ritime nation of faithful worshippers; and we further find it implied, that all, who have come

out

"of his doctrines; he was obliged to fly from this city; and, "on his arrival at Mousul, he publicly supported the purity, "excellence, and orthodoxy, of his tenets. This new religion, "which had sprung up in the midst of Arabia, excited the at"tention and roused the indignation of the orthodox Sheikhs, "who could not bear the notion of the Wuhabees ridiculing "with contempt the legends and tales which they so consci"entiously believed. The Wuhabees are accused of professing "the following belief: That there is one just and wise God; that "all those persons called prophets are only to be considered as just "and virtuous men; and that there never existed an inspired work "nor an inspired writer. A party of the Wuhabees last year " (1802) attacked Kurbulu, celebrated among the Persians as "being the burial place of the sons of Ali; destroyed the "tombs; and plundered the town and pilgrims. I met several "of the people who had been there at that period, and they "all agreed in complaining mest bitterly of the cruelty of the "reformers. It must be recollected that the destruction of "the holy sepulchres would alone be considered as an enormous "act of impiety and cruelty. The force of the Wuhabees is very "considerable, probably eighty or ninety thousand; and, as "their expeditions are conducted with great, celerity and se"crecy, they keep all the neighbouring countries in perpetual "apprehension,-Since finishing this, intelligence has been re"ceived of their having attacked and plundered Tyeef, Mecca, "and Medina. They have, in consequence, violated the sacred "law which forbids armed men approaching within a certain "distance of the temple. Thus have they destroyed the foun"dation stone of Mohammedism; and this mighty fabric, which

at cne period bade defiance to all Europe, falls, on the "first attack, at the feet of an Arab reformer. The event

may make a great change in the Mohammedan world; for it " appears

out of the mystic Babylon and have separated themselves from her, shall not partake of her

plagues.

appears to me almost certain, that the pilgrimages to Mecca "have had nearly as great an effect in supporting this religion as the first victories and conquests of Mohammed-The Wu"habees are now a considerable people, sufficiently powerful "to resist the divided efforts of the Turks, whose power in "Arabia must decrease in proportion to the aggrandisement of "this roving race of reformers. Indeed the Turks have already "found it expedient to court and even purchase the friendship "of their Arab subjects. They have extended their depreda "tions over the greatest part of Arabia; the fate of Bassora may be said to depend upon the clemency of the conqueror, "or rather on his being engaged in other pursuits. Many places in the Red sea have been obliged to purchase the good "will of the reformer." Tour to Sheeraz, p. 119-125.

86

In the time of Niebuhr this sect of infidels was in its infancy. "Some time since," says he, "a new religion sprang up in "the district of El Ared. It has already produced a revolution "in the government of Arabia, and will probably hereafter "influence the state of this country still farther. The founder "of this religion was one Abd ul Wahheb, a native of Aijæne, a "town in the district of El Ared-Abd ul Wahheb taught, that "God is the only object of worship and invocation, as the "creator and governor of the world. He forbade the invoca"tion of saints and the very mentioning of Mohammed or any

other prophet in prayer, as practices savouring of idolatry. "He considered Mohammed, Jesus Christ, Moses, aud many "others respected by the Sunnites in the character of prophets, "as merely great men whose history might be read with improvement; denying, that any book had ever been written "by divine inspiration, or brought down from heaven by the "angel Gabriel." Travels, vol. ii. p. 131, 134.

It

plagues. Such being the case, and such likewise being the office of the great maritime power at the time of the end, we cannot reasonably or consistently with prophecy suppose, that it is destined to perish in the common wreck of Popish, Infidel, and Mohammedan, nations: and therefore we of course cannot suppose it to be the antitypical Tyre, which does then perish.

Hitherto the question has only been answered negatively, we must now endeavour to answer it positively. Since we have no sufficient ground to

It is a remarkable circumstance, that, as the two apostasies of Popery and Mohammedism arose together in the same year and attained their zenith at the same period, so Voltaire should have begun systematically to propagate his infidel principles in the west exactly about the same time that Abdul Wahheb began to advance nearly the same doctrines in the east. So many curious coincidences serve to confirm my opinion, that Daniel's two little horns are the two apostasies of Popery and Mohammedism, and that the year 606 is the most probable date of the 1260 years.

Should the sect of the Wahabees continue to increase in numbers, Mohammedism must fall eventually by mere force of opinion. If its votaries gradually abandon it, we may easily con#cive how, at the time of the end, it will be broken without hand.

"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers "of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. xviii. 4.). Hence apparently we must conclude, that all such as do come out of her will not receive of her plagues; provided only they have réfrained from defiling themselves with the atheistical abominations of Antichrist. See 2 Pet. ii. 18.

think, that the list, which Daniel and St. John give us, of those enemies of God, who are destined to fall at the close of the 1260 years is imperfect; we are obliged to conclude, that the antitypical Tyre, which Ezekiel represents as falling at the very same period or the period of the incipient restoration of Israel, is some one or other of those enemies. But how can the maritime Tyre be a fit type of any of those nations, when they are all (even according to my own interpretation) continental powers, and when their last expedition into Palestine (even according to my own opinion) is to be undertaken by land, because the decided superiority of the great naval state prevents them from undertaking it by sea?

To this I answer, that either a nation or a thing may be used as a type of direct opposites, according to the light in which they are viewed by the sacred writer who uses them. Thus the serpent and the lion are at once types of Christ and Satan, of the clean and the unclean: and yet no confusion arises from this circumstance, because the context always sufficiently shews the light in which the writer views his type. When we are directed to look up to the serpent in the wilderness for salvation, we are in no danger of supposing that the devil is meant; we at once see plainly, that the wisdom of the serpent was the only characteristic in the mind of the Holy Spirit, and therefore that the serpent considered in that point of view was a fit type of

the divine Wisdom, the eternal Logos. On the other hand, when the tempter appears under the form of a serpent, and when St. John styles the devil that old serpent, we are in as little danger of supposing that Christ is meant; we immediately see, that the bad qualities of the serpent were alone in the contemplation of the writer; his perverted wisdom or his cunning whereby he deceiveth the whole world, the deadly malignity of his poison, and the subtilty with which he attacks his unsuspecting prey. In a similar manner, when Christ is styled the lion of the tribe of Judah; the courage, the strength, the activity, the generosity, of that animal are solely considered: and, when the devil is described as a roaring and a ramping lion going about in search of whom he may devour: the ferocity of the lion, his rapacity, his mode of lying in wait for his prey, the suddenness with which he springs upon it, the wonderful strength with which he holds it in his gripe, his prowling about in darkness, are as evidently his only properties which engage the attention of the writer *. This being

the

"As clean and unclean animals are not realities of good " and evil, but only figures; nothing hinders, but that, like "other figures, they should signify differently, when under some different acceptation: as the same object, according to 16 every new direction of the light that falls upon it, will project a different shadow.

66

"My meaning will be best explained by some examples bor"rowed from the style of the Holy Scripture. Water, as a

"medium