Ib.
We shall yet have to inquire how it could be foreseen that this fourth, this yet unestablished empire, should be the last in the line.
This is a sound and weighty argument, which the preceding does not, I confess, strike me as being. On the contrary, the admission that by a writer of the Maccabaic æra the Roman power could scarcely have been overlooked, greatly strengthens this second argument, as naturally suggesting expectations of change, and wave-like succession of empires, rather than the idea of a last. In the age of Augustus this might possibly have occurred to a profound thinker; but the age of Antiochus was too late to permit the Roman power to escape notice; and not late enough to suggest its exclusive establishment so as to leave no source of succession.
Discourses on Prophecy, in which are considered its structure, use and inspiration, being the substance of twelve Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn in the Lecture founded by the Right Rev. William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester. By John Davison, B.D. 2nd edit. London, 1825.