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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 12, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 22

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Historical Department.

Prophecy is History in Advance.

DR. NELSON'S VIEW OF THE ADVENT.

(Concluded.)
SEVENTEEN hundred years since, infidel writers were quibbling concerning the facts of history which had taken place, and which belonged to Daniel's prophecy. These particulars seemed to give unbelievers pain, and they endeavored to avoid the truthful inference by saying, that the prophecy must have been written later than the time of Nebuchadnezzar. What will those do who live so many centuries after this plea was first urged? What will they do with that part of the prediction which has been fulfilled during the last fifteen hundred years?
LIST OF HISTORIC ITEMS MENTIONED BY THE PROPHET IN THIS CHAPTER AS TAKING PLACE BETWEEN HIS DAY AND THE PRESENT TIME.
1. The dominion was taken from the Chaldeans, or the lion, and given to the Medes and Persians, or to the bear.
2. The conquests of the Medo-Persian empire were achieved in one direction, that is westwardly. The bear, it is said, “raised up itself on one side.”
3. The bear, it is said, had “three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it.” The Persians conquered the kingdoms of Babylon, of Lydia, and of Egypt. They oppressed them and devoured their revenues and their good things, as a ravenous beast does its prey.
4. The dominion was to be taken from the bear and given to another, the leopard. The Grecians conquered the Persians.
5. Alexander was said to conquer faster than others could march. His victories resembled an army flying through a nation, rather than encamping against it. The leopard had four wings on its back, representing the unusual rapidity with which the Macedonian dominion would be set up.
6. This beast had four heads. When Alexander died in his drunken revels at Babylon, his kingdom did not descend to his son, or to one or two of his officers; if so, this beast would have had one or two heads; but it was parted between four of his generals, and these four heads had dominion until the fourth beast was grown.
7. The fourth beast, the nameless beast, was to take dominion from the four-headed leopard, devouring and breaking in pieces.
8. This power, the Roman, was to be diverse from all the beasts before it. This is so strikingly understood by all who read only the alphabet of history, that I need not name the instances of dissimilarity.
9. That which this beast could not devour, it was to stamp with his feet. This has already been noticed.
10. It was to be divided into ten kingdoms, represented by the ten horns.
11. This division into ten was to take place exclusive of the Chaldean, Persian, and Macedonian territories; for these beasts, after losing dominion, were still to exist for a season and a time.
12. There was to come up among the ten a little horn, the eleventh horn.
13. This little horn was to pluck up three others by the roots. The bishop of Rome took hold on three kingdoms, denoted by his triple crown which he wears, and has kept them ever since. He did not take hold on four small kingdoms, for that would have been to pluck up four horns by the root.
14. This little horn was to be watchful, sagacious, and cunning. Every page of his history explains this.
15. High-sounding threats, great, swelling words, a mouth speaking great things, a look more stout than his fellows, etc., were to be his characteristics. Whoever will read but half a volume of European history since the pope wore the triple crown, will be at no loss respecting the great words against the Most High.
16. He was to be diverse from the first kings. He was a clerical officer.
17. He was to “wear out the saints of the Most High.” If we but knew how many hundred thousand he put to death, of the most humble-walking and holy-living people on earth, a work that did not cease for more than a thousand years, we should say that he certainly did wear out the saints of the Most High, if such a thing has ever occurred since the gospel was preached.
18. He was to “think to change times and laws.” “Hath not the papal power arrogated the prerogative of making times holy or unholy, contrary to the word of God! He hath commanded men everywhere to abstain from meat and cease from work, when God required no such thing, and has multiplied his holy days, till scarcely four of the six working days have been left for man's labor. At the same time he hath licensed intemperance and excess on his festivals and carnivals, and authorized licentious diversions on the Lord's own holy day. He hath pretended to change God's laws, or to dispense with obedience to them, that his own new laws might be observed; forbidding to marry, and licensing fornication, and many things of this sort.”—Scott. He has indeed thought to change times and laws, as no one else ever did.
19. His career was to continue for twelve hundred and sixty years—for one thousand two hundred and threescore days; for a time and times and the dividing of time; for forty and two months. Many praying people think the judgment is now sitting, or about to sit.
20. The last item is yet to take place. It is to come to pass hereafter. “One like the Son of Man,” yea, one who was once born one of the sons of men, will take possession of the whole earth. His kingdom will never be overturned. The greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to people of the saints of the Most High.
The prophet having been very accurate in the first nineteen particulars, and in others not noticed, I, for my part, can credit him for the twentieth. He who can see a train of events so plainly as to picture the outlines of twenty-three centuries, can, with the same assistance, see a century further. The Lord will reign; let the earth rejoice. Who will not clap their hands?

SECOND APPLICATION.

If men did not love darkness rather than light, no one would ever have supposed, that for many long centuries prediction and subsequent facts happened to fit each other. We may safely say to these worshippers of chance, “My dear friend, according to the same kind of casualty which you have been naming, God will happen to burn up the world, and it will chance that you will be called before his judgment throne, and there examined severely concerning your present conduct toward a bleeding Saviour.”