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that tremendous thanksgiving and denunciation which is contained in the third vial of Divine wrath, all of which were to be poured out on the men who have the mark of the beast, and who worship his image, or the followers and adorers of the false prophet, viz. “ They have shed the blood of saints and of prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy.” The three first vials are expressed in language borrowed from the history of the plagues of Egypt, and may be justly called Egyptian plagues; they were, therefore, poured out on that monarchy of Antichrist which was prefigured, as has been seen, by Egypt, and which is expressly called Sodom and Egypt in the Apocalypse; and where also our Lord was crucified, because he was there publicly and professedly denied, blasphemed, and crucified in his majesty, his faith, and his church.

By the pouring out of the first vial, a noisome and grievous sore fell upon those enemies of Christ an ulcer or sore is the prophetic symbol, and in this case the inspired presage, of division and of separation, and it foresignified the lasting and incurable disunion of the subjects and votaries of Antichrist; and aptly and strongly marked that unconquerable antipathy, which in every period of their history has inflamed and exasperated the mutual aversion and execration of the sects of Omar and of Ali, and which is still perpetuated in the immortal enmity of the Turks and Persians.

These seeds of discord and of ruin had been sown in the very constitution and first foundation of the first kingdom of Mahomet, or of the Saracen monarchy. The apostle of God had left to his disciples the choice of his vicar and successor in the command of the faithful. The caliphate became, in consequence, at the same time, an object of ambition and of rivalry amongst the Saracen chiefs, and a breach never to be repaired was the result; or, in prophetic language, "there fell a noisome and grievous sore," or a foul and incurable ulcer, upon them. Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, had expected to succeed him in his functions on earth, subject only to the apostle himself, who was now believed to have become the supreme arbiter of human hopes and human destinies, and the Lord and judge both of this world and the next. But Ali, notwithstanding all his claims of affinity to the prophet, and of zeal and courage in his cause, was disappointed in his prospects of succeeding him, and was overpowered by a more cunning and fortunate rival, or a more popular and powerful party. His adherents, however, though worsted, were not annihilated, but have ever maintained, with the most unshaken constancy and invincible fortitude, that if Mahomet is the apostle of God, Ali is the vicar of God; and the usual imprecation, " may this go to the heart of Omar," sufficiently attests their veneration for Ali, and their abhorrence of his rival. The Tar

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tars, and even the Turks, in their earlier irrup tions, warmly espoused the quarrel of Ali, and abundantly retaliated the massacres of Omar.

Tamerlane completed the ravages and butche ries of former invaders, and entirely destroyed the monarchy, and almost the very name of the Saracens; he is said to have heaped up a mon ment at Bagdad of 90,000 skulls; leaving a empire which had been the most powerful and formidable of its day, and had reached in undis puted authority and unbroken continuity from the Atlantic to India, only to be found in the records of time, to furnish matter for history, and to evince the completion of prophecy.

SECTION VIII.

BABYLON-GOG.

THE Apocalyptic Beast had now received" the deadly wound with the sword," and was slain; but he soon revived and became more ferocious and formidable than ever. The first woe of the church, which was inflicted by the Saracens, and answered to the bondage in Egypt, was indeed past but it was to be succeeded by a second woe, still more severe and intolerable, to be inflicted by the Turks; and the mystical and true Israel was to endure a Babylonish captivity, as well as an Egyptian thraldom, corresponding, in many respects, to that which its type and precursor had suffered before it. The latter part of Daniel's xith chapter has been shewn, and indeed had been always understood by the Jewish and early Christian church, variously to point out and characterize both the religious imposture, and the political tyranny of Antichrist. "The land of he north," had been a well known prophetic designation of the empire of Babylon, as that of

the south" had betokened the monarchy of Egypt. And as the Assyrian or Babylonian nonarchy had overrun and subverted the Egypian empire, so the prophet had foretold that the

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tars, and even the Turks, in their earlier irruptions, warmly espoused the quarrel of Ali, and abundantly retaliated the massacres of Omar.

Tamerlane completed the ravages and butcheries of former invaders, and entirely destroyed the monarchy, and almost the very name of the Saracens; he is said to have heaped up a monument at Bagdad of 90,000 skulls; leaving an empire which had been the most powerful and formidable of its day, and had reached in undisputed authority and unbroken continuity from the Atlantic to India, only to be found in the records of time, to furnish matter for history, and to evince the completion of prophecy.