with Daniel's little horn of the Roman Empire and with the apocalyptic false prophet who is specially attached to the same Empire, has already existed within the pale of the Latin Church and within the limits of the Roman Empire more than twelve centuries. Hence it is evident, that we cannot be far removed from the end of the 1260 years: and, consequently, we cannot be far removed from the end of the tribulation of the Jews. If then we be near the end of the tribulation of the Jews, we may expect to behold those dreadful and extensive political revolutions, which, according to our Lord's prophecy, are to commence IN the days of that tribulation.

Agreeably to this reasonable expectation, has the event turned out. We have beheld a series of most astonishing convulsions; which have shaken Christendom to its very centre, which have displaced ancient authorities, and which have removed the old land marks of nations. These have happened in perfect accordance, both with the prediction of Christ, with the miseries which Daniel's wilful king is to introduce PREVIOUS to the time of the end, and with the horrors so graphically depicted in the apocalyptic account of the four earliest vials of the third and last grand woe. Again, we have beheld a scarcely less wonderful counter-revolution: and we now, for the first time, may see the Roman Empire in its state of predicted headlessness and political non-existence *. All this however has happened in

See above Dissert. i. sect. 2. § VIII. 2. This was written

in the August of the year 1816.

strict

strict agreement with the prophecy of the fifth vial; which foretells, that the Roman wild beast under its short lived seventh head should be hurled from its Francico-Imperial throne, that its whole kingdom should be filled with allegorical darkness, and that its blaspheming adherents should gnaw their very tongues with rage and pain while yet they repented not of their former evil deeds *. But such a state of depression or figurative death, as we are plainly taught in the Apocalypse and as we may infer from the prediction of our Lord, is not to be permanent. The deadly wound, inflicted by the sword of violence, is, to be healed: and the now defunct wild beast is to start up into a new term of political reexistence t. Under the sixth vial we may observe the occurrence of another revolution, by which the Antichristian power recovers all its lost ascendancy, mounts again the throne of empire as the yet future eighth form of Roman government, and successfully organizes a mighty confederacy of vassal Latin 'sovereigns.

With these, as we learn from Daniel, the great king labours to effect yet additional political revolutions. The time of the end, or the expiration of the times of the Gentiles, or the close of the Jewish tribulation, or the period which commences at the com

* Rev. xvi. 10, 11. See above Dissert. i. sect. 3. § II. 2. + Rev. xiii. 3, 12, 14. xvii. 8, 10, 11. See above Dissert. i. sect. 4. I, II, III, IV, V.

Rev. xvi. 12-16. xvii. 10, 11. See above Dissert. i. sect. 4. § VI.

pletion

pletion of the 1260 years, having at length arrived (for all these particulars are strictly synchronical); the second series of revolutions will commence, which Christ describes as occurring IMMEDIATELY AFTER the tribulation of those days. Through some combination of events hidden as yet in the womb of futurity, the Jews will be put in motion: the wilful king, having regained his lost authority by the healing of the mortally wounded seventh head, will enter into the countries, and overflow, and pass over, and will enter into the glorious land while many countries shall be overthrown, and will stretch forth his hand upon the countries, and will go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many and some mighty maritime nation, which had previously acted a distinguished part in conveying papyrine implements or papyrine books to the utmost extremities of the world by the hand of certain sacerdotal angels or swift messengers, will now lend itself to facilitate the restoration of a people; which had long been dragged away and plucked, which had been wonderful from the beginning hitherto, which had never ceased to expect the promised Messiah, and whose ancient land the metaphorical rivers of foreign invaders had perpetually spoiled*. At this period, according

Dan. xi. 40—45. Isaiah xviii. 1, 2. Malach. ii. 7. Rev. i. 20. In Isaiah xviii. 2, Bp. Horsley, agreeing with our common translation, renders in bulrush vessels; and supposes the light ships of the maritime nation to be meant by the expression. I much doubt however, whether the original will bear VOL. III.

such

cording to Daniel, there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to

that

such a sense. The word rather denotes an utensil or instrument of any sort: and I am inclined to think, that it will be impossible to produce any passage where it is used in the sense of a ship. Hence I conclude, that the maritime character of the nation is not set forth in this expression, but in the description of its being a land of the perpetual shadow of sails and of its being accustomed to send messengers or sacerdotal angels or preachers of God's word by sea. The two first verses therefore I would translate, as follows.

"Ho! land of the perpetual shadow of wings (or sails), which "art beyond the rivers of Cush! accustomed to send messengers by sea, even with papyrine implements upon the surface "of the waters."

By the messengers I understand sacerdotal messengers or angels, agreeably to the usual phraseology of Holy Scripture (See Malach. ii. 7. iii. 1. comp. with iv. 5. Rev. i. 20.): and by the papyrine implements I understand, as is most natural, books made of paper. What the subject of these paper books is, we are not specifically informed: but, since the messengers, as we may argue from the very circumstance of their bearing a message to the Jews connected with their restoration and conversion, are sacerdotal messengers; it seems but reasonable to infer, that the paper books, which they carry with them, and which the maritime nation is engaged in sending by water apparently to various parts of the world, are the Holy Scriptures emphatically denominated the Bible or the Book. Hence we appear to collect, that this great maritime nation is to be remarkable in the last ages, for its systematic employment of missionaries, and for its wide and zealous circulation of the Sacred Volume.

Our English word Vessel is of so unfortunately ambiguous a nature, that I cannot help a little suspecting that it has served to mislead even Horsley himself. We familiarly employ the term Vessel to designate alike a ship and a kettle: but this is

purely

that same time and, at this period also, according to our Lord, there shall be upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.

Such are the revolutions, which Christ foretells as occurring, partly in the days of the tribulation of the Jews, and partly IMMEDIATELY AFTER the tribulation of those days. The first series we have ourselves beheld; and it is described by St. John, as the harvest of God's wrath the second, which he describes as the vintage of God's wrath, is yet future, commencing as soon as the tribulation of the Jews shall have ended and as the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled *.

5. The prophecy goes on to inform us, that all these awful revolutions are but signs of the now rapidly approaching advent of the Son of man: and it intimates, that, just as we may prognosticate the speedy arrival of summer by the budding of the trees;

would as

purely idiomatical; and I conceive, the Hebrew little excite the idea of a ship in the mind of a Jew, as the Latin Vas would in the mind of a Roman. Yet both the English Vessel and the Latin Vas are words of much more limited signification than the Hebrew. The Seventy plainly understood the original to mean books or writings of some description or another; and as plainly connected them with the message of the Ayy, as they express what we term Messengers. They render a stictonas Bißhivas or epistles written upon papyrus.

* Rev. xiv. 14-20.