figuratively denoting the Christian church.* Bishop Newton has justly remarked, that the prophets were in the habit of employing this species of accommodation; and it deserves particularly to be noticed, that he regards this very prophecy of the little horn as a prominent example and evidence of the usage. "It is very

worthy of our most serious consideration, whether this part of the prophecy be not a sketch of the fate and sufferings of the Christian, as well as of the Jewish, church. Nothing is more usual with the prophets, than to describe the religion and worship of later times by metaphors and figures borrowed from their own religion. The Christians may, full as well as the Jews, be comprehended under the name of the holy people,' or people of the holy ones."" There can, then, be no question as to the propriety of understanding this prediction of Christianity.

But we may observe, further, that this part of

Some commentators labour to confine the application of this prophecy to the Romans, on the assumption that the ritual terms contained in it must be understood, literally, of the Jewish temple. Scripture, however, suggests a directly opposite inference. For St. John, Rev. xi. 1, 2. speaks of the Jewish temple, and the treading under foot of its outer court by the Gentiles, long after the destruction of that temple, and where the prophecy unquestionably belongs to Papal Rome. It is only, therefore, according to strict analogy of Scripture, to understand the parallel treading under foot of the Jewish sanctuary, Dan. viii. 13. of the parallel but still more utter desolation of the Eastern Church, by the Mahometan apostasy.

the prophecy contains some marks which may serve to show, not only that it may properly be understood of the Christian church, but that it cannot so properly be understood of the Jewish. For, at the period of the final desolation of Jerusalem by the Romans, the desecrated temple was no longer "the place of God's sanctuary;" and Judaism, now repealed by the substitution of a more perfect revelation, could no longer be accounted "the truth."

In

laying waste the devoted city and temple, therefore, the Romans could hardly be said to have "trodden under foot God's sanctuary," or to have "cast down the truth to the ground." And thus, while the analogy of prophecy suggests the abstract propriety of applying the vision of the eastern little horn, to "the fate and sufferings of the Christian church," the internal marks would seem to indicate the strict, if not exclusive, appropriateness of such an application.

The identity of the little horn, which came out of one of the four notable horns of the he-goat, with the Mahometan "abomination of desolation," has been thus far elucidated, from the internal evidences in the vision. It remains to be inquired, whether the symbol may not be brought home to Mahometanism, by a more direct process.

The last of Daniel's visions, entitled the prophecy of "the Scripture of truth," is comprised in the eleventh and twelfth chapters. Sir Isaac Newton observes, that "this prophecy is a commentary upon the vision of the ram and he-goat." But this vision, we have seen, concludes with the prophecy concerning the little horn; which prophecy forms a prominent and chief part of it. There is a strong antecedent presumption, therefore, that the commentary would have a proportionate relation and reference to that part of the vision. Now the eleventh and twelfth chapters, which form the commentary on the eighth, contain several predictions, which interpreters are agreed in applying exclusively to Mahometanism; which (as interpreters have not hitherto observed) singularly correspond, at the same time, in the leading verbal expressions, with the prophecy of the Macedonian or eastern little horn. Thus, Dan. viii. 24., and Dan. xii. 7., we have a king employed in executing the same peculiar judgment; namely, that of destroying or scattering, the power of the mighty and holy people. Again, Dan. viii. 13., and Dan. xii. 11., we have the same prophetic desolation pointed out; if it may suffice to prove it the same, that it is described in the same words, and these,

and

too, ritual terms. Now both the predictions here in question, where they occur in the twelfth chapter, are, by general consent of the writers on prophecy, interpreted of the Turks.

But the twelfth chapter, it is allowed by high authority, forms part of a commentary on the eighth. With what consistency, then, when we return from the comment to the text, can we vary the interpretation?

The reference made by Christ to "the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet," in his own prediction of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, has probably contributed, more than all the other apparent coincidences, to determine interpreters in applying the desolation mentioned in the eighth chapter of Daniel to the Romans. Yet is this allusion no sufficient ground for their conclusion. For Daniel's expression, "the abomination of desolation," is a generic phrase; which interpreters erroneously taking in a specific sense, they have accordingly mistaken and misrepresented our Lord, as though he understood and applied it specifically. The truth is, that, following in this case the analogy of prophecy, the expression appears to denote a permanently existing anti-religious power, operating in the world, at different periods, through different

channels. * Our Lord applies it to the desecrating tyranny of Pagan Rome; the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by this all-consuming power being the accomplishment immediately in his contemplation. It belongs, with equal propriety, to the antecedent profanations exercised by Antiochus Epiphanes, and to the subsequent desecrating progress of Mahomet

anism.

Thus, when treating of the same expression, on its recurrence in the twelfth chapter, Bishop Newton observes, "the setting up of the abomination of desolation,' appears to be a general phrase, and comprehensive of various events. — It is applied by our Saviour, St. Matt. xxiv. 15., to the destruction of the city and temple by the Romans. It may with equal justice be applied to the Mohammedans invading and desolating Christendom, and converting the churches into mosques : and this latter event seemeth to be particularly intended in this passage."

But if the "setting up of the abomination of desolation," in the twelfth chapter, properly

* Thus Antichrist, also, plainly denotes, not a single power, but a hydra with many heads.

"In the ten years of the administration of Omar, the Saracens destroyed 4000 churches or temples of the unbelievers, and built 1400 mosques for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. -Zouch's Works, vol. i. p. 253.