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tween the two seas.* But, whether this religious war will be undertaken against the Protestants or the Jews or both, it is as yet future; and will not even commence, as Daniel carefully informs us, till the time of the end, or till the termination of the 1260 days. Hence it certainly can have no connection with the persecutions of the Papacy properly so called for the papal little horn was to wear out the saints of the Most High until a time and times and half a time, and the faithful witnesses of Christ were to prophesy in sackcloth during the whole term of the 1260 days; whereas the religious extirminating war of this king, against whomsover it may be directed, is not so much as to begin till the very end of that term. The men of understanding, or the witnesses, are to be in an afflicted state till the time of the end; consequently their appointed period of persecution is before the time of the end, and ceases at the time of the end. At this very time of the end however the religious war of the king will be first undertaken that is to say, the war will commence, when the persecution of the witnesses shall cease. Such being the case, the war of the king, if undertaken against the witnesses, must prove unsuccessful: and accordingly Daniel specially informs us, that it will prove unsuccessful. From this view of the subject we have a right to conclude, that the sufferings of the men of understanding are no way connected with the impious tyranny of the king. Whence it will of course follow, since all Daniel's prophecies are strictly chronological, and since the second persecution of the men of understanding peculiarly relates to the sufferings of the protestant reformers, that we are to look for the rise of this king not before, but after, the era of the Reformation: and therefore that this king, whoever he may be, cannot possibly be either the Roman emperor, the Pope, or the impostor Mohammed; but must be some other power perfectly distinct from

them all.

To state the whole argument more briefly; the events succeed each other in the following order. In the 31st verse of the 11th chapter, Daniel predicts the desolation

Concerning this religious war more will be said hereafter.

of Jerusalem by the Romans: in the 32d and 33d verses, the persecutions of the primitive Christians in the 34th verse, the conversion of the Empire under Constantine : and, in the 35th verse, the papal persecutions of the witnesses, more especially that which took place at the era of the Reformation.* After having thus brought us down to the 16th century, he next proceeds to describe the character of some power, which he represents as a monster of wickedness and impiety. It is manifest therefore from the preceding order of events, that this power, whatever state may be intended by it, must be expected to spring up at some indefinite period after the Reformation, although before the time of the end :† and consequently, that all states, which arose previous to the Reformation, are by that very circumstance excluded from having any connection with the power in question.

Perhaps however it may be said, that there must be a fallacy in the objections which I have urged, and that they certainly cannot be solid however plausible they may appear, because one part of the king's character, his disregard of the desire of women, so decidedly proves him to be that complex power, which neglected and discouraged marriage both in the East and in the West, which at first prohibited only the second marriages of the clergy, but in time absolutely restrained them from marrying at all, that it is a vain labour to seek for any power that has arisen after the Reformation, to which such a description can be in the least degree applicable. "This," says Bp. Newton, "was evidently not regarding the desire of wives or conjugal affection-So

The 32d, 33d, 34th, and 35th, verses describe three successive periods of the Church, which exactly coincide with the three periods of the life of the Roman beast after the promulgation of Christianity, bis death, and bis revival. The 32d and 33d verses describe the first period; which reaches from the days of the Apostles to the time of Constantine. The 34th describes the second period; during which the beast lay dead, and which reaches from the time of Constantine to the commencement of the 1260 years. The 35th describes the third period; at the commencement of which the beast revived by relapsing into his former state of persecuting idolatry, and which reaches from the beginning of the 1260 years to the time of the end, comprehending the whole of the 1260 years, although in treating of it the prophet peculiarly describes its most remarkable era, that of the Reformation. We are plainly taught however that it is to extend to the time of the end, or the very time when the expedition of the wilful king commences. Comp, Dan. xi. 35, 40.

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much did the power here described magnify himself above. all, even God himself, by contradicting the primary law of God and nature, and by making that dishonourable, which the Scripture hath pronounced honourable in all."

Could it once be satisfactorily proved, that the disregard of the desire of women, mentioned by Daniel, means the same thing as the forbidding to marry, predicted by St. Paul as one of the subordinate badges of the Apostacy, I should readily allow, that this would be so strong an argument in favour of Bp. Newton's interpretation as justly to warrant a suspicion that there was a lurking fallacy in the objections which I have brought forward: but I can find no just grounds for supposing, that such is really the case. The desire of women does not signify the desire to have women or wives; but, on the contrary, that which women or wives desire to have. That such is the meaning of the expression is sufficiently manifest from the uniform and unvarying phraseology of the whole Hebrew Scriptures: at least I have not been able to discover a single passage in the Old Testament, wherein the word desire, when constructed as in the expression under consideration, ever signifies a wish to have the thing imported by the substantive with which it is so constructed. Thus the desire of Israel does not mean the wish to have Israel, but that which Israel wished to have, namely Saul for a king † the desire of thy soul is not the wish to have thy soul, but that which thy soul wishes to have : the desire of the heart is not the wish to have the heart, but that which the heart wishes to have § the desire of the wicked is not the wish to have the wicked, but that which the wicked wish to have the desire of Ezekiel's eyes is not surely

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1 Sam. xxiii. 20. Psalm cxii. 10.

S Psalm x. 3. xxi. 2. Mr. Mede has been peculiarly unfortunate in his choice of this text to support his opinion, which is similar to that of Bp. Newton. It is true, that the desire of Ezekiel's eyes was his wife: but this will never prove, that the desire of women means the connubial state: rather indeed the very reverse. Had Daniel wished to represent the king as disregarding and discouraging marriage, he would not have said (if we may argue at least from anology) be shall not regard the desire of women, because he would have known that such a phrase in his own language conveyed quite a different idea; but, on the contrary, adopting Ezekiel's familiar and natural mode of expression, he would have said he shall not regard the desire of men's eyes. Cicero's

the wish to have his eyes but that which his eyes desired, namely his wife :* and thus not to weary the reader with a long detail of instances, the desire of all nations is not the wish to be master of all nations, but that which all nations desire, even the promised Messiah.† Arguing then from the analogy of idiom, we must conclude, that the desire of women does not mean, as Bp. Newton and Mr. Mede suppose, the desire of having women or wives, but that which women or wives desire to have.‡ The propriety of such an explanation of the phrase is yet further evident from the very context with which it is joined. Daniel is speaking of objects of religious worship, true and false, all of which this king was alike to disregard and, among these objects, he was to pay as little regard to one which the prophet intitles the desire of women, as to any of the others. "The king shall magnify himself above every god." After this general assertion, Daniel descends to particularise and specify what he meant to include under the expression of every god. "He shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods;-neither shall he regard the god of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor" (a repetition of the first general assertion) "regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all :" that is, above all the objects of worship which Daniel had just specified; namely, the God of gods, the god of his fathers, the desire of women, and in short, every god. Such appears to be the natural and obvious meaning of the passage; and it perfectly accords with the interpretation of the phrase the desire of women, which I have deduced from the analogy of other similarly constructed phrases.

affectionate address, to his wife, which Mr. Mede likewise adduces, En mea lux, meum desiderium is as little applicable to the case in point as the text from Ezekiel. The desire of Cicero was not bis love of himself, but of bis wife: she was what his eyes desired, not bis own person. See Mede's Apostacy of the latter times, Part I. Chap. 16. ↑ Haggai ii. 7.

* Ezek. xxiv. 16.

The ingenious Mr. Dimock comes so very near the right interpretation of this passage, that it is a matter of wonder to me how he could have missed it. He proposes an alteration of the text; and, instead of 'w women, would read nations: so that by the desire of nations might be meant Christ. Finding however, that his proposed alteration is unsupported by any authority, he does not venture to insist upon it; but allows, that the present reading is capable of good sense. Wintle's Version of Daniel in loc.

See

The question then is, what object of religious worship is pointed out by the desire of women? To this I readily answer the Messiah; for the title is perfectly applicable to him, and totally inapplicable to every other person. The original prediction of the promised seed was delivered specially to Eve. It was her seed, that was to bruise the head of the serpent, not Adam's. To the advent of this seed she impatiently looked forward: and, such was her eager desire, that, upon the birth of her first child, forgetting that Cain was Adam's seed no less than her own; she joyfully exclaimed, "I have gotten a man, even Jehovah himself,"* I hold in my arms the promised Messiah. To the subsequent limitation of this promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, successively, we must attribute the vehement desire,† which Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, all felt to have children: and the same cause will satisfactorily account for the excessive horror which all the Israelitish women entertained of barrenness. "Let me go up and down the mountains, and bewail my virginity," was the mournful language of Jephthah's daughter, when doomed by her father's vow to perpetual celibacy: "the Lord hath taken away my reproach among men," was the joyful exclamation of Rachel and Elisabeth : "hail thou, that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women," was the salutation of the angel to the mother of the Saviour of mankind; the desire indeed of all nations, but, in a peculiar and mysterious sense, the desire of women, inasmuch as he was to be born by the power of the Holy Ghost of a pure virgin.‡

• Heb. n the Lord bimself.

↑ It is probably in allusion to this vebement desire of the promised seed, that Hosea terms children “ the desirable things of their (the Ephraimitish women's) tombs. Hos. ix. 16.

See Dr. Allix's Remarks on Scripture. It is there satisfactorily proved, that it was the studied design of the Almighty, by so frequently preferring the younger brother to the elder, to keep alive the expectation of the world respecting the desire of all nations, or, as I conceive Daniel to term the same divine personage, the desire of To this expectation Dr. Allix refers, as I have done after him, the violent desire which all the Hebrew women felt to have children: and, upon the same principle he accounts for the premeditated incest of the daughters of Lot, who was of the family of the Hebrews and of the line of Shem.

women.

If it be objected to this interpretation of the desire of women, that the phrase occurs only once in the whole Bible; and that, if it do mean Christ, it stands alone, a solitary

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