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III.]

as in Nebuchadnezzar's vision.

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this objection is surely hypercritical. It is not unusual, as has been well observed, for the spirit of Prophecy to take a retrospective view of the conditions of the Church, in order to make the whole complete. The future tense,-though, indeed, in the original it is more properly the indefinite, denoting future or present time-might well have been used, even if the Babylonian empire had already passed away: it would be as though it had been said, "There shall be these four kingdoms in the earth,”— the first of the four thus spoken of being that which was then in being,-" and when the last of them is destroyed, then shall be the triumph of the kingdom of the Most High." It is objected, however, still further, that if by the first three of the wild beasts here described we understand the empires of Babylon, Persia, and Greece, we must suppose these empires, as well as that of Rome, to be still in existence; since we read that, after "the fourth beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame,' "as concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time ""-a circumstance, it is remarked, which "has no parallel in the vision of the image, where the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, are expressly said to be broken in pieces together '." The objection might easily be, in a manner, retorted on those who would make the iron in the vision of the image to represent a kingdom still future, while they admit that one, at least, if not all three of the kingdoms denoted by the gold, the silver, and the brass, has long ago been broken in pieces. And it remains to be considered, whether

1

9 Dan. vii. 11,

12.

Todd, p. 77.

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The fourth beast

[LECT. the destruction of the fourth beast in the vision before us be not, in reality, distinct from that described in the former vision of the image, when the blow which came upon the feet of iron and clay involved the destruction of that whole fabric of earthly dominion which included within it all former empires. The scene of judgment, in the vision before us, would appear to be more narrowly defined to one quarter of the Roman world, the proper seat of Rome's original dominion; and we seem to have here what has been appropriately designated as "a prophetical geography," as well as "a prophetical chronology;" the nations of Chaldæa and Assyria, according to Sir Isaac Newton, being still the first beast; those of Media and Persia, the second; those of Macedon, Greece, and Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, the third; while "those of Europe, on this side Greece, are still the fourth," the three former empires having, as the vision describes, had their "lives continued for a season and a time," though their "dominion" had been "taken away."

I shall not enter upon the consideration of the particular application of the first three symbols; inasmuch as, whatever difficulty may have been found in some particulars, it may be considered as generally admitted, that they represent, respectively, the empires of Babylon, Persia, and Macedon. I shall proceed therefore at once to the description of the fourth kingdom. "After this," says the prophet, "I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of

2 Vid. Note, Appendix. 3 Observations, Part i. ch. 4. p. 31.

HI.]

The Roman Empire.

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65 it and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns "." That the fourth beast here described in the prophet's vision is the same with the iron, the fourth kingdom in Nebuchadnezzar's image, is admitted on all hands, even by those who doubt whether the three preceding symbols are identical in the two cases 5. For it is expressly said in the interpretation of the vision, "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth;" and the power here delineated is manifestly the same which, in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's vision, is described as being "strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things In considering, on a former occasion, the import of Nebuchadnezzar's vision, I endeavoured to show that the interpretation, which had the all but unanimous consent of Antiquity in its favour, and which has been generally received in modern times, referring the symbols of the fourth kingdom to the Roman empire, is fully borne out by the character and history of that empire; and that the language of prophecy concerning it is strikingly illustrated by the statements and expressions of a witness so unbiassed as the infidel historian of Rome's Decline and Fall. I shall not, therefore, now refer again to the testimonies and authorities from the early ages, which were then appealed to, but shall confine myself to those points which are more fully brought into view in the vision before us.

And the vision seems, in a remarkable manner, to take up the description where the former vision dropped it. The termination of the image in the

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Ancient Interpretation.

[LECT. toes of iron and clay would fitly convey the idea of an empire which, in its last form, was to come into a state of manifold division; but what seemed there to be the latter end of weakness has here the semblance of rising strength. Instead of the toes of the feet, in which the clay was mingled with the iron, we have here represented a formidable power, having on its head ten horns. And how it was understood in early times St. Jerome shall be our witness, appealing as he does to the universal consent of the ecclesiastical writers who had gone before him. Having refuted Porphyry's interpretation, who, contrary to all historical truth, (as I have already had occasion to show,) endeavoured to make out of the kingdoms of Alexander's successors in Egypt and Syria, the fourth monarchy of the visions of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, Jerome proceeds; "Therefore let us say what all ecclesiastical writers have handed down; that in the consummation of the world, when the kingdom of the Romans is about to be destroyed, there will be ten kings, who shall divide the Roman world among them'." In like manner, Irenæus, in the second century, had declared how "Daniel, looking to the end of the last kingdom, that is, the ten kings, among whom shall be divided the empire of those upon whom the son of perdition shall come, saith that ten horns did grow upon the beast 2."

8" Cornua dicit decem nasci Hieron. in loc. t. iii. bestiæ." Iren. inf. cit.

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2

p. 1101. "Daniel autem, novissimi regni finem respiciens, (id est, novissimos decem reges in quos dividetur regnum illorum super quos filius perditionis veniet,) cornua dicit decem nasci bestiæ."-Iren. lib. v. c. 25, 3. p. 322.

III.]

Irenæus.

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"And more manifestly yet,"-so Irenæus continues shortly after," hath John, the disciple of the Lord, signified concerning the last time, and the ten kings which are in it, among whom shall be divided the kingdom which now reigns, explaining in the Apocalypse what were the ten horns which were seen by Daniel "." And this passage of Irenæus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of St. John, is highly important and interesting, as showing how the earliest Christian expositors identified with the imagery before us that which re-appears in the visions of the Apocalypse, and which thus would seem, almost beyond the reach of controversy, to give apostolical authority to the interpretation which refers the symbol before us to the empire of Rome.

Let us turn, then, to the passages referred to in the Revelation of St. John. In the thirteenth chapter the apostolic prophet tells us how he "stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea," (in like manner as in the vision before us,)

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having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns 4." The wild beast there described combines, indeed, the characteristics of all the four beasts in Daniel's vision 5; for "the beast" which St. John "saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion 6." But the point to which I would direct more particular attention is, that the power

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