III. Besides the place and the persons, the time also is signified
of this tyrannical power, when it should prevail, and how long it
should prevail. Daniel mentions these things as being at a very
great distance, and indeed they were at a very great distance in his
time. It is said (vill. 26; x. 24.) the vision is yet for many days ;
that it comprehends (viii. 19.) what shall be in the last end of the
indignation ; that it extends (xi. 35. 40; xii. 4. 9.) even to the time
of the end; that when God (xii. 7.) shall have accomplished to scatter
the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished; all
which and other passages to the same purpose considered, it appears
as unaccountable as strange, that ever any man should imagine, as
some both ancients and moderns have imagined, that Daniel’s pro-
phecies reached not beyond the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Daniel hath described four great empires, not contemporary, but
successive one to another. ‘The fourth, and last, is represented as
the greatest of all, both in extent and in duration. Jt devoureth
the whole earth, and treadeth it down, and breaketh it m pieces.
