Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/157

 (Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies, chap. xiii. p. 526.)

Affirming the general identity of the red dragon, and the first beast of the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, whereby he violates all just rules of prophetic interpretation, he concludes this beast to be papal Rome. But we have already shown what place papal Rome occupies in prophecy, and especially in St. John's Apocalypse; we have shown that this place is a place of honour, not of dishonour; the place of the chief instrument of God in His spiritual sway over the nations, not one of error or blasphemy. How, then, can this beast be papal Rome? Bishop Newton admits (and it would be impossible for him to deny it), that there is a wonderful resemblance, amounting to complete identity, between this beast and another prophetic personage; viz., the little horn of Daniel, or rather what he, on his erroneous principles of interpretation, would term "the western little horn." Well, then, agreeing on this point with Bishop Newton, so far as the identity between this beast and Daniel's "little horn" is concerned, and having already shown that there is but one little horn, although mentioned twice, and not two little horns (as Bishop Newton and other Protestant commentators have conveniently imagined), and having