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diction, in the times immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem. Let the several expositions offered, be only compared with the marks which shall now be noticed, in proof of its matter-offact fulfilment in the person and lying pretensions of Mahomet; and the justness of the interpretation may safely be left to be determined by the result of the comparison.

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"There shall arise false Christs:"] Mahomet, at the outset of his imposture, offered himself formally to the Jews as their promised Messiah and is universally spoken of by Christian interpreters, and recognized by the whole Christian world, as antichrist, or one of his chief heads.

"And false prophets:"] Mahomet assumed the title of "the prophet of God;" and thereby constituted himself, in the proper sense of our Lord's words, a "false prophet:" accordingly, it has been already seen, he is expressly styled, in the Apocalypse, "the false prophet."

“And shall show great signs and wonders: "] Mahomet laid claim to supernatural communications with angels, and to immediate conference with God himself, in heaven; he set up the Koran as the greatest of miracles; and his pretensions to miraculous powers appear to have been bounded solely by his prudence, and by the fear of detection and exposure.

"Insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect:"] This part of the prophecy has found a fatal fulfilment in the innumerable apostasies to Mahometanism which have taken place within the Christian church, from the first rise of that arch-heresy to the present day."

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Behold, he is in the desert:"] Christ, it will be had in remembrance, pronounced the prophecy in a country immediately adjoining the Arabian desert; can it, then, be matter of reasonable doubt, when we take into account the conspicuous place which the Arabian heresiarch and his apostasy hold elsewhere in the prophetic Scriptures, that the finger of God is here laid on the birth-place of Mahomet and Mahometanism?

"Behold, he is in the secret chambers:”] In the inner apartments of the house, in its most private recesses: both the Greek term in the New Testament, and its Hebrew equivalent in the Old, have a significancy not to be misunderstood *; the prophecy here pourtrays Mahomet to the life, in his proper character; and pursues him to those hidden scenes of "chambering and

* For the signification of raμelov, see Schleusner in voc. : for that of 777, which, in the Septuagint version, is uniformly rendered by Taμelov, comp. Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon.

wantonness," which set the seal of antichrist on himself and his religion.

In commenting on the several passages of Scripture, which have been submitted in these pages as prophetical anticipations of the rise and progress of Mahometanism, it has been our object to establish, in each example, by internal evidences, the appropriateness of the application.

For two of the passages in question, namely, Dan. viii. 9-25., and Rev. xiii. 11-18., various other interpretations have been assigned, by very high authorities. Each of these interpretations, however, it will be observed, terminates in reducing the Eastern little horn of Daniel, and the apocalyptic beast that came up out of the earth (or out of the East), in one form or other, to the Western church or empire. Now the Roman church and empire in the West have their own known and proper symbols in both these books; while it seems contrary to the whole nature and ends of prophecy, and contradictory to the general analogy of the prophetic Scriptures, thus to explain one distinct set of symbols, into modifications merely, and subordinate parts of another. Prophecy may be defined the interpreter of Providence; and, as a light sent of God, we have the best reason to anticipate, that the interpretation shall expound

the whole text; that is to say, that the predictions of prophecy shall be found, on examination, commensurate with the course of Providence. If this first principle be a sound one, our only safe introduction to the study of the prophetic Scriptures must be the previous contemplation, in due proportion to their relative magnitude and moment, of those great events more immediately connected with the church of God, which have come down to us upon the stream of time. Now the greatest events which have either affected God's church, or taken place in the world, since the first promulgation of Christianity, beyond all question are, the Papal and the Mahometan apostasies; powers similar in their character, and simultaneous in their rise; the one overshadowing Western, the other overwhelming Eastern Christendom.

The former of these apostasies has undoubtedly been foretold by Daniel, under the symbol of a little horn, and by Saint John (besides other representations), under the emblem of a beast which came up out of the sea; both images being appropriately connected with the Western empire. But Daniel has a second symbol of a little horn, and Saint John a second symbol of a beast, which came up out of the earth; both emblems being apparently con

nected with the history of the Eastern empire. If we understand the latter pair of symbols, as some commentators have done, of the Latin power civil or ecclesiastical, in any sense whatsoever, they become unavoidably reduced to modifications of the former: that is, they resolve themselves into predictions belonging to Western Christendom; and Eastern Christendom remains without its proper rank and place in prophecy. If, on the other hand, we interpret them of Mahometanism, the balance is restored; prophecy goes hand in hand with Providence, in both portions of the universal church; foreshowing, concerning each, the retributive visitations which have actually befallen them.

These reflections naturally lead us on, from the prophetical anticipations of the rise of Mahomet, to the prophetical parallel between Mahometanism and Christianity. The two little horns in the book of Daniel, and the two beasts in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation, have been already introduced in general terms as predictions descriptive, the first horn and the first beast of the Papal, the second horn and the second beast of the Mahometan tyranny. We will now dispose these parallel prophecies in one view from their simple juxta-position, the reader will be enabled to judge for himself, how

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