perpetual protector of the faithful. Theodoret, (lib. 8, de Curandis Græcorum Affectionibus,) cails the holy Martyrs guardians of cities, lieutenants of places, captains of men, princes, champions, and guardians, by whom disasters are turned from us, and those which come from devils debarred and driven away.

I might here add something also concerning Images, whose worship is another part of the "doctrine of demons," and shew how well the name Mahuzzim would befit them, which the Iconomachical Council of Constantinople calls so unluckily the fortresses or Mahuzzim of the Devil. And perhaps the nine and thirtieth verse in the fore-alleged prophecy might be yet more literally translated, if the word g'asah, [facere,] were taken in a religious sense,— "And he shall [do unto, or] offer unto the holds of Mahuzzim, together with the foreign God," &c., that is, he shall do religious service to the Images and Saints together with Christ. I might also put you in mind of the term, munimentum, given to the cross, and that so usual Latin phrase of munire signo crucis, to fortify (that is to sign) with the sign of the Cross; but I will not engage myself too far in these grammatical speculations. As for the following verses of this prophecy, if any desire to know it, they may, I think, be interpreted and applied thus:

Verse 40. And at the time of the end [that is, in the Latter Times of the Roman power] shall the Propugnator.

*

† Δαιμονικὰ ὀχυρώματα.

King of the South, that is, the Saracen, push at him; and the King of the North, the Turk, shall come against him, to wit, the Saracen, like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and many ships, and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

"41. He shall enter also into the glorious land," Palestine, "and many shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand, Edom and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon:" that is, the inhabitants of Arabia Petræa, which were never yet provincials of the Turkish empire; yea with some of them he is fain to be at a pension for the safer passage of his caravans.

"Verse 42. He," the Turk, "shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries" of those parts," and the land of Egypt," though it should hold out long under the Mamelukes, even till the year 1517, "shall not escape;"

"43. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and all the precious things of Egypt; and the Libyans and the Cushites," that is, the neighbouring nations, whether of Africa or Libya, as those of Algiers, &c., or of the Arabians, in Scripture called Cushim, "shall be at his steps," that is, at his devotion.

That which remains, as I suppose, is not yet fulfilled, and therefore I leave it; time will make it manifest.

PART II.

Ver. 2. Εν ὑποκρίσει Ψευδολόγων, κεκαυτηριασμένων τὴν ἰδιάν συνεί δησιν.

Through the hypocrisy (or feigning) of liars, of those who have

their conscience seared.

Ver. 3. Κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων ἅ ὁ Θεὸς ἔκτισεν εἴς μετάληψιν μετὰ ἐυχαριστίας τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ ἐπεγνώκόσι τὴν ἀλήθείαν.

Of those who forbid to marry, and command to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

CHAPTER I.

The author's three reasons for translating the text differently from the common versions. That the preposition ('Ev) in the text signifies through or by. Other places of Scripture where it signifies likewise causam or modum actionis.

I HAVE spoken hitherto, of the first part of this prophecy, being a description of the character of that solemn defection which was to come. I come now to the second part of my division-the quality of the persons, and the means whereby it was to enter and be advanced, which is set forth in the verses now read; which though you may find by others otherwise translated, yet I hope the translation which I have propounded, if the judicious reader please to

examine it, will approve itself not only not to be a forced one, but such as salves that incongruity of construction which the other could not avoid. For it is usually translated intransitively, or with reference to the persons expressed in the former verse-viz. "that they should speak lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with an hot iron, and forbidding marriage, and commanding to abstain from meats." So that what in the former verse is named doctrines of devils, should only mean that in general terms, which in these verses is particularly instanced to be "doctrines of prohibiting marriage, and abstaining from meats," as two branches of that devilish doctrine; for so Calvin, Melancthon, and some others seem to expound it.

But why this interpretation should not be the most likely, my first reason is—

1. Because it makes St. Paul, who speaks of that great Apostasy of Christians which was to be in the latter times, to instance only in the smaller and, if I may so say, almost circumstantial errors; and to omit the main and principal, which the Scripture elsewhere tells us should be idolatry or spiritual fornication. Who can believe that he would so pass by the substance, and name only that which in comparison is but an appendix thereto ?

2. He prophesies here in express words of such things as were to come in * the latter times. But errors about marriage and meats were no novelty in the apostles' own times, as the dili* ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς.

gent reader may easily collect out of their epistles; which makes it improbable he would specify the Apostasy of the latter times in these alone.

3. But my last reason, whereunto I think I may trust, is that the syntax of the words in the Greek is incapable of such an intransitive construction, and consequently of the sense depending thereon. For the persons intimated in the former verse, are expressed in the nominative case, * but the persons intended here we find in the genitive; and I cannot see how they can agree with the former, after the manner of intransitive construction, without a breach of grammatical congruity, not elsewhere sampled in our apostle's writings. Indeed they would agree with demons, but that would be a harsh sense every way; for either we must say (as some do) that by devils are meant devilish men, or men led by the devil, which is an hard signification; or else it would be a stranger sense, and I think not over-pliable to the usual exposition, to say, that devils should lie, have seared consciences, and forbid marriage or meats. So that Beza, with others, had rather confess a breach of syntax than incur the inconvenience of such a forced sense. "The Apostle," saith he, "heeded more the matter than he did the grammar." (Major est habita sententiæ quam constructionis ratio.)

* τινὲς προσέχοντες.

† ψευδολόγων, κεκαυτηριασμένων, κωλυόντων. * Δαιμονίων.