For their power is in their mouths, "and in their tails: For their tails

were like unto ferpents, and had reads, and with them they do hurt." That under the Turkish empire the false doctrine of Mahomet has been spread with no less zeal than under the Saracens, is too well known to need the productions of any teftimony of history; yet to fhew, that our hiftorian continues to bear witness to this prophecy, even to the end of it; I transcribe a passage, which may be confidered as containing a reason for the power of their mouths, and their tails to hurt, being so closely conjoined in the text: Since it shews that conquest was the means of propagating their faith. "To propagate the

66

true religion was the duty of a faith"ful Mufsulman: The unbelievers were "his (the Sultan Amurath, the second enemies, and those of the prophet;

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"and in the hands of the Turks, the

scymetar was the only instrument of "converfion."

The prediction of Daniel relating to the King of the North contains two particulars yet unnoticed; the extent of his conquest, and the duration of his empire. For the former, the forty first, forty fe. cond, and forty third verses of the eleventh chapter runs thus; "he shall "enter also into the glorious land, and

many countries shall be overthrown: * But these shall escape out of his hands, éven Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He shall "stretch forth his hand also upon the " countries: And the land of Egypt "shall not escape. But he shall have

power over the treasures of gold and

" of filver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: And the Lybians

" and the Ethiopians shall be at his

step"

I have already produced

P. 14

p. 140 the words of Mr. Gibbon informing us that the dominions of Malek Shah extended to Jerufalem, and that his fucceffours have carried theirs to Egypt, and drawn treasures from thence it would be totally unnecessary to prove. Though the phrafe by which the subjection of the Lyhians and Ethiopians is expressed merits observation : " shall

be at his steps." And do not the fuccours which the states of Barbary yield on requifition to the grand Signior even in the present age form yet a correfpondence to this description? Though much more visible was the accomplishment of it ere they had arrived to their present degree of independence. And for the countries which " have escaped

66

out of his hand," not avoided all fubjugation; for to that the power of the terms does not reach; but delivered

themselves from it:

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Edom, Moab,

" and the chief of the children of Am

" mon

"mon." How these free booters of the Desert have vindicated their independence and continue in cosequence of it, a terrour not only to fingle travellers, but to whole Caravans, the reader may either fee in the relations of our countrymen, who have traversed those regions, or find generally stated by Bishop Newton in his interpretation of this paffage.

"

I proceed to the permaneney of the Qttoman power presignified by both Daniel and St. John. By the former in representing as he does in the first verse of his twelfth chapter, the destruction of it as preceding only by a short interval the refurrection of the dead; as in the fourteenth verse of the eleventh chapter of the Reve. lation, where it is faid, that foon after this second cometh the third woe; and which appears by the subsequent verses to be no other, than the summons to judgement. From the present existence of that empire, we know that in this circumftance

:

cumstance the event has hitherto answered to the prediction, that is, for nearly five hundred years: And since the particular power to whose duration we can ourselves thus testify, was specified by the prophets as so to continue, can we justly draw any other conclufion than that of their inspiration, from their having so accurately stated long before what on comparison with the fate of other Eastern Dynasties appears too uncommon to have seemed at all probable? In the Turkish empire "the most dar

"

ing rebel, Mr. Gibbon observes, has " not presumed to afcend the throne of " his lawful fovereign. While the " tranfient Dynasties of Afia have been * continually fubverted by a crafty "Vizir in the palace, or a victorious " General in the camp, the Ottoman * succession has been confirmed by the

46

practice of five centuries : And is

"now