prized if they sometimes strained and misapplied the language of prophecy. What had popery to do with the corruptions of the Greek church or with the profanation of Jerusalem and of the seven churches of Asia? If we can clearly shew that the Bishop of Rome is designated as the little horn arising out of the ten horns, surely we prove enough, and may allow that Mahometanism is still worse than

popery.

It is now more than 1200 years since Mahomet announced himself as a prophet, and endeavoured to unite Christianity, Judaism, and Zabianism, in one monstrous compound of blasphemy and falsehood. The implacable hatred with which Mahomet pursued the Jews, and the oppression

a Jehovah is the true and only God, but Allah is not Jehovah. In the reign of Charles the Second the English Unitarians addressed the Moorish ambassador and his suite as "votaries and fellow-worshippers of the sole supreme Deity"; but the Mahometan refused to receive the papers, and as Dr. Priestley treated the story of the negotiation as an invention, we may infer that even in his opinion the English Unitarians went too far. Indeed if we allow that the Mahometans acknowledge the true and only God, we shall hardly know where to stop.

PART II.

H

which they have suffered for nearly 1,200 years, may warrant our expecting some notice of that impostor in a prophecy, which contains what shall befall the people of Daniel in the latter days. No less than seven crusades were undertaken in the hope of recovering the Holy Land; and as we still are Christian dogs in the opinion of the Mahometans, the Christians as well as the Jews are so deeply interested in the subject, that if the following description should suit Mahomet and Mahometanism, we need not object to the application. "And in his estate shall stand up a vile person to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom, but he shall come in peaceably and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant ". And after the league

a cc

Confidently I deny," says Bishop Horsley in his Twenty-ninth sermon, "that a single text is to be found in holy writ, which, rightly understood, gives the least countenance to the abominable doctrine of such a participation of

made with him he shall work deceitfully:

for he shall come up and strong with a small people.

shall become

He shall enter

into the peaceable and fat places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time." To what but flattery can we ascribe the mention which Mahomet has made of our Saviour and of

the holy angels in God's government of the world." If the bishop thought thus of the doctrine of tutelar angels and archangels, if he both thought and proved that there is but one archangel, what would he have thought if he had read in the notes of our Family Bible, that the person, whom the angel Gabriel calls the prince of the covenant, is a mere man, is the high priest of the Jews, and that the prophecy alludes to the intrigues of Jason and Menelaus? Surely the prince of the covenant is he, whom the same angel calls "Michael your prince," is no other than Melchisedeck, the eternal High Priest, than the angel of the covenant, than Michael the archangel, than Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

a I have followed the marginal reading.

H 2

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Moses? What but flattery was his motive. for maintaining the unity of the Deity while he was endeavouring to conciliate Christians, Jews, and Zabians? A new religion would not have given the Mahometans the kingdom of the world; but the profession of Islamism, though it ends with blasphemy, begins with the greatest of all truths. In the astonishing success and widely extended rule of the Mahometans, we may see that with the arms of a flood the nations have been overflown from before him, and that Christianity, or the prince of the covenant, was broken before Mahometanism we cannot well deny, while we think on Jerusalem and the seven churches of Asia. That the prey, and the spoil, and riches have been scattered, may be shewn from the triple division of the empire of the Seljuik Turks, from the partition among

a

"There is no God

But God, he cried; there is no God but God!

Mahommed is the prophet of the Lord!"

RODERICK, B. xxi.

the Emirs of Anatolia, from the reign of the Mamelukes, in Egypt, and more favourably from the laws and practice of Mahomet himself".

"Yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time. And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with

a

"The Musulman does not accomplish the law, unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue; and if his conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth, under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth." Gibbon, Vol. ix. chap. 50. Mahometanism is not so bad as the idolatry of the Hindoos, and probably it was superior both in its creed and in practice to the idolatry of the Arabs. In the description of the little horn, which came forth out of one of the four horns, we may recognize Mahomet, who waxed great against the host of heaven, for he and his successors have severely punished the worshippers of the host of heaven, and overthrown their idols. Our God is the Lord God of Sabaoth; both cherubim and seraphim continually acknowledge His power. Nebuchadnezzar made the idolaters of his time afraid of practising their abominations openly, and the sword of the Mahometans has effected a further improvement. Bishop Heber seems to have been half inclined to tolerate the establishment of Mahometanism as a means of removing the foul idolatries of India. The greatest moral offence of the Mahometans, was taught to the Persians by the Greeks. Is it authorized by the Koran? It was authorized by Solon.