Prophecies of Revelation and Daniel developed in the history of Christendom...

Front matter

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Introduction

(Prophecies of Revelation.)

There are periods in human history, corresponding, in some gense, to the cycles of the physical cosmos. In the natural world we have in the species the rotation of seed, plant and seed again. Experience teaches there has to be the seed in order to the existence of the plant from which the seed. And so it is said, whether or not strictly with truth, speaking analogously, that " history repeats itself." In regard to the subject of this treatise, therefore, prophecy may be thought of as the seed or germ of which history is the full developed tree in all its ramifications and foliage. From the prophetic word, symbol or expression spring the volumes of human history. It is the same power that is the author of the objects of nature, which foretells and develops human history in its seemingly cyclical manifestations, which, indeed, knows the beginning, the progress and the issue of all things.

This treatise demonstrates the principal prophecies of the book of Revelation, in their connection with those of the prophet Daniel, to have been fulfilled in the history of Christendom. The five divisions under which the subject is arranged correspond, in their order, to the order of the prophecies and of their development: —

1. The Primitive Christian Church covers the first three centuries, and shows the gradual growth of Christianity in the world during this time. It may be said to cover the period from the death of Christ to the conversion of Constantine I, to the Christian faith.

2. The Christian Roman Empire System covers nearly twelve

centuries, beginning with Constantine I, who is reckoned the first

Christian Roman emperor, and he who first established Christianity

as the religion of the empire, — and ending with Constantine XII,

who fell fighting against the Turks in 1453, when they captured

Constantinople. This division embraces the history of Rome and

Italy (400-554), during which it was devastated by or in subjection

to Goths, Huns, Vandals, etc.

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IV INTRODUCTION.

3. This division, which deals with the Papacy and its origin, and then its connection, under the idea of its supremacy, with the Franco-German and the AnHo-Saxon-Norman monarchies, is generally included in the prophecy itself under our second head, and covers between six and seven centuries, or from the neighborhood of the year 800 to the opening of the Protestant Reformation. It is, however, so systematically distinct from the (Grsecoj-Roman Empire system proper, as that the prophecy in relation to the latter sufficiently indicates it in its progress; and, therefore, its historical development must needs come under a different head from that of the latter. Under this division is given not only the direct origin of the papal sovereignt}^, but also the origin and progress of the French, the German and the Anglo-Saxon-Norman monarchies, down to the " Protestant Reformation." The origin and steps in the descent of these monarchical lines will be found much simplified, as compared with how these appear in the histories, written by the monks, which have come down to us from the Middle Ages, histories which in parts are indeed replete with the " Historical Romance."

4. In this division is developed, in connection with the prophecy in Revelation XVIIth, the Papal supremacy, energised, over all the potentates and nations of Christendom ; and under this head come, First, the Crusades; Second, the Explanation, in the light of history, of said chapter XVII of the Revelation; Third, the doings of the Inquisition; and. Fourth, the rise of the system traced historically. I have treated the subject in all its connections without prejudice, but, judging from the facts as they presented themselves to me in the histories, I have so deduced my conclusions.

5. In this division is discussed the Protestant Reformation; the principal Reformers and their movements and doctrines ; the rise of the Gothic and Anglic nations, which, mainly, were concerned in that change ; the new polities resulting to those nations therefrom; and a brief representation of the interrelations, especially by way of war, of the principal European nations with each other, independently of their respective religions, down to the middle of this nineteenth century. In the church and state polities and dual sovereignties, arising from the Reformation, will be found reflexes of the preceding ones in Christendom. These polities usher in the Age of the Son of Man.

St. Louis, 1889. R- S.