in the hope of obtaining a knowledge of the king's secret from God. That night, he and certain fellow captives make it the subject of special request and prayer, and that night, to Daniel was communicated a knowledge of the king's dream and the meaning. Daniel is called in, and the king's difficulty is at an end. Now, let us take notice of Daniel's first statement to the king: "There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in THE LATTER DAYS" (chap. ii. 28). This is to be noted. It shows that the vision goes up to and finds its culmination in the "latter days,"a phrase employed in Scripture to describe the closing period of human affairs.

This gives it a special interest to us, as affecting our own and future times.

The

Daniel described the dream. royal dreamer beheld a towering image of great size and imposing appearance. As the beholderlooked, a second independent object appeared. A stone hewn by mysterious agency from an adjoining mountain came whizzing through the air; and (let the result be particularly noted) struck the great image on the feet with such violence, that the image was overturned, and fell in fragments. The stone growing larger,' rolled among these fragments, and ground them to powder, which the wind carried away. Then the stone went on enlarging until it became a great mountain, filling the whole earth.

Thus the vision consisted of two objects-separate and independent -and one appearing before the other. It is well to realise this. The image is first seen towering in its metallic splendour, then the stone is revealed, not as a passive coexistent, but as a directly antagonistic, body. There is no affinity between the two things; the stone does not move softly up to the image, and gradually incorporate itself with its substance. It dashes at it with violence, and at once

brings it to the earth in ruins; and when the wind has cleared away the atomic residuum, the stone grows into a great mountain, to the filling of the whole earth. In doing so, it does not appropriate any of the substance of the demolished image, as that has all been driven away; but grows by its own inherent force.

Now, the things signified are explained by Daniel, and bear the same mutual relations as the symbols

"Thou, O King, art king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power and strength, and glory

Thou (or thy dynasty) art this head of gold, and after thee shall arise another kingdom, inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth; and the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that breaketh all things shall it break in pieces and bruise; and whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; it shall be partly And in strong and partly broken the days of these kings, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever; forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces, the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold ". ii. 37-45.

Before considering these statements, it will be of advantage to take into account the 7th chapter of Daniel, where the same things are revealed in another form. If the reader will take the trouble of reading the chapter through, he will be rewarded by a clearer comprehension of the scope of the argument. It narrates a vision seen by Daniel himself, and interpreted to him by the angels. In the vision, beasts are substituted for Nebuchadnezzar's metals, and the stone finds its counterpart in the "judgment that shall sit, and consume and destroy the fourth beast unto the end.' In the two, we have a double representation of the same thing. Their great prophetic teaching is, that there were to arise in the earth four successive phases or forms of universal government, and that the

among his four generals, and became established in four independent divisions, 66 not in his power," as the angel had foretold; for his power was not perpetuated by descendants, but shared among strangers.

The fourth kingdom is predicted"strong as iron, breaking in pieces, and bruising." In one case, it is represented by the iron legs, feet, and toes of the image, and in the other by a fourth beast with ten horns, which Daniel describes "dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, with great iron teeth, devouring and breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue with its (brazen-clawed) feet." Here again, history supplies an entire verification of the prophecy. The Roman empire rose into powerful existence, and vanquishing the power of Greece became mistress of the world, extending her dominion beyond the limits of any former empire, and establishing one of the strongest despotisms the world has ever seen. Her political qualities corresponded in every respect with the strong figures employed. She was 'strong as iron," and "great, and dreadful, and strong exceedingly." The sagacity of her rulers, the vigour of her imperial administration, the military skill of her generals, the discipline of her army, the strength of her laws, and the unlimited extent of her resources, combined to make Rome the strongest piece of political machinery the world has ever seen. Her strength, however, though great and prolonged, was not everlasting. The language of the vision required that days of weakness should come. Partly strong and partly broken;" this is the prediction, and so the days of universal Roman power passed away.

Then came the "partly broken state. Strong first, as signified by the iron legs of the image, and the corporate strength of the fourth beast of Daniel's vision, she entered in her later stages the phase represented by the clay- and - iron

mixed ten-toed feet of the image, and the antagonistic horns on the head of the fourth beast. Broken at last by the repeated blows of the barbaric invasions from the north, we behold her now in a. state of weakness and division. The European nations as we see them to-day are the latter-day divided phase of Roman power. The old imperial strength has gone. Rome no longer rules the world. She no longer sways the destinies of mankind with the most formidable of despotisms. She is broken, divided, weakened, a ricketty, disjointed system of nations, which hardly holds together for very weakness; a mixture of iron and clay of brittle cohesion, destined long to be smashed to atoms by the invincible stone from heaven.

ere

Rome has never been superseded. She has been changed by many vicissitudes. Still she lingers in weakness. The present political arrangements on the continent of Europe are but a prolongation of her existence in another form, corresponding to the requirements of the vision. They exhibit to us the last stage of the fourth kingdom, and tell us that we approach the time when a change will come over the world-when the fifth kingdom shall be manifested in destructive antagonism to all human power.

This suggests the consummation. The exactness with which this prophetic revelation has been verified in history supplies a clue and inspires entire confidence with respect to the unfulfilled part of the vision. History has brought us to the feet of the image, and the last of the four beasts; that is, to the close of the fourth great dominion, which it was predicted should arise in the earth. But what lies beyond? Let any one sit down and peruse the second and seventh chapters of Daniel attentively, and see if he do not, as a matter of self-evident testimony, come to the conclusion that the next step in the march of events is the visible interposition of

us

but

Can there be any difference of opinion as to the meaning of this language? It is addressed to as an interpretation; therefore, it is not enigmatical. It is a plain and literal statement, declaring the purpose of God to set aside the existing arrangement of things on the earth, and this not in an unseen, quiet, gradual manner, such as the expected spread of a spiritual millennium; but with the visibility, violent destructiveness, and suddenness of the stone's descent upon the image. The four kingdoms have destroyed each other; inasmuch as they were of the same (human) stock, they are not represented in the vision of the image as separate conflicting objects, but as part and parcel of the same body politic. Yet they violently and completely superseded each other, though no violence is signified in the symbol. The only violence represented is in connection with the crisis that has not yet arrived. It is employed by the stone toward the image, as representing the entire system of human government. This would lead us to anticipate violence of an unprecedented kind, when

[LECT. VIII.

the event signified comes to pass; and the reader will see that the wording of the interpretation is strictly corroborative of this legiti mate inference. "The God of heaven shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms." Herein is predicted the entire dis ruption of all systems of human government, the complete and violent suppression of "the powers that be." This is not a "notion or a "crotchet" founded upon an ambiguous symbol, but a simple reiteration of the unmistakable language of inspired interpretation. The same purpose is distinctly intimated in other parts of Scripture. For instance, in Psalm ii. Christ is addressed in the following language (verses 8-9)

"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, and thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

Again, Psalm cx. 5, 6, where it is also the subject of inspired song

"The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath He shall wound the heads over many countries."

Again, Isaiah, pourtraying this same divine interference, says (chap. xxiv. 21-23

"It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the hosts of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth that are upon the earth. They shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered into the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days they shall be visited (marginal reading found wanting '). THEN shall the moon be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, before his ancients gloriously."

Again, Hannah, on the occasion of Samuel's birth, uses the following words in her song (1 Sam. ii. 10)—

"The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them. The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and He shall give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed (or Christ).

Again, (Haggai ii. 21, 22)—

"I will shake the heavens and the earth, and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen.'

There are many other statements of a similar import throughout the Scriptures; but these are sufficient to show that the teaching in the book of Daniel is not isolated or exceptional, but co-incident with the general tone of prophetic testimony. That testimony destroys the popular idea of a millennium to be brought about by evangelical enterprise. It precludes the theory of gradual enlightenment and amelioration by human agency. It shows that all expectations of a day of perfection, consequent upon the ultimate triumph of Christianity in the world, are visionary as a dream, destined to receive effectual dissipation in the awful judgments by which the powers of the world will be overthrown.

Returning to Daniel, we find that there is not only a work of demolition, but a work of upbuilding and ' restitution. This is the most glorious feature of the divine purpose; "the God of heaven shall SET UP a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall stand for ever." Now, let us consider, for a moment, what the setting up of a kingdom means, and we shall understand this statement better. A kingdom is not an abstraction. It is not any single thing; it is an aggregation certain elements which go to make it up. A king in himself is not a kingdom; neither is a country, or a people, or laws, separately; it requires them all combined to constitute a kingdom. This must commend itself to every man's judgment. A kingdom consists of, 1st, a king; 2nd, an aristocracy; 3rd, a people; 4th, a territory; and 5th, laws. Now, to set up a kingdom is obviously to arrange and combine these elements. To appoint a king is not to set up a kingdom: David

of

:

was anointed years before he ascended the throne but the kingdom of David was not established until David actually became king over the realm. To portion out a territory, is not to set up a kingdom; a land without a king or inhabitants is no kingdom. To set up a king. dom, is to put together the various parts that make one. Now, in the testimony before us, we have it declared that it is the purpose of the Almighty to do this very thing-to organise a kingdom of His own in place of those which now occupy the earth, after they shall have been swept out of the way. Hence, we are led to expect, as the inevitable result of testimony believed, that when the fourth kingdom, existing, shall have been abolished of God, a new order of things shall visibly arise in the earth, in which there shall be a God-appointed king, a God-constituted aristocracy, a God-selected people, a God-chosen land, and God-given laws-altogether constituting a kingdom of God on the earth. Accordingly, we find that each of these elements is separately provided for in the course of prophecy. On the subject of the king, we need not go out of Daniel, chap. vii. 13, 14

now

"I saw, in the night visions, and behold, one like THE SON OF MAN came with the clouds of heaven and there

was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom. that all people, nations, and languages should serve HIM. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed."

Here we have an explanation of chap. ii. 44. But the main point to be noted is, that Daniel supplies us with the first element of the kingdom, viz., the king, styled in chapter ix. 25, "Messiah the Prince." This is Jesus Christ, spoken of in Revelation xix. 16, as the "King of kings, and Lord of lords." This is a subject capable of much enlargement; but as a whole lecture will be devoted to it, we at present desist.

Daniel also supplies us with the aristocracy of the coming kingdom.