But Ifaiah must have had an extraordinary measure of divine illumination, to be able to add, immediately after the defcription of Baltazar's confternation, the following words: (x) Prepare the table, watch in the watch-tower; eat, drink. The prophet forefees, that Baltazar, though terribly dismayed and confounded at first, fhall recover his courage and spirit again, through the exhortations of his courtiers; but more particu larly through the perfuafion of the queen, his mother, who reprefented to him the unreasonablenefs of being affected with fuch unmanly fears, and unneceffary alarms: (0) Let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed. They exhorted him therefore to make himself eafy, to fatisfy himself with giving proper orders, and with the affurance of being advertifed of every thing by the vigilance of the centinels; to order the reft of the fupper to be ferved, as if nothing had happened; and to recal that gaiety and joy, which his exceffive fears had banished from the table; Prepare the table; watch in the watch tower; eat, drink. : 6. But at the fame time that men are giving their orders, God on his part is likewife giving his (p) Arife ye princes, and anoint the field. It is God himfelf that commands the princes to advance, to take their arms, and to enter boldly into a city drowned in wine, and buried in fleep. 7. Ifaiah acquaints us with two material and important circumftances concerning the taking of Babylon. The first is, that the troops with which it is filled, fhall not keep their ground, or ftand firm any where, neither at the palace, nor the citadel, nor any other publick place whatfoever; that they fhall defert and leave one another, without thinking of any thing but making their efcape; that in running away they fhall difperfe themfelves, and take different roads, juft as a flock of deer, or of fheep, is difperfed and scattered, when they are affrighted: (q) And it shall be as a chafed roe, and as a Sheep that no man taketh up. The fecond circumftance is, that the greatest part of thofe troops, though they were in the Babylonian fervice and pay, were not Babylonians; and that they fhall return into the provinces, from whence they came, with out being pursued by the conquerors; because the divine vengeance was chiefly to fall upon the citizens of Babylon: (r) They fhall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land. 8. Laftly, not to mention the dreadful flaughter, which is to be made of the inhabitants of Babylon, where no mercy will be fhewn either to old men, women or children, or even to the child that is ftill within its mother's womb, as has been already taken notice of; the laft circumftance, I fay, the prophet foretels, is the death of the king himfelf, whofe body is to have no burial, and the entire extinction of the royal family; both which calamities are described in the fcripture, after a manner equally terrible and inftructive to all princes. (s) But thou art caft out of thy grave, like an abominable branch. Thou shalt not be joined with them (thy ancestors) in burial, becaufe thou haft destroyed thy land, and flain thy people. That king is juftly forgot, who has never remembered, that he ought to be the protector and father of his people. He that has lived only to ruin and deftroy his country, is unworthy of the common privilege of burial. As he has been an enemy to mankind, living or dead, he ought to have no place amongst them. He was like unto the wild beafts of the field, and like them he fhall be buried: And fince he had no fentiments of humanity himself, he deserves to meet with no humanity from others. This is the fentence, which God himself pronounced against Baltazar: And the malediction extends itself to his children, who were looked upon as his affociates in the throne, and as the fource of a long pofterity and fucceffion of kings, and were entertained with nothing by the flattering courtiers, but the pleafing prospects and ideas of their future grandeur. (1) Prepare flaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rife nor poffefs the land. For I will rise up against them, faith the Lord of hofts, and cut off from Babylon the name and remnant, and fon and nephew, faith the Lord. SECT. II. A defcription of the taking of BABYLON. A FTER having feen the predictions of every thing that was to happen to impious Babylon, it is now time to come to the completion and accomplishment of thofe prophecies; and in order thereto, we muft affume the thread of our history, with respect to the taking of that city. As foon as Cyrus faw the ditch, which they had long worked upon, was finished, he began to think seriously upon the execution of his vaft defign, which as yet he had communicated to no body. Providence foon furnished him with as fit an opportunity for this purpose as he could defire. He was informed, that in the city, on fuch a day, a great festival was (3) Isa, xiv. 19, 20. (†) Ibid, 21, 22. to to be celebrated; and that the Babylonians, on occafion of that folemnity, were accustomed to pass the whole night in drinking and debauchery. (u) Baltazar himself was more concerned in this publick rejoicing than any other, and gave a magnificent entertainment to the chief officers of the kingdom, and the ladies of the court. In the heat of his wine he ordered the gold and filver veffels, which had been taken from the temple of Jerufalem, to be brought out; and, as an infult upon the God of Ifrael, he, his whole court, and all his concubines, drank out of thofe facred veffels. God, who was provoked at fuch infolence and impiety, in the very action made him fenfible, who it was that he affronted, by a fudden apparition of an hand writing certain characters upon the wall. The king, terribly furprifed and frighted at this vifion, immediately fent for all his wife men, his diviners, and aftrologers, that they might read the writing to him, and explain the meaning of it. But they all came in vain, not one of them being able to expound the matter, or even to read the characters. It is probably in relation to this Occurrence, that Ifaiah, after having foretold to Babylon, that the should be overwhelmed with calamities which she did not expect, adds, Stand now with thine inchantments, and with the multitude of thy forceries. Let now the aftrologers, the far-gazers, the monthly prognofticators ftand up, and fave thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Ifa. xlvii. 12, 13. The queen-mother (Nitocris, a princefs of great merit) coming upon the noife of this prodigy into the banquetting-room, endeavoured to compofe the fpirit of the king, her fon, advising him to fend for Daniel, with whofe abilities in fuch matters the was well acquainted, and whom he had always employed in the government of the state. Daniel was therefore immediately fent for, and spoke to the king with a freedom and liberty becoming a prophet. He put him in mind of the dreadful manner, in which God had punished the pride of his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar, and the + crying abufe he made of his power, when he acknowledged no law but his own will, and thought himself mafter to exalt and to abafe, to inflict deftruction and death wherefoever he would, only because fuch was his will and pleasure." And "thou (u) Dan. v. 1-29.2 The reafon why they could not read bis fentence was, that it was written in Hebrew letters, which are now called the Samaritan characters, and which the Babylonians did not underfland. + Whom he would be flew, and whom he would be kept alive, and whom he would be fet up, and whom he would be put down. Dan. v. 19. "thou his fon (fays he to the king) haft not humbled thine "heart, though thou knewest all this, but haft lifted up thy"felf against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the "veffels of his houfe before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy "wives and thy concubines, have drank wine in them; and "thou haft praifed the gods of filver and gold, of brass, "iron, wood and ftone, which fee not, nor hear, nor know: "And the God, in whose hand thy breath is, and whofe are "all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of "the hand fent from him, and this writing was written. And "this is the writing that was written, MENE, TEKEL, (x) "UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing; MENE, "God hath numbered thy kingdom and finifhed it; TEKEL, "thou art weighed in the ballances, and art found wanting; "PERES, thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes "and Perfians." This interpretation, one would think, should have enhanced the king's trouble; but fome way or other they found means to difpel his fears, and make him eafy; probably upon a perfuafion, that the calamity was not denounced as prefent or immediate, and that time might furnish them with expedients to avert it. This however is certain, that for fear of difturbing the general joy of the prefent feftival, they put off the difcuffion of ferious matters to another time, and fat down again to their mirth and liquor, and continued their revellings to a very late hour. (y) Cyrus in the mean time, well informed of the confufion that was generally occafioned by this feftival both in the palace and the city, had pofted a part of his troops on that fide where the river entered into the city, and another part on that fide where it went out; and had commanded them to enter the city that very night, by marching along the channel of the river, as foon as ever they found it fordable. Having given all neceffary orders, and exhorted his officers to follow him, by reprefenting to them, that he marched under the conduct of the gods; in the evening he made them open the great receptacles, or ditches, on both fides of the town, above and below, that the water of the river might run into them. By this means the Euphrates was quickly emptied, and its channel became dry. Then the two fore-mentioned bodies of troops, according to their orders, went into the channel, the one commanded by Gobryas, and the other by Gadates, and advanced towards each other without meeting with any obftacle. The invifible guide, who had promifed to open all the gates to Cy (x) Or PERES. rus, rus, made the general negligence and diforder of that riotous night ferve to the leaving open of the gates of brass, which were made to fhut up the defcents from the keys to the river, and which alone, if they had not been left open, were fufficient to have defeated the whole enterprise. Thus did these two bodies of troops penetrate into the very heart of the city without any oppofition, and meeting together at the royal palace, according to their agreement, furprised the guards, and cut them to pieces. Some of the company that were within the palace opening the doors, to know what noise it was they heard without, the foldiers rushed in, and quickly made themfelves mafters of it. And meeting the king, who came up to them fword in hand, at the head of thofe that were in the way to fuccour him, they killed him, and put all those that attended him to the fword. The first thing the conquerors did afterwards, was to thank the gods for having at laft punished that impious king. Thefe words are Xenophon's, and are very remarkable, as they fo perfectly agree with what the scriptures have recorded of the impious Baltazar. (x) The taking of Babylon put an end to the Babylonian empire, after a duration of two hundred and ten years from the beginning of Nebuchodonofor's reign, who was the founder thereof. Thus was the power of that proud city abolished, juft fifty years after she had destroyed the city of Jerufalem and her temple. And herein were accomplished thofe predictions, which the prophets Ifaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel had denounced against her, and of which we have already given a particular account. There is ftill one more, the most important, and the most incredible of them all, and yet the fcripture has fet it down in the strongest terms, and marked it out with the greatest exactnefs A prediction literally fulfilled in all its points; the proof of which ftill actually fubfifts, is the moft eafy to be ve rified, and indeed of a nature not to be contefted. What I mean is the prediction of fo total and abfolute a ruin of BabyJon, that not the least remains or footsteps fhould be left of it. I think it may not be improper to give an account of the perfect accomplishment of this famous prophecy, before we proceed to speak of what followed the taking of Babylon. SECT. III. The completion of the prophecy which foretold the total ruin and deftruction of BABYLON. THIS prediction we find recorded in several of the pro phets, but particularly in Ifaiah, in the xiiith chapter, from the 19th to the 22d verfes, and in the 23d and 24th verfes (x) A. M. 3466. Ant. J. C. 538. of |