heathen Rome find a place in these sacred visions. And thus we are taught that the outward events of political history are no unholy or forbidden ground. They are sanctified by the word of God and by prayer.

On the other hand, these words remind us how subordinate a place worldly changes occupy in the perspective of heaven. The proud landscape of five centuries of Roman greatness, stored in every part with wars and victories, and the gorgeous triumphs of power, is here compressed into two or three verses. The travels of one solitary patriarch, who owned himself a pilgrim on the earth, the sufferings of Joseph or the labours of Ezra, occupy a far larger space in the inspired word. The history of Edom and its dukes is shut up in one chapter of Genesis; while that of Israel and his sons is carried on, like a stream of light, through all the successive books of Holy Scripture. Here we may see the true and divine proportion between the annals of the world and the history of the Church of God. Time is precious, from its connexion with eternity. All outward things, viewed aright, obtain dignity and importance only from their bearing on the great scheme of redemption. One ceremonial law, given to the despised race of Israel four thousand years ago, is thus of equal dignity, and deserves as full a place in the record, as the whole history of heathen Rome. Mere ambition terminates on itself. The triumphs of Rome were transient and perishable: the monuments of her glory have already crumbled into ruin. But every command of God, however trivial its object, partakes of His own eternity. While we gaze upon it, unsuspected and hidden truths are continually revealed to our view. What seemed, at first, trivial and unmeaning, deepens into a message of secret and mysterious wisdom, and becomes a channel of everlasting goodness to the immortal soul.

Seeing then that heathen Rome and its triumphs find place in the sacred volume, we learn that every Christian, as the providence of God may allow, should

meditate freely on all the records of heathen antiquity, and the political events of later times. That Divine foreknowledge and controlling presence of God, which are here revealed, will give a hallowing power even to the historians and orators of Greece or Rome, and to all the spirit-stirring memorials of their departed greatness. But while we meditate on these things, there is a deeper lesson which must be kept in mind. All this vast and magnificent scene of human greatness must be seen in its true light, and own the superior excellence and dignity of the least of God's commandments. One verse of the sacred oracles bounds and circumscribes all these vaunted triumphs of Rome. And when the glory of all the world's kingdoms was gathered by Satan, the arch deceiver, into one dazzling enchantment, one verse of the same oracles could dash to pieces the whole pageant of temptation. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."

The Christian, then, treading in the footsteps of his Lord and Master, is to aim at this high standard of spiritual judgment. He may be alive to the vastness of those mighty interests and stirring scenes which old Rome sets before us. But he must remember that there is a beauty and power in the least sentence of God's word, which outvies the grandeur of the imperial city, though kingdoms and continents were for ages subject to its sway. This true and Divine proportion between things earthly and things heavenly, once established in the soul, will prove a sure fortress against all the temptations of the world. All the fascinating allurements of pleasure, covetousness, and ambition, the lust of the eye and the pride of life, will then fade away before the power of one short sentence, which sums up the hope of the faithful Christian,-" A city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOURTH PROPHETIC EMPIRE.

FIRST STAGE OF DIVISION.

A.D. 323-476.

DAN. II. 41.-" AND WHEREAS THOU SAWEST THE FEET AND TOES, PART OF POTTER'S CLAY, AND PART OF IRON, THE KINGDOM SHALL BE DIVIDED; BUT THERE SHALL BE IN IT OF THE STRENGTH OF THE IRON, FORASMUCH AS THOU SA WEST THE IRON MIXED WITH MIRY CLAY."

THESE words reveal to us a later stage of the fourth empire, in which its unity is broken, and its strength greatly impaired. The course of history, in its natural order, points us at once to the period from Constantine to Augustulus, to which every feature of the description will apply.

This view, which the words suggest of themselves, is confirmed by the judgment of all the early writers. Thus Irenæus, at the close of the second century, speaks of the division as future, and the next event in prospect. 'St. John,' he says, 'in the Apocalypse, has spoken still more plainly of the last time, and of these ten kings, among whom the kingdom that now reigns shall be divided.' Jerome believed the division to have begun in his own day. But its feet and toes are in part iron and in part clay; which is very plainly confirmed at this time. For as in the beginning, nothing was stronger and harder than the Roman Empire, so in the end of things nothing is weaker; since both

in civil wars and against foreign nations we need the help of barbarian tribes.'

6

Sulpicius Severus, about the same time, (A. D. 401.) used similar language. The legs of iron are the fourth kingdom, and by that is meant the Roman, the strongest of all former kingdoms. But the feet, part of iron and part of clay, prefigure that the Roman Empire was to be divided, so that it may never combine into one. Which is equally fulfilled; since now the Roman affairs are administered, not by one emperor but by several, and these always at discord among themselves both in arms and interest. Finally, that the clay and iron, substances that never unite together, are mingled, denotes intermixtures of human race, mutually differing from each other. Since indeed it is clear that the Roman territory is either openly seized by rebellious tribes of barbarians, or surrendered to them by a show of peaceful compact; and we see that barbarous nations, especially Jews, are mingled with our armies, cities, and provinces, and live among us; and yet do not adopt our customs.'

The remarks of Theodoret are similar, though obscured by the Greek version he follows, which reads ' another divided kingdom.'

'He means another, not in race, but in the character of its strength. For if he had meant another in race, he would have called it a fifth, as before he named a third and a fourth. But because he knew the end of the iron kingdom would be weaker, he used the word other in reference to its weakness. For before he called it far the strongest, and such in truth was its beginning. But he affirms that even its last times will not be altogether feeble. The following words especially show that this is not a different kingdom from that of iron, but the same in a state of greater weakness; and part of it strong, and part feeble. Nevertheless the law of marriage will unite the feeble with the strong. For the phrase, they shall be mingled with the seed of men, makes this evident. There will be a certain intermix

ture, he says, and intermarriage of these and those; but still discord will overturn the just claims of kindred; for this will not cleave, he says, to this, even as iron is not mixed with clay.'

'When the iron kingdom is brought into weakness, and has received the intermingling of the clay, then will appear the stone cut out without hands, and will break in pieces the clay, iron, brass, silver, and gold, and will remove them thoroughly, and bestow on them that are worthy an unchanging and eternal, and boundless kingdom.' . . . Since then the former birth of our Lord did not destroy the Roman sovereignty, it remains that we must understand hereby His second appearing. He who is already the stone cut out without hand, in His second coming will smite the image on its feet of clay; that is, He will appear in the very end of the iron kingdom, when it has already become feeble, and will destroy all these sovereignties, and consign them to oblivion, and give unto the worthy His own everlasting kingdom.'

In all these passages the words of the vision are referred to the whole course of events from the fourth century to the future kingdom of Messiah. This interpretation is confirmed by every mark which the prophecy gives to fix its own meaning. The feet of iron and clay are joined in the symbol, without any interval, to the legs of iron, or the undivided Empire of Rome. The divided state also is described at three times greater length than the previous stage of the empire, which accords precisely with the actual proportion of time. And finally, the intermarriages here predicted imply naturally a space of several generations.

But the inquiry may arise, whether the three verses which relate to the division, may not themselves refer to successive periods of time. In so brief a sketch of the whole course of providence, no word or sentence can be inserted without distinct weight and meaning. Now in verses 41, 42, there is a clear gradation. The