The Little Horn’s Territorial Acquisitions
Fifth mark. The territorial acquisitions of this power. Here is something marvelous! Three of the first horns (says Daniel, verse 8) were plucked up before the little horn! and these horns, John represents to us as each wearing a crown. Take now a map of Italy; look for the popes domains, and find how many of the ten kingdoms the pontifical territory now occupies. You will see that it has supplanted three, the Heruli, the Ostrogoths and the Lombards. And if you will then go to Rome, and see him there this very year, upon the banks of the Tiber, in his pontifical robes, trample upon the ashes of Romulus, or see him in the Church of St. Peter, or in his palace in the Vatican; you will see him bearing upon his Babylonish tiara (for he is the only king on the globe who places upon his head this prophetic covering)—you will see him, I say, bearing upon his Babylonish tiara three crowns of horns plucked up before him, the crowns of Odoacer, Theodoric and Alboin. Find me on earth another prince who covers his head with three crowns! And this prince is a priest-king; this prince is in Rome; this prince has grown great as a horn grows; this prince began about the sixth or seventh century; this prince still exists! It is written: “Three of the first horns were plucked up before it;” and “He shall subdue three kings!” Sixth mark. The extraordinary sagacity, consummate skill, incomparable policy, constant vigilance of this power. How admirably is this mark portrayed in the symbols of the vision! Whence, according to Daniel, the great power exercised by the little horn, to rule the whole Roman Catholic empire and to agitate the world for so many, many ages, since it comes after the other ten, and is also the least? Listen: it had eyes, Daniel tells us, like the eyes of a man! Its eyes, there is the secret of its power! A horn having eyes! strange conception truly, but admirable when we take the meaning! For 1200 years, what has given Rome her power, is that extraordinary sagacity, that worldly policy, of which the eye is emblematical; that vigilance which she exercises over every part of the earth by her religious orders, by her Jesuits, her apostolical prelates, and especially by her confessionals; it is that penetrating eye always open, and which never sleeps; it is that consummate knowledge which it has of human weaknesses, and of which the confessional has been the great school for 800 years; it is its tricks and profound subtleties, “those depths of Satan, as they speak,” says John. (Rev. 2:24) Seventh mark. Its deceivableness, its falsehoods and lying wonders. This is a striking mark, and without a parallel in history. I would have referred it to the preceding; but Paul has so well described it in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, when he says, of “the Man of sin” that “his coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:9, 10), that I thought I should give it a distinct place. To this head we must refer the false legends, false books, false relics, the wonder-working medals, false cures, and more especially the false decretals, that surprising falsehood, which has never had its like in the world for hardihood and success; for these false decretals deceived all Europe for 500 years, and availed alone to the success of the monstrous usurpations of the popes. Eighth mark. Its more than royal pomp. Daniel tells us (verse 20) that although this horn was “the least,” “his look was more stout than his fellows.” The pomp of Charlemagne, Charles V., Louis XIV., and Bonaparte were very great; but was it comparable to that of the Roman pontiff? The greatest kings must hold his stirrup, serve him at table (what do I say?), must prostrate themselves before him, and kiss his feet; or even put their necks under his proud foot! Go yet this year to view him in the Vatican, as I myself have done. You will see hanging in the “royal hall” where all the ambassadors of Europe pass, a picture representing the great Emperor Henry IV., uncovered before Gregory VII. You will see in another picture, the heroic and powerful Emperor Frederick Barbarossa upon his knees and elbows, before Pope Alexander III., in the public square of Venice; the foot of the pope rests on his shoulder; his sceptre cast to the ground; and under the picture, these words: “Frederick, a supplicant, adores, promising faith and obedience!” You must see with your own eyes this priest-king in his palaces and temples, to form an idea of his pomp, and to understand the full meaning of these words of Daniel: His look was more stout than his fellows. What eastern king was ever borne like him upon men’s shoulders, decked with the plumes of the peacock? Incense is burnt before him as before an idol; they kneel on both knees before him; they kiss the soles of his feet; they worship him! Venite adoremus! (Come let us adore) exclaim the cardinals when they go to him. The present pope caused to be sold in Rome, this year, among the numerous medals which the pontiffs have successively struck, to perpetuate in brass the exploits of their history, a medal which I had a few days ago in my hands, and where you read these words above the portrait of Adrian VI., crowned by his cardinals; “Quem creant, adorant.” (Whom they create, they adore). How often when viewing him with my eyes amidst his pomps, has this oracle of the Holy Spirit sounded in my ears: He, as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Ninth mark. Its LANGUAGE, his great swelling words. The little horn had a mouth (says Daniel), and this mouth spake very great things. It would seem that nothing in the vision struck more forcibly the prophet than the violence, the pride and malignity of this language. He expresses more than once his astonishment at it. Verse 11: “I beheld, then, because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake. . . . . I would know the truth (he adds, verses 19, 20,) touching this mouth that spake very great things.” Surely, gentlemen, this mark alone would be sufficient to designate the pontiff of Rome. Let the most superficial scholar in history in one of our schools, be asked to search in the whole course of the 900 years of the dark ages, and the 400 years of the modern history, for the power which has increasingly filled the world with the noise of his great swelling words, words of threatening, words of pride, words of command, words of cursing, and also words of fire, sending the nations obedient to him on remote expeditions and exterminating wars? Is there a scholar who does not at once reply: It is the pope; it can only be the pope? In this respect the pope is without his like in history. For 1,200 years the world has resounded with his great swelling words; words of threatening and anathema; he himself calls them “thunderbolts.” Gregory XVI., now reigning, speaking in his book “of the triumphs of the church,” borrows the language of Jupiter and says that he fulminates words of command and of violence; he opposes kings, he condemns them, he deposes them; words of hatred and murder; for two centuries he overturned in Asia, by the crusades, all the Western nations; he destroyed afterwards the Christian empire of the Greeks; he effected them, during 27 years, by crusades of Christians against Christians, the extermination of the south of France; words of pride; all historians, Christian or infidel alike, tell you that, for great words, the pontiff never had his equal on earth. How much reason had not Daniel than to say, “I considered because of the voice of the great words which this horn uttered? Tenth mark. The duration of this language. According to Daniel it must last till the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, and you see gentlemen, it lasts still! Who could have believed beforehand, that in Europe, after so much civilization, after the blessed Reformation, after twelve hundred years of scandals, a priest-king in Rome could continue with impunity such language among the nations. God is great!