with this speech: Cicero ad uxorem, "En mea lux, meum desiderium." This desire of women and married life the Roman should discountenance, when he shook off the Gods of his ancestors.

6. By the strange and foreign God, whom the Roman should at length acknowledge, is meant Christ. For though to the Jew every strange and foreign God were a false God, yet to the Gentiles who worshipped none but the idols, the foreign God was the true. Therefore the philosophers at Athens, when St. Paul preached Christ to them, said he preached "a foreign God."* The want

of which consideration hath much obscured this prophecy; this foreign God being still supposed to be a false God, when to those who worshipped all kinds of false Gods, as the Roman did, a foreign God, whom their fathers knew not, must needs be the true.

7. Where it is said, "With this foreign God he shall honour Mahuzzims," these Mahuzzims or Maüzzims are these Demons we seek for, whom the Roman should worship with Christ, whom he should embrace. For Mahuzzim are Protectores Dii, (such as saints and angels are supposed to be,) as I shall show by and by, where, though I may be new for the particular, yet for the general I shall agree well enough with the fathers, who constantly thought that, under these Mahuzzim was some idol meant which Antichrist should worship, and many of our time have taken it for the Mass.

But I must first say something of the translation of this 38th verse, and then will come to the signification of this word Mahuzzim.

For the first: whereas the preposition le in leeloh is usually neglected, and the words eloha and mahuzzim construed together as one thing, viz., God Mahuzzim, or (as some) the God of forces; I express the preposition le, and construe God and Mahuzzim apart as two: viz., "To, or together with God he shall honour Mahuzzims," &c. For the preposition le is made of el, and signifies

* Evor Saporov. † Ad (vel juxta) Deum Mahuzzimos honorabit.

the same with it, namely an addition or adjoining of things, ad, juxta, apud, and gnal signifies super, propter, &c., to, besides, and together with, as (Lev. xviii., 18) "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister," el achocha, that is, together with her sister.

By this means, the controversy betwixt Junius and Graserus is taken away: for Junius, as it should seem, seeing no reason why the preposition le should be neglected, and that, by so doing, the verb cabad was made irregularly and against use to govern a dative case, he expresses the preposition by quod ad, or quod attinet ad, that is, as concerning. But the words God and Mahuzzim he sundereth not, but turneth them as in statu constructo, viz., the God of mights or forces, understanding thereby the true and almighty God himself.Against which Graserus excepts, 1st, That to render the preposition le by ad (as concerning) savours of a Latinism rather than of an Hebraism. 2d, That he doth as good as strike out the distinctive accent athnach (^) which is a colon, inasmuch as he makes the sentence, being a full number, to be imperfect and defective, and yet would seem to stand in awe of that smaller distinction zakephkaton (:) over the word Mahuzzim, which yet stands there, as elsewhere, but for a nota bene. 3d, That to expound God Mahuzzim to be the true God, against the consent, not only of Jews, who ever take it for some idol or other, but of the ancient Christian writers, who understand by it some idol of Antichrist, yea, some the Devil himself; and of many of our own, who take it for the idol of the Mass, and some otherwise, yet for an idoldeity; to expound this of the true and almighty God, without example in Scripture, Graserus thinks not tolerable. Wherefore himself had rather yield the construction of the verb cabad to be irregular, (Junius himself having admitted it in the next member of the verse,) and to suppose it to be a mystical solecism, the Spirit intending, by the anomaly and incongruity of the syntax, to signify an anomaly and incongruity of religion. But

these inconveniences on both sides, as far as I can see, are wholly avoided by that translation we have given, whereof let the reader judge.

I come now to unfold the signification of the word Mahuzzim, a word which the most translations retain, the Septuagint calling it Mawa, St. Jerome, or the Vulgar Latin, Maozim, the Geneva and others Maüzim. This Mahuzzim, I say, is in the plural number; the singular is Mahoz, which in the abstract signifies sometimes strength, sometimes a fortress or bulwark, of gnatsats, -robustus fuit; but the Hebrews use abstracts for concretes. Examples are many in the Old Testament, as justitia pro justis, captivity for captives, &c. In the New Testament, principalities, powers, and dominions, for princes, potentates, and dominators. So Mahoz, strength or a fortress, for him that strengthens or fortifies, that is, a protector, defender, guardian, helper. Wherefore the Septuagint five times in the Psalms renders the word Mahoz, TepaσTIOTns, and the Vulgar Latin as often protector: the places are these,-Psalm xxvii., 1, "The Lord is Mahoz-hayay, the protector of my life: of whom should I be afraid?" Psalm xxviii., 8, 66 The Lord is their strength, and he is Mahoz jeshuoth, the Mahoz of salvations of his anointed :" where the Septuagint hath πEρσTLOTHS TWY OWN Pwv, the Vulgar, protector salvationum. Psalm xxxi., 3, "Bow down thine ear to me, deliver me speedily, be thou unto me lezor Mahoz, for a rock Mahoz; Septuagint, SEOY STEPασTIOTY, Vulgar, in Deum protectorem. Again, verse 5, "Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me, (ki atta Mahuzzi,) for thou art my protector;" the Septuagint, ÚTEρασTIONS μov,—the Vulgar, protector. Psalm xxxvii., 39, "The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord, he is (Mahuzam) their Mahoz in the time of trouble, and the Lord shall help them and deliver them from the wicked," &c., where the Septuagint and the Vulgar render as before iπpaσTIONS and protector. How think you now? Are not Saints and Angels worshipped as Mahuzzims? True Christians

have with David, in the Psalms before quoted, one Mahoz, Jehovah Mahoz, that is, Christ; but Apostate Christians have their many Mahuzzims. O, would they worshipped only Mahoz yeshuoth, that Mahoz of salvations, as you heard David even now call him, Psalm xxviii. You may, if you please, compare with these places of the Psalms that in the first verse of this eleventh of Daniel, where the Angel saith he stood in the first year of Darius the Mede, to confirm and be a Mahoz to him,―ulemahoz lo, which we translate," to strengthen him;" by which we may see how fitly this name may be applied to Angels, and so to Saints, supposed, in helping, protecting, and assisting, to be like them.

Thus you see the concrete sense of Mahoz, for an helper, protector, and defender, is not new. But what if we take the word passively, force and strength, for forts and strong ones? Will not, then, the valiant Martyrs and champions of the faith well bear the name of Mahuzzims? And these are they whom, at the first, Christians worshipped only in this sort, as an honour peculiarly due unto their sufferings.

Moreover, that you may not think this word and the notion thereof improper to be given unto a deity, observe that the true God is called tsur, a rock, seven times, Deut. xxxii., which the Vulgar turns as often Deus; yea in the the same place false Gods are called also tsur, or rocks: verse 31, "Their Rock," that is, the Gentiles' Rock, "is not as our Rock, our enemies themselves being judges." And verse 37, "Where are their Gods," that is, Baalim, "their Rock in whom they trusted, which did eat the fat of their sacrifices?" &c. The like you shall find in Hannah's song, and other places of Scripture. See now

the parity: the true God is called a rock; Baalim and false Gods are also called rocks: the true God, or Christ himself, is often by David called Mahoz; why may not then false Gods, or plurality of Christs, be called Mahuzzim? Rock and fortress are not words of so great difference.

Thus having cleared the chiefest difficulties in the text, and made the way smooth, let us read over the words again, and apply the interpretation unto them.

CHAP. XVII.

A PARTICULAR EXPLICATION (BY WAY OF PARAPHRASE) OF the FOREMENTIONED PROPHECY IN DAN. XI. THIS FURTHER ILLUSTRATED BY SEVERAL OBSERVATIONS, WHEREIN THE EVENTS ARE REPRESENTED AS EXACTLY SUITABLE AND APPLICABLE TO DANIEL'S PROPHECY. THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF SAINT-WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH, SAINTS AND THEIR RELICS WERE CALLED BULWARKS, FORTRESSES, WALLS, TOWERS, GUARDIANS, PROTECTORS, ETC., ACCORDING TO THE NATIVE SIGNIFICATION OF THE WORD USED BY DANIEL, MAHUZZIM. A BRIEF EXPLICATION OF THE FOLLOWING VERSES IN DANIEL XI.-VIZ., XL., XLI., XLII., XLIII.

Verse 36.

THAT is, towards the end of the reign

of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Roman shall prevail, and set up the fourth kingdom, making himself master of the kingdom of Macedon, and advancing himself from this time forward by continual conquests, shall lord it over every king and nation.

Yea Christ, the God of God, and the King of the Kings of the earth, (who in those times should appear in the world,) the Roman shall mock, blaspheme and crucify, and by bloody edicts shall persecute and massacre his servants the Christians; and yet shall prosper in his empire, until these outrageous times be ended, that is, until the days of Constantine for the time God hath appointed must be fulfilled.