takes the lead, with a dignified triumph. "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos did see. Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones, or those ordained to the office; I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. The noise of a multitude in the mountains like as of a great people a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms and nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts mustered the hosts of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land," &c. &c. Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver, and for gold they shall not delight in it. Their bow shall also dash the young men to pieces, and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb, and their eye shall not spare children; and Babylon; the glory of kingdoms, 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 shall the Arabian pitch tents there; neither shall the shepherds make their folds there;

and the wild beasts of the islands shall enter their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her day's shall not be prolonged."

Jeremiah also ascribes the cause of her destruction, to her idolatrous practices, in the following emphatic manner : "The word of the Lord, spake against Babylon, and against the land of the Chaldean, “by Jeremiah the prophet: declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish and conceal not: say Babylon is taken; Bel is confounded; Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken to pieces, &c. A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men, &c. &c. A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it is the land of graven images, and they were mad upon their idols," &c. come from the north, and many kings, shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. They shall hold the bow and the lance; they are cruel, and will not show mercy, &c. The king of Babylon hath *Is. ch. xiii. See also ch. xiv.

Behold a people shall and a great nation,

heard the report of them, and his hands waxed feeble; anguish took hold of him, a pang, as of a woman in travail," &c. "Wherefore, behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will do judgment upon her graven images, and through all her land, the wounded shall groan. A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon, and her mighty men are taken; every one of their bows is broken, for the Lord God of recompence, shall surely requite, and I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, saith the king, whose name is the Lord of hosts.*

Had Jeremiah been present with the army of Cyrus, to witness the peculiar manner in which the impregnable city was taken, by diverting the waters of the river from the usual channel; and to witness the consternation of Belshazzar and his nobles, and the slaughter which ensued, he could scarcely have given a more lively description of these horrid events.†

The above are concise extracts from numerous other denunciations of similar import, which evince the vast importance that was at. tached to the destruction of the Babylonish em. pire, in the moral economy of divine providence,

* Jeremiah ch. 1. See also ch. xli.

+ See Note N.

་

This public and miraculous disgrace of its gods, and their deceitful priests, was in fact an abolition of the empire of paganism in all the regions of the east. Babylon was the chief seat of systematic superstition and idolatry. Its magicians and soothsayers, were men of education and learning. To them was the character of wise men given almost exclusively. They were the admiration of the nations. They professed intercourse with the heavenly bodies, and to interpret the mandates of the deities, which were supposed to inhabit them. They were always consulted upon the important matters of state; nor was any enterprize undertaken without their advice and concurrence. The abolition of such mental tyranny was, therefore, prerequisite for the diffusion of superior light and knowledge. But this tyranny was too extensive, and too deeply rooted, to be eradicated by means purely natural. The cause of God, and of truth, therefore, demanded preternatural means, and such as should impress terror and conviction upon the servants of idolatry; as should console the house of Judah in its humiliated state, alienate their minds from the worship of idols, and expedite their repentance, that they might be qualified to return to the land of their fathers; such as should convince the nations, that

the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The nature of the miracles performed, was correspondent to the causes which gave rise to them; such as fully demonstrated the interference of Israel's God, and the infliction of retributive justice, by his almighty power. The marvellous protection of the three governors in the fiery furnace, precisely corresponded with the nature of the sufferings, which tyranny had dictated as a punishment to disobedience. The instant destruction of their adversaries by the same means, marked, in the most awful and impressive manner, the distinction made between the friends, and the enemies of the living God. The miraculous inscription was a demonstration, that the approaching calamity was not to be classed with the common rise and fall of empires; that it was immediately inflicted by the hand of heaven, as a tremendous punishment of the grossest idolatry, in its very act of insulting that God, "who alone forms the light and creates darkness, makes peace, and creates evil;”—and "that they may know that there is none else."

Darius the Mede, "who took the kingdom," was uncle to the great Cyrus, and the Cyaxares of profane writers. He was the ostensible sovereign of the kingdoms which the arms of Cyrus had subdued. This conqueror was by