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perils of their spiritual warfare. In less than two years he could announce to the Archbishop of Alexandria, that they had baptized the king of Kent with ten thousand of his Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman missionaries, like those of the primitive Church, were armed only with spiritual and supernatural powers."* Such was the power of the little horn immediately previous to its apostacy in the year 606, when it was declared to be an universal empire under a Bishop of bishops, and when the saints were thus formally delivered into its hand. How great, even before the commencement of the 1260 days, was its authority become, compared with what it had been, when the Pope was only Archbishop of the neighbouring Italian bishops, and ecclesiastical judge in cases of appeal from the other bishops of the Western empire! As yet however the man of sin, the head of the great Apostacy, was not revealed. Gregory equally abhorred idolatry, persecution, and the proud claim of universal episcopacy and it was left to his successors formally to re-establish the worship of images, to wear out the saints of the Most High, and to assume the metropolitanship, not only of Italy and the West, but of the whole world.† Though tinctured with the growing superstition of the age, his piety was fervent and sincere and this last of the primitive Bishops of Rome was snatched away to a better world, ere the monstrous two-fold dominant Apostacy of the East and the West had commenced. His death was, as it were, the signal for its developement.

Thus we have seen, that the little horn cannot typify the temporal kingdom of the Pope, because it is presented as springing up, as existing, and as acting, previous to the time when the three horns were eradicated before it, and consequently previous to the time when it acquired by their fall St. Peter's patrimony. Its acquisition of temporal authority is indeed distinctly predicted in that part of the prophecy which relates to the subversion of the three horns: but this is mentioned as it were only by the bye, only as a mark whereby we might certainly

* Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. v. p. 164-167.

This subject will be resumed hereafter.

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know the power typified by the little horn. The power in question was gradually to arise during the turbulent period of Gothic invasión: and, after it had existed an indefinite space of time, the prophet teaches us that three horns should be plucked up before it, by the fall of which it should acquire temporal dominion. Hence it is plain, that, since the little horn was to be in existence previous to its acquisition of temporal dominion by the successive eradication of the three horns, it cannot have been designed to symbolize, as Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Mede, and Bp. Newton, suppose, the Papacy considered as a secular principality.

This will appear yet more evident, when we examine the prophetic character of the little horn article by article.

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1. The little horn was not only to be a small kingdom at its first rise, but it was to be different from all the other horns-Accordingly every one of the ten kingdoms, founded by the northern nations, were temporal sovereignties but the papal horn was a spiritual sovereignty. And afterwards, when it had acquired a secular princi pality by the fall of three of the ten temporal horns, it still continued to differ essentially from them, being an ecclesiastical and spiritual, as well as a civil and tempo

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2. The little horn had eyes like the eyes of a man This particular, like the former, serves to shew, that a spiritual, not a temporal, kingdom was intended by the symbol. By its eyes it was a seer; and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and laws it was a prophet-A seer, Exoxoxos, is a bishop in the literal sense of the word; and this church claims the universal bishopric."* At its first rise indeed, it presumed not to make so bold a claim: still nevertheless it was equally a seer, or a bishop, within its own proper diocese and metropolitanship.

3. The little horn had a mouth speaking great thingsIn his pretended capacity of a prophet and vicar of Christ, and in the plenitude of his usurped power, the

*Sir Isaac Newton's Observ, on Dan. Chap. 7.

Bishop of Rome has at various times anathematized all who dared to oppose him, has laid whole kingdoms under an interdict, has excommunicated kings and emperors, and has absolved their subjects from their allegi

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4. The little horn had a look more stout than his fellows-The Popes have claimed an unlimited superiority over other bishops their equals, in spiritual matters; and have affected greater authority than even sovereign princes, in temporal matters. "Pope Paul the fourth," says the historian of the council of Trent, "never spake with ambassadors, but he thundered in their ears, that he was above all princes, that he would not that any of them should be too domestical with him, that he could exchange kingdoms, that he was successor of him who had deposed kings and emperors, and did often repeat that he had made Ireland a kingdom."* The Popes indeed have pretended, that the dominion of the whole earth belonged to them and, strictly acting up to this claim, they have gone so far as to divide all new discovered countries between Spain and Portugal, assigning to the one the western, and to the other the eastern, hemisphere.

5. The little horn spake great words by the side of the Most High, affecting an equality with God-So the Popes have not scrupled to lay claim to infallibility, an especial attribute of God; and have sometimes blasphemously assumed even the name of God himself, and as such have impiously received divine honours. Accordingly they are not offended at being styled, Our Lord God the Pope; another God upon earth; king of kings, and lord of lords; nor do they disapprove of the impious flattery, which tells them, that the same is the dominion of God and the Pope; that the power of the Pope is greater than all created power, extending itself to things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal; and that the Pope doeth whatsoever he listeth, even things unlawful, and is more than God: nor yet do they refuse, on the day of their election, to receive the adoration of their

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cardinals on the very altar, and in the midst of the tem ple, of the Lord of hosts.*

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Bp. Newton's Dissert. xxii. 3. The other divine titles, by which that man of sin, the apostate Bishop of Rome, suffers himself to be hailed, are Our most Holy Lord; our Lord God the Pope; bis divine Majesty; the victorious God and man in his see of Rome; Deus optimus maximus and Vice-God; named God by the pious emperor Constantine, and adored as God by that emperor; the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world; the most boly who carrieth the most boly. (Whitaker's Comment. p. 304.) Lord Lyt telton observes of the age of Henry II. that "those times thought it no blasphemy to give to the Pope the honour of God;" and he instances it in a curious letter of the turbulent Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, wherein he implores the aid of the Pope in phrases of Scripture appropriated to God. Rise, Lord, and delay no longer; let the light of thy countenance shine upon me; save us for we perish; not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ make unto thyself a great name." (Ibid. p. 302, 303.) A singular story is told by Baronius respecting the idolatry thus paid to the person of the Bishop of Rome. In the year 1162, "when Pope Alexander made his first entrance into Montpellier, among the Christian_nobility that attended him on his way in a solemn procession there was a Saracen prince or emir, who reverently came up to him, and kissed his feet, he being on horseback; then knelt down before him, and bowing his head adored him as the holy and good God of the Christians. He does not tell us, that Alexander in any manner reproved him for his blasphemous error; but, on the contrary, takes notice that he showed him extraordinary kindness: and adds, that all who saw it, were filled with great admiration, and applied to the Pope the words of the prophet David: All the kings of the earth shall worship him, and all nations shall serve him. Thus, in that age of ignorance and credulity did superstition even deify the Bishop of Rome: but it is a still more shocking impiety, that a learned cardinal, who lived in the 17th century, should relate such a fact without expressing the least disapprobation of it; nay, rather with an air of complacency and applause." (Ibid. p. 273, 274.) "Even to this day the Romanists continue the blasphemous practice of calling the Pope the Lord God, as appears from a confession of faith found in the pocket of a priest during the late rebellion in Ireland, and reported by Sir R. Musgrave." (Ibid. p. 357.) In short, the sentiments which the Romanists entertain of their idol the Pope, and the manner, in which he speaks great words by the side of the Most High, affecting an equality with God, are shewn very remarkably by a print in the Roman Breviary published by the authority of the council of Trent, and printed at Antwerp in the year 1698. In this print, which is placed opposite to p. 413. of the Breviary, “there is a representation of heaven opened to full view, in which, seated upon a cloud, appeareth the Pope with his triple crown upon his head. The Pope's head is irradiated with a triangular, not a circular, glory (expressive no doubt of the Trinity in Unity ;) the dove is hovering over the heads of him and our Saviour, but more inclined toward the Pope. The Pope sits upright upon the globe of the earth, with bis feet full upon it. Saviour is seated upon bis right band, pushed as it were from off the earth, whereby he is obliged to sit sideways in order to reach bis feet to it; and round our Saviour's head is only a small circular glory. Beneath, on one side, next to our Saviour in heaven, is the Virgin Mary, whom the Pope deifies upon earth, praying to her. Next to the Virgin Mary is represented St. Peter; and close by him, upon a level, is St. Paul sitting and Ícaning upon a sword. In the middle are little Cherubim, and behind them a palm-bearing company. On the right hand is a smaller group of palm-bearers, seeming employed in carrying messages. Beneath, on the earth, are represented warriors on the one hand, and on the other the elders of their church. In the middle standeth one bearing a palm, conversing with another before whom the triple crown is placed, deeply shaded, and only a few rays of light descend upon the top of it. This is the political representation of the idol of Rome, the Pope, in the plenitude of his power, as given to its votaries, and authorized by the council of Trent, and confirmed by several Popes of Rome." Burton's Essay on the numbers of Daniel and Se John; Supplement; p. 96, 97.

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6. The little horn thought to change times and lawsSo the Popes have perpetually changed the calender by the canonization of new saints, and have departed from the original simplicity of the Gospel by the introduction of an infinite number of superstitious laws and observances; "instituting new modes of worship, imposing new articles of faith, enjoining new rules of practice, and reversing at pleasure the laws both of God and man." They have even dared to strike the second commandment out of the decalogue, because it so plainly reproved them for their multifarious idolatry. In short," the wisest and most impartial of the Roman catholic writers do not only acknowledge, but are even at pains to demonstrate, that from the times of Louis the meek, who died in the year 840, the ancient rules of ecclesiastical government were gradually changed in Europe by the counsels of the court of Rome, and new laws substituted in their placet."

7. The little horn was to wear out the saints of the Most High, who were to be given into his hand by a formal grant of the secular power during the space of three years and a half, or 1260 prophetic days; that is to say, during the same space of time, that the two apocalyptic witnesses were to prophesy in sackcloth, and the persecuted Church was to be nourished in the wilderness.+Accordingly, when the Pope was constituted Universal Bishop and Supreme head of the Church by the grant of the tyrant Phocas, the saints of God were delivered into his hand and placed under his control. They were no longer, as in the primitive Church, subject, and that for conscience sake and for the real edification of their souls, only to their respective diocesans: but they were now made the spiritual vassals of the man of sin, and were in consequence of it soon reduced by him to a state of worse than Egyptian bondage. By the instrumentality of the secular beast.§ he has already, for by far the greater part of the predicted period, incessantly persecuted and worn out (so far as this present life is concerned)

* See Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Vol. iii. p. 260-264.

Zouch on Prophecy, p. 51.

Rev. xi. 3. xii. 6. § Rev. xiii. 5, 7.

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