3. The king was to arise, when the transgressors were come to the full-The Christian churches began very early to degenerate from their primitive purity, and to apostatize in the manner predicted by St. Paul. The Apostacy however was long confined to individuals; nor did the transgressors come to the full, until it was publicly authorized and upheld by the spiritual head of the catholic church. But in the year 606, when the saints were delivered into the hand of the Papal horn, the Apostacy became an embodied system: for immediately afterwards idolatry was openly and shamelessly established by the sovereign pontiff. In this year then, when the 1260 days commenced, the transgressors came to the full consequently in this year we must look for the rise of the king. Accordingly the Mohammedan apostacy commenced in the East, in the self-same year that the Pope was constituted Bishop of bisbops and supreme head of the Church in the West: insomuch that Dr. Prideaux, struck with this wonderful chronological coindence, could not refrain from exclaiming, "that Antichrist seemed at that time to have set both his feet upon Christendom together, the one in the East, the other in the West."*

4. The king was moreover to be fierce of countenance, and a teacher of dark sentences: that is to say, the little

ed along with its empire in the East, the North, and the South, and which are therefore left unnoticed by the prophet,) “the solid and compact dominion from Fargana to Aden, from Tarsus to Surat, will spread on every side to the measure of four or five months of the march of a caravan." (Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. ix. p. 501.) To this vast territory, which acknowledged Mohammed as the prophet of God, the Turks afterwards added Greece and Asia Minor in the North. The progress of the Saracens, in the very direction marked out by the prophet, is even verbally noticed by Mr. Gibbon. After detailing the history of their conquest of Arabia in the South, he observes, "To the North of Syria they passed mount Taurus, and reduced to their obedience the province of Cilicia with its capital Tarsus, the ancient monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge of the same mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than the light of religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine and the neighbourhood of Constantinople. To the East they advanced to the banks and sources of the Euphrates and Tigris: the long disputed barrier of Rome and Persia was for ever confounded, the walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and Nisibis, which had resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirvan, were levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly produce the epistle of the image of Christ to an unbelieving conqueror. To the West the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea." In this direction Mr. Gibbon notices only the piratical excursions of the Saracens. Hist. of Decline, Vol. 1x. p. 309, 423, 424.

* Prideaux's life of Mohammed, p. 16.

horn was to be a spiritual power upheld by force of arms; it was to be a religion, not mild and gentle like that of the Lamb, but partaking of the fierce and unrelenting nature of the dragon-The word, which is here rendered dark sentences, primarily means enigmas: and, as the oriental enigmas were usually couched in sublime and poetical language, it is used in Scripture to express the sublime spiritual enigmas or mysteries of religion. Thus the Psalmist, when about to treat of the deep mysteries of redemption, and the wonders of the resurrection, summons all the inhabitants of the world to give him their earnest attention. 66 My mouth," saith he, "shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding. I will incline mine ear to a parable I will open my dark sentence upon the harp."* The dark sentences then, or spiritual enigmas, taught by the little horn, are manifestly that pretended revelation of Mohammed, the Koran; a work written in a kindred language to that of the Jewish Scriptures, and replete with those poetically metaphorical turns of expression so peculiarly grateful to an oriental ear. "The substance of the Koran, according to Mohammed or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal; subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light on the table of his everlasting decrees-In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission. on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert, that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture, whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds, and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the European infidel he will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation; which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust,

Psalm xlix. 3, 4.

and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the same language."* Such are the dark sentences of the Koran; and the religion, which it inculcates, may well be described as "fierce of countenance," when the avowed maxim of its founder was to use no other engine of conversion than the sword.

III. "And it waxed great even against the host of heaven; and it cast some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, it magnified itself even against the prince of the host; and by it the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his (the prince's) sanctuary was cast down. And the host was given up unto it by reason of transgression against the daily sacrifice; and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered."

Of this passage the following explanation is given by the angel." And the power of the king shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the people of the holy Ones. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart; and he shall destroy many while in negligent security he shall also stand up against the prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand."

1. The little horn was to cast the stars of heaven to the ground, and stamp upon them-The religion of, Mohammed has professedly set itself up against the symbolical host and stars of heaven, or the bishops and pastors of the Christian Church; numbers of whom in the eastern part of the empire it cast down to the ground, compelling them either to apostatize, or stamping them as it were under its feet with all the fury of brutal fanaticism.

2. The little horn was to magnify itself against the prince of the host, and to cast down the truth to the ground-Accordingly Mohammedism did openly magnify

*Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. 1x. p. 267, 268, 269.

its founder against the divine author of the Christian religion. The impostor allowed Jesus the Son of Mary to be a prophet; but he maintained that he himself was a greater prophet, and that the Koran was destined to su persede the Gospel. He taught his infatuated disciples, that "the piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more illustrious than themselves and that the evangelic promise of the Paraclete or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person of Mohammed, the greatest and last of the Apostles of God."* Thus destroying the mighty hosts of the rival nations of Rome and Persia, murdering and harassing the now degenerate people of the Holy Ones, taking away the daily sacrifice of prayer and praise, polluting the spiritual sanctuary,† and magnifying itself even against the prince of princes, the little horn of Mohammedism cast down the truth to the ground, and waxed exceeding great.

3. The strength of the little horn was to be mighty, but not by its own strength-The power, here spoken of, being a spiritual one, its strength will mean that commanding influence which religion exerts over the soul of man. Thus the mighty efficacy of the Gospel is described by the Apostle as "quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and

66

Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. ix. p. 267.

† Mr. Kett, although he supposes the little born to relate in part to Mohammedism, very inconsistently takes the sanctuary in a literal sense; and thence argues, that Jerusalem is designated as the principal scene or object of the tyranny of this born." He is led into this error by his system of double interpretations of the same prophecy for he adds, " first, during the Jewish, and lastly during the Christian dispensation." The little born therefore, according to his system, first polluted the sanctuary in the days of Antiochus, secondly, in the time of the Romans; thirdly, under Mohammed; and lastly will pollute it by the arms of professed infidels-Now, though the literal sanctuary was polluted by Antiochus and the Romans, (neither of whom by the way can have the slightest connection with the little born) it certainly was not by Mobammed; and for this very substantial reason; in his days it was no longer in existence -As for Jerusalem, it was no more the principal scene of Mohammedan triumphs, than Persia, Greece, Arabia, or Egypt: nor has the sanctuary, which was to be polluted by the little born, any reference whatsoever to the temple- (See Hist. the Interp. Vol. I. p. 350, 351, 359.) The infidel power, or Antichrist will indeed plant the curtains of his pavilions between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, at the era of the restoration of the Ferus: but this exploit is certainly not foretold in the present pro. phecy, which treats of quite a different power.

îs a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."* The Gospel accordingly, when preached to the heathen world, shewed by its successful progress, that it was not only mighty, but mighty by its own divine strength. It required not the assistance of the temporal arm; but, on the contrary, prevailed over all the persecutions that could be raised against it. Hence its illustrious founder is prophetically addressed by the Psalmist, "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things." And hence the propagation of the Gospel in the primitive ages is described by St. John in the same sublime strain of allegory: "And I saw, and, behold, a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him and he went forth conquering and to conquer."+ But Mohammedism, strong as it afterwards became, and great as was the influence which it possessed over the minds of its votaries, was not mighty by its own natural strength. It avowedly relied, not upon the still small voice of reason and argument, and evidence; not upon the louder claims of miracles, which could neither be denied, nor accounted for on physical principles; not upon its own intrinsic worth and purity, its own divine unassisted strength: but upon the enthusiastic valour of its adherents, the strength of the Saracenic sword. Ten years Mohammed persevered in the exercise of his mis

‡ Rev. vi. 2. I cannot but wonder, how Bp. Newton could think of applying this symbolical description to the conquests of the Flavian family. In order that the prophe cies of St. John may be consistent with themselves, the rider upon the white horse, mentioned in this passage, must be the same as the rider upon the white horse celebrated in the ninteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, who is there declared to be the personal Word of God. Bp. Newton objects, that no good reason can be given for representing the Church in triumph and glory, at a period when she was most grievously persecuted and afflicted. But this objection cannot be esteemed of any weight, when we consider, that the victories of the Church, being purely of a spiritual nature, have been usually the greatest, when her temporal estate has been the most depressed. Accordingly, when the Church was established by Constantine in great temporal prosperity, the Spirit of God sets so light by this outwardly glorious event, that it represents it as " holpen with only a little help;" (Dan. xi. 34.) because, as Bp. Newton himself observes, “ though it added much to the temporal prosperity, yet it contributed little to the spiritual graces and virtues, of Christians." Mr. Mede justly supposes the rider upon the white horse to mean the Messiah. Com. Apoc. in Sigil, I,