absence of just principles, as it is more easy to discover what is useful than what is true, their supposed errors were often truths, and their supposed truths were always errors.

Entangled in the web of their own double doctrine; and at best, by no means remarkable, notwithstanding their genius, even in their most lucid moments, for perspicuity and consistency, they expressed themselves so vaguely and figuratively, that they leave ample room for the conjectures, disputes, and mistakes of commentators. We are principally indebted to the vigorous mind and sagacious learning of Warburton for first pointing out determinately the real opinions of the ancient philosophers respecting the nature of the Deity and of the soul, and also for placing in the clearest light the ultimate principle upon which these reasonings proceeded.

The philosophy of the ancients took its form and character from their entire ignorance of the principle of creation, and from their denial of the possibility of any other change than a change of form, and the giving a new mould to pre-existing materials. Thus whatever had real existence was eternal, it was only the modifications of that existence which were temporary. Hence the belief that matter and mind were both of them self-existing and ever-enduring; and hence the obvious conclusion that all finite souls were but rays emitted from the Original Mind, and would soon return to the ocean from which they had been for a moment exhaled.

But the doctrine of two principles yielded to the belief of one principle, as being a more harmonious and comprehensive scheme of philosophy, and hence Pantheism, or the considering the universe as God, the one and only true existence, has chiefly prevailed in all ages and countries where revelation has been unknown.

In the scheme of Pantheism, the great difficulty is to account for finite existence; this has given rise to two systems, emanative philosophy, and Pantheism strictly so called. The emanative philosophy considers all changes as taking place in the divine substance itself; but Pantheism considers all changes to be merely deceptions, yet it fails to account for the origin of illusion, nor can it explain in what manner this can have any place in the Infinite Mind. The system of emanation has most generally prevailed; it is not only found in numerous schools of philosophy, but many of the ancient superstitions have been remodelled on its basis. The mythology of the Hindoos has been recast upon this model by the ancient Braminical priesthood, while the opposing doctrines of Boudh derive their character from Pantheism strictly so called. These systems have re-appeared in modern times, both in the East and in the West, and have given rise to peculiar modifications in mystical devotion, which shall afterwards be noticed. It is thus that opinions descend lower and lower in the scale of mind, and that the errors of ancient genius become the heresies of modern sectarians.

Thus we observe, that the great and ever-recurring error of the ancients proceeds from their ignorance of creation. The substance

of all things they supposed to be necessarily eternal. Forms might be changed, but essences were forever the same; and all essences were but one essence, the one eternal and unbounded existence.Possessed with this false principle, the more they reasoned upon it, the deeper they sunk into error; it haunted them on every side, and blinded them to every sane notion of God, of nature, and of themselves. It is the view which all reasoners unacquainted with revelation have taken of existence; and it is the view into which men have ever à tendency to relapse whenever they trust to their own reason, and are not guided implicitly by revelation in their speculations concerning the Divine Being. There was not the least prospect that the Gentile philosophers could ever have shaken off this error, unless they had been furnished with a strength not their own. All their flights of speculation, all their ceaseless inquiries and discussions, served only to rivet more firmly upon them the maxim that from nothing, nothing could be produced. No strength of understanding availed them to find out the truth; once departing from the right way, the more rapidly and prosperously they proceeded, the more inextricably they were involved in error; nor was the prospect brighter for any future and distant age. One theory, indeed, rapidly gave place to a succeeding one; but all theories were erected upon the false basis, and were merely modifications and expansions of the same fundamental mistake. Nor when invention was exhausted, and new theories ceased to be brought forward, was any approach made to the discovery of the truth. The strength of mind which had expended itself in originality, was, in after ages, employed in defending the errors of others; and the genius of Greece not only proved that the highest efforts of the human mind, when unassisted from on high, were unavailing to find out the true God; but they also enchained the understandings of other nations, and future ages, to submit, in blind acquiescence, to the authority and maxims of Grecian philosophy.

If ever truth could have been discovered and excogitated by the human mind itself, it must have been in the favored times and situation of Greece; the human faculties were then in the full stretch of exertion, and had reached the highest point of enthusiasm and power. The Greeks are far too favorable a sample of the unassisted understanding of man; they were placed in peculiar circumstances by Providence to show that the mind of man, in its very best estate, is, when trusting to itself, but emptiness and vanity; that there is no true knowledge of nature to be obtained, except by humble and patient investigation; and no true knowledge of God, except by child-like docility, and humble attention, to what he himself is pleased to reveal.

Neither in latter days has the mind of man gained in strength, though it has in information; as soon as it departs even now from revelation, though surrounded on all sides by light, it immediately falls into the same darkness, and the same errors. The infidel writers in modern times, as we shall afterwards have occasion to notice,

have run into the same absurdities respecting the First Cause, and the nature and origin of existence, without having the knowledge and sagacity of the Grecian philosophers, to defend and to conceal their blunders. Even those who receive revelation, but who presume to be wise above what is written, the moment they leave the inspired record, and speculate upon things which are not revealed, share also in the common lot, and amply prove, by their weakness and their errors, that it is the Bible, and the Bible alone, where we are to find all our information respecting our author and our end,-respecting the character of God as our Judge and our Saviour,-respecting that heavenly inheritance which is awaiting every believer in the Lord Jesus, after death has removed him from this transitory state.

The more we consider the highest efforts of the human understanding, the more we shall perceive its feebleness, and the narrow limits which confine it; and the more, also, we shall perceive, with increasing evidence, that the scriptures are the word of God, and not of man. The very first verse of Genesis is impressed with the stamp of its divine original; the reception of it alone would have overturned all the fundamental errors which perplexed the philosophy of Greece, ' and not of Greece only, but of all countries not enlightened by revelation. The Jews had obtained the knowledge of the true God, and with it the principle of true philosophy, which considers nature not as a necessary existence, but as the creature and handmaid of the Almighty, and the laws of nature, not as the unalterable conditions of being, but as the manner in which unchangeable Wisdom operates to confer the highest benefits, and clearly to manifest his preservation and government of the world.

Here we may see the difference between that which is discoverable by reason, and that which is demonstrable by reason when once discovered. None of the reasoners of Greece, by the force of their natural powers, were able to discern that the world was not formed out of pre-existing materials, but that it received the commencement of its being, as well as the mode of it, by the fiat of the divine will. But, after revelation clearly manifested that all things were created by God, many christian writers, and amongst the rest Dr. Clarke, in his well-known treatise on the divine attributes, has forcibly proved, by the light of reason alone, that the world was not only formed, but created by its Almighty Author. This view gives a totally different aspect to all things, and removes the creation to an infinite distance from the Creator. There is no longer any room for the imaginary universe of the Pantheists. Jehovah, the self-existent and all-perfect being, with the worlds which he created, and which he is ever ruling, alone meets our view. Though intimately present with all his works, he is yet entirely distinct from them. In him we live, and move, and have our being. He is infinitely nigh to us, and he is intimately present with us, while we remain infinitely distant from his all-perfect and incommunicable essence. J. Douglass, Esq.

PROPHETIC PERSONAGES-HISTORIC PROPHECY, No. II.

THE FIERY OR RED DRAGON.

AS a he goat was the national military standard of the Greeks, so a purple or red dragon was the national military standard of the Romans. Every Roman legion consisted of ten cohorts. The first standard of the whole legion was an eagle which the Equilifer bore, and the Draconii carried the dragons; so that in a Roman legion there were ten dragons for one eagle. The purpureum signum Draconis, or the purple standard of the Dragon, is mentioned by A. Marcellinus. Several Roman writers mention the dragon as a Roman standard. See Vegetius, lib. 2, c. 7.

Florapollo, an Egyptian writer on hieroglyphics, whose work was translated into Greek, and Manetho, a priest of Heliopolis, who flourished before Christ 250 years, are quoted by interpreters to prove that the figure of a serpent was the established emblem of a king; that yk, which in the Egyptian language signifies a serpent, in the sacred style signifies a king Achmet also informs us that the dragon was regarded by the Persians and Indians as the established emblem of a monarch. The fiery or red dragon, mentioned Rev. xii. in the following words, "And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red (fiery) dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads"-is, from the preceding premises, generally agreed to be the symbol of the Roman Empire in its Pagan form.

Rome in its heathen form had no less than seven distinct heads or forms of government, as enumerated by her own writers, Tacitus and Livy. She was under, 1st. the Regal power; 2d. the Consulate; 3d. the Dictatorship; 4th. the Decemvirate; 5th. the consular power of Military Tribunes; 6th. the Triumvirate; and 7th. the Imperial Government. Some commentators substitute the semi-imperial for the triumvirate, and place the imperial as the sixth head. But this without authority; for the triumvirate was as distinct from any of the others, as the others are from one another. Kings and Consuls are not more distinct than Consuls and Triumvirs. Tacitus in his Annals, lib. 1. thus describes the seven heads:-"The city of Rome was originally governed by kings. L. Brutus instituted hberty and the consulate. The dictatorship was only occasionally appointed, neither did the decemviral power last above two years, and the consular power of the military tribunes was not of long continuance. Neither had Cinna nor Sylla a long domination. The power of Pompey and Crassus was also soon absorbed in that of Cesar, and the arms of Lepidus and Anthony yielded to those of Augustus."

The difficulty about the head which was wounded to death, has led commentators to a confounding of the obvious distinction above noted. But this difficulty is removed by regarding the seventh Draconic head as the sixth head of the beast which arose out of the sea; which in the sequel will appear to be correct,

THE DRAGON'S TAIL.

A religion, like the heathen, founded entirely in fable, is very appropriately exhibited by a fabulous beast, such as the Dragon of the poets; but regarding the dragon as a literal serpent, its tail very justly represents (in the Hebrew idiom always the hindmost part). the seventh or last form of government of Pagan Rom. At the time of the seventh head the world, then the Roman empire, consisted of three parts, Jews, Gentiles, and Christians. Formerly it was composed of but Jews and Gentiles. The stars of heaven are always, in symbolic style, the luminaries and ministers of the governing power. Heaven is God's throne in the ancient oracles; and in symbols it is the established government, whether secular or ecclesiastical. The stars of the Roman heaven, a third part of the whole heaven, were embraced and prostrated by the seventh or imperial head, the tail of the dragon. But to complete the view which John gives of this dragon we must follow his method and here take a view of

THE WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN.

"It requireth little knowledge of scripture to discover that the church is here denoted under the emblem of the woman, and Christ the seed of the woman under the emblem of her child, who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron. She is clothed with the sun; the moon is under her feet, (where the name of a picture or statue is wont to be written,) in order to designate her, the moon being the emblematical writing for the church, when the sun is the emblem of Christ. For when the sun denotes the husband, the moon denotes the wife, the sun the king, the moon the queen; in which relations Christ and his church are continually presented. And she hath a diaden. upon her brow of twelve stars, the twelve Apostles of the church. The dragon, carnage-colored, having crowns upon the heads, but no crowns upon the horns, signifies Rome, in her imperial state, before she fell into ten kingdoms. And the whole hieroglyphical picture is the representation of the attitude which the devil, in his royal and imperial attire of old Rome, took against the seed of the woman, the Son of God, who became flesh."

"Following onward, therefore, in the hieroglyphical history of the woman, we find that the scene shifteth to heaven, where a hot war ensues, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and his angels: and that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, is cast out into the earth, and his angels are cast out with him. This taketh place when the seed of the woman is caught up into heaven, and though it be out of human vision, and in a manner out of the field of human anxiety, our Lord gave to the seventy tidings of this fall of Satan, when he said, "I beheld Satan fall like lightning from heaven."-But into this mysterious transmigration of Satan's malice and power from heaven to earth, we inquire not further, lest it should lead us away from that historical event which ensued upon his coming down to the earth with whetted weapons against the woman, whose child by death did conquer him that had