• ЕХРЕСТED CHRISTIAN MILLENNIUM. 221 it appears to be healed: but it is but merely skimmed over, and a dreadful cicatrice remains." But there will surely come a time, probably several years this side the Millennium, when this beast must be not only shaken, but utterly destroyed at the place where he now has his seat and throne in Italy. See Daniel 7, 11. 1 beheld because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake : I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body given to the burning flame. This statement of Daniel is wonderfully corroborated by St. John. See Rev. 18,8. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her, i. e. the little horn, seen by Daniel among the ten, or the woman sitting on many waters, seen by St. John; for it is both one-the papal power. But when Italy, the seat of this beast, shall come to be thus destroyed, and suddenly sunk into the sea, other Catholic countries will not so much lay it to heart, as immediately to repent, but will consider it only one of those convulsions in nature, to which the earth is always subject, and consequently will remain in their ignorance and bigotry, mourning over the sad fate of the seat of the beast; for who but its friends will mourn over the destruction of the great engine of the devil to persecute the saints. St. John, by the spirit of prophecy, has minutely pointed out this circumstance, where he represents those who survive the destruction of Italy, as saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with T* gold, and precious stones, and pearls: for in one hour so great riches is come to nought. Chap. 18, 16, 17. From these circumstances, it appears that the church of God will continue under the power of this same papal horn, in some sense more or less, till the final destruction of all kinds of sinners takes place, as before argued, just before the resurrection of the righteous dead, which circumstance shall be the great door of entrance into the Millennial state. To this view agrees the fact of history, concerning the time when the saints were first given into the hands of that mighty horn, the papal power. It is well known, that all along from the martyrdom of Stephen, whom Saul of Tarsus, afterwards St. Paul, aided in putting to death, there was, till the time of Constantine, a continued persecution of the Christians, except a little space after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the Roman emperor. This persecution was carried on by Jews, mostly, till they were disabled to do so by the Romans; but thereafter by the Roman pagan powers, which at that time involved the world nearly in their sway. The blood of Christians flowed freely, beginning with Stephen the first martyr, which, like a small spring commencing a river, but in its progress enlarges as it passes through various regions of country, receiving tributary streams and springs till it becomes immense: so the blood of Christian martyrs accumulated in depth and in width, as the course of time carried them along succeeding ages, till great and horrible was the river of blood shed in support of the sacred cause. But when, by the immediate and supernatural interposition of a wise providence, Constantine became changed from a supporter of the old heathen dragon worship to a supporter of the Christian, a stop to the effusion of Christian blood was immediately effected.! It is well known that the emperor Constantine was. changed in his views of the Christian cause, by the appearance of a bright and luminous cross in the sky, a little after noon day, with an inscription on it in the Greek language, BY THIS CONQUER. See Clark on Dan. who has quoted this fact from Euseb. De Vit. Const. lib. 1, chap. 28, and states that it was done while that emperor was in Gaul, A. D. 312, and that the prediction of the cross in the skies was fulfilled A. D. 331, when he terminated the reign of idolatry by an edict ordering the destruction of all heathen temples, when Christianity became the religion of his whole empire. But very soon thereafter, the grand though fatal design of fixing Christianity on a more permanent basis was conceived, which was to have its support recognized in the constitution of the laws of the empire, instead of its being supported by the simple yet best of means, the conversion of sinners to God from the error of their ways. But this seed of ecclesiastical power having thus been planted, it soon vegetated beneath the hot beams of the rising sun of riches, power, and earthly glory in prospect, which soon began to appear quite above the horizon, and to glitter gloriously in the view of the church in those days. Hence the holy zeal which formerly, like a robe, covered the ecclesiastics of the Christian church, became paralyzed by the strong desire of clerical empire and jurisdiction; the genius of which easily invented the imposing title of Universal Bishop. Hence the age of strife, to climb up to this seat, commenced, and it was not long ere it grew to a throne; from whence the appalling thunders of those pigmy gods rolled to distant nations their supreme commands, as from the throne of the Highest. As early as the year A. D. 606, we find an account of a third universal bishop, viz. Boniface. This, then, is the apostacy spoken of by St. Paul, the man of sin which he foretold. This is the beast which St. John saw rise up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his head the name of blasphemy. Is not this the beast to whom the dragon gave his power, and his seat, and great authority ? Is not this the horn which Daniel saw arise, who had a look more stout that his fellows? This look of his, which was more stout than his fellows, signified that he would not only lay hold on the secular concerns of empires, but also extend his pretended power even to the invisible world, and controul the destinies of departed spirits. This no mortal power before him pretended to do. Into the hands of this monster, was the saints delivered for a time, times and a half time, or 1260 natural years. The prediction of Daniel states, that he was to arise from among ten other horns. These horns were formed out of the old Roman empire, by the incursions of the northern nations. "The first of those kingdoms (says Mr. Faber) which was the Huns, arose A. D. 356, and the last of them, that of the Lombards, in the north of Germany A. D. 483, and about the year 526 in Hungary." This little horn, therefore, came up as it were by stealth among these ten kingdoms, but it consisted entirely of a spiritual nature, or at least professedly such, though secretly aiming at what he finally accomplished, viz. the supreme control of all those ten kingdoms, in both secular and spiritual affairs. Here, then, was accomplished in this fact, the prophecy of the Revelator, that the dragon should give to this beast his seat, and great authority. The dragon signifies the old pagan worship of idols, his seat, and great authority, his universal sway, and claim of adoration: So this last beast came at length to be adored as a god among the nations, and is the same who is to continue forty and two months-(See Rev. 13, 5)-which forty and two months amount, in the prophetic calculation, to 1260 years; from which it is clear, that the saints are not to be wholly freed from his power till he is destroyed, for he is to continue but the forty and two months, therefore his power over them shall cease when he ceases to exist, and not before. The time, therefore, when the saints were given into his hands, was also the time when he began to exist in that peculiar character, in which Daniel and the Revelator contemplated him. Those times in which he was foreseen as a little horn, was while he exercised only in the spiritual concerns of the church, after he began his antichristian practices, by substituting, for the truths of the Scriptures, the wild fancies of mercenary men. |