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/43

 of another kingdom, the distinctive characteristic of which would be, that it would make war with the saints of God, that is, according to the language of Scripture, the people of God,—in other words, with the fifth kingdom, or the Catholic Church.

Having described the fourth great monarchy, or the Roman empire, under the figure of a beast "terrible and wonderful (Dan. vii. 7, 8), and exceeding strong, having great iron teeth, with which it devoured and brake in pieces, treading down the rest with its feet' the Prophet adds, " that it was unlike the other beasts, and that it had ten horns." Now what can this mean, except that the Roman empire was not to be supplanted, like the other great monarchies, by another universal monarchy, but that when the period of its dissolution should arrive, it should be subdivided into ten kingdoms ? In the sixth verse of this same chapter (Dan. vii.), the third monarchy, or the Greek empire of Alexander, had already been described as having four heads; and in the eighth chapter (Dan. viii. 8), the same Macedonian Greek empire is described as a he-goat with a notable horn and four lesser horns; and the four heads in the first vision and the four horns in the latter, symbolized the subdivision of Alexander's empire after his death amongst