over, and are not Gog and Magog even now gathering together for battle? The great object for man to accomplish was the spreading of the gospel. This could not have been accomplished but for the regeneration, the revival of the Apostolic faith, and therefore the reformation may be considered as the Millennium.

In conclusion, Babylon seems not to be Rome, but Constantinople, and as this opinion will seem very strange, I shall vindicate it at some length.

The inscription on the forehead of the woman begins with MYSTERY, and yet we are told that "the city on seven hills is so characteristic of Rome "that the name itself could not have pointed it out more plainly." Constantinople, however, is a city on seven hills, and so is Adrianople. As for the purple and scarlet, Bishop

were measured by a diminutive standard; in the streets, or the baths, it is their duty to give way or bow down before the meanest of the people; and their testimony is rejected, if it may tend to the prejudice of a true believer," &c. Gibbon, Vol. ix. chapter 51.

Newton observes, that the Othmans from the first time of their appearance have affected to wear warlike apparel of scarlet, blue, and yellow. As for idolatry, Rome was an importing, not an exporting country, how then can she be the mother of harlots? The answer is, that she became so when popery was established: if so, the children are older than the mother. The separation of the eastern and western churches took place in the eighth century; so that the supremacy of the pope cannot well be dated from an earlier period; and the history of the Greek church antecedently to that period, shews us that the Greek church was by no means behind the Roman church in corruption. Must we not give a stronger meaning to the words? Is not the mother of harlots the same as the mother of the gods? Is it not in Zabianism, in the worship of the host of heaven, in the earliest species of idolatry, that we must seek the meaning of "mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots"? Must we not take a still bolder step, and

shew that the prophesied re-appearance of the Assyrian has been accomplished, that the Turks and the Chaldeans, and Gog and the king of fierce countenance, are the same? Let us begin with the city. Constantinople, as such, is the city of Constantine, the daughter of the king of the south; but we will now consider it under a different character, as Byzantium, and the still older Lygos. Stephanus Byzantinus tells us, that the port of Byzantium was called Phosphorion, but that this was a corruption of Bosphorus. Let us examine the meaning of Bosphorus. It means, as we are told, a narrow arm of the sea, which oxen might swim across, if they were so inclined, and which Io did swim across. when she was turned into a cow. Very good. But in Latin authors we find Bosphorus, and this also is a corruption; and

a

a "Johnson has been confined for some weeks in the Isle of Sky; we hear that he was obliged to swim over to the main land, taking hold of a cow's tail." Letter from T. Beauclerk to Lord Charlemont. Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, Vol. i. p. 345.

b I do not mean to defend Mumpsimus against Sumpsimus,

Bosporos is occasionally the name of a kingdom, and this also must be a corruption. Nothing, in short, is genuine, but the derivation of Bosporos from two Greek words, which, if compounded in the usual way, would make not Bosporos, but Bouporos, or Boosporos. Nothing is so like true history as the supposition that

nor to maintain, like the hermit of Prague, who never saw pen and ink, that "that which is, is," when pen and ink are concerned; but the notice of Bosphorus in Facciolati's Lexicon should make the verbal critics hesitate before they decide that the Latin word is Bosporus. Iphigenia was devoted to the woógy Osa. (Iphig. in Tauris, verse 21.)

a Four references to four different authors may suffice to shew that Bosporus does not mean merely a strait. It is mentioned by Demosthenes, in his oration against Leptines, and in Reiske's Index Geographicus in Demosthenem the passage is thus referred to, " Bosporus, emporium in Ponto, 467. 11." Strabo in his thirteenth book, says that Mithridates was king ἄλλων τε καὶ τοῦ Βοσπόρου, and in the next line but one he mentions Asander as κατασχόντος τὸν Βόσπορον, (page 463 of Tzschucke's edition.) Appian says that Pharnaces requested of Pompey, ἢ τῆς πατρώας ἀρχῆς, ἡ Βοσπόρου γε βασιλεύειν μόνου, and a little afterwards the Bosporus is twice mentioned as a kingdom. (De Bellis Mithrid. Lib. pages 413, 414. of the Amsterdam edition.) Gibbon says "the khan who dwelt at the foot of Mount Altai, issued his commands for the siege of Bosphorus, a city," &c. Vol. vii. chap. 42.

oxen may swim across this inlet, or the assertion that Io was turned into a cow and did swim across.

If we could take off the veil of Io or Isis, profane history would be a puzzle no longer. But, as by John Bull we do not exactly mean a four-legged animal, with a pair of horns and a long tail, so by Io we may venture to understand not a cow, but the Ionim or Zabians. Now Stephanus Byzantinus, although he does not tell us that his city was anciently called Lygos, does allude to a story of Hecate's appearing there. Hecate is the same as the moon, so that we may begin to discover why Byzantium was anciently called Lygos. It was called so probably, from being the city of the worshippers of light, or the Zabians ; and Phosphorion is not a corruption of Bosporos, but Bosporos, or Bosphorus is a corruption of Phosphorus, a name connecting the history of Byzantium with that of him, who in Scripture is styled Lucifer, son of the morning. Where was the seat of the Tauric Diana? In the Cimmerian