still tender and comparatively diminutive horn of the West so the joint edict of Theodosius the second and Valentinian the third, which was promulged in the year 445, tended mightily to assist its growth.

By this important instrument, an absolute obedience to the will of the Roman Bishop was enjoined upon all the Churches of the Empire: all other Bishops were prohibited from attempting any thing without his authority: and the civil governor of each province was commanded to bring before him every Bishop, whom he might summon to appear before his judicature. As a further confirmation of such lofty privileges, the present edict refers to that prior edict of Gratian and Valentinian the second, by which the spiritual kingdom of the Papacy, originally founded by Constantine, was strengthened and cherished 1.

While this ecclesiastical dominion was rising up, the Gothic nations were invading the Western Empire, and were founding various kingdoms within its limits which professed religions or modes of religion different from that of the Roman Church. Such an event, which might well seem to portend absolute ruin to the papal kingdom, served only in the issue to strengthen and increase it. The Gothic nations by degrees embraced the Roman faith, and at the same time submitted to the Pope's

'Sir Isaac Newton's Observ. on Dan. chap. viii. p. 90-95, 107, 109- 112.

authority. The Franks in Gaul submitted at the end of the fifth century: the Goths in Spain, at the end of the sixth'. In the year 600, the Lombards renounced the heresy of Arius, and reconciled themselves to the Apostolic See : and, in the year 604, the conversion of the primary Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent was finally accomplished by the labours of Augustine, who had been submissively received as its metropolitan from the Roman Pontiff.

When this last transaction was completed, the representatives of all the ten Gothic kingdoms had submitted to the little western horn. At that era, the times and the laws and the saints were given into its hand : at that era, the ten kings unanimously devoted their power and strength and kingdom to the service of the beast and his harlot-rider: at that era, commenced the latter three times and a half of papal misrule in the West: and, at that era, the little horn of Daniel's vision, from a small and comparatively harmless ecclesiastical Principality becoming a great and ferocious ecclesiastical Empire, began henceforth to appear as the second or two-horned beast of the Apocalypse '.

Sir I. Newton's Obsery. on Dan, chap. viii. p. 113. * Notwithstanding the rapid growth of papal domination during the fifth and sixth centuries, it is a remarkable circumstance, that, about the close of the sixth century, Pope Gregory explicitly disclaimed that universal rule and supremacy, which it has been the great object of his successors and their parasites to demand de jure and to maintain (so far as the secular Powers would permit) de facto. He states, that neither he nor any one

(4.) Though the task has already been very often performed, yet, in order that the present argument

of his predecessors ever thought of preposterously asserting their universal episcopate : and, what puts his meaning out of all possibility of dispute, he grounds his alleged circumstance on the basis, that any such claim, on the part of the Patriarch of Rome, would manifestly infringe upon the equal rights and prerogatives and jurisdiction of the other Patriarchs.

Consacerdos meus Johannes (Constantinopolitanus) vocari Universalis Episcopus conatur. Exclamare compellor ac dicere, O tempora! O mores! Sacerdotes vanitatis sibi nomina expetunt, et novis ac prophanis vocabulis gloriantur.-Sed absit a cordibus Christianorum nomen illud blasphemiæ, in quo omnium sacerdotum honor adimitur, dum ab uno sibi dementer arrogatur. Gregor. Epist. lib. iv. epist. 32. Nullus unquam decessorum meorum hoc tam profano vocabulo uti consensit: quia, videlicet, si unus Patriarcha Universalis dicitur, Patriarcharum nomen cæteris derogatur. Sed absit, hoc absit, a Christiana mente id sibi velle quenquam arripere unde fratrum suorum honorem imminuere ex quantulacunque parte videatur. Ibid. epist. 36.

Nothing can be more evident, than that, according to the judgment of Gregory which exactly corresponds with the decision of the first Nicene Council ratified and legalised by Constantine, all the several great Patriarchs were, in point of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within their respective Patriarchates, so mutually equal, that any claim to an Universal Episcopate, preferred by any one of these Patriarchs, was a clear usurpative invasion of the always acknowledged co-equal independence of all the other Patriarchs. Yet, notwithstanding this express decision of Gregory in regard to a naked matter of fact, we are unblushingly told by his successor and namesake Gregory the seventh, that the Roman Pontiff alone can rightly be called Universal (Dictat. Papæ Gregor. sept. in Epist. lib. ii. epist. 55. Labb. Concil. vol. x. p. 110, 111.): and, in a recent bull

may not be left incomplete, it will be useful to examine the prophetic character of the little horn, article by article, as it is minutely described in the prediction itself.

At its first rise, the little horn is not only to be a small kingdom, but it is likewise to be different from all the other horns.

Accordingly, every one of the ten kingdoms, founded by the ten northern nations, was a temporal sovereignty; but the papal horn was a spiritual sovereignty: and, even afterward, when it had acquired a secular principality at the expence of three of the ten temporal horns, it still continued to differ essentially from them in its political constitution; because, unlike its fellows, it was a Power

issued even by the present Pope, we are gravely assured, without the least respect to that independent jurisdiction of the other Patriarchs which Gregory the great professed to guard so jealously, that the Roman Church is the MOTHER and MISTRESS of all other Churches. How it can be the MOTHER of Churches more ancient than itself, the Church of Jerusalem for instance, certainly passes my limited comprehension: and how it can be the MISTRESS of all other Churches, if Gregory the great have spoken truly, is equally paradoxical. Gregory the seventh, in his assertion, quod solus Romanus Pontifex jure dicatur Universalis, seems most unluckily to have forgotten the character which Gregory the great gives of the individual who assumes such a title: Mandata dominica, apostolica præcepta, regulas patrum, despiciens, eum (scil. Antichristum) per elationem præcurrere conatur in nomine :-ita ut universa sibi tentet adscribere, et omnia, quæ soli uni capiti cohærent, videlicet Christo, ejusdem Christi sibi studeat membra subjugare. Gregor. Epist. lib. iv. epist. 36.

ecclesiastical and spiritual, as well as civil and temporal.

The little horn is said to have eyes like the eyes of a man, with which it keenly overlooks the actions of all the other ten horns.

Thus the Papacy claims an universal episcopate : and, in this character, it professes to take under its cognizance the spiritual concerns, and not unfrequently the temporal concerns also, of the entire Western Empire.

The little horn is described, as having a mouth which speaks great things and a look more stout than its fellow-horns.

Accordingly, in his asserted capacity of Christ's Vicar upon earth, the Bishop of Rome has, at various times, anathematised all who dared to oppose him; has laid whole kingdoms under an interdict; has excommunicated kings and emperors; has absolved their subjects from their allegiance; has affected greater authority, even in temporal matters, than sovereign princes; and has pronounced, that the dominion of the whole earth rightfully belongs to him.

The little horn is represented, as speaking great words by the side of the Most High, and as affecting an equality with God.

Accordingly, the Bishop of Rome is not offended at being styled, by his parasites, Our Lord God the Pope, Another God upon earth, King of kings and Lord of lords, Our most holy Lord, the victorious God and man in his see of Rome, God the