Empire in the east. But it further devours, and breaks in pieces, and stamps, all the residue with its feet : here, consequently, we have a no less plain intimation, that the dominions also of the two remaining Empires, which in fact were included within the Grecian Empire, should be conquered and added to its own territory'. The same beast, as described by St. John, exhibits, in the composition of its parts, a yet more striking analogy to the composition of the great metallic image. Daniel had represented the three first Empires under the symbols of a lion and a bear and a leopard ; while he had exhibited the fourth under the hieroglyphic of a non-descript wild-beast, save that it had teeth of iron and claws of brass and ten horns growing out of its head. Of this representation St. John avails himself: and, just as his predecessor Daniel had made the complete image a compound of all the four Empires fused together into one Roman mass, so he tells us, that the Roman beast was strangely compounded of the Babylonic lion and the Persian bear and the Grecian leopard, adding to these his component parts those members which were peculiarly his own; his seven heads or seven successive forms of government, and his ten horns or his ten western Gothic kingdoms'. Hence, in effect, he tells us, that the Roman beast, in the greatest extent of his 1 Dan. vii. 7, 19. body, should be geographically commensurate with the metallic image when completed. The geographical basis, then, or platform of the image is the territorial Roman Empire in its utmost extent for upon this basis were reared all the four Empires, which, when united, constituted the single Roman Empire or the complete metallic image as beheld by Nebuchadnezzar. II. We have seen, that the age of the metallic image must be reckoned from some point between the years before Christ 658 and 646: because its age must be reckoned from the protrusion of its golden head, and because its golden head is declared by the interpreting prophet to be Nebuchadnezzar himself. And we have likewise seen, that the age or duration of the image, thus reckoned from about the middle of the seventh century before Christ, has been asserted to comprehend those seven times, which are produced by the duplication of the three times and a half, and which are identical with the times of the Gentiles mentioned by our Lord. As yet, however, this last particular is nothing more than an assertion: our present business, therefore, is to establish it, so far as it can be established, by evidence. That the term of seven times is not mentioned in direct connection with the metallic image, I readily allow but we shall find it mentioned no less positively, though obliquely and mystically, through the intervention of that remarkable type or ruling prin ciple of the great idolatrous image Nebuchadnezzar himself. The golden head, as we have seen, is declared to be no other than the individual king Nebuchadnezzar : and, agreeably to those mythologic notions on which the symbolical image is so evidently constructed, he is viewed, as animating the whole mass, and as reigning either visibly or invisibly through all the four ages. Hence he is the vital principle of the entire statue : as the natural head is the vital principle of the natural body; or (if the illustration may be allowed) as Christ the now invisible head, and his collective members the Universal Church, form only one spiritual body or great ecclesiastical Empire. In this capacity, therefore, Nebuchadnezzar is mystically represented to us, as a type or exemplar of the metallic image; shadowing out, in his own person, both the age and the fortune of the great compound progressively increasing Empire, which the image, during its growth, is employed to symbolise. When the king was at rest in his house and flourishing in his palace, when he had carried the Babylonian monarchy to its highest pitch of grandeur, and when he had adorned and beautified his proud capital in a manner hitherto unexampled ; he was disturbed by a very extraordinary dream. In the visions of the night, he beheld a tree; which rapidly shot up to heaven, while its branches spread themselves to the extremity of the earth. Its leaves : were fair its fruit was abundant: and it served as a shelter, for all the beasts of the field, and for all the fowls of the air. While he was gazing upon it, a Watcher, even a Holy One, descended from heaven; and, in a loud voice, pronounced the following sentence. Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches: shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it; and the fowls, from his branches. Nevertheless, leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and of brass in the tender grass of the field: and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his heart be changed from man's heart, and let a beast's heart be given unto him: and let seven times pass over him. This matter is by the decree of the Watchers; and the demand, by the word of the Holy Ones: to the intent that the living may know, that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men'. This dream none of the Chaldèan Magi were able to interpret: but the same God, who sent it to Nebuchadnezzar, sent also the true exposition of it to his servant Daniel. The tree represented the king of Babylon, flourishing in the greatness of his imperial power: the 1 Dan. iv. 14-17. hewing of it down, and the changing of its heart from the heart of a man to the heart of a beast, exhibited the madness with which that prince should be stricken in the midst of his grandeur: the seven times denoted the term of seven years, during which his madness should continue: and the securing of the stump with a band of iron and a band of brass shewed, that, although the monarch might be deranged in his intellect, yet his kingdom should not on that account be taken away from him or experience a political dissolution. With this interpretation the event exactly accorded. As the king was walking on the flat roof of his palace and proudly contemplating the magnificence of his city and empire, he was suddenly stricken with madness : in that state of mental alienation he remained seven times or seven years ; but he lost not, on this account, his political supremacy: and, at length, when the seven times were accomplished, he was restored to his reason, he explicitly renounced his former idolatry and self-confidence, he acknowledged that the Most High was alone the God of all the earth, he reigned a short time under the character of a faithful worshipper of Jehovah, and at the end of that short time he was mercifully translated from an earthly to an heavenly kingdom". Dan. iv. For remarks on the symbol of a tree, as interpreted by the ancient onirocritics, see above, book i. chap. 1. I suspect, that, on their own principles of onirocriticism, the |