and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty (through God's permission); and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people;- but he shall be broken without hand." That the latter part of this vision is identical with that of the preceding ones, is, I think, without doubt, for these reasons. First, this fourth empire is in all of them described as being exceedingly powerful, fierce, and successful. In the next place, it is to make war upon the saints (chap. vii. 21-25, and ver. 27, the saints are to prevail); and chap. ii. 34-45, this power is to be destroyed by a stone cut out without hands.

Again, we are told that this fierce king is to prevail at a time when "transgressors are come to the full;" which, if I am not greatly mistaken, is had in view by our Lord himself when he speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem: "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Matt. xxiv. 12, &c. And by St. Paul, when he says, (2 Tim. iii. 1, 2, &c.) " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers," &c., which, he goes on to say, at ver. 9, shall be fully exposed. In the last place, its being said that he shall destroy the mighty and holy people seems sufficiently to determine the question, that this is to be that same fourth power which, in Dan. vii. 21, was also said, should make war with the saints, and prevail against them; but which it is in every case said, shall be finally overcome.

*

In chap. xi. this vision is again repeated with further additional circumstances. At ver. 2 we are told, that three kings shall yet reign in Persia, and after these a fourth, who

* So Hippolytus the martyr, who is said by some to have been a disciple of Irenæus, and to have flourished about A. D. 220. "Aureum caput simulacri, Leana, Babylonii erant: humeri et brachia argentea, Ursus, Persæ et Medi: venter femurque æneum, Pardus, qui ab Alexandro Græci rerum potiti sunt. Crura ferrea, stupenda Bestia ac terribilis, Romani, qui nunc rerum potiuntur....Cornu aliud parvum succrescens, qui inter illa numeratur, Antichristus. Lapis percutiens conterensque simulacrum, qui terram adimplevit....Christus." De Antichristo. Edit. 1716, p. 15. See also his Commentary or Daniel, published in a work entitled, "Daniel secundum Septuaginta. Romæ, 1772," &c.

shall surpass the rest in riches. against the realm of Grecia.

This man shall stir up all A king shall now arise, who

shall have great dominion (i. e. a Grecian king); but this power shall be divided towards the four winds (or into four parts, as before). We then have some particulars from ver. 5 to 30, which we shall now pass over. At ver. 30 we are

told, that "the ships of Chittim shall come against HIM (i. e. against the king of the north, Seleucia); and at ver. 31, "Arms shall stand on his part (i. e. who comes from Chittim), and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate." Ver. 36: "And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done." Here we have the four monarchies as before, each designated much in the same way; and the last, which is the most important, so exactly described as to leave no doubt whatever of its identity with the last empire of the preceding visions. If, however, any doubt could remain on the mind of any as to what this last power is, the declarations of the New Testament must effectually remove it (Matt. xxiv. 15): "When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth (Daniel), let him understand, i.e. mark what I say), Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains." Ver. 34: " Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." Words, I think, cannot more decidedly fix the sense of this prophecy than these do; and if so, the Roman power is intimated in every case. St. Paul, too, if I am not greatly mistaken, has made an allusion to this prophecy too plain to be misunderstood. From the prophecy of our Lord just cited, no doubt could possibly remain on the minds of the Christians as to his shortly coming to avenge himself on his enemies; and, as this was a matter of the greatest interest to them, it is not unlikely that the signs of its approach would be occasionally misunderstood. In order to correct any such error, St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, 2 Ep. chap. ii. v. 1, &c. : "Now we beseech you, brethren... That ye be not soon

shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means (or, in the words of our Lord, Whoso readeth, let him understand'): for (that day shall not come) except there come a falling away first (in the words of Daniel, until Transgressors are come to the full,' or, in our Lord's, till 'iniquity abound,' &c.), and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God;" (or, in Daniel's words, "The king shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation shall be accomplished: for that which is determined shall be done").* The end of which is, that the kingdom shall be given to the saints. So St. Paul, ver. 8: "Then shall that Wicked be revealed (be made manifest, exposed), whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming"-i. e. The Son of man shall

That these passages were understood in this sense by the primitive Church, we learn from Irenæus contra Hæreses, lib. iv. cap. xxv.; Theodoret Com. in Danielem, cap. vii.; except that the latter understands the kingdom of the saints to relate to the state of the saints in glory. We often hear cited, in connection with this subject, 1 Tim. iv. 1-3, stating that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, &c., against which Timothy is exhorted to teach : whence it might be inferred, that these times should soon come on. Now, if we look into the histories of that period, we shall find that such things were actually taught and enforced. The Encratites, for example, taught that "marriage was of the devil; reckoned all married persons as fornicators, &c.; that no person should eat flesh, and that no wine should be drunk." The Apostolicks or Apotacticks held the same as to marriage; and after them, the Origenians; while the Manichees held the two principles, rejected marriage, and the use of flesh-meats and wine.-Jones on the Canon, vol. i. p. 151. I do not think, therefore, that these Scriptures could have been originally directed against the errors of Popery; while there can be no doubt they may be cited in condemnation of them. Many marks of the fondness of celibacy may be found in the apocryphal Scriptures, as in the Acts of Paul and Thecla (Jones on the Canon, vol. ii.), &c. See also Eusebius Eccles. Hist. lib. iv. cap. xxix.; Irenæus contra Hæres. lib. i. That these doctrines were known during the Apostolic times, Philo and Josephus may be adduced to shew.

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be vested with universal dominion, and that dominion shall never end (as noticed above). St. Paul goes on to say, that "the mystery of iniquity doth already work." It has begun, but had not yet arrived at that fulness which was to precede the coming of Christ in power to judgment: the betraying of father and son, of brother and brother to death, had not yet taken place, nor had the abomination of desolation yet been set up; all, however, was in progress. Therefore," adds he, ver. 15, "brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions (i. e. the warnings mentioned at ver. 5,) which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle." The man of sin, &c.* mentioned above, has, I know, been often referred to the Papal usurpation. That this usurpation is antichristian, I have no doubt; yet, I think this passage cannot relate to it. The passage in St. Paul (ver. 4) is evidently a parallel to that cited from Daniel, which can by no ingenuity be made to signify the pope, as far as I can see. Besides, it will be extremely difficult to shew, how popery could be said to be at work as a mystery in the days of the Apostle. But if this be said to refer only to the principle, I then ask, Why refer this principle to popery, which did not exist till about six hundred years afterwards, when heathenism, and heathenish Judaïsm, are at hand, to which it will equally well apply? The truth is, some one endued with temporal authority and power, is evidently had in view by Daniel. He is a king who shall prevail against the saints; and if St. Paul has in his mind. the same person, which I think is indisputable, the emperor, or the power, of infidel Rome, is obviously the person or thing meant. I may now, perhaps, conclude, that the principal

:

The immediate precursor of Antichrist, according to Lactantius, was Nero and in this I believe Lactantius was right; and I have no doubt such was the general belief of the Church in his day. According to St. Paul, some one who then let, or stood in the way, was to be removed before the general persecutions commenced; and we know that Nero ruled when Paul wrote this, and that with Domitian the times of trial began. Nero, too, was literally taken out of the way in an extraordinary manner; for he disappeared, no one knowing how or why.-See Lactantius de Mortibus Persecu

torum.

+ Some parts of this chapter (2 Thess. ii.) have been thought so particularly to fix themselves upon the pope, as to admit of no other application : e. g. ver. 4, "So that he as God sitteth in the temple of God:" which, it is argued, cannot apply to any heathen Roman emperor, because we know of

features of all these four visions of Daniel, were intended to point out precisely the same great and important events; and specifically to foretell the existence, with many particulars, of four great empires; and that the last of these was to be the Roman, it is, I believe, impossible not to see, whether we examine the declarations of the Old or of the New Testament. The particulars I willingly pass over, because they are not so important, nor so easily to be determined, although I have no doubt they all may be made out as clearly and as satisfactorily as the nature of the case requires. It will be said, perhaps, that I ought, in illustration of my principles of interpretation, to have selected passages about which there has been less dispute and mistake. I answer: I know of no passages less liable to be mistaken than these; nor any in which there is so large a number of circumstances tending to suggest their just interpretation. My opinion of

ex

no instance in which one of them sat in the Church. My reply is: The authorised version seems to me to give an erroneous view of the Scripture in this passage. In the first place, we have, in ver. 3, öri làv μù ïadn à àxocracía #grov―i. e., unless тHE apostasy come first: where our version gives, cept there come a falling away first;" making the whole quite indefinite; whereas the apostasy had in view by the Apostle is evidently that specific one predicted by our Lord. Again, in ver. 4, we have in the original, ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὡς Θεὸν καθίσαι, so that he sits as God to, for, or against, the temple of God;" not, IN the temple of God. I know it may be said, that the particle is is sometimes used in the sense of iv, in, and that the ancient versions have generally so taken it here. I argue, nevertheless, that this is not the natural or usual acceptation of this particle in any case: nor is it obviously so, even in the passages usually adduced in support of the signification in; and, what is of the most importance, no such sense is necessary here; on the contrary, the passage is only rendered obscure and perplexing by its application. There are, however, other considerations, and such, I think, as are quite sufficient to determine the intention of the Apostle here, without relying on the signification of particles. In ver. 3, it is said, "Let no man deceive you," &c. I would only ask: Can any one possibly suppose that this is any thing more than a repetition of the warning given by our Lord, Matt. xxiv. 5, 11, &c.? Again: "Except there come a (the) falling away (wooтaría)," &c. Compare Matt. xxiv. 12; Mark, xiii. 12; Luke, xxi. 16; 1 Tim. iv. 1; Matt.xxiv. 3, 6, 11,13,14. At ver.9 we have : "With all power and signs and lying wonders." Compare Matt. xxiv. 24; Luke, xxi. 22. Again, at ver. 8, "Whom the Lord shall consume," &c. Compare Dan. vii. 10, 11; Matt. xxiv. 27, 30, 39; Luke, xxi. 26–30. I will only remark in conclusion, that if these particulars are not sufficient to determine the Apostle's meaning and intention, no argument any one can offer will.