There are three main things in this our Apostle's prediction, whereof I find the Spirit to have spoken inτws, or in express words, and that in the prophecy of Daniel: 1, of these Last or Latter Times; 2, of the new worship of Demons in them; 3, of a prohibition of marriage to accompany them. As for the first of these, the Latter Times, Daniel (as you have heard before) expressly names them "A time, times, and half a time,"* being those Last Times of the last kingdom, wherein the hornish tyrant should make war with the saints, and prevail against them. For the second, a worship of new demons or demi-gods, with a profession of the name of Christ, you will perhaps think it strange if I should show it inτws' but if I do, it was the appendix of hindering or debarring marriage, mentioned in the next verses, which as a thread led me the way to the end of the eleventh chapter of Daniel, where I found it; and in a place, too, very suspicious, being taken, I think, by almost all the ancients, for a prophecy of Antichrist, yea, and so expounded by the greatest part of our own, though with much variety of reading and application.

But hear the words themselves in verses 36, 37, 38, 39, of that eleventh chapter of Daniel, translated, as I think, inτws, verbatim, without any wresting or straining the Hebrew text. They are a description of the last or Roman kingdom, and the several states thereof, conquering nations, persecuting Christians, false-worshipping Christ. The words are these :

DANIEL, CHAP. XI.,

Verse 36. Then a King shall do according to his will, and shall exalt and magnify himself above every God.

Yea, against the God of Gods shall he speak marvellous things,

*

VERSES 36, 37, 38, 39.

36. Tunc faciet pro libitu suo Rex, et extollet ac magnificabit seipsum supra omnem deum.

Etiam contra Deum Deorum loquetur stupenda; proficietque

· Καιρος, καιροί, και ἡμίσυ καιρου.

and shall prosper until the indignation be accomplished, for the determined time shall be fulfilled.

37. Then he shall not regard the Gods of his ancestors, nor shall he regard the desire of women, no, nor any God: but he shall magnify himself above all.

38. For to [or together with] God, in his seat, he shall honour Mahuzzims; even together with that God whom his ances tors knew not, shall he honour [them] with gold, and with silver, and with precious stones, and with pleasant things.

39. And he shall make the holds of the Mahuzzims withal [or jointly] to the Foreign God, whom acknowledging, he shall increase with honour, and shall cause them to rule over many, and shall distribute the earth for a reward.

donec consummata fuerit indignatio, nam statutum perficietur.

37. Tunc ad Deos majorum suorum attendet, nec ad desiderium mulierum, nec ad ullum Numen attendet: sed supra omne se magnificabit.

38. Nam ad [vel juxta] Deum, Mahuzzimos in sede ejus honorabit: scilicet ad Deum quem non agnoverunt majores ejus, honorabit [eos] auro, et argento, et lapidibus pretiosis, et rebus desideratissimis.

39. Et faciet munimenta Mahuzzimorum una Deo peregrino [seu exotico]; quem agnoscendo, multiplicabit honore; et dominari faciet eos in multos, terramque partietur in mercedem.

1. Now, for the understanding of this prophecy, we must take notice that the prophet Daniel, at the beginning of these verses, leaves off the Greek kingdom with Antiochus, of whom he was speaking before, and falls about the Roman the reason being because, after Antiochus, (in whose time Macedonia, whence that kingdom sprung, with all the rest of Greece, came under the Roman obedience,) the third kingdom comes no more in the holy reckoning; Daniel himself calling the time of Antiochus's reign the latter end of the Greek kingdom, chap. viii., 23, and, as I take it, he intimates the same in this chapter, in the verse immediately foregoing these we have now to deal withal. From thenceforward, therefore, the Roman succeeds in the account of the Great Kalendar of Times. 2. Under the name king we must understand the whole

Roman state, under what kind of government soever, for the Hebrews use king for kingdom, and kingdom for any government, state, or polity in the world. For the Devil, in the Gospel, is said to have shown Christ all the kingdoms of the world, monarchies, aristocracies, democracies, or what other kind soever.

3. Where it is said that this king should exalt himself above every God, nothing is thereby meant but the greatness and generality of his conquests and prevailings. And the reason of that phrase or manner of speech should seem to be, because, in the times of Paganism, every city and country was supposed to have their proper and peculiar Gods, which were deemed as their guardians and protectors: whence, in the Scripture, (according to the language of that time, we may observe a threefold use of speech :

First, the nations themselves are expressed and implied under the names of their Gods. The Israelites were called "The people of Jehovah." So are the Moabites "The people of Chemosh."-(Numb. xxi., 29.) The Lord threatened (Deut. iv., 28, and xxviii., 36 and 64. Jer. xvi., 13) to scatter Israel among the nations, from one end of the earth even to another, and that there they should serve other Gods day and night, Gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither they nor their fathers had known; that is, they should serve them, not religiously, but politically, inasmuch as they were to become slaves and vassals to idolatrous nations, even such idolaters as neither they nor their fathers had ever heard of. For as for a religious service of idols, the Jews were never so free as in their captivity, as we see by experience at this day; but with the service of bondage they may be said politically to have been the vassals of idols, as being in bondage to the servants of other Gods. As a Christian taken by the Turk may, in the like sense, be said to come in bondage and be a slave to Mahomet, for a slave to the servants is in a sense servant to their master. Let it also be considered whether that of David (1 Sam. xxvi.,

19,) be not to be expounded according to this notion, "They have driven me out this day froin abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other Gods :' that is, banished me into a nation of another religion.

Secondly, the exploits of their nations are said to be done by their Gods, even as we, by like privilege of ́speech, ascribe unto our kings what is done by the people under them. Thus (2 Chron. xxviii., 23) the Gods of Damascus are said to have smote Ahaz : "He sacrificed to the Gods of Damascus that smote him; and he said, Because the Gods of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me." Jer. li., 44, it is said of the dominion of Babylon, that the nations flowed together unto Bel, and that he had swallowed up their wealth, which the Lord threatened there to bring forth again out of his mouth.

Thirdly, and that most frequently of all others, what is attempted against the nations is said to be attempted against their Gods; even as generals bear the name not only of the exploits, but also of the disadvantages, of the armies led by them, so here the Gods are said to receive the affronts, defeatures, and discomfitures, given to the people under their patronage. Rabshakeh vaunts, in his inaster's name, (2 Kings, xviii., 33,) "Hath any of the Gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of Assyria? Where are the Gods of Hamath and of Arpad where are the Gods of Sepharvaim ?" Isaiah (xlvi., 1, 2) prophesieth thus of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus: "Bel boweth down; Nebo stoopeth. They could not deliver the burthen, but they are themselves gone into captivity." In the like strain prophesieth Jeremiah, chap. 1., 2, "Babylon is taken; Bel is confounded; Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded," &c. And again (Jer. li., 44) "I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up, and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall." The same prophet saith of Moab's captivity, chap. xlviii., 7,

"Thou shalt be taken, and Chemosh shall go into captivity with his priests and his princes together.' Moab likewise, in his affronts and derision of Israel, is said to have magnified himself against the Lord. Acccording to which manner of speech, the success and prevailing of the Roman, in the advancing his dominion and subduing every nation under him, is here expressed by his exalting and magnifying himself above every God. This I suppose to be the ground of that manner of speech; though if any had rather, as others do, take Gods here for the kings and potentates of the earth, it will, I confess, come all to one purpose.

4. By the Gods of their ancestors, whom the Roman state should at length cashier and cast off, are meant all the Pagan deities and Heathen Gods which were worshipped in that empire.

5. By the desire of women, which the Roman also at that time should not regard as he was wont, is meant desire of wiving, or desire of having women for the society of life, conjugal affection, which is expressed (Gen. ii., 24) to be such a desire for which "a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall be both one flesh." And it might have been translated in this place desire of wives, as well as desire of women, for there is no other word used in the original for wives above once or twice in the whole Scripture but this, which is here turned women. With the like use of the word desire, the spouse in the Canticles, chap. vii., 10, expresseth her well-beloved to be her husband: "I am my wellbeloved's," saith she, "and his desire is towards me: that is, he is my husband; for so twice before she expressed herself, (chap. ii., 16,) "My beloved is mine, and I am his;" and chap. vi., 3, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." So (Ezekiel xxiv., 16) the Lord, threatening to take away Ezekiel's wife, saith, "Behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes," and afterward (verse 18) it followeth, "and at even my wife died." Yea, the Roman language itself is not unacquainted

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