The Two Babylons - PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
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. 2bab002.htm