the fourth monster of the prophet’s vision, is not dead. They even went so far as to restore the worship of one of the Roman divinities (Ceres) by name, raised a statue to her, and appointed a festival in her honour. This indeed was inconsistent with exalting themselves “above all that is called God;” but I mention it, as I have said, not as throwing light upon the prophecy, but to show that the spirit of old Rome has not passed from the world, though its name is almost extinct.
Still further, it is startling to observe, that that former apostate in the early times, the Emperor Julian, he too was engaged in bringing back Roman Paganism.
Further still, let it he observed that Antiochus too, the Antichrist before CHRIST, the persecutor of the Jews, he too signalised himself in forcing the Pagan worship upon them, introducing it even into the Temple.
We know not what is to come; but this we may safely say, that, improbable as it is that Paganism should ever be publicly restored and enforced by authority for any time, however short, even three years and a half, yet it is far less improbable now than it was fifty years ago, before the event occurred which I have referred to. Who would not have been thought a madman or idiot, before that period, who had conjectured such a portentous approximation to Paganism as actually took place.
4. Now let us recur to the ancient Fathers, and see whether their further anticipations do not run parallel to the events which have since happened.
Antichrist, as they considered, will come out of the Roman Empire just upon its destruction; that is, the Roman Empire will in its last days divide itself into ten parts, and the enemy will come up suddenly out of it upon these ten, and subdue three of them, or all of them perhaps, and (as the prophet continues) “shall speak great words against the MOST HIGH, and shall wear out the saints of the MOST HIGH, and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given into his hand until a time, times, and the dividing of time.” Now it is very observable that one of the two early Fathers whom
