enlarge on the sanguinary issue of the conflict. But the word of prophecy, and the hand of Providence, seem visible throughout, in this their latest interposition; all the circumstances of which combine to identify this unforeseen and timely inroad of the Tartars, with the " tidings out of the East" which should "trouble" the king of the North.

With the expedition of Tamerlane, all providential hindrances were withdrawn. The king of the North had now none left to trouble him. The transition is forthwith marked unequivocally in the next verse of the prophecy: which (however the accuracy of the description has escaped the notice of the commentators) closes the eleventh chapter with a vivid representation of the triumph of Mahomet II.; the fall of Constantinople; and the final erection of the Turkish crescent, and the Mahometan creed, upon the ruins of the Greek empire, and of eastern Christianity.

"And he shall plant the tabernacles of his

:

prophecy concerning the king of the North, and who can fail to own and admire the exactness of the fulfilment? "But tidings out of the East shall trouble him therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many." A contemporary could not have more graphically painted, the approach of Timour, the march of Bajazet, and the bloody field of Angora.

palaces between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain." #4

Brief as this description is, the most skilful geographer could not more nicely define the site, nor the most exact historian more faithfully depict the past and present fortunes, of the second Rome.

Situated on the straits which connect the Euxine with the Mediterranean, Constantinople is properly characterized as seated "between the seas." As described by the geographical accuracy of Mr. Gibbon, "the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills, the opposite shores of Europe and Asia:" she is therefore correctly represented under the figure of a "mountain.” As the seat of civil empire, she was "the glorious," as that of ecclesiastical, "the holy, mountain." Upon this mountain, the king of the North was to "plant his tabernacles.""The palaces and gardens of the seraglio," observes Mr. Gibbon," the seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism, occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills." In the language of Scripture, the planting of tabernacles denotes

* Dan. xi. 45. Compare Ezek. xvii. 22, 23. The antithetical relation between the triumphs of the kingdoms of Christ, and of Antichrist, is marked in these contexts by the similarity of the descriptions.

permanent settlement *: the planting of the tabernacles of palaces signifies fixed dominion. And the prediction is amply verified in the event. The Turk has already held the imperial metropolis, and profaned the holy sanctuary, for nearly four hundred years.

The fate of this seat of empire was as nothing in the eye of prophecy, when compared with the ruin of eastern Christianity, which attended on its fall. "Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the Caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors." The sceptical historian unconsciously employs the language of the prophet Daniel, concerning this very desolation; which was "to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot."

The prophecy of the king of the North, and the vision of the little horn, seem alike to con

* Psalm 1xxx. 8. Jer. xviii. 9. xxiv. 6. xxxii. 41. Isaiah, xl. 24. Hosea, ix. 13. Amos, ix. 15. These references might have been spared, had not the commentators on Daniel, especially Bishop Newton, by neglecting the invariable figurative force, in Scripture, of the phrase to plant, as denoting permanent habitation, gone altogether astray, at this place, from the just interpretation. According to Bishop Newton, this prediction remains yet to be fulfilled, by the Turk literally forming an encampment in Palestine !

clude with intimations, that the fall of the antichristian power, typified by these symbols, shall be the work, not of man, but of God. The one foretells that "he shall be broken without hand:" the other, that "he shall come to his end, and none shall help him." Both predictions, we may observe in conclusion, remarkably consist with the present tottering condition of the Turkish empire; which now appears to stand, not by its own strength, but in virtue of the political jealousies of the Christian powers of Europe. When its appointed time shall have come, and a controlling Providence shall cause these needful jealousies to cease, this last and fiercest head of the eastern Antichrist, so long irresistible by the arm of man, gives every promise of crumbling by its own weight, though retaining, to the latest gasp, its spirit of intolerance and persecution.5

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SECTION III.

PROPHETICAL ANTICIPATIONS OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MAHOMETANISM; AND PROPHETICAL PARALLEL BETWEEN MAHOMETANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

THE prophetical anticipations of the Mahometan apostasy, contained in the Old Testament, are materially cleared and confirmed by those predictions of its rise and progress, which, as all the best authorities agree in maintaining, occur in the New Testament.

Indeed, the admission, that Mahometanism and the Saracens have a place in the former revelation, involves the presumption, if not the proof, that they must also occupy a place in the latter: an inference palpably suggested by the fact, that, in almost every ascertainable example, the great predictions of the one Testament are found to be reflected by the other. '

We, accordingly, now proceed to connect those remarkable prophecies of the book of Daniel, which have been applied to Mahomet and his followers in the preceding section, with the strictly parallel, and still ampler predictions,