An Unnatural Kingdom; the Little Horn of Chapter 7
By Editor
In our last issue we considered the four beasts and their meaning, and learned that they represented the four great universal empires symbolized by the metals in the great image of chapter 2, as follows: Babylon was represented by the lion with eagle's wings, Medo-Persia by the bear, Grecia by the leopard, and Rome by the nondescript, terrible beast, which combined in itself all the characteristics of those which went before. And the ten horns upon its head, which we noted last week, symbolized as follows: the Alemanni, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Suevi, the Vandals, the Visigoths, the Saxons, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, and the Heruli, developing in the Roman kingdom between the years 351 and 476.
It will be remembered that the little horn was to rise up among these, and that we noted, as set forth in the prophecy, thirteen different specifications, as follows:
1. The little horn was to arise among the ten horns (verse 8).
2. It was to be little at first, developing afterward (verse 8).
3. In order that it might be established, three of the first horns were to be plucked up before it (verse 8).
4. It had eyes like the eyes of a man, indicating wisdom and foresight (verses 8, 20).
5. It had a mouth which uttered not the noise of a beast, but great boasting, such as could only be uttered by a being above a beast (verses 8, 11, 25).
6. It was a different power and character from those around it—diverse (verse 24).
7. It became strong, so that its look was more stout than that of its fellows (verse 20).
8. The horn, or the power symbolized by it, made war upon the saints, or people, of God (verse 21).
9. It was to prevail against the people of God until the Lord should come and take judgment to Himself (verses 21, 22).
10. It should presume, or think, to change the times and the law of God (verse 25).
11. It should continue for a time, and times, and half a time, or three and a half years of prophetic time (verse 25).
12. It would lose its temporary dominion as a horn, or civil power (verse 26).
13. Its greatest words would be uttered in the very closing part of its career (verse 11).
Here are thirteen definite, specific characteristics given of the power symbolized by this little horn. In the very nature of the case, and according to the law of probabilities, it would be almost impossible to find all these specifications in any two powers. Some of these might apply to several powers, but only one power can be found to which they all applied.
To what do they apply? We believe that there is one power in which they are all met — one of the greatest religious powers in the world to-day. But we wish to say, before we present these specifications as applying to that power, that we do so with regret personally, and that we would not present this article at all, did we not feel it to be duty to our readers, and to God. We wish also to say that we dissociate the system, or power presented from those who are connected with it. We understand that the symbol refers to a power, or system, or government, that it is the evil principles of that system which the prophecy itself sets forth. Of course those who endorse and absorb evil principles become themselves like the principles which they hold, but many times they do this unconsciously to themselves; they feel these principles to be truth, and they may be just as devoted and sincere in this belief as he who holds to true principles. But we would not be true to the divine Word, true to the souls of men, true to those who may agree with us, or who may be opposed to us, did we not state what we believe to be the application of this great prophecy.
1. The little horn arose among the ten horns. The power represented must come up among the ten divisions of Western Rome. What power differing in character from the civil divisions of Rome rose to a position of prominence in Western Rome in the fourth century? There was but one, the Papacy, centering in the bishop's see at Rome. Primarily there was no pre-eminence of one bishop over another in the early church. "One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren," were the words of our Lord. But at an early date the bishops of Rome began to put forth great claims for the see at Rome. Rome being the political capital of the empire, and the church becoming more or less political, it was demanded that the bishops of Rome should have the pre-eminence. This increased the influence of the church not only religiously, but more and more politically. This was the horn, or the power, that the prophet saw coming up among the ten.
2. It was a LITTLE horn; and so the Papacy was little at first, in the eyes of man. It did not look as tho it would amount to any great thing. Other bishops were as great and learned; other bishops made claims, like those of Alexandria and Constantinople. Its claim to authority was not thought to be serious. Other bishops considered their own sees as important and as influential as did the bishop of Rome. In its organized form, the Papacy was at first a little power, but its assumptions grew apace, and men yielded to its assumptions, and the little power became strong and great. The claims of the others dwindled. Some have passed away into oblivion. Others exist with more or less of influence. But chief and high above them all has been the Roman power.
3. THREE HORNS WERE PLUCKED UP before this little horn. During the years of these powers, when only ten existed, there was developed the great controversy between Arianism and Trinitarianism. In brief, the bishop of Rome stood on the Trinitarian side of the controversy, waging relentless war against Arius and his followers. In the finality of the conflict three of the ten kingdoms,—the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths,—fell. The last of the ten kingdoms was established in A.D. 476. The first of the three, the Vandals, was plucked up in A.D. 493. Thus, from 476 to 493 there were just ten kingdoms in Western Rome. The last of the three was plucked up in A.D. 538. In 533, Justinian, the emperor of Rome, made a decree that the bishop of Rome should be "head over all the churches," and "true and only corrector of heretics;" but that decree could not be said to be carried out as long as the Arian Ostrogoths dominated Rome; but the great, crushing blow was bestowed upon them in 538. They seemed to recover after this for a little time, but that was the crushing blow. Three powers fell before the rising ecclesiastico-civil power of Rome.
4. The little horn had EYES LIKE the eyes of a MAN. It is a strange thing to see on a beast a horn with eyes at all. But if it possessed eyes, we would expect to see the eyes of the beast which bore the horn. But this horn of a beast had eyes not of a beast, seeing only what is near, manifesting only the thoughts of the present; but the eyes of a man,—far-sighted, planning, devising, cunning eyes, that see the future, indicative of the mind behind that thinks and plans and schemes. How true is this of the Papacy as compared with the kingdoms of earth! Like blind beasts, they have seen mostly only what is present and near. They have planned for the present, lived for the present. Present power, present glory, present prestige have been the rule, and the future has often been sacrificed for the present. Not so with the Papacy; she has planned for generations ahead. Pain, toil, sacrifice have been taught her children, that she might enlarge, expand, and be established. Thus has her diplomacy, measured by years, been more than a match for all Europe.
5. Great words have been spoken. The little horn was to utter great things. In the great claim which the Papacy has made, as the one sole authority in all religious matters, above conscience and the Bible, in its right to dethrone and set up kings and rulers, and to absolve their subjects from obedience, in the titles assumed for the bishop of Rome, as, for instance, "Lord God the Pope," "Vicar of Jesus Christ," "Arbiter of the World," "The Light of the World," etc., etc., it has surely spoken great words, and great words against the Most High, in assuming prerogatives and authority which belong only to God, and which our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not even assume. It does not argue against the fulfilment of the prophecy to say that all this has been professedly in the service of Christ. That has ever been the claim of apostasy.
6. The little-horned power was to be DIVERSE in character from the kingdoms among which it rose. The ten kingdoms were civil governments. The State was at the head, if religion was connected with it. The true idea of government, the Christian idea, is that civil government has no right to meddle in the things of religion. The duty of the State is to protect all its subjects equally, without respect to religion. It is to prevent, as far as possible, incivility to all, irrespective of creed. Many nations of the past had departed from this—all, practically—but still the State had been kept paramount; the religion was subject. The true government never asks the religion of its subject. It does not protect the man because he is a Catholic, or a Protestant, or a Jew, or an infidel; it protects him because he is a man. It does not legislate, or decree, regarding the belief, or religion, of the man, but regarding the man and his personal conduct in his relation to the State and his fellows. But when the Papacy came in, a different theory was taught. The Church must be dominant, the State subject. The Church should define heresy and its punishment, the State should execute it at the behest of the Church.
This great apostasy is set before us in the prophetic word in three phases:
First, as the apostate church, the large part of which is Roman Catholic, but in which are many honest, earnest, self-sacrificing souls, longing for light and living according to their best knowledge. This apostate church, beginning in organized form (decidedly so in the days of Constantine), exists to the end as an ecclesiastical organization. As such alone she has no power to persecute. She may ex-communicate, accept or reject, but she can bring no corporal penalties upon those who refuse to obey her mandates.
Second, in the form of the Papacy, to which is granted the power by the State to define heresy and its punishment, the State placing itself at the disposal of the ecclesiastical power to execute the sentence of the church. This phase of the Papacy acknowledged by the civil powers, especially developed between the years 533 and 538, and came to an end between the years 1793 and 1798, existing for a period of 1,260 years.7Third, the Papacy has also been brought before us as a civil kingdom limited to the "States of the Church," beginning in the middle of the eighth century and terminating in 1870. This is the "temporal power."
These three phases are set before us in the little diagram annexed. All these are contrary to and subversive of the Gospel of Christ. The last two phases are presented in this chapter.
7. The little horn was to become strong, so that its look was more stout than its fellows. At first it was a suppliant for power, for prestige, for favors, but it came to an end. The Chaldee word "rab," translated "stout," is rendered "chief," "captain," "great," "lord," "master." The look of the Papacy, or its representative, became more masterful than that of his fellows. The Papacy became chief. Our Lord said, "I am among you as he that serveth;" the Papacy became as the one that ruled.
8. It made war. Logically, it could not do otherwise, and be true to the system, true to its principles. Jesus our Lord said, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." John 12: 47. When the ardent disciples John and James saw their Master slighted, they said, "Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?" Jesus replied, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." But the Papacy has assumed to be judge, or arbiter. It defines the faith, without regard to conscience. It steps between the individual soul and its God, to whom each one must give an account. It separates the child from its Father; it places between the human subject and the divine-human Redeemer, who invites all to "come unto Me," a cordon of ecclesiastical police, to whose rigid discipline the soul must submit before it can accept the invitation of its Redeemer. Assuming all this, it must, to maintain its dignity and power, punish infractions of its law. It logically argues, from false premises always, that the very honor of God's throne demands that heretics, those who dare disobey the Papacy's interpretation of God's will, should be punished with death, if need be; and therefore the very logic of the system itself is that war must be made, and that, too, with the saints. Jesus had before told His disciples that there would come a time when they would be put out of their synagogs, and that whosoever killed them would think that he did God service (John 16: 1-3); and the Papacy made the prediction true. God's children are free souls, who receive their law not in the cold, dead creeds of men, but in living words of truth from heaven. Of course, they have not been able, through the ages past, to yield their life to an organization that had departed from the Fount of Life, and therefore they were by that organization (the Papacy) adjudged heretics. The little horn made war with the saints.
9. It not only made war, but PREVAILED against God's people. It put to death, in mistaken zeal, countless thousands of "the whitest of the saints of God." We do not know how many. We would not say, as has been said by some Protestants, that forty million or fifty million were put to death; we do not know. We freely admit that so-called Protestants have put to death, also, those condemned by their creed, but in this they were not following the principles of Protestantism, or Christianity. They were but following the principles of the Papacy in another form. Pre-eminently the Papacy has led out in this; pre-eminently it is her principles which have put the children of God to death whenever those principles were operative through civil power, and she will thus continue to make war, so far as power is given her, until the Master comes again.
10. The little horn should think to change times and laws—not that it should be able to do this, but it would think itself able. It would assume to do this. The Septuagint reads, "the law;" the Revised Version reads, "the times and the law;" Spurrell's rendering, "the appointed times and the law." Rotherham renders it, "to change times and law" (singular). It is not a strange thing that any power of earth should think to change times and laws of earth; this has always been done at will by earthly powers. But here is a power that shall think to change—"think himself able to change," as the Douay Version has it. "The appointed times and the law" "point to the times of God's appointment and the law of His giving." The first period of God's appointment is the day, and the second period is the week; and it is the day and the week that mark holy time. The septenary cycle of seven days marks God's first sacred period, and the seventh day of that period He declares over and over again is the Sabbath of the Lord our God, to be kept "holy unto the Lord," made holy by Him. But the Papacy has substituted for the seventh-day Sabbath of the Decalogue the first day of the week, a day which has absolutely no claim to Scriptural authority. We do not need to argue this, nor do we need to give evidence for it in this brief statement of these specifications. The prophecy demands it, and the Papacy not only acknowledges it, but claims the right to do it, in fact, sets forth the change which she has made in God's law as an evidence of her power, and Protestant adherence to that change as an acknowledgment of her power.
11. The little horn was to continue for three and a half prophetic years, or times. A "time" is a year (see Dan. 11: 13, margin). "Times," dual (the least number that can be expressed by the plural), is two years. The total is three and a half years, or forty-two months—1,260 days. So is this period given again and again in the Revelation. As God used short-lived beasts to represent long-existing dynasties, so He uses brief periods of time to represent longer periods. A day in prophecy symbolizes a year (see Eze. 4: 4-6; Num. 14: 34). The 1,260 days of the prophecy represent 1,260 literal years, and as before stated, this period began in the development of the Papacy, A.D. 533 to 538, and ended in the destruction of that power to define and punish heresy, in 1793 to 1798. During that period the Papacy became the head of Christendom, and was generally recognized by the States of Europe. In 1798 these days expired. The corruptions of the Papacy in the light of the Gospel took from Europe the power of the pope; its final blow as corrector of heretics, as the acknowledged head of the church, came when the army of the French directory under Berthier entered the "eternal city," and took the pope prisoner in February, 1798. The dominancy of the Papacy then received a deadly blow. The ecclesiastical organization of the Roman Church was not affected. Nor did its own dominion over its own territory here come to an end. The deadly wound and its healing are more fully set forth in the Revelation. Daniel sees the whole career of the little horn as a persecutor until the coming of the Ancient of Days. He notes the pre-eminent power for 1,260 years, but he does not mention the restoration which makes it a persecutor to the end, as indicated in verse 21. This is reserved for John on the Isle of Patmos.
12. The little horn was to lose its own dominion as a civil power. "The judgment shall sit," the prophet declares, "and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end"—not the end of the world, or age, but the end of the dominion, the last of it. So the original word means the last, or "the hinder part," of anything. Her dread judgment prior to Christ's coming is presented before us in verses 9 to 14. That judgment, in connection with the closing of Christ's priestly work, began—as stated in our article of last week, but treated more fully later on—in 1844. Immediately after this is the removal of the dominion of the little horn. "They" evidently refers to the other horned powers. Note its consumption: In 1844 the "States of the Church" covered an area of 16,000 square miles, with a population of three millions. Four years afterward the revolution of France and Northern Italy broke out. In 1849 the States of the Church revolted, but through France were brought to submission. Peace reigned to 1859. In that year Romagna revolted, and was annexed to Sardinia in 1860. The same year the provinces of Umbria and Marches revolted, and placed themselves under the standard of Victor Emmanuel. These were annexed to Sardinia. Thus from 1848 to 1860 the consuming process had reduced the Papal States from 16,000 square miles to four and a half thousand, and from 3,000,000 population to 700,000. In 1870 the last vestige of temporal power was swept away. The end of his dominion as a horn had come.
13. Verse 11 of the prophecy indicates that the greatest words, the greatest assumptions, of the little horn would come near the end of all earthly dominion, close down to the execution of God's judgments. We have seen a partial fulfilment, in the utterance of the dogma of the immaculate conception of 1854, and of infallibility in 1870. Doubtless the world will listen to still greater words. They will be the logical result of the system, the perverted gospel of the Papacy.
The foregoing is indeed a brief setting forth of these specifications, but we believe they will appeal to the reader. Each one of them is worthy of a chapter; we have presented them all in one article. But every one of them is met in the Papacy; they are met in no other power. God has warned us in His Word of this evil system. He has portrayed its career and its end. Great tho it has been, mighty above all the kingdoms of earth, daring even to substitute its law for that of Jehovah, before that mighty truth of God, "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men," it fails, and fails forever. Not knowing God, it has blasphemed His name, usurped His throne, persecuted His people. It has seemed to triumph, and those who walk by sight and are guided by sense have yielded to its kingdom of outward pomp and show. If they continue with it they will reap its fruitage. But those who as free men have dared to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, who have dared be non-conformists, who have dared ex-communication, proscription, anathema, exceration, banishment, torture, death, are in God's books held in remembrance by Him; and when it has been demonstrated to the world, and to worlds, what the fruit of exalting man to the place of God is, then the Lord will come and save those who have acknowledged His rule in their own hearts. There that rule must begin; and then, when earth's struggle is over, "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 dominions shall serve and obey Him."
It is our prayer that at that time every true, devoted soul, by whatsoever name he may be called, may have learned to know God, and be found among His loyal children.
