throne of the caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and caution, continued his correspondence, and hastened his preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by the fallacious assurance, that he should content himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa from Europe." Musa having at length invaded Spain, its Gothic sovereign and nobility too late perceived the magnitude of the danger. "In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres has been illustrated by the encounter which determined the fate of the kingdom. The stream of the Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and bloody days. On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and decisive issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls, encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and reclining on a litter or car of ivory drawn by two white mules." This battle terminated in the complete victory of the Saracens ;" and the remains of the Gothic army were scattered or destroyed in the flight and pursuit of the three following days." Thus has the Mohammedan little horn destroyed many while slumbering in a state of false security; and thus accurately has the prophecy of Daniel been fulfilled.

6. The only remaining peculiarity, which the angel ascribes to this tyrannical superstition, is still future: it is destined to be broken without hand-This event is to take place at the close of the 2200 years, which, as we have seen, synchronizes with the termination of the 1260 years; when the spiritual sanctuary will begin to be cleansed from the abominations of the two-fold Apostacy. In the prediction of Daniel, Mohammedism alone is spoken of: its two principal supporters, the Saracens and the Turks, are not discriminated from each other: a gen

The resemblance between the effeminate and unwarlike habiliments of the Spanish Roderic and the Persian Rustam cannot but have been observed by the reader. Each "was destroyed in negligent security."

VOL. I.

+ Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. II. p. 469–474.

27

eral history of the superstition, from its commencement to its termination, is given, without descending to particularize the nations, by which it should be successively patronized. In the Revelation of St. John this deficiency is amply supplied and we are furnished with two distinct and accurate paintings both of the Saracenic locusts under their exterminating leader, and of the Euphratèan horsemen of the four Turkish sultanies.* "The sovereignty of Arabia was lost," long before the expiration of the 2200 years, "by the extent and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were scattered over the East and the West, and their blood was mingled with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens of the desert, awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and solitary independence." The Turks at present, jointly with the Persians, occupy the place and empire of the Saracens ; and the little horn of Mohammedism has branched out into the rival sects of the Shiites and the Sonnites. It appears however from the Apocalypse, that the Ottoman power, like its predecessor the Saracenic Caliphate, will be annihilated previous to the complete expiration of the 2200 and the 1260 years, and consequently previous to the downfall of the Roman beast under his last head and of his little horn the papal false prophet. The mystic waters of the Euphrates are to be completely dried up under the sixth vial; and by their exhaustion are to prepare a way for the kings from the East, and for the gathering together of the grand confederacy of the beast, the false prophet, and the kings of the Latin earth, to their destruction at Megiddo: but the confederacy itself is not to be destroyed till the seventh vial is poured out, and till the 1260 years are fully accomplished. The downfall of the Ottoman empire,

Rev. ix.

+ Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. 1x. p. 353.

Compare Rev. ix. 14, 15. xvi. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. with xvi. 17-21, and xix. 11 -21. These matters will be discussed more fully hereafter.

the prognostics of which are even now sufficiently visible, will greatly weaken the spiritual horn of Mohammedism, but certainly not altogether break its strength. The false religion of the Arabian impostor will still be professed in Persia, Hindostan, and Barbary; nor will it be finally "broken without hand" till the 2200 years shall have expired. What precise idea we are to annex to this phrase, can only be positively determined by the event: this however we assuredly know, that the eastern little horn, like its western fellow, will be for ever broken at the termination of that period. Concerning what is future we cannot venture to go beyond the express declarations of Scripture; but of that which is past we may speak with confidence and precision.

We have seen then, that the little horn of the he-goat or Macedonian empire answers, in every particular that has hitherto been accomplished, chronological as well as circumstantial, to the successful imposture of Mohammed: we have seen, that only one particular yet remains unaccomplished; and that even that has already begun to be fulfilled and we have further seen, that, although the character of the little horn agrees in some particulars with

The expression is ambiguous. If conjecture be allowable in such a matter, it may either mean, that Mohammedism shall be as it were practically confuted and silenced by the second advent of Christ, against whom the impostor had presumed to stand up (Compare Daniel ii. 34, 35, 44, 45.): or it may mean, that it shall gradually fall away to nothing by the desertion of its votaries, and thus die a sort of natural death. The exhaustion of the Euphrates will no doubt greatly weaken it: and it is a remarkable circumstance, even in these eventful times, that a sect has lately made its appearence in the very country of the false Arabian prophet, which threatens no less than the destruction of his religion itself. The Wababees are infidels; and their numbers are daily increasing. Their opinions have been maintained in secret near sixty years; and they at length find themselves strong enough to take up arms in defence of them. It is said, that they occupy the greatest part of the country which extends from Medina to the Euphrates. Their last exploit, of which we have recently received an account, shews their decided hostility to Mobammedism in a very striking point of view. Having reinforced their army from the desert, and having overwhelmed the whole adjacent country, they suddenly assaulted and took the city of Medina with infinite bloodshed and devastation. They set fire to it in various places; destroyed the mosques, after having ransacked them of their shrines and treasures; and completely demolished the tomb of the prophet. Some thousands of females of the first rank were carried off by the besiegers into the desert, with a number of the principal male inhabitants. A troop of camels was also sent away with jewels and other treasure to an immense amount. (See Morning Post, Feb. 22, 1806.) Should this sect continue to increase, Mohammedism must fall eventually by mere force of opinion. If its votaries continue gradually to abandon it, we may easily conceive, how, at the time of the end, it will be broken without band. The reader will of course view the whole that has been said on this point in the light of mere conjecture.

those of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Romans, and the power of Infidelity; yet it entirely disagrees with them in others: the result therefore of the whole inquiry must be this, that the prophet designed to symbolize by the little horn Mohammedism, and nothing but Mohammedism.

CHAPTER VI.

Concerning Daniel's last vision, and the king who magnified himself above every God.

DANIEL, having in his two former visions predicted the tyranny of the two-fold Apostacy of Popery and Mohammedism, proceeds in his concluding prophecy, to give a most accurate account of the subversion of the Medo-Persian empire, the rise of the Macedonian empire, its subsequent division into four kingdoms, the wars of the Greek kings of Syria and Egypt, and the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans. The whole of this, which is only an enlarged and literal repetition of his former brief and symbolical predictions, serves as a kind of chronological introduction to the history of the king who was to magnify himself above every god; in the same manner as the vision of the four beasts conducted us to the tyrannical reign of the papal horn, and the vision of the ram and the he-goat to the exploits of the Mohammedan horn.

The first part of this wonderfully minute prophecy has been so amply and satisfactorily explained by Bp. Newton, that it would be superfluous in me to offer any observations upon it. Suffice it to say, in the words of that excellent commentator, "there is not so complete and regular a series of the kings of Egypt and Syria, there is not so concise and comprehensive an account of their affairs, to be found in any author of those times, The prophecy is really more perfect than any history."

* Dan. x, xi, xii.

The explanation of the second part of this prediction is attended with considerably more difficulties, than that of the first. The main question here, which offers itself to our attention, is this: What power did Daniel mean to describe under the character of the king who was to magnify himself above every god! Are we to suppose, that this part of the prophecy is only a repetition of the history of one of the little horns; or that it is a prediction of some third power distinct from them both?

Bp. Newton adopts, in part at least, the former of these suppositions. He explains this king to signify, primarily, the Roman emperors, after the conversion of the empire to Christianity; and, secondarily, to mean at once the Greek emperors in the East, and the Bishops of Rome in the West, the king consequently, in his latter character, is the papal little horn combined, as it were, with the temporal authority of the Constantinopolitan sovereigns. Hence he applies some parts of the prophecy to the Roman Emperors, before the division of the empire, some to the Papacy in the West, and some to the Constantinopolitan emperors in the East-He conjectures, for instance, that the king's doing according to his will, his magnifying himself above every god, and his speaking marvellous things against the God of gods, intimate; "that, after the empire was become Christian, there should spring up in the Church an antichristian power, that should act in the most absolute and arbitrary manner, exalt itself above all laws divine and human, dispense with the most solemn and sacred obligations, and in many respects enjoin what God had forbidden, and forbid what God had commanded. This power began in the Roman emperors, who summoned councils, and directed and influenced their determinations almost as they pleased. After the division of the empire, this power still increased, and was exerted principally by the Greek emperors in the East, and by the Bishops of Rome in the West." The king's disregarding the desire of women he applies to monasticism, whether oriental or occidental, and to the constrained celibacy of the clergy; his veneration of Mahuzzim, or tutelary demi

Bp. Newton's Dissert. xvii.