cle meant was Cyrus, who derived his extraction from two different nations, being a Perfian by the father's fide, and a Mede by the mother's; and as to the great empire which Crafus was to overthrow, the oracle did not mean that of the Medes, but his own.

It was by fuch falfe and deceitful oracles, that the father of lies, the devil, who was the author of them, impofed upon mankind, in thofe times of ignorance and darkness, always giving his answers to thofe that confulted him, in fuch ambiguous and doubtful terms, that let the event be what it would, they contained a relative meaning.

(i) When the people of Ionia and Æolia were apprised of Cyrus's having fubdued the Lydians, they fent ambaffadors to him at Sardis, to defire he would receive them as his fubjects, upon the fame conditions he had granted the Lydians. Cyrus, who before his victory had folicited them in vain to embrace his party, and was then in a condition to compel them to it by force, anfwered them only by a fable of a fifherman, who having played upon his pipe, in order to make the fish come to him, in vain, found there was no way to catch them, but by throwing his net into the water. Failing in their hopes of fucceeding this way, they applied to the Lacedæmonians, and demanded their fuccour. The Lacedæmonians thereupon fent deputies to Cyrus, to let him know, that they would not fuffer him to undertake any thing against the Greeks. Cyrus only laughed at fuch a meffage, and advertised them in his turn to take care, and put themfelves into a condition to defend their own territories.

The nation of the ifles had nothing to apprehend from Cyrus, because he had not yet fubdued the Phoenicians, nor had the Perfians any shipping.

(k)

The hiftory of the befieging and taking of Babylon by CYRUS.

CY

YRUS ftaid in Afia Minor, till he had entirely reduced all the nations that inhabited it into fubjection, from the Ægean fea to the river Euphrates. From thence he proceeded to Syria and Arabia, which he also subjected. After which he entered into Affyria, and advanced towards Babylon, the only city of the eaft that stood out against him.

The fiege of this important place was no eafy enterprise. The walls of it were of a prodigious height, and appeared to

(i) Herod. 1. i. c. 141, 152, 153. P. 186-188,

be

(4) Ibid, c. 177. Cyrop. l. vii,

(0) Shoot against her round about. Recompenfe her according to her avork; according to all that he hath done, do unto her; and Jpare ye not her young men; deftroy ye utterly all her hoft. (0) Every one that is found fhall be thrust through, and every one that is joined unto them fall fall by the fword. Their children also shall be dafbed to pieces before their eyes, their houfes fhall be spoiled, and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard filver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows alfo fhall dash the young men to pieces, and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye fhall not Spare children. (2) O daughter of Babylon, who art to be defroyed, happy fhall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou haft ferved us. Happy fhall be be, that taketh thy children, and dafbeth them against the ftones.

(r) And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, and the beauty of the Chaldees excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither hall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither fhall the shepherds make their fold there; but wild beasts of the defert fhall lie there, and their boufes fhall be full of doleful creatures, and owls fhall dwell there, and fatyrs fball dance there: And the wild beafts of the island shall cry in their defolate boufes, and dragons in their pleasant palaces. (s) I will alfo make it a poffeffion for the bittern and pools of water; and I will fweep it with the befom of deftruction, faith the Lord of bofts. The Lord of hofts hath fworn, faying, Surely as I have thought, fo fhall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it ftand.

IV. CYRUS called to deftroy Babylon, and to deliver the Jews.

Cyrus, whom the divine providence was to make use of, as an inftrument for the executing of his defigns of goodness and mercy towards his people, was mentioned in the fcripture by his name, above two hundred years before he was born. And, that the world might not be furprifed at the prodigious rapidity of his conquefts, God was pleafed to declare, in very lofty and remarkable terms, that he himself would be his guide; and that in all his expeditions he would lead him by the hand, and would fubdue all the princes of the earth before him. () Thus faith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyras, whofe right-hand I have holden to fubdue nations before him; and I will loofe the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates fhall not be fout. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places Araight. (p) Ifa. xiii. 15, 18. (9) Pf. cxxxvii, Ibid, xiv, 23, 24, (4) Ibid, xlv, 1—4.

(0) Jer. 1. 15, 29. and li. 3. 8, 9. (r) Ifa, xiii. 19, 22. ~ ́~ ́(s)

ftraight. Iwill break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in funder the bars of iron. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of fecret places, that thou mayeft know, that I the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Ifrael: For Jacob my fervant's fake, and Ifrael mine elect, I have even called. thee by thy name: I have furnamed thee, though thou haft not

known me.

V. GOD gives the fignal to the commanders, and to the troops, to march against Babylon.

(u) Lift ye up a banner, faith the Lord, upon the high moun tain, that it may be feen afar off, and that all they who are to obey me may know my orders. Exalt the voice unto them that are able to hear you. Shake the hand, and make a fign, to haften the march of thofe that are too far off to diftinguish another fort of command. Let the officers of the troops go into the gates of the nobles, into the pavilions of their kings. Let the people of each nation range them felves around their fovereign, and make hafte to offer him their fervice, and to go unto his tent, which is already fet up.

(w) I have commanded my fanctified ones; I have given my orders to thofe whom I have fanctified for the execution of my. defigns; and thefe kings are already marching to obey me, though they know me not. It is I that have placed them upon the throne, that have made feveral nations fubject to them, in order to accomplish my defigns by their miniftration. I have called my mighty ones (x) for mine anger. I have caufed the mighty warriors to come up, to be the minifters and executioners of my wrath and vengeance. From me they derive their courage. their martial abilities, their patience, their wisdom, and the fuccefs of their enterprifes. If they are invincible, it, is because they ferve me: Every thing gives way, and trembles before them, because they are the minifters of my wrath and indignation. They joyfully labour for my glory, they rejoice in my highness. The honour they have of being under my command, and of being fent to deliver a people that I love, infpires them with ardor and chearfulness: Behold, they triumph already in a certain affurance of victory.

The prophet, a witnefs in fpirit of the orders that are just given, is aftonifhed at the fwiftnefs, with which they are executed by the princes and the people. I hear already, he cries. out, (y) The noife of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noife of the kingdoms of nations gathered together,

(u) Ifa. xiii. 2. (w) Ibid. xiii. 3. (x) Lat. verf, in ira mea. Heb. in iram meam. (y) Ifa, xiii. 4.

together. The Lord of hosts muftereth the hofts of the battle: (x) They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, where the voice of God, their mafter and fovereign, has reached their

ears.

But it is not with the fight of a formidable army, or of the kings of the earth, that I am now ftruck; it is God himself that I behold; all the reft are but his retinue, and the minifters of his juftice. It is even the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to defroy the whole land.

(a) A grievous vifion is declared unto me: The impious Baltazar, king of Babylon, continues to act impioufly; the trea cherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the Spoiler Spoileth. To put an end to thefe exceffes, go up, thou prince of Perfia; go up, O Elam: And thou prince of the Medes, befiege thou Babylon: Befiege, O Media; all the fighing, which he was the caufe of, bave I made to ceafe. That wicked city is taken and pillaged; her power is at an end, and my people is delivered.

VI. Particular circumftances fet down, relating to the fiege and the taking of Babylon.

There is nothing, methinks, that can be more proper to raife a profound reverence in us for religion, and to give us a great idea of the Deity, than to obferve with what exactness he reveals to his prophets the principal circumftances of the befieging and taking of Babylon, not only many years, but several ages, before it happened.

1. We have already feen, that the army, by which Babylon will be taken, is to confift of Medes and Perfians, and to be commanded by Cyrus.

2. The city fhall be attacked after a very extraordinary manner, in a way that she did not at all expect: (b) Therefore Shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it rifeth. She fhall be all on a fudden and in an inftant overwhelmed with calamities, which fhe did not forefee: (c) Defolation fhall come upon thee fuddenly, which thou shalt not know. In a word, the fhall be taken, as it were, in a net or a gin, before the perceiveth that any fnares have been laid for her: (d) I have laid a fnare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou waft

not aware.

3. Babylon reckoned the Euphrates alone was fufficient to render her impregnable, and triumphed in her being so advantageously

(2) Ifa. xiii. 5.

(c) Ibid.

(a) Ibid. xxi, 20 (d) Jer. 1. 24. * This is the fenfe of the Hebrew word.

(6) Ibid. xlvii. 11.

tageonfly fituated and defended by fo deep a river: (e) O thou that dwelleft upon many waters: It is God himself who points out Babylon under that defcription. And yet that very river Euphrates fhall be the cause of her ruin. Cyrus, by a ftratagem (of which there never had been any example before, nor has there beer any thing like it fince) fhall divert the course of that river, shall lay its channel dry, and by that means open himself a paffage into the city: (f) I will dry up her fea, and make ber fprings dry. A drought is upon her waters, and they fhall be dried up. Cyrus fhall take poffeffion of the keys of the river; and the waters, which rendered Babylon inacceffible, fhall be dried up, as if they had been confumed by fire: (g) The paffages are stopped, and the reeds they have burnt with fire.

4. She fhall be taken in the night-time, upon a day of feasting and rejoicing, even whilft her inhabitants are at table, and think upon nothing but eating and drinking: (b) In her beat I will make their feafts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and fleep a perpetual fleep, and not wake, faith the Lord. It is remarkable, that it is God who does all this, who lays a fnare for Babylon; (i) I have laid a fnare for thee; who drieth up the waters of the river; I will dry up her fea; and who brings that drunkeness and drowsiness upon her princes; (k)` I will make drunk her princes.

5. The king fhall be feized in an instant with an incredible terror and perturbation of mind: (1) My loins are filled with pain; pangs have taken bold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the bearing of it; I was difmayed at the feeing of it: My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: The night of my pleasure bath he turned into fear unto me. This is the condition Baltazar was in, when in the middle of the entertainment he faw a hand come out of the wall, which wrote fuch characters upon it, as none of his diviners could either explain or read; but more efpecially when Daniel declared to him, that those characters imported the fentence of his death. (m) Then, fays the fcripture, the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, fo that the joints of his loins were loofed, and his knees fmote one against another. The terror, aftonishment, fainting and trembling of Baltazar are here defcribed and expreffed in the fame manner by the prophet whowas an eye-witness of them, as they were by the prophet who foretold them two hundred years before.

(ƒ) Ibid. 1. 38. and li. 36.

(b) Ibid. 1. 39. (i) Ut fupra.

(e) Jer. li. 13.

(m) Dan. v. 6.

(*) Jer. li. 57.

But

(g) Ibid. li. 32. (2) Ifa. xxi. 3, 40