every step. And yet these are all Chriftians! But he who was taught the religion of Christ not by man, but by the revelation of Jefus Chrift, has faid, Faith without works is dead. Alas! they have walked in a vain shew. But it is probable that this disguise, before the confummation of all things, will be stripped off, and the nations be made to appear in their true character, and thus may be fulfilled, in a sense that has not been suspected, that prediction of the prophet Isaiah (chap. xxv. 7.) He will deftroy the face of the covering (the mafk) caft over all people, and the vail that is fpread over all nations. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, faith the LORD!

The French revolution then may be of God, and designed to iffue in good, although conducted by infidels, and difgraced by outrages which nothing can juftify.

SIGNS

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

FIRST INQUIRY.

IN endeavouring to make good this hypothefis, that the figns of

the times indicate the fpeedy downfal of all that spiritual and civil tyranny, which for so many ages has prevailed, in opposition to the principles of the kingdom of Chrift, the Prince of Peace, there are three inquiries which claim our attention.

The first respects the dragon and the beafts, which John saw in his vifions. Rev. xi. 7. xii. and xiii.

The second refpects the witneffes, Rev. xi. and the third inquiry is, Whether all the numbers of Daniel and John, which refer to the latter days, will agree with the present times? Let us, with that reverence and devout candour which become us when we apply to the word of God for instruction, attend to these several inquiries.

The grand scene of the prophetic vifions of John opens in the fourth chapter of the Revelation, and is continued to the end of the book. The whole may be confidered as a number of scenic pictures. Chapter the eleventh is a miniature picture of the history of the church (the western church especially) from the earliest times to the downfal of all antichriftian ufurpations. The following vifions are the fame picture variegated, for our instruction, on a larger fcale.

As there are some, into whofe hands these pages may fall, who have not been used to attend to fubjects like these which we are going to discuss, it may be proper, briefly to confider the origin of that fort of language, and of those hieroglyphic, or, more properly, fymbolical representations, which we meet with in the prophets.

The first mode of writing appears to have been by pictures of things, and it must have been a long time before mankind arrived at any degree of perfection in the science of letters, as we now C

have

have it. To exprefs ideas by a combination of letters, fyllables, words, and fentences, is a more wonderful invention than most people imagine. The most natural way of communicating our conceptions by marks and figures, is by tracing out the images of things; and this is actually verified in the cafe of the Mexicans, whofe only method of writing their laws and history, when the Spaniards firft vifited them, was by this picture-writing. The hieroglyphics and fymbols of the Egyptians and Hebrews, were an improvement on this rude and inconvenient essay towards writing. It would be improper to enter far into this fubject here, I shall therefore fay no more than juft what may be thought neceffary to fhew that the figurative ftyle, and the fymbolical reprefentations, which we meet with in the fcriptures, are not fo out of the way, as fome may be apt to imagine; nor the workmanship, as Dr. Warburton † expreffes it, of the prophets heated and wild imagination, as our modern libertines would perfuade us, but the fober, eftablifhed language of their times.

In the fymbols and hieroglyphics of the ancients, a lion stood for ftrength and courage; a bullock was a representation of agriculture; a horfe of liberty; a fphinx of fubtilty, a pelican of paternal affection; a river horfe of impudence; horns of ftrength and pre-eminence; among the Phenicians a horn was the enfign of royalty and hence they came to be used by the prophets to denote fovereignty and dominion, states and kingdoms. The fun, moon, and - ftars alfo were the symbols of ftates and kingdoms, kings, queens, and nobility; their eclipfe ftood for. the temporary difafters which afflicted them, and their extinction, for their entire overthrow. If this be confidered, we need not wonder at what we meet with in the holy fcriptures, and efpecially in the prophecies, The prophets speak in the language of the times in which they lived, and reprefent things under fymbols then well underftood; and though this mode of reprefenting things is not fo ufual among us, yet w have fomething of it too. Modern heraldry is a fort of hieroglyphics, and we here meet with productions as fictious and monftrous as a lion with the wings of an eagle, or as a beaft with feven heads and ten horns.

we

In the prophetic writings, fierce and favage beafts are the hieroglyphic emblems of tyrannic monarchies and ftates, and the peculiar

Se Warburton's Divine Legation, Book iv. fect. 4. paffim.

peculiarities of these monarchies and states are represented by fuitable creatures, and by fuch appendages, as are proper to identify them, and defcribe their characters. Thus in Dan. vii. 4. the kingdom of Babylon is reprefented under the image of a lim with eagle's wings. To type out, not only its power, but the rapidity of its conquests, and the height of splendour to which it was raised.. The kingdom of the Medes and Perfians, (ver. 5.) is reprefented by a bear with three ribs in its mouth, to which it was said, Arife, devour much flesh. This was to fhew the cruelty of thefe people, and their greedinefs after blood and plunder. Their character was that of the all-devouring bear, which has no pity. The ribs in the mouth of it represent thofe nations which they efpecially made a prey of

The kingdom of the Macedonians, or Grecians, is characterized (ver. 6.) by a leopard, with four heads, and four wings of a fowl... The leopard is remarkable for its swiftness, hence, and especially with the wings on its back, it was a fit emblem of the conquefts of the Macedonians under the command of Alexander, who conquered part of Europe and all Afia in fix years. As the lion had two wings, to represent the rapidity of the Babylonian conquefts, fo this leopard has four, to fignify the fwifter progress of the Macedonians. The four heads alfo are fignificant. They are intended to reprefent the fame circumftance as the four horns of the he-goat in the sighth chapter. Fifteen years after the death of Alexander, his brother, and two fons being murdered, his kingdom was broken, or divided, by Caffander, Lyfimachus, Ptolemy and Seleucus, into four lefler kingdoms, which they feized for themselves.

It may not be amifs in this place, to take notice, that whereas, in this vifion in the feventh chapter, the Medo-Perfan empire is represented under the emblem of a bear, and that of the Macedonians under that of a leopard, in that of chapter the eighth, the former is typed out by a ram (ver. 3.) with two horns, one higher than the other; and the higher came up laft; and the latter by a hegoat, &c. These were moft apt reprefentations of thefe empires. For a ram was the royal enfign of Perfia, as the eagle was of the Romans, and as the lion is of England; and the figures of rams heads with horns, the one higher than the other, are still to be feen among the remains of the ruins of Perfepolis, as Sir John Chardin takes notice in his travels, That which came up laft was highest, to denote that the Perfian kingdom, though it was of a later date,

fhould overtop the Medes, and make a greater figure in the world than the other; as it did from the time of Cyrus, under whom the two kingdoms were united in one.A he-goat was also very properly made the type of the Macedonian or Grecian empire, for this was the emblem, or, as we now a days exprefs it, the arms of Macedon, and they were called the goats people; for Caranus, their firft king, going with a multitude of Greeks, to feek a new habitation, was, as it is faid, commanded by the oracle, to take the goats for his guide; and afterwards feeing a flock of goats flying from a violent storm, he followed them to Edeffa, and their fixed the feat of his empire, made the goats his enfign, and called the city Ægeæ, of the goats' town. But to return.

The fourth kingdom is represented (ver. 7.) by a fourth beaft, dreadful and terrible, and ftrong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth, it devoured and brake in pieces, and ftamped the refidue with the feet of it. And it was divers from all the beafts that were before it, and it had ten horns. This dreadful representation made a great impreffion on Daniel's mind, and he therefore inquires particularly what this might mean. Ver. 19. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beaft, which was divers from all the others, exceeding dreadful. The angel informed him (ver. 23.) that the fourth beaft fhall be the Fourth kingdom upon earth, which fhall be divers from all kingdoms, and fhall devour the whole earth, and fhall tread it down, and break it in pieces.

That which appeared in the imagination of Nebuchadnezzar as the legs and feet of a great image, whose brightness was excellent (Dan. ii. 31-45.) and the form terrible, is here reprefented to Daniel as a fierce and ravenous beaft. This is the Roman empire, which fucceeded the Macedonian. "This beaft," fays Bishop Newton, "was fo great and horrible, that it was not cafy to find an adequate name for it; and the Roman empire was dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, beyond any of the former kingdoms. It was divers from all kingdoms, not only in its re publican form of government, but likewife in ftrength and power, and greatnefs, length of duration, and extent of dominion. It detoured and brake in pieces, and ftamped the refidue with the feet of it. It reduced Macedon into a Roman province about 168 years; the kingdom of Pergamus about 133 years; Syria about 65 years, and Egypt about 30 years, before Chrift. And befides the remains of

the