of Prophetic Discourses, June 1827......... 964 Signification of the Symbols, "The River Euphrates," and "The Kings of the East" 968 Nature of the Judgment decreed upon Eu- Improvement of the whole subject ...... 1086 DISC. VI.-The Kings of the East, or the Ten Tribes Doctrine of the Text (Rev. xvi. 12), and TO HENRY DRUMMOND, ESQ. AND TO ALL THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WAITING FOR THE PERSONAL APPEARING AND REIGN OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. MY HONOUred frienD AND BELOVED BRETHREN, After casting about in my own mind to whom I might most fitly dedicate these Occasional Discourses, which are chiefly of a public and political character, as having been almost all preached on week-days, for public objects, and, as I may say, on secular occasions, (for even the Bible Society is, by its chief advocates, held to be not a religious but a secular association,) I had little difficulty in making choice of you from the throng of presidents and vice-presidents, governors and life-governors, and other functionaries of the religious world.' For, to wave all considerations of personal friendship and esteem, no one whom the religious stir and tumult of the last thirty years hath brought conspicuously before the church, hath so strenuously served her best interests through good and through bad report, or doth so well deserve her thanks, as doth the man who brought forward from their obscurity and persecutions both Burckhardt and Wolff, and upheld their way against the sharp tongues of prudential and worldly-wise Christians: who laid the foundation of the Continental Society, and hath built it up in the frown and opposition of the religious world;' who detected and dragged to light the false reports concerning the state of religion on the Continent, with which the Bible Society, in its palmy times, had glozed the charitable ear of the church; who has stood forth as the friend and patron of every society which hath any shew of favour to the Jews; and finally, who hath taken us poor despised interpreters of prophecy under your wing, and made the halls of your house like unto the ancient schools of the Prophets,—for which, methinks, when Elias shall reappear, you may plead the mercy of the fearful man with more advantage than did Obadiah in the days of Ahab, who said, "Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord; how I hid a hundred men of the Lord's prophets, by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water?" For you were not afraid of Ahab or of Jezebel, and hid us not in your Evelyn's rocky cave, to feed on roots and living water from the fountain, but entertained us as princes are wont to entertain the most excellent men of their court. For which may the Lord enlarge still more your generous heart, and still more enrich your generous store. To you, therefore, as to a man who hath taken a public post of observation, and been enabled to stand the insinuations of flattery, and the brunt of envy, and doth presently occupy one of the most important stations which a layman can hold in the church of Christ, I dedicate these public and political discourses, which contain matters of no small importance to the state both of our religious and civil polity. They consist, among others, of A Discourse on Education, suggested to me by the hideous and monstrous intermarriage which I witnessed with weeping, and solemnly, but singly, protested against, between the Dissenters of England and the political Infidels or Liberals, in the matter of the London University ; -A Discourse preached three years ago, upon the Distresses of Ireland; in which I have set forth the Papal superstition as the great bane, and direct preaching at it until they preach it down as the chief remedy; of which doctrine the events of the last year are a complete confirmation. At the time it was preached, nothing was thought so uncharituble, or unkind, or unmanly, or ungodly, as to enter into controversy upon any of the papal superstitions and abominations. It was the year that Mr. Pope was publicly put down because he related something that passed between him and one of the popish priesthood, that laborious, inoffen |