in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and ftrong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth. It devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the refidue with its feet, and it was diverfe from all the beafts that were before it, and it had ten horns."

This description alfo well agrees with that of the fourth kingdom in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, represented by the iron legs of the great image, which had feet part of iron and part of clay, and which was broken by the ftone cut out of the mountain without hands.

From all this it appears to me impoffible not to conclude, that these prophecies of Daniel have respect to another temporal kingdom, which was to put an end to that of the Seleucidæ, this being one of the four into which that of the Macedonians, or Greeks, was to be divided; and this was the Roman, which alfo was to terminate in ten kingdoms, which took place on the diffolution of the Roman empire. This divifion fubfifts at this day, but is to be fucceeded by what

what Daniel calls the kingdom of Heaven, which is to be established in the earth, and to continue to the end of time.

Admitting, therefore, the genuineness of the book of Daniel, it cannot be denied that what he wrote was dictated by the spirit of prophecy, or a proper divine infpiration. For what human forefight could have enabled him to foretel even the destruction of the Babylonian empire, then in its full power, probably about ten years before the death of Nebuchadnezzar, by the Medes and Perfians, who are here mentioned by name, when it does not appear that, at that time, they were either of them confiderable, and not united? For this was more than thirty years before the taking of Babylon by Cyrus. Much less could any man foresee the end that would be put to the empire of the Medes and Perfians by the Greeks, who are alfo particularly mentioned, when it is probable that the Greeks, whofe power was then nothing at all, were unknown at Babylon, and fo remote from that part of the world, and in fo rude and barbarous a state, that it could no more have been apprehended

that

that they would be mafters of that country, than that the Esquimaux fhould ever become masters of this.

But Daniel describes more particularly ftill a fourth empire, and the declining state of that empire, and also another power of a most extraordinary kind, which, as I have fhewn, could be no other than the Papal, arifing within that empire, before the diffolution of it by the fetting up of the kingdom of heaven, which has not yet taken place, but which may now be expected, and perhaps in the time of fome who now hear me.

Whatever difficulty there may be in the interpretation of fome parts of the prophecies of Daniel, this outline of the whole is fufficiently clear, and abundantly vindicates his prophetic character, the omniscience of the Being by whom he was inspired, and the divine origin of the religion which he profeffed.

There are, however, fome Chriftians, firm believers in the authenticity of the book of Daniel, who yet are of opinion that his prophecies do not go beyond the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. But in this it appears to

me

me that they violate all juft rules of interpretation, and pay little regard to the contexture of the vifions, or the language of the angel who explains them. The principal of thefe is Grotius. I fhall therefore examine his ideas on this fubject. It should, however, be confidered, that, being perfecuted at home, and hofpitably received in a popish country, he always discovered a great unwillingness to give offence to the Catholics, by any interpretations of Scripture that would reflect upon them, especially by fuppofing that the pope was Antichrift; and this was almost unavoidable if the fourth empire of Daniel was made to be the Roman; because then the little horn in the feventh chapter cannot well be any other than the papal power, the fame with the powers of a fimilar description in the Revelation of John.

In order to fupport his hypothesis Grotius is obliged to fuppofe that Daniel's fourth kingdom, reprefented by the legs of iron in the image of Nebuchadnezzar, and the fourth beaft with iron teeth in the vifion of Daniel, reprefented the kingdom of the Seleucida and of the Lagidæ, jointly; whereas nothing

is

is more evident than that those two kingdoms were only branches of the Macedonian or Grecian empire, two of the four unto which it was divided after the death of Alexander, They were no other than Grecian kingdoms, though established in Syria and Egypt; and were not erected on the ruins of the Macedonian empire. But according to Daniel the fourth empire overturned and destroyed the third, as much as the third overturned the second, and the fecond the first.

Befides, with what propriety can these two kingdoms, generally hoftile to, and frequently at open war with each other, be called one? Nor does the character of these kingdoms with refpect to power at all correfpond to the description of the fourth empire in the prophecy. For inftead of being fuperior in that respect to the preceding empire, here supposed to be that of Alexander, they were even together greatly inferior, and not to be compared with any of the three preceding empires. But in the Roman we find an empire that fully answers to this part of the defcription, as it does to every other.

The