meet our God. Let us then ask ourselves, "What is recorded concerning us in the book of God's remembrance, and what evidence we possess that our names are written in the book of life ? When that hour shall arrive, it will be of small moment to us, what judgments have been executed on the Church of Rome, or what blessings have been vouchsafed to God's elect. We are all of us chiefly interested about our own eternal state : and therefore, though I would by no means discourage an inquiry into the general designs of Providence, I would most earnestly entreat every one to look to his own ways, and to judge himself now, that he may not hereafter be judged of the Lord.]
Dan. vii. 18. The saints of the Most High shall take the king- dom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and
ever.
THE vision of Daniel contained in this chapter accords with that which had before been vouchsafed to Nebuchadnezzar, and interpreted by Daniel him- self3. To Nebuchadnezzar it had appeared as a great image, the various materials of which denoted four successive kingdoms, which would yield at last to one universal empire established on their ruins. To Daniel it appeared as four wild beasts, which would successively prevail ; till at last the kingdom of the Messiah should be erected, and reduce every adverse power to a state of complete subjection. To Nebuchadnezzar, who saw nothing but glory in the rise and fall of empires, the idea of a glorious image was most suited : but to Daniel, who viewed the ma- lignant dispositions which produced such revolutions, and the miseries that were occasioned by them, they were more fitly represented under the notion of wild beasts, tearing and devouring one another. But in the vision of Daniel there were revealed many ad- ditional circumstances, which very greatly inte- rested him, and which he earnestly desired to have explained. The last of the four kingdoms was to be
a Dan. ii. 31—45.