HOMILETICS
SECT. XXV.—THE JUDGMENT OF THE BEAST AND THE LITTLE HORN (Chap. Daniel 7:9-12; Daniel 7:26)
Hitherto we have not met with much difficulty in the way of interpretation. Little room has been left either for doubt or hesitation. The case is somewhat different now. We approach the region of unfulfilled prophecy, naturally more difficult of interpretation, and leaving more room for mistake and difference of opinion. The field is interesting and inviting, but demands caution in its investigation. The word of prophecy is given for our guidance and comfort, as a light shining in a dark place. But we need the Spirit to interpret His own Word. “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” “In Thy light we shall see light.” “The Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God,” and revealeth them unto us. “He knoweth what is in darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him.” It is His to reveal the “deep and secret things,” and to show us, as He has done in His Word, “things to come.” We have before us a passage of overwhelming grandeur and sublimity; the description of a scene of awful solemnity. The passage exhibits the judgment-seat of God, with myriads of attendant angels, and the infliction of pronounced doom on a large portion of the human race. The judgment is not indeed, like that in Revelation 20, the general judgment, terminating the reign of Christ and His saints on earth, and resembling in some of its features the present one. It is rather the judgment on the fourth beast, or Roman Empire, with its ten horns or kingdoms, and more especially the “Little Horn,” whose pride, persecution, and blasphemy are the special occasion of it.
I. The occasion of the judgment. This is distinctly said to be “the voice of the great words which the horn spake” (Daniel 7:11). So in the interpretation by the angel it is said, “He shall speak great words against the Most High,” &c. “But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his kingdom” (Daniel 7:25-26). He was to wear out the saints of the Most High, who were to be “given into his hand for a time, times, and the dividing of a time.” That allotted period was to terminate, and then the long-delayed judgment was to commence. That monstrous reign of blasphemy against God and cruelty to His saints was to be allowed no longer. “These things thou hast done, and I kept silence: thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.” “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow; for the wickedness is great” (Psalms 50:21; Joel 3:13). The occasion of the judgment is the sayings and doings of the Little Horn, [187] whose kingdom is therefore to be taken away; and the beast, to whom it belonged, of whose wickedness it was the concentration, and who had given to it its power, aided and abetted its doings, and so had identified itself with it, is, with its ten horns, to be slain, and its body “destroyed and given to the burning flame.”
[187] “Because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake.” The connection between the depriving the Papacy of its temporal dominions in 1870 and its “great words “or blasphemous pretensions was remarkable. “In the same year,” said the Times of the period, “the Papacy has assumed the highest spiritual exaltation to which it could aspire, and lost the temporal sovereignty which it had held for a thousand years.” The exaltation referred to was the decree of a General Council in Rome that the Popes were infallible in matters of doctrine. The circumstances attending the act were also remarkable. Arrangements had been made in the chamber where the Council sat, that, by means of mirrors suitably disposed, a glory expressive of divinity should appear to encircle the Pope’s head when the decree was passed. Strange to say, however, as if to rebuke the blasphemy and proclaim that the hour of doom had struck, the sun did not shine out that day: a violent storm burst over Rome; the sky was darkened by tempest, and the voices of the Council were lost in the roll of thunder. Within a day or two after, the Franco-German war was declared, which led to the immediate withdrawal of the French troops from Rome, and the consequent fall of the Pope’s temporal power, which for several years they had served alone to support. Jerome, and Roman Catholic writers after him, understanding the Little Horn to be the Antichrist that should appear immediately before the end of the world, view the judgment in the text as taking place at that time in his destruction. So Bullinger, Œcolampadius, and Osiander, who regard the fourth beast as either the Roman or Turkish Empire; while Willet, understanding the fourth beast of the Greek kingdom of the Seleucidæ, applies the passage to the first coming of Christ, but typically also to the final judgment, the judgment beginning with the first and ending with the second coming of Christ Calvin also refers it to the latter period.
II. The circumstances of the judgment. “The thrones were cast (rather, set or planted) down,” &c. [188] (Daniel 7:9). We have—
[188] “The thrones were east down,” רְמִיוּ (remioo), “were set up.” Wintle: “were pitched.” So the Septuagint, Vulgate, and all the ancient versions, as well as Morus, Castalio, Piscator, and Calvin. The rendering also of Gesenius. The word used by the Targums in Jeremiah 1:15 for “they set.” Keil has “they were thrown,” i.e., they were placed in order quickly or with a noise. This idea of haste or noise, however, does not seem necessarily included. Dr. Rule prefers the rendering of the English version, “were cut down,” but understands not the thrones of assessors, but of the ten kings formerly mentioned, which is unlikely. Keil, with most interpreters, understands them as seats for the assembly sitting in judgment with God; that assembly, in his view, consisting neither of the elders of Israel, as the Rabbins think, nor of glorified men, as Hengstenberg (on Revelation 4:4) supposes; but of angels, according to Psalms 89:8, “who are to be distinguished from the thousands and tens of thousands mentioned in Daniel 7:10; for these do not sit upon thrones, but stand before God as servants to fulfil His commands and execute His judgments.” Hengstenberg’s view, however, will probably appear to most the more correct one. Lightfoot quotes from De Lyra: “He saith ‘thrones,’ because not only Christ shall judge, but the apostles and perfect men shall assist.” He adds, “So the saints shall at the day of judgment sit with Christ, and approve or applaud His judgment.”
1. The judge. “The Ancient (or permanent) of days did sit.” The expression indicative of the Godhead, the I am, the everlasting and unchanging Jehovah, who was, and is, and is to come. In Daniel 7:13, the Father, or first person in the Godhead, appears to be meant; here probably the Son, or second person, who in virtue of His becoming the Son of Man has all judgment committed to Him [189]. “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, and hath given Him power to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.” “God shall judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained.” “God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.” “He (Jesus Christ) shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.” Judgment, however, is the attribute and prerogative of Godhead. “God is Judge Himself” (Psalms 50:3-6). No other is capable of being so. Jesus occupies the judgment-seat as Supreme Judge because He is God, the Ancient of days. This character claimed by Jesus Himself. “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). Hence His appearance at the same time identical with that here given: “His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire.” Stupendous contrast with His appearance before Pilate’s bar. Now the judge and the prisoner change places.
[189] “The Ancient of Days,” יוֹמִין עַתִּיק (’attiq yomin). Professor Bush, after Cocceius and Michaelis, translates, “permanent or enduring of days.” Keil has, “one advanced in days, very old,” and says this “is not the Eternal, for although God is meant, yet Daniel does not see the everlasting God, but an old man or a man of grey hairs, in whose majestic form God makes Himself visible (cf. Ezekiel 1:26). Mr. Irving understood God the Father, coming in His unstained holiness to judge the arch-enemy of His Son and destroyer of His people, and to prepare the way for the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven.” So Dr. Rule. Œcolampadius understood it of Christ, the Lamb “slain from the foundation of the world.” So Dr. Cumming. Wintle understands the term עַתִּיק (’attiq) actively—“he that maketh the days old,” and applies it to Deity.
2. The throne. This was a “fiery flame,” and its “wheels,” on which it appeared to rest, or rather to move, [190] as “burning fire;” emblematic of searching investigation, fiery indignation, swift judgment. An object of supreme terribleness like the representation in Ezekiel 1:26-28. The throne corresponding with the character of the judge. “Our God is a consuming fire.” “His eyes were as a flame of fire.” “Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire?” Expressive also of the object of the judgment, the infliction of punishment or burning wrath. It is “the great day of His wrath,” the “wrath of the Lamb.” “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should be judged” (Revelation 6:16-17; Revelation 11:18). “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God,” &c. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). “A fire goeth before Him and burneth up His enemies round about.” It is the time of “judgment and fiery indignation, that shall devour the adversaries” (Psalms 97:3; Hebrews 10:27).
[190] “His wheels as burning fire.” Grotius remarks that the ancient thrones and curule chairs had wheels. Those in the text, being like “burning fire,” Dr. Cox observes, “prognosticate at once the majesty of the Judge, piercing, penetrating, awful, and the rapid progress of those providential visitations which would bespeak the indignation of a sin-avenging Deity.” The fire-scattering wheels, says Keil, “show the omnipresence of the divine throne of judgment,—the going of the judgment of God over the whole earth.” He further observes: “Fire and the shining of fire are the constant phenomena of the manifestation of God in the world. The fire which engirds his throne with flame pours itself forth as a stream from God into the world, consuming all that is sinful and hostile to Him, and rendering His people and kingdom glorious.”
3. The attendants. “Thrones.” Not one throne, but many thrones. The scene in accordance with earthly tribunals, where the judge has his assessors [191]. Apostles, saints, and martyrs elsewhere represented as sitting on thrones, with judgment given to them (Revelation 20:4). The saints shall judge the world as assessors with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:2). “When the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28). Innumerable angels also about the throne as the ministers of His justice. “Thousand thousands ministered to Him.” Angels employed as the executioners of His justice. “He will say to His angels, Gather the tares into bundles to burn them.” He will come “with His mighty angels, taking vengeance.” “The Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him” (Matthew 25:31). His angels to be employed in gathering “out of His kingdom all things that offend (all the stumbling-blocks), and them which do iniquity” (Matthew 13:41). His ministers in inflicting judgments on the Little Horn and the apostate nations of Christendom (Revelation 16:1). Hence their appearance here about the throne.
[191] “Thrones.” From this representation of the judgment Rationalists have raised an objection to the genuineness of the book, as if it were borrowed from the circumstances and customs of the Persian court, while the prophecy purports to be given in the age of the last Chaldean king. To this objection Hengstenberg replies, that every feature of the picture can be pointed out in earlier writings of Scripture, as in Job 1:2; 1 Kings 22:19-22. So in Isaiah 6 the principal angels are represented as standing round the throne of God. Dr. Cox thinks that the sitting of the judgment, as thus prepared, has a clear reference to the solemnities and general construction of the Jewish Sanhedrim or Great Council. This, however, probably an institution of later times.
4. The accompaniments. “A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him” (Daniel 7:10). A further indication of the character and object of the judgment—fiery indignation. “It shall be very tempestuous round about Him” (Psalms 50:3). This probably indicative of and connected with the judgment to be inflicted on the Beast,—“his body given to the burning flame;” the earth, or as much of it as shall be involved in the judgment, to be “burned up;” the elements to “melt with fervent heat;” the earth “reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7; 2 Peter 3:10).
III. The judgment itself. “The books were opened” (Daniel 7:10). The significance and object of this indicated in the description given in the Apocalypse of the general judgment, “The dead were judged out of the things that were written in the books” (Revelation 20:12). Reference to earthly courts and their judicial proceedings, the names of the acccused, with the crimes laid to their charge, being registered for examination [192]. Indicates the strict and impartial character of the judgment. A constant observation exercised in regard to the doings of the enemies of God and His people, and a full and accurate account preserved of them. All the sayings and doings of the Little Horn recorded in the book; all the great and blasphemous words spoken against the Most High; all the cruelties exercised by him and the nations that submitted to his authority or were inspired by his spirit; every blasphemous bull and persecuting edict that ever issued from the Vatican; every secret murder committed in the cells of the Inquisition; every deed of darkness and of blood perpetrated under the cloak and in the name of Christ’s religion, all registered in those awful but truth-telling books. Words as well as deeds preserved there for judgment. “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” So Enoch testified before the Flood. “Behold the Lord cometh to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 1:14-15). Contrast with these records of ungodly words and deeds another book,—the book of life. “A book of remembrance was written before Him of them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name;” of those who chose, with Moses, “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,” and rather to go to the stake or lay down their heads on the block than prove unfaithful to God and His truth.
[192] “The books were opened.” Hengstenberg derives the figure from the papers of the judge, in which the names of the criminals and their deeds are registered. Keil considers the books those in which the actions of men are recorded. Jerome, Willet, and others understand them of every one’s conscience; opened by God to each, says Œcolampadius, to see and confess His justice. Bede strangely regarded them as the Scriptures; and Calvin in like manner understands by them the manifestation of the knowledge of God to the world at the coming of Christ by the preaching of the Gospel.
IV. The consequences of the judgment. “The beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.” “They shall take away his (the Little Horn’s) dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end” (Daniel 7:11; Daniel 7:26). In the vision itself it is the beast or fourth empire on which the judgment is represented as taking effect; in the interpretation of the vision it is the Little Horn [193]. That horn thus identified with the beast, of which it was properly only a part. The judgment falls on the beast for the words of the Little Horn, so entirely were they one. The horn was only the concentration of the beast. The kingdoms of the beast, or Roman Empire, are represented in the Book of Revelation as giving their power to the beast (Revelation 17:16-17), and we know, as a matter of fact, that that power was long exercised in obedience to the will of the Little Horn and in carrying out his persecuting edicts. When the Papacy delivered the heretic over to the civil power, that power was obedient, and put him to death. Thus also armies were raised for their extirpation. Justinian, in his celebrated edict, distinctly permitted the Roman pontiff to “use the powers of the empire against whomsoever he deemed heretical.” The spirit of the Little Horn is the spirit of the kingdoms of the beast, in so far as their subjects are not renewed by the Spirit of God. It is the spirit of pride, vainglory, worldliness, and enmity against God, and so of enmity against His saints. The judgment on the beast expressed either literally or figuratively, or both [194]. A literal destruction by fire not unlikely. Rome, the metropolis of the fourth beast, and seat of the Papacy or Little Horn, repeatedly represented in the Book of Revelation as awaiting this judgment (Revelation 17:16-17; Revelation 18:8). That a wide-spread conflagration will form at least one part of the judgment to be inflicted on the Papal kingdoms and those animated by the same spirit of unbelief and rebellion against God, seems indicated in such places as 2 Thessalonians 1:8 and 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12. According to Peter, the day of the Lord, in which this judgment shall be executed, is accompanied with a fire by which “the earth and the works therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). This may possibly commence with Rome and Italy, and extend to the other nations. It is well known that already beneath the sulphurous soil of Italy are subterranean fires ready to break out at the bidding of their Creator, who keeps them in store for His own purpose, like the fountains of the great deep, stored and then broken up for the destruction of the old world, when its wickedness made it ripe for judgment [195]. Possibly the destruction may be indicated in Daniel 7:12 as extending to those countries that constituted the three preceding empires, Babylon, Persia, and Greece, whose dominion was taken away, though “their lives were prolonged for a season and a time” [196]. Of the Little Horn it is simply said that its dominion is “taken away, to consume and destroy it unto the end.” The Papacy was to cease to be a temporal power apparently by slow degrees. So also the Apostle seems to speak of the destruction of the Man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:8). This destruction doubtless includes alike the temporal and spiritual power of the Papacy, whatever form it may assume. The total loss of the temporal power in 1870 may, perhaps, be viewed as the completion of what began in 1793 in the French Convention, and was further advanced in 1798, when, in the Campo Vaccino, the ancient Roman Forum, the Pontifical Government was pronounced, in the midst of a large concourse of people, to be at an end; while on the following day fourteen cardinals, in the Pope’s absence, met in the Vatican, and signed the absolute renunciation of the temporal power [197]. This taking away of the temporal dominion of the Little Horn seemed to be completed on the 20th of September 1870, when Rome was declared the capital of Italy, and made the seat of government by Victor Emmanuel as its chosen king [198]. As a spiritual power, however, the Papacy has still many millions in Europe and elsewhere subject to its sway. This, though it may continue for some time longer to exercise its baleful influence in the souls of men, must also ultimately perish.
[193] Jerome and expositors in general, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, think the destruction of Antichrist and his members here meant. Calvin understood the passage of the Roman Empire when it began to decay after Trajan; but says that the slaying of the fourth beast and the giving of the kingdom and authority to the people of the saints does not seem to have been accomplished yet, and that all Christian interpreters agree in treating the prophecy as relating to the final day of Christ’s Advent. Bullinger applies the destruction of the fourth beast to the ruin of the Papal kingdoms; while Osiander and Œcolampadius understand the decay of the Turkish and Roman empires together. Junius thinks only of Antiochus Epiphanes, and Willet of the whole kingdom of the Seleucidæ. Irving thinks that not only the Little Horn or the Papacy is intended in the destruction, but all its supporters, “Yea, the whole beast of seven heads and ten horns, which had listened to the great words which it spake.” Dr. Rule observes that the prophet’s beholding “until the beast was slain,” &c., appears to intimate that the slaughter and the destruction will be gradual, perhaps very slow.
[194] “Given to the burning flame.” “The supposition that the burning is only the figure of destruction, as, for example, in Isaiah 9:4, is decidedly opposed by the parallel passages, Isaiah 66:14, which Daniel had in view, and Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10, where this prophecy is again taken up, and the judgment is expressed by a being cast into a lake of fire with everlasting torments.”—Keil.
[195] “The burning flame.” “Thus much being allowed from Scripture, let us now return to nature again, to seek out that part of the Christian world that from its own constitution is most subject to burning, by the sulphureousness of its soil and its fiery mountains and caverns. This we easily find to be the Roman territory or the country of Italy, which, by all accounts, ancient and modern, is a storehouse of fire; as if it was condemned to that fate by God and nature, and to be an incendiary, as it were, to the rest of the world. And seeing mystical Babylon, the seat of Antichrist, is the same Rome and its territory, as it is understood by most interpreters of former and later ages, you see both our lines meet in this point, and that there is fairness on both hands to conclude that at the glorious appearance of our Saviour the conflagration will begin at the city of Rome and the Roman territory. Nature hath saved us the pains of kindling fire in those parts of the earth; for since the memory of man there have always been subterraneous files.”—Burnet’s “Sacred Theory of the Earth.” Dr. M‘Cosh remarks in an article in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review for January 1881, that an old fisherman, more than 1800 years ago, anticipated the doctrine of modern science that the earth shall be burned up. The following communication from Vienna, dated April 12, 1881, appeared in the newspapers: “A rather severe shock of earthquake took place at the naval port of Pola and the surrounding district this morning at a quarter to ten o’clock. The earthquakes at Agram and the more terrible calamities at Cassamicciola (Ischia) and Chio, together with the increasing reports of shocks in Switzerland, Italy, and Central and South-Western Europe generally, are facts which are attracting much attention from Continental geologists.”
[196] “The rest of the beasts.” Bishop Newton observes regarding these: “They are all still alive, though the dominion of the first three is taken away. The nations of Chaldea and Assyria are still the first beast; those of Media and Persia are still the second beast; those of Macedonia, Greece, Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt are still the third beast; and those of Europe on this side of Greece are still the fourth.” Mr. Miles (Lectures on Daniel) remarks: “They must all perish together; the three await the execution of marked vengeance upon the fourth. When the power of Rome shall be extinguished by the glorious manifestation of the Redeemer, every secular kingdom shall disappear.” Dr. Cox thinks the meaning to be that although these three monarchs were dispossessed of empire, “yet their influence and impious principles still continued to operate, notwithstanding their temporal demolition.” Keil observes that “the death or disappearance of the first three beasts is not expressly remarked, but is here first indicated. These had their dominion taken away one after another, each at its appointed time, and their end is connected with that of the last, as denoting that in that hour, not merely the fourth kingdom, but also the first three, the whole world-power, is brought to an end by the last judgment; the unfolding of the world-power in its diverse phases is exhausted, and the kingdom of God is raised to everlasting supremacy.” Dr. Rule, however, says: “The sentence—‘And concerning the rest of the beasts, &c.’—seems most naturally to relate to them after the destruction of the fourth empire; for it continues the description. It does not appear to be simply an account of what God had done aforetime to those former empires, viz., that when He took away their world-rule, He left them in being as nations; but of something which shall be after the destruction of the fourth. This, however, will be made clear when the time comes.”
[197] The history is thus related by M. De la Bédollière (Le Domaine de Saint Pierre): “The possessions that remained to the Pope (in 1792) had for their limits in the north, Venice and the Gulf of Venice; in the east, the kingdom of Naples; in the south, the Tuscan Sea; in the west, the duchies of Tuscany, Modena, Mirandola, and Mentone. They were divided into twelve Legations or provinces: the Compagna of Rome, the Sabine country, the patrimony of St. Peter properly so called, the duchy of Castro, the province of Orvieto, the province of Perouse, the duchy of Spoleto, the duchy of Urbino, the march of Ancona, Romagna, Bologna, and Ferrara. The duchy of Benvenuto and the principality of Ponte Corvo were fiefs of the Church. Of the populations of these countries, some inclined to the principles of the Revolution in 1789, others were animated with a fanatical hatred against France and its doctrines.” When, in the month of March 1796, General Buonaparte took the command of the army of Italy, his prompt conquests in the north “were easy, for the majority of the population was favourable to the French. The reigning Pope, Pius VI., frightened at the progress of the French army, solicited an armistice. This was granted him on hard conditions, which, however, he ratified on the 23d of June 1796. He gave up to France the Legations of Bologna and Ferrara, the citadel of Ancona, which he was to deliver up, and all the coasts of the Adriatic Gulf from the mouths of the Po to that citadel, &c. The Pope having broken the armistice, the French troops immediately invaded the domain of St. Peter, and took Faenza, Forli, and Ravenna; after which the Pope, in consternation, wrote to Buonaparte begging a treaty, which was concluded at Tollentino on the 19th of February, the Pope yielding in perpetuity to the French Republic all his rights over the Legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, on condition that it should be without any damage to the Catholic religion, and handing over to the treasurer of the French army ten millions of livres in specie, and five millions in diamonds and other valuables. In consequence of an emeute in Rome on the 28th December 1797, in which the French General Duphot was killed, Alexander Berthier, general-in-chief of the French army in Italy, received orders to take possession of Rome, which was done without striking a blow. On the 6th of February 1798, the chiefs of the revolutionary movement pronounced, in the name of a large concourse of people assembled in the Campo Vaccino (the ancient Forum), the fall of the Pontifical Government, and proclaimed the Republic. The Pope during these events kept himself concealed; but the cardinals, having met in the Vatican, had signed their absolute renunciation of the temporal power; and on the 7th of February fourteen among them attended at a solemn Te Deum, sung in the Church of St. Peter, with all the pomp of Catholicism, to celebrate the revolution which took away the throne from the head of the Catholic Church.”
[198] The French Catholic paper L’Univers, commenting on the debate on Rome in the French Assembly (July 1871), says: “All our hopes have been disappointed; in the only nation on which the Papacy could count the last support fails it. Humanly speaking, all is over.” The Roman correspondent of the Daily News says about the same time: “The Pope is twitting the more Ultramontane of the venerable members of the Sacred College, those who have been urging him to pursue reactionary courses, after the following fashion:—‘You see what it has all come to—just as I told you, just as I never ceased to predict. You insisted on my abjuring my early liberal policy, and now you see the result. It is by you that such calamities have been brought on the Church and on the world.’ ” On June 26 the Pope held a consistory, in which he said, “We are, my very dear brothers, in the hands of Divine Providence; we have nothing to expect from human aid, for man has abandoned us. Why should we dissemble? It is better I should tell you, that kings and governments, forgetting their promises, leave us to our fate.… We can hope for no help from any quarter. We have done all that was in our power, but our efforts have failed. All is over. Only a miracle can save us.” The republican Government of France, the country that formerly was the great support of the Papacy, in the latter end of 1880 passed and executed a decree which not only banished the Jesuits from the country, but closed the convents of most of the religious orders in France, in all twenty-nine, with about three thousand six hundred members, in addition to the two thousand four hundred and sixty Jesuits who were expelled.
V. The time of the judgment. As already observed, this is not the general judgment at the termination of Christ’s reign on earth, or, as the phrase is commonly understood, the end of the world. It appears rather to be an invisible judgment carried on within the veil and revealed by its effects and the execution of its sentence [199]. As occasioned by the “great words” of the Little Horn, and followed by the taking away of his dominion, it might seem to have already sat. As, however, the sentence is not yet by any means fully executed, it may be sitting now. The deeds of the Little Horn may not yet be finished, though the temporal power of the Papacy has apparently ceased. A new and more terrible form may possibly yet be assumed before its final and complete destruction shall take place by the brightness of the Lord’s appearing (2 Thessalonians 2:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:8) [200]. The words of warning addressed by the Saviour have their application at the present time: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares: for as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” “Behold I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (Luke 21:34-36; Revelation 16:15).
[199] “These passages (Revelation 4:2; Revelation 4:4; Revelation 5:11; Revelation 11:15-17), and others like them,” says Archdeacon Harrison, “show how, in the visions of prophecy, the throne of judgment of the everlasting King is in some sense ever at hand, ready to be revealed, and its unseen processes of judgment ever going on; though at certain times—and more awfully, we may believe, as the ‘mystery of iniquity ‘in its varied forms unfolds itself and the end of the world draws near—the spirit of prophecy, or the hand of Providence, draws back the veil, and exhibits the awful scene which Daniel saw in vision.”
[200] Materials seldom long wanting for such a development. It was believed by many that the first Napoleon was to perform the rôle of the final or infidel Antichrist. The same thing was anticipated by some regarding his nephew, the late Emperor, who professed to possess the spirit of his uncle, and to have a peculiar destiny to fulfil. The anticipations have not been fulfilled in either case. Such a development, however, can soon be made to appear if the word of prophecy and the purpose of God require it. The following lately appeared in the Weekly Review: “Whether you talk to Parisians or to Frenchmen in the provinces about the political prospects, nine times out of ten there will be the shrug of the shoulders and the remark that history repeats itself; and the last decades of the nineteenth century, like the last decades of the eighteenth, will be a period of anarchy and revolution.… The Republic itself shows signs of weakness, and moderate men of all parties are anxious. It is said that the execution of the decrees against the religious orders has done some harm to the Republic.… After the way in which M. Victor Hugo has lauded Voltaire, it would, perhaps, have been discreet to have tolerated even the Jesuits for a time, rather than to have given the Anti-Republicans the pretext for asserting that the Republic is antagonistic to religion. But the changes of ministry is the most menacing feature.… It is incontestable that M. Gambetta has made and unmade Ministries. He has power without official responsibility, and that is always perilous.… Unfortunately moderate men are becoming distrustful, and M. Gambetta may be compelled to rely upon the extreme section, the Reds, if he is to be the chief of a Republic. If M. Gambetta wins by the sole or main support of the Reds, his tenure of the highest position is not likely to be long or beneficial to France.”
As suggested by the passage, we may notice—
1. It is our comfort to know that there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Men not worn out by tyranny, oppression, and persecution, without an eye being kept upon their wrongs and the perpetrators of them. Flesh and sense ready at times to say, “My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over by my God.” A sore trial for faith when the oppressor and persecutor prosper, and the cause of truth and righteousness seems well-nigh crushed. But God only appears to take no notice. Christ is in the ship, and though apparently asleep in the storm, He will awake at the right time, at the cry of His people, rebuke the oppressor’s wrath, and change the storm into a calm. Patience is to have her perfect work, that when we have done and suffered the will of God, we may inherit the promises. “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” The hour of deliverance shall arrive. The judgment will sit—is now indeed sitting. He who is “higher than the highest” takes not His eye from the haughty oppressor and persecutor of His people, and will, when the proper time arrives, “awake to the judgment which He has commanded.”
2. The infinite majesty of God and the awful consequences of His displeasure. The Lord is a God of judgment. His eyes, which are as a flame of fire, behold, and His eyelids try, the children of men. A fiery stream issues and goes forth from before Him. Who can stand when once He is angry? Our God is a consuming fire. How terrible to meet Him as an adversary! Yet sin makes Him our adversary. Prepare, then, to meet thy God. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with Him. There is one, and only one, way of doing so. The Jews, to be reconciled to their offended king, made Blastus, his chamberlain, their friend. God has given His own Son as a sacrifice and Mediator, that we may make Him our friend, accept of Him, and put our trust in Him, and so be reconciled to God. This is God’s own way for meeting Him. Blessed are all they that put their trust in that provided Mediator. Such can see the fiery stream that issues from before Him, ready to devour the adversaries, without alarm. They can go forward to meet it singing, with the Apostle, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.” Or, with Count Zinzendorf in the well-known hymn—
“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress.
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in that great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am,
From sin and guilt, from fear and shame.”
3. The wisdom of preparing for a judgment to come. Whatever may be the case in regard to the judgment we have been considering, and whatever share we may or may not have in it, it is certain that we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive according to the things done in the body, whether good or bad. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.” Each must then give account of himself to God. For all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Are our works those of the flesh or of the Spirit? Are they wrought in God or out of Him? Am I renewed or still unrenewed? Am I pardoned and accepted now in the Surety, the Lord our Righteousness? A place in the New Jerusalem or the Gehenna of fire depends on the question. “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to enter in through the gates into the city;” or, as the Revised Version reads, “Blessed are they that wash their robes.” This is the beginning of doing His commandments. “Come now, let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as wool; though they be red as crimson, they shall be white as snow.” Reader, the fountain for sin and uncleanness is still open; if not already washed, wash now, and prepare for the judgment. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Trust in that blood and be clean.