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place, I think, we ought to be careful how we apply to heathen authorities for explanations of Scripture emblems; and this is far from being a case in point that requires such illustration. Where a term is used explanatory of a thing, continually coupled with that thing, and often standing by itself for that thing, as the term image does throughout Scripture for idolatry, we need not go to the heathen authorities of ancient coins and medals for an explanation of what is so plainly before us. In the second place, it is said, "And the form thereof was " terrible." In what was this image terrible ? The human shape is not terrible in the eyes of man, extend it to what amplitude you please; nor are men much terrified by the greatness of power and dominion. It was not then because it was a great human figure that it was terrible, as Newton seems to think; but its form (or aspect, as Wintle translates it) was terrible, because it appeared in the form of idolatry. It was an image, the emblem of idolatry, which startled the devout eye of the Jew, and alarmed his zeal for the honour of his God. Idolatry is also terrible both in its foundation and system: heathen worship was built on terror, and its sacrifices were often polluted with human gore. In the third place, it does not appear that this image represented the human

shape at all; in none of its described parts are there any but the arms peculiar to man: we have no business to consider it as any thing but an image, the emblem of idolatry: we are always too prone to fill up the prophet's sketch with our own imaginations and fancies, thus building monstrous systems, and running into incongruous absurdities. The prophet's sketch is neither more nor less than this, that four idolatrous powers in succession should have the dominion over the church till the kingdom of Christ should break down the kingdom of satan, and make it like the chaff of the summer threshing floors.

This grand point, that the feet and toes of the image represent the heathen emperors of Rome, which I consider as the corner stone of my whole hypothesis, being thus, as I trust, established, I proceed now to the consideration of the next vision.

DANIEL. CHAP. VII.

DANIEL'S VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS.

HAVING in the preceding chapter considered what appears to me the true meaning of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, I shall now proceed to consider Daniel's own vision of the four beasts; which is so similar, that it may seem to be little more than an expansion of the former, but it is an expansion which embraces and amplifies very considerable matters, and is big with many important affairs.

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" I saw," says the Prophet, "in my vision by " night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove 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 stand upon the feet as a man; " and a man's heart was given to it. And, be"hold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, " and it raised up itself on one side, and it had " three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth

" of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour " much flesh. And after this, I beheld, and, lo,

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another, like a leopard, which had upon the

"back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had

C

" also four heads; and dominion was given to "it. After this I saw in the night visions, and, "behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, " and strong exceedingly; and it had great "iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, " and stamped the residue with the feet of it: "and it was diverse from all the beasts that "were before it; and it had ten horns. I con"sidered the horns, and, behold, there came up " among them another little horn, before whom " there were three of the first horns plucked up " by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were

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eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth " speaking great things."

As the prophet Daniel has not dwelt on his explanation of the three first beasts, I shall dismiss them after a few observations. They evidently run parallel to the three first monarchies of the image, and the first is so descriptive of the king of Babylon, that it cannot be mistaken. "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee " from far, as swift as the eagle flieth." And Jeremiah says, "The lion is come up from his "thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is " on his wayd." And in this book of Daniel it is said, "Till his hairs were grown like " eagles' feathers." For the description of the other two beasts I will refer my reader to

• Deut. xxviii. 49.

Jer. iv. 7. • Dan. iv. 33.

Bishop Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies, and Mr. Wintle, only observing, that as the first beast is evidently the Assyrian monarchy, it follows that the two next are the Persian and the Grecian.

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My next observation is on the 12th verse of this chapter, which states, "As concerning the "rest of the beasts, they had their dominion "taken away; yet their lives were prolonged "for a season and a time." A season and a time is the space of two prophetical years, or 720 days, that is 720 years: now this prolongation of their lives, or continuation of their existence, I understand to embrace the whole era between the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy and the absorption of these monarchies in the vortex of the Roman empire: the Babylonian monarchy was founded in the year 747 h before Christ. Octavius Cæsar subverted the remains of the Grecian monarchy under Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, in the year before Christ 30, and was by the unanimous consent of the Senate and people of Rome confirmed Emperor of Rome under the name of Augustus, which he and his successors ever after bore, in the year 27 before Christ. So that from the first foundation of the Babylonian monarchy,

Vol. i. p. 257. * Page 93. h See Prideaux's Connection. Wintle, n. 15. Newton, vol. i. p. 223.