3 Their government2 began with Sultan Ibeg, in the 648th year of the Hegira, and the year of Christ 1250; and continued through a series of twenty-four Circassian Mamaluc sultans, 275 Arabic, and 267 Julian years; and ended with Tumanbäi, in the 923d year of the Hegira, and the year of Christ 1517. 5 For at that time, Selim the ninth emperor of the Turks, conquered the Mamalucs, hanged their last Sultan Tumanbäi before one of the gates of Cairo, put an end to their government, caused five hundred of the chiefest Egyptian families to be transported to Constantinople, as likewise a great number of Mamalucs' wives and children, besides the Sultan's treasure and other immense riches; and annexed Egypt to the Othman empire, whereof it hath continued a province from that day to this. It is governed, as prince Cantemir informs us, by a Turkish Basha," with twenty-four begs or princes under him, who are advanced from servitude to the administration of public affairs; a superstitious notion possessing the Egyptians, that it is decreed by fate, that captives shall reign, and the natives be subject to them. But it cannot well be called a superstitious notion, being a notion in all probability at first derived from some tradition of these prophecies, that "Egypt should be a base kingdom," that "there should be no more a prince of the land of Egypt," and that Ham in his posterity "should be a servant of servants unto his brethren." By this deduction it appears, that the truth of Ezekiel's prediction is fully attested by the whole series of the history of Egypt from that time to the present. And who could pretend to say, upon human conjecture, that so great a kingdom, so rich and fertile a country, should ever afterwards become tributary and subject to strangers? It is now a great deal above two thousand years since this prophecy was first delivered; and what likelihood or appearance was there that the Egyptians should for so many ages bow under a foreign yoke, and never in all that time be able to recover their liberties, and have a prince of their own to reign over them? But as is the prophecy, so is the event. For not long afterwards Egypt was conquered by the Babylonians, and after the Babylonians by the Persians; and after the Persians it became subject to the Macedonians, and after the Macedonians to the Romans, and after the Romans to the Saracens, and then to the Mamalucs; and is now a province of the Othman empire. Thus we see how Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and Egypt, the Pocock. p. 8. Herbelot. p. 479. Pocock. p. 8-30. Herbelot. p. 545. Pocock. p. 30. Herbelot. p. 1031. • Pocockii Supplem. p. 30 Herbelot. Bibli. Orient. p. 545 et 802, et 1031. Savage's Abridgment of Knolles et 49. and Rycaut's Turkish Hist. vol. i. p. 241. See Prideaux Connect. part. 1, b. 1, anno 589. Zedekiah 10. 8 3 2 5 great adversaries and oppressors of the Jews, have been visited by divine vengeance for their enmity and cruelty to the people of God. Not that we must think God so partial as to punish these nations only for the sake of the Jews; they were guilty of other flagrant sins, for which the prophets denounced the divine judgments upon them. Egypt in particular was so severely threatened by the prophet Ezekiel, (chap. xxix. xxx. xxxi. xxxii.) for her idolatry, her pride, and her wickedness. And the Egyptians have generally been more wretched, as they have generally been more wicked than other nations. Ancient authors describe them every where as superstitious and luxurious, as an unwarlike and unserviceable people, as a 'faithless and fallacious nation, always meaning one thing and pretending another, as lovers of wine and strong drink, as cruel in their anger, as thieves and tolerating all kinds of theft, as 'patient of tortures, and though put to the rack, yet choosing rather to die than to confess the truth. Modern authors paint them still in blacker colours. The famous Thevenot is very strong and severe : The people of Egypt (generally speaking) are all swarthy, exceeding wicked, great rogues, cowardly, lazy, hypocrites, buggerers, robbers, treacherous, so very greedy of money, that they will kill a man for a maidin, or three halfpence.' Bishop Pococke's character of them is not much more favourable, though not so harsh and opprobrious: The natives of Egypt are now a slothful people, and delight in sitting still, hearing tales, and indeed seem always to have been more fit for the quiet life, than for any active scenes.-They are also malicious and envious to a great degree, which keeps them from uniting and setting up for themselves; and though they are very ignorant, yet they have a natural cunning and artifice as well as falsehood, and this makes them always suspicious of travellers— The love of money is so rooted in them, that nothing is to be done without bribery-They think the greatest villanies are expiated, when once they wash their hands and feet.-Their words pass for nothing, either in relations, promises, or professions of 6 Strabo. 1. 17, p. 1175. Juvenal. Sat. xv. 126, 'imbelle et inutile vulgus.' Lucan. v. 58, non fidæ gentis.' Hirtius de Bell. Alexand. c. 16, 'fallacem gentem, semperque alia cogitantem, alia simulantem.' Athenæus ex Dione, 1. i. p. 34, edit. Casaubon. Φιλοίνους και φιλοπότας. Vinosos ac bibaces. 2 Polyb. 1. 15, § 33. Δεινὴ γάρ τις ἡ παρὰ τοὺς θυμοὺς ὠμότης γίγνεται τῶν κατὰ τὴν Αἴγυπτον ἀνθρώπων. Εst enim hoc Ægyptiis hominibus innatum, ut dum fervent ira mirum in modum sint crudeles. 'A. Gellius. 1. 11, c. 18. Ex Aristone. 'furta omnia fuisse licita et impunita.' Diod. Sic. 1. i. c. 80. 4 Elian. Var. Hist. 1. 7, c. 18. Alyvrτίους φασὶ δεινῶς ἐγκαρτερεῖν ταῖς βασάνοις, και ὅτι θᾶττον τεθνήξεται ἀνὴρ Αἰγύπτιος στρε βλούμενος ἢ τ' αληθὲς ὁμολογήσει. Ægyptios aiunt patientissime ferre tormenta; et citius mori hominem Ægyptium in quastionibus, tortum examinatumque, quam veritatem prodere. Ammianus Marcell. 1. 22. c. 16. • Thevenot in Harris's Collection. vol. 2. c. 8, p. 429. Pococke's Description of the East, vol. i. b. 4, c. 4, p. 177, &c. friendship, &c.' Such men are evidently born not to command, but to serve and obey. They are altogether unworthy of liberty. Slavery is the fittest for them, as they are fittest for slavery. It is an excellent political aphorism of the wisest and best of kings, and all history will bear witness to the truth of it, that, (Prov. xiv. 34,) "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach and ruin to any people." WE XIII. NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM OF THE GREAT EMPIRES have seen how it pleased God to reveal unto the prophets the future condition of several of the neighbouring countries; but there are other prophecies which extend to more remote nations, those nations especially and their transactions, wherein the church of God was particularly interested and concerned. It pleased God too to make these revelations, at a time when his people seemed in other respects abandoned and forsaken, and did not so much deserve, as stand in need of light and comfort. Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied in the declension of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied during the time of the Babylonish captivity. And the prophecies of Daniel are so clear and exact, that in former as well as in latter times it hath confidently been asserted, that they must have been written after the events, which they are pretended to foretell. The famous Porphyry, (who flourished at the latter end of the third century after Christ,) was I think the first who denied their genuineness and authority. He wrote fifteen books against the Christian religion, the twelfth of which was designed to depreciate the prophecies of Daniel; and therein he affirmed, that they were not composed by Daniel whose name they bore, but by somebody who lived in Judea about the time of Antiochus Epiphanes; because all to that time contained true history, but all beyond that were manifestly false. This work of Porphyry, together with the answers of Eusebius, Apollinarius, and Methodius, is wholly lost, excepting a few fragments and quotations, which are preserved in Jerome and others of the fathers. But as Jerome rightly observes, this method of opposing the prophecies is the strongest testimony of their truth. For they were fulfilled with such exactness, that to infidels the prophet seemed not to have foretold things future, but to have related things past. 2 1 Cave Hist. Lit. vol. 1, p. 156. Hieron. Præf. in Danielem. 2 Cujus impugnatio testimonium veritatis est. Tanta enim dictorum fides fuit, ut propheta incredulis hominibus non videatur futura dixisse, sed narrasse præterita.' Hieron. ibid. The celebrated author of the Scheme of Literal Prophecy considered hath followed the steps of Porphyry. He hath collected every thing, that in the course of his reading he thought could be turned to the disparagement of the book of Daniel. He hath framed all that he had collected into eleven objections against it; and upon the whole concludes with much positiveness and assurance, that it must be written in the days of the Maccabees. But his two learned opponents, both of the same name, have solidly and clearly refuted his eleven objections, and shown them all to be mere cavils or direct falsities, groundless assertions, wrong quotations, or plain contradictions. And indeed it may be proved, it hath been proved to a demonstration, as much as any thing of this nature can be proved to a demonstration, by all the characters and testimonies both internal and external, that the prophecies of Daniel were written at the time the Scripture says they were written, and he prospered on account of these prophecies, (Dan. vi. 28,) "in the reign of Darius the Mede, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian:" that is, between five and six hundred years before Christ. It is very capricious and unreasonable in unbelievers to object, as Collins doth, to the prophecies of Daniel, sometimes that they are too plain, and sometimes that they are too obscure. But it will entirely overthrow the notion of their being written in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes or of the Maccabees, and will establish the credit of Daniel as a prophet beyond all contradiction, if it can be proved that there are several prophecies of his which have been fulfilled since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees as well as before, nay that there are prophecies of his which are fulfilling in the world at this very time. Daniel's first prophecy, and the groundwork as I may say of all the rest, was his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. This monarch, "in the second year of his reign," (Dan. ii. 1,) according to the Babylonian account, or the fourth according to the Jewish, that is in the second year of his reigning alone, or the fourth from his first reigning jointly with his father, having subdued all his enemies and firmly established his throne, was thinking upon his bed, (ver. 29,) what should come to pass hereafter, what should be the future success of his family and kingdom, and whether any or what families and kingdoms might arise after his own: and as our waking thoughts usually give some tincture to our dreams, he dreamed of something to the same purpose, which astonished him, but which he could not rightly understand. The dream affected him strongly at the See Bp. Chandler's Vindication of his Defence of Christianity, and Mr. Sam. Chandler's Vindication of the Antiquity and Authority of Daniel's Prophecies, in answer to the Scheme of Literal Prophecy consi dered. time, but awaking in confusion, he had but an imperfect remembrance of it, he could not recollect all the particulars. He called, therefore, (ver. 2,) for "the magicians and astrologers ;" and as absurdly as imperiously demanded of them, (ver. 5,) upon pain of death and destruction, "to make known unto him both the dream and the interpretation thereof." They answered very reasonably, that no king had ever required such a thing, that it transcended all the powers and faculties of man, God alone or only beings like God could disclose it, (ver. 10, 11:) "There is not a man upon earth that can show the king's matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, astrologer, or Chaldæan: and it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can show it before the king, except the God, whose dwelling is not with flesh." But the pride of absolute power cannot hear any reason, or bear any control; and the king greatly incensed presently ordered all the magicians and wise men of Babylon to be destroyed, (ver. 12) "For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon." Daniel and his fellows would have been involved in the same fate as the rest; but by their joint and earnest prayers to the God of heaven, "the secret was revealed unto Daniel in a night vision, (ver. 19,) and Daniel blessed the God of heaven." Daniel thus instructed, was desirous to save the lives of the wise men of Babylon, who were unjustly condemned, as well as his own: and he "went unto Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went, (ver. 24,) and said thus unto him, Destroy not the wise men of Babylon; bring me in before the king, and I will show unto the king the interpretation." The captain of the guard immediately introduced him to the king, and said, (ver. 25,) "I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation." "I have found a man," said he, though Daniel had voluntarily offered himself; where Jerome remarks the manner of courtiers, 'qui quum bona nunciant, sua videri volunt,' who when they relate good things, are willing to have them thought their own, and to have the merit ascribed to themselves. But Daniel was far from assuming any merit to himself, and said very modestly, that "this secret, (ver. 27,) which the wise men, astrologers, magicians, and soothsayers could not show unto the king, was not revealed to him, (ver. 30,) any wisdom that he had more than others: but there is a God in heaven, (ver. 28,) that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar, what shall be in the latter days," or what shall come to pass hereafter, as it is expressed (ver. 29, 45) twice afterwards. The impious king, as Jerome justly observes, had a prophetic dream, that the saint interpreting it, for |