and with care, and they shall drink water by measure, and astonishment." Which curse is expressed by famine in the same prophet, ch. v. 16, and ch. xiv. 13. And therefore the Holy Spirit, which in the Gospel dispensation is said to be shed λovoíws, richly or abundantly, Tit. iii. 6, is said, in St. John iii. 34, not to be given EK μéтρov, by So indeed, whereas grace is said to be given according to the measure of the gift of Christ, Eph. iv. 7, that measure is understood to be, out of his fulness, and grace upon grace, John i. 16, xápis åvтì xápiros, being the same as xápis inì xápiri, in Ecclus. xxvi. 15.

measure.

BEAST (wild). The symbol of a tyrannical usurping power or monarchy, that destroys its neighbours or subjects, and preys upon all about it, and persecutes the Church of God.

The four beasts in Dan. vii. 3, are explained in ver. 17, of four kings or kingdoms, as the word king is interpreted, ver. 23.

In several other places of Scripture, wild beasts are the symbols of tyrannical powers; as in Ezek. xxxiv. 28, and Jer. xii. 9, where the beasts of the field are explained by the Targum, of the kings of the heathen and their armies.

Amongst profane authors, the comparison of cruel governors to savage beasts, is obvious. And Horace calls he Roman people a many-headed beast, Lib. i. Ep. i. ver. 76. And as for the Oneirocritics,* wild beasts are generally the symbols of enemies, whose malice and power is to be judged of, in proportion to the nature and magnitude of the wild beasts they are represented by. Prov. xxviii. 15.

[The Head of a beast answers to the supreme power,

*Oneir. c. 132, 217, 232.

and that whether the supreme power be in one single person or in many. For as the power abstractedly is not considered, so neither the persons abstracted from their power; but both, in concreto, make up this head politic. And therefore, if the supreme power be in many, those many are the head, and not the less one head for consisting of many persons, no more than the body is less one body for consisting of many persons.

It is important to distinguish between the body of a symbolical beast and its appendages. The body of a monarchy in the symbolic style, is the seat of its power; as Italy of the Roman Empire: its horns are those kingdoms and countries, which, by conquest, by marriage, or otherwise, may be united with it, and give it strength. These may remain united with it, be multiplied, or detached, but the body of the monarchy may still continue essentially the same.]

BEAR, according to the Persian Interpreter in ch. 274, signifies a rich, powerful, and fool-hardy enemy. (See Prov. xvii. 12.) According to Aristotle the bear is ov Tаμpáуov, a greedy animal, as well as silly and fool-hardy.

[A Bear with three ribs in its mouth, denotes the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. It was said unto it, "Arise, devour much flesh." This was to shew the cruelty of those people, and their greediness after blood and plunder. Their character was that of an all-devouring bear, which has no pity. The ribs in the mouth of it represent those nations which they especially made a prey of. Dan. vii. 5.]

DRAGON, according to the Oneirocritics, ch. 283, is the symbol of a king that is an enemy; and, according to Artemidorus, Lib. iii. ch. ii. the symbol of a pirate, murderer, or some such sort of person. Isa. li. 9; Ps. lxxiv. 13, 14; Rev. xii. 3.

In Ezek. xxix. 3, 4, it is used as the symbol of the Egyptian king: and the dragon there mentioned is called the dragon in the rivers, and represented with scales; and is therefore a crocodile, a creature which is ranked

among the serpents by Horus Apollo ;* and is called by the Arabians Pharoah,† and which was held by the Egyptians as the symbol of all mischief. And therefore Typho being, in their belief, the author of all evil,§ was supposed to have transformed himself into a crocodile, or dragon.|| So that the principle of all evil, or Typho, was, in the symbolical character represented by a crocodile or dragon; and under this symbol was the said principle worshipped. Agreeably whereunto in the Chaldean theology the principle of evil was called Arimanius; i. e. the crafty serpent, from crafty, and w serpent.

Again, according to Artemidorus, lib. ii. c. 13, the serpent is the symbol of disease and enmity; and all the oriental Oneirocritics, in c. 283, say that serpents, in proportion to their size, are to be interpreted of great and little enemies; and in this sense is the symbol used in Isaiah xiv. 29; xxvii. 1; and very often by the poets.**

[The Roman emperors wore, among other things to distinguish them, silken robes, embroidered with gold, in which dragons were represented, as is affirmed by Chrysostom.]

LEOPARD, as a symbol, is used in the prophets upon the account of three qualities; viz. cruelty,†† swiftness,‡‡ and the variety of the skin.§§ These qualities of the leopard are also taken notice of by profane authors, as Oppian and others. Upon the account of the first quality the Per

* Hieroglyph. 31. L. ii.

† Vid. Bochart. Phaleg. L. i. c. 15. Gol. Lex. Arab. Col. 1789. Vid. Diodor. Sic. L. iii.

§ Vide Plutarch. de Iside & Osir. p. 409, & Elian. de Animal. L. x.

c. 81.

Strab. Geogr. L. xvi. p. 750.

¶ Plut. de Is. & Osir. p. 407. Ed. Ald. Diog. Laert. Proem. § 8.

** Eschyl. Choëph. ver. 246, 928. Suppl. ver. 902. Eurip. Ion. ver.

1262.

tt Isa. xi. 6; Jer. v. 6; Hos. xiii. 7. §§ Jer. xiii. 23.

‡‡ Hab. i. 8.

sian and Egyptian interpreters* explain the leopard as an implacable enemy. Dan. vii. 6; Rev. xiii. 2.

As to swiftness, a leopard will overtake thrice or oftener the swiftest horse, though it draw back after the first or second overtaking; and therefore the leopard, in Daniel, expresses very well the speed of the conquests of Alexander the Great in Persia and the Indies, which were performed in ten or twelve years' time: (his way being μndèv åvaßaλλóμɛvos, never delaying.) And by the variety of the spots were represented those various nations, by whose help he became the conqueror of the world.

By the variety of the spots in the leopard, is denoted also, according to Artemidorus, lib. i., wickedness and deceit.

Amongst the Egyptians a leopard was the symbol of a crafty pernicious person:† and by the Oneirocritics, in ch. 272, the leopard is explained of a powerful fraudulent enemy.

[A leopard with four heads and four wings of a fowl, denotes the kingdom of the Macedonians or Grecians. The leopard being remarkable for its swiftness; hence, especially with wings on its back, it is a fit emblem of the conquests of the Macedonians under the command of Alexander. As the lion had two wings to represent the rapidity of the Babylonian conquests, so this leopard has four, to signify the swifter progress of the Macedonians.

The four heads also are significant. Fifteen years after the death of Alexander, his brother and two sons being murdered, his kingdom was divided by Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, into four lesser kingdoms, which they seized for themselves. Dan. vii. 6.]

[LION. A lion with eagles' wings represents the Babylonian empire. Dan. vii. 4.]

* C. 272.

† Hor. Ap. Hierogl. 86, Lib. ii.

BED. When a person is cast into it by way of punishment, it is a bed of languishing, and therefore a symbol of great tribulation, and anguish of body and mind; for to be tormented in bed, where men seek rest, is the highest of griefs. See Psa. xli. 3; vi. 6; Job xxxiii. 19; Isaiah xxviii. 20; Rev. ii. 22.

BEHIND. According to the Greek and Roman authors, as the back parts, accounted behind, follow the face as leader; so whatsoever is said to be behind is accounted as future, coming after, and not as past. Thus in Artemidorus, lib. i. c. 51, the back signifies the old age or future time of the party; and the red colour on the back of the dragon in Homer, Iliad. ii. ver. 308, denoted the event, there signified, to be future: so in Homer's Iliad, lib. iii. v. 109, to see things at once before and behind, is explained by the scholiast of seeing things present and future; and so in Virgil's Æneid, lib. viii. ver. 697, à tergo, behind, signifies an event to come, as Servius has observed upon the place.

The reason of this symbolical signification of the word behind, may be perhaps more clearly given thus :—what is past is known, and therefore as present, or before. But an event to come is unknown, unseen, and therefore behind; and therefore to follow after, in order to be brought into actual existence, and rendered present or before.

Behind, when not taken symbolically, signifies what is past; as in Phil. iii. 13.

BELLY is the seat of the carnal affections, according to the notions of the ancients,* as being that which partakes first of the sensual pleasures of meat, drink, and venereal appetites; and therefore the Egyptians, in the embalming of a man, threw his belly into the river, as the cause of all his sins, that it might, as it were, take them away with it.†

* Philo Allegor. L. ii. p. 56, 58, 59. Apul. de Dogm. Platon. Porphyry de Abstin. L. iv. § 10.