raging celibacy, and "forbidding to marry,” 1 Tim. iv.3. That the Desire-of-Women means a deity, is evident from the connexion in which it stands.

DEVILS OF DEMONS.-See MAHUZZIM.

DOGS.-Men of no religion. Rev. xxii. 15. Without are dogs.

DRAGON OF DEVIL.-Who is the father of lies, seems to represent the same seven empires and ten kingdoms as the Beast does, but only as subject to the superstitious errors of Paganism, and its delusive sensualities. When the Beast represents only its eighth head, then the Dragon seems to mean only its Ten Horns. For the Ten dynasties of kings owe as much their ecclesiastical "power, and throne, and great authority," to the superstitions they suffer to remain in their state-churches, as the Beast or Roman Emperors did,whom they have followed. There is much of this Dragon in the Church of England, in their observance of saints days, fast days, in their consecration of churches, and burial grounds, in the dress, titles, and reverence attached to the persons of their priests, in their kneeling at the altar of the communion, and in other artifices, delusions, and superstitions which designing men have borrowed from Paganism, in order to cheat men into the observance of a nominal or formal Christianity. This Dragon or religion of Paganism was degraded on the adoption of Christianity by Constantine; but he has been since fighting under cover in Christendom. The Pagan sovereigns who founded the present dynasties of Europe within the bounds of the ancient Roman Empire, more often turned their Pagan superstitions into Christian rites than abolished them; and so what has been nothing less than rank heathenism has worn the form of godliness to the present day, so gullible has been the simple spouse

of Christ! But we are assured, that as this devil has been cast out of heaven to the earth, or lost his ostensible dominion on the victory of Christianity at the time of Constantine to reign like a Pretender incog. in the Churches of Rome, so he will be at last searched out and sent into the abyss, there to be shut up with the rest of the dead, till they rise again at the end of the Millennium as his old victims, when he will at last be destroyed with his votaries never to rise again. But what impudence can do even this enlightened age will have to see, when the Dragon shall send forth his emissaries to the battle of the great day of God Almighty to put down the Word of God, as being inimical to every species of imposture, from the worshipping of saints or angels down to the call which a churchman professes to receive when he takes upon him "holy orders," to his knavery or folly in subscribing to Articles he does not believe or does not understand, and contrary to the evangelical practice to his thrusting himself on the congregation without their assent or power of rejecting him. Rev. xvi. 13, 14.

The devil's going out to deceive the Gentiles at the end of the Millennium; means nothing more than that the wicked will revive with the same delusions of sin, as they possessed before their death, according to our Lord's change of the Jewish myth to denote moral evil, or evil desires, or worldly pomp and power, Matt. xvi. 23; iv. 10; James, i. 14; John, viii. 44, meaning Cain; xiv. 30; Eph. vi. 12; Rev. ii. 13; xii. 9; xx. 7, 8, 5.

EARTH.-1. The globe on which we live.-Rev. iii. 10; v. 6, 10; vi. 4. 8; ix. 4; xi. 4; xiv. 3; xviii. 1,3;

The fourth part of the

Fourth part of the earth. civilised world. Rev. vi. 8. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth. As earth is not contrasted here with sea or heaven, there is no occa

sion to take it symbolically, but literally, the symbolical use of it having not yet been introduced.

2. Earth in opposition to heaven. Dethronement, debasement, subversion of political power. Rev. vi. 13; xii. 9, 13; Dan. viii. 10; Apostacy. Rev. ix. 1.

The city ROME, as op

3. Earth in opposition to Sea. posed to the Empire. See p. viii. Rev. vii. 1,2; viii. 7; x. 2, 8; xii. 12, 16; xiii. 11, 12, 14; xiv. 19; xvi. 2. And that the earth symbolizes ROME is proved by the event, the first trumpet and the first vial bringing the two most remarkable sacks of it; the one by Alaric and his Goths, the other by Bourbon and his Italians, Spaniards, and Germans, both mentioned together and compared by the historian Gibbon, v. xxxi. n. n. 115.

4. Earth in opposition to heaven.—The hierarchy of Rome opposed to their dominion. Rev. xxi. 1.—See HEAVEN.

EARTHQUAKE-Revolutions in the political world. Rev. vi. 12; viii. 5; xi. 13; xvi. 18; xi. 19.

EGYPT.-Sodom and Egypt. The unholy admixture of spiritual and temporal things, and the bondage of the church to the state. Rev. xi. 8.

ELDERS.-The twenty-four. As the four living creatures represent the whole creation, so the twenty-four elders represent the noblest part of it, man redeemed and crowned with eternal life. Compare Rev. v. 10, with i. 6. They encircle the throne of infinite space as possessors of it next to God, the angels forming a circle below them. Rev. v. 11; 1 Cor. iii. 21, 23; Rom. viii. 32; Rev. xxi. 7. God created all things by Jesus Christ, Eph iii. 9; and gave him to be the head over all things to the CHURCH. Eph. i. 22; Heb. i. 14.

EYES.-Wisdom, Knowledge.

1. Full eyes.

Full of intelligence, and wonderful

contrivance, and design: Rev. iv. 6.

2. Seven eyes.-Perfection of prescience, wisdom, and knowledge: Omniscience. Rev. v. 6. A Lamb—having Rev. ii. 23. And all the churches shall know

seven eyes.

that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts.

3. Two eyes. The two divisions of the Roman bishop's see, or patriarchate, Dan. vii. 8, 20.

4. Every eye. All men. Rev. i. 7.

FIRE.-1. Literally. Rev. viii. 7; ix. 17, 18. Fire and smoke, and brimstone.

2. Red colour. Rev. ix. 17. Breast-plates of fire. 3. Refinement, purity. Rev. iii. 18; iv. 5; x. 1; xv. 2. 4. The ferment occasioned by the doctrines of the Gospel, Rev. viii. 5; xiv. 18; or the blasting of corruption and wickedness by the preaching of the word. Rev. xi. 5.

5. Severe trials for the faith; Rev. xv. 2; iii. 18. 6. Popish excommunications. Rev. xiii, 13.

7. Tyrannical power. Rev. xvi. 8.

8. Devastation. Rev. viii. 8.

9. Destruction. Rev. xx. 8.

10. Lake of fire. 14, 15; xxi. 8.

Eternal destruction. Rev. xx. 10,

FIRST FRUITS.-The 144,000, or twelve times 12,000, a number of perfection, denoting all the redeemed from the earth from the fall of Adam to the fall of Paganism, A. D. 312. Rev. xiv. 4. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. vii. 2, 3. And I saw another angel ascending from the East, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given

to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth (Rome) neither the sea (the Empire), nor the trees (the nobles) till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. Which shows, that the 144,000 were made up, before Alaric pillaged and set fire to Rome, A. D. 410; and that, since they are the only saints who have been as yet mentioned as redeemed from the earth, they must include all those who had lived before the first advent of Christ, whose soULS by their being sealed by Christ, the angel from the East, (Mal. iv. 2), after his advent seem to have been raised through the merits of his death from a state of extinction to life again and immortality. See DEATH. 5.

FLESH.-1. The riches, goods, or possessions of any persons dispossessed, conquered, oppressed, or slain, as the case may be. Rev. xix. 18, 21.

2. To devour much flesh is to conquer and spoil many enemies of their lands and possessions. In Dan. vii. 5. this expression is used of the three-tusked bear, to denote the cruelty of the three Turkish dynasties of Persia, the Seljukians, Kharismians, and Atabeks, who issued from that kingdom and ravaged and conquered Syria, Egypt, Asia-Minor, and Greece. The Ottomans proceeded from the Kharismians, or were no other than they with a new name. See Gibbon. xi. lxiv. n.n.39, 40

FLOOD.-A desolating, hostile irruption, Dan. ix. 26 ; xi. 22; Rev. xii. 15, 16.

FOREHEAD.-An open and public profession. Ezek. iii. 9. As an adamant, harder than flint, have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks. Rev. xiv. 9; xvii. 5; vii. 3; ix. 4; xiii. 16; xiv. 1 ; xx. 4 : xxii, 4.