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great horn of the goat, it must be remembered that Persia had swallowed up Media before either was invaded by Alexander; and, therefore, the ram should have had but one horn when vanquished by the goat."

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not expressly told that the two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. The words of the angel are," the ram having the two horns are the kings of Media and Persia." The difference is vital to the argument. First, it disproves at once the distinction attempted to be set up between kings and kingdoms; for what can be plainer than that, by the ram, two personal kings are not symbolized, but two united dynasties with the subject kingdom? Next, it refutes the objection that one horn should have been wanting at the time when the ram is overthrown: for the body of the ram symbolizes, the angel tells us, the composite kingdom; and, therefore, the horns have then only a retrospective meaning, like the seven heads of the Apocalyptic wild beast, which all are continued in the emblem, even after the time of their rule. The whole objection rests merely upon a direct misquotation; and, when that is exposed, it vanishes entirely.

Again, Media was never, in any strict sense, swallowed up by Persia. After the fall of Smerdis-the latest event which could answer the description—we read still of the seven princes of Persia and Media, which sat the first on the kingdom (Esth. i.); and, again, of the chronicles of Media and Persia. The royal line was of Median as well as Persian descent. In classical writers Tà Mŋcià is the regular term to denote the invasion of Xerxes. The uprooting of the first horn would only have detracted from the historical exactness and propriety of the symbol.

3. "It would be easy to show that the division of the empire of Alexander into four kingdoms, after his death,

is a fact of which no satisfactory historical evidence has ever been produced: for it was divided into many more than four petty sovereignties, which continued in a state of change for many years; and it would have been as easy to have produced twelve or more, had so many been required by the prophecy.”

A separate Appendix, of near twenty pages, chiefly taken from Venema, is devoted to the same argument. It also occupies four pages of the following Lecture, so that Dr. Todd plainly attaches to it a great importance.

Now it might be enough to remark, with Mr. Faber -first, that the prophecy speaks of four conspicuous horns; and, secondly, that where the main outlines of an interpretation are clear, it is contrary to every maxim of sound judgment to reject it because of difficulty in subordinate details. There is no need, however, to rest in this general reply, since a close examination will, as usual, turn Dr. Todd's objection into a fresh argument, for the truth of the common view.

We may, doubtless, fancy to ourselves a fourfold division-instantaneous, permanent, and mathematically complete, like the quadrants of a circle; and not finding this in the history, many reject the application on that account. This, however, would prove nothing but our own rashness. It is enough to prove that the event accords fully with the division, as implied in the prophecy itself, in its theatre, its date, and its continuance. A few remarks will then clear away all these mists of learned confusion.

(1). The theatre in which we are to look for this division is not the whole of Alexander's conquests: for the gold and silver co-exist with the rule of the third kingdom; and the two former beasts have their life prolonged after their time of rule is past. We must exclude, therefore, Babylon, Persia, and

Media, or

the regions beyond the Euphrates, as well as Western Europe. Sir Isaac Newton well observes :

"All the four beasts are still alive, though the dominion of the three first be taken away. The nations of Chaldea and Assyria are still the first beast; those of Media and Persia the second; those of Macedon, Greece, and Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, are still the third; and those of Europe, on this side Greece, are still the fourth. Seeing, therefore, the body of the third beast is confined to the nations on this side the Euphrates, we are to look there also for the divisions of the third beast; and therefore, at the breaking of the Greek empire, we include no part of the Chaldeans, Medes, and Persians, because they belonged to the bodies of the two first beasts."

These remarks have a transparent clearness worthy of the writer, and are firmly based on the prophecy itself. Hence more than half the sub-divisions which swell Dr. Todd's Appendix are at once excluded.

(2). The date of the prophetic division is clearly implied in xi. 4, which Dr. Todd admits to refer to the same event. The kingdom was to be divided towards the four winds of heaven, and not to his posterity. This teaches, first, that the posterity of Alexander was speedily to be extinct, or cut off from royal dominion. And how strikingly was this fulfilled! But we learn further, that the fourfold division in the prophecy is not to be looked for while the kingdom was administered in the name of Alexander's children. This mark, drawn from the vision itself, excludes every one of the lists from Raderus, which fill about six pages of the Appendix. It also excludes three out of the four divisions in Venema; for the third of them was made, as he tells us, “until Alexander, the son of Alexander by Rhoxane, should come of age." The inquiry is, therefore, now brought within a narrow compass.

(3). The history of the actual division, at the point of time and within the theatre which the prophecy as

signs, minutely answers to the prediction. The fairest way seems to be to quote Venema at length. His own object, I may just observe, was to detect a tenfold division, but his accuracy is undoubted :--

"New troubles presently arising, after the house of Alexunder was extirpated, and a war springing up between the allies, Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus on the one side, and Antigonus and his son Demetrius on the other. After Demetrius had defeated Ptolemy with great slaughter, and taken Cyprus, Antigonus, elated with his success, first assumed the diadem, and placed it on Demetrius; which, when the allies presently imitated, six kings suddenly appeared on the scene, Antigonus, Demetrius, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Cassander, and last Seleucus, who had now enlarged his kingdom through the East. This was B.C. 306. The war was then renewed on both sides with greater forces ; and a decisive battle being fought at Ipsus, in Phrygia, Antigonus was vanquished and slain, and his kingdom extinguished, B.c.301, To use the words of Plutarch (in Demetrio), the victor kings divided among themselves the whole kingdom of Antigonus and Demetrius, like a great carcase torn in pieces, and joined it to their own provinces. By this fourth and last division, Ptolemy retained his kingdom, and added to it Cœlo-Syria, Phenicia, and Judea; Lysimachus, besides Thrace, received Bithynia and other regions on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont and Bosphorus ; Cassander obtained Macedonia and Greece; Seleucus the rest of Asia, so that from that time he founded the Syro-Macedonian kingdom."

From this account, given us by Dr. Todd's own authority, we may draw these evident conclusions :— First, that until after the three former divisions, neither was the house of Alexander extirpated, nor the title of king assumed by his generals. These have none of them any claim, therefore, to be the division in the prophecy. Secondly, that when the house of Alexander was extinct, and six kings first appeared, there was at the time a fierce war raging between them, and nothing like a formal or fixed division. Thirdly, that after the battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301, there was a division by mutual consent,

which Venema calls the fourth and last, but which was the only royal division after Alexander's posterity were cut off; and this division was strictly fourfold. Lastly, that these four conspicuous kingdoms were evidently toward the four winds of heaven-Cassander in the west, Lysimachus in the north, Seleucus in the east, and Ptolemy in the south.

Hence, amidst a chaos of perplexing changes, we find, on examination, a minute and punctual fulfilment of the prophecy, within the precise theatre and at the exact point of time to which the visions themselves lead us.

(4). But it is urged that "this statement omits altogether the Indian provinces; it omits also the Grecian states, that were at this time independent; and, what is more important, it takes no notice of the power of Demetrius, who retained no inconsiderable empire in Alicia, and two years after possessed himself of Athens, and ultimately Macedon."

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The objection, in this form, requires an historical microscope; but let us examine it in detail. First, the Indian provinces are excluded, as we have mere comparison with the former visions. Next, with regard to the independent cities of Greece, Venema says expressly, "Cassander Macedoniam et Græciam consecutus est." The temporary freedom of a few cities does not interfere with the completeness of this allotment, any more than the resistance of Tyre, near thirty years after (Ez. xxix. 17), interfered with the prophet's description of the first kingdom (Dan. ii. 38). Again, Demetrius had no kingdom, properly so called, left in Asia. The words of Plutarch, given by Dr. Todd's own authority, are express: «Totum Antigoni et Demetrii regnum diviserunt inter se, suisque provinciis adjunxerunt." His subsequent occupation of Athens and Macedon gave a fresh head to the first of the four kingdoms, but did not affect their number. And

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