IN

CHAPTER 11. Vs. 24-49.

N the economy of divine providence it often happens, that God permits those whom he means to deliver, to be reduced to the utmost extremity of distress, and to suffer all the anxiety of despair. He purposes to display his power and goodness in protecting them; but he suffers them to feel their own inability to extricate themselves, that they may be led more immediately to acknowledge his hand. This was eminently the case with the Jews, when, by means of Haman's malice, they were brought to the very point of a general massacre. The edict had gone forth, preparations were made for their complete destruction, and the gallows is prepared for Mordecai; but at that very moment God interposes for his people; Haman is hung upon the Gallows; the enemies of the Jews are discomfited, and they themselves (Esther 9.) have light, and gladness, and joy, and honour.

So also the edict had gone forth that the wise men of Babylon should be put to death; "and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain: " But God heard the prayers of Daniel and his fellows; he revealed the dream of the king to his servant, and hence gave

him an opportunity of being the deliverer of others as well as of himself and particular friends. Nor have good men any greater pleasure than in being the instruments of doing good to others; for true piety not only prompts to acts of benevolence, but gives a secret and refined pleasure in the doing of them. Hence, therefore, Daniel hastened to Arioch, who had been appointed to execute Nebuchadnezzar's bloody decree of slaying the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, (ii, 24.) "Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation." His anxiety was not merely to save his own life, but the lives of men who did not believe in the true God; and hence to shew, that true piety incites us to relieve others in distress, however their religious creed may differ from our own.

But though good men may have the opportunity of doing acts of kindness to others, yet they do not, on that account, arrogate praise to themselves; but attribute glory to him, who gives them the opportunity of reducing their benevolent wishes to real instances of charity. Hence therefore, when Nebuchadnezzar with surprise, and perhaps with doubt, asked Daniel if he could make known his dream and its interpretation, he replied: "There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets-But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

Asthe minds of all men are subject to the direction of the Deity, so we find that when he is about to perform some signal act of divine interposition, he prepares their minds both for its reception and accomplishment. When God was pleased to interfere for

the deliverance of the Jews from the cruelty of Haman and for the honour of his servant Mordecai, he produced a restlessness in the mind of Ahasuerus, so that he could not sleep, (Esther vi. 1–14. ). He therefore commanded that they should bring the book, in which the most remarkable events of his reign were recorded, and read to him. In their reading they came to that instance of Mordecai's fidelity to the king, by which he had saved him from Assassination by Bigthana and Terish, two of his chamberlains, and for which he had received no reward. This neglect, therefore, of Mordecai is not to be considered merely as accidental, but as a link in that great chain of providence by which the Jews obtained so signal a deliverance. The king was not permitted to reward Mordecai, till the time came, in which his reward would benefit not only himself, but his whole nation. And as the greatest events often arise from causes almost imperceptible; so we find, this deliverance of the Jews may be traced up to so small a cause as Ahasuerus' not being able to sleep on that night, in which Haman had prepared a gallows for the destruction of Mordecai.

And as God was about to reveal to Nebuchadnezzar a general outline of the four great empires of the world, and of the kingdom of the Gospel; so, also, his mind was prepared for the revelation: For, (v. 29.) Daniel says to the king, "As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed what should come to pass hereafter; and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. And though it should be granted, that Nebuchadnezzar's dream was, in consequence of his anxiety, to know the future fate of his empire, yet will not this at all take away any thing from the doctrine of a divine agency with respect to it. The Deity works by second causes; and

it would be less absurd to say, the Watch maker did not make the Watch, because he used the file, than to say, the dream was not of God, because Nebuchadnezzar's mind had been anxious about future events. The wishes and feelings of all men are known to God; he therefore makes use of their wishes and feelings in that manner which is best adapted to the designs of his providence.

Nebuchadnezzar's dream may be considered as a general outline of the history of the world from his time: It embraces five kingdoms, four of which are temporal, but the fifth spiritual. Following, therefore this general division, we will now consider the particulars of this remarkable dream.

But it may be necessary, first, to observe, that we shall confine ourselves to the particulars of the dream only; as the same subject will come before us in Daniel's vision of the four great beasts.

The vision which Nebuchadnezzar had, was that of a large stupendous image, (31-36.) whose head was of gold; his breast and arms of silver;-his belly and thighs of brass;-his legs of iron; and feet part of iron and part of clay: He also saw a stone come, without any visible agency, and strike the image upon his feet, in consequence of which the image was broken in pieces, and his different parts completely destroyed; but the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

There can be no doubt, that the head of Gold represented the Babylonian Monarchy; for Daniel says, (37, 38.) "Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And, wheresoever the child ren of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls

of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of 'Gold.'

The Babylonian empire arose out of the Assyrian, which for above thirteen hundred years had governed Asia. The weak and effeminate Sardana palus, monarch of that mighty empire, was overthrown by the conspiracy of Arbaces governor of Media, and Belesis or Nabonasser governor of Babylon. Nineveh was the seat of Arbaces' empire, and Babylon the metropolis of Nabonasser's. The empires remained distinct from each other not long; for, independent of their being at times united under the same prince, in the year 612 в. c. which was 135 years after the division of the Assyrian empire, Nabopollaser, father of Nebuchadnezzar, entirely overthrew Nineveh, and hence Babylon became sole Mistress of the Empire.i

The extent of the Babylonian empire is expressed in words of the greatest latitude; for Daniel says, "wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the heaven, hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all." But it may be necessary to observe, that these expressions, like many others of the same kind, both in the sacred and prophane writers, must be taken with restrictions: As (2 Kings, xix. 35.) it is said of Sennacherib's army, after the angel of the Lord had destroyed of it an hundred fourscore and five thousand men, "Behold they were all dead corpses;" that is, a vast multitude of them were dead. The Roman writers were also accustomed to call their empire, the empire of the world, and an eternal empire; and to say of Augustus. that under his auspices, the whole

Prid. an. 747 and 612. Apb. Usher dñ. 748.