(See page 14 for Sabbath-School Lesson and Text.) THAT the four beasts of Daniel 7 refer to the same four great empires symbolized by the four parts of the image of Daniel 2 is evident to every student of the prophecy. The lion with eagle’s wings is a symbol of Babylon. Jer. 4:7, 13; 48:40; Heb. 1:8. The bear is a symbol of the power which succeeded Babylon, Medo-Persia. Grecia is represented by the leopard; and the great and terrible beast, which combined the cruelty and ferocity of all, represents Rome. In Daniel 2 these empires were presented before the king of Babylon as the kingdom of man, composed of men. To the prophet of God they were represented according to their characters as cruel beasts, caring only for themselves, willing to ravage and spoil others. Medo-Persia succeeded to Babylon in B.C. 538; Grecia to Medo-Persia in B.C. 331; Rome to Grecia in B.C. 161, when Macedonia was conquered. Seven years later Rome came into connection with the people and work of God by a league with the Jews. The ten horns on the fourth beast symbolize the ten divisions into which the Roman Empire was divided between the years A.D. 351 and 476. Dan. 7:24. These kingdoms were as follows in the order of their rise and separate existence as States; Alamanni, Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Suevi, Visigoths, Saxons, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Heruli. From the rise of the last kingdom—A.D. 476, the Heruli—to the plucking up of that kingdom in 493, a period of seventeen years, there were just ten kingdoms and no more in Roman territory. Right at this very time Daniel saw another horn, a different one, coming up among the ten with decided and peculiar characteristics of its own, which increased in power till it dominated the others, and wielded the power of the beast that carried it to its own sinister purposes and its own utter destruction. What power does it represent? We will be better able to answer this question if we will carefully note the specification of its rise, its character, its duration:— (1) The little horn represents a power to rise in a ten-divided empire. Verse 8. (2) It represents a power, before which three kingdoms would fall in its establishment. Verses 8, 20, 24. (3) It represents a power that would manifest marked strength and assumption. Verse 20. (4) It represents a power of a “diverse” or different nature. Verse 24. (5) It represents a shrewd and far-seeing power. Verses 8, 20. (6) It represents a blasphemous power. Verses 11, 20, 25. (7) It represents a persecuting power. Verses 20, 21, 25. (8) It symbolizes a power which would assume to change the times and the law of God. Verse 25. (9) It symbolizes a power whose domination over its fellows would continue a definite time. Verse 25. (10) It symbolizes a power whose kingly rule would be taken away. Verse 26. (11) It symbolizes a power, which, notwithstanding the loss of temporal dominion, would be a persecutor and blasphemer till Christ’s coming. Verses 21, 22, 11. Surely these specifications are definite and particular.7Search the whole range of history, and it would be impossible to find two powers to which they could apply. The chances are as one to one hundred. Kingdoms can be found in plenty to which one of these apply, and sometimes more, but only one to which all apply. In making this application, which facts force us to make, we wish to say that we do it with naught of malice or ill-feeling toward a single soul connected with the power or system herein symbolized, from its ever world-renowned head to its humblest devotee. “We deal with principles not with men.” We willingly concede the honesty of heart and sincerity of purpose of those who form its rank and file. They are all the purchase of the blood of Christ. But we believe that they are greatly deceived and under a spiritual bondage from which millions have vainly put forth human effort to be free. Yet we would not for one moment force a single soul of them all to relinquish his belief in or adherence to the great false system. That is a matter of his own conscience, a right God-given; a right on our part to refuse as his to choose, with which no human tribunal has the right to interfere, of which the sole arbiter is God. But the Master has put upon His servants the duty to proclaim His Word, the warnings of the light of prophecy as well as the duty of precept and the privilege of promise. To fulfil this duty, to warn souls within this system and without, is the object of this writing. We entreat our readers, Jews and Gentiles, Romanist and Protestant, believer and infidel, to hear and read patiently and candidly, and so do as the Master directs. It may be to you, reader, a matter of eternal import. In God’s “more sure word of prophecy” is the light of life which we ignore at our peril. 2 Peter 1:17. In the light of these considerations let us study more fully the specifications of the prophecy as applied to the only power in which alone all can find application, the great system of apostasy commonly called the Papacy. Note the specifications above, which we will consider here in the same order:— 1. The Papacy—beginning its career in the Christian church even in apostolic times and immediately subsequent (2 Thess. 2:3–7; Acts 20:29, 30)—finally centered in the bishopric of Rome, the incumbents of which assumed to be the head of the church even as the Roman officials were the head of the State, forgetting the words of Christ, “One is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” This assumption was strenuously disputed for a long time, especially by the African and Eastern churches. But when Constantine threw his tremendous influence in favor of the unholy assumption, and politics came to rule in the church instead of the principles of living truth, the assumption grew amazingly; and a backslidden Christianity, reverting to its Paganism, and longing for a visible head, accepted the claim and demand of the See of Rome as gospel truth. There were opponents, however, chief among them the Arians, who could not accept the mystical, unscriptural doctrine of the Trinity. When Justinian came to the throne of the empire, he set the seal upon the claim of the Roman See by declaring the incumbent of that see to be “universal bishop and head of all the churches of the east and west,” and further ordained that “all matters, relative to the church should be referred to Rome.” This was in A.D. 533. Justinian calls him, “the Head of all the holy churches,” and the “Head of all bishops, and the true and effective corrector of heretics.” To “correct” heretics in the meaning of Justinian’s words demands control of civil power, and this was granted. The See of Rome determined heresy, and the State executed her decrees. The Papacy was becoming the chief power to be reckoned with. 2. But not at all at once did victory come. Some of the ten kingdoms opposed the assumptions of the Roman bishop. As a result three were plucked up, the Vandals, the Huns, and the Ostrogoths, the latter in A.D. 538, five years after Justinian’s decree. 3. “Whose look was more stout than his fellows.” Dan. 7:20. The Papacy has been a strong power. Empires and kingdoms have arisen which would seemingly conquer the world, some of which have opposed the Papacy; but they have fallen. But the Papacy continues. It has been more stout than its fellows. It has been built broad and well buttressed in the very elements of earthliness, having a hold on human nature that other powers know not. 4. “He shall be diverse.” Verse 24. The Papacy differs from all the other powers. Surrounding kingdoms were all civil powers. The Papacy was both civil and religious. It was primarily the latter; but when the church wandered from Christ, when she crowded Christ out of His own temple, her body, and let the world in, connection with worldly power came in also, and increased in proportion to her backsliding. The Roman Catholic Church at first was purely ecclesiastical. Her ecclesiastical power will continue to her utter end. When the Bishop of Rome was elevated as head of all the churches and corrector of heretics, the Papacy became established by law in that very thing, and there began her spiritual domination over the nations. In the year A.D. 756 she was given civil power over the States of the Church by Pepin of France. Here was power and authority as an ecclesiastical body within herself; spiritual domination over the nations by their consent, and temporal power in her own territory. Surely it was a “diverse” power. 5. The little horn not only had eyes, but “eyes like the eyes of a man.” Dan. 7:8, 20. The other horns were blind, not having even the eyes of the beast that bore them. So with the kingdoms of earth. They think largely of the present, live for the present, plan for the present, and perish in the present. But the Papacy has looked to future glory and success. The sacrifice of the present has been freely made, for a better future, even tho that future is a hundred years away. Civil powers, like brute beasts, live for the present. The Papacy plans for years and centuries, wiser than all contemporaries. 6. “A mouth that spake great things.” Verse 8, 20, 25. The Papacy is a blasphemous power in arrogating to itself powers, offices, positions, and titles which belong only to the great God. Creative power is claimed in the transmutation of bread and wine to flesh and blood. Power is also claimed to forgive sin and pronounce judicial sentence, and last of all is the heaven-daring claim of papal infallibility in 1870. Verse 11. 7. “Shall wear out the saints of the Most High.” Verse 25. It has been pre-eminently a persecuting power; with its formation it could not be otherwise. A religion united with the State, if it have the power, will always be a persecutor. The very fact of uniting with the State reveals the loss of the power of God. And when the power of God is lost, the apostate church will turn to the only power she knows to establish her human creed, the power of the State. And that will result in persecution, as it has with the Papacy, till countless thousands number her victims of the Dark Ages. 8. The Papacy has thought to “change the times and the law” of God, or that part of God’s moral law which relates to time. She has changed the day from a sunset beginning, a natural matter, to a midnight beginning, a wholly artificial matter. The great apostasy has changed the day of worship in the church from the Sabbath of the Lord our God, the seventh day, to the Sunday, the first day of the week, for which there is no Scripture authority. Of this the Papacy boasts, and sets forth her work in this respect as the mark of her power. 9. The spiritual domination of the Papacy continued a definite period, “a time and times and the dividing of a time,” three and one-half years; this at 360 days to the year (Bible time), would be 1,260 days. See also Rev. 12:6, 14; 13:5. A day in prophetic time symbolizes a year. Num. 14:34; Eze. 4:4, 6. The 1,260 years began with the year that the Justinian decree became effective in 538, and continued till 1798, when Berthier, a French general took the pope prisoner. The head of the Roman See died in captivity two years later. 10. While the spiritual dominion of the Papacy over the nations by their consent was broken in 1798, Rome’s temporal power over her own territory (the States of the Church) continued till 1870, when after repeated losses to the various surrounding powers, the last vestige of her kingdom was swept away by Victor Emmanuel. 11. The prophecy indicates that the Papacy will again be a persecutor; for it is to make war against the saints till Christ comes in the clouds of heaven. Dan. 7:21, 22; 2 Cor. 5:10. The “deadly wound” will be healed as the Lord declares. Rev. 13:3. The nations will again say to the See of Rome, “Come thou and be our spiritual adviser, our queen.” And she will say as declares the prophet, “I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” But beyond all this is the glorious kingdom of God. “And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all nations shall serve and obey him.” Dan. 7:27. Every kingdom of men has had its slaves, its subjects, and its devotees; and they have all perished. No king could give his subjects life, or assure their peace or happiness. Even the “diverse” kingdom, the head of which claims to hold the keys to the favor of God, has filled the earth with bloodshed and strife in the name of the Prince of Peace. Christ’s kingdom will be one of eternal peace and progress. He who admits Christ into his life—His law, His life—has the kingdom of Christ enthroned within. And all such will possess the eternal kingdom. The practical question is, Shall we become subjects of the kingdoms which perish? or shall we be warned in time, and enter the kingdom which shall never perish.