from the Euphrates to the Indus, v. 5. In process of time, Antiochus Theos, the grandson of Nicator, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, "joined themselves together." The latter gave his daughter Berenice in marriage to the former. Yet this alliance was of no ultimate benefit to either of the parties. Laodice, a previous wife of Antiochus, in her jealousy, caused the death of her husband, of the Egyptian wife, and of their two sons, and placed her own son, Seleucus Callinicus, on the throne. Antiochus Soter, the son of Nicator, is passed by, as he had no connection with the affairs of the Jews, v. 6. "But out of a branch of her roots," i. e. of Berenice's, stood up one in the place of Philadelphus, i. e. his son Ptolemy Euergetes, who marched with an army to avenge the death of his sister, attacked the fortresses of Callinicus, and prevailed against him, and carried back to Egypt many captives, forty thousand talents of silver, and a large number of images, which Cambyses, king of Persia, had taken from Egypt. Then he desisted several years from war with the king of the north, v. 8. The king of Syria having in vain attempted to invade Egypt, and having suffered shipwreck, returned in trepidation to Antioch, v. 9. His two sons, Ceraunus and Antiochus the Great, renewed the war with a large army. After the death of Ceraunus, it was continued by Antiochus. In a short time, "he returned," i. e. recommenced the war, and the hostile kings were stirred up even to his tower," the fortress of Ptolemy at Raphia, near Gaza, v. 10. Ptolemy Philopater, the son of Euergetes, gained a great victory over Antiochus at Raphia, v. 11; but his heart was lifted up with pride, and he made no good use of his victory, v. 12; for "after some years," in the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes, the son of Philopater, Antiochus renewed the war with greater vigor than ever,

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v. 13. The Egyptian king was, at the same time, harassed by an attack from Philip, king of Macedonia. Factious Jews, "robbers of thy people," revolted from him and joined Antiochus, thereby becoming the means, through the oppressions which the Jews suffered from Antiochus Epiphanes, of "establishing" the prophetic "vision," v. 14. Antiochus marched with a large army and "cast up a mount" against Si don, and took the city, notwithstanding the "chosen people" which Ptolemy sent to its aid, v. 15. Ac cordingly, Antiochus did according to his will, and gained complete possession of the " pleasant land," v. 16. And he set his face that he might gain entire control of Ptolemy's kingdom. He formed a league with him, and gave him in marriage his daughter Cleopatra, "to destroy it," i. e. the kingdom of Ptolemy. But the crafty device did not suc ceed. Instead of carrying out the designs of her father, she continued steadfast in the interests of her hus band, v. 17. Antiochus then took possession of many islands, and of the coasts of Asia Minor. Soon, however, a "prince," Lucius Scipio, defeated him in a great battle at Magnesia. In addition to the "re proach" inflicted on him by this event," he caused it to turn on him. self." Men called him "King Antiochus the Great." The Romans compelled him to evacuate Asia Minor. Loaded with a heavy tribute, he resorted to cruel exactions, and even the robbing of temples, in order to procure the means of pay ing it. But by attempting to plunder the temple of Elymais, he provoked the people to an insurrection, in which he was slain, together with the soldiers who attended him, v. 18, 19. His son, Seleucus Philo pater, was "the raiser of taxes." "In a few days," he was destroyed, "not in anger, nor in battle," but by poison, v. 20. The "vile per son," Antiochus Epiphanes, came

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to the throne by "flattering" Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and his brother Attalus, v. 21. The forces of the Egyptians were broken" by him, yea also, Ptolemy Philome ter, with whom he had made a cov. enant, v. 22. He pretended that he had come to Egypt, solely for the good of Ptolemy, to set the affairs of his kingdom in order for him. He attacked suddenly [not peaceably]"the fattest places" of Egypt, and scattered among his soldiers the prey, and devised assaults upon Alexandria, and other places, v. 23, 24. In v. 25, the conflict between the two kings is described, in which Ptolemy was worsted, because per sons in his own court plotted against him. Even those who fed at his table, v. 26, conspired against him. In the mean time, the army of Antiochus came on like an inundation, and many of Ptolemy's soldiers fell down wounded. Under the garb of friendship, v. 27, both kings tried to circumvent each other, but neither accomplished his object, for the end of these wars was deferred till the time appointed by God. Then Antiochus returning to his own land, plundered Jerusalem on the road, and desecrated the temple, v. 28. Afterward he went back to Egypt, v. 29, 30, but his designs did not prosper, for the Romans sent embassadors, and forbade his further progress. He returned "grieved," and wreaked his vengeance on the Jews, and set up his abomination" in the temple, v. 31, the apostate Jews helping him, but the "people of God," like Mattathias, v. 32, being strong, did valiantly. These pious Jews confirmed many in their allegiance to the true God, v. 33, though multitudes perished by the sword, in the flames, and in captivity, for some time.

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Mattathias at first had but a "little help," though many professed themselves, hypocritically, to be his friends, v. 34. It was a time of sharp trial, v. 35, and many came out of the fiery persecution like gold from the furnace. The remainder of the chapter, v. 36 to 45, describes the impiety of Antiochus, his neglect of the idols of his fathers, his worship of Jupiter Capitolinus, "the god of forces," his disregarding the "desire of women," i. e. some goddess worshiped by Syrian females, his setting up the worship of Jupiter "in the most strong holds," another war with the king of Egypt, the escape of the Idumeans, etc. from his grasp, his fury on hearing of the revolt of the Armenians and Parthians, and the placing of his camp between the Mediterranean and Jerusalem," the seas and the glorious holy mountain." But his end had now come. The thrones were set. The Ancient of Days ascended the judgment seat. A fiery stream issued from before him. Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set and the books were opened. The sentence went forth. The beast was slain, and his body was destroyed, and given to the burning flame. The bloody persecutor of God's people, received the just reward of

his deeds.

Then followed the glorious days. of the Messiah. The Son of Man came in the clouds of heaven, and there was given him an everlasting dominion. The stone that smote the image, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. Thrice blessed he who shall behold on earth the perfect accomplishment of this vision.

THOSE were stirring times in old England two hundred years ago. The controversy between Charles I. and the Long Parliament had been submitted to the dire arbitrament of war; and each of the three kingdoms of the British empire was convulsed with the progress of a bloody revolution. Let us briefly recollect the occasion, the elements, and the progress of that controversy. The ancient feudal system of government in England, had answered a purpose during the middle ages. By a rude balancing of powers, it had secured the barons against the sovereign, and had prevented the crown from becoming absolute, while at the same time it had limited the authority of the barons by making them, to some extent, dependent on the king. It had guarded by charters and prescriptive rights the corporate liberties of cities and boroughs, and had thus encouraged industry and the progress of civilization. It had recognized the church as one great power in the state, a power in a great measure independent of the crown and of the peerage; and the political rights of bishops and mitred abbots, of the universities and the clergy, were acknowledged as definitely as those of lay barons or of burgesses. It had accustomed the entire people to the idea of being governed by laws and not by arbitrary power. It had fixed in the popular mind the notion, that laws were to be made by the parliament with the consent of the king, and not by the king without the parliament, and that the laws were of the nature of a compact between the sovereign and his subjects. It had trained the English to regard themselves as a free people, and to glory in their freedom as the great distinction between them and their

neighbors of those continental kingdoms, in which the power of the sovereign had swallowed up, in whole or in part, those old Gothic institutions which had once maintained the spirit of liberty.

But from the reign of Henry VII, England had been outgrowing her ancient ill-defined system of feudal government. The peerage, once so powerful against the throne, had been greatly depressed by the confiscations and slaughters of the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster; and the policy of the avaricious and unwarlike Henry VII, while it enriched the crown, gave opportunity for industry and the arts of peace to enrich those towns which were the seats of trade, and brought forward those "middling classes," which, during the long era of feudal violence, had hardly begun to exist. The invention of printing, the revival and expansion of commerce, the discovery of America, were indications of the commencement of a new order of things.

In the following reign, the reformation as introduced into Eng. land by the monarch-throwing off the old allegiance of the church of England to the church of Rome, transferring all the powers of the pope to the king, abolishing the monastic institutions, and seizing on no small portion of the immense possessions of the clergy-disturbed still farther the old balance of pow ers in the state, by bringing the bishops and the entire ecclesiastical system into an immediate and absolute dependence on the crown. At the same time, in consequence of this very arrangement, so inauspicious in itself to English liberty, England was unavoidably placed in communication with the true refor mation which had been commenced

on the continent by Luther and Zuingle, and which was there asserting in the boldest manner, the principle of private judgment and of the supreme and sole authority of the Scriptures, as opposed to the authority of the church; and the principle of justification by faith, as opposed to justification by the church, by ceremonies and observances, or by any human endeavors. Beside this, the very change which the king made in seizing on the pope's supremacy, while it was highly acceptable to at least a large portion of the people, as relieving England from a hated dependence on a foreign power, and from great taxes and contributions which had gone to fill the coffers of the pontiff at Rome, or had been expended in the support of idle and often profligate monks-could not but lead on to other changes in the popular mind. The doctrine of the pope's supremacy being rejected by public authority as resting on nothing but prescription, it was a matter of course for the people to inquire, whether other doctrines, once venerable, rested on any better foundation. The Scriptures being translated into the vulgar tongue for the people to read, why were not the people to judge as to the meaning of what they read? England having become a Protestant kingdom, why should not the people become a Protestant people? and why should not the church of England be reformed in doctrine and discipline, according to the Scriptural standard, like the churches with which she agreed in protesting against Rome? All these tendencies towards a progressive and thorough reformation, were increased by the fact, that the personal quarrel between Henry VIII. and Luther, brought the reforming ecclesiastics of England into immediate connection with the divines of Switzerland, rather than with those of Saxony, with Zurich and Geneva, rather than with Wittemberg. Still,

the reformation can hardly be considered as having made much progress during the reign of Henry VIII. For though the timid, supple, and crafty Cranmer was archbishop of Canterbury, having mounted to that place by his diligent and able subserviency to the tyrant's wishes in respect to his divorce of Catherine, and retaining his mitre by a meaner compliance in respect to the divorce and condemnation of Anne Boleyn-and though the he roic Latimer was for a season bishop of Worcester-and though by the influence of the Protestant party at court, anxious for their newly acquired church property, and therefore disposed to take away all possibility of a reconciliation with Rome, some preachers of the reformed religion enjoyed an irregu lar and perilous toleration, the authorized doctrines and ritual of the church suffered no material change, save in the one great point of bring ing the clergy to a complete dependence on the king.

The actual reformation of the church of England, so far as it was reformed, is to be ascribed, under God's providence, to the accident that the immediate successor of Henry VIII. was a boy in his tenth year; and that those who had the guardianship of his person, and who swayed the government in his name, were committed either by their interest or by their conscience, on the side of a thorough reformation. The king's supremacy over the church, in the hands of this reforming junto of nobles and bishops, was employ. ed to great effect for six years. Then it was that Latimer, Ridley, Coverdale, Hooper, Rogers, and the like, obtained not only liberty to preach the gospel, but high places of honor and influence in the ecclesiastical establishment. Then it was that Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer were, by the government, invited into England from Switzerland, and placed in the chairs of theology at

Oxford and Cambridge. Then it was that on account of the popish ignorance and incapacity of the clergy, and as the best substitute for a preaching ministry, the first book of homilies was published to be read in the churches, and a copy deposited with every parish priest. Then it was that the images were ordered to be removed from places of worship; and the order went forth that every church should within three months be provided with a Bible. Then it was that the old Latin forms of public worship were collated, revised, expurgated, and translated in to English. Then it was that one great and noisome abomination of the ancient or popish Christianity, was swept away by legalizing the marriage of the clergy. Then it was that the reformation of the church was continually regarded, not as a work completed and incapable of advancement, but as a work in progress, to be carried on from one degree of purity to another. These six years of the reign of Edward VI. are the years in which the foundation was laid for whatever of real Protestantism pertains to the church of England as by law established.

On the accession of Mary, when the reforming prelates and statesmen found their own engine of the king's supremacy turned against themselves, it was soon manifest that the measures of the preceding reign had not been ineffectual; and the three hundred victims, of all ranks, from the aged primate of all England to the simple peasant and the little child, who were burned at the stake as martyrs to the reformed faith, "lighted such a candle in England as shall never be put out." Yet the facility with which almost the entire nation was turned back from the religion of Edward and Cranmer to the religion of Mary and Bonner-the pliableness of Parliament to repeal all the reforming laws of the two preceding

reigns, and to re-enact those old bloody statutes which brought the martyrs to the stake, showed too plainly how little progress had then been made in that reformation of the people without which all reformation of doctrines and of forms is of no worth. On one point, however, the Queen found her subjects less flexible. The very act repealing all laws against the see of Rome, could not be carried without a proviso that the plunder of the monas teries and bishoprics, which Henry had so profusely distributed among his courtiers, and by which he had made the reformation so acceptable to them, should remain undisturbed with those who then possessed it. The Queen indeed gave back all of that property which was still in possession of the sovereign, and testified her zeal by repairing old monasteries and erecting new ones; but when it was proposed in Parliament that the abbey lands should be restored by law to the uses from which they had been alienated, the English temper was up in a moment; and even in that obsequious assembly there were those who significantly laid their hands on their swords, and said they knew how to defend their own property. Had the Queen, or rather had the Pope her master, been wise enough to abandon the claim on the alienated property of the church, and to confirm that property to the actual possessors, trusting to the power of su perstition and of priestcraft to make up all losses, the cruelties which have gained for Mary so unhappy a preeminence in English history, would have been far more effectual toward suppressing the Protestant party. But while the alienation remained unsanctioned by the Pope, all that property, amounting to per haps a fifth part of the rental of the kingdom, was a "vested interest" against the establishment of popery. It was the security which the reformation gave to the tenure of so