“Mr. Hinton took the same view that Mr. Miller did of this symbol. He said: ‘If any other events of history can be set forth and made to fill out all the particulars mentioned by Daniel and John, we should be happy to see them stated; till then, we shall believe the little horn rising up amidst the ten horns, and having three of them plucked up before it, to refer to the rise of the papacy in the midst of the kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was divided in the sixth century.”—p. 237.
“Dr. Dowling, Dr. Hamilton, and others, who admitted that the fourth beast symbolized the Roman Empire, also applied its little horn to the papacy.
“3. The Little Horn of the eighth chapter of Daniel, that became exceeding great. This Mr. Miller believed to be a symbol of Rome. In this view he was sustained by Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Dr. Hales, Martin Luther, Dr. Prideaux, Dr. Clarke, Dr. Hopkins, Wm. Cunninghame, and others.
“Dr. Horne said of the first three above named: ‘Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, and Dr. Hales, have clearly shown that the Roman power, and no other, is intended; for, although some of the particulars may agree very well with that king (Antiochus), yet others can by no means be reconciled to him; while all of them agree and correspond exactly with the Romans, and with no other power.”—Intro., vol. 4, p. 191.
“In addition to these, almost all the old writers who applied it to Antiochus Epiphanes did so only as the type of Rome, where they looked for the Antichrist. St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, said: ‘This, the predicted Antichrist, will come when the times of the (pagan) Roman Empire shall be fulfilled, and the consummation of the world approach. Ten kings of the Romans shall rise together, in different places indeed, but they shall reign at the same time. Among these, the eleventh is Antichrist, who, by magical and wicked artifices, shall seize the Roman power.’
“Prof. Stuart, Prof. Chase, and even Dr. Dowling, with others, applied this symbol to Antiochus Epiphanes.
“Rev. R. C. Shimeal, of New York (“Prophecy in Course of Fulfillment”), dissented from Mr. Miller, and also from the foregoing, and understood this horn to symbolize the Mahommedan power. Mr. Hinton took the same view.
“Mr. Miller was sustained in his application of this point by Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Jarvis. The latter said: ‘Sir Isaac Newton, with that sagacity which was peculiar to him, was the first, I believe, who showed clearly that this little horn was the Roman power.’—p. 43.
“4. The Length of the Prophetic Numbers. In explaining these, Mr. Miller adopted the Protestant view, that they represent years. There is probably no point respecting which Protestant commentators have been more agreed than this. Faber, Prideaux, Mede, Clarke, Scott, the two Newtons, Wesley, and almost every expositor of note, have considered this a settled question. Indeed, so universal has been this interpretation of these periods that Professor Stuart says: ‘It is a singular fact that the great mass of interpreters in the English and American world have, for many years, been wont to understand the days designated in Daniel and the Apocalypse as the representatives or symbols of years. I found it difficult to trace the origin of this general, I might say almost universal, custom.’—Hints, p. 77.
“He also says: ‘For a long time these principles have been so current among the expositors of the English and American world, that scarcely a serious attempt to vindicate them has of late been made. They have been regarded as so plain and so well fortified against all objections, that most expositors have deemed it quite useless even to attempt to defend them. One might, indeed, almost compare the ready and unwavering assumption of these propositions, to the assumption of the first self-evident axioms in the science of geometry, which not only may dispense with any process of ratiocination in their defense, but which do not even admit of any.’—Hints, p. 8.