and towards the pleafant land. The same circumstance of fituation too (had we not the exception to them before given) excludes the Romans from being intended in this prediction.--For in the facred writings (one text only excepted) the four cardinal points of the compass alone being ever noticed, the mention of the fouth and of the eaft includes the intermediate point of the fouth Eaft, and consequently no power from the North Weft, the direction in which Rome lay, could be characterized, by enlarging himself, not only towards the South East but towards the pleasant land, which was in the South Eaft...We are ́ then restrained to look for the completion of this prophecy in fome power by which the ftate of the Jews or the Christians or both hath been greatly affected, and which hath rifen neither to the North nor to the Weft of Jerufalem, and yet within the precincts of the realms

realms of Alexander's fucceffors. Now what power has arisen that fo well answers in these several particulars, or rather that does in fact include them all but the Mahometan? This firft arose within one of the divifions of the Macedonian Empire, and to the South of Judæa; it spread its conquefts towards the South and towards the East, and towards the pleasant land, all in a straight line, it waxed great likewise towards the Weft, but it did this by a circuitous course. It came out first too as a little horn a description not very applicable to the Romans, either in character or behaviour when they first set foot in Afia. And how far the other particulars of this prophecy were accomplished in Mahomet and his followers fhall be fhewn, after I have offerred to the reader's notice a coincidence meriting observation in the feveral accounts of this Prophet St. Paul and St. John.-The firft ftates the rife of Ma

homet

homet as to take place when the tranfgreffors are come to the full: The fecond fays, that the delufion of the man of fin fhall be fent as a punishment, because men believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness: where furely the fame period (that in which the fins of the people call for judgement) is characterized for the rife of thefe two powers. Now St. John afcribes to each of them the fame duration, and speaks of the time of their end as the same, and confequently in his account they must begin at the fame time; in exact correfpondence with each of the feperate declarations of the two former writers. Such coincidences in prophecy of which the holy pen-men theirfelves do not seem aware, prove, like the fame in history, that the writers drew originally from the one fource, with this only difference, that in the former cafe their information must have more than a human

origin,

"that

origin, even the operation of "felfsame fpirit, who divideth to every "man feverally as he will."

Since on the first view it may perhaps appear to fome readers, as an objection to my interpretation of the paffage now under confideration, that in ftating the kingdoms of the four Horns as extending to the rife of Mahomet, the body of the Macedonian Empire is confidered as ftill diftinct from that of the Roman; I must request that the 12th verfe of the 7th chapter of this prophet may be referred to, where it will be found, that: under the prevalence of the fourth greatEmpire, the others are confidered as yet in exiftence; in exact correspondence with the language of the Apocalypfe, in which the Roman Empire, as appears! by feveral texts I have already had occafion to quote, 'is fpoken of as only one third part of the world. This point explained,

I

explained, I now proceed to the hiftorick teftimony of the great prevalence of iniquity at the feafon in which this fcourge of Christendom appeared, preferring to that of other the evidence of my ufual affiftant.

"When the tranfgreffors are come to "the full," fays the text: " The birth "of Mahomet, fays Mr. Gibbon, "was fortunately placed in the most

66

degenerate and diforderly period of "of the Perfians, the Romans, and the "Barbarians of Europe." Were I to transcribe all the pallages of this writer which might be brought in fupport of the above affertion, as to degeneracy in morals as well as in fpirit, they would fwell my volume, already promising fomewhat to exceed, to a fize enormously larger than, that I at firft propofed for it. The reader who is defirous of more particular information on the point, may

find