterwards being in a ship, and the multitude standing on the shore, he spake to them three parables together, taken from the seedsmen sowing the fields, MATTH. xiii. by which we may know that it was now seed-time, and by consequence that the feast of Tabernacles was past. After this he went into his own country, and taught them in their Synagogue, but did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Then the twelve having been abroad a year, returned, and told JESUS all that they had done : and at the same time HEROD beheaded JOHN in prison, and his disciples came and told JESUS ; and when JESUS heard it, he took the twelve and departed thence privately by ship into a desert place belonging to BETHSAIDA : and the people when they knew it, followed him on foot out of the cities, the winter being now past ; and he healed their sick, and in the desert fed them to the number of five thousand men, besides women and children, with only five loaves and two fishes, MATTH. xiv. LUKE ix. at the doing of which miracle the Passover of the JEWS was nigh, JOHN vi. 4. But JESUS went not up to this feast ; but after these things walked in Galilee, because the Jews at the Passover before had taken counsel to destroy him, and still sought to kill him, JOHN vii. 1. Henceforward therefore he is found first in the coast of TYRE and SIDON, then by the sea of GALILEE, afterwards in the coast of C^SAREA PHILIPPI ; and lastly at CAPER- NAUM, MATTH. xv. 21, 29. xvi. 13. xvii. 34. Afterwards when the feast of Tabernacles was at hand, his brethren upbraided him for walking secretly, and urged him to go up to the feast. But he went not till they were gone, and then went up privately, JOHN vii. 2. and when the JEWS sought to stone him, he escaped, CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 243 JOHN viii. 59. After this he was at the feast of the Dedica- tion in winter, JOHN x. 22. and when they sought again to take him, he fled beyond JORDAN, JOHN x. 39, 40. MATTH. xix. 1. where he stayed till the death of LAZARUS, and then came to BETHANY near JERUSALEM, and raised him, JOHN xi. 7, 18. whereupon the JEWS took counsel from that time to kill him : and therefore he walked no more openly among the Jews, but went thence into a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim ; and there continued with his disciples till the last Passover, in which the JEWS put him to death, JOHN xi. 53, 54. Thus have we, in the Gospels of MATTHEW and JOHN compared together, the history of CHRIST'S actions in continual order during five Passovers. JOHN is more distinct in the beginning and end ; MATTHEW in the middle : what either omits, the other supplies. The first Passover was between the baptism of CHRIST and the imprisonment of JOHN, JOHN ii. 13. the second within four months after the imprisonment of JOHN, and CHRIST'S beginning to preach in GALILEE, JOHN iv. 35. and there- fore it was either that feast to which JESUS went up, when the Scribe desired to follow him, MATTH. viii. 19. LUKE ix. 51, 57. or the feast before it. The third was the next feast after it, when the corn was eared and ripe, MATTH. xii. 1. LUKE vi. 1. The fourth was that which was nigh at hand when CHRIST wrought the miracle of the five loaves, MATTH. xiv. 15. JOHN vi. 4, 5. and the fifth was that in which CHRIST suffered, MATTH. xx. 17. JOHN xii. 1. Between the first and second Passover JOHN and CHRIST baptized together, till the imprisonment of JOHN, which was four months before the second. Then CHRIST began to preach, and call his disciples ; and after he had instructed them a year, sent them to preach in the cities of the JEWS : at the same time JOHN hearing of the fame of CHRIST, sent to him to know who he was. At the third, the chief Priests began to consult about the death of CHRIST. A little before the fourth, the twelve after they had preached a year in all the cities, returned to CHRIST ; and at the 244 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i same time HEROD beheaded JOHN in prison, after he had been in prison two years and a quarter : and thereupon CHRIST fled into the desert for fear of HEROD. The fourth CHRIST went not up to JERUSALEM for fear of the JEWS, who at the Passover before had consulted his death, and because his time was not yet come. Thenceforward there- fore till the feast of Tabernacles he walked in GALILEE, and that secretly for fear of HEROD : and after the feast of Tabernacles he returned no more into GALILEE, but sometimes was at JERUSALEM, and sometimes retired beyond JORDAN, or to the city EPHRAIM by the wilderness, till the Passover in which he was betrayed, apprehended, and crucified. JOHN therefore baptized two summers, and CHRIST preached three. The first summer JOHN preached to make himself known, in order to give testimony to CHRIST. Then, after CHRIST came to his baptism and was made known to him, he baptized another summer, to make CHRIST known by his testimony ; and CHRIST also baptized the same summer, to make himself the more known : and by reason of JOHN'S testimony there came more to CHRIST'S baptism than to JOHN'S. The winter following JOHN was imprisoned ; and now his course being at an end, CHRIST entred upon his proper office of preaching in the cities. In the beginning of his preaching he completed the number of the twelve Apostles, and instructed them all the first year in order to send them abroad. Before the end of this year, his fame by his preaching and miracles was so far spread abroad, that the JEWS at the Passover following consulted how to kill him. In the second year of his preaching, it being no longer safe for him to converse openly in JUDEA, he sent the twelve to preach in all their cities : and in the end of the year they returned to him, and told him all they had done. All the last year the twelve continued with him to be instructed more perfectly, in order to their preaching to all nations after his death. And upon the news of JOHN'S death, being afraid of HEROD as well as of the JEWS, he walked this year more secretly CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 245 than before ; frequenting deserts, and spending the last half of the year in JUDEA, without the dominions of HEROD. Thus have we in the Gospels of MATTHEW and JOHN all things told in due order, from the beginning of JOHN'S preaching to the death of CHRIST, and the years distin- guished from one another, by such essential characters that they cannot be mistaken. The second Passover is distinguished from the first, by the interposition of JOHN'S imprisonment. The third is distinguished from the second, by a double character : first, by the interposition of the feast to which CHRIST went up, MATTH. viii. 19. LUKE ix. 57. and secondly, by the distance of time from the beginning of CHRIST'S preaching : for the second was in the beginning of his preaching, and the third so long after, that before it came CHRIST said, from the days of John the Baptist until now, &c. and upbraided the cities of GALILEE for their not repenting at his preaching, and mighty works done in all that time. The fourth is distinguished from the third, by the mission of the twelve from CHRIST to preach in the cities of JUDEA in all the interval. The fifth is distinguished from all the former by the twelve's being returned from preaching, and continuing with CHRIST during all the interval, between the fourth and fifth, and by the passion and other infallible characters. Now since the first summer of JOHN'S baptizing fell in the fifteenth year of the Emperor TIBERIUS, and by con- sequence the first of these five Passovers in his sixteenth year ; the last of them, in which JESUS suffered, will fall on the twentieth year of the same Emperor ; and by con- sequence in the Consulship of FABIUS and VITELLIUS, in the 79th JULIAN year, and year of CHRIST 34, which was the sabbatical year of the JEWS. And that it did so, I further confirm by these arguments. I take it for granted that the passion was on friday the 14th day of the month NISAN, the great feast of the Pass- over on Saturday the 15th day of NISAN, and the resurrec- tion on the day following. Now the 14th day of NISAN 246 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i always fell on the full moon next after the vernal Equinox ; and the month began at the new moon before, not at the true conjunction, but at the first appearance of the new moon : for the JEWS referred all the time of the silent moon, as they phrased it, that is, of the moon's disappear- ing, to the old moon ; and because the first appearance might usually be about 18 hours after the true conjunction, they therefore began their month from the sixth hour at evening, that is, at sun set, next after the eighteenth hour from the conjunction. And this rule they called ?v JAH, designing by the letters and n the number 18. I know that EPIPHANIUS tells us, if some interpret his words rightly, that the JEWS used a vicious cycle, and thereby anticipated the legal new moons by two days. But this surely he spake not as a witness, for he neither understood ASTRONOMY nor RABBINICAL learning, but as arguing from his erroneous hypothesis about the time of the passion. For the JEWS did not anticipate, but post- pone their months : they thought it lawful to begin their months a day later than the first appearance of the new moon, because the new moon continued for more days than one ; but not a day sooner, lest they should celebrate the new moon before there was any. And the JEWS still keep a tradition in their books, that the SANHEDRIM used diligently to define the new moons by sight : sending witnesses into mountainous places, and examining them about the moon's appearing, and translating the new moon from the day they had agreed on to the day before, as often as witnesses came from distant regions, who had seen it a day sooner than it was seen at JERUSALEM. Accordingly JOSEPHUS, one of the JEWISH Priests who had ministered in the temple, tells us that the Passover was kept on the 14>th day of Nisan, Kara o-eXijvrjv, according to the moon, when the sun was in Aries. This is confirmed also by two instances, recorded by him, which totally overthrow the hypothesis of the JEWS using a vicious cycle. For that year in which JERUSALEM was taken and destroyed, he saith, the Passover was on the 14th day of the month CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 247 XANTICUS, which according to JOSEPHUS is our APRIL ; and that five years before, it fell on the 8th day of the same month. Which two instances agree with the course of the moon. Computing therefore the new moons of the first month according to the course of the moon and the rule JAH, and thence counting 14 days, I find that the 14th day of this month in the year of CHRIST 31, fell on tuesday MARCH 27 ; in the year 32, on Sunday APR. 13 ; in the year 33, on friday APR. 3 ; in the year 34, on Wednesday MARCH 24, or rather, for avoiding the Equinox which fell on the same day, and for having a fitter time for harvest, on thursday APR. 22. also in the year 35, on tuesday APR 12. and hi the year 36, on Saturday MARCH 31. But because the 15th and 21st days of NISAN, and a day or two of PENTECOST, and the 10th, 15th, and 22d of TISRI, were always sabbatical days or days of rest, and it was inconvenient on two sabbaths together to be prohibited burying their dead and making ready fresh meat, for in that hot region their meat would be apt in two days to corrupt : to avoid these and such like inconveniences, the JEWS postponed their months a day, as often as the first day of the month TISRI, or, which is all one, the third of the month NISAN, was Sunday, Wednesday or friday : and this rule they called rttf ADU, by the letters N.I.I, sig- nifying the numbers 1, 4, 6 ; that is, the 1st, 4th, and 6th days of the week ; which days we call Sunday, Wednes- day and friday. Postponing therefore by this rule the months found above : the 14th day of the month NISAN will fall in the year of CHRIST 31, on Wednesday MARCH 28 ; in the year 32, on monday APR. 14 ; in the year 33, on friday APR. 8 ; in the year 34, on friday APR. 28 ; in the year 35, on Wednesday APR. 13 ; and in the year 36, on Saturday MARCH 81. By this computation therefore the year 82 is absolutely excluded, because the Passion cannot fall on friday without making it five days after the full moon, or two days before it ; whereas it ought to be upon the day of the full moon, 248 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i or the next day. For the same reason the years 31 and 85 are excluded, because in them the Passion cannot fall on friday, without making it three days after the full moon, or four days before it : errors so enormous, that they would be very conspicuous in the heavens to every vulgar eye. The year 36 is contended for by few or none, and both this and the year 35 may be thus excluded. TIBERIUS in the beginning of his reign made VALERIUS GRATUS President of JUDEA ; and after 11 years, substi- tuted PONTIUS PILATE, who governed 10 years. Then VITELLIUS, newly made President of SYRIA, deprived him of his honour, substituting MARCELLUS, and at length sent him to ROME : but, by reason of delays, TIBERIUS died before PILATE got thither. In the mean time VITELLIUS, after he had deposed PILATE, came to JERUSALEM in the time of the Passover, to visit that Province as well as others in the beginning of his office ; and in the place of CAIAPHAS, then High Priest, created JONATHAS the son of ANANUS, or ANNAS as he is called in scripture. Afterwards, when VITELLIUS was returned to ANTIOCH, he received letters from TIBERIUS, to make peace with ARTABANUS king of the PARTHIANS. At the same time the ALANS, by the sollicitation of TIBERIUS, invaded the kingdom of ARTABANUS ; and his subjects also, by the procurement of VITELLIUS, soon after rebelled : for TIBERIUS thought that ARTABANUS, thus pressed with difficulties, would more readily accept the conditions of peace. ARTABANUS therefore straightway gathering a greater army, opprest the rebels ; and then meeting VITELLIUS at EUPHRATES, made a league with the ROMANS. After this TIBERIUS commanded VITELLIUS to make war upon ARETAS King of ARABIA. He therefore leading his army against ARETAS, went together with HEROD to JERUSALEM, to sacrifice at the publick feast which was then to be celebrated. Where being received honourably, he stayed three days, and in the mean while translated the high Priesthood from JONATHAS to his brother THEOPHILUS : and the fourth day, receiving letters of the death of TIBERIUS, made the CHAP, xi] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 249 people swear allegiance to CAIUS the new Emperor ; and recalling his army, sent them into quarters. All this is related by JOSEPHUS Antiq. lib. 18. c. 6, 7. Now TIBERIUS reigned 22 years and 7 months, and died MARCH 16, in the beginning of the year of CHRIST 37 ; and the feast of the Passover fell on APRIL 20 following, that is, 35 days after the death of TIBERIUS : so that there were about 36 or 38 days, for the news of his death to come from ROME to VITELLIUS at JERUSALEM ; which being a convenient time for that message, confirms that the feast which VITELLIUS and HEROD now went up to was the Passover. For had it been the Pentecost, as is usually supposed, VITELLIUS would have continued three months ignorant of the Emperor's death : which is not to be supposed. However, the things done between this feast and the Passover which VITELLIUS was at before, namely, the stirring up a sedition in PARTHIA, the quieting that sedi- tion, the making a league after that with the PARTHIANS, the sending news of that league to ROME, the receiving new orders from thence to go against the ARABIANS, and the putting those orders in execution ; required much more time than the fifty days between the Passover and Pentecost of the same year : and therefore the Passover which VITELLIUS first went up to, was in the year before. Therefore PILATE was deposed before the Passover A. C. 86, and by consequence the passion of CHRIST was before that Passover : for he suffered not under VITELLIUS, nor under VITELLIUS and PILATE together, but under PILATE alone. Now it is observable that the high Priesthood was at this time become an annual office, and the Passover was the time of making a new high Priest. For GRATUS the predecessor of PILATE, saith JOSEPHUS, made ISMAEL high Priest after ANANUS ; and a while after, suppose a year, deposed him, and substituted ELEAZAR, and a year after SIMON, and after another year CAIAPHAS ; and then gave way to PILATE. So VITELLIUS at one Passover made JONATHAS successor to CAIAPHAS, and at the next THEO- PHILUS to JONATHAS. Hence LUKE tells us, that in the 250 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PARTI 15th year of TIBERIUS, ANNAS and CAIAPHAS were high Priests, that is, ANNAS till the Passover, and CAIAPHAS afterwards. Accordingly JOHN speaks of the high Priest- hood as an annual office : for he tells us again and again, in the last year of CHRIST'S preaching, that CAIAPHAS was high Priest for that year, JOHN xi. 49, 51 xviii. 13. And the next year LUKE tells you, that ANNAS was high Priest, ACTS iv. 6. THEOPHILUS was therefore made high Priest in the first year of CAIUS, JONATHAS in the 22d year of TIBERIUS, and CAIAPHAS in the 21st year of the same Emperor : and therefore, allotting a year to each, the Passion, when ANNAS succeeded CAIAPHAS, could not be later than the 20th year of TIBERIUS, A. C. 34. Thus there remain only the years 33 and 34 to be con- sidered ; and the year 33 I exclude by this argument. In the Passover two years before the Passion, when CHRIST went thro' the corn, and his disciples pluckt the ears, and rubbed them with their hands to eat ; this ripeness of the corn shews that the Passover then fell late : and so did the Passover A. C. 32, APRIL 14. but the Passover A C. 31, MARCH 28th, fell very early. It was not therefore two years after the year 31, but two years after 32 that CHRIST suffered. Thus all the characters of the Passion agree to the year 84 ; and that is the only year to which they all agree. CHAPTER XII OF THE PROPHECY OF THE SCRIPTURE OF TRUTH 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. Behold (chap. xi. 2, 3, 4.) saith he, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia [CYRUS, CAMBYSES, and DARIUS HYSTASPES] and the fourth [XERXES] shall be far richer than they all : and by his strength thro* his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia. And a mighty king [ALEX- ANDER the great] shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided towards the four winds of heaven ; and not to his posterity [but after their death], nor according to his dominion which he ruled : for his kingdom shall be pluckt up, even for others besides those. ALEXANDER the great having conquered all the PERSIAN Empire, and some part of INDIA, died at BABYLON a month before the summer Solstice, in the year of NABONASSAR 425 : and his captains gave the monarchy to his bastard brother PHILIP ARIDJEUS, a man disturbed in his understanding ; and made PERDICCAS administrator of the kingdom. PERDICCAS with their consent made MELEAOER commander of the army, SELEUCUS master of the horse, CRATERUS treasurer of the kingdom, ANTIPATER governor of MACEDON and GREECE, PTOLEMY governor of EGYPT ; ANTIGONUS governor of PAMPHYLIA, LYCIA, LYCAONIA, and PHRYGIA MAJOR ; LYSIMACHUS governor of 251 252 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i THRACE, and other captains governors of other Provinces ; as many as had been so before in the days of ALEXANDER the great. The BABYLONIANS began now to count by a new ^RA, which they called the JE>HA of PHILIP, using the years of NABONASSAR, and reckoning the 425th year of NABONASSAR to be the first year of PHILIP. ROXANA the wife of ALEXANDER being left big with child, and about three or four months after brought to bed of a son, they called him ALEXANDER, saluted him King, and joined him with PHILIP, whom they had before placed in the throne. PHILIP reigned three years under the administra- torship of PERDICCAS, two years more under the adminis- tratorship of ANTIPATER, and above a year more under that of POLYPERCHON ; in all six years and four months ; and then was slain with his Queen EURYDICE in SEPTEMBER by the command of OLYMPIAS, the mother of ALEXANDER the great. The GREEKS being disgusted at the Cruelties of OLYMPIAS revolted to CASSANDER the son and successor of ANTIPATER. CASSANDER affecting the dominion of GREECE, slew OLYMPIAS ; and soon after shut up the young king ALEXANDER, with his mother ROXANA, in the castle of AMPHIPOLIS, under the charge of GLAUCIAS, An. NABONASS. 432. The next year PTOLEMY, CASSANDER and LYSIMACHUS, by means of SELEUCUS, formed a league against ANTIGONUS ; and after certain wars made peace with him, An. NABONASS. 438, upon these conditions : that CASSANDER should command the forces of EUROPE till ALEXANDER the son of ROXANA came to age ; and that LYSIMACHUS should govern THRACE, PTOLEMY, EGYPT and LYBIA, and ANTIGONUS all ASIA. SELEUCUS had possest himself of MESOPOTAMIA, BABYLONIA, SUSIANA and MEDIA the year before. About three years after ALEXANDER'S death he was made governor of BABYLON by ANTIPATER ; then was expelled by ANTIGONUS ; but now he recovered and enlarged his government over a great part of the EAST : which gave occasion to a new .53 RA, called JE>R\ SELEUCIDARUM. Not long after the peace made with ANTIGONUS, DIODORUS, saith the same OLYMPIC year ; CHAP, xn] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 253 CASSANDER, seeing that ALEXANDER the son of ROXANA grew up, and that it was discoursed thro 'out MACEDONIA that it was fit he should be set at liberty, and take upon him the government of his father's kingdom, commanded GLAUCIAS the governor of the castle to kill ROXANA and the young king ALEXANDER her son, and conceal their deaths. Then POLYPERCHON set up HERCULES, the son of ALEXANDER the great by BARSINE, to be king ; and soon after, at the solicitation of CASSANDER, caused him to be slain. Soon after that, upon a great victory at sea got by DEMETRIUS the son of ANTIGONUS over PTOLEMY, ANTIGONUS took upon himself the title of king, and gave the same title to his son. This was An. NABONASS. 441. After his example, SELEUCUS, CASSANDER, LYSIMACHUS, and PTOLEMY, took upon themselves the title and dignity of kings, having abstained from this honour while there remained any of ALEXANDER'S race to inherit the crown. Thus the monarchy of the GREEKS for want of an heir was broken into several kingdoms ; four of which, seated to the four winds of heaven, were very eminent. For PTOLEMY reigned over EGYPT, LYBIA and ETHIOPIA ; ANTIGONUS over SYRIA and the lesser ASIA ; LYSIMACHUS over THRACE ; and CASSANDER over MACEDON, GREECE and EPIRUS, as above. SELEUCUS at this time reigned over the nations which were beyond EUPHRATES, and belonged to the bodies of the two first Beasts : but after six years he conquered ANTIGONUS and thereby became possest of one of the four kingdoms. For CASSANDER being afraid of the power of ANTIGONUS, combined with LYSIMACHUS, PTOLEMY and SELEUCUS, against him : and while LYSIMACHUS invaded the parts of ASIA next the HELLESPONT, PTOLEMY subdued PHOENICIA and CCELOSYRIA, with the sea-coasts of ASIA. SELEUCUS came down with a powerful army into CAP- PADOCIA, and joining the confederate forces, fought ANTIGONUS in PHRYGIA and slew him, and seized his king- dom, An. NABONASS. 447. After which SELEUCUS built ANTIOCH, SELEUCIA, LAODICEA, APAMEA, 254 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i EDESSA, and other cities in SYRIA and ASIA ; and in them granted the JEWS equal privileges with the GREEKS. DEMETRIUS the son of ANTIGONUS retained but a small part of his father's dominions, and at length lost CYPRUS to PTOLEMY ; but afterwards killing ALEXANDER, the son and successor of CASSANDER king of MACEDON, he seized his kingdom, An. NABONASS. 454. Sometime after, pre- paring a very great army to recover his father's dominions in ASIA ; SELEUCUS, PTOLEMY, LYSIMACHUS and PYRRHUS king of EPIRUS, combined against him ; and PYRRHUS invading MACEDON, corrupted the army of DEMETRIUS, put him to flight, seized his kingdom, and shared it with LYSIMACHUS. After seven months, LYSIMACHUS beating PYRRHUS, took MACEDON from him, and held it five years and a half, uniting the kingdoms of MACEDON and THRACE. LYSIMACHUS in his wars with ANTIGONUS and DEMETRIUS had taken from them CARIA, LYDIA, and PHRYGIA ; and had a treasury in PERGAMUS, a Castle on the top of a conical hill in PHRYGIA, by the river CAICUS, the custody of which he had committed to one PHILET^IRUS, who was at first faithful to him, but in the last year of his reign re- volted. For LYSIMACHUS, having at the instigation of his Wife ARSINOE, slain first his own son AGATHOCLES, and then several that lamented him ; the wife of AGATHOCLES fled with her children and brothers, and some others of their friends, and sollicited SELEUCUS to make war upon LYSIMACHUS ; whereupon PHILET^RUS also, who grieved at the death of AGATHOCLES, and was accused thereof by ARSINOE, took up arms, and sided with SELEUCUS. On this occasion SELEUCUS and LYSIMACHUS met and fought in PHRYGIA ; and LYSIMACHUS being slain in the battel, lost his kingdom to SELEUCUS, An. NABONASS. 465. Thus the Empire of the GREEKS, which at first brake into four kingdoms, became now reduced into two notable ones, henceforward called by DANIEL the kings of the SOUTH and NORTH. For PTOLEMY now reigned over EGYPT, LYBIA, ETHIOPIA, ARABIA, PHOENICIA, CGELOSYRIA, and CYPRUS ; and SELEUCUS, having united three of the four CHAP, xii] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 255 kingdoms, had a dominion scarce inferior to that of the PERSIAN Empire, conquered by ALEXANDER the great. All which is thus represented by DANIEL : And the king of the South [PTOLEMY] shall be strong, and one of his princes [SELEUCUS, one of ALEXANDER'S Princes] shall be strong above him, and have dominion ; his dominion shall be a great dominion (chap. xi. 5.). After SELEUCUS had reigned seven months over MACE- DON, GREECE, THRACE, ASIA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, MEDIA, and all the EAST as far as INDIA ; PTOLEMY CERAUNUS, the younger brother of PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS king of EGYPT, slew him treacherously, and seized his dominions in EUROPE : while ANTIOCHUS SOTER, the son of SELEUCUS, succeeded his father in ASIA, SYRIA, and most of the East ; and after nineteen or twenty years was succeeded by his son ANTIOCHUS THEOS ; who having a lasting war with PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS, at length composed the same by marrying BERENICE the daughter of PHILADELPHUS : but after a reign of fifteen years, his first wife LAODICE poisoned him, and set her son SELEUCUS CALLINICUS upon the throne. CALLINICUS in the beginning of his reign, by the impulse of his mother LAODICE, besieged BERENICE in DAPHNE near ANTIOCH, and slew her with her young son and many of her women. Whereupon PTOLEMY EUER- QETES, the son and successor of PHILADELPHUS, made war upon CALLINICUS ; took from him PHCENICIA, SYRIA, CILJCIA, MESOPOTAMIA, BABYLONIA, SUSIANA, and some other regions ; and carried back into EGYPT 40000 talents of silver, and 2500 images of the Gods, amongst which were the Gods of EGYPT carried away by CAMBYSES. AN- TIOCHUS HIERAX at first assisted his brother CALLINICUS, but afterwards contended with him for ASIA. In the mean time EUMENES governor of PERGAMUS beat ANTIOCHUS, and took from them both all ASIA westward of mount TAURUS. This was in the fifth year of CALLINICUS, who after an inglorious reign of 20 years was succeeded by his son SELEUCUS CERAUNUS ; and EUERGETES after four years more, An. NABONASS. 527, was succeeded by his son 18 i 256 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR. All which is thus signified by DANIEL (chap. xi. 6, 7, 8.) : And in the end of years they [the kings of the SOUTH and NORTH] shall join themselves together: for the king's daughter of the South [BERENICE] shall come to the king of the North to make an agreement, but she shall not retain the power of the arm ; neither shall she stand, nor her seed, but she shall be delivered up, and he [CALLINICUS] that brought her, and he whom she brought forth, and they that strengthened her in [those] times, [or defended her in the siege of DAPHNE.] But out of a branch of herrootsshall one stand upin his seat [her brother EUERGETES] who shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress [or fenced cities] of the King of the North, and shall act against them and prevail : and shall carry captives into Egypt, their Gods with their Princes and precious vessels of silver and gold ; and he shall continue some Years after the king of the North. SELEUCUS CERAUNUS, inheriting the remains of his father's kingdom, and thinking to recover the rest, raised a great army against the governor of PERGAMUS, now King thereof, but died in the third Year of his reign. His brother and successor, ANTIOCHUS MAGNUS, carrying on the war, took from the King of PERGAMUS almost all the lesser ASIA, recovering also the Provinces of MEDIA, PERSIA and BABYLONIA, from the governors who had revolted : and in the fifth year of his reign invading COELOSYRIA, he with little opposition possest himself of a good part thereof ; and the next year returning to invade the rest of CGELOSYRIA and PHOENICIA, beat the army of PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR near BERYTUS ; he then invaded PALESTINE and the neighbouring parts of ARABIA, and the third Year returned with an army of 78,000 : but PTOLEMY coming out of EGYPT with an army of 75,000 fought and routed him at RAPHIA near GAZA, between PALESTINE and EGYPT ; and recovered all PHOENICIA and CGELOSYRIA, Ann. NABONASS. 532. Being puffed up with this victory, and living in all manner of luxury, the EGYPTIANS revolted, and had wars with him, but were overcome ; and in the CHAP, xn] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 257 broils sixty thousand EGYPTIAN JEWS were slain. All which is thus describ'd by DANIEL (chap. xi. 10, &c.) : But his sons [SELEUCUS CERAUNUs,and ANTIOCHUS MAGNUS, the sons of CALLINICUS] shall be stirred up, and shall gather a great Army ; and he [ANTIOCHUS MAGNUS] shall come effectually and overflow, and pass thro' and return, and [again the next year] be stirred up, [marching even] to his fortress, [the frontier towns of EGYPT ;] and the King of the South shall be moved with choler, and come forth [the third year] and fght with him, even with the King of the North ; and he [the King of the NORTH] shall lead forth a great multitude, but the multitude shall be given into his hand. And the multitude being taken away, his Heart shall be lifted up, and he shall cast down many ten thousands ; but he shall not be strengthened by it : for the King of the North shall return, &c. About twelve years after the battle between PHILOPATOR and ANTIOCHUS, PHILOPATOR died ; and left his kingdom to his young Son PTOLEMY EPIPHANES, a child of five years old. Thereupon ANTIOCHUS MAGNUS confederated with PHILIP king of MACEDON, that they should each invade the Dominions of EPIPHANES which lay next to them. Hence arose a various War between ANTIOCHUS and EPIPHANES, each of them seizing PHOENICIA and COZLOSYRIA by turns ; whereby those countries were much afflicted by both Parties. First ANTIOCHUS seized them ; then one SCOPAS being sent with the army of EGYPT, recovered them from ANTIOCHUS : the next year, An. NABONASS. 550, ANTIOCHUS fought and routed SCOPAS near the fountains of JORDAN, besieged him in SIDON, took the city and recovered SYRIA and PHOENICIA from EGYPT, the JEWS coming over to him voluntarily. But about three years after, preparing for a war against the ROMANS, he came to RAPHIA on the borders of EGYPT ; made peace with EPIPHANES, and gave him his daughter CLEOPATRA : next autumn he passed the HELLESPONT to invade the cities of GREECE under the ROMAN protection, and took some of them ; but was beaten by the ROMANS the summer 258 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i following, and forced to return back with his army into ASIA. Before the end of the year the fleet of ANTIOCHUS was beaten by the fleet of the ROMANS near PHOCJEA : and at the same time EPIPHANES and CLEOPATRA sent an embassy to ROME to congratulate the ROMANS on their success against their father ANTIOCHUS, and to exhort them to prosecute the war against him into ASIA. The ROMANS beat ANTIOCHUS again at sea near EPHESUS, past their Army over the HELLESPONT, and obtain' d a great victory over him by land, took from him all ASIA westward of mount TAURUS, gave it to the King of PERGAMUS who assisted them in the war ; and imposed a large tribute upon ANTIOCHUS. Thus the King of PERGAMUS, by the power of the ROMANS, recovered what ANTIOCHUS had taken from him ; and ANTIOCHUS retiring into the remainder of his kingdom was slain two years after by the PERSIANS, as he was robbing the Temple of JUPITER BELUS in ELYMAIS, to raise Money for the ROMANS. All which is thus describ'd by DANIEL (chap. xi. 13-19) : For the King of the North [ANTIOCHUS] shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former ; and shall certainly come after certain years, with a great Army and with much riches. And in those times there shall many stand up against the King of the South, [particularly the MACEDONIANS ;] also the robbers of thy People [the SAMARI- TANS, &c.] shall exalt themselves to establish the vision, but they shall fall. So the King of the North shall come, and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities ; and the arms of the South shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand. But he that cometh against him shall do according to his own will, and none shall stand before him : and he shall stand in the glorious land, which shall fail in his hand. He shall also set his face to go with the strength [or army] of all his kingdom, and make an agreement with him [at RAPHIA ;] and he shall give him the daughter of women corrupting her ; but she shall not stand his side, neither be for him. After this he shall turn his Face unto the Isles, and shall take many : CHAP. XH] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 259 but a Prince for his own behalf [the ROMANS] shall cause the reproach offered by him to cease ; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him. Then he shall turn his Face towards the fort of his own land : but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found. SELEUCUS PHILOPATOR succeeded his father ANTIOCHUS, Anno NABONASS. 561, and reigned twelve years, but did nothing memorable, being sluggish, and intent upon raising money for the ROMANS to whom he was tributary. He was slain by HELIODORUS, whom he had sent to rob the temple of JERUSALEM. DANIEL thus describes his reign (chap. xi. 20) : Then shall stand up in his estate a raiser of Taxes in the glory of the Kingdom, but within few days he shall be destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle. A little before the death of PHILOPATOR, his son DEME- TRIUS was sent hostage to ROME, in the place of ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, the brother of PHILOPATOR ; and ANTIOCHUS was at ATHENS in his way home from ROME, when PHILO- PATOR died : whereupon HELIODORUS the treasurer of the kingdom, stept into the throne. But ANTIOCHUS so managed his affairs, that the ROMANS kept DEMETRIUS at ROME ; and their ally the king of PERGAMUS expelled HELIODORUS, and placed ANTIOCHUS in the throne, while DEMETRIUS the right heir remained an hostage at ROME. ANTIOCHUS being thus made King by the friendship of the King of PERGAMUS reigned powerfully over SYRIA and the neighbouring nations : but carried himself much below his dignity, stealing privately out of his palace, rambling up and down the city in disguise with one or two of his companions, conversing and drinking with people of the lowest rank, foreigners and strangers ; fre- quenting the meetings of dissolute persons to feast and revel ; clothing himself like the ROMAN candidates and officers, acting their parts like a mimick, and in publick festivals jesting and dancing with servants and light people, exposing himself by all manner of ridiculous gestures. This conduct made some take him for a madman, and call him ANTIOCHUS 'ETrifjAvrjs. In the first year of his reign 260 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i he deposed ONIAS the high-priest, and sold the high- priesthood to JASON the younger brother of ONIAS : for JASON had promised to give him 440 talents of silver for that office, and 150 more for a licence to erect a place of exercise for the training up of youth in the fashions of the heathen ; which licence was granted by the king, and put in execution by JASON. Then the king sending one APOLLONIUS into EGYPT to the coronation of PTOLEMY PHILOMETOB, the young son of PHILOMETOR and CLEO- PATRA, and knowing PHILOMETOR not to be well affected to his affairs in PHOENICIA, provided for his own safety in those parts ; and for that end came to JOPPA and JERUSA- LEM, where he was honourably received ; from thence he went in like manner with his little army to the cities of PHOENICIA, to establish himself against EGYPT, by courting the people, and distributing extraordinary favours amongst them. All which is thus represented by DANIEL (chap. xi. 21, &c.) : And in his [PHILOMETOR' s] estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they [the SYRIANS who set up HELIODORUS] shall not give the honour of the kingdom. Yet he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries [made principally to the king of PERGAMUS ;] and the arms [which in favour of HELIODORUS oppose him] shall be overflowed with a flood from before him, and be broken ; yea also [ONIAS the high-priest] the Prince of the covenant. And after the league made with him [the king of EGYPT, by sending APOLLONIUS to his coronation] he shall work deceitfully [against the king of EGYPT,] for he shall come up and shall become strong [in PHOENICIA] with a small people. And he shall enter into the quiet and plentiful cities of the Province [of PHOENICIA ;] and [to ingratiate himself with the JEWS of PHOENICIA and EGYPT, and with their friends] he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers fathers : he shall scatter among them the prey and the spoil, and the riches [exacted from other places ;] and shall forecast his devices against the strong holds [of EGYPT] even for a time. These things were done in the first year of his reign, CHAP, xn] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 261 An. NABONASS. 573. And thenceforward he forecast his devices against the strong holds of EGYPT, until the sixth year. For three years after, that is in the fourth year of his reign, MENELAUS bought the high-priesthood from JASON, but not paying the price was sent for by the King ; and the King, before he could hear the cause, went into CILICIA to appease a sedition there, and left ANDRONICUS his deputy at ANTIOCH ; in the mean time the brother of MENELAUS, to make up the money, conveyed several vessels out of the Temple, selling some of them at TYRE, and sending others to ANDRONICUS. When MENELAUS was reproved for this by ONIAS, he caused ONIAS to be slain by ANDRONICUS : for which fact the King at his return from CILICIA caused ANDRONICUS to be put to death. Then ANTIOCHUS prepared his second expedition against EGYPT, which he performed in the sixth year of his reign, An. NABONASS. 578 : for upon the death of CLEOPATRA, the governors of her son the young king of EGYPT claimed PHOSNICIA and COELOSYRIA from him as her dowry ; and to recover those countries raised a great army (2 MACCAB. iii. 5, 8. and iv. 4.). ANTIOCHUS con- sidering that his father had not quitted the possession of those countries, denied they were her dowry ; and with another great army met and fought the EGYPTIANS on the borders of EGYPT, between PELUSIUM and the mountain CASIUS. He there beat them, and might have destroyed their whole army, but that he rode up and down, command- ing his soldiers not to kill them, but to take them alive : by which humanity he gained PELUSIUM, and soon after all EGYPT : entering it with a vast multitude of foot and chariots, elephants and horsemen, and a great navy. Then seizing the cities of EGYPT as a friend, he marched to MEMPHIS, laid the whole blame of the War upon EULEUS the Kings governor, entred into outward friendship with the young King, and took upon him to order the affairs of the kingdom. While ANTIOCHUS was thus employ'd, a report being spread in PHOENICIA that he was dead, JASON to recover the high-priesthood assaulted JERUSALEM 262 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i with above a thousand men, and took the city : hereupon the King thinking JUDEA had revolted, came out of EGYPT in a furious manner, re-took the city, slew forty thousand of the people, made as many prisoners, and sold them to raise money ; went into the Temple, spoiled it of its treasures, ornaments, utensils, and vessels of gold and silver, amounting to 1800 talents ; and carried all away to ANTIOCH. This was done in the year of NABONASSAB 578, and is thus described by DANIEL (chap. xi. 25, &c.) : And he shall stir up his power, and his courage against the King of the South with a great army ; and the King of the South shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army ; but he shall not stand : for they, even ANTIOCHUS and his friends, shall forecast devices against him, as is represented above; yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat, shall betray and destroy him, and his army shall be overthrown, and many shall fall down slain. And both these Kings hearts shall be to do mischief ; and they, being now made friends, shall speak lyes at one table, against the JEWS and against the holy covenant ; but it shall not prosper : for yet the end, in which the setting up of the abomination of desolation is to prosper, shall be at the time appointed. Then shall he return into his land with great riches, and his heart shall be against the holy covenant ; and he shall act, against it by spoiling the Temple, and return into his own land. The EGYPTIANS of ALEXANDRIA seeing PHILOMETOR first educated in luxury by the Eunuch EULEUS, and now in the hands of ANTIOCHUS, gave the kingdom to EUEB- GETES, the younger brother of PHILOMETOR. Whereupon ANTIOCHUS pretending to restore PHILOMETOR, made War upon EUERGETES ; beat him at sea, and besieged him and his sister CLEOPATRA in ALEXANDRIA : while the besieged Princes sent to ROME to implore the assistance of the Senate ANTIOCHUS finding himself unable to take the city that year, returned into SYRIA, leaving PHILOMETOR at MEMPHIS to govern EGYPT in his absence. But PHILOMETOR made friendship with his brother that winter ; and ANTIOCHUS, CHAP, xn] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 268 returning the next spring An. NABONASS. 580, to besiege both the brothers in ALEXANDRIA, was met in the way by the ROMAN Ambassadors, POPILIUS L.ENA, C. DECIMIUS, and C. HOSTILIUS : he offered them his hand to kiss, but POPILIUS delivering to him the tables wherein the message of the Senate was written, bad him read those first. When he had read them, he replied he would consider with his friends what was fit to be done ; but POPILIUS drawing a circle about him, bad him answer before he went out of it : ANTIOCHUS, astonished at this blunt and unusual imperiousness, made answer he would do what the ROMANS demanded ; and then POPILIUS gave the King his hand to kiss, and he returned out of EGYPT. The same year An. NABONASS. 580, his captains by his order spoiled and slaughtered the JEWS, profaned the Temple, set up the worship of the heathen Gods in all JUDEA, and began to persecute and make war upon those who would not worship them : which actions are thus described by DANIEL (chap. xi. 29, 30.) : At the time appointed he shall come again towards the South, but the latter shall not be as the former. For the ships of Chittim shall come, with an embassy from Rome, against him. Therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant. So shall he do ; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. In the same year that ANTIOCHUS by the command of the ROMANS retired out of EGYPT, and set up the worship of the GREEKS in JUDEA ; the ROMANS conquered the king- dom of MACEDON, the fundamental kingdom of the Empire of the GREEKS, and reduced it into a ROMAN Province ; and thereby began to put an end to the reign of DANIEL'S third Beast. This is thus exprest by DANIEL: And after him Arms, that is, the ROMANS, shall stand up. As -^oo signifies after the King, DAN. xi. 8 ; so UDD may signify after him. Arms are everywhere in this Prophecy of DANIEL put for the military power of a kingdom : and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. Hitherto DANIEL described the actions of the Kings of the NORTH 264 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i and SOUTH ; but upon the conquest of MACEDON by the ROMANS, he left off describing the actions of the GREEKS, and began to describe those of the ROMANS in GREECE. They conquered MACEDON, ILLYRICUM and EPIRUS in the year of NABONASSAR 580. 35 years after, by the last will and testament of ATTALUS the last King of PER- GAMUS, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all ASIA westward of mount TAURUS ; 69 years after they conquered the kingdom of SYRIA, and reduced it into a Province, and 34 years after they did the like to EGYPT. By all these steps the ROMAN Arms stood up over the GREEKS : and after 95 years more, by making war upon the JEWS, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, and took away the daily sacrifice, and then placed the abomination of desolation. For this abomination was placed after the days of CHRIST, MATH. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor ADRIAN, A. C. 132, they placed this abomination by building a Temple to JUPITER CAPITOLINUS, where the Temple of God in JERUSALEM had stood. Thereupon the JEWS under the conduct of BARCHOCHAB rose up in arms against the ROMANS, and in the war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men slain by the sword ; and in the end of the war, A. C. 136, were banished JUDEA upon pain of death, and thenceforward the land remained desolate of its old inhabitants. In the beginning of the JEWISH war in NERO'S reign, the Apostles fled out of JUDEA with their flocks ; some beyond JORDAN to PELLA and other places, some into EGYPT, SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, ASIA MINOR, and elsewhere. PETER and JOHN came into ASIA, and PETER went thence by CORINTH to ROME ; but JOHN staying in ASIA, was banished by the ROMANS into PATMOS, as the head of a party of the JEWS, whose nation was in war with the ROMANS. By this dispersion of the CHRISTIAN JEWS, the CHRISTIAN religion, which was already propagated westward as far as ROME, spread fast into all the ROMAN Empire, and suffered many persecutions under it till the days of CONSTANTINE the great and his sons : all which is thus described by CHAP, xn] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 265 DANIEL: And such as do wickedly against the covenant, shall he, who places the abomination, cause to dissemble, and worship the Heathen Gods ; but the people among them who do know their God, shall be strong and act. And they that understand among the people, shall instruct many : yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil many days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help, viz. in the reign of CONSTANTINE the great ; and at that time by reason of their prosperity, many shall come over to them from among the heathen, and cleave to them with dissimulation. But of those of under- standing there shall still fall to try God's people by them, and to purge them from the dissemblers, and to make them white even to the time of the end : because it is yet for a time appointed. Hitherto the ROMAN Empire continued entire ; and under this dominion, the little horn of the He-Goat continued mighty, but not by his own power. But now, by the building of CONSTANTINOPLE, and endowing it with a Senate and other like privileges with ROME ; and by the division of the ROMAN Empire into the two Empires of the GREEKS and LATINS, headed by those two cities (chap. xi. 36, &c.) a new scene of things commences, in which a KING the Empire of the GREEKS, doth according to his will, and, by setting his own laws above the laws of God, exalts and magnifies himself above every God, and speaks marvellous things against the God of Gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished. Neither shall he regard the God of his Fathers, nor the lawful desire of women in matri- mony, nor any God, but shall magnify himself above all. And in his seat he shall honour Mahuzzims, that is, strong guardians, the souls of the dead ; even with a God whom his Fathers knew not shall he honour them, in their Temples, with gold and silver, and with precious stones and valuable things. All which relates to the overspreading of the GREEK Empire with Monks and Nuns, who placed holiness in abstinence from marriage ; and to the invocation of saints and veneration for their reliques, and such like supersti- 266 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PART I tions, which these men introduced in the fourth and fifth centuries. And at the time of the end the King of the South, or the Empire of the Saracens, shall push at him (chap, xi. 40, &c.) and the King of the North, or Empire of the Turks, shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and with many ships ; and he shall enter into the countries of the GREEKS, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown ; but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon : that is, those to whom his Caravans pay tribute. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape ; but he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things o/Egypt ; and the Lybians and Ethio- pians shall be at his steps. All these nations compose the Empire of the TURKS, and therefore this Empire is here to be understood by the King of the NORTH. They compose also the body of the He- Goat ; and therefore the Goat still reigns in his last horn, but not by his own power. CHAPTER XIII OF THE KING WHO DID ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, AND MAGNIFIED HIMSELF ABOVE EVERY GOD, AND HONOURED MAHUZZIMS, AND REGARDED NOT THE DESIRE OF WOMEN IN the first ages of the Christian religion the Christians of every city were governed by a Council of Presbyters, and the President of the Council was the Bishop of the city. The Bishop and Presbyters of one city meddled not with the affairs of another city, except by admonitory letters or messages. Nor did the Bishops of several cities meet together in Council before the time of the Emperor COM- MODUS : for they could not meet together without the leave of the ROMAN governors of the Provinces. But in the days of that Emperor they began to meet in Provincial Councils, by the leave of the governors ; first in ASIA, in opposition to the CATAPHRYGIAN Heresy, and soon after in other places and upon other occasions. The Bishop of the chief city, or Metropolis of the ROMAN Province, was usually made President of the Council ; and hence came the authority of Metropolitan Bishops above that of other Bishops within the same Province. Hence also it was that the Bishop of ROME in CYPRIAN'S days called himself the Bishop of Bishops. As soon as the Empire became Christian, the ROMAN Emperors began to call general Councils out of all the Provinces of the Empire ; and by prescribing to them what points they should consider, and influencing them by their interest and power, they set up what party they pleased. Hereby the GREEK Empire, upon the division of the ROMAN Empire into the GREEK and LATIN 207 268 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART I Empires, became the King who, in matters of religion, did according to his will ; and, in legislature, exalted and magni- fied himself above every God : and at length, by the seventh general Council, established the worship of the images and souls of dead men, here called MAHUZZIMS. The same King placed holiness in abstinence from marriage. EUSEBIUS in his Ecclesiastical history tells us (lib. 4. c. 28, 29.) that MUSANUS wrote a tract against those who fell away to the heresy of the ENCRATITES, which was then newly risen, and had introduced perni- cious errors ; and that TATIAN, the disciple of JUSTIN, was the author thereof; and that IREN.EUS in his first book against heresies teaches this, writing of TATIAN and his heresy, in these words : "A certain branch of the school of SATURNINUS and MARCIO who call themselves ' Continentes ' made it a point of doctrine that matrimony should be avoided, plainly by their teaching rejecting the ancient work of God, and by innuendo finding fault with God who created male and female for the procreation of the human race. They also introduced abstinence from the flesh of those creatures they term animals, displaying their ingratitude toward God, who is the creator of all things. They also deny the salvation of the first man. " This impious assertion has only recently been evolved among them, the one chiefly responsible for it being a certain TATIAN, a disciple of JUSTIN ; though as long as he associated with his master he propounded nothing so erroneous. But after the martyrdom of JUSTIN he broke away from the Church ; and being elated and puffed up with his professional importance, assuming his superiority to all others, he trumped up a new scheme of Doctrine, inventing invisible aeons exactly like VALENTINUS. He also asserted with SATURNINUS and MARCIO that marriage was mere lechery and lust ; and invented original and novel arguments to overthrow the doctrine of ADAM'S salvation. Such is the statement of IREN^EUS on the heresy of Encra- tites which was then is vogue." Thus far EUSEBIUS. But altho the followers of TATIAN were at first condemned as CHAP, xm] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 269 hereticks by the name of ENCRATITES, or CONTINENTES ; their principles could not be yet quite exploded : for MONTANUS refined upon them, and made only second marriages unlawful ; he also introduced frequent fastings, and annual fasting days, the keeping of LENT, and feeding upon dried meats. The APOSTOLICI, about the middle of the third century, condemned marriage, and were a branch of the disciples of TATIAN. The HIEROCITJE in EGYPT, in the latter end of the third century, also condemned mar- riage. PAUL the EREMITE fled into the wilderness from the persecution of DECIUS, and lived there a solitary life till the reign of CONSTANTINE the great, but made no disciples. ANTONY did the like in the persecution of DIOCLESIAN, or a little before, and made disciples ; and many others soon followed his example. Hitherto the principles of the ENCRATITES had been rejected by the Churches; but now being refined by the Monks, and imposed not upon all men, but only upon those who would voluntarily undertake a monastic life, they began to be admired, and to overflow first the GREEK Church, and then the LATIN also, like a torrent. EUSEBIUS tells us, that CONSTANTINE the great had those men in the highest veneration, who dedicated themselves wholly to the divine philosophy ; and that he almost venerated the most holy company of Virgins perpetually devoted to God ; being certain that the God to whom he had consecrated himself did dwell in their minds. In his time and that of his sons, this profession of a single life was propagated in EGYPT by ANTONY, and in SYRIA by HILA- RION ; and spread so fast, that soon after the time of JULIAN the Apostate a third part of the EGYPTIANS were got into the deserts of EGYPT. They lived first singly in cells, then associated into COZNOBIA or convents ; and at length came into towns and filled the Churches with Bishops Presbyters and Deacons. ATHANASIUS in his younger days poured water upon the hands of his master ANTONY ; and finding the Monks faithful to him, made many of them Bishops and Presbyters in EGYPT : and these Bishops 270 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART I erected new Monasteries, out of which they chose Presbyters of their own cities, and sent Bishops to others. The like was done in SYRIA, the superstition being quickly pro- pagated thither out of EGYPT by HILARION a disciple of ANTONY. SPIRIDION and EPIPHANIUS of CYPRUS, JAMES of NISIBIS, CYRIL of JERUSALEM, EUSTATHIUS of SEBASTIA in ARMENIA,EUSEBIUS of EMISA.TITUS of BOSTRA, BASILIUS of ANCYRA, ACACIUS of C^ESAREA in PALESTINE, ELPIDIUS of LAODICEA, MELITIUS and FLAVIAN of ANTIOCH, THEODORUS of TYRE, PROTOGENES of CARRH^E, ACACIUS of BERRH^EA, THEODOTUS of HIERAPOLIS, EUSEBIUS of CHALCEDON, AMPHILOCHIUS of ICONIUM, GREGORY NAZIAN- ZEN, GREGORY NYSSEN, and JOHN CHRYSOSTOM of CONSTAN- TINOPLE, were both Bishops and Monks in the fourth century. EUSTATHIUS, GREGORY NAZIANZEN, GREGORY NYSSEN, BASIL, &c. had Monasteries of Clergymen in their cities, out of which Bishops were sent to other cities ; who in like manner erected Monasteries there, till the Churches were supplyed with Bishops out of these Monasteries. Hence JEROME, in a Letter written about the year 385, saith of the Clergy : " As if they themselves were anything but Monks and as if anything said against the Monks did not rebound against the Clergy who are the fathers of the Monks. Injury to the flock is an insult to the Shepherd." (EpisT. x.) And in his book against VIGILANTIUS : " What are the Eastern Churches for doing ? They either accept celebate Clergy, or Continentes ; or if they are married they cease to be husbands." Not long after even the Emperors commanded the Churches to chuse Clergymen out of the Monasteries by this Law. The Emperors ARCADIUS and HONORIUS to CJESARIUS : " If the Bishops think that they require priests, it will be the better plan to ordain them from the ranks of the Monks. Let them not from public or private reasons keep weaklings (though their action be unpopular) but let them have men who are tried " (de Episcopis 1. 82.). Dai. vii. KAL. AUG. HONORIO A. iv. & EUTYCHIANIO Coss. A. C. 898. CHAP, xni] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 271 The GREEK Empire being now in the hands of these ENCRATITES, and having them in great admiration, DANIEL makes it a characteristick of the King who doth according to his will, that he should not regard the desire of women. Thus the Sect of the ENCRATITES, set on foot by the GNOSTICKS, and propagated by TATIAN and MONTANUS near the end of the second century ; which was condemned by the Churches of that and the third century, and refined upon by their followers ; overspread the EASTERN Churches in the fourth century, and before the end of it began to overspread the WESTERN. 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 Chris- tians ; 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. The CATAPHRYGIANS brought in also several other superstitions : such as were the doctrine of Ghosts, and of their punishment in Purgatory with prayers and oblations for mitigating that punishment, as TERTULLIAN teaches in his books De Anima and De Monogamia. They used also the sign of the cross as a charm. So TERTULLIAN in his book A Soldier's Crown : "At every advancement or promotion, at every going out and coming in, at our clothes, at our shoes, at the baths, at the tables, at the lights, at the rooms, at the furniture, in a word at whatever our daily life brings us into contact with, we imprint on our forehead the sign of the cross." All these super- stitions the Apostle refers to, where he saith : Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, the DAEMONS and Ghosts worshipped by the heathens, speaking lies in hypocrisy, about their apparitions, the miracles done by them, their reliques, and 19 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL [PART i the sign of the cross, having consciences seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, &c. 1 TIM. iv. 1, 2, 3. From the CATAPHRYGIANS these principles and practices were propagated down to posterity. For the mystery of iniquity did already work in the APOSTLES days in the GNOSTICKS, continued to work very strongly in their offspring the TATIANISTS and CATAPHRYGIANS, and was to work till that man of sin should be revealed ; whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and all deceiv- ableness of unrighteousness ; coloured over with a form of CHRISTIAN godliness, but without the power thereof, 2 THESS. ii. 7-10. For tho some stop was put to the CATAPHRYGIAN Chris- tianity, by Provincial Councils, till the fourth century ; yet the ROMAN Emperors then turning CHRISTIANS, and great multitudes of heathens coming over in outward profession, these found the CATAPHRYGIAN Christianity more suitable to their old principles, of placing religion in outward forms and ceremonies, holy-days, and doctrines of Ghosts, than the religion of the sincere CHRISTIANS : wherefore they readily sided with the CATAPHRYGIAN CHRISTIANS, and established that Christianity before the end of the fourth century. By this means those of under- standing, after they had been persecuted by the heathen Emperors in the three first centuries, and were holpen with a little help, by the conversion of CONSTANTINE the great and his sons to the CHRISTIAN religion, fell under new persecutions, to purge them from the dissemblers, and to make them white, even to the time of the end. CHAPTER XIV OF THE MAHUZZIMS, HONOURED BY THE KINO WHO DOTH ACCORDING TO HIS WILL IN scripture we are told of some trusting in God and others trusting in idols, and that God is our refuge, our strength, our defence. In this sense God is the rock of his People, and false Gods are called the rock of those that trust in them, DEUT. xxxii. 4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37. In the same sense the Gods of the King who shall do according to his will are called MAHUZZIMS, munitions, fortresses, protectors, guardians, or defenders (chap. xi. 38, 39.). In his estate, saith DANIEL, shall he honour Mahuzzims ; even with a God whom his fathers knew not, shall he honour them with gold and silver, and with precious stones, and things of value. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds or temples ; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and divide the land among them for a possession. Now this came to pass by degrees in the following manner. GREGORY NYSSEN tells us (Oral, de vita Greg. Thauma- turg, t. 8. p. 574.) that after the persecution of the Emperor DECIUS, GREGORY Bishop of NEOC^ESAREA in PONTUS, instituted among all people, as an addition or corollary of devotion towards God, that festival days and assemblies should be celebrated to them who had contended for the faith, that is, to the Martyrs. And he adds this reason for the institu- tion : Whqn he observed, saith NYSSEN, that the simple and unskilful multitude, by reason of corporeal delights, remained in the error of idols ; that the principal thing might be cor- rected among them, namely, that instead of their vain worship they might turn their eyes upon God ; he permitted that at the memories of the holy martyrs they might make merry and 273 274 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i delight themselves, and be dissolved into joy. The heathens were delighted with the festivals of their Gods, and un- willing to part with those delights ; and therefore GREGORY, to facilitate their conversion instituted annual festivals to the SAINTS and MARTYRS. Hence it came to pass, that for exploding the festivals of the heathens, the principal festivals of the CHRISTIANS succeeded in their room : as the keeping of CHRISTMAS with ivy and feasting, and playing and sports, in the room of the BACCHANALIA and SATUR- NALIA ; the celebrating of MAY-DAY with flowers, in the room of the FLORALIA ; and the keeping of festivals to the Virgin MARY, JOHN the Baptist, and divers of the Apostles, in the room of the solemnities at the entrance of the Sun into the signs of the ZODIAC in the old JULIAN Calen- dar. In the same persecution of DECIUS, CYPRIAN ordered the passions of the Martyrs in AFRICA to be registered in order to celebrate their memories annually with oblations and sacrifices : and FELIX Bishop of ROME, a little after, as PLATINA relates, Martyrum glorice consulens, constituit ut quotanis sacrificia eorum nomine celebrarentur : " con- sulting the glory of the Martyrs, ordained that sacrifices should be celebrated annually in their name." By the pleasures of these festivals the CHRISTIANS increased much in number, and decreased as much in virtue, until they were purged and made white by the persecution of DIOCLESIAN. This was the first step made in the CHRISTIAN religion towards the veneration of the Martyrs : and tho' it did not yet amount to an unlawful worship ; yet it disposed the CHRISTIANS towards such a further veneration of the dead, as in a short time ended in the invocation of Saints. The next step was the affecting to pray at the sepulchres of the Martyrs : which practice began in DIOCLESIAN' s persecution. The Council of ELIBERIS in SPAIN, celebrated in the third or fourth year of DIOCLESIAN' s persecution, A. C. 305, hath these Canons. Can. 34. Resolved : " That wax tapers be not burned by day in the cemetery ; for the spirits of the saints must not be disturbed. Whoever disobeys this command will be excommunicated." Can. CHAP, xrv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 275 35. Resolved : " That women be prohibited from night- watching in the cemetery : because often under the pretence of prayer they secretly commit sin." Presently after that persecution, suppose about the year 814, the Council of LAODICEA in PHRYGIA, which then met for restoring the lapsed discipline of the Church, has the following Canons. Can. 9 : Those of the Church are not allowed to go into the Ccemeteries or Martyries, as they are called, of hereticks, for the sake of prayer or recovery of health : but such as go, if they be of the faithful, shall be excommuni- cated for a time. Can. 84 : A Christian must not leave the Martyrs of Christ, and go to false Martyrs, that is, to the Martyrs of the hereticks ; for these are alien from God : and therefore let those be anathema who go to them. Can. 51 : The birth-days of the Martyrs shall not be celebrated in Lent, but their commemoration shall be made on the Sabbath-days and Lords days. The Council of PAPHLAGONIA, celebrated in the year 324, made this Canon : // any man being arrogant, abominates the congregations of the Martyrs, or the Liturgies performed therein, or the memories of the Martyrs, let him be anathema. By all which it is manifest that the CHRISTIANS in the time of DIOCLESIAN'S persecu- tion used to pray in the CCEMETARIES or burying-places of the dead ; for avoiding the danger of the persecution, and for want of Churches, which were all thrown down : and after the persecution was over, continued that practice in honour of the Martyrs, till new Churches could be built : and by use affected it as advantageous to devotion, and for recovering the health of those that were sick. It also appears that in these burying-places they commem- orated the Martyrs yearly upon days dedicated to them, and accounted all these practices pious and religious, and anathematized those men as arrogant who opposed them, or prayed in the MARTYRIES of the hereticks. They also lighted torches to the Martyrs in the daytime, as the heathens did to their Gods ; which custom, before the end of the fourth century, prevailed much in the WEST. They sprinkled the worshippers of the Martyrs with holy- 27 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i water, as the heathens did the worshippers of their Gods ; and went in pilgrimage to see JERUSALEM and other holy places, as if those places conferred sanctity on the visiters. From the custom of praying in the CCEMETERIES and MARTYRIES, came the custom of translating the bodies of the Saints and Martyrs into such Churches as were new built : the Emperor CONSTANTIUS began this practice about the year 359, causing the bodies of ANDREW the Apostle, LUKE and TIMOTHY, to be translated into a new Church at CONSTANTINOPLE : and before this act of CONSTANTIUS, the EGYPTIANS kept the bodies of their Martyrs and Saints unburied upon beds in their private houses, and told stories of their souls appearing after death, and ascending up to heaven, as ATHANASIUS relates in the life of ANTONY. All which gave occasion to the Emperor JULIAN, as CYRIL relates, to accuse the CHRIS- TIANS in this manner : Your adding to that ancient dead man, Jesus, many new dead men, who can sufficiently abominate ? You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments altho you are no where bidden to prostrate yourselves to sepulchres, and to respect them officiously. And a little after : Since Jesus said that sepulchres are full of filthiness, how do you invoke God upon them ? and in another place he saith, that if CHRISTIANS had adhered to the precepts of the HEBREWS, they would have worshiped one God instead of many, and not a man, or rather not many unhappy men : And that they adored the wood of the cross, making its images on their foreheads, and before their houses. After the sepulchres of Saints and Martyrs were thus converted into places of worship like the heathen temples, and the Churches into sepulchres, and a certain sort of sanctity attributed to the dead bodies of the Saints and Martyrs buried in them, and annual festivals were kept to them, with sacrifices offered to God in their name ; the next step towards the invocation of Saints, was the attributing to their dead bodies, bones and other reliques, a power of working miracles, by means of the separate souls, who were supposed to know what we do or say, CHAP, xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 27T and to be able to do us good or hurt, and to work those miracles. This was the very notion the heathens had of the separate souls of their antient Kings and Heroes, whom they worshiped under the names of SATURN, RHEA, JUPITER, JUNO, MARS, VENUS, BACCHUS, CERES, OSIRIS, Isis, APOLLO, DIANA, and the rest of their Gods. For these Gods being male and female, husband and wife, son and daughter, brother and sister, are thereby discovered to be antient men and women. Now as the first step towards the invocation of Saints was set on foot by the persecution of DECIUS, and the second by the persecution of DIOCLESIAN ; so this third seems to have been owing to the proceedings of CONSTANTIUS and JULIAN the Apos- tate. When JULIAN began to restore the worship of the heathen Gods, and to vilify the Saints and Martyrs ; the CHRISTIANS of SYRIA and EGYPT seem to have made a great noise about the miracles done by the reliques of the CHRISTIAN Saints and Martyrs, in opposition to the powers attributed by JULIAN and the heathens to their Idols. For SOZOMEN and RUFFINUS tell us, that when he opened the heathen Temples, and consulted the Oracle of APOLLO DAPHN^US in the suburbs of ANTIOCH, and pressed by many sacrifices for an answer ; the Oracle at length told him that the bones of the Martyr BABYLAS which were buried there hinder'd him from speaking. By which answer we may understand, that some CHRISTIAN was got into the place where the heathen Priests used to speak thro' a pipe in delivering their Oracles : and before this, HILARY in his book against CONSTANTIUS, written in the last year of that Emperor, makes the following mention of what was then doing in the EAST where he was. " You intend to persecute without martyrdom ? We owe a deeper debt to the cruelty of NERO, DECIUS, and MAXIMI- ANUS. For by them we overcame the DEVIL. The sacred blood of the blessed martyrs has been everywhere received, while demons cry out because of them, diseases are banished and miraculous works are beheld bodies float in the air without support ; female figures are seen hanging by the 278 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i feet, and their garments do not flow down over their faces : spirits burn without fire and make confession without increasing the belief of the catechizer." And GREGORY NAZIANZEN, in his first Oration against the Emperor Julian, then reigning, writes thus : " You have paid no respect to the martyrs, to whom illustrious honours and festivals have been decreed, by whom demons are cast out and diseases cured, and whose wraiths can be seen and teachings heard. Their mere bodies are as efficacious as their blessed souls, whether the one be touched or the other worshipped ; a few drops of their blood and some scanty tokens of their suffering can do as much as their whole bodies. And these it is that, refusing to esteem, you contemn and despise." These things made the heathens in the reign of the same Emperor demolish the sepulchre of JOHN the Baptist in PHOENICIA, and burn his bones ; when several CHRISTIANS mixing themselves with the heathens, gathered up some of his remains, which were sent to ATHANASIUS, who hid them in the wall of a Church ; foreseeing by a prophetic spirit, as RUFFINUS tells us, that they might be profitable to future generations. The cry of these miracles being once set on foot, con- tinued for many years, and encreased and grew more general. CHRYSOSTOM, in his second Oration on ST. BABYLAS, twenty years after the silencing of the Oracle of APOLLO DAPHN^US as above, viz. A. C. 382, saith of the miracles done by the Saints and their reliques : " There is no district or race, or city in this world of ours where these strange and unexpected miracles are not retailed ; and indeed had they been mere inventions, they would hardly have attained such universal admiration." And a little after he saith : " My words have ample support in those miracles, which our martyrs are daily working : whereto no small throng of people is constantly crowding " (vide Horn. 47 in S. Julian). And in his 66th Homily, describing how the Devils were tormented and cast out by the bones of the martyrs he adds : " A CHAP, xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 279 considerable number of Kings came from foreign parts to enjoy this sight, for the reason that the temples of the holy martyrs display tokens and signs of coming judgment, the demons doubtless being tormented with scourges, and men, though agonizing, finding release. Behold the power inherent in the life of the holy Dead." And JEROM in his epitaph on PAULA (Epist. 27 ad Eustochium) thus mentions the same things : " PAULA saw SAMARIA, where the prophets ELISHA and OBADIAH and JOHN the Baptist are buried, and there she fell into fear and consternation at the many miracles. For she saw demons bellowing under various torments and howling before the sepulchres of the saints : she saw men in the likeness of wolves barking with the voice of dogs, roaring like lions, hissing like serpents and bellowing like bulls ; others made their heads rotate, or bend backwards till their heads touched the ground ; female figures, too were hung up by their feet and yet their garments did not flow down over their face." This was about the year 384 ; and CHRYSOSTOM in his Oration on the EGYPTIAN Martyrs seems to make EGYPT the ringleader in these matters saying : " Blessed be God that martyrs are appearing in EGYPT : EGYPT, I say, that fought with the Lord and raged most wildly : EGYPT whence come impious lips and tongues that blaspheme ; in this EGYPT martyrs are honoured, and not only there or in the neighbouring regions, but everywhere on earth. And to take a simile from the wealth of the grain supply as when the inhabitants of the cities have seen that their harvest exceeds the possible home demand, they export it to foreign countries, first to show their courtesy and liberality, and secondly, to employ this surplus in order easily to secure in return necessities which they lack : so it is in this spirit that the EGYPTIANS have acted as regards the champions of religion. For when they saw that by the goodness of God they had a great host of Martyrs in their land, far from confining this great gift of God to their own State, they poured out the wealth of their treasures unto all parts of the earth : and with a two- 380 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i fold purpose firstly, to manifest their love to the brethren, and then to honour the common Lord of all, and to win glory in the eyes of all for their State which they thereby would declare to be the Metropolis of the whole round earth. For the bodies of those martyred saints protect a city for us more securely than any wall, however adaman- tine and impregnable, and like towering bulwarks, standing four-square they ward off not merely those enemies which sense can grasp and eye can see ; but also, the unseen snares of demons, and all the deceits of Satan are by them overthrown and destroyed. But in truth it is not merely against the treachery of men or the deceit of demons that the possession of them is valuable to us ; but if our common Lord be wroth with us for the multitude of our transgres- sions, by the mediation of these bodies we will immediately be enabled to regain His favour for our State " (Edit. Frontonis Ducsei, torn. 1.). This Oration was written at ANTIOCH, while ALEXANDRIA was yet the Metropolis of the EAST, that is, before the year 381, in which CONSTANTINOPLE became the Metropolis : and it was a work of some years for the EGYPTIANS to have distributed the miracle-working reliques of their Martyrs over all the world, as they had done before that year. EGYPT abounded most with the reliques of Saints and Martyrs, the EGYPTIANS keeping them embalmed upon beds even in their private houses ; and ALEXANDRIA was eminent above all other cities for dispersing them, so as on that account to acquire glory with all men, and manifest herself to be the METROPOLIS of the world. ANTIOCH followed the example of EGYPT, in dis- persing the reliques of the forty Martyrs : and the examples of EGYPT and SYRIA were soon followed by the rest of the world. The reliques of the forty Martyrs at ANTIOCH were dis- tributed among the Churches before the year 373 ; for ATHANASIUS who died in that year, wrote an Oration upon them. This Oration is not yet published, but GERARD Vossius saw it in MS. in the Library of Cardinal ASCANIUS in ITALY, as he says in his commentary upon the Oration HAP. xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 381 of EPHR^M SYRUS on the same forty Martyrs. Now since the Monks of ALEXANDRIA sent the reliques of the Martyrs of EGYPT into all parts of the earth, and thereby acquired glory to their city, and declared her in these matters the Metropolis of the whole world, as we have observed out of CHRYSOSTOM ; it may be concluded, that before ALEXANDRIA received the forty Martyrs from ANTIOCH, she began to send out the reliques of her own Martyrs into all parts, setting the first example to other cities. This practice therefore began in EGYPT some years before the death of ATHANASIUS. It began when the miracle-working bones of JOHN the baptist were carried into EGYPT, and hid in the wall of a Church, that they might be profitable to future generations. It was restrained in the reign of JULIAN the Apostate : and then it spred from EGYPT into all the Empire, ALEXANDRIA being the Metropolis of the whole world, according to CHRYSOSTOM, for propagating this sort of devotion, and ANTIOCH and other cities soon following her example. In propagating these superstitions, the ring-leaders were the Monks, and ANTONY was at the head of them : for in the end of the life of ANTONY, ATHANASIUS relates that these were his dying words to his disciples who then attended h?m. Do you take care, said ANTONY, to adhere to Christ in the first place, and then to the Saints, that after death they may receive you as friends and acquaintance into the everlasting Tabernacles. Think upon these things, per- ceive these things ; and if you have any regard to me, remember me as a father. This being delivered in charge to the Monks by ANTONY at his death, A. C. 356, could not but inflame their whole body with devotion towards the Saints, as the ready way to be received by them into the eternal Tabernacles after death. Hence came that noise about the miracles done by the reliques of the Saints in the time of CONSTANTIUS : hence came the dispersion of the miracle-working reliques into all the Empire ; ALEX- ANDRIA setting the example, and being renowned for it above all other cities. Hence it came to pass in the days 282 OBSERVATIONS UPON THB [PABT i of JULIAN, A. C. 862, that ATHANASIUS by a prophetic spirit, as RUFFINUS tell us, hid the bones of JOHN the Baptist from the Heathens, not in the ground to be for- gotten, but in the hollow wall of a Church before proper witnesses, that they might be profitable to future genera- tions. Hence also came the invocation of the Saints for doing such miracles, and for assisting men in their devo- tions, and mediating with God. For ATHANASIUS, even from his youth, looked upon the dead Saints and Martyrs as mediators of our prayers : in his Epistle to MARCEL- LINUS, written in the days of CONSTANTINE the great, he saith, that the words of the PSALMS are not to be transposed or any wise changed, but to be recited and sung without any artifice, as they are written, that the holy men who delivered them, knowing them to be their own words, may pray with us ; or rather, that the Holy Ghost who spake in the holy men, seeing his own words with which he inspired them, may join with them in assisting us. Whilst EGYPT abounded with Monks above any other country, the veneration of the Saints began sooner, and spred faster there than in other places. PALLADIUS going into EGYPT in the year 888 to visit the Monasteries, and the sepulchres of APOLLONIUS and other Martyrs of THEBAIS who had suffered under MAXIMINUS, saith of them : " For all these martyrs the Christians have built a single temple, in which many deeds of healing are now performed. So great was the influence of APOLLONIUS that his petition on any matter was immediately answered, this being the way in which his Saviour honoured him. We too after prayer, beheld him in his shrine in company with those who were his fellows in martyrdom ; and giving God the glory we saluted their bodies." EUNAPIUS also, a heathen, yet a competent witness of what was done in his own times, relating how the soldiers delivered the temples of EGYPT into the hands of the Monks, which was done in the year 889, rails thus in an impious manner at the Martyrs, as succeeding in the room of the old Gods of EGYPT. " These very soldiers stationed Monks at CHAP. XIY] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 283 CANOPUS also, in order that, instead of worshipping what is visible to the mind alone, they might pay Divine honours to mere slaves and criminals, the minds of all men being addicted to ceremonial worship of some kind. They dis- played as Gods, the cured and salted heads of men who had suffered the extreme penalty of the law for the number of their crimes : to these they bowed the knee : these they received into the number of the Gods, degrading themselves before their sepulchres with sack-cloth and ashes. Eventually they were called Martyrs or Mediators or Ambassadors and Censors of Prayer at the Court of HEAVEN ; when in reality they were faithless slaves, often flogged for their wickedness, who bore about on their bodies, the scars of their crimes and the marks of their profligacy ; yet such are the Gods that the land puts up with." By these instances, we may understand the invocation of Saints was now of some standing in EGYPT and that it was already generally received and practised there by the common people. Thus BASIL a Monk, who was made Bishop of C^SAREA in the year 369, and diedjin the year 378, in his Oration on the Martyr MAMAS, saith : Be ye mindful of the Martyr ; as many of you as have enjoyed him in your dreams, as many as in this place have been assisted by him in prayer, as many of you as upon invoking him by name have had him present in your works, as many as he has reduced into the way from wandering, as many as he has restored to health, as many as have had their dead children restored by him to life, as many as have had their lives prolonged by him : and a little after, he thus expresses the universality of this superstition in the regions of CAPPADOCIA and BITHYNIA : At the memory of the Martyr, saith he, the whole region is moved ; at his festival the whole city is transported with joy. Nor do the kindred of the rich turn aside to the sepulchres of their an- cestors, but all go to the place of devotion. Again in the end of the Homily he prays, that God would preserve the Church, thus fortified with the great towers of the Martyrs : and in his Oration on the forty Martyrs ; These are they, saith he, 284 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i who obtaining our country, like certain towers afford us safety against our enemies. Neither are they shut up in one place only, but being distributed are sent into many regions, and adorn many countries. You have often en- deavoured, you have often laboured to find one who might pray for you : here are forty, emitting one voice of prayer. He that is in affliction fiies to these, he that rejoices has recourse to these : the first, that he may be freed from evil, the last that he may continue in happiness. Here a woman praying for her children is heard ; she obtains a safe return for her hus- band from abroad, and health for him in his sickness. O ye common keepers of mankind, the best companions of our cares, suffragans and coadjutors of our prayers, most powerful embassadors to God, &c. By all which it is manifest, that before the year 378, the 1 Orations and Sermons upon the Saints went much beyond the bounds of mere oratorical flourishes, and that the common people in the EAST were already generally corrupted by the Monks with Saint- worship. GREGORY NAZIANZEN a Monk, in his sixth Oration written A. C. 373, when he was newly made Bishop of SASIMA, saith : Let us purify ourselves to the Martyrs, or rather to the God of the Martyrs : and a little after he calls the Martyrs mediators of obtaining an ascension or divinity. The same year, in the end of his Oration upon ATHANASIUS then newly dead, he thus invokes him : Do thou look down upon us propitiously, and govern this people, as perfect adorers of the perfect Trinity, which in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is contemplated and worshipped : if there shall be peace, preserve me, and feed my flock with me ; but if war, bring me home, place me by thyself, and by those that are like thee ; however great my request. And in the end of the funeral Oration upon BASIL, written A. C. 378, he thus addresses him : But thou, O divine and sacred Head, look down upon us from heaven ; and by thy prayers either take away that thorn of the flesh which is given us by God for exercise, or obtain that we may bear it with courage, and direct all our life to that which is most fitting for us. When we depart this CHAP, xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 285 life receive us there in your Tabernacles, that living together and beholding the holy and blessed Trinity more purely and perfectly, whereof we have now but an imperfect view, we may there come to the end of our desires, and receive this reward of the wars which we have waged or suffered : and in his Oration upon CYPRIAN, not the Bishop of CARTHAGE, but a GREEK, he invokes him after the same manner ; and tells us also how a pious Virgin named JUSTINA, was pro- tected by invoking the Virgin MARY, and how miracles were done by the ashes of CYPRIAN. GREGORY NYSSEN, another eminent Monk and Bishop, in the life of EPHRJEM SYRUS, tells how a certain man re- turning from a far country, was in great danger, by reason all the ways were intercepted by the armies of barbarous nations ; but upon invoking EPHR^EM by name, and saying, HOLY Ephraem assist me, he escaped the danger, neglected the fear of death, and beyond his hope got safe home. In the end of this Oration GREGORY calls upon EPHR-EM after the following manner : But thou, EPHR^EM, assisting now at the divine altar, and sacrificing to the Prince of life, and to the most holy Trinity, together with the Angels ; remember us all, and obtain for us pardon of our sins, that we may enjoy the eternal happiness of the kingdom of heaven. The same GREGORY, in his Oration on the Martyr THEODORA written A.C. 881, thus describes the power of that Martyr, and the practice of the people. This Martyr, saith he, the last year quieted the barbarous tempest, and put a stop to the horrid war of the fierce and cruel SCYTHIANS. // any one is permitted to carry away the dust with which the tomb is covered, wherein the body of the martyr rests ; the dust is accepted as a gift* an d gathered to be laid up as a thing of great price. For to touch the reliques themselves, if any such prosperous fortune shall at any time happen ; how great a favour that is, and not to be obtained without the most earnest prayers, they know well who have obtained it. For as a living and florid body, they who behold it embrace it, applying to it the eyes, mouth, ears, and all the organs of sense ; and then with affection pouring tears upon the Martyr, at if he was whole 286 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i and appeared to them : they offer prayers with supplication, that he would intercede for them as an advocate, praying to him as an Officer attending upon God, and invoking him as receiving gifts whenever he will. At length GREGORY concludes the Oration with this prayer : THEODORUS, we want many blessings ; intercede and beseech for thy country before the common King and Lord : for the country of the Martyr is the place of his passion, and they are his citizens, brethren and kindred, who have him, defend, adorn and honour him. We fear afflictions, we expect dangers : the wicked SCYTHIANS are not far off, ready to make war against us. Asa soldier fight for us, as a Martyr use liberty of speech for thy fel- low-servants. Pray for peace, that these publick meetings may not cease, that the furious and wicked barbarian may not rage against the temples and altars, that the profane and im- pious may not trample upon the holy things. We acknowledge it a benefit received from thee, that we are preserved safe and entire, we pray for freedom from danger in time to come : and if there shall be need of greater intercession and depreca- tion, call together the choir of thy brethren the Martyrs, and in conjunction with them all intercede for us. Let the prayers of many just ones attonefor the sins of the multitudes and the people ; exhort PETER, excite PAUL, and also JOHN the divine and beloved disciple, that they maybe sollicitousforthe Churches which they have erected, for which they have been in chains, for which they have undergone dangers and deaths ; that the worship of idols may not lift up its head against us, that heresies may not spring up like thorns in the vineyard, that tares grown up may not choak the wheat, that no rock void of the fatness of true dew may be against us, and render the fruitful power of the word void of a root ; but by the power of the prayers of thyself and thy companions, O admirable man and eminent among the Martyrs, the commonwealth of Christians may become a field of corn. The same GREGORY NYSSEN in his sermon upon the death of MELETIUS Bishop of ANTIOCH, preached at CONSTANTINOPLE the same year, A. C. 381, before the Bishops of all the EAST assembled in the second general Council, spake thus of MELETIUS : The CHAP, xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 287 Bridegroom, saith he, is not taken from us : he stands in the midst of us, tho* we do not see him : he is a Priest in the most inward places, and face to face intercedes before God for us and the sins of the people. This was no ora- torical flourish, but GREGORY'S real opinion, as may be understood by what we have cited out of him concerning EPHR^EM and THEODORUS : and as GREGORY preached this before the Council of CONSTANTINOPLE, you may thence know, saith BARONIUS, that he professed what the whole Council, and therewith the whole Church of those parts believed, namely, that the Saints in heaven offer prayers for us before God. (Ad. an. 381, sect. 41.) EPHR.EM SYRUS, another eminent Monk, who was contemporary with BASIL, and died the same year ; in the end of his Encomium or Oration upon BASIL then newly dead, invokes him after this manner : Intercede for me, a very miserable man ; and recal me by thy intercessions, O father ; thou who art strong, pray for me who am weak ; thou who art diligent, for me who am negligent ; thou who art chearful, for me who am heavy ; thou who art wise, for me who am foolish. Thou who hast treasured up a treasure of all virtues, be a guide to me who am empty of every good work. In the beginning of his Encomium upon the forty Martyrs, written at the same time, he thus invokes them : Help me therefore, O ye Saints, with your intercession ; and O ye beloved, with your holy prayers ; that Christ by his grace may direct my tongue to speak, &c. and afterwards mentioning the mother of one of these forty Martyrs, he concludes the Oration with this prayer : / entreat thee, O holy, faithful, and blessed woman, pray for me to the Saints, saying ; Intercede ye that triumph in CHRIST, for the most little and miserable EPHRJEM, that he may find mercy, and by the grace O/CHRIST may be saved. Again, in his second Sermon or Oration on the praises of the holy Martyrs of CHRIST, he thus addresses them : We entreat you most holy Martyrs, to intercede with the Lord for us miserable sinners, beset with the filthiness of negligence, that he would infuse his divine grace into us : and afterwards, near the 20 288 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i end of the same discourse : Now 'ye most holy men and glorious Martyrs of God, help me a miserable sinner with your prayers that in that dreadful hour 1 may obtain mercy, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made manifest. I am to day become to you, most holy Martyrs of CHRIST, as it were an unprofitable and unskilful cup-bearer : for I have delivered to the sons and brothers of your faith, a cup of the excellent wine of your warfare, with the excellent table of your victory , replenished with all sorts of dainties. I have endeavoured, with the whole affection and desire of my mind, to recreate your fathers and brothers, kindred and relations, who daily frequent the table. For behold they sing, and with exultation and jubilee glorify God, who has crowrfd your virtues, by setting on your most sacred heads incorruptible and celestial crowns ; they with excessive joy stand about the sacred reliques of your martyrdoms, wishing for a blessing, and desiring to bear away holy medicines both for the body and the mind. As good disciples and faithful ministers of our benign Lord and Saviour, bestow therefore a blessing on them all : and on me also, tho 1 weak and feeble, who having received strength by your merits and intercessions, have with the whole devotion of my mind, sung a hymn to your praise and glory before your holy reliques. Wherefore I beseech you stand before the throne of the divine Majesty for me EPHR^EM, a vile and miserable sinner, that by your prayers I may deserve to obtain salvation, and with you enjoy eternal felicity by the grace and benignity and mercy of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be praise, honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. By what has been cited out of BASIL, the two GREGORIES and EPHR^M, we may understand that Saint-worship was established among the Monks and their admirers in EGYPT, PHOENICIA, SYRIA and CAPPADOCIA, before the year 378, this being the year in which BASIL and EPHR^EM died. CHRYSOSTOM was not much later ; he preached at ANTIOCH almost all the time of THEODOSIUS the great, and in his Sermons are many exhortations to this sort of superstition, as may be seen in the end of his Orations on S. JULIA, on CHAP, xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 289 St. PELAGIA on the Martyr IGNATIUS, on the EGYPTIAN Martyrs, on Fate and Providence, on the Martyrs in general, on St. BERENICE and St. PROSDOCE, on JUVENTINUS and MAXIMUS, on the name of CCEMETERY, &c. Thus in his Sermon on BERENICE and PROSDOCE : Perhaps, saith he, you are inflamed with no small love towards these Martyrs ; therefore with this ardour let us fall down before their reliques, let us embrace their coffins. For the coffins of the Martyrs have great virtue, even as the bones of the Martyrs have great power. Nor let us only on the day of this festival, but also on other days apply to them, invoke them, and beseech them to be our patrons : for they have great power and efficacy, not only whilst alive, but also after death ; and much more after death than before. For now they bear the marks or brands of CHRIST ; and when they shew these marks, they can obtain all things of the King. Seeing therefore they abound with such efficacy, and have so much friendship with him ; we also, when by continual attendance and perpetual visitation of them we have insinuated ourselves into their familiarity, may by their assistance obtain the mercy of God. CONSTANTINOPLE was free from these superstitions till GREGORY NAZIANZEN came thither A. C. 379 ; but in a few years it was also inflamed with it (Hist. Eccl. 1. 2. c. 23.). RUFFINUS tells us, that when the Emperor THEODOSIUS was setting out against the tyrant EUGENIUS, which was in the year 394, he went about with the Priests and people to all the places of prayer ; lay prostrate in haircloth before the shrines of the Martyrs and Apostles, and pray'd for assistance by the intercession of the Saints (1. 4. c. 24.). SOZOMEN adds, that when the Emperor was marched seven miles from CONSTANTINOPLE against EUGENIUS, he went into a Church which he had built to JOHN the Baptist, and invoked the Baptist for his assistance. CHRY- SOSTOM says : He that is clothed in purple, approaches to embrace these sepulchres ; and laying aside his dignity, stands supplicating the Saints to intercede for him with God : and he who goes crowned with a diadem, offers his prayers to the tent-maker and the fisher-man as his Protectors (Horn. 66. 290 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART i ad populum, circa finem. and Horn. 8, 27. in Matth. Horn. 42, 43. in Gen. Horn. 1. in 1 Thess. Exposit. in Psal. 114. sub finem.). And in another place : The cities run together to the sepulchres of the Martyrs, and the people are inflamed with the love of them. This practice of sending reliques from place to place for working miracles, and thereby inflaming the devotion of the nations towards the dead Saints and their reliques, and setting up the religion of invoking their souls, lasted only till the middle of the reign of the Emperor THEODO- sius the great ; for he then prohibited it by the following Edict : " Once a corpse is buried, let no one transfer it to another place : let no one retail a martyr or sell him for merchandise. Let power be granted however, if in any place there is aMartyr entombed, to raise there any building desired, for the purpose of doing him honour, the building to be called a ' Martyr's Shrine ' " (Dot. iv. KAL. MART. CONSTANTINOPOLI, HoNORio nob. puero & EUODIO Coss. A. C. 386). After this they filled the fields and high-ways with altars erected to Martyrs, which they pretended to discover by dreams and revelations : and this occasioned the making the fourteenth Canon of the fifth Council of CARTHAGE, A. C. 398. " Also resolved : that the altars erected in the fields and high-ways as memorials to the martyrs, when no body or relics can be proved to repose therein, be demolished, if possible by the Bishops of those parts. But if this be not permitted by reason of popular tumult, yet let the people be warned against frequenting such spots, so that men of good understanding may not there be held in the bonds of superstition. And let no memorial whatsoever of the martyrs be accepted as credible unless either the body or some genuine relics repose there, or unless tradition assert on incontrovertible grounds that a martyr lived there or held property there or there suffered. For these altars, which are being set up everywhere on the admonition of dreams and futile revelations should be utterly disavowed." These altars were for invoking the Saints or Martyrs buried or pretended CHAP, xiv] PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 291 to be buried under them. First they filled the Churches in all places with the reliques or pretended reliques of the Martyrs, for invoking them in the Churches ; and then they filled the fields and high-ways with altars, for invoking them every where : and this new religion was set up by the Monks in all the GREEK Empire before the expedition of the Emperor THEODOSIUS against EUGENIUS, and I think before his above mentioned Edict, A. C. 386. The same religion of worshipping MAHUZZIMS quickly spred into the WESTERN EMPIRE also: but DANIEL in this Prophecy describes chiefly the things done among the nations comprehended in the body of his third Beast. THE END OF THE FIRST PART PART II OBSERVATIONS UPON THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION, CONCERNING THE TIME WHEN THE APOCALYPSE WAS WRITTEN IREN^EUS introduced an opinion that the APOCALYPSE was written in the time of DOMITIAN ; but then he also postponed the writing of some others of the sacred books, and was to place the APOCALYPSE after them : he might perhaps have heard from his master POLYCARP that he had received this book from JOHN about the time of DOMITTAN'S death ; or indeed JOHN might himself at that time have made a new publication of it, from whence IREN^EUS might imagine it was then but newly written. EUSEBIUS in his Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History follows IREN^EUS ; but afterwards (Dem. Evang. 1. 3.) in his Evangelical Demonstrations, he conjoins the banishment of JOHN into PATMOS, with the deaths of PETER and PAUL : and so do TERTULLIAN and PsEUDO-PRocnoRus, 1 as well as the first author, whoever he was, of that very antient fable, that JOHN was put by NERO into a vessel of hot oil, and coming out unhurt, was banished by him into PATMOS. Tho' this story be no more than a fiction, yet it was founded on a tradition of the first Churches, that JOHN was banished into PATMOS in the days of NERO. EPIPHANIUS represents the GOSPEL OF JOHN as written in the time of DOMITIAN, and the APOCALYPSE even before that of NERO. ARETHAS in the beginning of his Com- mentary quotes the opinion of IREN^US from EUSEBIUS, but follows it not : for he afterwards affirms the APO- CALYPSE was written before the destruction of JERUSALEM, 1 Vid. PAMEUUM in notis ad TEBTULL. de Prcetcriptionibua, n. 215. & HIBRON. contra JOVI.NIANUM, ]. 1. c. 14. Edit. EKASWI. 395 296 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n and that former commentators had expounded the sixth seal of that destruction (AEETH. c. 18, 19.). With the opinion of the first Commentators agrees the tradition of the Churches of SYRIA, preserved to this day in the title of the SYRIAC Version of the APOCALYPSE, which title is this : The Revelation which was made to John the Evangelist by God in the Island Patmos, into which he was banished by Nero the Caesar. The same is confirmed by a story told by EUSEBIUS out of CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS (Hist. Eccl. 1. 3. c. 23.), and other antient authors, concerning a youth, whom JOHN some time after his return from PATMOS committed to the care of the Bishop of a certain city. The Bishop educated, instructed, and at length baptized him ; but then remitting of his care, the young man thereupon got into ill company, and began by degrees first to revel and grow vitious, then to abuse and spoil those he met in the night ; and at last grew so desperate, that his companions turning a band of highway men, made him their Captain : and, saith CHRYSOSTOM, he continued their Captain a long time (CHRYSOST. ad Theodorum lapsum). At length JOHN returning to that city, and hearing what was done, rode to the thief; and when he out of reverence to his old master fled, JOHN rode after him, recalled him, and restored him to the Church. This is a story of many years, and requires that JOHN should have returned from PATMOS rather at the death of NERO than at that of DOMITIAN ; because between the death of DOMITIAN and that of JOHN there were but two years and an half ; and JOHN in his old age was (HIERON. in Epist. ad Gal. 1. 3. c. 6.) so infirm as to be carried to Church, dying above 90 years old, and therefore could not be then suppos'd able to ride after the thief. This opinion is further supported by the allusions in the APOCALYPSE to the Temple and Altar, and holy City, as then standing ; and to the GENTILES, who were soon after to tread under foot the holy City and outward Court. 'Tis confirmed also by the style of the APOCALYPSE itself, CHAP, i] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 297 which is fuller of HEBRAISMS than his Gospel. For thence it may be gathered, that it was written when JOHN was newly come out of JUDEA, where he had been used to the SYEIAC tongue ; and that he did not write his Gospel, till by long converse with the ASIATICK Greeks he had left off most of the HEBRAISMS. It is confirmed also by the many false APOCALYPSES, as those of PETER, PAUL, THOMAS, STEPHEN, ELIAS and CERINTHUS, written in imitation of the true one. For as the many false Gospels, false Acts, and false Epistles were occasioned by true ones ; and the writing many false APOCALYPSES, and ascribing them to Apostles and Prophets, argues that there was a true Apostolic one in great request with the first CHRISTIANS : so this true one may well be suppos'd to have been written early, that there may be room in the Apostolic age for the writing of so many false ones after- wards, and fathering them upon PETER, PAUL, THOMAS, and others, who were dead before JOHN. CAIUS, who was contemporary with TERTULLIAN (Apud EUSEB. Eccl. Hist. 1. 8. c. 28. Edit. VALESII), tells us that CERINTHUS wrote his Revelations as a great Apostle, and pretended the visions were shewn him by Angels, asserting a millennium of carnal pleasures at JERUSALEM after the resurrection ; so that his APOCALYPSE was plainly written in imitation of JOHN'S : and yet he lived so early, that (EPIPHAN. H ceres. 28.) he resisted the Apostles at JERUSALEM in or before the first year of CLAUDIUS, that is, 26 years before the death of NERO, and died before JOHN (HIERON. adv. Lucif.). These reasons may suffice for determining the time ; and yet there is one more, which to considering men may seem a good reason, to others not. I'll propound it, and leave it to every man's judgment. The APOCALYPSE seems to be alluded to in the Epistles of PETER and that to the HEBREWS, and therefore to have been written before them. Such allusion in the Epistle to the HEBREWS, I take to be the discourses concerning the High Priest in the heavenly Tabernacle, who is both Priest and King, as was MELCHISEDEC ; and those concerning the word of 298 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n God, with the sharp two edged sword, the a-aSfiario-fib*;, or millennial rest, the earth whose end is to be burned, suppose by the lake of fire, the judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries, the heavenly City which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, the cloud of witnesses, mount Sion, heavenly Jerusalem, general assembly, spirits of just men made perfect, viz. by the resurrection, and the shaking of heaven and earth, and removing them, that the new heaven, new earth and new kingdom which cannot be shaken, may remain. In the first of PETER occur these 1 : THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, twice or thrice repeated * ; the blood of Christ as of a Lamb fore- ordained before the foundation of the world * ; the spiritual building in heaven, 1 PET. ii. 5. an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept unto the salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, 1 PET. i. 4, 5.' the royal Priesthood, 9 the holy Priesthood, 6 the judgment beginning at the house of God, and the Church at Babylon. 7 These are indeed obscurer allusions ; but the second Epistle, from the 19th verse of the first chapter to the end, seems to be a con- tinued Commentary upon the APOCALYPSE. There, in writing to the Churches in Asia, to whom JOHN was commanded to send this Prophecy, he tells them, they have a more sure word of Prophecy, to be heeded by them, as a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in their hearts, that is, until they begin to understand it : for no Prophecy, saith he, of the scripture is of any private interpretation ; the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. DANIEL himself pro- fesses that he understood not his own PROPHECIES (DAN. viii. 15, 16, 27, & xii. 8. 9.) ; and therefore the Churches were not to expect the interpretation from their Prophet JOHN, but to study the Prophecies themselves. This is 1 1 Pet. 1. 7, 13. iv. 13. and v. 1. * Apoc. xiii. 8. Apoc. xxi. * Apoc. i. 6. and v. 10. 8 Apoc. xx. 6. Apoc. xx. 4, 12. 7 Apoc. xvii. CHAP, i] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 299 the substance of what PETER says in the first chapter ; and then in the second he proceeds to describe, out of this sure -word of Prophecy, how there should arise in the Churchfalse Prophets ,or false teachers, expressed collectively in the APOCALYPSE by the name of the false Prophet ; who should bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, which is the character of ANTI- CHRIST : And many, saith he, shall follow their lusts ' ; they that dwell on the earth ' shall be deceived by the false Prophet, and be made drunk with the wine of the Whore's fornication, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed ; for * the Beast is full of blasphemy : and thro' covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandize of you ; for these are the Merchants of the Earth, who trade with the great Whore, and their mer- chandize * is all things of price, with the bodies and souls of men : whose judgment -- lingreth not, and their damna- tion slumbreth not, but shall surely come upon them at the last day suddenly, as the flood upon the old world, and fire and brimstone upon SODOM and GOMORRHA, when the just shall be delivered ' like LOT ; for the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished, in the lake of fire ; but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, 1 being made drunk with the wine of the Whore's fornication ; who despise dominion, and are not afraid to blaspheme glories ; for the beast opened his mouth against God * to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. These, as natural brute beasts, the ten-horned beast and two-horned beast, or false Prophet, made to be taken and destroyed, in the lake of fire, blaspheme the things they understand not : - - they count it pleasure to riot in the day-time - - sporting them- selves with their own deceivings, while they feast with s, in many of the best MSS. * Apoc. ziii. 7, 12. * Apoc. xiii. 1, 0, 6. Apoc. xviii. 12, 13. Apoc. xix. 20. Apoc. zxi. 3, 4. 7 Apoc. iz. 21. and xvii. 2. 8 Apoc. xiii. 0. Apoc. xviii. 3, 7, 9. 300 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n you, having eyes full of an 1 Adulteress : for the kingdoms of the beast live deliciously with the great Whore, and the nations are made drunk with the wine of her fornication. They are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, the false Prophet * who taught BALAK to cast a stumbling block before the children of ISRAEL. These are, not fountains of living water, but wells without water ; not such clouds of Saints as the two witnesses ascend in, but clouds that are carried with a tempest, &c. Thus does the author of this Epistle spend all the second Chapter in describing the qualities of the APOCALYPTIC Beasts and false Prophet : and then in the third he goes on to describe their destruc- tion more fully, and the future kingdom. He saith, that because the coming of CHRIST should be long deferred, they should scoff, saying where is the promise of his coming ? Then he describes the sudden coming of the day of the Lord upon them, as a thief in the night, which is the APOCALYPTIC phrase ; and the millennium, or thousand years, which are with God but as a day ; the passing away of the old heavens and earth, by a conflagration in the lake of fire, and our looking for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Seeing therefore PETER and JOHN were Apostles of the circumcision, it seems to me that they staid with their Churches in JUDEA and SYRIA till the ROMANS made war upon their nation, that is, till the twelfth year of NERO ; that they then followed the main body of their flying Churches into ASIA, and that PETER went thence by CORINTH to ROME ; that the ROMAN Empire looked upon those Churches as enemies, because JEWS by birth ; and therefore to prevent insurrections, secured their leaders, and banished JOHN into PATMOS. It seems also probable to me that the APOCALYPSE was there composed, and that soon after the Epistle to the HEBREWS and those of PETER were written to these Churches, with reference to this Prophecy as what they were particularly concerned in. 2 Apoc. ii. 14. CHAP, i] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 801 For it appears by these Epistles, that they were written in times of general affliction and tribulation under the heathens, and by consequence when the Empire made war upon the JEWS ; for till then the heathens were at peace with the CHRISTIAN JEWS, as well as with the rest. The Epistle to the HEBREWS, since it mentions TIMOTHY as related to those HEBREWS, must be written to them after their flight into ASIA, where TIMOTHY was Bishop ; and by consequence after the war began, the HEBREWS in JUDEA being strangers to TIMOTHY. PETER seems also to call ROME BABYLON, as well with respect to the war made upon JUDEA, and the approaching captivity, like that under old BABYLON, as with respect to that name in the APOCALYPSE : and in writing to the strangers scattered thro'out Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, he seems to intimate that they were the strangers newly scattered by the ROMAN wars ; for those were the only strangers there belonging to his care. This account of things agrees best with history when duly rectified. For l JUSTIN and * IREN^EUS say, that SIMON MAGUS came to ROME in the reign of CLAUDIUS, and exercised juggling tricks there. PSEUDO-CLEMENS adds, that he endeavoured there to fly, but broke his neck thro' the prayers of PETER. Whence * EUSEBIUS, or rather his interpolator JEROM, has recorded, that PETER came to ROME in the second year of CLAUDIUS : but * CYRIL Bishop of JERUSALEM, PHILASTRIUS, SULPITIUS, PROSPER, MAXIMUS TAURINENSIS, and HEGESIPPUS JUNIOR, place this victory of PETER in the time of NERO. Indeed the antienter tradition was, that PETER came to ROME in the days of this Emperor, as may be seen in * LANCTANTIUS. CHRYSOSTOM tells us, that the Apostles continued long in 1 Apol. ad Antonin. Pium. 1 Hcerea. 1. 1. c. 20. Vide etiam TERTULIJANUM, Apol. c. 13. EUSEB. Chron. * CYRIL, Catech. 6. PHILASTR. de hceres. cap. 30. SULP. Hist. 1. 2. PROSPER de promise, dimid. tempt, cap. 13. MAXIMUS sorm. 5. in Natal. Apoat. HEOESIP. 1. 2. c. 2. 6 LACTANT. de mortib. Perfec. c. 2 Horn. 70 in Matt. c. 22. 802 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n JUDEA, and that then being driven out by the JEWS they went to the GENTILES. This dispersion was in the first year of the JEWISH war, when the JEWS, as JOSEPHUS tells us, began to be tumultuous and violent in all places. For all agree that the Apostles were dispersed into several regions at once ; and ORIQEN has set down the time, 1 telling us that in the beginning of the JUDAIC war, the Apostles and disciples of our Lord were scattered into all nations ; THOMAS into PARTHIA, ANDREW into SCYTHIA, JOHN into ASIA, and PETER first into ASIA, where he preacht to the dispersion, and thence into ITALY. DIONY- sius CORINTHIUS saith (EusEB. Hist. 1. 2. c. 25.), that PETER went from ASIA by CORINTH to ROME, and all antiquity agrees that PETER and PAUL were martyred there in the end of NERO'S reign. MARK went with TIMOTHY to ROME, 2 TIM. iv. 11. COLOS. iv. 10. SYLVANUS was PAUL'S assistant ; and by the companions of PETER, mentioned in his first Epistle, we may know that he wrote from ROME ; and the Antients generally agree, that in this Epistle he understood ROME by BABYLON. His second Epistle was writ to the same dispersed strangers with the first, 2 PET. iii. 1. and therein he saith, that PAUL had writ of the same things to them, and also in his other Epistles, ver. 15, 16. Now as there is no Epistle of PAUL to these strangers besides that to the HEBREWS, so in this Epistle, chap. x. 11, 12. we find at large all those things which PETER had been speaking of, and here refers to ; particularly the passing away of the old heavens and earth, and establishing an inheritance immoveable, with an exhorta- tion to grace, because GOD, to the wicked, is a consuming fire, HEB. xii. 25, 26, 28, 29. Having determined the time of writing the APOCALYPSE, I need not say much about the truth of it, since it was in such request with the first ages, that many endeavoured to imitate it, by feigning APOCALYPSES under the Apostles names ; and the Apostles themselves, as I have just now shewed, studied it, and used its phrases ; by which means 1 Apud EUSEB. Eccl. Hist. 1. 2. c. 25. CHAP, i] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 303 the style of the Epistle to the HEBREWS became more mystical than that of PAUL'S other Epistles, and the style of JOHN'S Gospel more figurative and majestical than that of the other Gospels. I do not apprehend that CHRIST was called the word of God in any book of the New Testa- ment written before the APOCALYPSE ; and therefore am of opinion, the language was taken from this Prophecy, as were also many other phrases in this Gospel, such as those of CHRIST'S being the light which enlightens the world, the lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, the bridegroom, he that testifieth, he that came down from heaven, the Son of God, &c. JUSTIN MARTYR, who within thirty years after JOHN'S death became a CHRISTIAN, writes expressly that a certain man among the Christians whose name was John, one of the twelve Apostles of Christ, in the Revelation which was shewed him, prophesied that those who believed in Christ should live a thousand years at Jerusalem. And a few lines before he saith : But I, and as many as are Christians, in all things right in their opinions, believe both that there shall be a resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years life at Jerusalem built, adorned and enlarged. Which is as much as to say, that all true CHRISTIANS in that early age received this Prophecy : for in all ages, as many as believed the thousand years, received the APOCALYPSE as the foundation of their opinion : and I do not know one instance to the contrary. PAPIAS Bishop of HIERAPOLIS, a man of the Apostolic age, and one of JOHN'S own disciples, did not only teach the doctrine of the thousand years, but also 1 asserted the APOCALYPSE as written by divine inspiration. MELITO who flourished next after JUSTIN,* wrote a commentary upon this Prophecy ; and he, being Bishop of SARDIS one of the seven Churches, could neither be ignorant of their tradition about it, nor impose upon them. IREN^EUS, who was contemporary with MELITO, wrote much upon it, and said, that the number 666 was in all the antient and 1 ARETHAS in Procem. comment, in Apoc. 9 EUSEB. Hist. 1. 4. cap. 26. HIERON. 21 304 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n approved copies ; and that he had it also confirmed to him by those who had seen John face to face, meaning no doubt his master POLYCARP for one. At the same time 1 THEO- PHILUS Bishop of ANTIOCH asserted it, and so did TERTUL- LIAN, CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, and ORIGEN soon after ; and their contemporary HIPPOLYTUS the Martyr, Metro- politan of the ARABIANS (HIERON.), wrote a commentary upon it. All these were antient men, flourishing within a hundred and twenty years after JOHN'S death, and of greatest note in the Churches of those times. Soon after did VICTORINUS PICTAVIENSIS write another commentary upon it ; and he lived in the time of DIOCLESIAN. This may surely suffice to shew how the APOCALYPSE was received and studied in the first ages : and I do not indeed find any other book of the New Testament so strongly attested, or commented upon so early as this. The Prophecy said : Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this Prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein. This animated the first CHRISTIANS to study it so much, till the difficulty made them remit, and comment more upon the other books of the New Testa- ment. This was the state of the APOCALYPSE, till the thousand years being misunderstood, brought a prejudice against it : and DIONYSIUS of ALEXANDRIA, noting how it abounded with barbarisms, that is with HEBRAISMS, promoted that prejudice so far, as to cause many GREEKS in the fourth century to doubt of the book. But whilst the LATINS, and a great part of the GREEKS, always retained the APOCALYPSE, and the rest doubted only out of prejudice, it makes nothing against its authority. This Prophecy is called the Revelation, with respect to the scripture of truth, which DANIEL was commanded to shut up and seal, till the time of the end (DAN. x. 21. xii. 4, 9.). DANIEL sealed it until the time of the end ; and until that time comes, the Lamb is opening the seals : and afterwards the two Witnesses prophesy out of it a long time in sack- 1 EUSEB. Hist. 1. 4. c. 24. CHAP, i] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 805 cloth, before they ascend up to heaven in a cloud. All which is as much as to say, that these Prophecies of DANIEL and JOHN should not be understood till the time of the end : but then some should prophesy out of them in an afflicted and mournful state for a long time, and that but darkly, so as to convert but few. But in the very end, the Prophecy should be so far interpreted as to con- vince many. Then, saith DANIEL, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be encreased. For the Gospel must be preached in all the nations before the great tribulation, and end of the world. The palm-bearing multitude, which come out of this great tribulation, cannot be innumerable out of all nations, unless they be made so by the preaching of the Gospel before it comes. There must be a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, before it can fall upon the toes of the Image, and become a great mountain and fill the earth. An Angel must fly thro' the midst of heaven with the everlasting Gospel to preach to all nations, before BABYLON falls, and the Son of man reaps his harvest. The two Prophets must ascend up to heaven in a cloud, before the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of CHRIST. 'Tis therefore a part of this Prophecy, that it should not be understood before the last age of the world ; and therefore it makes for the credit of the Prophecy, that it is not yet understood. But if the last age, the age of opening these things, be now approaching, as by the great successes of late Interpreters it seems to be, we have more encouragement than ever to look into these things. If the general preaching of the Gospel be approaching, it is to us and our posterity that those words mainly belong : In the time of the end the wise shall understand, but none of the wicked shall understand (DAN. xii. 4. 10.). Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this Prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein (Aroc. i. 3.). The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed 806 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence. For as the few and obscure Prophecies concerning CHRIST'S first coming were for setting up the CHRISTIAN religion, which all nations have since corrupted ; so the many and clear Prophecies concerning the things to be done at CHRIST'S second coming, are not only for predicting but also for effecting a recovery and re-establishment of the long-lost truth, and setting up a kingdom wherein dwells righteousness. The event will prove the APOCALYPSE ; and this Prophecy, thus ^proved and understood, will open the old Prophets, and all together will make known the true religion, and establish it. For he that will understand the old Prophets, must begin with this ; but the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly, because the main revolution predicted in them is not yet come to pass. In the days of the voice of the seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the Prophets : and then the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever, APOC. x. 7. xi. 15. There is already so much of the Prophecy fulfilled, that as many as will take pains in this study, may see sufficient instances of God's providence : but then the signal revolutions predicted by all the holy Prophets, will at once both turn men's eyes upon considering the predictions, and plainly interpret them. Till then we must content ourselves with interpreting what hath been already fulfilled. Amongst the Interpreters of the last age there is scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery CHAP, i] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 307 worth knowing; and thence I seem to gather that God is about opening these mysteries. The success of others put me upon considering it ; and if I have done any thing which may be useful to following writers, I have my design. CHAPTER II OF THE RELATION WHICH THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN HATH TO THE BOOK OF THE LAW OF MOSES, AND TO THE WORSHIP OF GOD IN THE TEMPLE THE APOCALYPSE of JOHN is written in the same style and language with the Prophecies of DANIEL, and hath the same relation to them which they have to one another, so that all of them together make but one complete Pro- phecy ; and in like manner it consists of two parts, an introductory Prophecy, and an Interpretation thereof. The Prophecy is distinguish' d into seven successive parts, by the opening of the seven seals of the book which DANIEL was commanded to seal up : and hence it is called the APOCALYPSE or REVELATION of JESUS CHRIST. The time of the seventh seal is sub-divided into eight successive parts by the silence in heaven for half an hour, and the sounding of seven trumpets successively : and the seventh trumpet sounds to the battle of the great day of God Almighty, whereby the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ, and those are destroyed that destroyed the earth. The Interpretation begins with the words, And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the Ark of his Testament : and it continues to the end of the Prophecy. The Temple is the scene of the visions, and the visions in the Temple relate to the feast of the seventh month, for the feasts of the JEWS were typical of things to come. The Passover related to the first coming of CHRIST, and the feasts of the seventh month to his second coming : his first coming being therefore over before this 308 CHAP, n] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 309 Prophecy was given, the feasts of the seventh month are here only alluded unto. On the first day of that month, in the morning, the High-Priest dressed the lamps : and in allusion hereunto, this Prophecy begins with a vision of one like the Son of man in the High-Priest's habit, appearing as it were in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, or over against the midst of them, dressing the lamps, which appeared like a rod of seven stars in his right hand : and this dressing was performed by the sending seven Epistles to the Angels or Bishops of the seven Churches of ASIA, which in the primitive times illuminated the Temple or Church Catho- lick. These Epistles contain admonitions against the ap- proaching Apostacy, and therefore relate to the times when the Apostacy began to work strongly, and before it prevailed. It began to work in the Apostles days, and was to continue working till the man of sin should be revealed. It began to work in the disciples of SIMON, MENANDER, CAEPOCRATES, CERINTHUS, and such sorts of men as had imbibed the metaphysical philosophy of the GENTILES and CABALISTICAL JEWS and were thence called GNOSTICKS. JOHN calls them ANTICHRISTS, saying that in his days there were many ANTICHRISTS. But these being condemned by the Apostles, and their immediate disciples, put the Churches in no danger during the opening of the first four seals. The visions at the opening of these seals relate only to the civil affairs of the heathen ROMAN Empire. So long the Apostolic traditions pre- vailed, and preserved the Church in its purity : and therefore the affairs of the Church do not begin to be considered in this Prophecy before the opening of the fifth seal. She began then to decline, and to want admoni- tions ; and therefore is admonished by these Epistles, till the Apostacy prevailed and took place, which was at the opening of the seventh seal. The admonitions therefore in these seven Epistles relate to the state of the Church in the times of the fifth and sixth seals. At the opening of the fifth seal, the Church is purged from hypocrites by 810 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n a great persecution. At the opening of the sixth, that which letted is taken out of the way, namely the heathen ROMAN Empire. At the opening of the seventh, the man of sin is revealed. And to these times the seven Epistles relate. The seven Angels, to whom these Epistles were written, answer to the seven AMARCHOLIM, who were Priests and chief Officers of the Temple, and had jointly the keys of the gates of the Temple, with those of the Treasuries, and the direction, appointment and oversight of all things in the Temple. After the lamps were dressed, JOHN saw the door of the Temple opened ; and by the voice as it were of a trumpet, was called up to the eastern gate of the great court, to see the visions : and behold a throne was set, viz. the mercy-seat upon the Ark of the Testament, which the JEWS respected as the throne of God between the Cherubims, EXOD. xxv. 2. PSAL. xcix. 1. And he that sat on it was to look upon like Jasper and Sardine stone, that is, of an olive colour, the people of JUDEA being of that colour. And, the Sun being then in the EAST, a rainbow was about the throne, the emblem of glory. And, round about the throne were four and twenty seats ; answering to the chambers of the four and twenty Princes of the Priests, twelve on the south side, and twelve on the north side of the Priests Court. And upon the seats were four and twenty Elders sitting, clothed in white rayment, with crowns on their heads ; representing the Princes of the four and twenty courses of the Priests clothed in linen. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings, and voices, viz. the flashes of the fire upon the Altar at the morning-sacrifice, and the thundering voices of those that sounded the trumpets, and sung at the Eastern gate of the Priests Court ; for these being between JOHN and the throne appeared to him as proceeding from the throne. And there were seven lamps of fire burning, in the Temple, before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God, or Angels of the seven Churches, represented in the beginning of this Prophecy by seven stars. And before the CHAP, ii] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 311 throne was a sea of glass clear as chrystal ; the brazen sea between the porch of the Temple and the Altar, filled with clear water. And in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four Beasts full of eyes before and behind: that is, one Beast before the throne and one behind it, appeared to JOHN as in the midst of the throne, and one on either side in the circle about it, to represent by the multitude of their eyes the people standing in the four sides of the peoples court. And the first Beast was like a lion, and the second was like a calf, and the third had the face of a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle. The people of ISRAEL in the wilderness encamped round about the tabernacle, and on the east side were three tribes under the standard of JUDAH, on the west were three tribes under the standard of EPHRAIM, on the south were three tribes under the standard of REUBEN, and on the north were three tribes under the standard of DAN. NUMB. ii. And the standard of JUDAH was a Lion, that of EPHRAIM an Ox, that of REUBEN a Man, and that of DAN an Eagle, as the JEWS affirm. Whence were framed the hieroglyphicks, of CHERUBIMS and SERAPHIMS, to represent the people of ISRAEL. A CHERUBIM had one body with four faces, the faces of a Lion, an Ox, a Man, and an Eagle, looking to the four winds of heaven, without turning about, as in EZEKIEL'S vision, chap. i. And four SERA- PHIMS had the same four faces with four bodies, one face to every body. The four Beasts are therefore four SERA- PHIMS standing in the four sides of the peoples court ; the first in the eastern side with the head of a Lion, the second in the western side with the head of an Ox, the third in the southern side with the head of a Man, the fourth in the northern side with the head of an Eagle : and all four sig- nify together the twelve tribes of ISRAEL, out of whom the hundred forty and four thousand were sealed, APOC. vii. 4. And the four Beasts had each of them six wings, two to a tribe, in all twenty and four wings, answering to the twenty and four stations of the people. And they were full of eyes within, or under their wings. And they rest not day 812 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n and night, or at the morning and evening-sacrifices, saying, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. These animals are therefore the Seraphims, which appeared to ISAIAH in a vision like this of the APOCALYPSE (!SA. vi.). For there also the Lord sat upon a throne in the temple ; and the Seraphims each with six wings cried, Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts. And when those animals give glory and honour and thanks to him that sitteth upon the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty Elders go into the Temple, and there fall down before him that sitteth on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power : for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. At the morning and evening-sacrifice, so soon as the sacrifice was laid upon the Altar, and the drink-offering began to be poured out, the trumpets sounded, and the LEVITES sang by course three times ; and every time when the trumpets sounded, the people fell down and worshipped. Three times therefore did the people worship : to express which number, the Beasts cry Holy, holy, holy ; and the song being ended, the people prayed standing, till the solemnity was finished. In the mean time the Priests went into the Temple, and there fell down before him that sat upon the throne, and wor- shipped. And JOHN saw, in the right hand of him that sat upon the throne, a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals, viz. the book which DANIEL was commanded to seal up, and which is here represented by the pro- phetic book of the Law laid up on the right side of the Ark, as it were in the right hand of him that sat on the throne : for the festivals and ceremonies of the Law prescribed to the people in this book, adumbrated those things which were predicted in the book of DANIEL ; and the writing within and on the backside of this book, relates to the synchronal Prophecies. And none was found worthy to open the book but the Lamb of God (Aroc. v.). And lo, CHAP, n] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 318 in the midst of the throne and of the four Beasts, and in the midst of the Elders, that is, at the foot of the Altar, stood a lamb as it had been slain, the morning sacrifice ; having seven horns, which are the seven Churches and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came, and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast made us, unto our God, Kings and Priests, and we shall reign on the earth. The Beasts and Elders therefore represent the primitive CHRISTIANS of all nations ; and the worship of these CHRISTIANS in their Churches is here represented under the form of worshipping God and the Lamb in the Temple : God for his benefaction in creating all Things, and the Lamb for his benefaction in redeeming us with his blood : God as sitting upon the throne and living for ever, and the Lamb as exalted above all by the merits of his death. And I heard, saith JOHN, the voice of many Angels round about the throne, and the Beasts and the Elders : and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, ' and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying, Blessing, honour, glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four Beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty Elders fell down and worshipped him that livethfor ever and ever. This was the worship of the primitive CHRISTIANS. It was the custom for the High-Priest, seven days before the fast of the seventh month, to continue constantly 814 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n in the Temple, and study the book of the Law, that he might be perfect in it against the day of expiation ; where- in the service, which was various and intricate, was wholly to be performed by himself ; part of which service was reading the Law to the people : and to promote his studying it, there were certain Priests appointed by the SANHEDRIM to be with him those seven days in one of his chambers in the Temple, and there to discourse with him about the Law, and read it to him and put him in mind of reading and studying it himself. This his opening and reading the Law those seven days, is alluded unto in the Lamb's opening the seals. We are to conceive that those seven days begin in the evening before each day ; for the JEWS began their day in the evening, and that the solemnity of the fast begins in the morning of the seventh day. The seventh seal was therefore opened on the day of expiation, and then there was silence in heaven for half an hour. And an Angel, the High- Priest, stood at the Altar, having a golden Censer ; and there was given him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints, upon the golden Altar which was before the throne. The custom was on other days, for one of the Priests to take fire from the great Altar in a silver Censer ; but on this day, for the High- Priest to take fire from the great Altar in a golden Censer ; and when he was come down from the great Altar, he took incense from one of the Priests who brought it to him, and went with it to the golden Altar : and while he offered the incense, the people prayed without in silence, which is the silence in heaven for half an hour. When the High- Priest had laid the incense on the Altar, he carried a Censer of it burning in his hand, into the most holy place before the Ark. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the Saints, ascended up before God out of the Angel's hand. On other days there was a certain measure of incense for the golden Altar : on this day there was a greater quantity for both the Altar and the most holy Place, and therefore it is called much incense. After this the Angel took the Censer, and filled it with fire from the great CHAP, n] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 315 Altar, and cast it into the earth ; that is, by the hands of the Priests who belong to his mystical body, he cast it to the earth without the Temple for burning the Goat which was the Lord's lot. And at this and other con- comitant sacrifices, until the evening-sacrifice was ended, there were voices, and thundrings, and lightnings, and an earthquake ; that is, the voice of the High- Priest reading the Law to the people, and other voices and thundrings from the trumpets and temple-musick at the sacrifices, and lightnings from the fire of the Altar. The solemnity of the day of expiation being finished, the seven Angels sound their trumpets at the great sacri- fices of the seven days of the feast of tabernacles ; and at the same sacrifices, the seven thunders utter their voices which are the musick of the Temple, and singing of the Levites, intermixed with the soundings of the trumpets : and the seven Angels pour out their vials of wrath, which are the drink-offerings of those sacrifices. When six of the seals were opened, JOHN said (Aroc. vii.) : And after these things, that is, after the visions of the sixth seal, / saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East, having the seal of the living God : and he cried with a loud voice to the four Angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. This sealing alludes to a tradition of the JEWS, that upon the day of expiation all the people of ISRAEL are sealed up in the books of life and death (BUXTORF, in Synagoga Judaica, c. 18, 21.). For the JEWS in their Talmud tell us, that in the beginning of every new year, or first day of the month, TISRI, the seventh month of the sacred year, three books are opened in judgment ; the book of life, in which the names of those are written who are perfectly just ; the book of death, in which the names of those are written who are Atheists or very wicked ; and a third book, of 316 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n those whose judgment is suspended till the day of expiation, and whose names are not written in the book of life or death before that day. The first ten days of this month they call the penitential days ; and all these days they fast and pray very much, and are very devout, that on the tenth day their sins may be remitted, and their names may be written in the book of life ; which day is therefore called the day of expiation. And upon this tenth day, in returning home from the Synagogues, they say to one another, God the creator seal you to a good year. For they conceive that the books are now sealed up, and that the sentence of God remains unchanged henceforward to the end of the year. The same thing is signified by the two Goats, upon whose foreheads the High-Priest yearly, on the day of expiation, lays the two lots inscribed, For God and For Azazel ; God's lot signifying the people who are sealed with the name of God in their foreheads ; and the lot AZAZEL, which was sent into the wilderness, repre- senting those who receive the mark and name of the Beast, and go into the wilderness with the great Whore. The servants of God being therefore sealed in the day of expiation, we may conceive that this sealing is synchronal to the visions which appear upon opening the seventh seal ; and that when the Lamb had opened six of the seals and seen the visions relating to the inside of the sixth, he looked on the backside of the seventh leaf, and then saw the four Angels holding the four winds of heaven, and another Angel ascending from the East with the seal of God. Con- ceive also, that the Angels which held the four winds were the first four of the seven Angels, who upon opening the seventh seal were seen standing before God ; and that upon their holding the winds, there was silence in heaven for half an hour ; and that while the servants of God were sealing, the Angel with the golden Censer offered their prayers with incense upon the golden Altar, and read the Law : and that so soon as they were sealed, the winds hurt the earth at the sounding of the first trumpet, and the sea at the sounding of the second ; these winds signifying CHAP, n] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 317 the wars, to which the first four trumpets sounded. For as the first four seals are distinguished from the three last by the appearance of four horsemen towards the four winds of heaven ; so the wars of the first four trumpets are distinguished from those of the three last, by representing these by four winds, and the others by three great woes. In one of EZEKIEL'S visions (chap, ix.) when the BABY- LONIAN captivity was at hand, six men appeared with slaugh- ter-weapons ; and a seventh, who appeared among them clothed in white linen and a writer's ink-horn by his side, is com- manded to go thro 1 the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations done in the midst thereof: and then the six men, like the Angels of the first six trumpets, are com- manded to slay those men who are not marked. Conceive therefore that the hundred forty and four thousand are sealed, to preserve them from the plagues of the first six trumpets ; and that at length by the preaching of the everlasting gospel, they grow into a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people and tongues : and at the sounding of the seventh trumpet come out of the great tribulation with Palms in their hands : the kingdoms of this world, by the war to which that trumpet sounds, becoming the kingdoms of God and his Christ. For the solemnity of the great HOSANNAH was kept by the JEWS upon the seventh or last day of the feast of taber- nacles ; the JEWS upon that day carrying Palms in their hands, and crying HOSANNAH. After six of the Angels, answering to the six men with slaughter- weapons, had sounded their trumpets, the Lamb in the form of a mighty Angel came down from heaven clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the Sun, and his feet as pillars of fire, the shape in which CHRIST appeared in the beginning of this Prophecy ; and he had in his hand a little book open, the book which he had newly opened ; for he received but one book from him that sitteth upon the throne, and he alone was worthy to open and look on this book. And 818 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth. It was the custom for the High- Priest on the day of expiation, to stand in an elevated place in the peoples court, at the Eastern gate of the Priests court, and read the Law to the people, while the Heifer and the Goat which was the Lord's lot, were burning without the Temple. We may therefore suppose him standing in such a manner that his right foot might appear to JOHN as it were standing on the sea of glass, and his left foot on the ground of the house ; and that he cried with a loud voice, in reading the Law on the day of expiation. And when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. Thunders are the voice of a cloud, and a cloud signifies a multitude, and this multitude may be the LEVITES, who sang with thundering voices, and played with musical instruments at the great sacrifices, on the seven days of the feast of Tabernacles : at which times the trumpets also sounded. For the trumpets sounded, and the LEVITES sang alternately, three times at every sacrifice. The Prophecy therefore of the seven thunders is nothing else than a repetition of the Prophecy of the seven trumpets in another form. And the Angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, that after the seven thunders there should be time no longer ; but in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the Prophets. The voices of the thunders therefore last to the end of this world, and so do those of the trumpets. And the voice which I heard from heaven, saith JOHN, spake unto me again and said, Go and take the little book, &c. And I took the little book out of the AngeVs hand, and ate it up ; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. This is an introduction to a new Prophecy, to a repetition of the Prophecy of the whole CHAP, n] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 319 book ; and alludes to EZEKIEL'S eating a roll or book spread open before him, and written within and without, full of lamentations and mourning and woe, but sweet in his mouth. Eating and drinking signify acquiring and possessing ; and eating the book is becoming inspired with the Prophecy contained in it. It implies being inspired in a vigorous and extraordinary manner with the Prophecy of the whole book, and therefore signifies a lively repetition of the whole Prophecy by way of interpretation, and begins not till the first Prophecy, that of the seals and trumpets, is ended. It was sweet in JOHN'S mouth, and therefore begins not with the bitter Prophecy of the BABYLONIAN captivity, and the GENTILES being in the outward court of the Temple, and treading the holy city under foot ; and the prophesying of the TWO WITNESSES in sackcloth, and their smiting the earth with all plagues, and being killed by the Beast : but so soon as the Prophecy of the trumpets is ended, it begins with the sweet Prophecy of the glorious WOMAN IN HEAVEN, and the victory of MICHAEL over the Dragon ; and after that, it is bitter in JOHN'S belly, by a large description of the times of the great Apostacy. And the Angel stood, upon the earth and sea, saying. Rise and measure the Temple of God and the Altar, and them that worship therein, that is, their courts with the buildings thereon, viz. the square court of the Temple called the separate place, and the square court of the Altar called the Priests court, and the court of them that worship in the Temple called the new court : but the great court which is without the Temple, leave out, and measure it not, for it is given to the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. This measuring hath reference to EZEKIEL'S measuring the Temple of SOLOMON : there the whole Temple, including the outward court, was measured, to signify that it should be rebuilt in the latter days. Here the courts of the Temple and Altar, and they who worship therein, are only measured, to signify the building of a second Temple, for those that are sealed out of all the twelve tribes of ISRAEL, and worship in the 22 820 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n inward court of sincerity and truth : but JOHN is com- manded to leave out the outward court, or outward form of religion and Church-government, because it is given to the BABYLONIAN GENTILES. For the glorious woman in heaven, the remnant of whose seed kept the command- ments of God, and had the testimony of JESUS, continued the same woman in outward form after her flight into the wilderness, whereby she quitted her former sincerity and piety, and became the great Whore. She lost her chastity, but kept her outward form and shape. And while the GENTILES tread the holy city underfoot, and worship in the outward court, the two witnesses, represented perhaps by the two feet of the Angel standing on the sea and earth, prophesied against them, and had power, like ELIJAH and MOSES, to consume their enemies with fire proceeding out of their mouth, and to shut heaven that it rain not in the days of their Prophecy, and to turn the waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will, that is, with the plagues of the trumpets and vials of wrath ; and at length they are slam, rise again from the dead, and ascend up to heaven in a cloud ; and then the seventh trumpet sounds to the day of judgment. The Prophecy being finished, JOHN is inspired anew by the eaten book, and begins the Interpretation thereof with these words, And the Temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his Temple the Ark of the Testament. By the Ark, we may know that this was the first Temple ; for the second Temple had no Ark. And there were light- nings, and voices, and thundrings, and an earthquake, and great hail. These answer to the wars in the ROMAN Empire, during the reign of the four horsemen, who appeared upon opening the first four seals. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the Sun. In the Prophecy, the affairs of the Church begin to be con- sidered at the opening of the fifth seal ; and in the Interpre- tation, they begin at the same time with the vision of the Church in the form of a woman in heaven : there she Is persecuted, and here she is pained in travail. The Inter- CHAP, ii] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 321 pretation proceeds down first to the sealing of the servants of God, and marking the rest with the mark of the Beast ; and then to the day of judgment, represented by a harvest and vintage. Then it returns back to the times of opening the seventh seal, and interprets the Prophecy of the seven trumpets by the pouring out of seven vials of wrath. The Angels who pour them out, come out of the TEMPLE OF THE TABERNACLE ; that is, out of the second Temple, for the Tabernacle had no outward court. Then it returns back again to the times of measuring the Temple and Altar, and of the GENTILES worshipping in the outward court, and of the Beast killing the witnesses in the streets of the great city ; and interprets these things by the vision of a woman sitting on the Beast, drunken with the blood of the Saints ; and proceeds in the Interpretation down- wards to the fall of the great city and the day of judgment. The whole Prophecy of the book, represented by the book of the Law, is therefore repeated, and interpreted in the visions which follow those of sounding the seventh trumpet, and begin with that of the Temple of God opened in heaven. Only the things, which the seven thunders uttered, were not written down, and therefore not inter- preted. CHAPTER III OF THE RELATION WHICH THE PROPHECY OF JOHN HATH TO THOSE OF DANIEL ; AND OF THE SUBJECT OF THE PROPHECY THE whole scene of sacred Prophecy is composed of three principal parts : the regions beyond EUPHRATES, repre- sented by the two first Beasts of DANIEL ; the Empire of the GREEKS on this side of EUPHRATES, represented by the Leopard and by the He-Goat ; and the Empire of the LATINS on this side of GREECE, represented by the Beast with ten horns. And to these three parts, the phrases of the third part of the earth, sea, rivers, trees, ships, stars, sun, and moon, relate. I place the body of the fourth Beast on this side of GREECE, because the three first of the four Beasts had their lives prolonged after their dominion was taken away, and therefore belong not to the body of the fourth. He only stamped them with his feet. By the earth, the JEWS understood the great continent of all ASIA and AFRICA, to which they had access by land : and by the Isles of the sea, they understood the places to which they sailed by sea, particularly all EUROPE : and hence in this Prophecy, the earth and sea are put for the nations of the GREEK and LATIN Empires. The third and fourth Beasts of DANIEL are the same with the Dragon and ten-horned Beast of JOHN, but with this difference : JOHN puts the Dragon for the whole ROMAN Empire while it continued entire, because it was entire when that Prophecy was given ; and the Beast he considers not till the Empire became divided : and then he puts the Dragon for the Empire of the GREEKS, and 322 CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 823 the Beast for the Empire of the LATINS. Hence it is that the Dragon and Beast have common heads and common horns : but the Dragon hath crowns only upon his heads, and the Beast only upon his horns ; because the Beast and his horns reigned not before they were divided from the Dragon : and when the Dragon gave the Beast his throne, the ten horns received power as Kings, the same hour with the Beast. The heads are seven successive Kings. Four of them were the four horsemen which appeared at the opening of the first four seals. In the latter end of the sixth head, or seal, considered as present in the visions, it is said five of the seven Kings are fallen, and one is, and another is not yet come ; and the Beast that was and is not, being wounded to death with a sword, he is the eighth, and of the seven : he was therefore a collateral part of the seventh. The horns are the same with those of DANIEL'S fourth Beast, described above. The four horsemen which appear at the opening of the first four seals, have been well explained by Mr. MEDE ; excepting that I had rather continue the third to the end of the reign of the three GORDIANS and PHILIP the ARABIAN, those being Kings from the SOUTH, and begin the fourth with the reign of DECIUS, and continue it till the reign of DIOCLESIAN. For the fourth horseman sat upon a pale horse, and his name was Death ; and hell followed with him ; and power was given them to kill unto the fourth part of the earth, with the sword, and with famine, and with the plague, and with the Beasts of the earth, or armies of invaders and rebels : and as such were the times during all this interval. Hitherto the ROMAN Empire continued in an undivided monarchical form, except rebellions ; and such it is repre- sented by the four horsemen. But DIOCLESIAN divided it between himself and MAXIMIANUS, A. C. 285 ; and it con- tinued in that divided state, till the victory of CONSTANTINE the great over LICINIUS, A. C. 823, which put an end to the heathen persecutions set on foot by DIOCLESIAN and MAXIMIANUS, and described at the opening of the fifth seal. But this division of the Empire was imperfect, the 824 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n whole being still under one and the same Senate. The same victory of CONSTANTINE over LICINIUS a heathen persecutor, began the fall of the heathen Empire, described at the opening of the sixth seal : and the visions of this seal continue till after the reign of JULIAN the Apostate, he being a heathen Emperor, and reigning over the whole ROMAN Empire. The affairs of the Church begin to be considered at the opening of the fifth seal, as was said above. Then she is represented by a woman in the Temple of heaven, clothed with the sun of righteousness, and the moon of JEWISH ceremonies under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars relating to the twelve Apostles and to the twelve tribes of ISRAEL. When she fled from the Temple into the wilderness, she left in the Temple a remnant of her seed, who kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ ; and therefore before her flight she represented the true primitive Church of God, tho' afterwards she degenerated like AHOLAH and AHOLIBAH. In DIOCLESIAN'S persecution she cried, travelling in birth, and pained to be delivered. And in the end of that persecu- tion, by the victory of CONSTANTINE over MAXENTIUS, A. C. 812, she brought forth a man-child, such a child as was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, a CHRISTIAN Empire. And her child, by the victory of CONSTANTINE over LICINIUS, A. C. 323, was caught up unto God and to his throne. And the woman, by the division of the ROMAN Empire into the GREEK and LATIN Empires, fled from the first Temple into the wilderness, or spiritually barren Empire of the LATINS, where she is found afterwards sitting upon the Beast and upon the seven mountains ; and is called the great city which reigneth over the Kings of the earth, that is, over the ten Kings who give their kingdom to her Beast. But before her flight there was war in heaven between MICHAEL and the Dragon, the CHRISTIAN and the heathen religions ; and the Dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, who deceiveth the whole world, was cast out to the earth, and his Angels were cast out with him. And JOHN CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 825 heard a voice in heaven, saying, Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ : for the accuser of our brethren is cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe be to the inhabiters of the earth and sea, or people of the GREEK and LATIN Empires, for the devil is come down amongst you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast down from the ROMAN throne, and the man-child caught up thither, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child ; and to her, by the division of the ROMAN Empire between the cities of ROME and CONSTANTINOPLE, A. C. 330, were given two wings of a great eagle, the symbol of the ROMAN Empire, that she might flee from the first Temple into the wilderness of ARABIA, to her place at BABYLON mystically so called. And the serpent, by the division of the same Empire between the sons of CONSTANTINE the great, A. C. 837, cast out of his mouth water as a flood, the WESTERN Empire, after the woman ; that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. And the earth, or GREEK Empire, helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood, by the victory of CONSTANTIUS over MAG- NENTIUS, A. C. 353, and thus the Beast was wounded to death with a sword. And the Dragon was wroth with the woman, in the reign of JULIAN the Apostate, A. C. 361, and, by a new division of the Empire between VALENTINIAN and VALENS, A. C. 864, went from her into the EASTERN Empire to make war with the remnant of her seed, which she left behind her when she fled ; and thus the Beast revived. By the next division of the Empire, which was between GRATIAN and THEODOSIUS, A. C. 879, the Beast with ten horns rose out of the sea, and the Beast with two horns out of the earth : and by the last division thereof, which was between the sons of THEODOSIUS, A. C. 895, the Dragon gave the Beast his power and throne, and great authority. 826 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n And the ten horns received power as Kings, the same hour with the Beast. At length the woman arrived at her place of temporal as well as spiritual dominion upon the back of the Beast, where she is nourished a time, and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent ; not in his kingdom, but at a distance from him. She is nourished by the merchants of the earth, three times or years and an half, or 42 months, or 1260 days : and in these Prophecies days are put for years. During all this time the Beast acted, and she sat upon him, that is, reigned over him, and over the ten Kings who gave their power and strength, that is, their kingdom to the Beast ; and she was drunken with the blood of the Saints. By all these circumstances she is the eleventh horn of DANIEL'S fourth Beast, who reigned with a look more stout than his fellows, and was of a different kind from the rest, and had eyes and a mouth like the woman ; and made war with the saints, and prevailed against them, and wore them out, and thought to change times and laws, and had them given into his hand, until a time, and times, and half a time. These characters of the woman, and little horn of the Beast, agree perfectly : in respect of her temporal dominion, she was a horn of the Beast ; in respect of her spiritual dominion, she rode upon him in the form of a woman, and was his Church, and committed fornication with the ten Kings. The second Beast, which rose up out of the earth, was the Church of the GREEK Empire : for it had two horns like those of the Lamb, and therefore was a Church ; and it spake as the Dragon, and therefore was of his religion ; and it came up out of the earth, and by consequence in his kingdom. It is called also the false Prophet who wrought miracles before the first Beast, by which he deceived them that received his mark, and worshipped his image. When the Dragon went from the woman to make war with the remnant of her seed, this Beast arising out of the earth assisted in that war, and caused the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the authority of the first Beast, whose CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 827 mortal wound was healed, and to make an Image to him, that is, to assemble a body of men like him in point of religion. He had also power to give life and authority to the Image, so that it could both speak, and by dictating cause that all religious bodies of men, who would not worship the authority of the Image, should be mystically killed. And he causeth all men to receive a mark in their right hand or in their fore- head, and that no man might buy or sell save he that had the mark, or the name of the Beast, or the number of his name ; all the rest being excommunicated by the Beast with two horns. His mark is ^ > ^ and his name AATEINOS, and the number of his name 666. Thus the Beast, after he was wounded to death with a sword and revived, was deified, as the heathens used to deify their Kings after death, and had an Image erected to him ; and his worshippers were initiated in this new religion, by receiving the mark or name of this new God, or the number of his name. By killing all that will not worship him and his Image, the first Temple, illuminated by the lamps of the seven Churches, is demolished, and a new Temple built for them who will not worship him ; and the outward court of this new Temple, or outward form of a Church, is given to the GENTILES, who worship the Beast and his Image : while they who will not worship him, are sealed with the name of God in their foreheads, and retire into the inward court of this new Temple. These are the 144000 sealed out of all the twelve tribes of ISRAEL, and called the two Witnesses, as being derived from the two wings of the woman while she was flying into the wilderness, and represented by two of the seven candlesticks. These appear to JOHN in the inward court of the second Temple, standing on mount SIGN with the Lamb, and as it were on the sea of glass. These are the Saints of the most High, and the host of heaven, and the holy people spoken of by DANIEL, as worn out and trampled under foot, and destroyed in the latter times by the little horns of his fourth Beast and He- Goat. While the GENTILES tread the holy city under foot, God 328 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n gives power to his two Witnesses, and they prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days clothed in sackcloth. They are called the two Olive-trees, with relation to the two Olive- trees, which in ZECHARY'S vision, chap. iv. stand on either side of the golden candlestick to supply the lamps with oil : and Olive-trees, according to the Apostle PAUL, represent Churches, ROM. xi. They supply the lamps with oil, by maintaining teachers. They are also called the two candle- sticks ; which in this Prophecy signify Churches, the seven Churches of ASIA being represented by seven candlesticks. Five of these Churches were found faulty, and threatned if they did not repent ; the other two were without fault, and so their candlesticks were fit to be placed in the second Temple. These were the Churches in SMYRNA and PHILA- DELPHIA. They were in a state of tribulation and persecu- tion, and the only two of the seven in such a state ; and so their candlesticks were fit to represent the Churches in affliction in the times of the second Temple, and the only two of the seven that were fit. The two Witnesses are not new Churches : they are the posterity of the primitive Church, the posterity of the two wings of the woman, and so are fitly represented by two of the primitive candlesticks. We may conceive therefore, that when the first Temple was destroyed, and a new one built for them who worship in the inward court, two of the seven candlesticks were placed in this new Temple. The Affairs of the Church are not considered during the opening of the first four seals. They begin to be consider'd at the opening of the fifth seal, as was said above ; and are further considered at the opening of the sixth seal ; and the seventh seal contains the times of the great Apostacy. And therefore I refer the Epistles to the seven Churches unto the times of the fifth and sixth seals : for they relate to the Church when she began to decline, and contain admonitions against the great Apostacy then approaching. When EUSEBIUS had brought down his Ecclesiastical History to the reign of DIOCLESIAN, he thus describes the state of the Church : " Truly we could never adequately CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 329 describe the nature and extent of the glory and liberty, which the doctrine of true piety towards the God of Heaven (a doctrine first proclaimed to all by CHRIST) secured for itself everywhere, both among GREEKS and BARBARIANS, prior to the persecution which began within my own recollection. But we might point to the kindness of the Emperors towards our brethren : they even entrusted to them the government of whole provinces and freed them from all fear of having to sacrifice to idols, such was the remarkable good-will displayed by them towards our religion." And a little after he says : " But further who could ever give a detailed account of the innumerable hosts of men who daily found refuge in belief on CHRIST, of the number of Churches in every city, or the distinguished congregations that gathered in the sacred edifices. The result of this enthusiasm was that, becoming dissatisfied with the ancient buildings, in every city theyreared churches on a grandiose scale from the very foundations. In the process of time these buildings were enlarged and every day grew to something greater and better : nor could they be harmed by envy, nor bewitched by the spite of the Evil One, nor hindered in their progress by the unbelief of men, so long as the right arm of God Almighty shielded and guarded His people, and while His people merited such protection. But in time our absolute free- dom led us into negligence and sloth : men began to envy and abuse their neighbours : we used to wage amongst ourselves a kind of civil war wounding each other, blow for blow, with words instead of arms and spears ; priests against priests, peoples against peoples, stirred up feuds and tumults ; in short deceit and hypocrisy reached the highest pitch of wickedness. Then at last divine ven- geance, gradually and gently began to stir against us at first with light stroke as is its wont : the status of the Church still remained unimpaired : the masses of the faithful were still at liberty to assemble ; and the persecu- tion first began against the militant party. But in our folly we gave not a thought to appeasing the Majesty of 830 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n God, but rather imagining like infidels that Providence controls not the affairs of men, day by day we added fresh sin to that of the past : our Pastors spurning the ordinances of religion, strove and quarreled the one with the other ; setting themselves to nothing else than to widen the dis- putes, to increase their threats and to intensify the rivalry, passions and enmity they bore to one another ; and with the utmost vehemence claiming for themselves the Primacy as though it were by a kind of tyranny. Then it was that in the words of JEREMIAH, * The Lord covered the daughter of ZION with a cloud in His anger and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of ISRAEL,' that is by the overthrow of the Churches." This was the state of the Church just before the subversion of the Churches in the beginning of DIOCLESIAN'S persecution : and to this state of the Church agrees the first of the seven Epistles to the Angel of the seven Churches, that to the Church in EPHESUS (Apoc. ii. 4. &c.): I have something against thee, saith CHRIST to the Angel of that Church, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works ; or else 1 will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. The NICOLAITANS are the CONTINENTES above described, who placed religion in abstinence from marriage, abandoning their wives if they had any. They are here called NICO- LAITANS, from NICOLAS one of the seven deacons of the pri- mitive Church of JERUSALEM ; who having a beautiful wife, and being taxed with uxoriousness, abandoned her, and permitted her to marry whom she pleased, saying that we must disuse the flesh ; and thenceforward lived a single life in continency, as his children also. The CONTINENTES afterwards embraced the doctrine of ^EoNS and Ghosts male and female, and were avoided by the Churches till the fourth century ; and the Church of EPHESUS is here commended for hating their deeds. The persecution of DIOCLESIAN began in the year of CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 331 CHRIST 302, and lasted ten years in the EASTERN Empire and two years in the WESTERN. To this state of the Church the second Epistle, to the Church of SMYRNA, agrees. / know, saith CHRIST, thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich ; and I know the blasphemy of them, which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer : Behold, the Devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. The tribula- tion of ten days can agree to no other persecution than that of DIOCLESIAN, it being the only persecution which lasted ten years. By the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan, I understand the Idolatry of the NICOLAITANS, who falsly said they were CHRISTIANS. The NICOLAITANS are complained of also in the third Epistle (ver. 14.), as men that held the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to Idols, and to commit spiritual fornication (NUMB. xxv. 1, 2, 18. & xxxi. 16.). For BALAAM taught the MOABITES and MIDIANITES to tempt and invite ISRAEL by their women to commit forni- cation, and to feast with them at the sacrifices of their Gods. The Dragon therefore began now to come down among the inhabitants of the earth and sea. The NICOLAITANS are also complained of in the fourth Epistle, under the name of the woman Jezabel, who calleth herself a Prophetess, to teach and to seduce the servants of Christ to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to Idols. The woman therefore began now to fly into the wilderness. The reign of CONSTANTINE the great from the time of his conquering LICINIUS, was monarchical over the whole ROMAN Empire. Then the Empire became divided between the sons of CONSTANTINE : and afterwards it was again united under CONSTANTIUS, by his victory over MAGNEN- TIUS. To the affairs of the Church in these three successive 832 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PAET n periods of time, the third, fourth, and fifth Epistles, that is, those to the Angels of the Churches in PERGAMUS, THYATIRA, and SARDIS, seem to relate. The next Emperor was JULIAN the Apostate. In the sixth Epistle, to the Angel of the Church in PHILADELPHIA (Apoc. iii. 10, 12.) CHRIST saith : Because in the reign of the heathen Emperor JULIAN, thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep theefrom the hour of temptation, which by the woman's flying into the wilderness, and the Dragon's making war with the remnant of her seed, and the killing of all who will not worship the Image of the Beast, shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth, and to distinguish them by sealing the one with the name of God in their foreheads, and marking the other with the mark of the Beast. Him that overcometh, I will make a pillar in the Temple of my God ; and he shall go no more out of it. And I will write upon him the name of my God in his forehead. So the CHRISTIANS of the Church of PHILADELPHIA, as many of them as overcome, are sealed with the seal of God, and placed in the second Temple, and go no more out. The same is to be understood of the Church in SMYRNA, which also kept the word of God's patience, and was without fault. These two Churches, with their posterity, are therefore the two Pillars, and the two candlesticks, and the two Witnesses in the second Temple. After the reign of the Emperor JULIAN, and his successor JOVIAN, who reigned but five months, the Empire became again divided between VALENTINIAN and VALENS. Then the Church Catholick, in the Epistle to the Angel of the Church of LAODICEA, is reprehended as lukewarm (Apoc. iii. 16, 17.) and threatned to be spewed out O/CHRIST'S mouth. She said, that she was rich and increased with goods, and had need of nothing, being in outward prosperity ; and knew not that she was inwardly wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. She is therefore spewed out O/CHRIST'S mouth at the opening of the seventh seal : and this puts an end to the times of the first Temple. About one half of the ROMAN Empire turned CHRISTIANS CHAP, ni] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 833 in the time of CONSTANTINE the great and his sons. After JULIAN had opened the Temples, and restored the worship of the heathens, the Emperors VALENTINIAN and VALENS tolerated it all their reign ; and therefore the Prophecy of the sixth seal was not fully accomplished before the reign of their successor GRATIAN. It was the custom of the heathen Priests, in the beginnning of the reign of every sovereign Emperor, to offer him the dignity and habit of the PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. This dignity all Emperors had hitherto accepted : but GRATIAN rejected it, threw down the idols, interdicted the sacrifices, and took away their revenues with the salaries and authority of the Priests. THEODOSIUS the great followed his example ; and heathen- ism afterwards recovered itself no more, but decreased so fast, that PRUDENTIUS, about ten years after the death of THEODOSIUS, called the heathens " merely a few intellectuals and a minute fraction of mankind." Whence the affairs of the sixth seal ended with the reign of VALENS, or rather with the beginning of the reign of THEODOSIUS when he, like his predecessor GRATIAN, rejected the dignity of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. For the ROMANS were very much infested by the invasions of foreign nations in the reign of VALENTINIAN and VALENS : " At this time," saith AMMIANUS, "you might have thought that through the whole ROMAN world, trumpets were blowing for war ; and that, excited by the sound, the fiercest tribes were leaping across the frontiers that lay nearest to them. The GALLIC and RHJBTIAN Provinces were simultaneously ravaged by the ALEMANNI ; the Provinces of PANNONIA by the SARMAT^S and the QUADI : while the BRITONS were being constantly harassed and raided by the PICTS, SAXONS, SCOTS, and ATTACOTTI. The AUSTORIANS and the other MOORISH tribes made deeper incursions than usual into the Province of AFRICA. The THRACIAN Provinces were plundered by marauding bands of GOTHS : and the King of PERSIA was always sending his forces against the ARMENIANS." And whilst the Emperors were busy in repelling these enemies, the HUNNS and ALANS and GOTHS came over the DANUBE 884 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n in two bodies, overcame and slew VALENS, and made so great a slaughter of the ROMAN army, that AMMIANUS saith : " No action in history, with the exception of CANNAE, was ever carried to a bloodier termination than this." These wars were not fully stopt on all sides till the beginning of the reign of THEODOSIUS, A. C. 379 & 380 : but thence- forward the Empire remained quiet from foreign armies, till his death, A. C. 395. So long the four winds were held : and so long there was silence in heaven. And the seventh seal was opened when this silence began. Mr. MEDE hath explained the Prophecy of the first six trumpets not much amiss : but if he had observed, that the Prophecy of pouring out the vials of wrath is synchronal to that of sounling the trumpets, his explanation would have been yet more complete. The name of WOES is given to the wars to which the three last trumpets sound, to distinguish them from the wars of the four first. The sacrifices on the first four days of the feast of Tabernacles, at which the first four trumpets sound, and the first four vials of wrath are poured out, are slaughters in four great wars ; and these wars are repre- sented by four winds from the four corners of the earth. The first was an east wind, the second a west wind, the third a south wind, and the fourth a north wind, with respect to the city of ROME, the metropolis of the old ROMAN Empire. These four plagues fell upon the third part of the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon, and Stars ; that is, upon the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars of the third part of the whole scene of these Prophecies of DANIEL and JOHN. The plague of the eastern wind at the sounding of the first trumpet, was to fall upon the EARTH, that is, upon the nations of the GREEK Empire. Accordingly, after the death of THEODOSIUS the great, the GOTHS, SARMATIANS, HUNNS, ISAURIANS and AUSTORIAN Moors invaded and miserably wasted GREECE, THRACE, ASIA MINOR, ARMENIA, SYRIA, EGYPT, LYBIA, and ILLYRICUM, for ten or twelve years together. The plague of the western wind at the sounding of the CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 335 second trumpet, was to fall upon the SEA, or WESTERN Empire, by means of a great mountain burning with fire cast into it, and turning it to blood. Accordingly in the year 407, that Empire began to be invaded by the VISIGOTHS, VANDALS, ALANS, SUEVES, BURGUNDIANS, OSTROGOTHS, HERULI, QUADI, GEPIDES ; and by these wars it was broken into ten kingdoms, and miserably wasted : and ROME itself, the burning mountain, was besieged and taken by the OSTROGOTHS, in the beginning of these miseries. The plague of the southern wind at the sounding of the third trumpet, was to cause a great star, burning as it were a lamp, to fall from heaven upon the rivers and fountains of waters, the WESTERN Empire, now divided into many kingdoms, and to turn them to wormwood and blood, and make them bitter. Accordingly GENSERIC, the King of the VANDALS and ALANS in SPAIN, A. C. 427, enter'd AFRICA with an army of eighty thousand men ; where he invaded the MOORS, and made war upon the ROMANS, both there and on the sea-coasts of EUROPE, for fifty years together, almost without intermission, taking HIPPO A. C. 431, and CARTHAGE, the capital of AFRICA A. C. 439. In A. C. 455, with a numerous fleet and an Army of three hundred thousand VANDALS and MOORS, he invaded ITALY, took and plundered ROME, NAPLES, CAPUA, and many other cities ; carrying thence their wealth with the flower of the people into AFRICA : and the next year,. A. C. 456, he rent all AFRICA from the Empire, totally expelling the ROMANS. Then the VANDALS invaded and took the Islands of the MEDITERRANEAN, SICILY, SAR- DINIA, CORSICA, EBUSUS, MAJORCA, MINORCA, &c. and RICIMER besieged the Emperor ANTHEMIUS in ROME, took the city, and gave his soldiers the plunder, A. C. 472. The VISIGOTHS about the same time drove the ROMANS out of SPAIN : and now the WESTERN Emperor, the great star which fell from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, having by all these wars gradually lost almost all his dominions, was invaded, and conquered in one year by ODOACER King of the HERULI, A. C. 476. After this the 23 336 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n MOORS revolted A. C. 477, and weakned the VANDALS by several wars, and took MAURITANIA from them. These wars continued till the VANDALS were conquered by BELI- SARIUS, A. C. 534, and by all these wars AFRICA was almost depopulated, according to PROCOPIUS, who reckons that above five millions of men perished in them. When the VANDALS first invaded AFRICA, that country was very populous, consisting of about 700 bishopricks, more than were in all France, SPAIN and ITALY together : but by the wars between the VANDALS, ROMANS and MOORS, it was depopulated to that degree, that PROCOPIUS tells us, it was next to a miracle for a traveller to see a man. In pouring out the third vial it is said (Aroc. xvi. 5, 6.) : Thou art righteous, Lord, because thou hast judged thus : for they have shed the blood of thy Saints and Prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. How they shed the blood of Saints, may be understood by the following Edict of the Emperor HONORIUS, procured by four Bishops sent to him by a Council of AFRICAN Bishops, who met at CARTHAGE 14 JUNE, A. C. 410. " The Emperors HONORIUS and THEODOSIUS to HERA- CLIANUS Governor of AFRICA. " Now that the shrine, whither they stole to practise their Tites of heretical superstition, has been utterly demolished let all enemies of the Holy Law take notice that they will suffer the punishment both of outlawry and of blood, if henceforth in their accursed and criminal insolence they .attempt to assemble in public. Given on the 25th August, in the Consulship of VERANUS, A. C. 410." Which Edict was five years after fortified by the fol- lowing : " The Emperors HONORIUS and THEODOSIUS, to HERACLI- ANUS, Governor of AFRICA." *' Let all enemies of the Holy Law, who in heretical superstition, have crept to the performance of their rites, CHAP, m] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 337 take notice that they must suffer the punishment both of outlawry and of blood ; if henceforth they essay to assemble in public impudently to practise this abomination. This we command lest anywhere reverence for the true God should by contagion with them be defiled. Given on the 25th AUGUST, in the Consulship of HONORIUS and THEO- DOSIUS, A. C. 415." These Edicts being directed to the governor of AFRICA, extended only to the AFRICANS. Before these there were many severe ones against the DONATISTS, but they did not extend to blood. These two were the first which made their meetings, and the meetings of all dissenters, capital : for by hereticks in these Edicts are meant all dissenters, as is manifest by the following against EURESIUS a LUCIFERAN Bishop. " The Emperors ARCADIUS and HONORIUS to AURELIANUS, Procurator of AFRICA. " All who have even on trivial evidence been found to dissent from the judgment of the Catholic Church and to deviate from its course, are within the meaning of the word ' heretic ' and must come under the laws enacted against them. " Dat. iii. NON. SEPT. CONSTANTINO?. OLYBRIO & PROBING Coss. A. C. 395." The GREEK Emperor ZENO adopted THEODERIC King of the OSTROGOTHS to be his son, made him Master of the horse and PATRICIUS, and Consul of CONSTANTINOPLE ; and recommending to him the ROMAN people and Senate, gave him the WESTERN Empire, and sent him into ITALY against ODOACER King of the HERULJ. THEODERIC thereupon led his nation into ITALY, conquered ODOACER, and reigned over ITALY, SICILY, RII.ETIA, NORICUM, DALMATIA, Li- BURNIA, ISTRIA, and part of SUEVIA, PANNONIA and GALLIA. Whence ENNODIUS said, in a Panegyric to THEODERIC : that " he had restored the ROMAN EMPIRE to its ancient 338 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n frontiers." THEODERIC reigned with great prudence, moderation and felicity ; treated the ROMANS with singu- lar benevolence, governed them by their own laws, and restored their government under their Senate and Consuls he himself supplying the place of Emperor, without assuming the title. " So far did he excel his predecessors," saith PROCOPIUS, " that in truth he lacked no glory meet for an Emperor. He had a great love of Justice and was constant in the protection he afforded to the law. He preserved his territory intact from the neighbouring barbarians," &c. Whence I do not reckon the reign of this King, amongst the plagues of the four winds. The plague of the northern wind, at the sounding of the fourth trumpet, was to cause the Sun, Moon and Stars, that is, the King, kingdom and Princes of the WESTERN Empire, to be darkned, and to continue some time in darkness. Accordingly BELISARIUS, having conquered the VANDALS, invaded ITALY A. C. 535, and made war upon the OSTROGOTHS inDALMATiA, LIBURNIA,VENETIA,LOMBARDY, TUSCANY, and other regions northward from ROME, twenty years together. In this war many cities were taken and retaken. In retaking MILLAIN from the ROMANS, the OSTRO- GOTHS slew all the males young and old, amounting, as PROCOPIUS reckons, to three hundred thousand, and sent the women captives to their allies the BURGUNDIANS. ROME itself was taken and retaken several times, and there- by the people were thinned ; the old government by a Senate ceased, the nobles were ruined, and all the glory of the city was extinguish'd : and A. C. 552, after a war of seventeen years, the kingdom of the OSTROGOTHS fell ; yet the remainder of the OSTROGOTHS, and an army of GERMANS called in to their assistance, continued the war three or four years longer. Then ensued the war of the HERULI, who, as ANASTASIUS tells us, perimebant cunctam Italiam, slew all ITALY. This was followed by the war of the LOMBARDS, the fiercest of all the BARBARIANS, which began A. C. 568, and lasted for thirty-eight years together ; '* with slaughter," saith ANASTASIUS, " such as cannot be CHAP, m] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 339 recalled in the past " ; ending at the last in the Papacy of SABINIAN, A. C. 605, by a peace then made with the LOMBARDS. Three years before this war ended, GREGORY the great, then Bishop of ROME, thus speaks of it : *' In no words of description can we fully tell how for a period now of 35 years, we have been harassed with daily fighting and numerous incursions of the LONGOBARDI " : and in one of his Sermons to the people, he thus expresses the great consumption of the ROMANS by these wars : " Your own eyes behold how few of you remain out of a once countless people, and even yet, day after day, one scourge and another harries us ; sudden misfortunes overwhelm us ; new and unforeseen disasters crush us." In another Sermon he thus describes the desolations : " Our cities are destroyed : our armaments overthrown : our fields laid waste : our land made a wilderness. None now lives in the country, and there is hardly a single dweller left in the cities. And yet these small remnants of the human race, endlessly, day by day, are still under the lash, and the scourging of wrath divine knows no end. And ROME that once was thought the mistress of the world, our eyes see all this that is left of her, wasted in countless ways by countless sorrows, by the desolations of her citizens, the violence of the foe, and the recurrence of disasters. Lo, all the powerful men of this generation have been swept away from her. See, the peoples are in revolt. Where is the Senate ? Where the people ? Their bones have wasted away and their flesh has smouldered. For the whole order of lay dignitaries is extinct. And yet we few who survive, ever day by day we are threatened by the sword and by countless tribulations. A tenantless ROME is in her agony. But whyspeak such words of men only, when we see the very houses tumbling down as disasters multiply ? Even the walls fall when men forsake them. See now ! ROME is desolated ! See, she is broken ; See ! she is overwhelmned with sorrow," &c. All this was spoken by GREGORY to the people of ROME, who were witnesses of the truth of it. Thus by the plagues of the four winds, the Empire of the GREEKS was shaken, and 340 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n the Empire of the LATINS fell ; and ROME remained nothing more than the capital of a poor dukedom, subordinate to RAVENNA, the seat of the Exarchs. The fifth trumpet sounded to the wars, which the King of the South, as he is called by DANIEL, made in the time of the end, in pushing at the King who did according to his will. This plague began with the opening of the bottomless pit, which denotes the letting out of a false religion : the smoke which came out of the pit, signifying the multitude which embraced that religion ; and the locusts which came out of the smoke, the armies which came out of that multitude. This pit was opened, to let out smoke and locusts into the regions of the four monarchies, or some of them. The King of these locusts was the Angel of the bottomless pit, being chief governor as well in religious as civil affairs, such as was the Caliph of the SARACENS. Swarms of locusts often arise in ARABIA F^ELIX, and from thence infest the neigh- bouring nations : and so are a very fit type of the numerous armies of ARABIANS invading the ROMANS. They began to invade them A. C. 634, and to reign at DAMASCUS, A. C. 637. They built BAGDAD A. C. 766, and reigned over PERSIA, SYRIA, ARABIA, EGYPT, AFRICA and SPAIN. They afterwards lost AFRICA to MAHADES, A. C. 910 ; MEDIA, HIRCANIA, CHORASAN, and all PERSIA, to the DAILAMITES, between the years 927 and 935 ; MESOPO- TAMIA and MIAFAREKIN to NASIRUDDAULAS, A. C. 930 ; SYRIA and EGYPT to ACHSJID, A. C. 935, and now being in great distress, the Caliph of BAGDAD, A. C. 936, surren- dred all the rest of his temporal power to MAHOMET the son of RAJICI, King of WASIT in CHALDEA, and made him Emperor of Emperors. But MAHOMET within two years lost BAGDAD to the TURKS ; and thenceforward BAGDAD was sometimes in the hands of the TURKS, and sometimes in the hands of the SARACENS, till TOGRUL- BEIG, called also TOGRA, DOGRISSA, TANGROLIPIX, and SADOC, conquered CHORASAN and PERSIA ; and A. C. 1055, added BAGDAD to his Empire, making it the seat thereof. His successors OLUB-ARSLAN and MELECHSCHAH, conquered CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 841 the regions upon EUPHRATES ; and these conquests, after the death of MELECHSCHAH, brake into the kingdoms of ARMENIA, MESOPOTAMIA, SYRIA, and CAPPADOCIA. The whole time that the Caliphs of the SARACENS reigned with a temporal dominion at DAMASCUS and BAGDAD together, was 300 years, viz. from the year 637 to the year 936 inclu- sive. Now locusts live but five months ; and therefore, for the decorum of the type, these locusts are said to hurt men five months and five months, as if they had lived about five months at DAMASCUS, and again about five months at BAGDAD ; in all ten months, or 300 prophetic days, which are years. The sixth trumpet sounded to the wars, which DANIEL'S King of the NORTH made against the King above-mentioned who did according to his will. In these wars the King of the NORTH, according to DANIEL, conquered the Empire of the GREEKS, and also JUDEA, EGYPT, LYBiA,and ETHIOPIA: and by these conquests the Empire of the TURKS was set up, as may be known by the extent thereof. These wars commenced A. C. 1258, when the four kingdoms of the TURKS seated upon EUPHRATES, that of ARMENIA MAJOR seated at MIYAPHAREKIN, MEGARKIN or MARTYROPOLIS, that of MESOPOTAMIA seated at MOSUL, that of all SYRIA seated at ALEPPO, and that of CAPPADOCIA seated at ICONIUM, were invaded by the TARTARS under HULACU, and driven into the western parts of ASIA MINOR, where they made war upon the GREEKS, and began to erect the present Empire of the TURKS. Upon the sounding of the sixth trumpet (Apoc. ix. 13, &c.) John heard a voice from the four horns of the golden Altar which is before God, saying to the sixth Angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four Angels which are bound at the great river Euphrates. And the four Angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour and a day, and a month and a year, for to slay the third part of men. By the four horns of the golden Altar, is signified the situa- tion of the head cities of the said four kingdoms. MIYA- PHAREKIN, MOSUL, ALEPPO, and ICONIUM, which were in a quadrangle. They slew the third part of men, when 342 APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN [PART n they conquered the GREEK Empire, and took CONSTAN- TINOPLE, A. C. 1453, and they began to be prepared for this purpose, when OLUB-ARSLAN began to conquer the nations upon EUPHRATES, A. C. 1063. The interval is called an hour and a day, and a month and a year, or 391 prophetic days, which are years. In the first thirty years, OLUB-ARSLAN and MELECHSCHAH conquered the nations upon EUPHRATES, and reigned over the whole. MELECH- SCHAH died A. C. 1092, and was succeeded by a little child ; and then this kingdom broke into the four kingdoms above-mentioned. THE END ADVERTISEMENT THE LAST PAGES OP THESE OBSERVATIONS HAVING BEEN DIFFERENTLY DRAWN UP BY THE AUTHOR IN ANOTHER COPY OF HIS WORK J THEY ARE HERE INSERTED AS THEY FOLLOW IN THAT COPY, AFTER THE 37TH LINE OF THE 312TH PAGE FOREGOING. And none was found worthy to open the book till the Lamb of God appeared ; the great High- Priest represented by a lamb slain at the foot of the Altar in the morning-sacrifice. And he came, and took the book out of the hand of him that sat upon the throne. For the High-Priest, in the feast of the seventh month, went into the most holy place, and took the book of the law out of the right side of the Ark, to read it to the People : and in order to read it well, he studied it seven days, that is, upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth days, being attended by some of the priests to hear him perform. These seven days are alluded to, by the Lamb's opening the seven seals suc- cessively. Upon the tenth day of the month, a young bullock was offered for a sin-offering for the High- Priest, and a goat for a sin-offering for the people : and lots were cast upon two goats to determine which of them should be God's lot for the sin-offering ; and the other goat was called AZAZEL, the scape-goat. The High-Priest in his linen garments, took a censer full of burning coals of fire from the Altar, his hand being full of sweet incense beaten small ; and went into the most holy place within the veil, and put the incense upon the fire, and sprinkled the blood of the bullock with his finger upon the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat seven times : and then he killed the goat which fell to God's lot, 343 844 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n for a sin-offering for the people, and brought his blood within the veil, and sprinkled it also seven times upon the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat. Then he went out to the Altar, and sprinkled it also seven times with the blood of the bullock, and as often with the blood of the goat. After this he laid both his hands upon the head of the live goat ; and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat ; and sent him away into the wilderness by the hands of a fit man : and the goat bore upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited, LEVIT. chap. iv. & chap. xvi. While the High-Priest was doing these things in the most holy place and at the Altar, the people continued at their devotion quietly and in silence. Then the High-Priest went into the holy place, put off his linen garments, and put on other garments ; then came out, and sent the bullock and the goat of the sin-offering to be burnt without the camp, with fire taken in a censer from the Altar : and as the people returned home from the Temple, they said to one another, God seal you to a good new year. In allusion to all this, when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And an Angel stood at the Altar having a golden Censer, and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints, upon the golden Altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the Saints ascended up before God out of the AngeVs hand. And the Angel took the Censer, and filled it with fire of the Altar, and cast it to the earth, suppose without the camp, for sacrificing the goat which fell to God's lot. For the High- Priest being CHRIST himself, the bullock is omitted. At this sacrifice there were voices and ihundrings, of the musick of the Temple, and lightnings of the sacred fire, and an earthquake : and synchronal to these things was the sealing of the 144000 out of all the twelve tribes of the children of Israel with the seal of God in their foreheads, while the rest of the twelve tribes received the CHAP, m] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 345 mark of the Beast, and the Woman fled from the Temple into the wilderness to her place upon this Beast. For this sealing and marking was represented by casting lots upon the two goats, sacrificing God's lot on mount SIGN, and sending the scape-goat into the wilderness loaden with the sins of the people. Upon the fifteenth day of the month, and the six following days, there were very great sacrifices. And in allusion to the sounding of trumpets, and singing with thundring voices, and pouring out drink-offerings at those sacrifices, seven trumpets are sounded, and seven thunders utter their voices, and seven vials of wrath are poured out. Wherefore the sounding of the seven trumpets, the voices of the seven thunders, and the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath, are synchronal, and relate to one and the same division of the time of the seventh seal following the silence, into seven successive parts. The seven days of this feast were called the feast of Tabernacles ; and during these seven days the children of ISRAEL dwelt in booths, and rejoiced with palm-branches in their hands. To this alludes the multitude with palms in their hands, which appeared after the sealing of the 144000, and came out of the great tribulation with triumph at the battle of the great day, to which the seventh trumpet sounds. The visions therefore of the 144000, and of the palm-bearing multitude, extend to the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and there- fore are synchronal to the times of the seventh seal. When the 144000 are sealed out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, and the rest receive the mark of the Beast, and there- by the first temple is destroyed ; JOHN is bidden to measure the temple and altar, that is, their courts, and them that wor- ship therein, that is, the 144000 standing on mount SIGN and on the sea of glass : but the court that is without the temple that is, the peoples court, to leave out and measure it not, because it is given to the Gentiles, those who receive the mark of the Beast ; and the holy city they shall tread under foot forty and two months, that is, all the time that the Beast acts under the woman BABYLON : and the two witnesses prophesy 346 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n 1260 days, that is, all the same time, clothed in sackcloth. These have power, like ELIJAH, to shut heaven that it rain not, at the sounding of the first trumpet ; and, like MOSES, to turn the waters into bloood at the sounding of the second ; and to smite the earth with all plagues those of the trumpets, as often as they will. These prophesy at the building of the second temple, like HAGGAI and ZECHARY. These are the two Olive-trees, or Churches, which supplied the lamps with oil, ZECH. iv. These are the two candlesticks, or Churches, standing before the God of the earth. Five of the seven Churches of ASIA, those in prosperity, are found fault with, and exhorted to repent, and threatned to be removed out of their places, or spewed out of CHRIST'S mouth, or punished with the sword of CHRIST'S mouth, except they repent : the other two, the Churches of SMYRNA and PHILA- DELPHIA, which were under persecution, remain in a state of persecution, to illuminate the second temple. When the primitive Church catholick, represented by the woman in heaven, apostatized, and became divided into two corrupt Churches, represented by the whore of Babylon and the two-horned Beast, the 144000 who were sealed out of all the twelve tribes, became the two Witnesses, in opposition to those two false Churches : and the name of two Witnesses once imposed, remains to the true Church of God in all times and places to the end of the Prophecy. In the interpretation of this Prophecy, the woman in heaven clothed with the sun, before she flies into the wilder- ness, represents the primitive Church catholick, illuminated with the seven lamps in the seven golden candlesticks, which are the seven Churches of ASIA. The Dragon signifies the same Empire with DANIEL'S He-goat in the i reign of his last horn, that is, the whole ROMAN Empire, until it became divided into the GREEK and LATIN Empires ; and all the time of that division it signifies the GREEK Empire alone : and the Beast is DANIEL'S fourth Beast, that is, the Empire of the LATINS. Before the division of the ROMAN Empire into the GREEK and LATIN Empires, the Beast is included in the body of the Dragon ; and from the time of that CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 347 division, the Beast is the LATIN Empire only. Hence the Dragon and Beast have the same heads and horns ; but the heads are crowned upon the Dragon, and the horns upon the Beast. The horns are ten kingdoms, into which the Beast becomes divided presently after his separation from the Dragon, as hath been described above. The heads are seven successive dynasties, or parts, into which the ROMAN Empire becomes divided by the opening of the seven seals. Before the woman fled into the wilderness, she being with Child of a Christian Empire, cried travelling, viz. in the ten years persecution of DIOCLESIAN, and pained to be delivered : and the Dragon, the heathen ROMAN Empire, stood before her, to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who at length was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne in the Temple, by the victory of CONSTANT! NE the great over MAXENTIUS : and the woman fled from the Temple into the wilderness of ARABIA to BABY- LON, where she hath a place of riches and honour and dominion, upon the back of the Beast, prepared of God, that they should feed her there 1260 days. And there was war in heaven, between the heathens under MAXIMINUS and the new Christian Empire ; and the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, which deceiveth the whole world, the spirit of heathen idolatry ; he was cast out of the throne into the earth. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony ; and they loved not their lives unto the death. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child, stirring up a new persecution against her in the reign of LICINIUS. And to the woman, by the building of CONSTAN- TINOPLE and equalling it to ROME, were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might flee into the wilderness into her place upon the back of her Beast, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent, upon the death of CONSTANTINE the great, cast out of his mouth water as a flood, viz. the 348 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE [PART n WESTERN Empire under CONSTANTINE JUNIOR and CON- STANS, after the woman : that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth, the nations of ASIA now under CONSTANTINOPLE, helped the woman ; and by con- quering the WESTERN Empire, now under MAGNENTIUS, swallowed up the flood which the Dragon cast out of his mouth. And the Dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the com- mandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, which in that war were sealed out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, and remained upon mount SION with the Lamb, being in number 144000, and having their father's name written in their foreheads. When the earth had swallowed up the flood, and the Dragon was gone to make war with the remnant of the woman's seed, John stood upon the sand of the Sea, and saw a Beast rise out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. And the Beast was like unto a Leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a Bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a Lion. JOHN here names DANIEL'S four Beasts in order, putting his Beast in the room of DANIEL'S fourth Beast, to shew that they are the same. And the Dragon gave this Beast his power and his seat and great authority, by relinquishing the WESTERN Empire to him. And one of his heads, the sixth, was as it were wounded to death, viz. by the sword of the earth, which swallowed up the waters cast out of the mouth of the Dragon ; and his deadly wound was healed, by a new division of the Empire between VALENTINIAN and VALENS, An. 364. JOHN saw the Beast rise out of the sea, at the division thereof between GRATIAN and THEODOSIUS, An. 379. The Dragon gave the Beast his power, and his seat and great authority, at the death of THEODOSIUS, when THEODOSIUS gave the WESTERN Empire to his son HONORIUS. After which the two Empires were no more united : but the WESTERN Empire became presently divided into ten kingdoms, as above ; and these kingdoms at length united in religion under the woman, and reign with her/or^/ and two months. CHAP, in] APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN 34,9 And I beheld, saith JOHN, another Beast coming up out of the earth. When the woman fled from the Dragon into the kingdom of the Beast, and became his Church, this other Beast rose up out of the earth, to represent the Church of the Dragon. For he had two horns like the Lamb, such as were the bishopricks of ALEXANDRIA and ANTIOCH : and he spake as the Dragon in matters of religion : and he causeth the earth, or nations of the Dragon's kingdom, to worship the first Beast, whose deadly wound was healed, that is, to be of his religion. And he doth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men ; that is, he excommunicateth those who differ from him in point of religion : for in pronouncing their excommunications, they used to swing down a lighted torch from above. And he said to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the Beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live ; that is, that they should call a Council of men of the religion of this Beast. And he had power to give life unto the image of the Beast, that the image of the Beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed, viz. mystically, by dissolving their Churches. And he causeth all both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the Beast, or the number of his name ; that is, the mark J, or the name AATEINO2, or the number thereof x