pensation, it ends under a cloud. The fifty-seventh chapter describes a state of apostasy, and the prophet seems on closing it to turn away from the Church of the Gentiles to his own people, with whose glowing future all the remainder of his prophecy is filled.

In most of the Prophets there are some slight notices of the Gentile line; but it is in Daniel that the predictions on this subject are most distinct. Nebuchad

nezzar's golden image contains the grand outline of Gentile history, which is more distinctly filled up by Daniel's own visions of empires under the symbol of wild beasts, and the direct prophecy with which his book concludes. The Apocalyptic visions have so evident a bearing on those of Daniel, that they must belong to the same chain and be considered together; and our Lord's own prophecy on the Mount, referring as it does to Daniel's prophecy, helps to explain it. To this we must add St. Paul's predictions of the apostasy to spring up in the bosom of the Christian Church, and we shall have the chief sources of information as to the Gentile line. The greater part of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and the other prophets, is occupied with the Jewish line. Our Lord's prophecy on the Mount refers to this as well as to the other; and both in Daniel, and even to a less degree in the Apocalypse,* while only in a subordinate degree it is not left unnoticed

But that which is essential to our right understanding of either of these lines of prophecy, is to keep them separate; to examine each as though the other did not exist, and then to compare them together, ascertain their points of union, their correspondences, and, as from two independent witnesses, form a connected view * In Rev. xvi, 12, "The kings of the East."

of earth's future history. My present purpose is more limited. I wish to examine chiefly one particular portion of the Gentile line of prophecy, bearing on the immediate future of Christ's Church; and for this purpose we will first consider the ten-horned beast, or apostate empire of Daniel and Revelation.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE APOSTATE EMPIRE.

SYMBOLICAL prophecy is mainly occupied with the history of the Gentile empires. Written under their shadow, and intended for the instruction and comfort of God's people in perilous times, it was consistent with the wisdom of God so to veil it that it should not increase their danger and expose them to persecution. For the same reason it is, we may venture to conjecture, that the same symbols are repeated in Daniel and the Apocalypse, in such a manner that it is only by a comparison of the two we can fully interpret either. These pictures of the world were not to be accessible to men of the world. A certain difficulty was to be thrown around their decipherment which would make them real hieroglyphics, sacred signs, understood only by those who patiently should search the Oracles of God. Had it been otherwise, the jealous scrutiny of the Romans, if not of the Babylonians or Persians, would have found in them abundant materials for accusing their possessors; and the strong hand of power might have imitated the act of that Jewish king, who, when Jeremiah prophesied against him, cut up the roll of the book with a penknife, and threw it into the fire.

The most remarkable of these symbols is that of a wild beast with seven heads and ten horns. It appears,

with certain differences, four times; first, in the seventh chapter of Daniel; secondly, in the twelfth chapter of Revelation; thirdly, in the thirteenth chapter of that book; and fourthly, in the seventeenth; and no interpretation can be considered complete which does not explain all four, and assign a reason for their differences.

"I, Daniel,

The general meaning of the symbol is so plainly stated in the Book of Daniel as to remove all doubt. The ten-horned beast appeared to him in vision, as the last of four which arose out of the sea. The prophet asked for an explanation and received it. was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth." And then, in answer to a still further inquiry respecting the fourth beast, which Daniel had observed to play a much more conspicuous part than the other three, his heavenly guide proceeded: "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise."*

Daniel could not but perceive that the word "king," and the word "kingdom," were used interchangeably. Considering that the fourth beast is expressly called one of "four kings," in verse 17, and the "fourth kingdom," in verse 23, it is strange that any commentators should have made the attempt to attach to the word "king" a personal and individual significa

* Dan. vii. 15-17, 23, 24.

tion. This much was clearly taught him, that four great kingdoms were to come successively in contact with the chosen people, and to aim at universal sovereignty. There were four such empires-the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Romanalready known to Daniel as forming component parts of the great image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream. The ten-horned beast is the fourth of these kingdoms, that is, the Roman; and Daniel was taught to look upon the ten horns, like the ten toes of the image, as representatives of ten kingdoms, into which the Roman empire should be broken up without being dissolved.

In Revelation xii. 3, this ten-horned and sevenheaded* beast appears again as persecuting the Church, with crowns on its heads but not on its horns. It is the Roman empire before its division into ten kingdoms, and before the rise of the Papacy, when the imperial power was used in the vain attempt to prop up Paganism by persecuting the Church.

The Church spoken of is no outward community, no earthly polity; for she is clothed with the sun, and has the moon under her feet. A woman is so frequent an emblem for the Church, that we have assumed such to be its signification here; but it must be borne in mind that it may be used as an emblem for the Church in two distinct ways. Christ is the husband and the Church is his bride; that is one light in which a woman is the appropriate emblem for the Church. The Church on earth gives birth to the Church in heaven. The weak and persecuted woman is to be succeeded by the man-child; the Church in her feebleness by the Church

* The seven heads are not mentioned in Daniel.