mies, with the law of honorable revenge even upon friends; the ceremonies, the stately forms of high life, with the simplicity of a lowly Christian; and that, in fine, contrasts so perfectly the manners and customs of courtiers, with the habits of apostles, as miry clay mixed with that iron of the royal image. Considerations of this nature persuade me, that while the iron of the image was the old constitution of the Roman empire, Christianity is the clay admixture. And from out of a composition in this kind, generous souls are expecting to spring much of the "peace and safety," and carnal security of the temporal millennium ! THE STONE. "In the sun, and moon, and stars, "But though from Jehovah's face, "Heaven shall fade, and earth shall fly, "Fear not ye, his chosen race, "Your redemption draweth nigh." Having examined the division of the feet of the image, and the intermixture of the miry clay with its iron constitution, in the feet and toes, I shall take for the unanimous consent of my readers, that the remaining symbol in this prophecy, intends our Lord Jesus Christ in person, or by his institutions, or both. The Holy Spirit calls him in person, a stone; the chief corner stone, the stone of stumbling and rock of offence,-the Rock of Ages, and other similar epithets. I take the stone in this prophecy, to be the Lord Jesus in person, and not another by any form of construction: and I think he refers to this when he says: "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder." (Mat. 21: 44.) Now, mark the bearings of this Stone, and the time of its coming, and the form of its action, and the effects of its contusion on the entire image. Suppose we are standing with Daniel before the Assyrian monarch, time being rolled back on his wheels twenty-four hundred years. We have heard the dream and the interpretation; but we would more fully understand it and we ask the prophet, "How much of this image is now above the horizon of time ?" "The golden head," he replies. And we ask again : "Do the kingdoms which succeed this, follow each other, as the different parts of the image come one after another above the horizon of time, until the kingdom of heaven comes?" "As the breast and arms of the image come after the golden head," he replies; "so do the Medes and Persians, succeed the Assyrians; and the brazen Greeks succeed to the empire of the Medo-Persians, and the iron Romans succeed to the empire of the Greeks: and to the divided empire of the Romans succeeds the kingdom of heaven, which shall stand for ever." "But how does the kingdom of heaven come, with manner and eternity, so unlike the rest?" "Those which precede it are metals of earth, which increase in hardness, until the clay mixes in the last one; and they rise up and enter into each other's kingdom, as they respectively take the dominion. But not so the kingdom of heaven. That comes down from above, and enters not into the kingdom of the others; but it scatters them to oblivion, at a blow, in the person of the king Messiah, who will reign over the house of Jacob forever."-We ask, trembling: "But who will be his subjects, when the nations are all sent to oblivion and the grave, at the onset of his coming?" In reply, Daniel reasons with us a moment, thus: "You perceive that Messiah's kingdom stands forever: and when it fills the whole earth, it makes all things new. It is the eternal state, which flesh and blood cannot inherit. Therefore, the nations of this world cannot inherit it. But the armies of the dead shall rise, and Messiah shall rule over all, in a body suited to the eternal state. Thus, his subjects will infinitely outnumber the population of the nations of the earth." We acknowledge it; and yet we desire to know more about this fourth kingdom, whose feet and toes are of iron and clay, and are divided into ten kingdoms. Daniel might reply: This kingdom well merits your study, for you will live on the earth in its time. It will be much stronger, and more enduring, than all which preceded it. Nevertheless, as the others gave place to it; so must it yield to the never-ending dominion of the Son of Man. The commentators teach, that in the advent of his humility, when he came to suffer and die, the Lord smote the image of nations. But not only is the anachronism prodigious, which makes the blow of the Stone felt in the feet and toes, before either the feet were formed, or the toes of it divided the inconsistency in the character is, also, no less apparent and forbidding. The Lord came in the days of the iron empire of the image, before any thing answering to the clay was mixed with it; before the feet were formed, and before the empire was divided; and he came as a servant, to minister to men, and not to rule over them; and especially to warn them of his coming again to judge the earth in righteousness. In his coming, he neither broke the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax, nor let his authoritative voice be heard in the streets; but much less did he break the iron empires of this world, and scatter them to the winds. He gave a law that, after three hundred years, was received, like miry clay, among the iron kingdoms of christendom, into their constitution. But his manner and doctrine, at that coming, were as totally unlike the coming of the Stone out of the mountain as can possibly be conceived. Far was it from him at that time, to break in pieces the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, or the kingdoms of this world; but he warned them of a time coming, when he will bring forth judgment unto victory, with a voice of the archangel, which will raise the dead, and with a flaming fire that will devour the adversaries; when the kingdoms of this world pass away forever. Our day is that of the clay and iron constitution of the feet of the image, which remain unbroken, though divided into many kingdoms that remain unchanged, though their time is wonderfully prolonged; and which are to remain, until the end of time, and the coming of the everlasting kingdom. The stone from the nature of the symbol, must aim from on high its blow, and not repeat it. It comes from the cloud covered mountain, taken out without hands: and who can withstand the force of its descent? "It smote the image upon his feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces:" and it smote them not again; for that one blow was sufficient to break not the feet alone; but "then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces TOGETHER." Such was the force of the blow upon the feet and toes, that it brought the entire image to the ground, in a state, not of fragments, but of powder; insomuch that the gold, which is the heaviest of metals, became, with all other parts of the image, "like the chaff of the summer threshing floor; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them. And the stone, that smote the image, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." Certainly, the feet of this image are not broken. They remain in the divided formation, as they were from the beginning of the ten kingdoms; only stronger. And the kingdoms of brass and silver and gold are not broken. They remain as well, as in the days of the gospel first preached. They are far from being broken to pieces together, and blown, where they can no more be found. But this is the manner of their passing away, according to Daniel the prophet; which proves that the action of the stone is yet to come. "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom." : This is generally interpreted of the first advent; but erroneously for that was in the days not of any concurrent or consecutive kingdoms, but in the iron age of the fourth kingdom only. The kingdom which should come from heaven, therefore, "in the days of these kings," must come, in the time of the ten concurrent kingdoms, into which the fourth is divided, and in the time of the thrones, which now govern the earth. SUMMARY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE PROPHETIC IMAGE. From the time of Daniel to the end of time, were to be four empires; then should come the everlasting kingdom, which is the same with the kingdom of heaven. As the first empire was followed by the second, and the second by the third, and the third by the fourth, which is now on the stage of this world, in the last formation of iron and clay; and in the last division, into ten kingdoms: so also will the fourth, and all that have preceded it, give place to the kingdom of our God, which the Lord will bring with him at his coming, |