leading interpreters, to identify that spiritual tyranny with the prophetic type. Its past correspondence with a kindred tyranny, also foretold under a like symbol, strengthens the application. And the symptoms of coincidence, in the approaching fall of both powers symbolized, seem to corroborate, in the way most to be desired, this sense of the prophecy.

It may be noticed, as additionally supporting this view of Dan. viii. 9-25., or the prophecy of the little horn of the he-goat, that the conclusion respecting it, first broached by Mr. Whitaker, has been arrived at, in these remarks, and in the section to which they are appended, by a wholly different mode of proof.

In thus regarding the Mahometan tyranny, as the power eminently prefigured by the type of the Macedonian little horn, it is far from the author's intention to infer, that it is the power exclusively prefigured. The fundamental rule of a germinant interpretation will authorize and suggest a far broader conclusion. The belief of the ancient church, both Jewish and Christian, that this prediction has relation to Antiochus *, and of so many Christian expositors, that it belongs to the Romans, may, in this more comprehensive aspect of prophecy, not be destitute of foundation. And that germinant character of the prophetic Scriptures, so strikingly exemplified in the grand prediction, St. Matth. xxiv., which includes, in one view, the impending fall of Jerusalem, and the most distant fortunes of the church of Christ, will admit of the successive application, in degrees less and more perfect, of the prediction here in question, to Antiochus, to pagan Rome, and to Mahometanism.

* For the belief of the Jewish church, Bp. Newton and others have cited the testimony of Josephus, 1. x. c. xi. § 7. It is surprising that interpreters should not have more strongly noticed the clear reference of this prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes, by the author of the first book of Maccabees. See 1. Maccab. i. passim. The allusions in vv. 10. and 30. are peculiarly marked. It seems not to be doubted that the writer had Dan. viii. 9-25. in his eye.

The following tabular exhibition may enable the reader to draw his own conclusions, as to the intrinsic, and the relative, appropriateness of the three interpretations:

for it prevailed by the power of the host given to its king: i. e. through the spirit of fanaticism which infected all the conquered nations.

So destroyed, temporally and spiritually.

Did prosper and practise.

Destroyed the polity of eastern, and wasted universal Christendom. Its treaties only for truces, to be broken when advantageous to infringe them.

In times of peace,

In combats of gla- remarkable for the diators. fatal success of its schemes for perversion of Christians. Crucified the son of God afresh, in its character as an antichristian apostasy.

Stood up against,
and crucified our
Lord.
[Not broken with-
out hand, but by the
strong hand of the
barbarians of the
North.]

Its time not yet accomplished; manner of end, consequently, unknown.

* "A nation," not a king. The distinction should be attended to; for the language of Scripture, even in its most mysterious prophecies, is always minutely accurate. So Dan. ix. 26. "And the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary:" con

In this table, the evidences for the fulfilment of the prophecy by Antiochus, and by the Romans*, are taken from the standard commentators: for the marks of its fulfilment by Mahometanism, the author is himself partly responsible. It is left with others to decide, which of the three powers appears to supply the fullest accomplishment.

formably with the very letter of this prediction, history records that Titus used the greatest efforts to save the temple; but the infuriated soldiery fired it before his eyes, regardless of threats and intreaties.

* Each attempt of the commentators to appropriate this prediction to pagan Rome, seems worded, as it were, to establish its proper application to Mahometanism. To reconcile it to the Romans, Bishop Newton observes: "Their actions within the dominions of the goat, and not their affairs in the western empire, are the principal subject of this prophecy. But their actions, which are most largely and particularly specified, are their great persecution and oppression of the people of God: which renders it probable, that the appellation of the little horn might be given them for the same reason, that the great persecutor and oppressor of the saints in the western empire is also called the little horn. IT IS THE SAME KIND OF POWER, AND THEREFORE MIGHT BE SIGNIFIED BY THE SAME NAME.' Diss. XV.

The similarity of the two symbols naturally implies the similarity of the two powers symbolized : —but how constrained and imperfect the Bishop's parallel, as applied to pagan Rome and popery? while, on the other hand, transfer but the application to popery and Islamism, and the parallel is full, natural, and perfect. They are truly and indeed "the same kind of power, and therefore might be signified by the same name.'

No. IV.

PROOFS OF THE IDENTITY OF THE CRUSADES WITH DANIEL'S 66 TIDINGS OUT OF THE NORTH."

In the passage of the present work (Vol. I. pp. 202-204.), which the following observations are designed to illustrate, the crusades have been indicated as the prophetic "tidings out of the North," spoken of by Daniel, xi. 44., which should trouble, or impede," the king of the North :" that is, which should arrest, for a season, the victorious career of the Turkish power.

The evidences, both geographical and historical, which support this interpretation, and which might have been out of place in the body of the work, are too important, and too interesting, to be omitted in the Appendix. A short review of these evidences shall form, therefore, its concluding Number.

1. To begin with the geographical proofs: Europe, as situated to the north-west of Asia, may be taken, in a general sense, to answer the prophetic description of " the North." But, added to the geographical position of the continent at large, there arises, in the next place, the further consideration, that the crusading armies were chiefly levied in the north, or north-west, of Europe: Germany, England, the Netherlands, and the north of France, may be said to have furnished the main strength and flower of those armies, from