they are prophecies, at all, and, that there is reason for applying
them to the church of Papal Rome). WE, who have but just been delivered
from the more than Egyptian bondage, which they predict; and are,
therefore, bound by every tye of interest, of gratitude, and of
charity, to assert to ourselves, and to communicate to others, as far
as we are able, the blessings of _that liberty, wherewith Christ has
made us free_[252]. Have WE no concern in the several _uses_, mentioned
in this discourse; and in many others, which I have not mentioned; it
being well known, that _all inspired scripture_ (of which prophecy
is so eminent a part) _is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness_[253]?
Or, supposing that we had no _direct_ concern in these prophecies,
and supposing, farther, that the divine authority of them was even
_problematical_; still it may deserve to be considered, I mean, by
men the most libertine, who have not yet convinced themselves, by an
exact and critical inquiry, of their utter falshood and insignificancy;
I say, it merits the reflexion of all such, That the _contempt_ of
the prophecies, under these circumstances, has a natural tendency
to corrupt the temper and harden the heart. And is there no room to
question, whether this conduct, plainly an _immoral_ conduct, be
adviseable or safe?
Let us then, on a principle of _self-love_, if not of piety, _keep
the sayings of this book_, concerning THE MAN OF SIN. From many
appearances, the appointed time for the full completion of them may
not be very remote. And it becomes our prudence to take heed that we
be not found in the number of those, to whom that awful question is
proposed—_How is it, that ye do not discern the signs of this time?_
Nay, there are prophecies, which, in that case, may concern us
more nearly, than we think. St. Paul applied ONE of these, to the
unbelieving Jews; of whose mockery, and of whose fate, ye have heared
what their own historian witnesseth: And, if _we_ equal their obdurate
spirit, _that_ prophecy may clearly be _applied_, and no man can say,
that it was not _intended_ to be applied, to _ourselves_.
_Beware therefore_ (to sum up all in the tremendous words of the
Apostle[254]) _Beware, lest that come upon you, which is spoken by the
Prophets_: BEHOLD, YE DESPISERS, AND WONDER AND PERISH; FOR I WORK A
WORK IN YOUR DAYS, A WORK, WHICH YE SHALL IN NO WISE UNDERSTAND, THOUGH
A MAN DECLARE IT UNTO YOU.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX:
CONTAINING
AN ANONYMOUS LETTER
TO THE AUTHOR OF THESE SERMONS,
WITH HIS ANSWER TO IT.
Soon after I had published this volume, I received an anonymous Letter,
addressed to me at Thurcaston, of which the following is an exact copy.
LETTER TO DR. HURD.
SIR,
Some months ago it was reported, that Dr. Hurd was preparing to expound
the Apocalypsis, and once more to prove the Pope to be Antichrist. The
public were amazed. By the gay and by the busy world, the very attempt
was treated as an object of ridicule. Polite scholars lamented, that
you should be prevailed on to give up your more solid and liberal
studies, for such obscure and unprofitable researches. Your own
brethren of the church hinted, that it would be far more prudent to
observe a respectful silence with regard to those awful and invidious
mysteries. A more than common share of merit was requisite to surmount
such adverse prejudices. Your Sermons, Sir, have been perused with
pleasure by many, who had the strongest dislike to the name and
subject. Every one has admired the vastness of the plan, the harmony
of the proportions, and the elegance of the ornaments; and if any have
remarked a weakness in the foundations, it has been imputed to the
nature of the ground; and the taste of the Patron has been arraigned
rather than the skill of the Architect.
Since you have undertaken the care and defence of this extensive
province, I may be allowed, less as an opponent than as a disciple,
to propose to you a few difficulties; about which I have sought more
conviction than I have hitherto obtained. From the general cast of your
writings, I flatter myself that I am speaking to a candid critic, and
to a philosophical divine; whose first passion is the love of truth. On
this pleasing supposition, let me venture to ask you, “_Whether, there
is sufficient evidence that the Book of Daniel is really as ancient as
it pretends to be._” You are sensible, that from this point the Golden
Chain of Prophecy, which you have let down from Heaven to earth, is
partly suspended.
There are two reasons which still force me to with-hold my assent.
I. The author of the Book of Daniel is too well informed of the
revolutions of the Persian and Macedonian empires, which are supposed
to have happened long after his death. II. He is too ignorant of
the transactions of his own times. In a word, he is too exact for a
Prophet, and too fabulous for a contemporary historian.
I. The first of these objections was urged, fifteen hundred years ago,
by the celebrated Porphyry. He not only frankly acknowledged, but
carefully illustrated the distinct and accurate series of history,
contained in the book of Daniel, as far as the death of Antiochus
Epiphanes; for beyond that period, the author seems to have had no
other guide than the dim and shadowy light of conjecture. The four
empires are clearly delineated, the expedition of Xerxes into Greece,
the rapid conquest of Persia by Alexander, his untimely death without
posterity, the division of his vast monarchy into four kingdoms,
one of which, Egypt, is mentioned by name, their various wars and
intermarriages, the persecution of Antiochus, the prophanation of the
Temple, and the invincible arms of the Romans, are described with as
much perspicuity in the prophecies of Daniel, as in the histories
of Justin and Diodorus. From such a perfect resemblance, the artful
infidel would infer, that both were alike composed after the event.
This conduct has supplied St. Jerom with a fund of learning, and an
occasion of triumph; as if the philosopher, oppressed by the force
of truth, had unwarily furnished arms for his own defeat. Yet,
notwithstanding Jerom’s confidence, and in spite of my inclination to
side with the father, rather than with the adversary of the church; the
reasoning of the latter may I fear be justified by the rules of logic
and criticism.
May I not assume as a principle equally consonant to experience, to
reason, and even to true religion; “That we ought not to admit any
thing as the immediate work of God, which can possibly be the work of
man; and that whatever is said to deviate from the ordinary course of
nature, should be ascribed to accident, to fraud, or to fiction; till
we are fully satisfied, that it lies beyond the reach of those causes?”
If we cast away this buckler, the blind fury of superstition, from
every age of the world, and from every corner of the globe, will invade
us naked and unarmed.
The eager trembling curiosity of mankind has ever wished to penetrate
into futurity; nor is there perhaps any country, where enthusiasm
and knavery have not pretended to satisfy this anxious craving of
the human heart. These self-inspired prophets have strove by various
arts to supply the want of a divine mission. Sometimes adapting their
conjectures to the present situation of things, and to the passions and
prejudices of those, for whom their oracles were intended, they have
involved themselves in the mystic veil of dark, general, and ambiguous
metaphors: and embracing an indefinite space, they have trusted to
time and fortune for the accomplishment of their predictions, or to
the industry of kind commentators for a favourable interpretation of
them. Sometimes they have commenced prophets, and even true prophets at
a very easy rate, by delivering the narrative of things already past
under the name of some celebrated character of a distant age. As the
series of events gradually unfolds itself, those which the supposed
ancient could have read only in the book of fate, are transcribed by
the more enlightened modern from any common history.
Virgil (the example is innocent and unexceptionable) has left us
specimens of both these prophetic arts: I have often wondered at the
rashness of critics who have tryed to ascertain the subject of the
fourth Eclogue, and to point out the wonderful infant, the restorer
of a golden age. That modest and judicious Poet would not surely have
risked the smallest part of his reputation, on the miscarriage of a
woman, or the precarious life of a child. The picture is richly, nay
profusely coloured; but the design is traced with so vague a pencil,
that it might adapt itself to any events or to any interpretation;
that it might equally suit a literal or an allegorical sense; the son
of Pollio, of Antony, or of Augustus; the restoration of liberty, or
the tranquillity of the world under one master. Far different are the
prophecies delivered to Æneas concerning the fate and fortunes of his
descendants. The Trojan hero is indulged with a full and distinct view
of the most remote futurity; and the visionary prospect is closed
by the mournful apparition of a youth, who would have rivalled the
greatest of his ancestors, had not the gods envied _such_ virtues to
Rome and to mankind.
From this single remark, we should think ourselves authorized to
infer, that Virgil lived in the Augustan age; and that the sixth
book was composed during the yet recent grief for the loss of young
Marcellus. The Poet indeed meant not to deceive us: like the author of
the Persian Letters, or of the Moral Dialogues, his only aim was to
convey important truths under the pleasing cover of fiction. But had
Virgil seriously pretended, that his sketch of the Roman history was
a faithful transcript from an old Sibylline oracle; had Augustus from
motives of policy favoured the deceit, and had the Romans adopted it
with religious respect; would any man of sense want better evidence of
the pious fraud, than the very clearness and precision of the prophecy?
The unanimous judgment passed on the yet extant collection of the
Sibylline Oracles affords an easy answer to this question. Every critic
who has observed that their prophetic light ceases with the reign of
Hadrian, has pronounced them without hesitation to be a forgery of that
period.
However, as no Christian can dispute the reality of Divine Inspiration,
nor any philosopher deny the possibility of it; the suspicion, that a
prophecy too clear and precise was composed after the event, though
extremely strong, is capable of being removed by still stronger
positive evidence. Without insisting on any fanciful or impracticable
conditions, we have (I think) a right to expect, that the existence of
such a prophecy prior to its accomplishment should be proved, by the
knowledge of it being generally diffused amongst an enlightened nation,
previous to that period; and its public existence attested, by an
unbroken chain of authentic writers. Till such evidence is produced, we
may fairly sit down in a calm and well-grounded scepticism.
I have endeavoured to form something like this chain of witnesses
in favour of the Book of Daniel; but without being able to carry it
higher than the first century of the Christian æra. Josephus seems
to expatiate with pleasure on the praises of that great man; whose
character, in some instances, he proposed as a model for his own. He
celebrates the various merit of Daniel, as a statesman, a prophet, and
even as an architect. His prophetic writings (says Josephus) which are
still extant, evince his familiar intercourse with the Deity, and
his perfect knowledge of futurity. He even possessed some material
advantages above the rest of his inspired brethren; not contented
with declaring future events, he ascertains the time when they were
to happen; and instead of announcing calamities, he is most commonly
the messenger of good news. The rise and fall of successive empires so
clearly described and so punctually accomplished, ought to convince
the disciples of Epicurus, that human affairs, instead of being left
to the blind impulsion of chance, are pre-ordained by an all-directing
Providence. Nothing can be desired fuller or more honourable for Daniel
than this testimony of the Jewish historian. I am only concerned that
he did not publish his Antiquities till the ninety-third year of the
Christian æra; two hundred and fifty-seven years after the death of
Antiochus Epiphanes, and more than six centuries later than the time,
in which the Prophet is supposed to have flourished.
II. The Book of Daniel is partly of the prophetic and partly of the
historic kind. With the account of his visions, the author mixes the
memoirs of his life; which lies the more open to our inspection, as it
was spent, not like those of the other Prophets in caves and deserts,
but in the courts of princes and the great transactions of the world.
Three incidents are more particularly mentioned: that he was educated
with many other captive youths, among the Eunuchs of Nebuchadnezzar;
that he was promoted by that prince to the government of Babylon for
the interpretation of a dream; and that, under the reign of Darius the
Mede, he was appointed the first of the three ministers or vizirs of
the empire; and was soon after exposed to the most imminent danger,
by the malice of his enemies, the impudence of his sovereign, and
his own pious constancy. To the first of these incidents I am so far
from forming any objection, that it seems to me, in the true style
of the oriental customs in war and government. But the two last are
embarrassed with difficulties, from which I have not been able to
extricate myself.
1. Although the most unfrequented paths have sometimes conducted the
favourites of fortune to wealth and honours: yet I much doubt, whether
any man has been appointed a great officer of state for his skill in
divination. In the time of Chardin, the Persian astrologers possessed
as much credit at the court of the Sophis, as the Chaldeans could
possibly obtain in that of Babylon; and both king and people paid
the most implicit obedience to their predictions. Two astrologers
constantly attended the Royal Person; nor was any measure adopted,
however trifling or however important, without the previous sanction
of these ministers of fate; who cost the state annually above four
millions of French money. But notwithstanding they were thus highly
favoured and respected, they were still confined within their own
province; nor is there any instance of the Sovereign chusing his
ministers, his generals, or his judges, amongst that class of men; the
best qualified, as it should seem, for action, since they were the best
acquainted with the consequences of their actions. The common sense
of mankind has constantly preferred the mere human accomplishments of
courage, capacity, and experience. The Roman augurs indeed presided
in the senate, and led forth the armies of the common-wealth; but in
this single exception, the sacerdotal was grafted on the political
character. The first citizens, after rising gradually through the
honours, and great offices of their country, were at length admitted to
play the most powerful engine of the aristocracy.
2. I am disposed to believe that the subsequent merit of Daniel might
justify the Monarch’s caprice. I will allow, (on the credit of the
story of Susanna and the elders) that there never was a Judge of hands
more clean, or of a more discerning eye; and that, in his ministerial
capacity, he was ever attentive to the public interest, and careless of
his own. I cannot deny, that Daniel, as a favourite, as a stranger, and
as an honest man, must have the whole court of Babylon for his enemies;
and am very sensible, that in the administration of a great empire,
the purest virtue and the most shining abilities may afford room for
misrepresentation and calumny. How often must the great Sully have
yielded to those arts of courts, had he not possessed a sure resource
in the sound understanding and generous heart of his friend and
master! The situation of the Jewish and of the Huguenot Minister were
somewhat similar. Both were issued from an oppressed race of obstinate
sectaries; and it might be deemed a very artful contrivance to invent
some test, which must force them to relinquish their place, or their
principles; to forfeit the favour of their prince, or the confidence of
their party. Thus far the comparison is tolerably exact. But the French
ministers were well assured that the fate and innocence of Sully would
be left to the common order of providence. The courtiers of Darius must
apprehend, that the piety of Daniel would be asserted by a miraculous
interposition. The people of Babylon, not many years before, had beheld
the wonderful deliverance of Daniel’s friends from the fiery furnace;
and it would have been a strange project for these crafty statesmen, a
second time to provoke the jealous God of Israel, to exalt the glory of
their enemy, and to draw down destruction on their own heads.
This age indeed, to whom the gift of miracles has been refused, is
apt to wonder at the indifference with which they were received by
the ancient world. Instead of the instant terror, lasting conviction,
and implicit obedience, we might rationally expect; the Jews as well
as the Gentiles conducted themselves, as if they neither remembered
nor believed the miracles to which they were witnesses. Although the
hand of the Almighty was almost perpetually employed in tracing out
those divine characters; they were no sooner formed, than they were
obliterated from the minds of men. It may possibly be alledged, that
faith was distracted by the multiplicity of false as well as of genuine
miracles; whilst even the patrimony of the Lord was encompassed by
rival deities.
——Who from the pit of hell,
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats long after next the seat of God;
Their altars by his altar; Gods ador’d
Among the nations round; and durst abide
Jehovah thund’ring out of Sion, thron’d
Betwixt the Cherubim——
But this solution is more proper, I am afraid, to aggravate than to
alleviate the pressure of the difficulty. Counterfeit money may pass
current with the true; since both are coined by human hands and human
industry: But I have always considered Salmoneus imitating Jove’s
thunder by rattling with a brazen chariot over a brazen bridge, as the
most contemptible legend in the whole compass of the Grecian mythology.
3. The law of the Medes and Persians is represented as a constitutional
sanction, which put it out of Darius’s power to revoke his rash
edict. Such legal restraints are the natural offspring of free
governments; but ill suit with the genius of Asiatic despotism. From
the inaccessible solitude of a seven-fold palace the king of the Medes
disposed without controul of the lives and property of his subjects:
nor does there exist a more dreadful act of authority, than the
retaliation inflicted by Darius on Daniel’s enemies; who, to the number
of a hundred and twenty, were cast, with their wives and children, into
the den of lions. If the Persians enjoyed any degree of freedom among
their mountains, they became at the same time slaves and conquerors;
and a formal determination of their judges stands recorded by
Herodotus. “That it was lawful for the king to do whatever he pleased.
There are indeed some instances, where a wise despot will check
himself, and a foolish one will find himself checked by the nature of
things. Such institutions as are derived from Divine authority, ancient
custom, or general opinion, cannot be shaken without endangering the
foundations of his own throne. But it would be truly unaccountable,
that his cooler reason should not be permitted to correct the passion
or surprize of a moment; and that the occasional declarations of
his pleasure should not be annihilated by the same authority, which
produced them. May I not assert, that the Greek writers who have so
copiously treated of the affairs of Persia, have not left us the
smallest vestige of a restraint, equally injurious to the monarch, and
prejudicial to the people?”
4. The edict of Darius, “that during thirty days, whosoever should
ask any petition of either god or man, save only of the king, should
be cast into the den of lions,” implied an almost total suspension
of religious worship; which consists much more in prayer than in
thanksgiving. Such an extraordinary interdict, by depriving the people
of the comforts, and the priests of the profits of religion, must have
diffused a general discontent throughout his empire; which might easily
have been inflamed into sedition and civil war. With what colours
could the ministers of Darius gloss over a measure big with every
mischief, and destitute of the smallest advantage? In what language
could they address themselves to the reason, or even to the passions
of their Sovereign; who is described to be of an advanced age, and a
lover of justice and moderation? But is there any character, which,
with the utmost latitude of supposition, may account for this edict?
An irreligious prince may be indiscreet enough to treat with ridicule
whatever is held sacred by his subjects; but he will entertain too
great a contempt both for the people, and for popular superstition,
ever to think of forcibly separating them from each other. The bigot is
actuated by a warmer principle than the infidel; but his attachment
to his own mode of worship rises in proportion to his hatred of all
others. Had Darius, as a disciple of Zoroaster, shut up the temples
of the idolaters, he would have directed the fires of the Magi to
have blazed with redoubled ardour. Even those tyrants who, destitute
of human virtues, have aspired to divine honours, have grafted their
pretensions on the established religions. To be seated between Castor
and Pollux, to obtain the embraces of the Moon, to confer with Jupiter
of the Capitol, and to place his image in the temple of Jerusalem,
would have gratified the wildest ambition of Caligula. But to suspend
during thirty days the most universal propensity of mankind, is a
strain of wanton despotism unparalleled in the history of the world;
for the interdicts of the Popes were of a quite different nature.
They were not the arbitrary prohibitions of a temporal monarch; but a
chastisement, inflicted by the vicegerent of Christ, who excluded the
offenders from the benefits of Christianity, till they had satisfied
the Deity, offended in the person of his ministers.
5. There yet remains a stronger, or at least a more palpable objection,
against the veracity of the author of the book of Daniel: “The high
probability that Darius the Mede never existed; or, what amounts to
the same, that no prince of that name or nation reigned at Babylon,
between the time of Nebuchadnezzar and that of Cyrus.” It would be to
little purpose to expatiate on the uncertainty of ancient history,
and the careless vanity of the Greek writers. The outlines of the
history of Babylon are known to us with uncommon precision. The Canon
of Ptolemy contains the stories of its kings, deduced from authentic
records, attested by astronomical observations, and confirmed by the
fragments of Berosus, which are still extant in Josephus. Berosus
describes the conquests and buildings of Nebuchadnezzar, and only omits
to mention the metamorphosis of that monarch into an ox. His three
immediate successors, were of his own family; the fourth, Nabonadius,
was a Babylonian raised to the throne by the conspirators who murdered
his predecessor; and cast down from it by the victorious arms of Cyrus
king of Persia. In this close series of the Babylonian and Persian
dynasties, there cannot be found the smallest interval, which will
admit a Median prince.
Of the various expedients devised to elude this difficulty, there is
one only which can deserve our notice; both as the most tolerable in
itself, and as having been embraced by the chronologists of the most
distinguished merit and reputation; by Usher, Prideaux, Sir Isaac
Newton, &c. In their extreme distress, the Cyaxares of Xenophon offered
himself to their imagination, as the properest person to support the
character of Darius the Mede. For this purpose, they have supposed
that he reigned two years over the Babylonian empire; after it had
been subdued by the arms of Cyrus, his nephew and his lieutenant. Such
is their hypothesis, which falls to the ground if the Cyropædia is a
romance; and is overthrown by it, should that noble performance be
received as a genuine history.