are to roll forth in different directions over the earth, but men will blaspheme God because of their plagues.

Application. We can improve the subject over which we have glanced by enumerating the items or particulars which were to take place, and which have eventuated since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. In giving this epitome, or making out this catalogue, let no one suppose that all the particulars can be brought into the list. I cannot do this, but I can write down enough to bring before us the kind of credulity belonging to those who believe that events have happened such as seemingly fulfil this and other prophecies like it. Those who think that predictions are verified casually, are asked concerning the number of accidents in which they believe.

Seventeen hundred years since infidel writers were quibbling concerning the items of history which had taken place, and which belonged to Daniel's prophecy. These particulars seemed to give unbelievers pain, and they endeavoured to avoid the truthful inference by saying that the prophecy must have been written later than the time of Nebuchadnezzar. What will those do who live so many centuries after this plea was first urged? what will they do with that part of the prediction which has been fulfilled during the last fifteen hundred years?

List of Historic Items mentioned by the prophet in this chapter as taking place between his day and our time.

1. The dominion was taken from the Chaldeans, (or the lion,) and given to the Medes and Persians, (or to the bear.)

2. The conquests of the Medo-Persian empire were achieved in one direction, that is westwardly. (The bear, it is said, " raised up itself on one side.")

3. The bear, it is said, had "three ribs in the mouth

of it, between the teeth of it." The Persians conquered the kingdoms of Babylon, of Lydia, and of Egypt. They 'oppressed them, and devoured their revenues and their good things, as a ravenous beast does its prey.

4. The dominion was to be taken from the bear and given to another, (the leopard.) The Grecians conquered the Persians.

5. Alexander was said to conquer faster than others could march. His victories resembled an army flying through a nation, rather than encamping against it. The leopard had four wings on its back, representing the unusual rapidity with which the Macedonian dominion would be set up.

6. This beast had four heads. When Alexander died in his drunken revels, at Babylon, his kingdom did not descend to his son, or to one or two of his officers; if so, this beast would have had one or two heads, but it was parted between four of his generals, and these four heads had dominion until the fourth beast was grown.

7. The fourth beast (the nameless beast,) was to take dominion from the four-headed leopard, devouring and breaking in pieces.

8. This power (the Romans,) was to be diverse from all the beasts before it. This is so strikingly understood by all who read only the alphabet of history, that I need not name the instances of dissimilarity.

9. That which this beast could not devour, it was to stamp with its feet. This has already been noticed. 10. It was to be divided into ten kingdoms, repre

sented by the ten horns.

11. This division into ten was to take place exclusive of the Chaldean, Persian, and Macedonian territories; for these beasts, after losing dominion, were still to exist for a season and a time.

12. There was to come up amongst the ten a little horn, (the eleventh horn.)

13. This little horn was to pluck up three others by the roots. The Bishop of Rome took hold on three kingdoms, denoted by his triple crown which he wears, and has kept them ever since. He did not take hold on four small kingdoms, for that would have been to pluck up four horns by the root.

14. This little horn was to be watchful, sagacious, and cunning. Every page of his history explains this.

15. High sounding threats, great swelling words, a mouth speaking great things, a look more stout than his fellows, &c., were to be his characteristics. Whoever will read but half a volume of European history since the Pope wore the triple crown, will be at no loss respecting the great words against the Most High.

16. He was to be diverse from the first kings. He was a clerical officer.

17. He was to "wear out the saints of the Most High." If we did know how many hundred thousand he did put to death, of the most humble walking and holy living people, alive at that time, again and again, for more than a thousand years, we would say that he certainly did wear out the saints of the Most High, if they ever have been worn out since the gospel was preached.

18. He was "to think, to change times and laws." Hath not the papal power arrogated the prerogative of making times holy or unholy, contrary to the word of God? He hath commanded men everywhere to abstain from meat, and cease from work, when God required no such thing; and has multiplied his holy days, till scarcely four of the six working days have been left for man's labour. At the same time he hath licensed intemperance and excess on his festivals and carnivals

and authorized licentious diversions on the Lord's own holy day. He hath pretended to change God's laws, or to dispense with obedience to them, that his own new laws might be observed; forbidding to marry, and licensing fornication, and many things of this sort."(Scott.) He has indeed thought to change times and laws as no one else ever did.

19. His career was to continue for twelve hundred and sixty years-for one thousand two hundred and three score days; for a time and times, and the dividing of time; for forty and two months. Many praying people think the judgment is now sitting, or about to sit. 20. The last item is to take place yet. It is to come to pass hereafter. One like the son of man; yea, one who was once born one of the sons of men, will take possession of the whole earth. His kingdom will never be overturned. The greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to people of the saints of the Most High.

The prophet having been very accurate in the first nineteen particulars, and in others not noticed, I, for my part, can credit him for the twentieth. He who can see

a train of events so plainly as to picture the outlines of twenty-three centuries, can, with the same assistance, see a century farther. The Lord will reign; let the earth rejoice. Who will not clap their hands?

Second application.-If men did not love darkness rather than light, no one would ever have supposed, that for many long centuries, prediction and subsequent facts happened to fit each other. We may safely say to these worshippers of chance,-"Immortal friend! according to the same kind of casualty which you have been naming, God will happen to burn up the world, and it will chance that you will be called before his judgment

throne, and there examined severely concerning your present conduct toward a bleeding Saviour.

Postscript. In the chapter we have just reviewed, it is not stated how long the ten horns were to last. The continuance of the ten kingdoms is not stated in this part of Daniel's visions, except that they were not to continue long, if at all, after the entire overthrow of the little horn, whose look was so stout, and whose words were so blasphemous. But there are other sections of the holy Book, where the ten kingdoms, and the power which was to wear out the saints, are placed in full view before us. In some of these chapters, it seems to be taught that ten horns would be in Europe, and, finally, be found to hate and to destroy the triple crowned horn. Some have asked how it could be said that ten kingdoms have existed to represent ten horns, in part of the earth once under the dominion of Rome, when so many changes have been constantly going on in Europe, and when so many of them have been at times, as it were, consolidated into one. We may reply at any time to such an inquiry very fairly, that the ten horns have been there that making a kingdom tributary, does not take away its existence. If there should have been at times, eleven, twelve, or more horns there for half a century or longer, this does not make it untrue that ten were there. Such inquiries as have been made, and such objections as have been urged, do seem to many as unworthy of an answer; but if a puerile cavil should appear weighty and important in the view of the unthinking, or the uninformed, for his sake, it needs an anLet us then pass briefly through an illustration which may aid us in understanding each other.

swer.

Suppose some feeble people should be suffering from the almost constant invasions of numerous and ferocious