of his reign; that is, about forty-eight years previously, and then interpreted to the youthful emperor, with such renown, by the youthful prophet of Judah. It respects in succession the four great empires of history; now known as four by all writers, and attested as four by all monuments; yet then and there, on the two occasions named, first anticipated, distinguished, and foretold, as four, with admirable exactitude and truth, in a way which nothing but the inspiration of the Holy Ghost could authorize and reveal; namely, The Assyrio-Chaldaic or Babylonian ; The Medo-persian; The Macedonian or Grecian; The Occidental or Roman. These visions all occurred under the first of these; the other empires, being all in the future, unknown to all beings but God, and his people as he was pleased to make the truth known to them. That first empire ceased with the life of Belshazzar,' after enduring from the death of Sardanapalus,2 about two hundred and nine years; and in a way not more unique and marvellous, than its very circumstances were described and its hero named, by Isaiah,3 nearly two hundred years before.1 The Medo-persian lasted about as long as its predecessor, wanting two years, and was terminated by the sweeping victories of Alexander, called the Great; but described personally in Scripture in a way to excite pity, rather than envy, at his greatness. The empire he founded was soon without its head; and his four generals, as prophecy had numbered and described them, after slaying their common rival Antigonus at the battle of Ipsus, otherwise there had remained five, quartered the world among themselves; established four co-ordinate but independent regalities, and became kings; each of the four becoming the head and founder of a distinct but related dynasty; as in common the successors of Alexander, his countrymen and co-patriots in arms and conquests, speaking and spreading every where the Greek language and literature; effecting im 538. 2 747. 3 44: 24-28. 45: 1-6. 4712. 303. portant and preliminary revolutions in all the world; preparing the way for the missionary spread of the gospel in the first century; making the nations homogeneous more; and withal, on the whole-I say it with hesitation-improving them. This third empire we date from the battle of Arbela' to that of Actium2 or Nicopolis, lasting just three hundred years and terminating thirty-one years previously to the birth of Christ, according to the vulgar era. All this outline, only far more minute and particular and identifying, was previously written in the book of Daniel, here and outward, in a way most interesting, and rationally useful and edifying, to the faith of the thoughtful and enlightened Christian. The battle of Actium made Augustus the sole master of the world, introduced the imperial sway of the Roman Cæsars, which has lasted, through all changes and prodigies, now these eighteen hundred and eighty years, accomplished this very month ;* and is now in its senility, decrepitude, and almost dissolution. Taken together these empires have lasted nearly twenty-six hundred years—a roll of ages how portentous, how charged with the vices and the sins of men, yet more with the mercies and the benefactions of God. Rightly to read history is to read prophecy; and wisely to compare them is a noble work for the best and the strongest minds, a work pre-eminently of profit, pleasure, and piety. The two visions, to Nebuchadnezzar and to Daniel, were much unlike in their images and forms, however related, or the same, in their subject-matter; and I incline to follow Grotius, Lowth, Newton, and others, in the ingenious reasons assigned for it by the first of these; as founded in the idea of adaptation, respectively, to two very different minds; the one, a proud but certainly a highly capacious and intelligent pagan; the other, a spiritual worshipper of the true God, a man of holy character and mature piety. To the one, suiting his imagina 'Or Gaugamela, Oct. 2. 331. 3 More correctly 27 to the birth of Christ. Sep. 2. 31. 4 Sep. 2. 31+ 1849-1880. tion of grandeur, it was a superb colossal image, metallic and imperial, with a head of burnished gold, and after parts, successive and distinct, of silver, of brass, and of iron, legs and feet, terminal in rusty threads of iron mingled with clay. To the other, from the raging and stormy ocean, the four winds of heaven striving on it, came there four great beasts, carnivorous and ferocious: the first, like a lion and had eagle's wings; the second, like to a bear; the third, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl, the beast had also four heads and dominion was given to it. The fourth beast was a megatherium of awe and wonder, a non-descript, anonymous, yet 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 it. And it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. This was plainly the empire of Rome, in her foreign conquests, in her imperial state, in her subsequent extension, partition, decay, dismemberment, and destined ruin. As a monster beast, unique and tremendous, I seem to behold it portrayed in stately horror, and realize with Daniel the lurid magnificence of the scene. There is the mightier land leviathan, filling the field of vision and darkening all heaven to the sight. Like a vast mountain range; as if the Apennines, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, were piled together; his huge proportions stretch from the waters of the Caspian and the sources of the Tigris, to the Bay of Biscay and the British Islands, his head and his horns protruded westward, his orb of empire thither tending, and his characteristics mainly developed there. In the great morass of nations and of ages, there is found a causeway or path of civilization, learning, and the arts, strictly described and palpable; where prophecy, anticipating all its course, delights to journey and reside; where the light of revelation shines; where churches are numerous, and the true God is worshipped-or with manifold impiety denied. We find that pathway in the centre of the old Roman empire. We see it progressive toward the west, where the ten horns of the beast are none other than the kingdoms of Modern Europe and their dependencies. But why the decimal number to distinguish them, why are they just ten?1 To answer this question, in this age, is surely to provoke controversy. Are you a literalist or a spiritualist? Do you believe in the pre-millennial advent or only in the post-millennial? in the personal reign of the Redeemer, visible and nominal, at Jerusalem? in the geographic restoration of all the millions of Judah and Israel? I answer-with all these hard questions we are under no very pressing necessity just now of embarrassing our investigations, or of pledging to any partial theory or doting and plausible error. Interpretation is properly a science. In theology especially it hath the dominion. It is one of the grandest and richest and rarest of the sciences; and one that claims affinity, in things sacred, with common sense, with the symmetry of revealed truth, with sanctified learning, with thought mature, and with piety genuine, prayerful, and ripe. It especially rejoices in large and sober and comprehensive views, according to the analogy of faith, and the truth and soberness of known principles. In this discourse, however, we can only give results, and these in brief outline and generality evinced. The ten horns, like the seventy years captivity, I construe as a number medial or symbolical. It denotes the average or general quantity alone. No other solution seems tenable. History shows us that after the fifth century, the provinces of the western or Roman empire proper became of necessity abandoned by the drooping metropolis. Of course, they emerged organized states, as well as independent territories. They were fewer than ten at one time, more at another. The literalizers have failed here, as well as in other places. Their contradictions to history, to each other, and to themselves, are marked and amusing and instructive. Their scheme seems impracticable, unwise, false. Its fruits condemn it too, from 1 The toes of the image first suggested it here, as the fingers to the first that comnenced the elements of arithmetic. the fanatical Muggleton to the incorrigible Miller, with their injured votaries and outraged victims. Some of them indeed are wiser and better men; but here we view them as lame, weak, doting, vulnerable, wrong. And remarkable it is that the disciples, I might say the dupes, of all this way, are distinguished generally for their aversion or hostility to missions. Some have adventured to utter the prediction that no more are to be converted, till after the temporal-personal reign of Christ on earth is commenced. Vain and presumptuous folly! It is even madness. We have lived to see it, by living demonstrations, false; its doctors and its proselytes contradicted and confounded. But-enough. It was in the west that another horn, all of its own sort, was seen to grow and prosper. It subverted three of the ten horns; and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, ' I once heard this venturous and very ignorant interpreter, at Washington, February, 1844, telling all his scheme, before a large promiscuous audience, with the unction of unbounded self-confidence. "The advent" then was to be equinoctial or near it; and hence his prospect glowed, as his feelings kindled with proximity to that object, after so long an anticipation. It was near the last of the month, two or three days only before the explosion of the Peace-maker, and consequently three or four weeks only before the great appointed crisis of wonders, when all his predictions, and all the expectations of his proselytes, for certain, accordingly and finally, as they in common affirmed, Surer to prosper than prosperity Could have assured them, were to be all NOT accomplished! A similar farrago of devout foolishness is seldom heard. Such violations at once of chronology, history, quotation, logic, grammar, pronunciation, and good manners-especially to some who ventured in a perfectly decent way to withdraw before his pitiable talk was finished, I never witnessed till then: nor can I now conceive of a much greater nuisance in society, especially among the credulous and the ill-informed, than a prophet of such bold and imposing hallucinations. However sincere he might be, or monomaniacal, or ridiculous, he deserves something like the indignation or the rebuke of the country and the church and the world! The mischief he has done is manifold and incalculable!—though his fallacies are now a proverb. 2 Tim. 3: 9. I have also heard one of his suffragans publicly denounce missions and predict no more conversions till his master's calculations are punctually verified by the advent! I believe the last adjournment is till April 3. 1850-after which I would recommend to them, April 1. 1851. But a cloud of little Millers are now flying over the country, and will pester the foolish for some time to come. Therefore I said, surely these are poor! they are foolish, for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. Fanaticism on this subject is a curiosity as well as a delusion, and a crime, and a moral pestilence! |