The Two Babylons
Since the appearing of the First Edition of this work, the
author has extensively prosecuted his researches into the same
subject; and the result has been a very large addition of new
evidence. Somewhat of the additional evidence has already been
given to the public, first through the columns of the British
Messenger, and then in the publication entitled "The
Moral Identity of Babylon and Rome," issued by Mr.
Drummond of Stirling. In the present edition of "The Two
Babylons," the substance of that work is also included.
But the whole has now been re-written, and the mass of new matter
that has been added is so much greater than all that had
previously appeared, that this may fairly be regarded as an
entirely new work. The argument appears now with a completeness
which, considering the obscurity in which the subject had long
been wrapped, the author himself, only a short while ago, could
not have ventured to anticipate as a thing capable of attainment.
On the principle of giving honour to whom honour is due, the
author gladly acknowledges, as he has done before, his
obligations to the late H.J. Jones, Esq.--to whose researches
Protestantism is not a little indebted--who was the first that
directed his attention to this field of inquiry. That able, and
excellent, and distinguished writer, however, was called to his
rest before his views were matured. His facts, in important
instances, were incorrect; and the conclusions at which he
ultimately arrived were, in very vital respects, directly the
reverse of those that are unfolded in these pages. Those who have
read, in the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, his speculations in
regard to the Beast from the Sea, will, it is believed, readily
perceive that, in regard to it, as well as other subjects, his
argument is fairly set aside by the evidence here adduced.
In regard to the subject of the work, there are just two
remarks the author would make. The first has reference to the
Babylonian legends. These were all intended primarily to
commemorate facts that took place in the early history of the
post-diluvian world. But along with them were mixed up the
momentous events in the history of our first parents. These
events, as can be distinctly
proved, were commemorated in the secret system of Babylon with
a minuteness and particularity of detail of which the ordinary
student of antiquity can have little conception. The
post-diluvian divinities were connected with the ante-diluvian
patriarchs, and the first progenitors of the human race, by means
of the metempsychosis; and the names given to them were
skillfully selected, so as to be capable of divers meanings, each
of these meanings have reference to some remarkable feature in
the history of the different patriarchs referred to. The
knowledge of this fact is indispensable to the unravelling of the
labyrinthine subject of Pagan mythology, which, with all its
absurdities and abominations, when narrowly scrutinised, will be
found exactly to the answer to the idea contained in the
well-known line of Pope in regard to a very different subject:--
"A mighty maze, but not without a plan."
In the following work, however, this aspect of the subject
has, as much as possible, been kept in abeyance, it being
reserved for another work, in which, if Providence permit, it
will be distinctly handled.
The other point on which the author finds it necessary to say
a word has reference to the use of the term "Chaldee,"
as employed in this work, According to the ordinary usage, that
term is appropriated to the language spoken in Babylon in the
time of Daniel and thereafter. In these pages the term Chaldee,
except where otherwise stated, is applied indiscriminately to
whatever language can be proved to have been used in Babylonian
from the time that the Babylonian system of idolatry commenced.
Now, it is evident from the case of Abraham, who was brought up
in Us of the Chaldee, and who doubtless brought his native
language along with him into Canaan, that, at that period,
Chaldee and Hebrew were substantially the same. When, therefore,
a pure Hebrew word is found mixed up with a system that
confessedly had its origin in Babylonia, the land of the
Chaldees, it cannot be doubted that that term, in that very form,
must have originally belonged to the Chaldee dialect, as well as
to that which is now commonly known as Hebrew. On this ground,
the author has found himself warranted to give a wider
application to the term "Chaldee" than that
which is currently in use.
And now, in sending forth this new edition, the author hopes he can say that,
however feebly, he has yet had sincerely an eye, in the whole of his work, to
the glory of "that name
that is above every name," which is dear to every Christian heart, and
through which all tribes, and peoples, and kindreds, and tongues, of this sinful
and groaning earth, are yet destined to be blest. In the prosecuting of his
researches, he has found his own faith sensibly quickened. His prayer is, that
the good Spirit of all grace may bless the work for the same end to all who may
read it.
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