the gradual amendment and cure of his pride, as he felt God's hand heavier upon him.

First, God sent him a dream of a great image, of different materials, gold, silver, brass, and iron mingled with clay; smitten and ground small by a stone, which afterwards became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Here was a plain prophecy, for so the prophet Daniel by the HOLY GHOST immediately explained it, of the four great empires, or manifestations of the spirit of this world, engaged in warfare with the Churches, whether Jewish or Christian. What the vision was, the king could not at first recollect, God's Providence so ordering it, on purpose that Daniel, being appealed to, might show the wisdom which he had from the true God, by revealing the secret which the king himself had forgotten. Yet even this wonderful token of God's infinite power and wisdom had no further effect, that we read of, on Nebuchadnezzar, except making him honour GoD, as one among many who could truly reveal secrets. He was for offering incense to Daniel, and treating him as a god himself; acknowledging his God to be a GoD of gods, and a LORD of lords, and a revealer of secrets. It was the first rude beginning of goodness, in a generous untaught heathen, but it did not at all go to the root of the matter: it left the king, both in heart and profession, as much a heathen and idolater as ever.

This he showed presently after, by making that image of GOD, of which you heard in the Lesson for this morning. Most likely the hint of it was taken from the image which he had seen in his dream he wanted to make his dream a reality, only that instead of a mixture of metals, he made this statue all of gold; which metal, you will observe, stood for the Babylonian empire in the vision which he had seen: so that by making the whole image out of gold, he would give people to understand that he meant it to represent his own power, and that of his city Babylon. By commanding it to be worshipped, therefore, he was in fact commanding himself and Babylon to be worshipped: thus literally causing persons to bow down to the world instead of GOD.

And this would seem to be what in a certain place the Revelation of St. John calls, "causing the world to worship the image of the Beast," that is, of the Antichristian power. It is being on

the world's, or Babylon's side, in this great quarrel between her and the Church.

However, Nebuchadnezzar did not long continue in the persecution of impiety, with which he that day began. You heard how three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, refusing to bow down to the image, were cast into the fiery furnace; and how GOD sent an angel, who walked with them in the midst of the fire, and delivered them. In His purposes of mercy towards Nebuchadnezzar, GoD permitted him to see that angel, and opened his heart to understand that great miracle; so that, as before he acknowledged the LORD to be a Gop, so he now acknowledged HIM a greater GOD than any other; forbidding, under pain of death, that any one should speak against HIM, and declaring that " there was no other GoD that could deliver after that

sort."

When we compare this acknowledgment with the conduct of others, such as Pharaoh and Balaam, on being favoured with a near view of the mighty works of God for His people, the comparison is surely much in Nebuchadnezzar's favour; there is a frankness in publicly owning himself wrong, and an eagerness to redress that wrong as far as possible, worthy of a noble, free, and generous spirit. There is no double dealing with Gop, no endeavour to escape from his duty; he reverses the sentence at once, and that eagerly, and makes haste to honour God's martyrs as he might, promoting "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon."

At the same time we perceive that it was the good feeling of the moment, rather than any deliberate and lasting principle, which wrought this change in the conduct of Nebuchadnezzar ; partly, perhaps, by the extreme zeal of his decree, whereby he enacted that a single word spoken against the GOD of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, should be punished with death, and destruction of the whole family of the person so offending; but chiefly, because the very words of this decree seem to show, that the king did not yet comprehend that first truth of religion, "The LORD our GOD is one LORD." For his words are, "There is no other God that can deliver after this sort." Other gods he still thought there were, but none equal to so great a deliverance as that.

He being thus imperfect in the faith, and still exposed to all the temptations of the first and most royal place in the whole world, it is no wonder if he had yet a grievous fall to go through, before he could become thoroughly humbled and religious in heart. And this, the third stage in God's marvellous dealings with Nebuchadnezzar, is related in the chapter from which the text is taken, the fourth of Daniel, And what is very much to be observed, it is related not in Daniel's words, but in the words of Nebuchadnezzar himself; that singular honour being shown to him, though a Gentile, and for most part of his life the very head of the Antichristian power, and chief enemy of God's people, that he should be the writer of one whole chapter in the inspired prophetical Scriptures of GOD; moved, no doubt, by that Holy and Blessed SPIRIT, by whose inspiration, as we know, all Scripture is given. That which was said of Saul, with some astonishment, might be said also naturally in this case, "Is Nebuchadnezzar also among the Prophets? Is the king of Babylon, the head of the oppressors, the destroyer of Jerusalem, raised up to confess and proclaim the only and unequalled majesty of the God of Jerusalem ?"

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So it is God's all-seeing eye perceived something in the mind of this haughty monarch, which made him a fit subject of this special miraculous interference; and that there might be no question of its being His interference, HE warned him of it, as Pharaoh sometime was warned, in a dream.

"He saw a tree in the midst of the earth, and behold the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth: the leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts. of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven; he cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches: nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the

dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth.”

So far the dream spoke of a tree: then on a sudden the language changed, and it became plain that some human being was meant, "Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him. This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the HOLY ONES: to the intent that the living may know that the MOST HIGH ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men."

This dream the king saw, and not being able to make it out (although he well understood that it boded some great trial to himself) he laid it (among others) before Daniel.

It is observable how differently Nebuchadnezzar took this dream from that by which God had before visited him: he was then so angry with the wise men of Chaldea for not being able to explain the dream to him, that he was on the point of putting them all to death: this time he only sent quietly for Daniel, whose divine gift of interpretation he knew by experience; and when he perceived that Daniel was troubled, and unwilling to relate the vision to him, he kindly encouraged him, and bade him not fear to interpret it: to such an extent was his once cruel heart now softened and amended by what had already happened to him. And accordingly we may perceive, I think, that Daniel speaks to him with peculiar affection and interest. "My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation to thine enemies" and then having explained the awful import of itthat as the tree, all but the stump, was cut down, so he should be driven from his kingdom, and from men, and his reason being gone, he should dwell with the beasts of the field, should eat grass as oxen, and be wet with the dew of heaven: Daniel, I say, having explained this to Nebuchadnezzar, adds this loyal and affectionate advice: "Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor."

Still the great change, from pride to humility, remained to be wrought in Nebuchadnezzar. In the space of only twelve

months, the remembrance of all these warnings and visions had so far passed away, that he began again to congratulate himself on his own great doings, and to forget that it was God who did all for him. His punishment came, as you have heard, immediately on him he was driven in a moment from the top of earthly pride and enjoyment, to the most miserable and helpless condition in the whole world; a senseless person living with the beasts, and changed almost in his very body after the likeness of a beast.

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So he continued, till ALMIGHTY GOD saw that he was ripe for recovery and conversion; and the moment his understanding returned to him, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and blessed the MOST HIGH, and praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever; acknowledging at length unreservedly, that HE, the LORD of Israel, is the only GOD: "His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto HIM, What doest thou?" And being restored unto his kingdom, and to all his former glory, he still humbled himself before his divine Chastiser; and thought it good to make his confession to all people, nations, and languages: teaching all to draw from it this great and saving lesson, “all His works are true, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase."

Such was the complete victory obtained by GoD's Almighty grace and providence over the spirit of the world and of Antichrist in the person of this great king: a kind of token of the future triumphs, which it has pleased HIM, from age to age, to win in like manner for HIMSELF and His Church, over the great ones of the earth; and particularly of that greatest triumph yet to come, when the kingdoms of this world are finally to become the kingdoms of our LORD and of His CHRIST.

In particular, we might perhaps truly observe, that the four great monarchies, of which Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon was first, have all borne witness, in their way, to the overpowering majesty of GOD, and humbled themselves before His Church. How Nebuchadnezzar did so we have seen. And the Scriptures inform us of Cyrus, king of Persia, head of the next great