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2. The dark sentences understood by the horn, or king of fierce countenance, cannot be applied to the Koran in any probable sense. 3. The phrase, "his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power," cannot be explained of Mohammedanism in any way which can render it a peculiar characteristic of this religion. And Mr. Faber's explication will equally apply to any false worship which has had an extensive sway in the earth. 4. It is not a religion, but a kingdom or empire, which must be designated by the little horn. This horn is not to stand up till "the transgressors are come to the full." By transgressors Bishop Newton understands the wicked Jews; and therefore explains the passage of the time when the Romans destroyed the Jewish nation. But it is evident this cannot be the meaning; for God's present indignation against the Jewish nation, was only then first manifested; but this horn was not to rise up till the afterpart of this indignation. Secondly, the transgressors spoken of are the Greeks and not the Jews, a circumstance which is demonstrable from the very words: "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full;" that is, in the latter time of the Greek empire, when the Greeks have filled up the measure of their iniquity. The great idolatry of the Greeks in the middle centuries was truly deplorable; it was a growing evil; every day they added to the great

* See Faber's Dissertation on the Prophecies, Vol. I. p. 265, &c. Edit. Lond. 1810.

and tremendous mass of their iniquity. They were inferior to the Latins in hardly any kind of super stition; both churches abounded in idolatrous worship of every sort; and it was no wonder that the anger of the Lord finally destroyed the Greeks as a nation. The Greeks, like the Latins, were worshippers of the saints and angels, and the adorers of relics of every description; and the great profligacy of their clergy, especially in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, was a certain presage of the speedy perdition of their empire. Of the corruption of the Greek clergy in the 13th century, Mosheim thus speaks: "Both the Greek and Latin writers, provoked, beyond measure, by the flagitious lives of their spiritual rulers and instructors, complain loudly of their licentious manners, and load them with the severest reproaches; nor will these complaints and reproaches appear excessive to such as are acquainted with the history of this corrupt and superstitious age. Several eminent men attempted to stem this torrent of licentiousness, which from the heads of the church had carried its pernicious streams through all the members; but their power and influence were unequal to such a difficult and arduous enterprise."* In this century great exertions were made by the Roman pontiffs to unite the Greek and Latin churches, which was at last effected, though it continued but for a very short time. The history of it is as fol

* Part II. chap. 2. § 1.

lows: "Michael Palæologus had no sooner driven the Latins out of Constantinople, than he sent ambassadors to Rome to declare his pacific intentions, that thus he might establish his disputed dominion, and gain over the Roman pontiff to his side. But, during the course of these negociations, Urban's death left matters unfinished, and suspended once more the hopes and expectations of the public. Under the pontificate of Gregory X. proposals of peace were again made by the same emperor, who, after much opposition from his own clergy, sent ambassadors to the council that was assembled at Lions in the year 1274; and there, with the solemn consent of John Veccus, patriarch of Constantinople, and several Greek bishops, publicly agreed to the terms of accommodation proposed by the Roman pontiff. This re-union, however, was not durable; for the situation of affairs in Greece and Italy being changed some years after this convention, and that in such a manner as to deliver the former from all apprehensions of a Latin invasion, Andronicus, the son of Michael, assembled a council at Constantinople in the palace at Blachernæ, A. D. 1284, in which, by a solemn decree, this ignominious treaty was declared entirely null, and the famous Veccus, by whose persuasion and authority it had been concluded, was sent into exile. This resolute measure, as may well be imagined, rendered the divisions more violent than they had been before the treaty now mentioned; and it was also followed by an open schism, and by the most un

happy discords among the Grecian clergy."* From this history it is evident, that the immorality of the Greeks was at a very high pitch in the thirteenth century; and the union of the Greek and Latin churches, though of very short continuance, is a proof that the Greeks were as much addicted to idolatry as the Latins, and the more especially, as during this union they acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, + the main point of

* Mosheim, Part 11. chap. 3, § 13.

† A second union was effected between the Greek and Latin churches in the early part of the fifteenth century, which, however, proved more transitory than the preceding. That part of the Papal bull in which the Pope's supremacy over the Greek church is acknowledged is as follows: Item' diffinimus Sanctam Apostolicam Sedem, et Romanum Pontificem in universum Orbem tenere Primatum, et ipsum Pontificem Romanum Successorem esse beati Petri Principis Apostolorum, et verum Christi Vicarium, totiusque Ecclesiæ Caput, et omnium Christianorum Patrem et Doctorem existere; et ipsi in beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem Ecclesiam à Domino nostro Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse; quemadmodum etiam in gestis Ecumenicorum Conciliorum et in Sacris Canonibus continetur. Renovantes insuper ordinem traditum in Canonibus ceterorum venerabilium Patriarcharum; ut Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus secundus sit post Sanctissimum Romanum Pontificem, tertius vero Alexandrinus, quartus autem Antiochenus et quintus Hierosolymitanus; salvis videlicet privilegiis omnibus et juribus eorum. Datum Florentiæ in Sessione publicâ Synodali solenniter in Ecclesiâ Majori celebratâ, anno Incarnationis Dominicæ millesimo quadringentesimo tricesimo nono, pridie Nonas Julii, Pontificatûs nostri Anno nono. "Likewise we define the Holy Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff, to have primacy over the whole globe, and the Roman pontiff himself to

difference consisting in what was termed the procession of the Holy Ghost. But in the time of this universal corruption of the Greek church a little horn is to rise up; and the first place of its appearance is to be in one of the four grand divisions of the Greek empire, spoken of by the angel; for it is said that "out of one of them came forth a little horn." This, then, can be no other than the Othman, or Ottoman empire, as this was a mortal enemy to the Greeks, and first rose up in Asia Minor, a province which fell to the share of Lysimachus at the time when the Greek empire was divided, about 308 years before the Incarnation. Gibbon's account of the rise of the Othmans is as follows: "After the retreat of Zingis (A. D. 1240,) the súl

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be the successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and to be the true vicar of Christ, and the head and pastor of the whole church, and of all Christians; and that full power has been given by Our Lord Jesus Christ to him through St. Peter, of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal church, as even it is acknowledged in the acts of the General councils, and in the sacred canons. We revive, moreover, the rauk, delivered in the Canons, of the other venerable patriarchs; that the Constantinopolitan patriarch be next after the most holy Roman pontiff, the patriarch of Alexandria the third, the patriarch of Antioch the fourth, and the patriarch of Jerusalem the fifth; with all their privileges and rights preserved to them. Given at Florence in the public synodic session, solemnly celebrated in the greater church, in the year of the Incarnation 1439, the day before the nones of July, and in the ninth year of our pontificate." This instrument was signed by 128 ecclesiastical dignitaries, Greek and Latin, all whose names are extant in the instrument. See Corps Diplomatique, Tom. III. p. 66-68.

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