When a man is taken in a mystical senses, his qualities are often signified by his actions, and by the circumstances of things about him. So a Ruler is signified by his riding on a beast; a Warrior and Conqueror, by his having a sword and bow; a potent man, by his gigantic stature; a Judge, by weights and measures; a sentence of absolution, or condemnation, by a white or a black stone; a new dignity, by a new name; moral or civil qualifications, by garments; honor and glory, by splendid apparel; royal dignity, by purple or scarlet, or by a crown; righteousness, by white and clean robes; wickedness, by spotted and filthy garments; affliction, mourning, and humiliation, by clothing in sackcloth; dishonor, shame, and want of good works, by nakedness; error and misery, by drinking a cup of his or her wine that causeth it; propagating any religion for gain, by exercising traffic and merchandise with that people whose religion it is; worshiping or serving the false Gods of any nation, by committing adultery with their princes, or by worshiping them; a Council of a kingdom, by its image; idolatry, by blasphemy; overthrow in war, by a wound of man or beast; a durable plague of war, by a sore and pain; the affliction or persecution which a people suffers in laboring to bring forth a new kingdom, by the pain of a woman in labor to bring forth a man-child; the dissolution of a body politic or ecclesiastic, by the death of a man or beast; and the revival of a dissolved dominion, by the resurrection of the dead.
CHAPTER 3.
OF THE VISION OF THE IMAGE COMPOSED OF FOUR METALS.
THE Prophecies of Daniel are all of them related to one another, as if they were but several parts of one general Prophecy, given at several times. The first is the easiest to be understood, and every following Prophecy adds something new to the former. The first was given in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, in the second year of his reign; but the King forgetting his dream, it was given again to Daniel in a dream, and by him revealed to the King. And thereby, Daniel presently became famous for wisdom, and revealing of secrets: insomuch that Ezekiel his contemporary, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, spake thus of him to the King of Tyre: Behold, saith he, thou art wiser than Daniel, there is no secret that they can hide from thee, Ezekiel 28:3. And the same Ezekiel, in another place, joins Daniel with Noah and Job, as most high in the favor of God, Ezekiel 14:14, 16, 18, 20. And in the last year of Belshazzar, the Queen- mother said of him to the King: Behold there is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and soothsayers: forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, Daniel 5:11, 12.
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