Our Day: In the Light of ProphecySpicer, William Ambrose
Religion
Our Day: In the Light of Prophecy
Spicer, William Ambrose
Bible -- Prophecies
Thus the ancient Roman writer pictured the career of Grecia just as
represented by the prophetic symbol--the fleetness, the great dominion
given it, the division of the empire into satrapies, as suggested by the
four heads of the leopard. Out of the conflicts following Alexander's
death, there came the fourfold headship of the empire. Rawlinson says,
"A quadripartite division of Alexander's domain was recognized." (See
"Sixth Monarchy," chap. 3.) The real situation is best represented, as
Dr. Albert Barnes says, by "one animal with four heads," just as the
prophetic symbol described it centuries before.
Thus the course of empire followed the outline of the "sure word of
prophecy" from age to age.
"Armies were ranged in battle's dread array:
They fought--their glory withered in its bud;
They perished--with them ceased their tyrants' sway;
New wars, new heroes came--their story passed away."
There was to be no abiding kingdom till the time came for God's glorious
kingdom to be set up.
[Illustration: THE FOURTH BEAST
"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast,
dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly." Dan. 7:7.]
Rome
As the prophet watched the moving panorama of history, foretold in
symbols, he said:
_Prophecy._--"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth
beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great
iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue
with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were
before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold,
there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were
three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this
horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great
things."
[Illustration: ROME ON THE TIBER
The palace of the Caesars appears high on the hill at the left.]
_History._--As the iron of the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream fitly
represented the "iron monarchy of Rome," so here the dreadful beast,
with its iron teeth, can be none other than Rome, which followed Grecia
in world dominion. It was the most powerful, the most dominating, of all
the beasts in the prophetic series. A Roman Catholic writer, Cardinal
Manning, compresses into a paragraph the correspondence of history to
the likeness of the prophecy:
[Illustration: BATTLE OF ZAMA, B.C. 202
By which Rome broke the power of Carthage, its rival, and "began the
conquest of the world."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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