nezzar King of Babylon, after it had stood about. 400 years.

Of thefe Kings of Judah feveral were very exact obfervers of the law of Mofes, as Hezekiah and Jofiah; others pretty well in the main, as Afa, Jehofaphat, and Uzziah; but moft of them very impious, running headlong into all the idolatries of the heathens that were round about them; by which the people were at laft fo corrupted, especially under Manaffes's long and wicked reign, that God deftroy'd them for a time, by subjecting them to the Babylonians, who burnt their chief city, and carry'd them away captives for the fpace of feventy years.

During that feventy years the Jews were wholly under the fubjection of the Babylonians, who fent governors of their own into Judæa to take care of the country. At the end of that time, Cyrus the Perfian having taken Babylon, fent the Jews back again into their own land to rebuild their Temple, and to live after their own laws, which they did in all matters that were confiftent with the fovereignty of the Kings of Perfia, who kept that ftill entire in their own hands.

In about 21 years after their return, the Jews, with fome difficulty, got up a fecond Temple, every way inferior in glory to the firft; the Samaritans gave them the moft trouble in their work, of whom fome fhort account will not here be amifs.

To be continued in our next Journal.

ARTICLE II.

A PERPETUAL COMMENTARY on the Revelation of St. John; with a Preliminary Difcourfe concerning the Principles upon which the faid Revelation is to be underfood; by Charles Daubuz, M. A. late Vicar of Brotherton in Yorkshire. Newly modell'd, abridg'd, and render'd plain to the meanest Capacity; by Peter Lancafter, A. M. Vicar of Bowden in Chefhire, and fome time Student of Christ Church in Oxford. Printed for the Author, and fold by W. Innys at the Weft End of St. Paul's.

T is for feveral ages that the Revelation of St.John has employ'd and exercis'd the minds of learned men, nevertheless we shall scarce find any one who has better explain'd and treated of this fubject in a manner fo ingenious, as in the method contain'd in the book now before us. 1. He begins with a Synopfis.

2. Afterwards a Preliminary Difcourfe concerning the Principles upon which the Revelation is to be understood.

3. He gives the Rules whereby it is to be explain'd.

B 4

4. He

4. He likewife has given us a Symbolical Dictionary.

5. After which follows an Explication in order of the whole book.

This is all that was neceffary to be faid of the book in general; neverthelefs we think it neceffary to give an Extract of the Preliminary Difcourfe, taking notice of the Rules, and lay before our reader the Synopfis.

As to the first Article, our author gives a fine account, how in the first Ages the Symbolical or Hieroglyphical characters, whereby (for want of others) things memorrble might be committed to laling monuments, were contriv'd by the wifeft men, and that they were used by the Ethiopians, Egyptian Priests, and Americans, before the Europeans difcover'd their continent. Now from this difficult kind of writing arose a fymbolical way of speaking amongst the Eaftern nations; firft in their myfterious or religious fpeeches, then in vulgar matters.

Such a way of their expreffion giving a certain majesty and beauty to their thoughts, was retain❜d by them even after the invention and ufe of letters.

Hence it comes, fays our author, that most of the oriental languages, and most of the ancient Poets, affect this way.

And hence it is, fays he, in condefcenfion to the ways of men, that the faid kind of style is fo often used by the facred writers, and in a manner wholly adapted in the Revelation by St. John, to whom the great events, relating to the Christian Church, were, for reasons of the greatest moment, and fufficiently obvious, reprefented in vifions, evidently confifting of the like kind of fymbols, and whofe language there

fore,

fore, in conformity thereto, is for the most part Symbolical.

For the better understanding of the said Revelation, our author wou'd have any one acquainted with the main principles upon which the first inventors of the fymbolical Character and language founded the fignification of their fymbols, all the feveral kinds of fymbols which they us'd being us'd by St. John, viz.

I. Such fingle Symbols as are taken from the heavenly Bodies, as the Sun, Moon, and Stars. The fignification of this fort of fymbols, purfuant to our author's mind, is to be deduced from the union which the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and others, fuppofed there was between the worlds, invifible, natural, and political: To make it plainer, the ingenious author goes on in the following manner.

"As they (he means the Egyptians and Chal"deans) look'd upon the heavens, and the parts "thereof, as reprefentatives and symbols of the "invifible divinities The fupreme, and its "Angels and Minifters; fo in process of time, "they began to think the vifible fymbols to be "the Deity it felf; and its Angels, whofe gloС ry and majefty, as well as offices and works, "they believed did appear in the Sun, Planets, "and Stars, and in their motions, revolutions, "relations, or afpects."

Then to ground their adoration of the natural or visible world, they fuppofed an intimate union between the vifible bodies in heaven, and the invifible deities; and to ground their judiciary aftrology, (to which they were very much addicted) they fuppofed the political world likewife united to the two former by fuch concate

nations

nations from the fupreme to the loweft, that the affections of the fuperior links reach'd the inferior throughout the fame chain.

From this fuppofed union between the three worlds they concluded, when any of the heavenly bodies in any kind of vifion were feen affected, that this portended and fignified the affections of the parts of the inferior and political world.

And because the Gods (and confequently the heavenly bodies) came under the notion of powers of the world, and all Monarchs and Princes came under the notion of powers in the inferior world, as Vicegerents of the Gods; they therefore reprefented the powers in the inferior world by the fymbols of the celestial gover

nors.

And therefore in the fymbolical character and language, the Sun was the fymbol of a King as a chief governor of a Kingdom;

or of a father, as the chief governor of a family. The Moon was the next in the dignity; and the Stars the fymbols of inferior governors; which is exactly agreeable to the interpretation in Scripture of Jofeph's fymbolical dream, in which he faw the Sun and the Moon, and eleven Stars, pay obeyfance to him; the Sun being there explain'd of Jacob, the father of the family; the Moon, of Jacob's wife, as being the next to him in power; and the eleven Stars, of his eleven fons, as being the inferior governors of his houfhold.

II. Such fingle fymbols as are taken from the reft of visible works of nature, as animals, mountains, feas, rivers, and the like.

The