it feems to me, that I fhould not have lived as I did; and that God would not have withdrawn and forfaken me as he hath. Hence, fuch a perfon may be ready to think or fear his cafe is hopeless. For if after all that he hath experienced, and profeffed, and done, he is yet deftitute of the love and grace of God;-if fomething beyond and effentially different from all that he hath hitherto experienced, is abfolutely neceffary to his falvation; it may feem to him as though it was now impoffible that he should be faved.

and fhow him what is in his heart, that he may do him good in his latter end. Or,

2. Admitting, that a perfon viewing himfelf in the light which has been ftated, is really deftitute of the grace of God, and hath heretofore been pleafing himself with a false perfuafion of his reconciliation with God, and intereft in his favor; his cafe, upon this fuppofition, is indeed very dangerous and alarming; and without a special and very remarkable interpofition of the mighty power and infinite grace of God, he will perish forever. However, there is yet no abfolute impoffibil

able to change his heart and bring him out of darkness into his mar vellous light, as he was to unde

If

With refpect to cafes of this kind, it may be observed, 1. It is poffible that a perfonity of his falvation. God is as viewing things much in the light now ftated, may be a real Chriftian under the frowns and hidings of God's face, for his undutiful tem-ceive him, and prevent his going per and carriage. Perhaps he down to deftruction under his hath not taken proper care to former felf-flattering delufion. maintain a due fenfe of his con- he was before deceived, and his ftant dependence on God, for all heart dead in fin, he was totally light, grace and comfort, but has averfe to the light which hath unbeen too confident of his own deceived him, and would not have ftrength and fufficiency. He, given up his former ill-founded probably, hath not kept his heart hope, if God had not been pleafwith fuch care and diligence as ed to take fuch meafures and to he ought to, but has given way let fuch light into his mind, that to the workings of pride and van- he could no longer maintain it. ity, to covetoufnefs, worldly-mind- And as God has thus removed ednefs and the love of eafe. And one great obftacle to his faving in many respects, he may have been recovery, it is very poffible that not only negligent in performing he may also fee fit to produce the duties and cherishing the af- fuch a real change as will iffue in fections required of him; but his falvation, Therefore, altho' likewife indulged to thofe carnal he has great reafon to fear, and feelings and affections, which are ought to view and feel himself in contrary to real holiness, and tend an exceeding dangerous condition, to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. he ought not to give himself up -God, therefore, may have with- to defpair. drawn or withholden from him those fenfible communications, which he used to grant, and left him in a degree to himself, to ftruggle, in a measure alone, against his enemies, fin and Satan, to humble him, and to prove him,'

And, as a conclufion, it may be proper to obferve, That altho men ought not and have no rea fon to defpair of falvation, merely on account of those difficulties in the way of it, which it is impoffible for them to remove, fince all

things are poffible with God; obfervations. They will be illuf yet, on the other hand, it is un-trated in this difcourfe, only by warrantable and dangerous to fet-giving a brief analyfis of the book tle down in a confident perfuafion of Daniel. that they certainly fhall be faved, without good evidence that they are fuch as the fcriptures declare will be faved.

ASTHENES.

Analyfis of the Book of Daniel.

W

This book is compofed of hif tory and prophecy. It appears that the prophet, and his three friends, connected with him in mutual affection and by important events, were defcended from a branch of the royal family of David; that they were carried to Babylon in the captivity of Jehoiakim, or Jehoiachim, about fix hundred years before the Chriftian era, and eleven or twelve years before the general captivity of the Jews, and the burning of the temple by Nebuzar-Adan. The prophet must then have been very young, for we find him living and

E are taught by an infpired writer of the NewTeftament, that the prophets of the ancient difpenfation teftified before hand, the fufferings of Chrift and the glory which should follow. This teftimony is divine, having been given by "the spirit of Chrift which was in them." His Church, which he redeem-active fome years after the return ed by his blood, was to be con- of the Jews from Babylon, under formed to him in character, in fuf- the commiffion of Cyrus, which fering, and in the glory which was muft have been seventy years from to follow. This is abundantly the beginning of the captivity. evident from ancient fcripture hif- He probably lived to be more tory of what was paft, and from than a hundred years old.-Long the general courfe of prophecy life was a token of divine favor, of what was future. under the ancient difpenfation, and was eminently fo in the cafe of this Daniel, and of Mordecai the Jew, whofe history we have in the book of Efther. These eminent fervants of God were both carried from Judea to Babylon, in the firft captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, and both lived to fee its happy conclufion in the return of the Jews, after feventy years, and even a confiderable time afterwards. And were both eminently useful to fociety and the church of God, and triumphed over the mortal enemies of themfelves and the church, in a moft honorable and happy old age.

to

The accomplishment of thefe divine predictions, while it is attended with such heavy afflictions to the people of God; is alfo pregnant with confolation them, in all their forrows, both as it is a full confirmation of the truth and divinity of the holy fcriptures, and as it ftrengthens and confirms their joyful hope of the glory which is to follow, even the final, complete victory and triumph of the Redeemer over all evil, and the bleffednefs and glory of the redeemed church.

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A view of facred hiftory and prophecy from the beginning to end of the facred canon, would would abundantly confirm thefe

* 1 Peter i. II,

In attending to the book of Daniel, we find, in the first chapter, an account of the captivity in Babylon, of Daniel and his three

young friends. Their calamities of the Son of God; and that this can be more easily conceived than divine kingdom fhould, ultimateexpreffed.-Hurried from the nu-ly, affect the total abolition of the

merous felicities of domestic friendfhip and wealth, and the fond attentions of parental kindness, fuch as the children of princes and nobles experience; they were ftrangers in a strange land. Their par ents very probably fell in the flaughter, when they were taken. And what was ftill more to these pious youths, they were commanded to tranfgrefs the law of their God by taking the polluted meat appointed them by the king. Their religious reverence of the divine inftitution, expreffed in refufing to eat of the king's meat, was graciously owned and a cepted of God, and he not only found a way to fave them from the displeasure of the king, but endowed them with fuch wifdom and rare accomplishments, that none "were found like to Daniel, Hananiah, Mihael and Azariah; and in all matters of wifdom and understanding, the king found them ten times better than all the magicians and aftrologers in all his realm; therefore ftood they before the king."

The following hiftory evinces the opportunities hereby given them, to bear an honorable teftimony for the true religion, and its divine Author, and how well they improved it.

The fecond chapter relates the wonderful dream of king Nebuchadnezzar, and the interpretation by Daniel. Whereby the prophet was the happy instrument of faving the lives of the wife men of Babylon, and of furnishing the church with an explicit divine prediction of the rife and fall of the four great monarchies which were to precede the coming of Chrift, and the appearance and kingdom

kingdom of darknefs, and of all oppofing power, and should last forever. This drew from the monarch of Babylon a confeffion to Daniel, that his God was a God of Gods, a ruler of kings, and a revealer of fecrets. And oocafioned that Daniel and his three friends fhould be placed in a confpicuous fituation, by which the nature of their religion, and their worship of the one living and true God might be more abundantly known.

The third chapter informs us of the perfecution of Shadrach, Mefhach and Abed-nego, Daniel's three friends, because they main. tained the worship of the true God only, and refused to worship the idol which the king had fet up.

We have alfo in this chapter an account of their miraculous prefervation in the fiery furnace, and of their deliverance by the mighty power of the God of If rael, and alfo of the convictions of the infinite fuperiority of the God of Ifrael, above all other Gods, hereby renewedly wrought in the mind of the king; and of his correfponding decree.

The fourth chapter relates the wonderful event of the degradation of the mighty monarch of Babylon, into the fimilitude of an ox who eateth grafs, for the space of feven years, as a divine admonition for the pride of his heart, of which he had a premonition by a dream, expounded by Daniel.

His reftoration to reafon and to the honors of his kingdom, was followed with an explicit confeffion of his belief in the true God, and submission to him, in the following language:

"Now I, Nebuchadnezzar,

praife and extol and honor the king of heaven, all whofe works are truth and his ways judgment, and those who walk in pride he is able to abafe."

The fifth chapter relates the impious feast of Belfhazzar, in whom the Babylonish monarchy ceafed, and from whom it was transferred to the Medes and Perfians.

in his prefervation, his exaltation, and being rendered the inftrument of much good to the church of God.

In this chapter is the account of the combination of the great men about the king for his deftruction, and, the cruel and idolatrous decree which they furrepti tioufly obtained against him, for his faith and courageous adherence to the worship of the truc God only.

Here alfo is the account of the divine appearance for his prefervation in the den of Lions, andof the interpofition of God for his miraculous deliverance. This chapter alfo relates the conviction wrought in the mind of the king by this wonderful event in favor of the God of Daniel, and his correfponding proclamation through his vaft empire.

In the midft of his impious revelry, while he was drinking wine in the confecrated veffels, taken from the temple of God, in Jeru falem, and while he blafphemed his holy name, and praised the idols of Babylon, the miraculous hand-writing on the wall, interpreted by Daniel, reproved his madness and impiety, and predict ed the fall of his empire and its transferrence to the Medes and Perfians. All which was accomplifhed in a wonderful manner, and the king flain, on that very night, exactly according to divine prophecy, uttered ages before, by the prophet Ifaiah.* This pared the way for the accomplishment of the divine, gracious predictions of Ifrael's redemption from the Babylonish captivity, by Cyrus; which event, with various attending circumftances, was fore told by the prophet Ifaiah, toge-be unto the end." ther with the fall of that monarchy, and fucceffion of Cyrus to the dominion.

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The very exact fulfilment of this gracious prediction may be learned from the proclamation of Cyrus for the return of the Jews, and their actual return, at the end of their twenty years captivity, recorded in the book of Ezra.

The fixth chapter contains an account of the wonderful providence of God in favor of Daniel,

* See Ifaiah, 44th chapter.

"Then king Darius wrote unto all people, nations and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied unto you.

"I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom, men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and stedfaft forever, and his kingdom that which shall not be deftroyed, and his dominion fhall

“He delivereth and refcueth, and he worketh figns and wonders in heaven and in earth. Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the Lions."

In the contemplation of thefe wonderful works of God for his church, we are ftrongly impelled to reflect, how much more extenfively, the knowledge of the true God was diffufed through the Babylonifh and Perfian empires, in confequence if the captivity of his people, than would probably have been the cafe, if they had remain

ed in their own country in a state | Medo Perfian empire, and its over

of profperity.

So true it is that "He caufeth the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he graciously restrains.”

In the feventh chapter, the vifion of the four beafts, which appeared to Daniel, is expounded to denote the four fucceffive monarchies, viz. The Babylonish, the Medo Perfian, that of Alexander the great, or the kingdom of the Greeks, and that of the Romans. The laft of which was to be by far the most terrible to the church of God, and which was to be deftroyed by the rife of a fifth and a divine kingdom, the kingdom of Chrift, which is represented by a ftone cut out of the mountain without hands, not of human, but divine origin. Small, indeed, in its beginning, but which should increase and grow till it fhould fill the whole earth, and last forever.

throw by the rife of the Grecian
power
under Alexander the great,
in the vifion of the ram with two
horns, and the he-goat with one.

This vifion and prophecy alfo represent the divifion of the empire of Alexander, (after his death and the speedy extinction of his family,) between his four principal commanders, and the cruel defpotism of one of their fucceffors, in the family of the Seleucidæ, and kingdom of Syria, or of the North. This cruel oppreffion was an eminent type of the antichrift of the new teftament, to whom several things in the vifion are fuppofed ultimately to refer; efpecially the profanation of the temple, or church of God, for the long period of two thousand and three hundred prophetic days, or years, it being about that dif tance of time from the reign of this cruel oppreffion of the Jews, to the year two thousand of the Christian era; when it is the bleffed hope of Chriftians, that the divine Saviour will take the kingdom, fubdue his enemies, and

This vifion refpects the fame feries of events, with the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, recorded in the fecond chapter, and already explained. In that dream thofe four fucceffive monarchies are rep-reign forever and ever. refented by an image of great fplendor, compofed of gold and other precious metals. Here, by four terrible favage beafts, and the laft of them by far the moft terrible. On this we remark, after Bishop Newton, that the earthly fplendor and glory of great conquerors, fo beautiful and captivating in the eyes of kings and the great men of the earth, prefents an afpet, to the laft degree forbidding and terrible to the church of God, like that of the moft favage and voracious monster, to the timid and defenceless.

The eighth chapter reveals the outlines of that feries of events which was to take place in the VOL. IV. No. 2,

The ninth chapter contains an account that Daniel, having underftood, by books, the accomplishment of divine prophecy, in the captivity of Ifrael, earnestly fought to God for mercy for his people, and that God graciously heard him, and fent his angel, not only to comfort him with affurance of mercy to Ifrael, but to reveal to him in abundant grace, the approach of the Meffiah's appearance in our nature, and that he fhould die for the falvation of his people. He even fixed the exact time of his coming to seventy (prophetic) weeks, or four hundred and ninety days. This was a much more particular and

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