nefs and inconftancy; and any permanent attachments between the male and female of the tribe are unusual phænomena.

Though they fhould be clothed in a drefs alike fplendid and beautiful, and fome of them fhould occafionally affume a look of peace and gentleness, these are circumftances, which authorife no diminution of dread or fufpenfion of vigilance.

If you value your fafety, the ordinary circle of their predatory excurfions fhould not be approached by you; for, when you have once entered within the confines of the region which they annoy, you expose yourself to the probability of an attack. Have they fixed their eye upon you? Alas! It will probably be equally vain to fly or to refift. Being of unbounded rapacity, they do, though of the fame tribe, seldom agree among themfelves. But, although they are naturally folitary animals, unsusceptible of friendship and undeserving of confidence, thefe devourers of mankind, notwithstanding their mutual jealousy, have, in fome circumstances, affociated together, that they might the more effectually seize upon their prey. As they cherish the most malignant difpofitions, and are early inured to acts of rapine and slaughter; they are rarely tamed by the most careful or judicious course of discipline: and extremely few are the inftances which have occurred, of their being rendered docile or useful. Though by no means ftrangers, to the colder climes, the countries of Afia and Africa they infeft in the greatest numbers, and it is there that they meet with the feebleft oppofition.

Extending over fo large a portion of the globe, poffeffed of difpofitions thus incorrigible, armed with power thus fatally deftructive, poffibly fome may urge, that they ought to be hunted down, and driven from their dens, though the latter fhould appear to be inacceffible

and

and to bid defiance to attack. And if this work be as falutary's as it is difficult, fome perhaps may be ready to maintain, that thofe, who fhall undertake the hazardous enterprize of fubduing thefe fcourges of the human race, are entitled to receive from them in return their affiftance and gratitude 16? Whilft the former are indefatigable in their devastations, will it not be asked in a tone of furprize, fhall mankind continue idle; fhall they take no precautions for their security; ftill neglecting to unite together against the common enemy, fhall they fucceffively yield themselves up unresisting victims?

Since the word beaft occurs in almost every page of Daniel and the Apocalypfe, I may be the rather pardoned this long digreffion; though it must be confefsed, that I have done little more than amplify on the words of the bishop of Bristol and the prebendary of Winchefter. It may be added, that, in a country where Liberty is univerfally granted to be one of the greatest of human bleffings, no man, profeffing himself an admirer of the limited monarchy of England, can, confiftently

with

ss Ifoerates having obferved, that τον πολεμον ανακαιοπαίον μεν και δικαιοταίον, τον μετα πανίων ανθρώπων προς την αγριότητα των θηρίων yeon; adds, that the next in point of justice and neceffity is against thefe of the human race, τις και φυσει πολεμίες ονίας, και πανία του επIC×λevovlas nμ¡. To whom does this beft apply? Orat. Pana

χρονον

ahenaica.

16 France, we are informed by Buffon and otlier naturalifts, was greatly infefted, fome years fince, by different noxious animals, and particularly by wolves; but the inhabitants have deferved well of fociety, by the seal they have shewn in expelling them.

The right of driving them away, in all cafes, when they fhew themselves bent upon plunder, I regard not as questionable. To the inhabitants of any particular district, who have recently freed themfelves from their deftructive depredations, and defeated all their endeavours to renew them, though hey may have been affifted by other stronger favages of a foreign growth,

a quel

XV

with his principles, be difpleafed to fee the deteftable conduct of tyrannical princes painted in the ftrongest colours,

a question of expediency does, however, occur, when they are apprized, that thefe ferocious plunderers still meditate a repetition of their joint attacks; and it may then become an enquiry of no small difficulty, what mode of oppofition the most enlightened policy would recommend. If, impelled by a generous ardour, they prefs forward in purfuit of the baffled and retreating foe, far beyond the limits of their own territory; if, before a general arming has taken place, they attack, at the same time, and in feveral different quarters, not only the smaller animals of a ravenous kind, the natives of their own clime, but the strongest and the most carnivorous, whom the scent of prey has allured to the combat; and if, when they enter, in thefe circumftances, into the neighbouring territories, they enter with an intention of hunting down thofe more formidable favages, who glut themselves with blood and plunder, before the people of those territories are sufficiently resolute and well informed to afford them substantial aid; it may, I think, be doubted, whether their conduct were fufficiently guided by maxims of prudence.

But to illuftrate my meaning, and to prevent it from being mistaken, I will, for a moment, imagine myself an inhabitant of ancient Europe, as it was thirty centuries fince, when the beafts of the foreft poffeffed almost an undisturbed domination. I will, for a moment, fuppofe, that they are extremely numerous; that they affociate together in large companies, im Hispania, Belgium, and different parts of Italia and Germania; and that they not only carry on their ravages in these countries, the inhabitants of which are unarmed, ignorant of their interefts, and deftitute of union, but that they threaten to lay wafte the populous provinces of Gaul; in these circumftances the Gauls, I apprehend, if the magnitude of the danger required it, fhould maintain a vigorous Defenfive System.

But if they poffefs a well-grounded confidence in their own skill and numbers, a difference of circumstances will undoubtedly authorize a different conduct. If they do quit their own country, if they do chase the enemy beyond their own frontier, policy will probably direct them principally to bend their force to two or three points, where their danger is most imminent. By great and concentered exertions they might not only clear the country for a time, but maintain their ground in it, till the inhabitants needed not their fupport.

On the fuppofition that they are ftrong enough, they would thus render their danger more remote, whilft they generated a falutary terror, Thus the foes of mankind, alarmed at the progress they have made, will

colours, or their overthrow fhewn to be probable from paffages of the prophets.

either speedily relinquish projects of fo hopeless an aspect, or will gradually exhauft their resources in unavailing efforts of malevolence and hoftility.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE GENERAL COURSE OF FUTURE EVENTS,

AND PARTICULARLY ON THE PREDICTION OF

THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON.

RESERVING what I have to

ESERVING what I have to fay on the actual FALL

of defpotifm, for fome of the following chapters, I fhall appropriate this to fome of those important events, which are fubfequent to the figurative earthquake in the Tenth Part of the city, and, belonging to the period of the feventh trumpet, are expected to precede and to haften that fall.

6

An old English divine, of the name of Tillinghaft, supposes, from an attention to prophecy, that, antecedently to the deftruction of the Ten Kings and of Antichrift, the world will be enlightened. The earth, fays he, was ⚫ before in darkness, and thought nothing of the ruin of 'Rome and judging of the Beast.' But,' adds the preacher, the Lord lets in wonderful light into the world, and then presently comes forth the work itfelf; the Lord 'doth appear judging of the Beaft'.' One of the paffages to which he refers is the 1ft verfe of the xviiith

His Eight Laft Serm. printed in 1656, p. 62, 80.

chapter.

chapter. Immediately previous to his prediction of the fall of Babylon, St. John says, and after these things I Jaw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened (or rather enlightened') with his glory. The explication that follows is from Brenius. He fays, that the inhabitants of the earth fhould be illuminated by the brightness of the 'knowledge3, which that angel fhall diffufe in the world." Now angels are constantly represented in the apocalyptic vifions as performing that, which is accomplished by the operation of natural causes alone. Since other angels,' fays Daubuz, often appear in these vifions without mention of any fuch adjunct of light and glory enlightening the earth, we may easily conclude, it is the defign of the Holy Ghoft, that this light should be a neceffary symbol in this place, importing what is fym'bolically reprefented by light.' Now, as I conceive, that it is here the fymbol of knowledge, and as the angel here spoken of plainly relates the execution of events, which are to happen under the feventh trumpet, the meaning of the latter clause appears to be, that, in the period of the seventh trumpet, the earth fhall be enlightened by knowledge; and the connexion intimates, that upon this depends the overthrow of the fymbolic Babylon. Daniel, fpeaking of the time of the end, has these memorable words, Many fhall run to and fro, and knowledge fhall be increafeds. They fhall run to and fro,

• This is the rendering of Mr. Wakefield and of Dr. Symonds (Obf. on the Epift, of the N. T. p. 80).

3 Aoža, fays Brenius, is put pro fplendore notitiæ.

He is speaking of the end of the awv, the period of the world that now present, which reaches from the era when Christianity was published to the Millennium, That time is confidered, in the eye of prophecy, as divided into feveral large and eminent periods, will be shewn in ch. xxvii.

$ XII. 4.

that