^ Sr-^ THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Princeton, N. J. iD» aQ/ .^a- sfV vO/ vOr vTlf v(V i(V vfl/ .n^ vO/vn* vn> ^n, -r- j Division Section .n* vO* -^ vO^ vO/ ' |j Case, I Shelf, Section-^ frr~-.^^. Book, No,vJ7^33| / '«> Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 witii funding from Princeton Tiieoiogicai Seminary Library littp://www.arcliive.org/details/dissertationoOOfabe DISSERTATI0T5 PHOPIIECIES, THAT HAVE BEEN FULFILLED, ARE NOW FULFILLING^ OR WILL HEREAFTER BE FULFILLED, RELATIVE TO THE GREAT PERIOD OF 1260 YEARS; THE PAPAL AND MOHAMMEDAN APOSTACIES ; THE TYRANNICAL REIGN OF ANTICHRIST, OR THE INFIDEL POWER ; AND THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. TO WHICH IS ADDED, AN APPENDIX. BY THE REV. GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B. D. VICAR OF STOCKTOJr-UPON-TEES. FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. " Shut up the Words, and seal the Book, even to the time of the end : many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. xii. 4. BOSTON : PUBLISHED BY ANDREWS AND CUMMINGS. GRBENOUGH AND SIEBBINS, PRINIERS, 1808. V HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, SHUTE BARRINGTON, LL. D. LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. MY LORD, THE kindness which I have uniformly experien- ced, particularly in a late instance, from your Lordship, encourages me to request permission to place the fol- lowing Work under your protection. It treats of a subject peculiarly interesting to every serious Protestant : for the famous period of 1260 pro- phetic days, so frequently mentioned by Daniel and St. John, comprehends the tyrannical reign of those three great opponents of the Gospel, Popery, Mohammedism, and Infidelity. This period indeed may not improperly be styled the permitted hour of the poxs^ers of darkness ; since the true Church is represented as being in an af- flicted and depressed state during the whole of its con- tinuance, and since its expiration will be marked by a signal display of the judgments of God upon his ene- mies and by the commencement of a new and happy order of things. In the subject which I have chosen so many eminent expositors have preceded me, that I fear my choice of it alone may render me liable to the charge either of need- less repetition, or of unwarrantable presumption. Your Lordship however, I am confident, will not prejudge me from the mere statement of my subject : and the can- dour, which I anticipate from my venerable Diocesan, I feel myself justified in claiming from the Public. In fact, had I nothing new to offer upon the subject, the discussing of it afresh would have been plainly su- perfluous ; but an attentive examination of the writings of Daniel and St. John has led me to think, that in some points my predecessors have partially erred, and that in others they have been altogether mistaken. In the in- terpretation of Prophecy knowledge is undoubtedly pro- gressive. The predictions of Scripture, extending as they do from the earliest periods to the consummation of all things, although they be gradually opened partly by the hand of time and partly by human labour undertaken in humble dependence upon the divine aid, are yet necessa- rily in some measure a sealed book, even to the time of the end. As that time approaches, we may expect, agreeably to the angel's declaration to Daniel, that mmiij will run to and fro, and that hioicledge will he micrpaRed. Hence it was observed by Sir Isaac Newton, that " amongst the in- terpreters of the last age there is scarce one of note, who hath not made some discovery worth knowing." Noth- ing however requires so much caution and prudence, so much hesitation and circumspection, as an attempt to unfold these deep mysteries of God. An intemperate introduction of new interpretations is highly dangerous and mischievous : because it has a natural tendency to unsettle the minds of the careless and the wavering, and is apt to induce them hastily to take up the preposterous opinion that there can be no certainty in the exposition of Prophecy. On these grounds I have ever been per- suaded, that a commentator discharges his duty but very imperfectly, if, when he advances a new interpretation of any prophecy that has been already interpreted, he satisfies himself with merely urging in favour of his scheme the most plausible arguments that he has been able to invent. Of every prediction there may be many erroneous expositions, but there can only be one that is right. It is not enough therefore for a commentator to fortify with elaborate ingenuity his own system. Before he can reasonably expect it to be adopted by others, he must shew likewise, that the expositions of his prede- cessors are erroneous in those points wherein he differs from them. Such a mode of writing as this may un- doubtedly expose him to the charge of captiousness : it will likewise unavoidably increase the size of his Work ; and may possibly weary those readers, who dis- like the trouble of thoroughly examining a subject : but it will be found to be the only way, in which there is even a probability of attaining to the truth. This plan I have adopted : and it has at least been of infinite use to myself. It has at once compelled me, in the course of writing and revising the present Dissertation, to relinquish, as utterly untenable, many opinions which I had once adopted ; and it has confirmed me in adher- ing to those, which I have retained. In short, it en- ables me to say, that not a single new interpretation is here advanced without having been previously subject- ed to the severest scrutiny. Whatever would not bear the test of all the objections, which 1 was able to alledge against it myself, has been rejected, as still less being able to bear the test of those which others might al- ledge. Flattering as the countenance of the great may be, that of the good as well as great is much more rational- ly satisfactory. Your Lordship's character can be heightened by no testimony of mine. Yet 1 may be allowed to say, that the favours which I have received from you, have been rendered doubly valuable, both by the manner in which they have been conferred, and by the recollection of the hand that conferred them. I have the honour to be. My Lord, Your Lordship's much obliged and dutiful humble Servant, GEORGE STANLEY FABER. Stockton-upon- TeeSy June 29, 1805. i PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, THE work, which is here offered to the Public, is founded upon the three following very simple princi- ples. 1. To assign to each prophetic symbol its proper defi- nite meaning, and never to vary from that meaning ; 2. To allow no interpretation of a prophecy to be valid, except the prophecy agree, in every particular, with the event to which it is supposed to relate ; 3. And to deny, that any link of a chronological pro- phecy is capable of receiving its accomplishment in more than one event. If we examine the predictions of Daniel and St, John agreeably to these principles, we shall find, that two great enemies of the Gospel, Popery and Mohammedism^ are described as commencing their tyrannical career together at the beginning of a certain period which comprehends 1260 years^ and as perishing together at the end of it: that, towards the close of this period, a third power is in- troduced ; whose characteristic marks are a total disre- gard of all religion, an impious determination to do ac- cording to his will, and an open profession of absolute atheism blended nevertheless with the worship of a cer- tain foreign god and other tutelary deities whom his fa- thers never knew : that this last power is likewise destin- ed to be destroyed at the end of the l'?60 years : that he will previously unite himself, for political reasons, with Poperij : that the stage of their joint overthrow will be Palestine: and that, when the period of 1260 years is completed, the restoration of the Jews will commence. All these matters may, I think, be clearly deduced from prophecy : and the actual completion of many predictions relative to them afford us ample warrant for concluding, that the rest will likewise be accomplished in God's own good season. The present awful state of the world naturally leads all serious men to search the Scriptures : and the atten- tion of more than one modern writer has been laudably directed to the elucidation of those prophecies, which either have been fulfilled, or are now fulfilling. Those, who have considered the subject most at large, are, 1 be- lieve, Mr. Whitaker, Dr. Zouch, Mr. Kett, and Mr. Gal- loway.* Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Zouch, with some ex- ceptions, have undertaken to defend the scheme of in- terpretation adopted by Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton : while Mr. Kett and INIr. Galloway, though they differ from each other in many points, have avowedly attempt- ed to establish a new scheme of interpretation. 1. Although 1 am not able to assent to several of Mr. Whitaker's opinions, most sincerely can 1 recommend his Comment a nj on the Revelation to the attention of every protestant, particularly every English protestant. At the present juncture, when Popery ov\ce more begins to rear its hydra head, a full statement of its abominable princi- ples was peculiarly seasonable. This has been most sat- isfactorily executed by Mr. Whitaker : but he appears to me at the same time to have exceeded his commission, in branding the Pupacif with the title of Antichrist. Many indeed and wonderfully explicit are the prophe- cies, which describe the detestable cruelties and unholy superstitions of that great Apostacij ; which teach us the precise duration of its persecuting tyranny ; which foretell its union with rehelWous Infide/iti/ ; which point out both the place and manner of its destruction : but I have not yet been able to discover upon what scriptural grounds the name of Antichrist has been so generally applied to it. St. John is the only inspired writer who uses the term ; and nothing that he says relative to it, affords us any warrant for conferring it upon the Papaci/. " He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son :" the Church of Rome never denied either the Father or * To these I might have added Archdeacon Woodhouse and Mr. Bicheno ; but I had not read their writings at the time vvlien the first edition of this work was pub- lished. In the present edition, those of Mr. Bicheno are occasionally animadverted upon in the notes : but the scheme of the Archdeacon possesses so much unity of design, that I found it more convenient to consider it altogether apart in an ap- pendix. the Son : therefore tJie Church of Rome cannot be the Antichrist intended by St. John. x\s for the identity of Antichrist and the little horn of the Roman beast, it seems to me to have been rather taken for granted, than proved. Valuable however as Mr. Whitaker's Commentary is in many respects, he is guilty of one inconsistency which must not be passed over unnoticed. While he asserts, that he gives no interpretation of a symbol but what may be justified by some text of Scripture, he very un- warrantably explains the prophecies of the Apocalypse sometimes fgnrativelij and sometimes literally. Thus, for instance, the effusion oi the first, the fourth, and Me fifth, vials he interprets figuratively ; and yet to the ef- fusion of the second -dud the third he affixes an absolutely literal meaning, supposing those tico vials to describe a series of wars carried on both by sea and by land. Now it is obvious, that, if we interpret these predictions some- times figuratively and sometimes literally, we involve them in the same indecision and uncertainty, as if we apply a symbol sometimes to one thing and sometimes to another : for, if the mode of interpretation is in every particular instance to be left to the option of the com- mentator, who shall draw the line between the literal 2ind the figurative prophecies of the Apocalypse ? The whole book, excepting those very few passages which are avowedly descriptive, must be understood either lite- rally throughout or figuratively throughout: otherwise it will be utterly impossible to ascertain the meaning de- signed to be conveyed. The whole of the present Dissertation was written, and the corrections of it were nearly completed, before 1 had perused Mr. Whitaker's former publication, intitled A general and connected vieza of the prophecies. 1 there found, what gave me no small satisfaction, that the mere force of evidence had led two writers, between whom no communication had ever passed, to adopt the same opin- ion relative to the litt'e horn of the Macedonian he-goat, and the proper method of ascertaining the date of the \'260 years. Unconnected as we have been with each other, we have naturally treated the subject with some VOL.1. 2 10 degree ot difference : and, while I assent in the general to Mr. Whiiaker's opinion on these points, 1 feel myself compelled to protest against his idea, that any of the numbers of Daniel and St. John may be considered as round numbers. The perfect accuracy, with which some of them have been already filled up, affords the best war- rant for believing that the rest will likewise be filled up with equal accuracy. Indeed the very notion of « round number is irreconcileable with that of « dejinite and spe- cific number. Hence 1 think, that Mr. Whitaker's at- tempt to harmonize the number mentioned in the eighth chapter of Daniel, with the date which he rightly assigns to the 1260 ijears^ by adopting the reading of the Seven- ty, entirely fails of success, because the calculation pro- duces 2404 years^ instead of 2400 years., which it ought to have produced had it been founded upon just princi- ples even were the reading of the Seventy the genuine reading,* A similar train of ideas had once led me to adopt this very hypothesis of Mr. Whitaker ; but the same reason, which forced me to erase it from my ovi^n work, forces me also to reject it in his. On the same grounds, his opinion, that the hohj citij mentioned in the eleventh chapter of the Revelation is the literal city of Jerusalem^ will be found equally untenable, even inde- pendent of other objections to which it is liable. The taking of Jerusalem by the Persians in the year 16 14, can never be made to synchronize with the delivering of the saints into the hand of the Papal little horn in the tjear 606 ; nor is it to me at least at all satisfactory to be told, that the nearest round number., which will include the whole time intervening from the year 6 14 io the year 1866, will be 1260.f Since the saints are to be given into the hand o^ the little horn during the precise period of \'2{^0 years, and since the holy city is to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles during the self-same period of 42 prophetic montlts ; the reign of the little horn and the treading o^ the holy citij under foot must be exactly commensurate. Consequently, if the saints were first given into the hand of the little horn in the year 606, • General View, p. 272-^277. f Ibid. 11 the holy city must have begun to be trodden under foot in that same year. But the literal Jerusalem did not then begin to be trodden under foot by the literal Gen- tiles* Therefore the literal Jerusalem cannot be meant hy the holy city; nor the Christians of Jerusalem sur- rounded ziHth the abominations of Mohammedism by the fzvo witnesses. Mr. Whitaker seems to allow that this prophecy may be understood in a Jigurative sense, as it is by Bp. Newton, no less than in a literal one : T, on the other hand, will venture explicitly to assert, that it is incapable of any other than a Jigurative sense. In short, in the self-same year that the saints were first de- livered into the hand of the little horn, the mystic holy city began to be trodden under foot by a new race of idolaters, the mystic zvitnesses began to prophesy in sack- cloth, the mystic z a catholic spiritual empire, symbolized by the second beast of the Apocalypse, p. 1 17. — It was to arise during the period that the Roman empire was divided into ten kingdoms, p. 1 1 9. — It was to be harmless during the first part of its existence ; but, after the saints had been given by the secular power into its hand, it was to become an uni- versal ecclesiastical tyrant, utterly offensive in the eyes of God, p. 119. — At the pe- riod of their being thus given into its hand, the 1260 days of tke great Apostacy of the man of sip, considered in its dominant state, commenced, p. 120.— Exact cor- 21 respondence of the character of the little horn with the character of the Papacy, p. 127. The three horns, which were to be plucked up before the little horn, are not the Greek sovereignty in Italy, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the western im- perial authority in Italy, p. 131. — Neither are they the Exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the state of Rome, p. 1 32. — But they are the kingdom of the Keruli. the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and the kingdom of the Lombards, p. 135. — The body of the fourth beast comprehends the whole Roman empire, both In the East and in the West, p. 144. — But the ten ho'ns are to be sought for only in the West, p. 144. — For the Constantinopolitan Emperor was the representative of the sixth head, and consequently cannot be esteemed one of the ten horns like- wise, p. 1 45. — The ten horns ase the ten kingdoms, into which the Empire w^ originally divided, p. 148. CHAP. V. Concerning the "vision of the ram and the he-goat, and the little horn of the he-goat. THE ram symbolizes the same power as the bear in the preceding vision ; and the he-goat, the same as the leopard : the ram therefore is the Medo-Persian empire ; and the he-goat, the Macedonian, p. 149. — The great horn of the he-goat is the imperial dynasty of Alexander, p. 150. — His four horns are the four Greek kingdoms erected bv Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, p. 160.- The little horn of the he-goat is not Antiochus Epiphanes, p. 151. — Neither is it the Ro- man power in Macedon and the East, p. 151. — Nor is it a compound symbol, typify- ing at once Antiochus Epiphanes, the Roman power in the East, Mohammedism, and the infidel republic of France, p. 158. — But it relates to Mohammedism alone : because nothing, except the spiritual empire of Mohammed, corresponds with it in every particular, local, circumstantial, and chronological, p. 159. — The tyrannical reign of both the spiritual little horns, Papal and Mohammedan, is to be dated from the same year 606, p. 163. — The propriety of fixing upon this date shewn, both from the circumstance of the saints having been delivered into the hand of the Papal horn in this very year, and from its being the only date which will make all the prophet- ic numbers of Daniel harmonize together, p. 164. — Date of the vision of the ram and the he-goat ascertained by a computation deduced from the year 606, p. 173.— The character of the little horn of the he-goat perfectly corresponds with the char- acter of Mohammedism in every particular, p. 185. — Whence it is concluded, that it sjnnbolizes Mohammedism and nothing but Mohammedism, p. 211. CHAP. VX Concerning DanieVi last 'nision, and the king -who magnifed himself above every god. THE first part of this prophecy is both unconnected with the period of the 1260 days, and has been so amply and satisfactorily explained by Bp. Newton, that It is impossible to add any new observations to those which he has already made, p. 212. — But the second part is attended with considerable difficulties, p. 213. ■ What power did Daniel mean to describe under the character of the king, who was to magnify himself above every god .'' p. 213. — He is not a compound power, including 22 both the Eastern Emperors and Western Popes, p. 213, 216. — Neither is he a double • type ; relating primarily to the Papacy, and ultimately either to Mohammedism or Infidelity, p. 214, 233. — What are we to understand by his disregarding the desire of women .■' p. 225. — He cannot be the same power as the man of sin, p. 230. — The power, which he typifies, must be sought for after the Reformation, as appears from the chronological series of events detailed by Daniel previous to the first mention of him, p. 221, 234. — It must likewise be sought for, as is manifest from the character of the king, in the last days of Atheism and Infidelity, p. 225. — The king however is not to be, like the mockers of the last days, any single individual, but a nation com- posed of individuals who openly profess the principles of tiie mockers, p. 238. — This nation is revolutionary France, the long-predicted Antichrist, p. 240. — The Atheism of France, p. 241. — Her worship, notwithstanding this Atheism, of a foreign god and tutelary deities, p. 241. — In what manner she caused her foreign god, and the upholders of her tutelary deities, to rule over many, p. 243. — In what manner she honoured them with desirable things, p. 247. — In what manner she has divided the land among the upholders of her tutelary deities for a price, p. 248. — Although the principlesof Antichrist were workingeven in the apostolic age,yet eventually the main cause of his success in propagating his blasphemous opinions was the corruption of the truth by Popery, p. 249. — It was predicted however, that some of those, who had clean escaped from them that live in error, should be deluded by the false teachers of the last days, p. 251. — This accordingly has happened in various protestant coun- tries, p. 251. — The possible objection, that the French have again professed them- selves Christians, answered, p. 251. — 1. The established religion in France is a mere political puppet, p. 251. — 2. The prophecies, relative to the duration of the great dominant Apostacy, could not have been accomplished, unless Antichrist had be- come the avowed supporter of it, p. 252. — 3. The prophecies, relative to the great events which are about to take place at the close of the 1260 years, could not have been exactly fulfilled, unless Antichrist, at some period or another of his existence, had actually leagued himself with the Papacy, p. 253. — ^The wars of the infidel king with the kings of the North and the South are not to take place till the time of the end, and consequently are still future, p. 256. — Such likewise is the case with his in- vasion of Palestine, and his destruction there, at the period of the restoration of the Jews, p. 267. CHAP. VIL Of the four jirst apocalyptic irumpeif. THE seven apocalyptic trumpets may be divided into the four, which pre- pare the way for the revelation of the man of sin ; and the three which comprehend the whole history of the Apostacy in its dominant state both in the East and in the West, and which are styled ■tuoe-tmmpets, p. 270. — The silence at the opening of the seventh seal indicates the anxious expectation of the troubles about to be produced by the sounding of the trumpets, p. 271. — By the sounding of the four first trum- pets, he, that letted or prevented the revelation of the man of sin, is taken out of the way, p. 273. — At the sounding of the firgt trumpet, the northern nations, under Alaric, Radagaisus, and Attila, overrun the Roman empire, p. 273. — At the sound- ing of the second, Genseric king of the Vandals assaults the Western Empire from the South, and hurls it from its base, like a huge blazing mountain, p. 278. — At the sounding of the third, the line of the 'Western Cesars becomes extinct in the person of Augustulus, p. 280. — At the sounding of the fourth, the Roman Empire, consid- ered as one great whole, experiences an eclipse of its power and splendor, by the downfall of its Western half, p. 282. — Statement of the grounds, on which this ex- planation of the four first trumpets is adopted in preference to that of Bp. Newton, p. 283. 23 CHAP. VIIL Of tie thret last apmalyptic irumpitif or, as they are peculiarly styled, the three itsce-trumpeti- , THE prophecy here divides itself into two distinct lines, treating severally of the Eastern and Western branches of the great Apostacy, p. 285. — The first of the three woe-trumpets describes the commencement of the dominance of the two- fold Apostacy, p. 286. — The second represents it in the zenith of its power, till the primary and only partial manifestation of Antichrist, p. 286. — The third exhibits its downfall, displaying at the same time the multiphed horrors of the harvest and vin- tage of the Lord, or the uncontrolled reign of the atheistical king and his subscqu^t destruction along with the other enemies of God, p. 286. CHAP. IX. Concerning the effects of the tiuo jirst ivoe-trumpets in the East. AT the sounding of the fifth trumpet, or the first woe-trumpet, in the East, the Apostate star Sergius opens the door of the bottomless pit, and lets out the im- postor Mohammed with his Saracenic locusts, p. 287. — At the sounding of the sixth ■trumpet, or the second woe-trumpet, the four Sultanies of the Turkish horsemen are loosed from the river Euphrates ; and, in due season, slay the third part of raen;Or subvert the Constantinopolitan monarchy, p. 291. A DISSERTAllON, s^-c CHAPTER I. General Statement of the Subject. IN the Prophecies of Daniel and St. John fre- quent mention is madeof a certain period, during which, for wise purposes unknown to us, the enemies of God should be allowed to persecute and oppress his Church. This period is indifferently described as consisting of three times and a half 42 months.^ or 1260 days : for, if we reckon a time or a year to contain 360 days^ 42 months^ or 1360 days^ will in that case be exactly equal to three such years and a half. In the language of pro- phecy however, as it is well known, natural years are termed days. Hence 1260 days mean 1260 years : and, by a parity of reckoning, 42 months mean so many months oj' years ; and three years and a half the same number of years of years. Consequently the period, during ■which the Church is to be oppressed by her enemies, amounts to 1260 natural years. ^ * That days mean years, may, I think, be proved, so far as matters of this nature are capable of proof, from the writings even of Daniel and St. John themselves. We may venture to assume, that the same mode of computation, vsrhich is used by these writers in one passage, will be used by them in all other passages ; at least in all those, which are marked by the common feature of treating, not of the fate of individuals, but of the fortune of corhmunities. Hence, if any of their numerical prophecies be already accomplished, we shall thereby have a clue for ascertaining the proper method of interpreting all the rest. Upon these principles, when we find that Daniel's famous prophecy of the 70 nveeks has been proved by the event of our Lord's advent to speak of 70 iveetr ef years or 490 years, we may infer that his three years and a half mean years of years, and that his 2300, 1290, and 1335, days mean the same number of natural years. In a similar manner, finding equally from the event that the ten days persecution of the (hurch of Smyrna mean the ten years persecution carried on by Diocletian, that the five Tnonths raiyages of the Saracenic locusts mean \50 years, and that the year, the ?nonth, the day, and the hour, of the Euphratean horseme/i mea.a 391 years and \5 days : we may thence infer, that St. John's three years and a half are years of years ; his 42 months^ tnonths uf years ; and his 1260 days and his three days and a half, the same number of natural years. But we find, that the three years and a half thq 42 months, and the 12C0 VOL. f. 4 26 Both Daniel and St. John have given us abundantly sufficient reasons for concluding, that this period ot' per- secution and trouble has no connection with the per- secutions which the Church endured from t!ie pagan Roman Emperors. The first of these prophets, in liis vision of the Jour great heasts or empires * in ti mates, th'dt the power, into whose hand the saints should be diys, are all plainly descriptive of one and the same period : hence we are circuTr.' itanttaLy led to conclude, even a priori, that they all denote tiie same space of time. If then we adopt the ancient mode of computing- by years of 360 days each, we shall find that by such a mode of computation thre^ years and a ha'f exactly contain 42 months or 1260 i/jv-f ■• hence we are numerically led to conclude, thai the three expressions are only different modes of describing one and the same period. The result of the whole is, that prophetic dayi mean years : and that the three years and a half, the 42 months, and the 1260 days, are ahke used to denote 1260 natural years. I am aware, that a year is sometimes used in its literal sense, as in Isaiah vii. 8. xxiii. 17. Jerem. xxv. 11, 12, and even by Daniel himself when predicting the pun- ishment of the individual Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. iv. 25.) ; yet other instances may be brought, as well as those already adduced, to prove that days, in the language of prophecy, mean years. " After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years." (Numb. xiv. 34.) " Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it : according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days : so shalt thou bear the ini- quity of the house of IsraeL And, when thou hast accomplished them, He again on thv right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days : I have appointed thee each day for a year." (Ezek. iv. 4, 5, 6.) The only writers, that I have met with, who are unwilling to allow the three times and a half to be the same period as the 1260 days, are Mr. Burton and Air. Gallo- way. The form.er asserts, without a shadow of authority from Daniel, that each time comprehends 70 prophetic iveeks or 490 years, merely because the famous prophecy relative to the Messiah, includes a period of 70 ivceks ; (Dan. ix. 24.) and he dates the three times and a half from the year 49, or the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles: consequently they bring him do^^'Tl to the year 1764, when the Jesuits were suppressed. Now, independent of his having no warrant for asserting, that a time comprehends 70 iveels, the event itself has shewn him to be mistaken : for, whenever the three times and a half shall expire, the fezvs will begin to be restored. (See Dan. xli. 7.) A time however, as we learn from Daniel himself, is a year. (Dan. iv. 25.) But a jf^r, according to the old computation, comprehends "^60 days, not TO 'iveeis. Each time, therefore, must comprehend 560 prophetic da\s. Consequently three such times and a half zve exactly equal to 1 260 days. Whence we may nalurally conclude, that the two expressions mean the same period. In addition to these ob- jections to Mr. Burton's scheme, it may be observed, that Daniel directs us to date the three times and a half irom the era wlien the saints were delivered into the hand of the little h'jrtt. (Dan. vii. 25.) The little /?or», however, was not to arise until the Riman Empire WcLS divided Into ten iino^doms. (Dan. vii. 8.) It will follow, therefore, that the three times and a half cAnxnol be d.^ted from the year 49, which expired long before the Empire was thus di\'ided. (Burton's Essay on the Numbers of Daniel and St. John, p. 247, et irfra.) Mr. Galloway maintains, that the three times and a half are merely three natural years and a half. Yet he asserts, that the 1 260 days are not natural but prcphetlc days. The use wliich he makes of this separation of the two periods from each other, shall be considered hereafter. The Papists maintain the 1 260 days to be mere Batural days. This they do for obvioui reasons. ■'' Daniel vii. jriven during the appointed period of 1260 //em-,?, should begin to arise in the age in which the last beast^ or the Roman Empire^ was divided into ten horns or kingdoms. The Roman Etu/nire, however, was not thus divided till €(ffer it had become Christian, and till all the persecu- tions of the pagan Emperors had ceased. Whence it will necessarily follow, that the period of 1260 ijears cannot include the persecutions of Paganism, and that the poioer symbolized by the little horn of the Roman beast must be some power at once posterior to and dis- tinct from the line of the pagan Emperors. The second of these prophets, in a similar manner, describes a variety of important events as taking place between his own age and that in which the 1260 ijears may be supposed to have commenced ; and, like Daniel, teaches us, that the date ij^ those 1260 years is to be sought for, not at any era while the Roman Empire was one great monarchij, but after it had been broken into ten kincrdoms. Inde- pendent indeed of chronological considerations, the very term of 1260 years plainly shews, that that period can have no relation to the tyranny of pagan Rome. Con- stantine published his famous edict for the encourage- ment of Christianity, and the abolition of all persecution, in the (/ear 3\3. The primitive Church, therefore, was only subject to the malice of Paganism during the space of 313 years .* whereas it is, more or less, to be sub- jected to the malice of the little horn during the space of 1260 years. But, although the pagan Roman Empire, has no con- nection with the persecution of 1260 years, we are evi- dently to look for the grand promoter or promoters of it within the limits of the old Roman Empire. The little horn, the ten horns, and the last head of the fourth beast, all arise out of that beast ; the Roman Empire, therefore, must necessarily comprehend every one of these powers. So again : since the Roman Empire had embraced Christianity previous to its division into ten kingdoms, since all those ten kingdoms were converted very soon * This will of course be understood as only a loose computation. It serves, how- ever, for the present purpose, as well as a more exact one. 2S after their foundation, and since f/ie little horn is repre- sented as being contemporary with them, and as spring- ing up among them ; the little horn^ whatever it may be designed to symbolize, must be some power at least nom- inaliif Christian. This point is proved by history : for, at the time when the Roman Empire was divided, we shall in vain look for the rise of any pagan power within the limits o'l the- Empire^ that at all answers to the pro- phetic character of the little horn. Yet it is manifest, that the little horn must have been long since in exist- ence, because it is described as first beginning to make its appearance at the era of the division of the Roman Empire. If then the little horn be the type of some Christian power, it must be one that has greatly fallen away from the purity and simplicity of the primitive Church ; be- cause it is described as wearing out the saints during the space of three times and a half or 1260 natural if ear s^ and as speaking great words by the side of the Most High so as to place itself upon an equality with God. The nature both of this poiver, and of its apostacif, we are clearly taught by St. John. In the Apocalypse the same ten-horned beast or Roman Empire, as that men- tioned by Daniel, is described as standing in the wilder- 'iiess. Here, however, he appears without his little horn; and instead of it is represented as supporting a harlot, who, precisely like the little horn, is said to be a great persecutor of the faithful ; for St. John beheld her *' drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Now we learn from the ancient prophets, that an adulterous zcrisy of liars, •]• having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksoivin^ of them which believe and know the truth. — Refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godli- ness. For bodily exercise profiteth little : but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.":j: Here we learn, in addition to the marks of the apostate church given us by St. John, that it should be noted for the worship, not only of idols, but of demons or canonized dead men ; for its prohibition of marriage to certain classes of men ; for its superstitious injunctions to abstain from particular kinds of food ; and for its attachment to vain traditions and bodily mortifications, which have no warrant from scripture, and which are very far from being conducive to real godliness. Though I have cited the prophecies relative to the man of sin and the Apostacy, 1 shall purposely refrain from discussing the character of that arch enemy of sound re- ligion, because 1 have nothing to add to Bp. Newton's excellent Dissertation upon the subject. 1 am aware that some great modern names have applied the prophecy of the man of sin to French Infidelitij ; but 1 have not yet seen any arguments which convince me of the pro- priety of such an application. In e-cerij particular, as - 2 Thess. li. 1. f The ingenious Mr. Whitaker conceives the word ^atfcoviai to be an adjective, and translates the passage " giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of wretch- ed men speaking hes in hypocrisy." How far such a translation be allowable ac- cording to the general idiom of the inspired writers of the New Testament, 1 will not take upon me to determine. It certainly accords very well with the context of the passage. General View of the Prophecies, p. 231. \ 1 Tim. iv. 1. 31 Bp. Newton hath fully shewn, the prediction answers t© Popertf and the Fope : in several particulars it by no means answers either to French Inficlelitij or the French Republic. Hence 1 conclude, that Bp. Newton's inter- pretation is the true one.* The period, assigned both by Daniel and St. John to the tyrannical reign of the man of sin or the little horn of the Roman beast ^ and the dominance of the great western Aposfacif^ is three times and a half ox 1260 years. Here, therefore, we must define the proper mode of dating that period. In prophecies, which are sfricthf chronological^ the overt acts of communities, or the heads of communities, are necessarily alone considered in the fixing of dates ; because it would be impossible for us to know how to date any particular period from the insulated and unau- thorized acts of individuals. But in prophecies, which are not strict/if chronological, the scope is much more wide, and much less definite ; extending, not merely to com- munities and their heads, but to every individual whose actions the prophecies may describe. On these grounds there are two entirely ditferent dates to the Apostacij. The first is its date, when considered as relating to indi- viduals : the second is its date, when considered as relat- ing to that communitif over which the man of sin presides. St. Paul describes the Apostacijm its first, or individual character : Daniel and St. John specify its triumphant duration in its second, or general character. Now it is manifest, that the date of the Apostacij, when consider- ed individuailij, is the very day and hour when any single Christian individual was first guilty of any one of those acts which characterize the Apostucy ; and it is equally * In one point, however, I certainly think his Lordship mistaken. He singularly confounds, as it appears from his citations, the man (;/ji«,\vhom he rightly judges to be thejirst hi tie horn mentioned by Danitl, botii with the second little horn, and with the ihig -who magnifud himself above every god. Thus he makes the tivo little horns anc the king to be all one and the same po-wer ; herein being inconsistent even with his ow» scheme of interpretation, which had previously represented the second little born as the Roman Empire iniKiding the East by ivay of Maceduiu Mr. Kett, agreeably to his tavourite plan of double accomplishments of the same prophecy, fancies, that the rruv. »f sin is at once both the Papal and tie InJiJe ' pozcer. (Compare Hist, the Interp VoLii. p. '23, 24. with Vtil.i. p. .'581.) I shall hereafter shew, that such a pLin is altogether untenable. 35 manifest, that this date never can be ascertained by man^ but is known unto God alone. VV^e can say, indeed, in general terms, that monkish celibacy, and a superstitious veneration of saints and angels, were creeping fast into the Church during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries; but we shall find it impossible to point out the precise year of their commencement. Such being the case, Daniel and St. John, in their chronological prophecies, consider the Apostacy only in its public and authorized capacity ; and teach us to esteem the 1260 years, as being the period of the public dominance of the Apostacij^ not of its individual continuance. Accordingly they both specify, with much exactness, the era, from which those years are to be computed. Daniel directs us to date them from the time when the saints were bij some public act of the state delivered into the hand of the little horn : and St. John, in a similar manner, teaches us to date them from the time when the zooman, the true Churchy fled into the ivilderness from the face of the serpent : when the mystic city of God began to be trampled under foot by a new race of Gentiles, or idolaters ; when the great Roman beast ^ which had been slain by the preach- ing of the Gospel, revived in its bestial character, by set- ting up an idolatrous spiritual tyrant in the Church, or, as Daniel expresses it, by delivering the saints into the hand of such a tyrant ; and when the zvitnesses began to prophesy in slackcloth. A date, which will answer to these concurring particulars, can certainly have no con- nection with the mere acquisition of a temporal princi- pality by the Pope. It seems most probably to be the year, in which the Bishop of Rome was constituted su- preme head of the Church with the proud title of Uni- versal Bishop : for by such an act the whole Churchy comprehending both good and bad, both the saints of the Most High and those who were tainted with thegentil- ism of the Apostacif considered individually., were formal- ly given by the chief secular power, the head of the Roman JSmpire^'mto the hand of the encroaching /-i///e horn. This year was the year 606, when the reigning EtnperorPho- cas, the representative of the sixth head of the beast, de- clared Pope Boniface to be Univej^sai Bishop : and the 33 Roman church hath ever since shewn itself to be that lit- tie horn^ into whose hands the saints were then delivered, by styling itself, with equal absurdity and presumption, the Catholic or universal Church. The year 606 then seems to be the date q>{ the 1260 years, and the era of what St. Paul terms the revelation of the man of sin. The Apostacij, in its individual capa-city, was already in exist- ence previous to such revelation ; hence he represents it as commencing before it : but, as soon as the man of sin was openly revealed by having the saints delivered into his hand, then apparently commenced the I960 i/ears of the Apostacif in its public and dominant capacity.* Hitherto I have spoken only of the 'icestern Aposfac?/ of the Romish church, predicted by St. Paul, and repre- sented by Daniel under the symbol of a little horn spring- ing up out of the fourth or Roman beast, which should exercise a tyrannical authority over the saints during the period of 1260 years ; 1 must now notice the contempo- rarij eastern Apostacy of Mohummedism. In the Apocalypse, St. John describes the origin of this false religion at the beginning of the first ivoe-trumpet ; the blast of which introduces, in the self -same year 606, the universal episcopacij of the Roman prelate, and the commencement of Mohummedism. From the description, which he gives us of the rise of Mohummedism, it appears, that we are to consider it in the light of an apostacy no less than Popery, though an apostacy doubtless of a very different nature. A star which had fallen from heaven, or an apostate Christian minister, is said to open the bot- '* I with pleasure strengthen mvself with the concurring opinion of Mr. Whitaker, relative to the proper mode of dating the 1260 yiars ; and the more so, because my own sentiments on the subject were decidedly formed, so far as we may be allowed to form sentiments on such a subject, previous to my knowing what he had written respecting it. " When then were they ftie saints J thus given into his ftht little horns) hand ; and any authority, that may be called universal, granted to the Pope ? Was it not, when he was first acknowledged Universal Bishop ? Then did he become a mon- arch diverse from the first. Then were the souls of men, an article of merchandize in the mystic Babylon, given into his hand. And so well was this title deemed to merit the reproach of speaking great things, that Mr. Gibbon has made the follow- ing remark on Gregorj^ ' In his ri-val the Patriarch of Constantinople., he condemned the Antichrisiian title of Uni-jersal Bishop, -which the successor of St. Peter -was too haughty to concede, and too feeble to assume.' Yet, within a few years, in the year 606, did Bonilace assume the title of Universal Bishop, in virtue of a grant from the tyrant Phocas." , General and connected View of the Prophecies, p. 207, 208. VOL. I. 5 3i tomless pit, and to let out Apolhjon and h\s Jigurafive lo-- ciists : and we shall find, in exact harmony with the prophecy, that Mohammedism is in reahty a sort of cor- rupted and apostate Christittnitij. Like the divine relig- ion of the Messiah, it claims to be a revelation from God at the hand of an inspired prophet, to call the world from the vanities of polytheism to the worship of the one true God, and to declare authoritatively a state of future re- wards and punishments. Like the Gospel, it professes to build itself upon the Law of Moses ; and allows the divine commission both of the Jewish legislator, and of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But, borrowing the pecu- liar tenet of the /^///e;^ 6/«r, it pronounces the Saviour of the world to be a mere mortal, and makes void the whole of the Gospel ; it contaminates, with licentious impurity the doctrine of future retribution ; it presump- tuously thrusts the Messiah from his office ; and, like its fellow apostacy Popery, it propagates and upholds itself by the sword. It appears, moreover, from a computation which will hereafter be made from the numbers of Dan- iel, that, like Popery, it is to reign precisely 1260 years ; and consequently, since both these apostacies commenced in the same year, that they are both likewise to begin to be overthrown in the sa??ie year. Of this period nearly iwehe centuries have already elapsed : we are therefore fast approaching to the time of the end, and to the day of God's controversy with the nations. The prosperous duration then of Mohammedism being the very same as the prosperous duration oi Popery,^ and each being con- sidered by the inspired writers as an apostacif or deflec- tion from pure Christianity, we shall not wonder to find them both represented by the very same symbol of a little horn. Accordingly, as we shall hereafter see, Daniel de- scribes Poperif, or the western apostacif of the man of sin, tinder the image of « little horn springing up among the ten contemporary horns of the Roman beast : while he predicts the tyranny oi Mohammedism, o\ the eastern apos- tacy founded upon the anti-trinitarian doctrines of the fallen star, under the kindred image of another little horn * -The reader will of course understand, 'that I mean Popery properly st> called, or tie reign of the little horn after the saints had been given into his band. 35 arising out of the ruins of one of the four Greek horns oj' the Macedonian Least* These two great enemies of the Gospel flourish during the whole space of the 1260 years comprehended under the three zcoe-trumpets : a third enemy is predicted as arising towards the close of those years, as continuing only a short space of time^ and as perishing firmly leagued Avith Popery at the very time of the end or after the termination of the 1260 years. St. John brings him upon the grand stage of the world with the blast of the third icoe-trumpet^ and foretells that his open develope- ment should be immediately preceded by the fall of a tenth part of the great Roman citij. Tiie miseries, with which he should afflict mankind, he figuratively de- scribes as a harvest of God^s ic rath which should precede the dreadful vintage of the time of the end ; and he sets forth more distinctly the nature of those miseries under the pouring out of a certain number of the seven vials. Daniel describes the same poicer, as a king or state rising up after the era of the Reformation^ and marked by a lawless contempt for all religion. And St. Paul, St. Pe- ter, and St. Jude, concur in describing with wonderful accuracy the principles which should be adopted by the adherents of this pozcer. As for St. John, in addition to what he has said upon the subject in the Apocalypse, he teaches us, that the leading badge, whereby this mon- * Here again I shall strengthen myself with the concurrence of Mr. Whitaker ; and I mav here again observe, that my own opinion relative to tie little born cf th: be-goat was formed previous to my knowing what was Mr. Whitaker's opinion on the subject. " In the seventh chapter of Daniel there is evidently given the predic- tion of the man of sin, or the slavery of the Western empire ; and in the eighth appears to be described the rise and progress of Mohammed and his folloivers, or the subjugation of the Eastern. I here use the language of hesitation, not from any doubt, but from a sincere desire to avoid any juft imputation of arrogance in bringing forward an in- terpretation, in which I am not patronized by any preceding writer. Let however only the latter part of the vision of the Ram and the Goat be seriously considered; and I think the rise, the progress, and the character, of Mohammed will be " fully mani- fest." (Gen. View of the Proph. p. 91, 92.) Mr. Whitaker would have expressed himself with greater accuracy had he considered the little horn as being Mohammsdism, instead of Mohammed and his follo-wers. His present mode of interpreting the proph- ecy has led him into the error of applying the expression, " he shall be broken with- out hand," (Dan. viii. 25.) to the dzuindling a-way of the Saracenic empire and the person- al fall of Mohammed ; whereas it relates to the destruction of ii^ little hern itself or the Mohammedan religion at the end of the period mentioned in the I4rii verse ; for, if the king offeree countenance be the little horn, the breaking of the king must be the break' ing of the horn. Gen. View ef the Proph. p. 134. ster whom he styles Anfichrist might be known, should be an open denial of the Father and the Son* At the coniuie)tcement of the time of the end which syn- chronjzps with the termination of the 1260 years^ when the judgments of God begin to go forth against these three enemies of the Messiah, the restoration oj' the Je'Ji's will commence; and, when God^s great controversif with the nations is fully decided, and when not only Judah but likewise the zchole house of Israel has been brought back into the land of their fathers, then will begin the long-expected period of rnillennian happiness. This pe- riod, which is styled the reign oj Christ and his saints upon earth or the reign of the sijmbolical mountain^ will comprize the space either of 1000 ifears or of 360,000 years, according as the number predicted be composed of natural or prophetic years. Which of the two be in- tended by St. John, the event must determine. These are the principal matters, of which the proph- ecies relative to the 1260 years will be found to treat. Previous to my discussing them at large, I shall bring together in one point of view the four predictions oi Daniel which relate to them, and afterwards briefly state the manner in which I conceive the Apocalypse ought to be arranged. 1. The first of these four predictions is the dream of Nebuchadnezzar with Daniel's interpretation of it. " Thou, O king, sawest ; and, behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee ; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest, till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, and the brass, the silver and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff" of the sum- mer threshing floors ; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the stone, that * 1 John ii. 22. 37 smote the image, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is the dream, and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king — Thou art this head of gold. But after thee shall arise another king- dom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron : forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things : and, as iron that breaketh, all these shall it break in pieces and bruise. And, whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of pot- ter's clay, and part of iron ; the kingdom shall be divid- ed ; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And, as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And, whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men : but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed : and the kingdom shall not be to other people ; but it shall break in pieces and con- sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."* 2. The second is Daniel's vision of the Jour beastSy and the little horn of the fourth beast. " I saw in my vision by night ; and, behold, the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse from one an- other The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man ; and a man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear ; and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it : and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl ; the beast had also four heads ; and dominion was given to it. After this 1 saw in the night *Dan. ii. 31. 38 visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly ; and it had great iron teeth : it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it : and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it ; and it had ten horns. 1 considered the horns ; and, behold, there came up among them an- other little horn, before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots : and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. 1 belield, till the thrones were set, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool : his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burn- ing fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from be- fore him : thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him : the judgment was set, and the books were opened. I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake : I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away : yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions ; and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. 1, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass ; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet ; and of the ten horns that were in his head ; and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell ; even of the horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. 1 beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them ; until the Ancient of days came, and judg- ment was given to the saints of the Most High ; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus he said. The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns are ten kings that shall arise out of this kingdom : and anoth- er shall rise behind them ;* and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words by the side of the Most High-j", and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws : and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of a time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose king- dom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."^ * I have adopted this translation of the passage from Mr. Mede ; who, instead of I after the kingdoms, would render the original expresbion behind them, following thereia the Greek version oTti'ia a.-uTXJ : and he takes the meaning to be, that the ten harm II were not aware of the growing up of the little horn, till it overtopped them. (Works Book iv. Epist. 24.) In reality the little horn, as we shall hereafter see, did not spring up posterior in point of time to the other horns, but gradually arose among them dur- ing the turbulent period in which the Roman empire was broken into ten kingdoms by I the northern nations. f This is the literal translation of the original passage : and its import I appre- hend to be, not that the little horn should speak great words against the Most High, but that he should arrogantly place himself upon an equality with God ; or, as St. Paul expresses it, that he should sit as God in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Symmachus appears to me to come much nearer the real meaning of the expression than our present English version : " Ut interpretatus est Symma- chus, ifrrafinw quasi Dius loquetur." Hieron. Comment. Vol. iii. p. 1103. cited by Bishop Newtoa, i Dau, vii. 2, 40 3. The third is the vision of the ram and the he-goat^ and the Itttle horn which was to spring out o^ one of the four horns of the he-goat. " 1 lifted LijD mine eyes, and saw ; and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high ; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. 1 saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward ; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand ; but he did ac- cording to his will and became great. And, as I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground : and the he-goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I liad seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns : and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him ; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he-goat waxed very great : and, when he was strong, the great horn was broken ; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, vi^hich waxed exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great even against the host of heaven ; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even against the Prince of the host ; and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And the host was given over to him by reason of their transgression against the daily sacrifice ; and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised, and prospered. Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, For how long a time shall the vision last, the daily sac- rifice be taken away, and the transgression of desolation continue, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be 41 trodden under foot ?* And he said unto me, Until two thousand and three hundred days ;-|' then shall the sanc- tuary be cleansed. And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the Vision, and sought for the mean- ing ; then, behold, there stood before me as the appear- ance of a man — And he said unto me, Understand, O son of man, for the Vision shall reach even unto the time of the endX — And he said. Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the latter end of the indignation : for it (the Vision) shall reach even to the appointed time of the end. The ram, which thou sawest, having two horns, are the kings of (the united empire of) JNIediaand Persia. And the rough goat is the King of Grecia. And the great horn, that is between his eyes, is the first king. Now, that being broken, whereas four stood up in its stead, four kingdom.s shall stand up out of the na- tion, but not in his power. And, at the end of their kingdom, § when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and teachingj| dark senten- ces, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power ; and he shall destroy won- derfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the people of the holy ones. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand ; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and he shall destroy many in negligent security.^ He shall * See Bp. Newton's Dissert, xv. f The Seventy read 2400 liays, and certain copies mentioned by Jerome 2200 days. These varying numbers will be discussed hereafter. I So the Lxx and the Arabic version translate this passage, and I believe very rightly, as the context indeed sufficiently shews. It had just before been declared^ tliat the length of the vision should be 2300 days : it is now declared, that the vision should be to the time of the end or to the termination of those days : and it is immediately after declared, that it should be to the appointed time of the end. All these seem to be only different modes of specifying the same thing, namely ivhat the angel considered to be the length of the "vision. § The meaning of tlie expression (if we may jiidge from the symbolical part of the prophecy,) is, not during the latter period of their kingdom, but after the complete ter- mination of their kingdom : that is to say, the king of fierce countenance was to stand up, not ivhile they ivere yet reigning, but some time or other after they had ceased to reign. II The word, here used in the original, is in the Hiphil or causal form : whence It will not signify understanding, as it is rendered in our English translation, but caus- ing to understand, or teachinv. t I conceive the phrase to mean, " he shall destroy many while in a state of neg- ligent security, and little stispccting that any attack would be made upon then? from VOL, J. 6 ' 42 also stand up against the prince of princes ; but he shall be broken without hand. And the Vision of the '^vpr. ing and the morning, which was told, is true : wheretore shut thou up the Vision ; for it shall be for many days."* 4. i he fourth is contained in the latter end of the elev- enth Chapter^ and extends to the conclusion of the Book, " And after him (Antiochus Epiphanes|) arms shall stand up, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. And such vas do wickedly against the covenant he shall cause to dissemble;!: with flatteries : but the people, that do know their God, shall be strong and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many : yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil, many days. Now, when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help : but many shall cleave to them with flatteries. And some of them of understanding shall fall§ in purifying them, and in purg- ing them, and in making them white, even to the time of the end : because it is yet unto the time appointed. And (after this second persecution of the men of understand- ing) a king shall do according to his will ; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, that quarter." (See Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. Vox. nbtr.) The Seventy and the Ara- bic translate the passage " he shall destroy many by fraud," which conveys an idea nearly iimilar. There is a passage in the book of Judges, which is an excellent com- ment on these words of the prophet. " Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, hoivthey divelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure. — And they c^ime unto Laish, unto a people that were at quiet and secure : and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with fire." (Judg. xviii. 7, 27.) The same idea occurs in the book of Proverbs : " Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he divelleth securely by thee.^' (Prov. iiL 29. See also Ezek. xxxviii. 1 1.) Tacitus uses a similar mode of expres- sion. " In latere Chaucorum '1 attorumque, Cherusci nimiam ac marcentem diu pa- cem illacessiti nutrierunt : idque jucundius quam tutius fuit ; quia inter impotentes ac vAidos falsa quiescas" Tac. de mor. Germ. C. 36. * Dan. viii. .'?. f See Sir Isaac Newton's Observ. on Dan. c. 12. p. 188, 189. \ The Arabic version and the lxx read this verb plurally ; and I firmly believe tliat such is the proper reading, for the Roman arms are here spoken of. Hence, as it is said, they (the arms) shall pollute, they shall take aivay, they shall place ; SO it seems to have been likewise originally said, they shall cause to dissemble. § That is perish. The word used here is the same as that which occurs immedi- ately above, when the men of understanding are said to fall by the sword and by flame. 43 and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accom- plished : for that, that is determined, shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor (him who is) the desire of women,* nor regard any god : for he shall magnify himself above them all. Yet, when he is established (in power,) he shall honour tutelary gods together with a godf ; even, together with a god whom his fathers knew not, he shall honour them with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and desirable things: and he shall practise:^: (prosperously). Unto the upholders of his tutelary gods,§ together with the foreign god whom he shall acknowledge, he shall multiply glo- ry : and he shall cause them to rule over many : and he shall divide the land (among them, selling it) for a price. And at the lime of the end a king of the South shall butt at him ; and a king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, * Such, I am convinced, is the proper translation of the phrase D-CJ 71^211. It means, not the desire of ivomen by others, or the -wish to ha-ue ivomen ; but, on the con- trary, that -which ivomen themsehet desired to have. This point will be discussed at large hereafter. f " Whereas the preposition b in nbxb is usually neglected, I express the prepo- sition b, and construe God and Mahuz^im apart as two ; viz. To or together ivith, God he shall honour Mahuz-zim. For the preposition b is made of bx, and signifies the same with it, namely an addition or adjoining of things., ad,jtixta, apud, to, besides, together ■with ; as Lev. xviii. 18. Thou shah not take a -wife to her sister nnnx bx, that is, to-' gether luith her sister^ (Mede's 'Works Book III. Apostacy of the latter rimes. Part I. Chap. 16.) Mr. Mede supposes the foreign god zdored along with the Mahuzzim to be Christ ; and thence renders the passage " together with God he shall honour Mahuzzim." The foreign god however, venerated by the king, certainly cannot be Christ, both because the prophet had just before declared, that the king should speak marvellous things against the God of gods ; and because, as we shall hereafter see, he was specially to reject the worship of Christ, here represented as the desire of •women or -wives, as Haggai styles him the Desire of all nations. On these grounds, I render the passage " together with a god he shall honour Mahuzzim," rather than " together with God he shall honour Mahuzzim." \ " Faciei, id est, mire succedet quicquid agit." (Calv. apud Pol. Sjti. in loc.) " It cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered." (Dan. viii. 12.) The same word is used in the original in both these passages. See also Rev. xiii. 5, and Bishop Newton's remarks upon the word voinaai in his Dissertation upon that Chanter. § " c^^ra nvnnb, custodibus Maosim, ex 1X3 — Liquet ex verbo ab-a^nrr, dominos faciei eos, notari in vocabulo -"lyaa personas, non munitiones" (Houbigant in loc. cited by Bishop Nev.-ton.) The Bishop himself considers the word to mean defend- ers, supporters, or champions : and these champions he supposes to be the popish priests and monks. Though I entirely differ from his Lordship in the interpretation of the prophecy, and though I am unable to discover in it any allusion to Popery, yet 1 think him perfectly right in his translation of the word in question. 44 and many ships. Yet he shall enter into the countries, and shall ov.^rtlow, and pass over, and shall enter into the glorious land, and many countries shall be over- thrown : but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Am- nion. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries : and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt : and the Liby- ans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. And tidings out of the East and out of the North shall trouble him : therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and to devote many to utter destruction under the pretext of religion.* And he shall plant the curtains of his pavil- ions between the seas in the glorious holy mountain ; yet he shall come to his end and none shall help him. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth up for the children of thy people : and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time : and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake ; some to ever- lasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that understand"]- shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to right- eousness as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, Dan- iel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end : many shall run to and fro, and knowl- edge shall be increased. Then 1 Daniel looked ; and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the river. Until how long shall be the end of the wonders? And 1 heard the man clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the riv- er ; and he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by hiui that liveth for ever, that it shall be until a time, and times, and a half; and, when * Heb. n-'in.-r. f The persons mentioned above Chap. xi. 33, 35. 45 he shall have finished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished. And I heard, but I understood not : then said 1, O my Lord, what is the end of these things ? And he said, Go thy way, Dan- iel ; for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried ; but the wicked shall do wickedly : and none of the wicked shall understand ; but the wise shall under- stand. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh deso- late set up, there shall be computed a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and Cometh to a thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot, at the end of the days."* These Jvitr prophecies of' Daniel^ when the former part of the last of them is added to it, extend from his ozcn time to the time of the end^ or the termination of the 1260 days — in the first of them he gives only the tem- poral history of the world, bringing it down however to the spiritual victories of the stone, and the triumphant reign of the mountain — In the second^ he gives the same history of the world, under a different set of symbols ; further introducing a pozoer^ not mentioned before, under the denomination of a little horn, into whose hand the saints of the Most High were to be delivered during the space of a time and times and the dividing of a time, or three prophetic years and a half — In the third, he gives only a partial history of the world ; totally omitting the first and the fourth great beasts or pagan empires, and describing another -mched ponder, under the kindred sym- bol of « second little horn, which was to come forth out of the dominions of the Macedonian he-goat, but at the last end, or after the termination, of his kingdom. He moreover instructs us, that the length of the vision, in- cluding the exploits of the second little horn, should be 2J00 days ; or, according to the reading of the Seventy, 2100 days ; or, according to another reading mentioned by Jerome, 2200 days — In the fourth prophecy, after de- * Dan. xi. 31 — 45. xii. 1 — 13. The beginning of the last of the four prophefies I have omitted, as having no immediate connection with my subject. 46 tailing the fortunes of the Persian and Greek empires, after noticing the Roman conquests in the East, and after predicting the destruction of Jerusalem, the persecutions of the primitive Christians, the conversion of the Empire under Constantine, the declension of real piety, and the second persecutions of the reformers under Popery : after he has foretold all these particulars in regular chronolog- ical succession, he introduces towards the close of this his last prophecy a third poicer, under the title of a king or kingdom^ describing it in such a manner as to lead us to conclude that it is the Antichrist predicted by St. John. AVhile the tyranny of this monster is at the height, but at some indefinite period after its developement,* he teaches us, that the great work of the restoration of the Jeii's shall commence. He adds, that to the end of the wonders it shall be three prophetic years and a ha-, f or 1:260 prophetic days ; and that the wholef of them shall not be finished, till God has ceased to scatter his ancient people, or, in other words, till he has begun to restore them. He next informs us, that from the taking away of the daily sacrifice^ and the setting up of the abomination of desolation^ there shall be 1290 daiis^ which is exactly 30 daijs more than the former number ; but he does not tell us what particular event will take place at that era. And he lastly pronounces a blessing upon him, who should wait and come to a third number^ or 1335 days ; which is 7>3 days longer than the first number^ and 45 daifs longer than the second number. With the latter part of these four prophecies of Daniel, the Revelation of St. John is immediately connected, be- * The wars of the poiver here predicted, which terminate in his destruction, Ttzn- iel p\a.ces a.t the time of the enJ ; consequently tbe rise of the foiaer must be expected before the time of ibe e/tJ, though after the Reformation. Compare Dan. xi. 35, 3G with Ver. 40. f That is to say the ivbole of the ivanders camprehendcd •u.-ithin the space of the 1260 ■^ears. These wonders therefore do not include the overthrow of the Roman beast, of 'the t-wo little horns, ^^A of the ivilful kii:g, which takes place after the expiration of those years : still less do they include the resurrection of the just and the unjust, predicted in Dan. xii. 2. Very apposite is the remark of Bp. Newton, that tie beast is not so much slain exactly at the end of the \2m years, as that the judgments of God then begin to go forth against him. " The 1260 years of the reign of the h^jsi, I suppose, end with toe 1 260 years of the ivitnesses prophesying in sackcloth : and now the destined time is come for the judgments of God to overtake him : for, as he might exist before the \.260 yean began, so he may exist likewise after tlipy are finished, in order to be made an eminent example of divine justice." Dissert, xxvi. 47 ing in fact only a more n^inute and comprehensive pre- diction of the same events. As Sir Isaac Newton justly observes, it " is written in the same style and language with the prophecies of Daniel, and hath the same rela- tion to them which they have to one another, so that all of them together make but one complete prophecy/^* The Apocalypse contains a history of the Christian Church militant from the days of St. John to the very end of time. This history, or at least that part of it which relates to the period of 1260 daijs, is hieroglyphically de- tailed as a iL'ar bet-^een the Lamb and the Dragon^ or befii-een Christ and Satan : and upon examination it will be found, that there is the most exact antithetical cor- respondence between their respective kingdoms and fol- lowers. The Lamb hath his throne \n the midst of hea-j- en : the Dragon hath his seat upon the earth. Before the throne of the Lamb there is a sea of crystal, solid, durable, unfluctuating, transparent : in the dominions of the Dragon there is also a sea ; but, like the natural ocean, it is for ever tuibid and restless, agitated by every wind, and exhibiting a surface perpetually varying. Up- on the sea of glass ^ those, that have gotten the victory over the Dragon and his agent the Beast, stand eternally secure, having the harps of God in their hands, and sing- ing the song of Moses and the Lamb : out of the other sea rises the Beast zcith seven heads and ten horns, hav- ing a mouth that speaketh great things, and having upon his heads names of blasphemy. The seat of the Lamb is the holij city, or the spiritual Jerusalem : the strong hold of the Dragon and the Beast is another city, termed the great citij, or the mifstic Babylon. The Lamb hath i'ji'o zcitnesses, his ministers, who prophesy in sackcloth 1260 days : the Dragon hath also his minister, the false prophet, at whose instigation a new race of gentiles, com- posing the empire oi the ten-horned Beast, tread the holy city underfoot 42 months; which is the same space of time as 1260 days^ or, as it is elsewhere expressed, three times and a half. Lastly, in the service of the Lamb, and in the midst of heaven, is a woman clothed with the * Obserrations on the Apocalypse Chap. ii. p. 254. 48 sun, having the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crov\n of twelve stars ; who is the mother of a raan- chiid, destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron : while, in the service of the Dragon^ and proudly seated upon tke heast^ is another xL-omun^ arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls ; who is the mother of harlots and abominations of the eartli. Surh are the two kingdoms of Chiist and Belial^ vi'hich are ever in direct opposition to each other : and the Apocalypse, after exhibiting a prophetic view of their long-continued warfare, terminates triumphantly vvith the total overthrow of the Dragon and his adherents, the inillennian reign of Christ upon earth, and the second resurrection. The book of the revelation is divided into ///re^j^ra?^^/ successive periods ; the seven seais^ the seven trumpets^ and the seven vials. Of these the seventh seal compre- hends all the seven trumpets ; and the seventh trumpet, all the seven vials. This is manifest from the following consideration. The seventh trumpet is styled the last erf the three great zaoes, and all the seven vials are jointly styled the last plagues. There cannot however be tzco last periods. Consequently the last zooe must necessa- rily synchronize with the last plagues. But, if the last zcoe synchronize with the last plagues, it must of course comprehend them as so mani/ parts of one grand lohole. On these grounds I cannot think with Mr. Mede, that the seven vials, or at least six out of the seven, belong to the sixth trumpet.* Such an arrangement, by making the six first vials precede the third ivoc, certainly contra- dicts the express declaration of the prophet, that the vials are tlie last plagues : for tliose six vials cannot be esteem- ed the last plagues, if they be succeeded by the third vooe. It moreover breaks the regularity and concinnity of the whole prophecy : for, since the Apocalypse is di- vided into the three periods of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials ; and since all the seven trumpets are com- prehended under the seventh seal ; it seems much more * Clav. Apoc. Pars II. Synchron. ?,. 49 satiiral to place all the seven v'lals^ in a similar manner, under the seventh trumpet^ than to assign six of them to the sixth trumpet^ and the seventh to the seventh trumpet. In short, Bp. Newton's arrangement, which I have here followed, appears to me, in every point of view, far pref- erable to that of Mr. Mede.* Under the sixjirst seals^ and the four first trumpets of the seventh seal^ the history of the Roman empire, before and after the days of Constantino to the beginning of the seventh century^ is chronologically and circum- stantially related. But, at the beginning of this century^ a new era commences : and the prophet henceforth de- scribes a series of troubles and persecutions, which the true Church was to undergo during the space of 1260 prophetic days, or 1260 natural years. The events of that space of time are comprehended under the three last trumpets, which are usually denominated the three zooe^ trumpets : and the third oi these 7voe-trumpets contains, as 1 have just observed, within its own particular period the seven vials ; which are declared to be the seven last plagues, as being a history of the third and last woe. This period of 1260 days, so frequently mentioned botU by Daniel and St. John, is equivalent to the triumphant duration oi the great Apostacy in its dominant state, or the reign of the tzco little horns in the East and in the West : for the superstitions symbohzed by these two apostate horns, as we shall hereafter see, commenced their tyrannical career together in the very same year ; and will continue jointly to depress the Gospel of Christ, till (what Daniel styles) the time of the end. Towards the close of the 1260 dai/s, and after the era of the Refor-' mation, it is predicted, that the king who magnified him- self above every god, or the long expected Antichrisfy will be revealed in all his horrors : that great Antichrist, whose special badge, as we are informed by St. John, should be aii open denial both of the Father and of the Son, an unreserved profession of Atheism and Infidelity. Of the three ivoe-trumpets then which synchronize with the 1260 days (the third however extending beyond * See Bp. Nev.'ton'6 very lucid statement of this matter in bis Dissert, on Rev. xr. VOL. I. 7 50 the termination of those days,*) the first comprehends the space from the commencement of the dominance of the Apostacij to its attaining the zenith of its power ; the second extends from the era, when it attained the zenith of its poioer, to the complete developement of Antichrist or the Infidel king : and the third predicts the outrageous and bloody domination of tJiat impious monster , his subse- quent union zvith the false prophet or the western apostate little horn, his complete destruction at the time of the end j and the final subversion of the whole Apostacij in both its branches.^ After all these matters are accomplished, then Commences the joyful part of the third woe-trum- pet, when the kingdoms of this world become the king- doms of our Lord and of his Christ. The Apostacy of the two little horns being of a two-fold nature, it was necessary that the prophet should give a double though sipichronical account of it : hence, at the commencement of Xhe first woe-trumpet, the Apocalypse * The last of the seven -vials -will apparently begin to be poured out so soon as the 1260 years %\\?i\^h3.ve expired. It seems to occupy the period, or perhaps the first division of the period, which intervenes between the end of the 1260 years and the commencement of the Millennium. This whole period is 75 years ; which Daniel divides into 30 years and 45 ^ears. When the seventh -vial is completely exhausted, tlie joyl'ul part of the seventh trumpet commences. See Rev. xi. 1 5 — 1 9 ; where, for the con- solation of the Church, the order of events is inverted, and the joyful fart of the sev- etith trumpet spoken of before its luoeful part. See Bp. Newton's Dissert, in loc. f Dr. Hammond and Mr. Burton strangely apply the three tvoes to the death of our Lord, the saijirng of "Jerusalem by Titus, and its final destruction by Adrian. This notion is so utterly irreconcileable with the whole chronology of the Apocalypse, partic- ularly that part of it which relates to tha 1 260 days -, and it is moreover so perfectly incongruous with the prophetic description of the three luoes, that I cannot refrain from expressing my wonder that it should ever have been seriously adopted. What resemblance can be discovered between the prophecy contained in Rev. ix. 1 — 12, which treats of the first luoe, and the death of Christ with its immediate consequences, I cannot imagine : and I am as little able to discover any similarity between the WfO/W •a,-o<', described in Rev. ix. 13 — 21, and the sacking of Jerusalem by Titus. As for the third ivoe, which brings us through its seven vials to the end of the present order of things, how can it have any connection with the destruction of Jerusalem by Adrian which happened many centuries ago .' When Mr. Burton asserted, that /trp of the iL-?es were past in St. John's time because we read " The second woe is past, behold the third cometh quickly ;" (Rev. xi. 14.) he surely must have overlooked the denunciaton of the angel, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by rea- son of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels, ivhich arc yet to sound" (Rev. viii. 13.) In fact Mr. Burton ought to have known, that St. John describes an event as past, when he has advanced beyond it in the chronological order of his prophecy. He cioes not mean to intimate by the expression, that the event had lite- rally taken place in his own days, but that he was about to announce another event which should succeed in point of time the event last predicted. Hammond's Para- phrase on the New Test, Fol. 906 Burton's Essay on the numbers of Daniel and :^l. John, o. 104 — 107. 61 branches out into two distinct concurrent lines of proph-? ecy. In the ninth chapter oi the Revelation, the history of the two first periods of the eastern branch of the Apos- tacif is detailed, under the twofirst of the three i<2oe-trum- pets^ separately from the corresponding periods of the icestern brunch : and afterwards the whole contemporane- ous historij of the icestern branchy under all the three woe-trumpets, is likewise separately detailed, in order to prevent confusion, in what St. John terms a little book or codicil to the larger general book of the wliole Apoca- lypse. This little book contains the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters of the Revelation : and, in point of chronology, all these chapters run po^'«/- lel to each other, relating severally, though with some variety of circumstances, to the same period and the same events ; so as to form jointly a complete history of the zvestern Apostacy, and of all the principal actors in it. That the chapters o^ the little book run parallel, and not successive, to each other, is manifest from the express declaration of the three first of them. All these repre- sent themselves as describing one and the same period, namely that of the 1260 years : consequently, if they describe the same period, they must necessarily run pa- rellel to each other.* The last chapter of the little book does not indeed specifically make any such declaration respecting itself; but its contents, as we shall hereafter see, afford a sufficient degree of internal evidence to prove that it likewise relates to the period of 1260 years, and therefore that it runs parallel to its three predeces- sors. 1. Thej^r^^ of the four chapters describes the desolate prophesying oi the witnesses, and the treading underfoot oi the holy city by a new race of gentiles, differing from their heathen predecessors only in name, during the space of 1260 days : predicting, in its 13th verse, the primary * It may not be improper to observe, that the third chapter of the little boot, which answers to the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation, ought to have been divided into tzvo chapters, the division taking place at the eleventh -verse. The second apocalyptie least is contemporary, during the whole period of his existence, with thejirst : con- sequently the latter part of the thirteenth chapter, commencing with the eleventh -verse, runs parallel with the former part of the same chapter. Such being the case, the contents of the little book wovild bQ piore clearly arranged, if this chapter Yyere brokee into two. 52 and only partial manifestation of Antichrist, when it is declared that the second woe is past ; and announcing, in its \5th verse, the sounding oi the se-cenih trumpet or the third woe, at the first blast of which he is fully re- vealed. 2. The second shews us, who was the prime mover of the persecution carried on against the symbolical lojomun, or the true Church, during the appointed period oi the 1260 daiis. 3. The third reveals to us the political character and history of the seven- headed und ten-horned beast, who was to wage war with the saints iox the space of 42 months or 1260 daifs ; and describes likewise the form and actions of his instigator and associate the two-horned beast, who is elsewhere styled the false prophet.^ These two beasts acting in concert together, tread the holy city under foot 42 months ; and persecute the mijstic woman and her off- spring;, or the two zmtnesses of Christ who are his true prophets, during the same period of I'iGO days. 4. The fourth describes the internal state of the true Church throughout the prevalence of the i!Destern Apos- iacif ; predicts the Reformation ; and divides some of the most prominent events oi t1i£ seventh trumpet, which are detailed hereafter in the larger book under the seven vials, into two grand classes, the harvest and the vintage of God's wrath, separated from each other by an indefinite period of time, teaching moreover that the imne-press shall be trodden in a certain country, the space of which extends 1 600 furlongs. It seems, as if St. John, when he received the little book from the hand of the angel, imagined that it would contain the full and exclusive history of the third and last woe-trumpet : and such a supposition was not unnatural, for he had already heard the two first woe- trumpets sound, before the angel gave him the book. We must observe however, that, although the second zooe-trumpet had begun to sound, the prophet had not as yet received any intimation that the second zvoe was past. The angel therefore, to prevent the possibility of any such mistake, solemnly swears by the Almighty, that * Rev. xlx. QO, 53 '*the time (of the last zooe) shall not be yet, but in the davs of the voice of the seventh angel/' or the last of the three angels who bore the three xooe-trumpets^ " when he shall begin to sound, and when the mystery of God shall be about finishing/'* Hence, when St. John was eagerly proceeding to write the history o{ the se-cen thun- ders^ which are apparently the same as the seven vials comprehended under the last ii:oe-trumpet^'\ he heard a voice from heaven arresting his progress and command- ing him to "seal up those things which the seven thun- ders uttered, and to write them not.":J: The reason of this is evident : they were not yet to come to pass, for the prophet had still to detail the events contained un- der the tzco first zcoe-triimpets^ so far as they respected the "^'estern branch of the Apostacy^ the peculiar history of which the angel was now presenting him with in the little book. He had still to " prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings ;"^ the beast, when he commenced his new term of existence during the 42 months^ being no longer as throughout his * Rev. X. 6, 7. Such I conceive to be the proper translation of the passage. The angel does not swear, that time shall he no longer, but that the time, namely of the third ivoe, shall not be yet. (See Bp. Newton's Dissert, on this chapter.) So again the ao- rist r;XE(r6>! ought not here to be translated should be Jlnisbed, but should be about fn- iihing or should draiu near to its completion. It is a mode of expression exactly analo- gous to that used by the prophet in Rev. xi. 7 ; where the active subjunctive aorist TiKic'jci ought, in a similar manner, to be translated, as Mr. Mede justly observes, they shall be about jinishing, not they shall have jinished. f Mr. Whitaker thinks, that the seven thunders are the seven crusades undertaken for the purpose of delivering Palestine from the hands of the Infidels ; and that St. John was forbidden to write them, because the restoraticn of the Jeivs was not to take place till the seventh angel had sounded. (Comment on Rev. p. 1 76 et infra.) Vit- ringa is of the same opinion. But, since it is expressly declared, that the time of the seven thunders should not be yet, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel ; and since the blast of the seventh trumpet produces the effusion of the seven vials : it appears to me much more probable, that the seven thunders are in effect the same as the seven vialt. Both Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton censure those, who attempt to ex- plain the seven thunders, on the ground that the angel charged St. John to seal them up and to write them not. This censure I cannot but think a little unreasonable : for the sealing up of the thunders, and the ivriting them not, does not mean, that they were never to be understood ; but simplv, that the events, predicted under them, were not then to be written, but were to be reserved for a future part of the Apo- ■calypse, namely that which treats of the seventh trumpet. Hence the angel asserts, that their time shall not be yet, but in the davs of the voice of the seventh angel. When he began to sound, then they should begin to be understood ; till then they should be sealed up. See Dan. xii. 9. \ Rev. X. 4. § — " the beast, that was, and is not, and yet is." (Rev. xvii. 8.) More will be said upon this revival of the beust hereafter. 54. ancient terna of existence* 07ie great undivided power ^ but having now, under the prophecy of the little book,, put forth ten different horns^ each bearing a separate and independent crown. f He had still therefore to prophesy again ; or a second time to go over the same period in the West, that he had already gone over in the East. Hence, althougii the contents of //ze little book extend to the very termination of the 1260 da//s, as St. John re- peatedly declares, yet they peculiarlij detail the effects of the two first woe-trumpets. The sounding of the third %f/j, and to the end of the third: XIII. \ the particular events of the third ^ XIV. / however are reserved for the subject of the following prophecy. Y-y C Introduction to the pouring out of ithe V.als. The little book. XVI. rviai I. Vial 2." Vial 3. Vial 4. Vial 5. Vial 6. tVial 7. . r A detailed account of the events a- CThe pouring out of the I Vials. XVII. \ bout to take place under the seventh^ ^^ ,. XVIII. Vial ; such as the destruction of the 1 ^i XIX. y scarlet ivhore, the o'uertbroiv of Baby- \ {^lon, and the hattle of Armageddon. If we compare the four preceding prophecies of X^^xi- ieXvf'iih the Revelation oi^t. John, the point of their chronological coincidence will of course be that age of the Roman Empire in which St. John flourished ; or the period, as the Apostle himself tells us, when the fourth great beast was existing under his sixth head* Hence thefoet of the image branching out iiito ten toes, the fourth beast ivith ten horns, and tJie apoclijptic beast with seven heads and ten horns, must all be designed to symbolize the same power. It is equally evident, that the three years and a halfoi Daniel are the three years and a halfo the 42 months, or the 1260 days of St. John, ' Rev. xvU, ift 60 Since then the feet of the image, the ten-horned least, and the seven-headed and ten-horned beast, are one and the same power : the victor if achieved hij the stone over the feet of the image must be equivalent to the victory of the Lamb over the beast, the false prophet, and the con' federated kings ;* and the triumphant reign of the momi' iain, to the duration of the Millennium.^ In a similar manner the judgment of Daniers fourth beast by the Ancient of days must be the same as the victories of the stone and the Lamb :% while the beasts, whose dominion was taken awatj, and 'whose lives were prolonged during the reign of the mountain, (for there was no other reign during which they could be prolonged, § inasmuch as the first judgment was already past,) must be identified with the Gog and Magog mentioned by St. John, as existing during the period of the Millennium, and as making a final effort against the Church towards the close of it.* Lastly, the second judgment, predicted by Daniel as taking place after the season to which the lives oi the three first beasts had been prolonged, must be the second judgment, foretold by St. John as about to commence at the expiration of the Millennium.'^ These coincidences are sufficiently obvious, but to as- certain the others is attended with a greater degree of difficulty; more especially since such a variety of opin- ions has been entertained by those, who have written upon the subject. As far as I am able to judge, and I shall attempt to prove in the sequel what I am now about to advance, the two little horns and the atheistical king^ mentioned by Daniel, are three distinct powers. The first of the little honis, into whose hand the saints were to be * Dan. ii. 34.— Rev. xix. 17—21. f Dan. ii. 35.— Rev. xx. 6. ^ Dau. vii. 9, 10, 11. — Dan. ii. 34. — Rev. xix. 17—21. § This prolongation " the Rabbins take for some season and time after the fourth least was destroyed ; and R. Solomon, at the time of the war of Gog and Magog., ■which they look for soon after their restitution, upon the destruction of the fourth least." (Mede's Works Book iv. Epist. 24.) They appear to me to be perfectly right in their general idea respecting this passage : but the war of Gog and Magog, the precise epoch of which is not defined by Ezekiel, will not take place, as we are taught by St. John, till 1000 years either natural or prophetic after the restoration of ihe feivs. This war of Gog and 'Magog will be discussed at large in the work, whicii, as I have already mentioned, I am nor/ preparing for the press. * Dan. vii. 12, Rev. xic. 7, 8, 9, f Dau. vii. 13. Rev. xx. 11. m 61 given diirinc^ the space of three times and a 1ialJ\ is the same as the second beast ^ ox the false prophet^ of the Apoc- alypse, who was to instigate the ten-horned beast to make war upon the saints during the synchronical period of 42 months.^ The second oj' the little horns^ which, as we shall hereafter see, was to flourish in the East during the same space of 1260 dai/s,^ and to the end of the 2300, 2400, or 2200, dai/s, is the spiritual dominion of the Apocalijptic Abaddon^ the angel of the bottomless pit and the king of the locusts, which is prolonged, though under a different name, during the reign of the Euphra* t^an horsemen.* And the impious king, whose charac- teristic mark is, that he should not regard any god, I is the great Antichrist predicted by St. John : who, in a similar manner, was to deny both the Father and the Son 4 whose primary and only partial developement was to take place at the end of the second ze'oe,§ who was to be fully revealed at the blast of the third woe ;\\ who was to pour like an overwhelming flood upon the symbolical woman during the latter part of her sojourn in the wilderness ,-^ who was to be the instrument of God's vengeance during the period of the figurative harvest ;** who was to perish between the two seas, united with the false prophet, at the time of the vintage ,ff and whose exploits are more largely and particularly de- tailed under the seven Vials.1^'^ \ Dan. vii. 8, 25. Rev. xiii. 5, 1 1. § In aisoluts strictness oi speech, t/je second little horn, will not exist during the •whole 1260 days, although Mohammedism will, of which this horn is the symbol; be- cause Mohammedism did not become a horn of the he-goat, until about 30 years after its original commencement. But more will be said on this subject hereafter. * Dan. viii. 9, 13, 14. Rev. ix. f Dan. xi. 36. | 1 John ii. 22. § Rev. xi. 13. 11 Rev. xi. 15. f Rev. xii. 15. *• Rev. xiv. 14, \5, 16. ft Dan. xi. 45. Rev. xix. 11—21. Rev. xiv. 17—20.. \\ Rev. xvi. 62 CHAPTER II. On the Symholical Language of Prophecy. THE illustrious Sir Isaac Newton has well ob- served, that "for understanding the prophecies^ we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves \\\i\i the figurative language of the prophets^* He has accordingly given us a catalogue of symbols with their several interpreta^ tions, of which 1 shall occasionally avail ujyself in the course of the following disquisition ; the main object of which is to point out and insist upon the exact pre^ cision ofthe prophetic language. The predictions of Daniel and St. John are, with the single exception of Daniel's last prophecy, written in the language of symbols. It will be necessary there- fore to ascertain the import of the several symbols "which are used in their writings : for, without a right understanding of ///e symbols., it is impossible to leara what things are designed to be represented by them ; and, unless we learn what things are designed to be represented by them, it will be a fruitless labour to at- tempt to interpret the prophecies themselves. In the ordinary languages of men, words are the signs of things. Different zvorcls however are frequently used in all languages to express nearly the same thing : whence they are termed si/nojiyms : and the use of them, so fav from making a language obscure, lenders it more copious^ and consequently 7nore beautiful. But, in some instan- ces, the matter is precisely reversed : and the same word is used to express different things. Whenever this oc- curs, a degree of o^^c^W^?/, which is a manifest defect in a language, is necessarily introduced : and the obscu- rity is greater or less, both according as the same word represents a greater or a less number o^ dijfereiit things^ and in proportion as its context enables us less or more to ascertain the precise meaning designed to be annexed to it in any particular passage. * Observations on the Prophecies, p. 16, Let us apply these remarks to the symbolic allanguage of prophecif. li various symbols be used to represent the same things we shall be in no danger of mistaking the prophet's meaning, provided only we can ascertain the import of each individual symbol : because such variety will only serve to heighten the beauty of the imagery, without introducing the slightest degree of obscurity. But, if, on the contrary, the same symbol be used to express many dijjerent things^ which have no necessary analogical relation to each other ; it will be utterly impossible to understand a prophecy couched in such ambiguous terms ^ because the context can never lead us, as is the case in ordinary languages, to any certain interpretation of it. Upon this principle the symbolical language of proph- ccij is constructed. In the rich imagery of Daniel and St. John, different symbols are frequently used to express the same thing : but no one symbol is ever used to express different things ; unless such different things have a manifest analogical resemblance to each other. Hence the language of symbols^ being purely a language of ideas^ is in one respect more perfect than any ordinary language can be : it possesses the variegated elegance oi synonyms, \\\\.\\owi 'dny oi the. obscurity which arises from the use of ambiguous terms.* As prophecy relates both io things temporal diwd things spiritual, its symbols must be divided into two grand classes ; the one typifying temporal, and the other, spiritual, objects. And here it may be observed, that every division of these tzi)o parallel classes has a kind of leading symbol, which comprehends and is connected with a variety of other symbols belonging to the division of which this is the head. Thus, the symbolical heaven * In some measure the Hebrew language forms an exception to the arbitrary am- biguity of other languages. " It will be demonstratively evident to any one," says Mr. Parkhurst, " who will attentively examine the subject, that the Hebrew lan- guage is idi'al ; or that from a certain, and that no great, number of primitive and apparently arbitrary words, called roots, and usually expressive of some idea or notion taken from nature, that is from the external objects around us, or from our own constitutions, by our senses or feelings, all the other words of that tongue are derived or grammatically formed ; and that, wherever the radical letters are the same, tie leading idea or notion runs through all the dejlectiens of the ivord, however numerous. Or diversified." Preface to Heb. Lexicon. 6* comprehends the snn^ the moon^ and the stars : and thus, the sijmhol'wal earth comprehends the sea, the rivers, the is/amis, and the mountains. The several divisions of the two parallel classes shall be treated of in their order. 1. The sifmbolical heaven, when interpreted temporal- hj, ^\^m^^'s, t tie whole bodif politic. As such, it compre- hends the sun, or the sovereign power wheresoever it be lodged ; the moon, or the people which is the allegorical ■wife of the sovereign power ; and the stars, or the princes and nobles of the realm. If this idea be further pursued from a single kingdom and from an undivided empire to cm empire split info manif kingdoms like the Roman em- pire, the sun will be the government of that state, which from its superiority of power resembles the bright orb of daij in the midst of the stars qx independent kings of the imperial firmament ; and the moon will be the whole bodij of the people throughout the whole empire. Such being the case, the blackening of the sun, the turning of the moon into blood, the falling of the stars, and the depart- mg of ttie heavens like a sc?wwl, will mean either the sub- version of a kingdom, or the subversion of an empire^ according as the tenor of the prophecy shall determine : while the shooting of a single star from heaven to earth denotes the downfall of a sovereign prince.* Upon the same principle, the eclipsing of the heavenly bodies means a partial calamity, not extending to the utter subversion of the whole kingdom or empire : and, zvhen the sun is said to scorch men with f re, a grievous tifranny, exercised by the supreme power, whether at the head of o kingdom or an empire, is denoted. The political heaven is sometimes termed the air : in which case, as thunder, lightning, hail, and clouds, are generated and supported in the atmos- phere ; so convulsions, tumults, and uproars, are produced and maintained in an ill-regulated or expiring body politic. On the other hand, the symbolical heaven, when inter- preted spirit uallif, signifies the whole bodij of the church militant, considered as including both Christ its head and all the members of his mystical body.\ In this case, the * See Isaiah xiv. 12. f Hence we find the Church militant perpetually described in the parables as th: iingdom of heaven, (See particularly Matt. xm. 24 — 50.) lu all the parables, con- 65 snn will represent our Lord; the 9?ioon, his allegorical consort i he Church ; and the stars, his appointed y^a^/or^ and teachers. Christ however is not only the head of his faithful people, the sii?i o^ then religious system ; but he is likewise " a priest for ever after the order of Mel- chisedek/^ Hence he is typified, not only by the sun, but by a star also, termed, by way of eminence over all other stars or priests, " the bright and morning star"* The spiritual heaven, or the Church, is God's appointed channel of conveying blessings to his people: the soft dews, and gentle rains therefore of this spiritual heaven symbolize the graces of the Holif Ghost.'\ Lastly, as the present heaven s\^n\f\es the Church militant; so a nezo heaven, succeeding //^e present heaven when it passes away, is the Church triumphant,"^ 2. The earth, when taken in a temporal sense, imports in the abstract the territorial dominions of any Pagan or irreligious empire. The sea, ever turbulent and restless, represents nations in a tumultuary or revolutionary state. A flood is a, large bodij of men put in motion for some given purpose, rarely, perhaps never, a good one. Riversi and fountains mean nations and their political heads while in a tranquil state ; their affairs flowing along in a gentle and even course like the stream of a river, and not sub- ject to violent agitations like the sea.§ An earthquake is ft sudden convulsion in an empire, violently overturning tained in this chapter, since both good and bad are represented, as being equally included in the kingdom ef bea-ven, and since it is declared that a final separation be- tween them will only take place at the day of judgment ; it is evident, that the king- dom ofhea-ven, which tbey spoak of, is not the literal and future, but the symbolical and present, kingdom. * Rev. ii. 28. and xxii. 16. See also Numb. xxiv. 17. f See Isaiah xliv. 3. and Rev. xvii. 15. See also Sir Isaac Neivtons Observatknt en Daniel, p. \9. \ There is one instance, in which this set of hieroglyphics is applied to domestic life ; and another, the only one in the Apocalj^Dse, in which it is used to describe th^ Pagan hierarchy and religion. (See Gen. xxjcvii. 9, 10. and Rev. vi. 12, 13, 14.) la both these cases however the very same ruling idea may be observed, as when the symbols are applied to an empire or to a pure religion. § Sir Isaac Newton supposes, that fountains are " cities, the permanent heads of ri-vers pelitic .•" but the Other interpretation appears to me more agreeable to sym- bolical analogy. As fountains are the heads of rii/ers, so are sovereigns the beads of their people : whence we are accustomed, even in our ordinary conversation, to style the king the fountain of honours and dignities : we might add, of all public offices, both civil and mihtary; and, in most countries, of the laws also, VOJ.. I. t) 66 the existing order of things ; as a literal eartliqirake su]>- verts cities and villages, and occasions universal confu- sion and destruction. Mountains and islands are king- doms and states. The fuming of the sea into blood de- notes the bloodshed occasioned by tumults awl revolutions : and f/'ie dn/ing up of a political rive?-^ signifies the grad^ iial exhaustion and declension of the particular nation symbolized by that river. If we consider this set of hie- roglyphics in a limited po'mt of view, the earth will mean, not merely the territorial dominions of any irreligious empire taken in the abstract^ but the dominions of that particular empire zohich is in open opposition to the Church of Christ during the period of the chronological prophecy xvhich treats of it. Thus the four beasts^ mirn- tioned in one of Daniel's visions, are said to arise out of the sea, or out of the midst of cojifiicting nations : and the angel afterwards explains them as being /y«r king' doms or empires, which should arise out of the earth or the general territorial dominions of Faganism, as opposed to the Levitical Church of God. Afterwards, when the affairs of the Jewish nation were specially connected with the four great empires in regular succession to the almost entire exclusion of other states ; each of these earths or Pagan e?npires became successively the sifmbol- ical earth or Pagan state hostile to the Mosaical heaven or Church, to the exclusion of all other earths. And even the Jeivish nation itself, when it had filled up the measure of its iniquities by crucif\'ing the Lord of life, became an earth or ant ichristian state in opposition to the real church of God.* Now the ivhole of the Revelation relates to that part of the reign of the fourth or Roman beast, which was about to succeed the period of time when St. John wrote : consequently, whenever the temporal symbol earth occurs in the Apocalypse, it invariably means the territorial dominions of the Roman empire^ whether existing under its sixth or seventh head, and whether united in one great monarchy or branching out * " All the tribes of the earth" that is, the Je-zvish earth, " shall mourn." (Matt. iiiv. so.) This prophecy may possibly relate ultimately to the times of the second ad- vent ; but there seems to be little doubt, that it primarily relates to the destruction of Jerusalem. 67 into ten regal horns * This beino^ the case, the sea^ the rivers^ thejoimtams^ thejloods^ the islands^ the mountains^ and the earthquakes^ o^ the apocnlijptic earthy denote the very same objects and circumstances as those of the polit- ical earth when considered ahstractedhf and generally^ only zvith a Uniitation either to the pagan or the papal jRomun empire. A^ery few of this set of synibols are ever used in a spir- itual sense. The earth however, when taken in that ac- ceptation, denotes a state of paganism or apostacij ; that ve?'i/ state in short, which is the main characteristic of « temporal earth, or a pagan or apostate empire. Hence the shooting of a star from heaven to earth is the apos- tacij of a Christian pastor ; being a desertion of heaven or the Churchy for the earth or an heretical and antichrist- tan state. ^ A mountain imports the triumphant kingdom of the Messiah ; which, from a stone or a small beginnings is to become a great mountain and fill the whole earth,"^ beii>g established upon the top of all other mountains or kingdoms, and being exalted above all other hills or pettif states.^ Accordingly Daniel informs us, that the king- dom., symbolized by a great mountain in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, should never be destroyed ; but that it should break in pieces, and consume, all the kingdoms: which had preceded it :[| in other words, that it should divest them of their characters of being kingdoms of the si/mbolical earth., and should cause them to become king- doms of the srpnboiical heaven. As temporal rivers sig- nify nations in a settled state : so, in the blessed region * From a want of due attention to the remarkable precision oithe symbolical language of prophecy, Mr. Galloway has annexed no less than Jive different significations to the word earth, all within the compass of the single book of the Apocalypse, and two of them within the compass even of a single chapter of that book ; thereby rendering it, upon his scheme, utterly impossible to ascertain the definite meaning of St. John. In Rev. viii. 13, he supposes the earth to signify Christian Rome in her schismatic and •wicked state, previous to the commencement of what may be properly termed thi Papal domination : in Rev. xvi. 4, the Papal Apostacy ; in Rev. xii. 9, Atheism ; in Rev, xii. 1 6, Germany ; and lastly, in Rev. xiii, 11,12, 14, the revolutionary poiver of France. See Comment, p. 167, where all these di£k^nt interpretations of the same symbol are sum- med up together even by Mr. Galloway himself. It is somewhat remarkable, that not one of them is the true one. f This self-same compound hieroglyphic, when used in a temporal sense, denotes as I have already oh^sixeA, the downfall of a sovereign prince. i Dan. ii. 34, 35, § Isaiah il g. H Dan. ii. 44. 68 of eternal felicity, we are figuratively told, that there is ^'^ a pure river ofzvater of life ^ clear as crystal, proceed- ing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb ;" appa- rent ly typifying the everlastingUf settled state of the pious^ and as such free both from those sudden miry floods which swell and pollute the streams of temporal rivers, and from that gradual exhaustion which so frequently dries up their political zvatcrs and converts them into shallow brooks.^ And, 2.^ the temporal sea aptly typifies loorldlif nations ever agitated and unsettled :^ so we are specially informed by the apocalyptic prophet, that here- after there shall be "■ no more sea ;" save onh' a clear " sea of glass like unto cnjstal^'' and consequently incapable of being ever ruffled. 3. The third set of symbols commences with that of a citij^ under vi'hich may be arranged various other sym- bols connected with it. In the Apocalypse /2c;oci//e5 are mentioned, the great city and the holy city^ the city of the dragon and the city of the Lamb. The great city is the Roman empire, both temporal and ecclesiastical^ both secular and papal ; the mystic name of which is Babylon : the holy citij is the Church of Christ, the mystic name of which \s Jerusalem. The great city, thus representing- both the spiritual empire of the Pope, and the temporal empire which upheld his authority, is accordingly exhib- ited to us as a harlot or apostate church riding trium- phant upon a beast or idolatrous empire. It is moreover said to consist o^ ten parts or streets, which answer to the ten horns of the beast, and which denote the ten king- doms mio which //fe Roman ewyj?r(? was divided. J in this same great citij, which is spiritually termed Sodom and Eygpt, and within the limits of which (the province of Judea) our Lord was crucified, is the throne or seat of the dragon, which he has transferred to his special dele- * If the reader dislike this interpretation of the river of life, let him by all means reject it. Though I have been led to it, as perhaps most agreeable to symbolical analogy, I am by no means disposed to ina.. i upon its propriety. It may, or it may not, be the true exposition. f " The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." (Isaiah Ivii. 20, 21.) The same allegorical language is used by St. Jude. " Raging waves oi the sea, foaming out their own shame." Jude 1 3. J Rev, xi. IS. 69 gate the beast. If then the city mean the empire^ the throne will signify the tyrannical uutlioritij exercised within the empire : a throne^ even in our ordinary mode of speaking, being useii as synonymcjus with the authority exercised from the throne. The great citif is described as being seated upon the sea^"^ so as to be a conspicuous object to those who navigate it ; and, like opulent natu- ral cities, as having abundance of merchants and ship" masters. These merchants., who enrich thems^'ives by trading with her, are declared by the prophet to be the great men of the earth or Roman empire. '\ As the great Babijlon is the same as the symbolical earth or Roman empire ; so the holy cify is the same as~ * That is, the troubled ocean of worldly politics and conflicting nations. (See the preceding remarks on the symbolical sea. J In a similar manner, tbi great scarlet ivhore is represented as sitting upon many -waters ; which the angel afterwards explains to signify '■^peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues T Rev. XVU. 1, 15. f It might seem from Rev. xvii. 9, 1 8. that the great city does not mean the Roman tmpire, but the literal city of Rome. To such an opinion however there are insupera- ble objections The harlot, who is said to be Babylon, or the great city, is evidently the adulterous church of Rome, after the period when the Empire had been divided into ten kingdoms. That Church however, although its peculiar seat was the literal se-vcr, -hilled city, extended its sw^ay over the -whole Western Empire : consequently the church of Rome, in its largest acceptation, must be the apocalyptic Babylon, or the g.eat city, unless we con- fine it (which is an absurdity) within the limits oi literal Rome. Hence the spiritual great city must mean the -whole papal empire. So again : since our Lord is said to have been crucified in the great city, and since the great city undoubtedly means Rome in some sense or another, it is evident that the secular great city cannot be literal Rome, because our Lord never luas crucified there ; whereas he -u'as crucified in the great city, if by it we understand the -whole Roman empire. Further ; the frst apocalyptic beast, which is undoubtedly the Roman empire, is said to have ten horns or kingdoms ; and the great city is said to consist of ten different parts or streets. (Rev. xi. 13.) Hence it is nacural to conclude, that the ten parts of the city are the same as the ten horns of the beast. But, if that be the case, the great city must mean the empire at large. It is described indeed as seated upon se-ven hills in allusion to the site of its literal capital -, but we are more- over informed that the se-ven heads rf the beast allude to seven forms of goveriime:it, a cir- cumstance which plainly shews that the empire as including the city must be intended. For, if we confine the great city of the Apocalypse to literal Rome, we shall find it im- possible to discover w^ithin the literal city of Rome all the seven forms of government and the eighth which is one of the seven. Some have supposed the short-lii-ed se-ventb bead to be the Exarchate of Ravenna, some the line of Italian Geesars from the death of The-' odosius, and some the kingdom af the Ostrogoths. None of these powers however made Rome their capital. In short, let us interpret the short-li-ved senenth head ai we please, we shall find nothing within ///^ra/ Rome that at all answers to the prophetic descrip- tion of it. If then we are obliged to go without the limits of literal Rzme to discover all the heads of the beast, the great city must likewise be understood as extending without the limits of literal Rime. In short, as the great city Babylon means not only Babylon itself but likewise the Babylonian empire; SO the great c'.ty Rome means not onlv Rome itself, but likewise the luhole Roman empire. The one is used as a tvpe of the other : and, in addition to their mutual resemblance in other particulars, they are perhaps the only two large powers tliat have ever existed, whose empire and whose capital flty have each borne the same name. 70 the first heaveti^ or church militant^ whence it is also aptly termed a camp. After the beloved city or first heaven of the millennium shall have passed away, it will be succeeded by the second holy city, the new heaven., the church triumphant, the duration of which shall be commensurate with eternity itself. This holy city of God is furnished, like the literal Jerusalem, with a temple, an altar, and a court without the temple, ft hath also a sanctuarij and a daily sacri- fice : and in the midst of it is the throne of God and the ark of his covenant. In the temple moreover are tzco olive-frees and two candlesticks^ which are the two zvit- nesses of Christ. To understand the import of this imagery, we must consider the nature of the visible Church of Christ. Now that Church hath ever been of a two-fold nature, comprehending both the really pious, and those who, to use the words of Daniel, only '■''cleave to it zoith fatte- ries" or zoho, in the language of another prophet, " have a name that they live, and are dead.^^ Thefrst of these make the word of God alone the standard of their ac- tions ; the second are liable to be " carried about with every wind of doctrine," and are therefore peculiarly ob- noxious to the danger of heresy and apostacy. The truly pious then are the mystical temple of God ;* their hearts are his throne, inasmuch as they alone really acknowl- edge his dominion (all others, nhatever profession they may make, being practical atheists ;•]•) and their prayers^ humbly otFered unto the Lord in a reliance upon his cov- enanted mercies vouchsafed through the sole merits of bis Son, are the daily sacrifice offered upon the altar be- fore the ark of the covenant. The real Church of God however is not to be confined exclusively to the times of the Christian dispensation ; it had existed from the very * " Know ye not, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwell- eth in you ?" (1 Corin. iii. 16.) " Ivnow ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you ?" (1 Corin. vi. 19.) " What agreement hath the tem- ple of Gid with idols .' for ve are the temple of the Hving God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (2 Corin. vi, IG.) " Christ as a son over his own house, ivhose houic arc ice.'" iicb. iii. 6. •^ A?t;/ jv TM Mc-fiiu\ Ephes. ii, 1-. n heginnhig of the zi)orId m the hearts of the faithful, and had afterwards assumed a definite form in the age of Mo- ses and i\aron. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of his Redeemer ; he " saw it, and was glad." Moses esteemed " the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." The ancient patriarchs " all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afaf off." In short, " although they were not named Christian men^ yet was it a Chrisiicm faith that they had ; for they looked for all benefits of God the Father, through the merits of his Son Jesus Christ, as we now do. This difference is between them and us, that they looked when Christ should come, and we be in the time when he is come. Therefore, saith St. Augustin, The time is alter- ed and changed, but not the faith ; for we have both one faith in Christ."* Hence we find in the ?nt/stic temple two double si/mbols ; namely two olive trees and two can- dlesticks. The frsf olive tree, and Xhefrst candlestick^ represent the Church of God before the incarnation of our Lord ; and the second olive tree, and the second candle- stick., represent the Church after the incarnation. Ac* cordingly the prophet Jeremiah denominates the Leviti- cal Church '■^ a green olive tree, fair, and of good I i/ fruit ;"| and St. Paul, adopting the same symbolical imagery, describes the conversion of the gentiles by the figure of « loild olive grafted into a good olive and thus producing valuable fruit "^ As for a candlestick, our Lord himself declares it to be the type of « Church.^ The temple then symbolizing the faithful z^orshippers of God ; the outer court, which under the Levitical dispen- sation was set apart for the gentiles, represents those who are only nominal Christians ; and the treading it under foot signifies the introduction of heresies and apostacies^ sufficient to deceive even the elect of God, were thev not secure within his holy temple \\ In a similar manner, the profanation of the sanctuarij, the abolition of the daily sacrifice which is offered in form though not in spirit by * 2d part of Horn, of faith. t Jerem. xi. Iff. ^ Rom. xi. 17—24. § Rev. i. 20. 11 Matt, xxiv. 24, 72 the tares as well as by the wheat,* and the setting up of the abomination of desolation^ which are all images taken from the history of the Jews, and which, as we are taught by our I^ord himself, signify literally the sacking of Jerusalem bif the Romans and the introduction of their abominable idolatri/ into the very precincts of the tem- ple .-f these images, when taken si/mbolicallf/, mean the introduction of impious apostacies, and the abolition, or at least the studied interruption^ of divine worship. 4. A chaste woman is a symbol of the true Church ; which, throughout the whole of Scripture, is considered as the bride of the Lamb, and the mother of his spiritual children. :|: On the other hand, a harlot is a symbol of an apostate and idolatrous Church., apostacy and idolatry being spir- itual whoredom and adultery.^ In the Apocalypse mention is made o{ two women, but of a very different character from each other. Thefor- iner of them is represented, as being driven into the wil- derness by the persecution of the dragon : the latter is described, as being also in the wilderness, but as riding there triumphantly awA joyously upon a scarlet coloured beast. This symbol of « wilderness is manifestly borrow- ed from the history of the children of Israel, during their sojourn of forty years in the great wilderness; and it denotes a state of extreme spiritual barrenness and ig- norance. Into such a "wilderness of religious error the woman, who is the symbol of the true Church, \s forcibly driven by the infernal serpent ; where, in the midst of surrounding abominations, like Israel in the midst of the gentiles, she is nourished by the grace of God, and mi- raculously though invisibly upheld by the power of his * Matt. xiii. 38. f " The Roman army is called the abomination for its ensigns and images which were so to the Jews. As Chrysostom affirms, every idol and every image of a man was called an abomination among the Jews. — We farther learn from Josephus, that after the city was taken, the Romans brought their ensigns into the temple, and placed them over against the eastern gate, and sacrificed to them there." Bp. New- ton's Dissert. XIX. ^ See the Song of Solomon — Isaiah liv. 5 — Jerem. xxxi. 32 — Hos. ii. 2, 7— Ephes. V. 32 — Rev. xix. 7 xxi. 9. § See Ezek. xvi — Jerem. iii— Rev. xvii. 73 arm, during the space of 1260 days or three years and a half; as the Israelites were fed with manna, the type of Christ himself who is the spiritual bread of his church,* during their pilgrimage o^ forty years. Into the same wilderness also of spiritual barrenness and ignorance the great whore^ who is the symbol o^ some apostate Church predicted by St. John, voluntarily loithdraws herself: where she sits, as a queen, upon tlie power symbolized by the scar lot beast ; and labours at once to seduce with her blandishments, and to terrify with her threats, the oppressed Church of God. f 5. Another symbol of the church is a vine. When the vine is properly cultivated, and yields good fruit, it is the true church ; but, when it is styled the vine of the earth, and is described as yielding sour grapes even when thetj are fully ripe,% it signifies an apostate church. This being the case, gathering the clusters of the vine of the earth, and treading the wme-press, denote the just wrath of God poured out upon apostates and corrupters of his word. 6. One of the most striking hieroglyphics however, among those which are used in the writings of Daniel and St. John, is that of a wild beast.^ Several different * John vi. 31 — 58. Rev. ii. 17. f Mr. Sharpe has very injudiciously, I think, followed Sir Isaac Newton in con- founding these tivo luomen together. It is true, that the great luhore was once the chaste ivife of the Lamb ; but, by her withdrawing into the ivilderness, she became an essentially different character, leaving that of the real ivife of the Lamb to those ■who protested against her fornications, and whom in return she persecuted and trod un- der foot. The prophetic account indeed of the tivo icomen sufficiently shews, that they cannot be esteemed the same person without the most palpable contradiction ; for the ten-horned beast, upon which one of the -women triumphantly rides, is the agent and instrument of the very ten-horned Dragon, which is SO violent a persecutor of ths tther "woman. (Sir Isaac Newton's Observ.p. 279— Append, to Sharpe's three tracts p. 121, 122.) Mr. Galloway is guilty of the same error of supposing, that the fight »f the ivo!??an into the luilderness mezus her apostacy. (Comment, p. 131.) Bp. Newton most justly adopts the contrary opinion. " When the -woman, the true Church, was persecuted and afflicted, she was said to fly into the icilderness : and, in like manner, when the -woman, the false Church, is to be destroyed, the vision is presented in the •wilderness. For they are by no means, as some have imagined, the same -woman under various representations. They are totally distinct and different characters, and drawn in contrast to each other ; as appears from their whole attire and behaviour, and par- ticularly from these two circumstances ; that, during the 1260 years while the -woman is fed in the -wilderness, the beast and the scarlet -whore are reigning and triumphant ; and, at the latter end, the ivhore is burnt with fire, when the -woman, as his wife, hath made herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb." Bp. Newton's Dissert, in loc. \ See Isaiah v. xxvii. § It may not be improper to observe, that a different word is used by St. John to express the four cherubic animals who join with the twenty-four elders in praising God, and the t-ico persecuting beasts of the sea and the earth : the former »re termed iud, or living creatures ; and the latter, 5»oia, or -iiild itasts efprej. VOL. I. 10 74 animals of the rapacious kind are introduced for this pur- pose ; and occasionally the strict laws of nature are departed from, and a beast is des-^ribed as compounded of several other beasts in order to convey more accu- rately the import of the prophecy. In a temporal seuse^ a zvild beast is used to symbolize a large empire professing and acting upon principles ad^ verse to the Church of Christ. And here 1 would par- ticularly insist upon one pointy namely, that a beast never means a single kingdom considered as co-existinsr with oM^7'/i;/«^w^ all jointly in opposition to the Church; such, for instance, as unij one of the ten kingdoms into ■which the Roman empire was divided : but always an universal empire^ that is to say, universal so far as the Church is concerned.^ A temporal beast then importing an universal empire^ its heads, if it be represented as hav- ing ?nore than one, sometimes mean dijferent forms of government under which the empire in question has subsisted, and sometimes different kingdoms into which it has been divided. •]• Horns likewise mean different kingdoms, which have branched out from the imperial head oi a once universal monarchij, and which are all subsisting at the same time: and the tail, which is the meanest part of the body, s'v^ni^es the a?itichrisfian su- perstition of the beast, the cause by which he is rendered so utterly offensive in the eyes of God.:{: The dominion of a beast is Jiis power of persecution : the ife or vital principle of a beast, that is to say, the principle which causes him to be a beast is his idolatry or apostacij : and the * Other Blasts or large empires, like tliose of China and Hlitdosfan, never having had any connection with the affairs of the Church, are for that reason left unnoticed by prophecy. Of the beasts or empires against which the ram pushed with so much suc- cess, one was the lion or the Babylonian monarchy, and the Others were states with which the Church had no connection, such as the kingdom of Cresus. That of Egypt, which was conquered by Canibyses, the second king oi the ram,is perhaps the only ex- ception to the rule of a beast 'meaning an uni-versaL empire so far as the Church is concerned, ha\iug existed along with the Babylonian empire, and having, like it, been much con- nected with the Jeivs : yet even £gypt is not a perfect exception, having been once subdued, and made during the space of three years a province of the Babylonian mon- archy, by Esar-haddon. Chron. Tab. to Univ. Hist. p. 54. f I only recollect a single instance, in which heads mean di^erent kingdoms. See Dan. vii. 6. \ " The Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. The ancient and honourable, (that is, the governing power) he is the head ; and the pro- phet that teacheth lies., he is the tail." Isaiah ix. 14, 15. 75 death of a beast is the destruction of this vital principle. Hence, when a beast is said to exist or to live, the mean- ing is, that the empire typified by the beast is devoted to idolatry and superstition. When he is said to cease to exist or to be slain, the meaning is, not that his temporal authoritif is destroifed, but that he has put azvay his abomi?iations ; the retaining of which was the sole cause of his being a beast, and consequently the resignation of which is equivalent to his ceasing to be a beast. When he is said to exist afresh or to revive, the meaning is, that he has either resumed his old abominations, or adopted fresh ones equally hateful to God ; thereby again acquiring the bestial character, which he had be- fore happily laid aside. And, when his dominion is said to be taken from him, the meaning is that he is deprived of his power of persecuting the Church. In this last idea the loss of laiofil temporal authority is not neces- sarily included. The dominion o^ the little horn of the Roman beast has already begun to be taken away by the withdrawing of many of its former supporters from the communion of the Church of Rome ; and eventually it shall be deprived of the remainder of its dominion and of its temporcd authoritif likewise by the death of its col- league and supporter the secular ten-horned beast : yet we are not to suppose, that, when the secular beast ceases to exist as a beast, all government will cease within the limits of what was once his empire.* So again : though the little horn will be deprived both of its dominion and its temporal authority, since the two ideas are not necessarily connected, it does not therefore follow, that, because the other beasts are to be deprived of their dominion, they shall also be deprived of their temporal authority. On the contrary, the taking aivay of their dominion ivhile their lives are prolonged means, not that the pagan nations, which shall co-exist with the Church during the millennium, shall possess }io temporal power within their proper territories, but only (like the empire of China for instance) that they shall possess no power of persecuting the Church.-\ This is sufficiently * Dan. Tii. 1 1, 26. f Dan. vli. 12. 7a manifest from the state of those nations at the close of the millennium, as it is described both by Ezekiel and St. John. In the writings of those two prophets, they appear as a regularly organized body of men, making no attempt upon the pious Christian governments, whicli ^o\nt\y conf>,t'itute t/ie Jifik great motiarc/nj, or spiritual empire of the Messiah^ during the space of a thousand years ; but at the end of those years assailing them at the instigation of Satan with the utmost rancour, and perishing in consequence of it. Hence it may be col- lected, that, when their dominion is said to be taken away, the meaning must be, not their temporal dominion within their own limits^ but their power oj injuring the Chm^ch,*^ In a spiritual or ecclesiastical sense, a beast is a super- stition affecting universal dominion ; for universaliti]^ as \ have already observed, is the peculiar characteristic of a beast, as opposed to the horn of a beast. On the same grounds, a horn, in an ecclesiastical sense, is a spiritual kingdom : and, as such, it may be represented, either as springing out of a secular beast, or out of an ecclesiasti- cal beast. In the former case, its geographical origin is pointed out ; in the latter case, its connection with, and subserviency to, a spiritual empire. An ecclesiastical kingdom however may increase into an ecclesiastical em- pii^e, and it may then have ecclesiastical kingdoms subser- vient to it. Hence, what is symbolized in one prophecy by the horn of a secular beast, may hereafter in another prophecy be symbolized by a distinct spiritual beast, hav- ing a proper head or supreme governor and proper horns or ecclesiastical kingdoms of its oivn. There is only ojie such beast mentioned in the whole Bible ; and he sup- J)lies the place of what in a collateral prediction had been represented by a little horn s.raduallij acquiring unlimited power : while, to prevent the possibility of mistaking his character, he is expressly denominated 2i false prophet. \ These beasts have both a natural and a spiritual origin. Hence the same beast is sometimes said to arise both out * Ezek. xxxviii. xxxix. Rev. xx. I — 10. f Compare Dan. vii. 7, 8, 11, 20, 21, 24, 25. with Rev. xiii. 1, 11, 16. and xix. 20. The specific character •! the two apocalytic beasts wUl be discussed at large here- after. 77 of the sea^ and out of the bottomless pit ; the former ex- pression denoting his phijsical birth out of contending na- tions^ and the latter his infernal extraction. The sovereign and instigator and spiritual parent of the various beasts or idolatrous empires^ that have persecuted the Church, is the dragon or serpent. This fierce and noxious reptile, when simply mentioned, is the de-oil^ that old serpent which deceiveth the whole world, poi- soning the principles of its inhabitants, and introducing death both temporal and eternal : but, when described as being connected with certain other marks or symbols, it is the devil considered as acting through the instrumen- iality of the power or powers thus marked or symbolized. Accordingly the great red dragon of the Apocalypse is, as we are repeatedly assured by St. John, the devil : and, inasmuch as he is said to have seven heads and ten horns, he can only be thus described, because he acts through the instrumentality of the seven-headed and ten-horned beast ; to whom he is said to have given his power, and his seat, and great authority.* CHAPTER III. Concerning the scriptural phrases of the latter days, the last days, and the time of the end, FOR the right understanding of prophecy it is necessary to ascertain the meaning of certain phrases, which are used by the inspired writers to describe , that iiis detestable principles were already working, and would continue to work through the whole period of the last time., as meaning the Christian dispen^ sation, though they would not be developed till the last daijs of the last time. In a similar manner, both St. Peter and St. Jude represent persons of the same principles as those which should be openly avowed and acted upon in the last days., as intruding into the feasts of charity usual among the primitive Christians, and consequently as contemporary with themselves. f Events have amply shewn the accuracy of these declarations. The opinions o( Antichrist were secretly lurking in the Church even in the earliest ages : it has been our lot to behold them * " The idea, which the early Christians in general formed of Antichrist, was that of a power to be revealed in distant times, after the dissolution of the Roman empire ; of a power to arise out of the ruins of that empire." (Bp. Hurd on Prophecy, p. 221.) To this we must add the declaration of St. John, that the poiver in question should deny both the Father and the Son : and we shall then perceive, that the Antichrist, about to be revealed in distant times, about to arise out of the ruins of the old Ro- man empire, is certainly not the Papacy, as Bp. Hurd supposes, but a tyrannicai state of a very different nature. The Papacy arose out of the ruins of the Empire, but it never denied either the Father or the Son. Antichrist is likewise to arise out of the ruins of the Empire, and is to be knov/n by his denial both of the Father and the Son. t See the preceding citations. 89 embraced zvithoitt disguise by a whole nation. " The beginning of the monster was in the apostolic age : for it were easy to trace the pedigree of French philosophy, Jacobinism, and Bavarian illumination, up to the first heresies. But it is now we see his adolescence."* As for the papacij^ it answers in no particular to the character o^ Antichrist as delineated by St. John.f The * Bp. Horsley's Letter on Isaiah xviii. — See this matter shewn at large in the Abbe Barruel's Mem. of Jacobinism. f The title of Aniichrist has usually been applied to the Pope by protestant expos- itors, and by the Waldenses and Albigenses before the era of the Reformation : but I cannot find, that they have any warrant from Scripture for so doing. The cor- ruptions of the Papacy are largely indeed predicted under the name of an Apostacy ; which was to consist partly in the superstitious will-worship of Saints, partly in the persecution of the pious, and partly in the exercise of a catholic tyranny over the Church : and the Papacy itself is described under the symbols of a little horn, a harlot, and a tivo-horned beast : but the Pope is no where, that I have been able to discover, termed Antichrist ; for he never denied either the Father or the Son. The identity of Antichrist and the little horn has been rather assumed, than proved. Since this was written, my opinion that the Pope cannot hi the Antichrist described by St. John has been strenuously though (I think) very unsuccessfully opposed by Mr. Whitaker. As my sincere desire is that the point may be thoroughly discussed, I shall subjoin the substance of my answer to him. The statement of the whole question is simply this. St. John assures his dis- ciples, that, at the very moment when he was writing, there were many antichrists already in the world : and he afterwards speaks singularly of one Antichrist, whom by way of eminence he styles the liar, and whose leading characteristic should be a denial cij the Father and the Son. Here then we have many Antichrists and the Antichrist : and the former are declared to be contemporary with the Apostle. Now we know, that, when St. John lived, there was not in existence any embodied poiver, either the papal or any other power, that could in its corporate capacity be styled the Anti- christ. Hence we may conclude, that his contemporaries, the many antichrists, were detached individuals professing some characteristic opinion which was the cause of their being so named ; and, on the other hand, that the Antichrist is no individual, but a collective body of individuals. The question then is, What ivas the opinion of the many antichrists ? Was it the same, or was it not the same, as that of the Anti- christ, according to St. John's description of it .' Does the Apostle give us any clue to ascertain this point ^ He explicitly declares, as if to prevent the possibility of error, that " every spirit, which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God : and this is that very essence or spirit of the Antichrist, which ye have heard shall come, and indeed even now is in the world." Thus it is plain that what St. John calls the spirit of the Antichrist, is a denial that fesus Christ is the promised Messiah manifested in the flesh. But, if this spirit, which is the spirit of the Antichrist, were in the world when St. John wrote, and if many individual antichrists, were likewise in the world at the same time ; I know not M'hat we can conclude but that these individual antichrists were men animated by the spirit of the Antichrist or the liar, which we are unequivocally told is a denial of the Son, and thence by implication a denial of the Father also. Accordingly St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, all concur in asserting, that men, possessed by such a spirit as St. John calls the spirit of the Antichrist, even the very spirit which we have seen embodied in these last days, had at that early period insinuated themselves into the Church. How then can any thing that St. John here says prove the Pope to be the Antichrist, namely the Antichrist ivhoie spirit -was then in the tuoild F All that the Apostle teaches his disci- ples is, that, since the delusive spirit of the Antichrist was already working, they might be sure that they were living in the last time ov under the last dispensation, and VOL. I. 12 90 superstition oi thai great apostacy is indeed to continue to the very end of the 1260 days, and is therefore to be contemporary during the latter period of its existence \\ ith the reign oj^ Antichrist : but the domination of that injidel tyrant is so strongly marked by atheism, insubor- need not look for any further dhpensatiov. As yet however, although there were many iudimdual antichrists in the world, the great Antichrist himself, whose special badge should be a denial of the Father and the Son, Was not manifested. His spirit indeed was already working in the children of disobedience, but he himself -was not as yet revealed : nor does the Apostle give us the slightest intimation, that his appearance would be connected either with the taking away of that which prevented the de- \oment oi the papal man of sin, or with the commencement of /;6£? \ 260 years. On the contrary, wherever he mentions the Antichrist, he studiously and almost anxiously tells us, that his badge is a denial of the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. Mr. Whitaker however argues, that, since I allow the man of sin to be the Pope ; since //"■ man of sin is Said to oppose and exalt himself above every one that is called god or that is worshipped ; and since the word, which St. Paul uses to express this opposition, is anticimenus : therefore, because the man of sin is anticimenus. Or one that ofposeth himself a.ga.\nst all that is called god, he must be antichrisfus. This whole argument is founded on a misconception of the text. The gods, xh^t the man of sin was to oppose, were ?nere earthly gods ; in Other words, kings and emperors.' He was to oppose himself to every one that Is called god, and to every thing august and venerable ; to every seuisma, in allusion to seiastus or augustus the title of the Roman emperors. (See Bp. Newton's Dissert, on the man of sin.) Hence it is plain, that an opposition of this nature will not constitute the Pope Antichrist. Impiously as the Bishops of Rome have sat in the temple of God, shewing themselves that they are God, this has been done rather in conjunction with God, than in opposition to him. In the height of their profane madness they never thought of denying either the Father, or the Son ; but rather afFected to act by their commission and un- der their authority, considering themselves as a sort of God upon earth and claiming to be the sole vicars of Christ. In short, the prophecy respecting the man of sin has been exactly accomplished in the Popes .• but St. John's definition of the liar or the Antichrist, whose spirit was even then in the world, is by no means ap- plicable to the Popes ; because their characteristic mark as a body was not a denial cither of the Father or of the Son. If indeed we chose arbitrarily to annex some other idea to the word Antichrist than St. John has taught us to annex to It, I have no objection in this sense to say that the Pope is an antichrist, because he has ever shewn himself a most notorious enemy to the pure religion of the Gospel : so likewise has Mohammed, who comes much nearer to the character of St. John's Antichrist than the Pope, though even be never denied the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. But, so long as I acknowledge the authority of the epistles of St. John, 1 must peremptorily deny that the Pope is the Antichrist : both becau ie I am plainly taught, that the spirit ot that liar was working even In the apostolical age, which the spirit of the Papacy was not ; and because I am no less plainly taught, that, whenever the monster should be pubhcly revealed, he should be known by his denial of the Father and the Son. Dr. Doddridge attempts to explain away this natural objection to the application of the character of Antichrist to the Pope ; but in a manner, that to myself at least appears nothing better than a mere quibble. He says, that " Popery is an usurpa- tion entirely inconsistent with a due homage to Christ," and therefore that the Papacy is Antichrist. But what has this to do with an express denial of Christ .' It is surely a most unsatisfactory answer to those, who as he himself observes " have argued, that the Pope cannot be Antichrist, because he confesses Christ, and that it must necessarily be some entirely opposing person or sect, and which does not bear the christian name." (Paraph. I. John iv. S.) As little satiifactory to me is Pyle's gloss. (Preface to 1 John.) 91 dination^ and a total icant of all the hinder affections of our nature ; that, for a season, till he has united himself with the man of sin the domineering head oithe aposiacij^ the abominations even of the pupal super'stition are scarcely visible near the infernal glare of avowed Anti- christianitij. It requires some degree of circumspection clearly to ascertain the meanings of the phrase of the end or the time of the end, ^\:i or 1\> riy, so frequently used by Daniel. To myself it certainly appears to mean the iermination of the whole 1260 datjs ; the conclusion o^ the or eat drama of the two-fold apostacij and the reign of Antichrist. I conceive the time of the end to commence, so soon as the 12()0 days expire; and to extend through the 7o years, which intervene between the end of the 1260 days, and the beginning of the season of millennian blessedness. 1 believe it in short to be the awful period, during which the judgments of God will go abroad through all the earth, and during which his great controversy with the nations will be carried on.* Before I attempt to shew that such is the import of the phrase, it will be proper for me to observe, that a very different interpretation of it has been given by Mr, Mede, in which he has been followed by Bp. Newton. Instead of supposing it to mean the termination of the 1260 days^ he conceives it to denote the latter daifs of the Roman empire or the whole duration of the \'i'60days.'\ ^ The time of the end, or at least thefrst portion of it which contains 30 years (Dail. xii. 11>) sj-nchronizes with the last apocalyptic vial, which will begin to be poured out so soon as the 1 260 days shall have expired. f Yet it is worthy of notice, that in two places Bp. Newton understands the phrase precisely as I do ; namely as denoting not the coatinuut'ce, but the termination of the 1260 years. Commenting upon Dan. xi. 35, he observes, " These calamities were to befall the Christians to try them, and purge, and make them white, not only at that time, but even to the time of the end, because it is yet for a time appointed : and we see, even at this day, not to aliedge other instances, liow the poor protest ants are persecuted, plundered, and murdered, in the southern parts of France." (Dissert. XVII. in loc.) To the same purpose is his comment on Daniel xii. 9. It is indeed no wonder that we cannot fully understand and explain these things ; for, as the angel said to Daniel himself, though ?;/a«v sJiould run to and fro, and should inquire and examine into these things, and thereby knoivledge should be increased ; yet the fuU understanding of them is reserved for the time of the end, //?>£ ivords are closed up and sealed till tie time of the end. — As Prideaux judiciously observes, it is the nature of such prophecies not to be thoroughly understood, till they are thoroughly fulfilled.'" (Dissert.. XVII, \xi loc.) In both tteee nassagejj, unless I greatly mistake their import, Bf 92 In support of this opinion, I cannot find however, that he brings forward any argument, excepting one which is built upon his own exposition of the question and answer recorded by Daniel; " Until how long shall be the end of the wonders I It shall be until a time and times and a half."* Now the import of this passage Mr. Mede sup- poses to be, that the period styled t/ie end of f he zvonders, or (as he translates it) the latter end of the wonders, shall be in length three times and a half or 1260 years. Whence he argues, that, since such is to be the length of this latter end, the time of the end must denote the zvhole period oj^ the 1260 if ears. -\ Were such an exposition of the passage allowable, it would at least render it ambiguous ; for we should not be absolutely obliged to concede, that, because it was allowable, no other was allowable : but it appears to me to be by no means allowable ; and 1 believe that our common English version has accurately expressed the sense of the original, although it doubtless is not quite literal. If we consider the general context of the passage, Daniel first speaks of the end of certain wonders, and immediately afterwards of the finishing of these things. Now these things plainly appear to be the same as the loonders. But if these thimrs be the same as the -wonders (which I suppose will scarcely be denied) ; it seems most natural to conclude that the finishing of these things is the same as the end of the wonders. The finishing of these things however is plainly the absolute termination of them, and it is declared moreover to be contemporary with the restoration of the Jews : the end of the leonders therefore must at once be the termination of the wonders^ Newton considers the tlmiofthe end as being yet future, and as commencing so soon as the men of understanding Or the -witnestes shall have ceased to prophesy in sackcloth, that is to say, at the end of tie 1 260 yean. * Dan. xii. 6, 7. f Mede's Works, B. iv. Epist. 54.— B. v. Chap. 9. Both Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton make a very important use of the sense which they annex to the phrase of the end or the time of the end. They suppose, that the kings of the south and the north mentioned by Daniel as attacking the imlfil ting, are the Saracens and the Turks. Now, whatever powers tliese kings may be, their wars are said to begin at the time of the end. But, if the time of the end denote the expiration^ and not the continuance, of the 1260 years, they certainly caaiiot be the Saracens and the Tuths. This subject will be resumed hereafter. 95 and must synchronize with the restoration of the Jezos. Hence the end of the nwnders cannot denote the ichole period of the 1260 ijears^ but must on the contrary de- note the termination of it ; because the restoration of the Jews^ even according to Mr. Mede's own opinion,* will synchronize with the downfall of the papal Roman empire, and that downfall will not take place till after the expir^ ation o{ the 1260 ijears. Ihis however is by no means the only objection to the exposition in question. Mr. Mede translates the original passage, not the end of the voonders^ but the latter end of the loonders ; evidently with a view to excite the idea, that of a certain period considered by Daniel as the period of wonders (suppose for instance the whole dura" tion of his last vision) the latter portion is contradistin- guished from the former portion, and that this latter portion is termed by way of distinction the latter end of the Z€ondersm opposition io the frst part of the wonders. In order to appreciate the solidity of this exposition, it will be necessary to descend to verbal criticism. Two words -j" are used in Hebrew to express the end^ Aarith and Ketz together with its cognates Ketzah and Miket- zath. Now the former of these denotes either the con- tinuance of a period or the termination of a period^ for it is derived from a root which signifies after ; and it is ob- vious, that both the successive parts of a period and the absolute termination of it are alike after its commencement : hence the Old Testament phrase of the end of daijs^ which 1 last considered, denotes either futuritt/, that is a succession of time in general, or the end of the present order of things and the duration of the Millennium in par- ticular. Whereas the latter, unless 1 be quite mistaken, never denotes the continuance of the period of which it speaks, but always the termination of it ; for it is derived from a verb which signifies to cut off or to cut short : whence Buxtorf with much propriety observes, that it denotes the end^ " quasi prcecisum dicas ; ubi enim res * Mede's Works, B. v. Chap. 8. f I do not mean to say, that no more than two words are used ; but that these are the two words with which the present discussion is chiefly concerned. Daniel sometimes uses the Chaldaic Supha instead of Keiz, which signifies precisely the same. 94 praeciditur, ibi ejus finis est." This latter word, not the former^ is used by Daniel, both in the present passage, and in every other passage where the time of the end is spoken of.* The end of the zi'onders therefore, when it is considered what word is used in the original to express the end^ cannot, as it appears to me, denote either the whole period during zchich these zaonders were transact- ing^ or ilie latter part of that period ; but must on the contrary denote the absolute cutting off or termination of the period of the ii:onders.-\ The end then, or the time of the end^ must, agreeably to the import of the original word, signify the termination of some period ox another : the question is, what period I Daniel informs us, the period of the icnnders : for, since he speaks of the end of the xvutidcrs^ the end can only mean the termination of that period zchich comprehends the zoon- ders. Still the question will occur, what is the period of the KDonders ! Is it the whole period of Daniel's last vis- ion^ or is it the particular period of the 1260 ijears / This question appears to me not very difficult to be answered. In the earlier part of Daniel's last vision, which treats of the wars between the kings of Syria and Egypt, there is nothing that peculiarly deserves the name of a za^onder. The age ofzconders^ on which both Daniel and St. John dwell with so much minuteness and astonishment, :|: is undoubtedly the great period of 1260 years; during which the world was destined to behold the wonderful sight of a tii-o-fuld apostacy from the pure religion of the * Excepting those in which he uses Sufha. f It IS observable, that, whenever Daniel uses the cognates of Ketz to mark time, he invariably uses them in the sense oi the termination of the period concerning which they speak, never in the sense of its continuance ; a sense indeed of which I believe them to be incapable : insomuch that, if by the time of the end and the end of the ivonders he m.ea.r\s either the irhole or a part of the period of those ivonders, he entirely departs from the sense which he elsewhere annexes to these cognate words. (See Dan. i. 5, 15, 18. iv. 29. See also Gen. iv. 3. margin, trans.) There is one passage, in which Daniel plainly appears to me to use the words Aarith and Ketz. in direct opposition to each other. " I will make thee know what shall be in the latter end of the indig- nation ; for it (the vision) shall be until the appointed time of the end." Dan. viii. 1 9.) Here the latter end, or rather the continuance, (Aarith) of the indi<^nation, denotes the li'hofe period rf the tyranny of the Le-^^oaf''s little horn, or in Other words the -whole pe- riod of the 1260 years ; v.'hile the end (Ket-z) to which the vision is to reach, denotes the expiration of the Y2.6Q years or the end of the period of the ivonders, which therefore synciironizes with the expiration of the CGOO years, to which the vision is likewise to reach. Dan. viii. 13, 14. : See Dan. vii. S. 15, 19—22, 2S. viii. 9—14, 27. Rev. ;xi. xii, xiii, xvii. 6,T. 9a Gospel, and of the developement of a monstrous po\^j, that set the Majesty of heaven itself at defiance. Hen^ the period of the zvonders can surely be only the periock. of the 1260 years; for let us attentively peruse the\ writings of Daniel and St. John, and see whether we can discover another period to which we can with the slight- est degree of propriety apply the title oi the period of the ivonders. But a yet more positive proof, that the period of the 1260 i/ears is the period of the wonders, may be deduced from the very passage, which Mr. Mede uses to establish his own exposition by assigning to the word Ketz a sense which it is incapable of bearing. " And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, until how long shall be the end (that is, the termination) of the wonders ? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left harid unto heaven, and svvare by him that liveth for ever, that it shall be until a time and times and a half; and, when he shall have finished to scatter the power of the holv people, all these things shall be finished. And I heard, but I understood not. Then said I, O my Lord, what is the end of these things ? And he said, Go thy way Daniel ; for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." A question is here asked, how long a time shall elapse before the en I of the period ofzconders arrives \ The an- swer is, three times and a hafox 1260 years : and it is further declared, that, when the Jeiss shall begin to be restored, all these things, namely all the ivonders which zcere to come to an end at the expiration of the \ 260 years, shall be finished. Upon this Daniel inquires, what is the end of them : but the only reply given him is, that the words are sealed till the time of the end, or that his prophecies shall not be fully understood till the end of the wonders arrives. Now, if \260 ijears are to elapse before the end of the iconders arrives, and if all these things, that is to say all the wonders, are to be finished contemporaneously with the restoration of the Jews ; it will both follow that the period of the ivonders must exactly comprehend I960 96 jiftrs^ and that the restoration of the Jews will commence .t the explication of that period. In other words it will follow, that the period of the wonders is the same as the period of the 1^260 i/ears ; and consequently thai the end of the period of the it'onders, or the time of the end, de- notes the termination, not the continuance, of the period of the \260 i/ears. This will yet further appear from comparing together what Daniel says relative to the time of the end and what he says relative to tlie expiration of the 1260 years. \i all the wonders are to be finished at the close of the IQ60 i/ears, and if they are likewise to be finished at the time of the end ; it is manifest that the time of the end must so synchronize with the expiration of the 12G0 years, that it must commence exactly when the 1260 years terminate. Accordingly we shall find, that the wonders, which are generally declared to be finished at the close of the 1260 years, are se-oeralhj declared to be likewise finished at this very time of the end. Thus the vision of the ram and the he-goat, which comprehends the ii)onders of Moham^ medism or a portion of the wonders of the 1260 tjears, is to reach unto the time of the end.* Thus the reformation from the great apostacy, or the prophesying of the two witnesses, is to continue in a progressive state to the time of the end.-\ Thus the little horn is to have the saints given into his hand during the space of three times and a half: and, although his dominion is to begin tobe taken away before the expiration of that period, even at the era of ^//{ Antichrists^ that is, of Antichrist in every one of the three forms which Mr. Kett ascribes to him. " In the main points of opposi- tion to Christ," says he, " and of persecution of his ser- vants, all the branches of Antichrist must necessarily agree ; but the marks, which distinguish these confod- erute powers from each other, appear to me very strongly discriminated in these different visions of Daniel. All foretell the power of Antichrist, and contain allusions perhaps to all the different forms of that power : but each vision seems to describe one of these forms with pe- culiar distinctness, while it points to some circumstances xvhich strongly characterize that power, which was to arise the last ; and, if we rightly conjecture, will prevail the most, and which are not easily appropriated to either of the other, § The symbol of a little horn is applicable to Antichrist in the beginnings of all its forms. Papal, Mo- hammedan, and InJideL The power of Antichrist is still the little horn : but, as exerted in Greece and the East, * Hist, the Interp. Vol. 1. p. 340. f Ibid. p. S09. | Dan. viii. 9. § I have not been able clearly to discover, ivhkh of the three visions Mr. Kett supposes to describe -wiih peculiar distinctness the infidel Antichrist. According to his plan, the little horn of the fourth beast is primarily /iif Papacy, secondarily Mohammedism, and ultimately Infdelity : (Hist, the Inter, of Proph. Vol. 1. p. 378 et infra) the little horn of the he-goat or the third beast is primarily Mohammedism, ^.^A ultimately ////fi/c/z/y .- (Ibid. p. 3J5 et infra) and the king, predicted in Daniel's last -vision, is both the Papacy, in which case his antagonists, the king of the South, and the king of the North, are the Saracens and the Turks : (Ibid. p. 338.) and he is hkewise a double type of Antichrist. (Ibid.) In the table of contents indeed prefixed to his second volume, he speaks of the little horn of the fourth beast as being solely the inf.del poiver ; but the table itSclf by Ut) means quadrates with the contents of either volume. 103 it is described as the little horn of the he-goat or ilie third empire, and this even to the present hour ; for the seat of the Mohammedan empire is Grecia, or what was call- ed the Greek empire. As exerted in Italy and the West^ it is described as the little horn of the fourth beast ^ or the fourth empire. But it is remarkable, that in those pre- dictions, which the angel expressly declares will be ac- complished towards the end of the appointed time, this distinction of East and West seems to be lost, both in this of the Ram and the He-Goaf., and in the following vision, (which I conceive intended particularly to de- scribe the Mohammedan and Papal powers,) and Anti- christ appears with all the subtlety and fury and univer- sally extended tyranny, with Avhich we find him deline- ated in the Revelation under the symbol of the second beast, and which corresponds with the little horn in the vision of the four beasts, which is to be considered as an epitom^ of the xvhole history of Antichrist,* And this circumstance, 1 apprehend, intimates the general aposta- cy and persecution which is to take place under the infi- del poxoer, which was to succeed the violence oi the two former, and be an instrument of punishment to their ad- herents, and of trial to the church of Christ/'f What tJie three horns or kingdoms are which the proph- et beheld plucked up before the little horn, Mr. Kett does not himself attempt to decide ; but, agreeably to his supposition, that M/^ little horn \s a symbol of ^«- iichrist in all his three forms, he seems to think that ev- ery one of these three forms will respectively depress three kingdoms. " Whea we considered the vision of the beasts, and the little horn which rose among or after the ten horns, it was observed, that this vision probably con- tained a description of the vshole of Antichrist. The distinct pictures, which we have since seen of the Mo- hammedan and papal forms oi" this power, appear to con- firm this idea. And, when we reflect upon the superior solemnity of the conclusion o( this first vision, it will, I • Mr. Kett means, that tie little horn, not the •vision of the four beasts, is the epitome of the whole history of Antichrist. " This account of the little horn" says he, " I con- sider as an epitome of the whole history of Antichrist." Val, 1. p. 340. t Hist, the Interp. of Proph, 'S'qI, I. p. 347. 104 think, seem probable, that in this general description the last of the forms it was to assume would be the most par- ticularly noticed, if any were particularized above the rest. We shall find, 1 think, upon examination, that this was really the case. These ten kingdoms do not ne- cessarily a})pear to belong to the icestern division of the empire ;* and it seems clear that this broken form is to remain till the judgment is set. We are therefore at lib- erty to suppose, that ihis little hofvi which is Antichrist, represents both the Mohammedan poller in the east, and the papal po'ji'er in the zcesf ; which were in tact raised up nearly together : and, if the description of this horn be found fairly applicable to another power which was to arise afterwards, within the bounds of the ancient Roman empire, (as we gather from the consideration of other prophecies,) we may as naturally conclude, that it was designed to represent that poziDer also. If this be grant- ed, and surely it can hardly be denied, the different opin- ions of commentators respecting this horn, so far from being discordant, will be found in unison, and more loudly sound the harmony of prophetic truth. f Those, * It will hereafter be shewn, that they do necessarily belong to the western di\'is- ion of the empire. ■\ This method of shewing the concordance of commentators, and the harmony of prophetic truth, would, I fear, have but very little weight with a captious infidel. Such a person would naturally say, " If a ungle symbol may at once represent so many different poivers, it is impossible that tiiere should be any certainty in prophecy. A symbol must typify some one fpccifc pozver to the exclusion of all others ; or else it may be made to signify just what the commentator pleases. In one age it may be convenient to apply it to _Moham- medism ; in another, to Popery, in a third, to Infdelity ; Air. Kett informs US, that it repre- sents them all : a succeeding tcriter may apply it to a poiaer not yet arisen : what opinion can we form of so very ductile a prophecy as this V^ These objections I am una- ble to answer upon Mr. Kett's plan : but nothing is more easy, if we adopt the simple and reasonable scheme of " utterly denj-ing the poffibility of a chronological prophecy being capable of receiving more than one completion ; and of allowing no interpretation of it to be valid, except the prediction agree with its supposed ac- complishment in every particular." On these principles, the answer would be suf- ficiently obvious. There is a certain poiver, which perfectly accords with this symbol of the little horn both chronologically, locally, and circumstantially : therefore the symbol must relate to this individual poxver, and to none else ; to none either of those which preceded it, or which hereafter may succeed it. History undeniably shews us, that the poiver in question does agree in all these points with the symbol : we inoiv that Daniel flourished long before this poiuer arose : we knoiv, that in liis days no human wisdom could have foreseen that it ivould arise : how then are we to account for this exact correspondence between the symbol and the po-.i'er, except by allowing the divine inspiration of him, to whom the mystic vision of the four beasts was so accurately revealed, and to whom at the sam?. time a literal interpretation of it was prophetical- ly detailed .""' 105 who see the Mohammedan power in the little horn which arose from the fourth heast ^ generally suppose jB^^^^, Asia^ and Greece^ to be the three horns plucked up by the roots before it. Bp. Newton, in his application of this prophecy to the papal poxcer^ considers them to be the exarchate of Ravenna^ the kingdom ofLombardy^ and the state of Rome ; and observes, that the Pope hath in a manner pointed himself out for the person described, by wearing the triple crown. We can at present form no opinion concerning the three horns, which are to be eradicated by the infidel power; whether absolutely kingdoms be meant, or whether independent states may be considered as a sufficient explanation : but posterity may be enabled to decide upon this subject perhaps more clearly than the partial fulfilment of this prophecy has hitherto enabled us to do, respecting the conquests of the Mohammedan and papal poioers."* The foregoing plan of Mr. Kett appears to me much too complicated and intricate to be probable. If one and the same horn is to symbolize three dijferent pozvers, there certainly cannot be any precision or definiteness in the prophecy ; for it must be w/er^ conjecture to attempt to determine, zvhat part of the history of the little horn belongs to one of the three pozcers, and zc/z a/ respectively to the tzoo others. From the language of Daniel him- self no such system can be fairly deduced. Throughout the whole vision of the four beasts, the little horn is described as strictly and simply one pointer, uniform and consistent in its conduct, performing a certain number of clearly defined actions, and continuing in the exercise of a tyrannical authority the precise term of three pro- phetic years and a half It is surely then highly im- probable, and extremely unlike the usual method of Daniel's writing, to suppose, that, while in the exu- berance of his symbolical imagery he gives tzoo several hieroglyphical descriptions of the first 2iUf\ fourth empires and no less than three such descriptions of the second and third empires \^ he should nevertheless be suddenly reduced to such a poverty of imagination as to represent * Hist, the Int. of Proph. Vol. i. p. 376. f Dan. ii. ▼"• fi"- VOL. I. 14 106 three very different powers by ojie and the same symbol^ thereby involving the history of those pozccrs in the most impenetrable obscurity and the most perplexing uncer- tainty. To repeat an observation which I have already made, if various symbols be used to represent the same thing, we shall be in no danger of mistaking the pro- phet's meaning, provided only we can ascertain the import of each individual symbol ; but, if, on the contrary, in the course of a single passage, the same symbol be used to express many different things, it will be impos- sible to understand a prophecy couched in such ambig- uous terms, because we can never be sure, when we proceed to consider the prophecy article by article, to which of those different things each article is to be re- ferred. On these grounds 1 feel myself compelled to reject Mr. Kett's interpretation of the history of the little horn, as resting upon no solid foundation, and receiving no warrant from the plain language of Daniel. Mr. Galloway, avoiding the perplexity introduced by Mr Kett, supposes, that the little horn is 07ie, and only one, power ; which power he conjectures to be rev- olutionary France. Many however are the difficulties which must be overcome, before such an opinion as this can be satisfactorily established. The difficulties are these. The horn is termed by the prophet a little horn, and is represented as a distinct pozver from the other ten horns ; whereas France is not only one of these ten horns, but the very largest of them all : and this little horn is to subdue three of the first kings, to z^ear out the saints of the Most High, and to continue in pozver during the space of a time, and times, and the dividing of time ; whereas 7ione of these iuarks appear, at the first sight, to be at all applicable to revolutionary France, With regard to the epithet little, Mr. Galloway will not allow it to be taken in the literal and most obvious sense. " It cannot," says he, " be little in respect to strength and power ; but he is, in the sense of the proph- et, as I humbly apprehend, little, and of no weight, in the scale of virtue and religion, and of little or no account in the sight and estimation of God. He is little and worthless, because he is to exceed in wickedness all be- 107 ibre him. In this sense the word is used in many passa- ges of Scripture.* Moreover his power, however great for a time, is little, because it is to continue but a little time when compared with other prophetic periods ; and it is little indeed when compared with the power of Christ, who, according to St. Paul, shall consume it with the spirit of' his mouth, and destroy it with the brightness oy his coming. With this sense of the word little all its other tropes, as we shall presently find, are in perfect agreement ; and therefore we may conclude it is the true literal sense."f The three kingdoms, which the little horn was to subdue, Mr. Galloway conjectures to be the kingdom oj" France, the Stadliolderate oj' Holland, and the Helvetic union or Swiss confederacij.% And the saints of the Most High, whom it was to wear out, he supposes to be the popish clergy of France and such of the laity as adhered to them.\ — The prophet however asserts, that the little horn was to wear out the saints during the space of three years and a half These years have been usu- ally thought to be prophetic years, in which case they would be the same period as the forty-two prophetic months, or the t'welve hundred and sixty prophetic days : but Mr. Galloway maintains, that they are mere natural or solar years ; and cites, in proof of his supposition, the history of Nebuchadnezzar, whose madness was to con- tinue seven times, or seven natural years, not seven pro- phetic years. || The three times and a half then, during which the horn was to wear out the saints, are, according to Mr. Galloway, the th^ee natural years and a half , dur- ing which Christianity was formally suppressed by law in France. " Taking," says he, " certain late events, which have come to pass in France, as my guide, I am led to interpret these numbers into three (literal) years and a half : a construction, not only justified by the text, but clearly supported by the events. For, if we date the beginning of this period, at the time of the last dreadful decree for the exile of the clergy, and its mur- * The texts, which Mr. Galloway cites in favour of this interpretation, are the foUowbg : 1 Sam. xv. 17— Nehem. jx. 32— Isaiah xl. 15— Micah v. 2. _ f Comment, p. 401. J Ibid. p. 419. § Ibid. p. 41 7. .^1 Ibid. p. 41 3—4 1'7, 105 derous execution ; and its end, at the time of the decree granting to the Christians, who remained in France, and had, through the mercies of God, been wonderfully pre- served, a free toleration of their religion : we shall find it a time, times, and the dividing of time, or exactly three- years and a half. The decree for the exile of the clergy passed the 2ot/« of August 1792, but the murderous ex- ecution of it was not finished until the latter end of the following month. From that time no person in France dared to mention the name of God, or of his blessed Son Jesus Christ, but with disrespect and contempt ; or, if he did, he was scorned and insulted, and put to death as a fanatic. This is therefore a proper epoch, from whence to date the giving up the saints into the hands of the little horn, or the then horrible government of France, whose power was then styled the reign of terror and of death. As to the end of this prophetic period, the event is equally demonstrative of it. For from the end of Sep- tember 1792, when the clergy were imprisoned and mas- sacred, (for they were not permitted even to go into ex- ile) the distressing state of the Christians in France sur- passes description. Death, the most horrible, was con- tinually staring them in the face. The guillotine, the cannon, musket, and national baths, were in constant exercise ; and the minds of every man, woman, and child, professing Christianity, were smitten with the dread of immediate death. In this dreadful state (a state in which, according to the literal sense of the text, they were given into the hand of the French government) they remained until the latter e?id of JSIarch 1796 ; when, glutted with Christian blood, the atheistical demagogues passed a decree, granting a full toleration of all kinds of religion, which virtually repealed all the decrees against fanatics, and delivered the Christians out of their hands. Now, if we calculate the time between the latter end of September 1792, and the latter end of March 1796, we shall find it, in the language of prophecy, a time, times^ and a dividing of time ; which, when interpreted, is ex- actly a period of three years and a half."* ' Comment, p. 417, 109 This hypothesis of Mr. Galloway is, I fear, no better' founded than that of Mr. Kett. Whatever the epithet little may signify in other parts of Scripture,* the context sufficiently shews, that, when applied to the eleventh horn of the Roman beast, it sim- ply means small in point of size. There is a very sensi- ble rule, that words used in the same passage antitheti- cally or relatively must bear the same kind of significa- tion. Thus, when Ezekiel, in one continued clause, speaks of a righteous man turning from his righteousness to iniquity, and of a wicked xn^w turning from his imcked- ness to righteousness :-\ no one can reasonably doubt, that the righteousness, which the one has forsaken, is the very righteousness, which the other has attained ; or that the iniquitij, which the one has plunged into, is no less an aberration from the will of God, (though it may not be precisely the same mode of aberration,) than Xheiniq- uitij, which the other has happily forsaken. Unless this be allowed, the antithesis and relation of the words ri^^^^- eous man and wicked man, and righteousjiess and wicked- ness, are entirely destroyed ; and the whole passage is consequently deprived of all definiteness of meaning. If then we advert to the context of the passage, wherein the little horn is mentioned, we shall find, that the pro- phet hpheld four great beasifs: nonning up from the sea; * I am not perfectly riear, that the word little ever occurs in Scripture in the sense of morally iv'jrthless. The passages, cited by Mr. Galloway in support of this interpretation of the word, afford it no support whatsoever. In all of them, with- out exception, the epithet little is used in the sense of ivorthless or trifling in point of ■value or consequence, not m that of ivorthless in point of religion and inorality. It is su- perfluous to observe, that there is a most essential difference between these tivi kinds of ivorthlcssness. Cruden, than whom few men were better acquainted with the bible, does not mention the sense of morally ivorthless among the different scriptural signifi- cations which he supposes the word little to bear : and Parkliurst only gives three meanings of the radical "lyi, here used by Daniel, namely small in point of size, time, and quantity. The matter, after all, is reducible to this. We are not concerned with what the English word little may mean, when it occurs in Scripture ; but with what the Hcbreiu word "ij?T, which occurs in this particular passage, means. Let the reader then turn to Calasio's Heb. Concordance, and he will soon be satisfied, that the word "lut never signifies morally ivorthless. Mr. GaUoway does not seem to have been aware, that this word -|jji is not used in any one of the passages to which he re- fers in proof of his interpretation. Consequently, even if our English translation little had signified morally ivorthless in all of them, he would have been no nearer to the establishing of his opinion. In one of them indeed the cognate word ipy is used ; but this no more bears the sense of morally ivorthless than "lUl. In the three others, three entirely different words are employed ; all of which are alike translated little. f Ezek. xviii. 26, 27. 110 and that one of these great beasts had a little horn, which sprung up among his other ten larger horns. In a sim- ilar manner, if we advert to the context of the passage, wherein the little horn of the he-goat ov third great beast is mentioned,* we shall find, that this he-goat is said to have had one great horn ; from the broicen stump of which came up four notable horns, and also a little horn which came forth out of one of the four notable horns. •]• With such a double context then before us, is it reason- able to suppose, that the four great beasts^ and the great Jiorn^ mean Xw.oxTiW'^ four beasts^ and a horn^ large in point of size ; but that the little horn does not mean literally a horn small in point of size, but figuratively a morallij noorthless horn / To make the two passages at all con- sistent, the same hind of signification must be borne by the word greats as by the word little : consequently, if« little horn mean a morally xcorthless staie^ a great horny ^nd a great beast \\\\\ me?i\i a morallij zvorthy state or empire. But, since this conclusion is a manifest absurd- ity, and since a great horn and a great beast certainly mean a large state or empire^ a little horn must necessa- rily mean a small state. France however is both a large state, and one of the ten horns ; and the little horn, what- ever it may be, is both a small state, and not one of the fen horns : France therpfore most undeniably cannot he symbolized by the little horn. Having thus shewn, that the little horn cannot be France, it may seem almost unnecessary to prosecute the matter any further ; for, if the horn itself be not France, none of the particulars which are predicated of the horn can be applied to that countrij. Nevertheless, in order that the non-identity of France and the little horn may be the more satisfactorily established, I shall likewise consider the other points wherein Mr. Galloway thinks that he has discovered an agreement between them. The little horn is to depress three of the first ten horns. These, according to Mr. Galloway, are the monarchij of "■■ The he-goai symbolizes the same poivcr as the leopard in the preceiding vision of t^s four beads. ^ Dan. viii. 8, P. Ill France^ the Stadholder ate of Holland^ and tJie Swiss co?!- federacu — The first objection, that an historical student would make to such a mode of interpretation, is obvi- ously this: Daniel declares, that three ot the Jirsf ten horns should be plucked up before the little horn: now, upon adverting to the list of the ten primarij Gothic sovereign- ties into which the Roman empire was originallif divided, %ve shall find it a vain labour to discover among them those two completely modern states, Holland and Swit- zerland. One only of the Jirst ten horns was in exist- ence when the French revolution broke out, the ancient Idngdom of the Franks ;* hence it is plainly impossible, that the prophecy should receive its accomplishment in the present day. If it has not been long since fulfilled, it nozo never can be fulfilled — The next objection is, that France cannot, with any shew of probability, be reckoned at once both the little horn lohich subdues^ and the horn which is subdued. 1 am aware, that Mr. Gallo-^ way supposes the little horn to be re-oolutionary France., and the other horn to be regal France ; but the language of prophecy knows no such distinctions. It considers stateSy rather than revolutions of states ; though it will frequently mark, with wonderful accuracy, even those very revolutions. The Roman empire^ or the fourth heast^ under all its seven different heads ov forms of gov- ernment, is still considered as only one power. The de- struction of its regal head by the consulate, and of its consular head by the emperorship, is not represented un- der the image of its being attacked by another beast : Rome is never said by the prophet to subdue Rome. In a similar manner, France whether under the government * In strict propriety of speech, the orlgjnal kingdom of the Angels cannot be consid- ered as being at present in existence, the line of succession having been broken both by the Danish and Norman conquests : one only therefore of the ten prh/iary ^mg- Aoms, that of the /"/awij, remained at tile era of the revolution. The kingdom of the Huns indeed still exists nominally, hut its independence is no more. It is swallowed up in the superior power of Austria, in the same manner as the pi-imitive kingdom of Burgun- dy IS lost in that of the Franks. There is moreover another reason, why the modern kingdom of Hungary ca.n scarcely be considered the same as the primiti-ue kingdom of the Huns. " Hungary " says Mr. Gibbon, « has been successively occupied by three Scythian colonies : the Huns of Attila {yi\io cor^i.UtaX.&A the primiti-vc kingdom ■) the Abares, in the sixth centur)' ; and the Turks of Magiars, a. d. 889. the immediate and genuine ancestors of the modern Hungarians, whose connection with the two former is cxtreBacly faiut and remote." Hist, of Decline and Fall, Vol. vi. p. 38. 112 of the Merovingians •> the Car/ovingians, or the Capets : whether oppressed by the diabolical tyranny of the re- publican fuctioii^ or tamely submitting to the degrading usurpation of the upstart family of Buunapart)^ : France^ however, circumstanced in point of legislature, is still France^ still owe of the original /e;^ horns o{ the Roman beast. Hence surely it cannot be at once both the liorn that subdues, and the horn that is subdued : France is never said by the prophet to subdue France. The little horn is further to zceur out the saints of the Most High — These saints Mr. Galloway supposes to be the popish clergy of France, and such of the laittf as were unwilling to give up the Christianity of the Church of Rome for the blasphemous atheism of the mock republic. That there have been many sincere Christians in the midst of all the voluntary humility and superstitious will- worship of the mystic Babtjlon* 1 am by no means dis- posed to deny. To adopt the words of the excellent Hooker, " Forasmuch as it may be said of the Church of Rome, she hath yet a little strength, she doth not directly deny the foundation of Christianity ; I may, I trust, without offence, persuade myself that thousands of our fathers, in former times living and dying within her walls, have found mercy at the hands of God. f Nevertheless, though 1 readily make this concession to the pious papist, I cannot quite so easily bring myself to think, that the members of an idolatrous and persecuting Apostacy, xchen spoken of collectively, would be called by the Holy Spirit of God the saints of the Most High. They, who as a body, are represented as zi^orshippers of mediating demons, and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and mood ; as murderous persecutors, sorcerers or jug- glers, spiritual fornicators, and thieves :% they, who bear * Coloss. ii. 18 — 23. f Discourse of Justification, Sect. 17. Hooker however guards, with his usual wisdom, against any misapprehension or perversion of these words. " Many in former times, as their books and writings do yet shew, held the foundation, to wit, salvation by Christ alone, and therefore might be saved. God hatli always had a Church amongst them, which firmly kept his saving truth. As for such as hold ■with tbe Church of Rome, X.h-3.t vie cdinnol he snxedhy ' hrist alone without works; they do, not only by a circle of consequence, but directly deny the foundatien of faith : tliey hold it not, no not so much as by a thread." Ibid, Sect. ly. i Rev. ix. 20, 21. 113 such a character in one part of Scripture, can never sure- ly be honoured with the title of saints of the Most High in another part. Even Mr. Galloway himself, though he supposes the popish clergij of France to be the saints worn out by the tijranmi of the little horn ; yet, in another part of his work thinks, that the second vial of the wrath of God is to be poured out upon papal Rome, " as a just judgment for her abominable idolatry, for her artful se- duction and unrelenting and bloody persecutions of the Church of his blessed Son, and for her daring impiety in the assumption of his divine attributes."* Now, al- though the French clergy did not quite so implicitly sub- mit to the unqualified claims of the pretended successors of St. Peter as those of Spain, Portugal, and Italy : yet I never heard, that they had in any degree renounced their heretical opinions, their blasphemous idolatries, and their ridiculous mummeries ; or that any of them felt a single scruple of conscience respecting the execrable oath, exacted by the Pope from all whom he consecrates bish- ops, that theij will, as far as in them has, persecute and oppose all intpugners of the authority of the see of Rome. This being the case, let the little horn be what power it may, the bigoted adherents of that sanguinary hier- archy cannot surely be styled, by a divinely inspired prophet, saints of the Most Uigh.-f * Comment, p. 235. f The reader will find a very full and satisfactory statement of the pernicious maxims of Popery in the able strictures on Ploivden's Historical Rei'ietv of Ireland, commencing in the Avtl-'Jacobin Rt-vie-w for Nov. 1804. Ke will likewise do well to peruse a tract published at Cambridge in the year 1746, intitled The true spirit of Popery displayed. And, if he require a yet m.ore circumstantial detail of the princi- ples and practice oi the Church of Rome, he will find it in Mr. Whitaker's well-timed Commentary on the Rei'clafio!. To these writers I beg to refer him, if he wish for any further confutation of Mr. Galloway's opinion, that the popish clergy and royalist laity of France are the saints of the Most High -worn out by the tyranny of the little born. Mr. Flett's conjecture, that the little horn ultimately typifies the Infidel poiver ofFrance^ and that the beast of the bottomless pit which slays the apocalyptic ivitnesses is French In- fidelity, must necessarily lead him to adopt Mr. Galloway's sentiments respecting the saints of God mentioned by Daniel, and the -witnesses mentioned by St. John : (Compare Hist, the Interp. Vol. I. p. 391. with p. 413, 419.) nay, his scheme is per- plexed with more irreconcileable contradictions than even that of Mr. Galloway. When the little horn, in its primary sense, means Popery ; then the saints -worn out by it must of course mean all those holy men -who protested against its corruptions. But, \vh.en the little horn, m hi ultimate seme, mezm the Infi.del poiver of France ; then the saints luorn out by it must mean the Popish clergy and royalist laity. Thus it is evident, that, upon Mr. Kelt's plan, the saints sometimes vaezn the persecuted protestants, and at other times the persecuting papists ; while the IHtk horn, with equal flesibllity, sometimes VOL. r. l.i) 114 Lastly, the little horn is to continue in pozcer three years and a half- — These years Mr. Galloway decides to be natural ijears, and pronounces them to be the three years and a hilf\ during which atheism w^as established by law in France. Upon this point, I cannot see, that the ar- gument, which he brings from the term of Nebuchad- nezzar's madness, is at all conclusive. Because the word time^ when it occurs in a prophecy relative to a single individual., manifestly signifies a natural year ; it does not therefore follow, that the same word, when it occurs in a prophecy relative to a state or kingdom^ must necessarily signify a natural year in that case also. means the persecuting church of Rome, and at Other times the French Republic which in its turn persecuted the members of that persecuting Church. Or, to state the matter somewhat ditTerently, the little horn in its ultimate sense, persecutes the little horn, in its pri/nctry sense ; while the saints, in their ultimate sense, are the -very set of men ivho persecuted the saints, in their primary sense ; in Other words, the saints, in their ultimate sense, and the little horn, in its primary sense, equally symbolize the Church of Rome and her members. Such is the Strange confusion that results from Mr. Kett's scheme of primary and secondary interpretations of the same prophecy. Dr. Zouch's sentiments on this point so perfectly accord with my own, that I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing them. Speaking of those interpretations which apply the character of the little horn to the French Republic and the character of the saints ivorn out by it to the Popish clergy, he observes : " An indiscriminate massacre of more than two millions of the human race sufficiently indicates a most savage and relentless power, but by no means attaches to it the peculiar at- tribute of ivearing out the saints of the Most High : a character this strongly expressive of spiritual tyranny, of persecution exercised upon others merely for their religious opinions, and truly appropriate to the Church of Rome which punishes good men as being heretics ; professing enmity against them as such ; regardless of the atrocity of guilt, however notorious, in her own followers, while those, who dissent from her, become the victims of her inexorable rage. A serious protestant, conversant in those inspired writings in whxh the portrait of Antichrist" (bad as the Papacy is, I Can see no just warrant by the way for applying this title to it) " is delineated as with a pencil of Ught, will hesitate to pronounce the members of the church of Rome the saints cf the Most High. Without violating the law of Christian charity, he must consider them as professors of a rehgion perfectly abhorrent from the purity of the Gospel, as involved in idolatrous and superstitious practices, as men who have not repented of the works of their hands, that they should not ivorsbip devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and tvood, ichich neither can see nor bear nor ivalk : neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. The blood of such men has been prodigally shed : and it is v^ery remarkable, that the French anarchists have introduced the horrors of war principally into popish countries, as if those nations, which profess the purity of the protestant religion, were providentially preserved from danger." (Zouck on Prophecy, p. 61.) The unerring voice of prophecy many ages ago predicted this last circumstance, which Dr. Zouch justly styles a remarkable one. The -vials of God's -u-raih were to be poured out, not upon the mystic -u-itmsscs, but upon those " which had the mark of the beast and worshipped his image," upon those " who had shed the blood of saints and prophets," and along with them upon those daring infidels, whether apostate protestants or renegado papists, " who blasphemed the name of God and repented not to give him glory." As for tliose who barkened to the gracious invitation, " Come out of Babylon, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues ;" they have not received of her plagues, they have been " providentially preser^'ed from danger," 115 The probability rather lies on the contrary side ; more especially when we consider the context both of Daniel and St. John. Daniel speaks of u power, that was to persecute the saints during the space of three years and a half: St. John represents the Church, under the sym- bol of « woman, as being persecuted 1260 dai/s* by the devil acting through the instrument a lit ij of the Roman heast ; and he afterwards adds, in the very same chapter, that she was nourished from the face of the persecuting serpent for a time, times, and half' a time, or three years and a lialf.^ Now, when we find, that three years and a /m//" precisely contain 1260 days at the rate of 360 days to the year ; that Daniel limits a persecution of the saints to three years and a half, that St. John, apparently at least, uses the two expressions of twelve hundred and sixty days and three years and a half as synonymous, for in one place he says that the woman is fed in the wilderness 1260 days, and in another place that she is nournished in the wilderness three years and a half: it is surely only reasonable to conclude, that the tzvo expressions mean one and the same period of time, whatever that period may be. But that the 1260 days mean years, no one doubts : con- sequently the three years and a half must mean years of years ; or, in other words, prophetic years, not natural ones, as Mr. Galloway supposes — Again : Daniel, in his last chapter, speaks of three different periods : the time times and a half which he had already mentioned when treating of the little horn ; tzivelve hundred andninetij days ; and thirteen hundred and thirty foe daijs. Now, if these days be years, the three years and a half must be years of years : otherwise Daniel uses tzvo different modes of computation in the same passage, and thus involves his meaning in needless uncertainty — Further : we may fairly conclude, that, as a prophet expresses a given pe- riod of time in one place ; so he would express the same period in another place, if he should have occasion to notice it again. But St. John, when reallij speaking of three natural years and a half, terms them three days and a half :% consequently, if he had wished to inform us that the woman was to be nourished in the wilderness three natural years and a half, he would surely have * Rev. xii. 6, f Ver. H, | Rev. xi. 0; 116 called that period three days and a half^ not a time times and half a time — Once more^ and the subject shall be dis- missed : Daniel has given us a special mark, whereby we may know when the three years and a half^ during which the little horn was to wear out the saints of the Most High, shall have expired. " And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, Until how long shall be the end of the ziDonders I And 1 heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the wa- ters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever, that it shall be until a time, times, and a half; and, when he shall have finished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be fnished.'^* It ap- pears then, that the three years and a half were to expire, when God should have ceased to scatter the Jews, whose restoration Daniel had predicted at the beginning of the chapter, and when the period of the ivonders should be finished : in other words, when the three years and a half, whether natural or prophetic, shall have expired, the restoration of the Jews will commence, and all the wonders comprehended within the period of the 1260 years will be accomplished. Now, from the termination o^ the three years and a half during which religion was put down by law in France (that is to say, from the lat- ter end of Mat^ch 1796» vvhen those three years and a Atf//" expired) full eight years have elapsed at the moment that 1 am now writing : consequently, \^ those three years and a half were the three years and a //«//* in tended by Daniel, the restoration of the Jews would have commenc- ed, and the series of events, predicted under the seventh vial and at the close of the 1 \th chapter of D(fniel,'\ as leadins: to the destruction of the tzvo little horns [one of them upon Mr. Galloway's scheme revolutionary France) and of some kingdom notorious for magnifying itself above every god, would have begun to be ac(;omplished, exactly when those three years and a half eyL^\\ed.% None of * Dan. xii. 6, 7. f Dan. xi. 40 — 45. \ That the se'uevih -vial did not then be1, when the supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged by the second coun- cil of Nice. This matter will be discussed more largely hereafter ; meanwhile I wish it fully to be understood, that I pitch upon the year 606, only as appearing to me the most probable date. The event alone will enable us to attain to absolute certainty. 123 Lombards^ about the year 483 in the north of Germany, and about the year b^^ in Hungary. We must look therefore for the gradual rise of the little horn^ by which I think we are obliged to understand the spiritual king- dom of the Popc^ between the years 356 and 59,6. As for the temporal kingdom of t lie Pope,, it did not come up among the first ten horns, as Bp. Newton himself al- lows, who is thence obliged to construct a catalogue of ten kingdoms, not suited to the primitive division of the Empire, but to tlie eighth cent ur if : the temporal king- dom of the Pope therefore cannot be intended by the little horn. But the spiiitual kingdom of the Pope arose precisely at this period. In the primitive Church, the authority of the Bishops of Rome extended not beyond their own diocese : precedence only was allowed to them in general councils by reason of the imperial city being their see. This precedence of honour was gradu- ally enlarged into a precedence of authority. Still how- ever no direct right could be claimed, for the Church was not as yet supported by the secular arm. But, af- ter the conversion of the Empire to Christianity, great privileges were conferred upon the more dignified sees, especially upon that of Rome. Sir Isaac Newton has given a very minute detail of the gradual rise of this spir- itual power ; and the first special edict, that he mentions as being made in its favour, bears date either the end of the year 378, or the beginning of the year 379- This edict gives the Church of Rome the right of deciding ap- peals in all doubtful cases that concerned the western bishoprics. Sir Isaac accordingly dates very properly the commencement of the Papers spiritual jurisdiction from it. This power however constituted but a very small kingdom compared to that which was afterwards erected upon its foundations. The irruption of the northern tribes which at first seemed likely to involve every thing in ruin and confusion, and the previous transfer of the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople, jointly contributed to increase the authority of the Roman bish- op. " While this ecclesiastical dominion was rising up," says Sir Isaac, " the northern barbarous nations invaded the Western empire, and founded several kingdoms there? 124. in of different religions from the Churcli of Rome. But these kingdoms by degrees embraced tiie Roman faith, and at the same time submitted to the Pope's authority. The Franks in Gaul submitted in the end o{ the fifth century ; the Goths in Spain, at the end of the sixth ; and the Lombards in Italy were conquered by Charles the great in the year 774- Between the years 77 o and 794, the same Charles extended the Pope's authority over all Germany and Hungary as far as the river Theysse and the Baltic sea. He then set him above all human judicature; and at the same time assisted him in subdu- ing the city and dutchy of Rome."* The manner, in ■which the little horn almost insensibly arose, after the transfer of the seat of government, and during the dark period of Gothic invasion, is similarly described by Ma- chiavel. Having shewn how the Roman empire was di- vided by the incursions of the northern nations, he ob- serves, " About this time the Bishops of Rome began to take upon them, and to exercise greater authority than they had formerly done. At first, the successors of St. Peter were venerable and eminent for their miracles, and the holiness of their lives ; and their examples add- ed daily such numbers to the Christian church, that, to obviate or remove the confusions which were then in the world, many princes turned Christians : and the Em- peror of Rome being converted among the rest, and quit- ting Rome to hold his residence at Constantinople, the Roman empire began to decline, but the church of Rome augmented as fast."| After this he shews how the Ro- man empire declined, and how the power of the Church of Rome increased, first under the Ostrogoths, then un- der the Lombards, and lastly under the Franks. I have borrowed the preceding very apposite citation from Bp. Newton, who somewhat singularly, according to his scheme, adduces it to shew the springing up of the lit- tle horn among the ten other horns ; and yet, after hav- ing adduced it, declares no less singularly, so far as the pro- priety of the citation is concerned, that the Bishop of Rome did not become a horn till he became a temporal prince, '" Observ. on Dan. Chap. viii. f Hist, of Florence, B. 1. p. C. cited by Bp. Ntwton,- 125 Now, \{ the Bishop of Rome did not become a horn till he became a temporal prince^ the citation, which speaks of the fourth, fifths sixth, and seventh, centuries, certain- ly cannot shew the rise of a horn, which, according to his Lordship's scheme, did not begin to exist till the mid- dle of the eighth centur?/ : but, if we consider the little horn as typifying the spiritual kingdom of the Papacij, nothing can be more to the point than the citation from Machiavel ; for it decidedly shews, that such a kingdom arose from very small beginnings among the ten horns precisely at the time when Daniel had predicted that it should arise. I shall conclude this account of the rise o{ the papal horn with Mr. Gibbon's description of its state at the close of the sixth and at the beginning of the seventh century, immediately before the ecclesiastical kingdom became an ecclesiastical catholic empire. " The pontificate of Gregory the great lasted thirteen years, six months, and ten days — In his rival, the patriarch of Constantinople, he condemned the Antichristian title of Universal Bishop^ which, the successor of St. Peter was too haughty to concede, and too feeble to assume ; and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Gregory was confined to the triple character of Bishop of Rome, Primate of Jtalij, and Apostle of the West — The bishops of Italy and the adjacent islands acknowledged the Roman pon- tiff ^% their special metropolitan. Even the existence, the union, or the translation, of the episcopal seats, was decided by his absolute discretion : and his successful inroads inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain, and of Gaul, might countenance the more lofty preten- sions of succeeding Popes. He interposed to prevent the abuses of popular elections ; his jealous care main- tained the purity of faith and discipline; and the apos- tolic shepherd assiduously watched over the faith and discipline of the subordinate pastors. Under his reign, the Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the catholic church ; and the conquest of Britain reflects less glory on the name of Cesar, than on that of Gregory the first. Instead of six legions, forty monks were em- barked for that distant island ; and the pontiff lamented the austere duties, which forbade him to partake the IS6 perils of their spiritual warfare. In less than two years he could announce to the Archbishop of Alexandria, that they had baptized the king of Kent with ten thou- sand of his Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman mis- sionaries, like those of the primitive Church, were armed only with spiritual and supernatural powers/'* Such was the power of f/?e little horn immediately previous to its apostacy in the ijear 606, when it was declared to be an unroersal empire under a Bishop of bishops^ and when the saints were thus formally delivered into its hand. How great, even before the commencement of the 1260 daifs^ was its authority become, compared with what it had been, when the Pope was only Archbishop <>f the neighbouring Italian bishops^ and ecclesiastical judge in cases of appeal from the other bishops of the Western empire ! As yet however the man of sin^ the head of the great Apostacif, was not revealed. Gregory equally abhorred idolatry, persecution, and the proud claim of universal episcopacy : and it was left to his suc- cessors formally to re-establish the worship of images, to wear out the saints of the Most High, and to assume the metropolitanship, not only of Italy and the West, but of the whole world. f Though tinctured with the growing superstition of the age, his piety was fervent and sincere : and this last of the primitive Bishops of Rome was snatched away to a better world, ere the monstrous hoof old dominant Apostacif of the East and the West had commenced. His death w^as, as it were, the signal for its developement. Thus we have seen, that the little horn cannot typify the temporal kingdom of the Pope^ because it is present- ed as springing up, as existing, and as diCXm^^ previous to the time when the three horns were eradicated before it, and consequently previous to the time when it acquired by their fall St. Peter^s pat?'i?noni/. Its acquisition of temporal authority is indeed distinctly predicted in that part of the prophecy which relates to the subversion of the three horns : but this is mentioned as it were only by the bye, only as a mark whereby we might certainly * Hist, of Decline and Fall, Vol. vm. p. 1G4— 167. ••}: This subject wiJl be resumed hereafter. IT/ iinovv the power typified by t/ie lit fie horn. The power- in question was gradually to arise during the turbulent period of Gothic invasion : and, ajier it had existed an indefinite space of time, the prophet teaches us that t/it^ee horns should be plucked up before it, by the fall of which it should acquire temporal dominion. Hence it is plain, that, since the little horn was to be in existence previous to its acquisition of temporal dominion by the successive eradication of the three horns, it cannot have been designed to symbolize, as Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Mede, and Bp. Newton, suppose, the Papacy considered as a secular principality . This will appear yet more evident, when we examine the prophetic character of the little horn article by arti- cle. 1 . The little horn was not only to be a small kingdom at its first rise^ but it zvas to be different from all the other horns — ^Accordingly every one of the ten kingdoms^ founded by the northern nations, were temporal sover- eignties : but the papal horn was a spiritual sovereignty. And afterwards, when it had acquired a secular princi' pality by the fall of three of the ten temporal horns, it still continued to differ essentially from them, being an ecclesiastical and spiritual, as well as a civil and tempo- ral power. 2. The little horn had eyes like the eyes of a man — ■ This particular, like the former, serves to shew, that a spiritual, not a temporal, kingdom was intended by the symbol. " By its eyes it vvas a seer ; and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and lavys it was a prophet — A seer, Eirianozog, is a bishop in the lit- eral sense of the word ; and this church claims the uni- versal bishopric.''* At its first rise indeed, it presumed not to make so bold a claim : still nevertheless it was equally a seer, or a bishop, within its own proper diocese and raetropolitanship. 3. The little horn had a mouth speaking great things — In his pretended capacity of a prophet and vicar of Christ, and in the plenitude of his usurped power, the * sir Isaac Newtofl's Obseir. on Dan. Chap. 7. 128 JBishop of Rome has at various times anathematized all who dared to oppose him, has laid whole kingdoms un- der an interdict, has excommunicated kings and empe- rors, and has absolved their subjects from their allegi- ance. 4. The little horn had a look more stout than his fel- lows— The Popes have claimed an unlimited superiority over other bishops their equals, in spiritual matters ; and have affected greater authority than even sovereign princes, in temporal matters. " Pope Paul the fourth," says the historian of the council of Trent, "never spake with ambassadors, but he thundered in their ears, that he was above all princes, that he would not that any of them should be too domestical with him, that he could exchange kingdoms, that he was successor of him who had deposed kings and emperors, and did often repeat that he had made Ireland a kingdom."* The Popes in- deed have pretended, that the dominion of the whole earth belonged to them : and, strictly acting up to this claim, they have gone so far as to divide all new discov- ered countries between Spain and Portugal, assigning to the one the western, and to the other the eastern, he- misphere. 6. The little horn spake great toords hij the side of the Most High, affecting an equalitij with God — So the Popes have not scrupled to lay claim to infallibility, an especial attribute of God ; and have sometimes blasphe- mously assumed even the name of God himself, and as such have impiously received divine honours, i^ccord- ingly they are not offended at being styled, Our Lord God the Pope ; another God upon earth ; king of kings^ and lord of lords ; nor do they disapprove of the impi- ous flattery, which tells them, that the same is the domin- ion of God and the Pope ; that the power of the Pope is greater than all created power, extending itself to things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal ; and ihnX. the Pope doeth wltatsoever he listelh, even things unlaifuly and is more than God : nor yet do they refuse, on the day of their election, to receive the adoration of their * Cited by Dr. Zouch, p. 176. 129 cardinals on the very altar, and in the midst of the tem- ple, of the Lord of hosts.* * Bp. Newton's Dissert, xxii. S. The other divine titles, by which thai man ef sin, the apostate Bishop of Rome, suffers himself to be hailed, are Our most Holy Lord ; our Lord God the Pope ; his divi/ie Majesty ; the •victoriot/s God and man in his see of Rome ; Deus optimus maximus and Vice-God ; named God by the pious emperor Constantine, and adored as God by that emperor ; the Lamb of God that taketh aivay the sins of the "world ; the most holy luho carrieth the most holy. (Whitaker's Comment, p. 304.) Lord Lyt- telton observes of the age of Henry II. that " those times thought it no blasphemy to give to the Pope the honour of God ;" and he instances it in a curious letter of the turbulent Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, wherein he implores the aid of the Pope in phrases of Scripture appropriated to God. Rise, Lord, and delay no longer ; let the light of thy countenance shine upon me ; save us for we perish ; not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ make unto thyself a great name." (Ibid. p. 302, 303.) A singular story is told by Baronius respecting the idolatry thus paid to the person of the Bishop nf Rome. In the year 1162, " when Pope Alexander made his first entrance into Montpellier, among the Christian no- bility that attended him on his way in a solemn procession there was a Saracen prince or emir,, who reverently came up to him, and kissed his feet, he being on horseback ; then knelt down before him, and bowing his head adored him as the holy and good God of the Christians. He does not tell us, that Alexander in any manner reproved him for his blasphemous error ; but, on the contrary, takes notice that he shewed him extraordinary kindness : and adds, that all who saw it, were filled with great admiration, and applied to the Pope the words of the prophet David : All the kings of the earth shall ivorship him, and all nations shall ser-ve him. Thus, in that age of igno- rance and credulity did superstition even deify the Bishop of Rome : but it is a still more shocking impiety, that a learned cardinal, who lived in the 17 th century, should relate such a fact witjiout expressing the least disapprobation of it ; nay, rather with an air of complacency and applause." (Ibid. p. 273, 274.) " Even to this day the Romanists continue the blasphemous practice of calling the Pope the Lord God, as ap- pears from a confession of faith found in the pocket of a priest during the late re- bellion in Ireland, and reported by Sir R. Musgrave." (Ibid. p. 357.) In short, the sentiments which the Romanists entertain of their idol the Pope, and the manner, in which he speaks great words by the side of the Most High, affecting an equaUty witli God, are shewn very remarkably by a print in the Roman Breviary published by the authority of the council of Trent, and printed at Antwerp in the year 1698. In this print, vs'hich is placed opposite to p. 413. of the Breviary, " there is a repre- sentation of heaven opened to full view, in which, seated upon a cloud, appeareth the Pope with his triple crown upon his head. The Pope's head is irradiated with a triangular, not a circular, glory (expressive no doubt of the Trinity in Unity ;) the dove is hovering over the heads of him and our Saviour, but more inclined to-zvard the Pope. The Pope sits upright upon the globe nf the earth, ivith his feet fidl upon it. Our Saviour is seated upon his right hand, pushed as it luere from off the earth, "whereby he is obliged to sit sideiuays in order to reach his feet to it ; and round our Saviour's head is only a small circular glory. Beneath, on one side, next to our Saviour in heaven, is the Vir- gin Mary, whom the Pope deifies upon earth, praying to her. Next to the Virgin Mary is represented St. Peter ; and close by him, upon a level, is St. Paul sitting and leaning upon a sword. In the middle are little Chp;ubim, and behind them a palm-bearing company. On the right hand is a smaller group of palm-bearers, seem- ing employed in carrying messages. Beneath, on the earth, are represented warriors on the one hand, and on the other the elders of their church. In the middle stand- eth one bearing a palm, conversing with another before whom the triple crowm is placed, deeply shaded, and only a fev/ rays of light descend upon the top of it. This is the political representation of the idol of Rome, the Pope, in the plenitude of his power, as given to its votaries, and authori,',ed by the council of Trent, and con- firmed by several Popes of Rome." Burton's F.ssav on the numbers of Dajiicl and St. John ; Supplement ; p. ^Q, 97. VOL. T. 17 130 6. The Utile horn thought to change times and laws — * So the Popes have perpetually changed the calender by the canonization of new saints, and have depaiied from the original simplicity of the Gospel by the introduction of an infinite number of superstitious laws and observ- ances ; " instituting new modes of worship, imposing new articles of faith, enjoining new rules of practice, and reversing at pleasure the laws both of God and man.' * fhey have even dared to strike the second commandment out of the decalogue, because it so plain- ly reproved them for their multifarious idolatry. In short, "the wisest and most impartial of the Roman ca- tholic writers do not only acknowledge, but are even at pains to demonstrate, that from the times of Louis the meek, who died in the i/ear 8 iO, the ancient rules of ecclesiastical government were gradually changed in Europe by the counsels of the court of Rome, and new laws substituted in their placej*." 7. The little horn icas to wear out the saints of the Most High, zcho were to be given into his hand bij ajor- 7nal grant of the secular power during the space of three years and a half or 1200 prophetic daifs ; that is to say, during the same space of time, that the two apocalijpiic ivitnesses were to prophesy in sackcloth, and the perse- cuted Church was to be nourished in the wilderness. J — Accordingly, when tJie Pope was constituted Universal Bishop and Supreme head of the Church by the grant of the tyrant Phocas, the saints of God were delivered into his hand and placed under his control. They were no longer, as in the primitive Church, subject, and that for conscience sake and for the real edification of their souls, only to their respective diocesans : but they were now made the spiritual vassals of the man of sin, and were in consequence of it soon reduced by him to a state of worse than Egyptian bondage. By the instrumentality of the secular beast,^ he has already, for by far the greater part of the predicted period, incessantly persecut- ed and worn out (so far as this present life is concerned) * See Mosheim's Eccles. Kist. Vol iii. p. 260—264. •f: Zouch on Prophecy, p. 51. \ Rev. xi. 3. xii. G. § Rev. xiii. 5, 7. 131 those faithful servants of God, who protested against his corruptions, and refused to partake of his idolatries. These persecutions indeed, like the more ancient perse- cutions of Paganism, have not always been universal, nor have they always raged v^'ith equal violence ; they have been moreover greatly checked by the influence of the Reformation, and by the consequent waning of the Papal pozcer : nevertheless the witnesses are still more or less jDrophesying in sackcloth ; they are still, through- out popish countries, in a degraded and humbled state ; and in this state they will continue, in one part or other of the world, to the end of the 42 months.* 8. Lastly, the little horn was to subdue or depress three out of the ten kings ; or, as it appears from the corres- ponding action of the symbols, three ofthejirst ten horns were to be eradicated before it — Respecting the interpre- tation of this part of the prophecy, 1 am compelled to differ both from Mr. Mede, and from Sir Isaac and Bp. Newton. Mr. Mede, who may justly be styled the fother of prophetic interpretation., supposes, that the three symbol- ical horns which appeared to Daniel to be plucked up by the roots before the little horn., were those whose domin- ions extended into Italy, and so stood in the light of the little horn.'\ First, that of the Greeks^ whose emperor Leo Isaurus for the quarrel of image worship he excom- municated, and made his subjects of Italy revolt from * The indulgences, which the French frotestants have obtained under the present usurper, are evidently granted merely upon a political principle. The Capets perse- cuted them, and therefore Buonaparte favours them. It remains however to be seen, what he will do when he shall once have firmly established himself. His late restoration oi popery as a convenient engine of state, and his total disregard of every obligation moral and religious, shew plainly that the protestants will be protected only so long as it suits his interest. In the eyes of a tyrant, a refusal to worship the image v/hich he has set up will probably be considered as a secret mark of disaffec- tion, though it may not be convenient for him immediately to notice this want cf compliance on the part of the protestants. Incedunt per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso. f In this particular Mr. Mede seems to me to be perfectly right. The three horns were to fall " before the little horn" or in his immediate presence : hence they cannot have been plucked up any wliere but in Italy. Their dominions however were not merely to " extend into Italy," an expression which impUes that the horns themselves were seated o;/? o/" Italy ; but the sovereignty itself of (^e three horns raiist have been iited in that coiintrv. 152 their allegiance. Secondly, that of the Longoharcls^ (suc- cessors to the Ostrogoths) whose kingdom he caused by the aid of the Franks to be wholly ruined and extirpa- ted, thereby to get the exarchate of Ravenna (which since the revolt from the Greeks the Longobards w ere seiz- ed on) for a patrimony to St. Peter. Thirdly the king- dom oj the Franks it^c/f^ continued in the empire of Ger- many ; whose emperors from the days of Henry the fourth he excommunicated, deposed, and trampled under his feet, and never suffered to live in rest, till he had made them not only to quit their interest in the election of Popes and investiture of Bishops, but that remainder of jurisdiction also in Italy, wherewith together with the Roman name he had once infeoffed their predecessors. These were the kings, by displanting, or (as the \ ulgar hath) humbling, of whom the Pope got elbow room by degrees ; and advanced himself to that height of tempo- ral majesty and absolute greatness, which made him so terrible in the world. ^'* Sir Isaac and Bp. Newton, though they disagree in the catalogues which they respectively give of the ten king- doms^ concur in proposing a scheme different from that of Mr. Mede so far as the three horns are concerned. They each conjecture, that the three eradicated pozvers ^vere the Exarchate oJ" Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lom- bards^ and the state of Rome. "^ Both these modes of interpretation appear to me ob- jectionable in almost every point of view. With regard to Mr. Mede's scheme it may be remark- ed, that, if by the Greeks and Franks he intends the Con- stanfinopolitun and Car/ovingiau empires, neither of those monarchies ever was plucked up by the roots before the little horn ; and if, on the other hand, by the Greeks and F?'anks he intends onl}' the Greek and Germanic provinces in Italij, those, being mere provinces, cannot with any propriety be esteemed horns, or independent kingdoms. So that, take the scheme in what light we may, it will prove equally untenable. Whatever inroads * Mede's Works B. iv. Epist. 24. t, Observ. on Dan. p. 74, 75, 76— Pissert. xiv. 133 the Popes might make upon the authority of iJie Con- stantinopolitan and German emperors in f/ie detached provinces of their respective dominions, I know not how it can be said, that by such encroachments fzco out of the ten horns were plucked up by the roots before them.* With regard to the scheme of Sir Isaac and Bp. New- ton, the first objection that occurs is their supposition that the Exarchate of Ravenna was one of the ten horns. The Exarchate was not, hke each of the monarchies founded by the northern nations, a horn or independent kingdom ; but, on the contrary, a mere dependent prov- ince of the Greek empire^ governed, Hke its other prov- inces, by a deputy : hence it can no more be esteemed a horn, than any of the other Greek provinces,"]* The prophet simply asserts, that the Roman beast, when his empire was divided, should put forth ten horns : he does not give us the least reason to suppose, that there should t)e any essential ditFerence in the political constitution of the horns. What one therefore of the ten horns was, that all the others must have been :% for, unless we complete- ly violate the harmony of symbolical language, we can never allow, that some of the horns represent sovereign states, and others of them mere pt^ovinces of sovereign states. The next objection is, that, even allowing the Exai'chate to be a horn, neither it nor the state of Rome, occur in the true list of the ten primary kingdoms. The Bishop agrees with Sir Isaac, that the Exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the state of Rome, are the three horns ; but he censures him for his inconsist- * Mr. Mede reckons up the ten kinofdonis, as follows : " 1 . The Britons ; 2. Tiie Saxons in Britain ; 3. The Franks ; 4. The Burgimdians in France ; 5. The Visigoths in the South of France and part of Spain ; 6. The Sueves and Alans in Gallicia and Portugal ; 7. The Vandals in Africa ; 8. The Alemanes in Germany ; 9. The Ostro- g;oths whom the Longobards succeeded, in Pannonia, and afterwards in Italy ; 10. The Greeks in the residue of the empire." In addition to the foregoing observations I shall hereafter shew, that the Eastern empire cannot be reckoned one of the horns of the beast, all of which must be sought for in the West. f " The throne of the Gothic kings," says Mr. Gibbon, was filled by the exarch of Ravenna, the representati-ve in peace and zuar of the emperor of the East." \ The prophet, by declaring that the little born should be different from all the rest, necessarily leads us to conclude that the ten horns should not be different from each other. 134 ency in supposing those powers to be the three horns, while he piesents us nevertheless with such a catalogue o^ the ten kingdoms as does not include the names o{ all those three powers.* The censure is just, for the prophet expressly asserts, that three of the^V^^ horns were to be plucked up before the little horn; yet while he blames Sir Isaac for this manifest flaw in his interpretation, he does not seem conscious that much the same censure at- taches to himself, notwithstanding his attempt to parry it. The three horns are certainly to be sought for among the ten original kingdoms into which the empire was divided, and among no other kingdoms whatever : nothing can be more definite and precise upon this point than the lan- guage of Daniel. We ought therefore first to learn, what these ten original horns were, and next to inquire whe- ther three of them were ever plucked up to make room for an eleventh little horn perfectly distinct from them all ; not surely first to fix upon three states, which we con- ceive may answer to the character of the three horns, and then contrive such a list of ten kingdoms as may include these th?'ee states. Yet such is the plan, which Bp. Newton adopts. Perfectly aware that it would be a vain labour to seek either for the Exarchate of Ravenna or for the state of Home among the ten primarif kingdoms, he most unwarrantably sets aside the 7^eal list of those kingdoms, and substitutes a list of his own ; into which he introduces the petty state of Rome, and the Greek province of Ravenna, evidently for no other purpose than to give a colour of probability to his predetermined inter- pretation. Hence his catalogue does indeed contain the three states, which he supposes to be the three horns plucked up before the little horn; but it is certainly not the more on that account a faithful catalogue of the ten original kingdoms. Accordingly the Bishop himself confesses, (a confession which alone is sufficient to inval- * sir Isaac gives us the following catalogue of the ten kingdoms: " 1. The king- dom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa ; 2. The kingdom of the Suevians in Spain ; 3. The kingdom of the Visigoths ; 4. The kingdom of the Alans in Gallia ; 5. The kingdom of the Burgundians ; 6. The kingdom of the Franks ; 7. The kingdom of the Britons ; 8. The kingdom of the Huns ; 9. The kingdom of the I.ombards ; 10. The kingdom of Ravenna." In this catalogue the state of Komt^ ^vhich Sir Isaac supposes to be one of the three horns, does not occur. 135 idate his whole plan of interpretation) that it is a cata- lot^ne calculated for the eighth century^ not for the period in zohich the Roman empire was originaUy divided.* The result of the whole is, that, since the Greek prov- ince of Ravenna cannot be esteemed a horn or independ- ent kingdom ; and since, even if it could, neither «V, nor the state of Rome ^ are to be found in the true list of the ten original kingdoms : they cannot be tz&o oi those three primarif horns which the prophet beheld plucked by the roots before the little horn. Having now stated my objections to the two preced- ing modes of interpretation, 1 shall endeavour to ascer- tain the three primarij kingdoms., which were destined to fall before the eleventh different and little kingdom of the Roman empire. For this purpose it will be necessa- ry, /^V^/ to inquire into the import of the prediction con- cerning their fall, and secondlij to learn from history the names of the ten original kingdoms among which they are to be sought. 1. The overthrovi^ of the three horns is described in three different parts of the vision oi the four beasts. " I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots." " Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, — and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell." " The ten horns out of this kinofdom are ten kins^s that shall arise : and another shall rise behind them ; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall de- press three kings." * " We would, for reasons which will hereafter appear to the attentive reader," (namely, in order that his Lordship's catalogue might be made to contain the three states, which he supposes to be the three horns plucked up before the little horn) « fix these ten kingdoms at a different era from any of the foregoing ; and let us see how they stood in the eighth century. The principal states and governments then were — 1 . Of the Senate of Rome, who revolted from the Greek emperors, and claimed and exerted the privilege of choosing a new western emperor ; 2. Of the Greeks in Ravenna ; 3. Of the Lombards in Lombardy ; 4. Of the Huns in Hungary ; 5. Of the Alemanes in Germany ; 6. Of the Franks in France ; 7. of the Burgundians in Burgundy ; 8. Of the Goths in Spain ; 9. Of the Britons ; 10. Of the Saxons in Britain.-' (Bp. Newton's Dissert. XIV.) Thus does the Bishop confessedly adapt his catalogue to the three supposed horns, instead of seeking for the three horns, where the prophet directs us to seek thera, among the ten/r.-f horn?. 136 These diflerent passages all describe the same circum- stance : consequently, whatever is the import of the one, must likewise be the import of both the others. With respect to the vision, the appearance, which pre- sented itself to Daniel, seems to have been this. While the prophet was contemplating ///^ ten horns of the beast, he beheld cm eleventh /z///e' //or/z gradually, and as it were by stealth, springing up among them.* As, this little horn was slowly arising, three of the ^first ten horns, which were " before it" or in its immediate vicinity, so as by their position to obstruct its growth, were suc- cessively eradicated, and fell prostrate at its feet. Every obstacle being thus removed, the little horn attained its full growth ; and occupied the place, which had been before occupied by the three eradicated horns. Such apparently was the action of the symbols ; up- on which the interpreting angel observes, that an eleventh kingdom should arise behind the first ten kingdoms, and should depress three of them. Now, since it is said, in one passage, that the three horns were plucked up be- fore the little horn ; in another, that they fell before the little horn ; and in a third, that the power represented hu the little horn should depress the powers represented bij the three horns : a question arises, which can only be determined by the event : namely, whether this smaller power should depress three of the first powers immedi- atelif or mediate I if, by his own proper exertions or by the instrmnentalitii of others I History is ever the best inter- preter of prophecy ; and by its decisions we may always safely abide. Daniel specially informs us, that three of X\\^jirst ten kingdoms, into which the empire should be divided, were to be plucked up before the little horn. Hence it is evident, that we must look for the completion of the prophecy among the \.^\^first kingdoms, and among those onhj. Now we do not find, as it shall be presently shewn from history, that anij three of the ten original * He seems to have overlooVred the Utile horn at first, owing to its diminutive size, and to its springing up behind ihe other hums ; and to have fixed his attention en- tirely upon the ten hurm : till it was diverted from them by the increasing size of the littli horn. 137 kingdoms* were ever literally depressed by ike immediate exertions of an eleventh smaller kingdom : but we do find, that precisely three of them were eradicated by the instrumentalitij of each other, of the Greeks, and of the Frafiks, before an eleventh little horn, which had been gradually rising in the midst of troublesome times, and which at length occupied the place of its three depressed predecessors. Thus does history at once interpret the prophecy, and undeniably point out to us the power in- tended by the little horn. 2. As the three horns are to be sought for among the ten Jirst horns, we must obviously learn what those ten Jirst horns are, before we can inquire with any prospect of success for the three which were to be eradicated be- fore the little horn. The historian Machiavel, whom I connot but consider as the best, because the most un- prejudiced, judge of the manner in which the Roman empire was divided, very undesignedly, and (as Bp. Chandler remarks) little thinking what he was doing, reckons up the ten primary kingdoms as follows : 1. The Ostrogoths in Mesia ; 2. The Visigoths in Pannonia ; 3. The Sueves and Alans in Gasgoigne and Spain ; 4. The Vandals in Africa ; 5. The Franks in France ; 6. The Burgundians in Burgundy; 7- The Heruli and Turing! in Italy ; 8. The Saxons and Angles in Britain ; 9. The Huns in Hungary ; and 10. The Lombards, at first upon the Danube, afterwards in Italy. f The self-same cata- logue is exhibited by that excellent chronologer Bp. Lloyd, who adds the dates when these ten kingdoms arose : 1. The Huns about A. D. 356; 2. The Ostrogoths, 377 ; .'J. The Visigoths, 378 ; 4. The Franks, 407 ; 5. The Yandals, 407 ; 6. The Sueves and Alans, 407 ; 7- The Burgundians, 407 ; 8. The Heruli and Rugii, 476 ; 9. The Saxons, 476 ; 10. The Longobards in the north of Germany, 483 ; in Hungary, 526.;}: These then, upon the concurring testimony of an his- torian and a chronologer, are the ten kimgdoms into which * In fact, we do not find that any three kingdoms were subdued by the immediate force of the Papacy. The Pope himself neither subdued the kiogdom of the l^ovK- bards, the state of Rome, nor the Exarchate. f Bp. Newton's Dissert. XIV. | Ibid, VOL. I. 18 138 the Roman empire was originally divided, and eonse- quently they are the ten jirst horns of which we are ia quest. Hence, if ever three kingdoms were plucked up before « little kingdom which arose imperceptibly aaiong the ten primary kingdoms^ they must be three, the names of which occur in the preceding list of Machiavel and Bp. Lloyd. Accordingly we shall find, that the king- dom of the Heruli, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and the kingdom of the Lombards, were successively eradica- ted before the little papal horn, which at length became a temporal no less than a spiritual power at the expence of these three depressed /?rz^^^«rj/ states. 1. In the year 476, Odoacer king of the Hertdi* put an end to the western empire, and caused himself to be proclaimed king of Italy, By this conquest he stood " before," or in the way of, the papal horn ; whence it was necessary, that his regal horn should be plucked up in order to make room for the future aggrandisement of the spiritual kingdom of the Pope. This was effected, in the year 493, by Theodoric king of tlie Ostrogoths. Leading his hardy troops from their original settlement in Mesia and the neighbourhood of Constantinople, he de- scended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his banners on the confines of Italy. Victory crowned his enter- prize ; from the Alps to the extremity of Calabria Theo- doric reigned by right of conquest ; and he was accept- ed as the deliverer of Rome by the Senate and the people. 2. This second of the three horns however, standing equally in the way of papal aggrandizement, was destin- ed, like its immediate predecessor, to fall before the little * Disputes have arisen respecting the proper name of Odoacer's subjects, but they are disputes which are of Httle consequence to the completion of the prophecy. Machiavel styles his kingdom, that of the Heruli and Turin gi ; Bp. Lloyd, that of tht Heriili and Riigii ; and Mr. Gibbon asserts, that his immediate and hereditary subjects were the tribe of the Scyrri, wliile the Italian kingdom which he founded was com- posed of various clans of Gothic mercenaries, among which the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the A/aiii, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have predominated. Be this as it may, the kingdom, which he did found, was one of tlie ten primary kingdoms ; whence, if its history correspond with the prophecy, it is certainly ca- pable, in its capacity of ?l primary kingdom, of being reckoned one of the three horns. 1'he accurate particularising of the tribes which composed it cannot make it either more or less ?i primary kingdom. All possibility of dispute might be avoided, if, in the catalogue of the ten kingdoms, it were styled, the kingdom of Odoacer in Italy, instead of the kingdom of the Heruli and Turingi in Italy or the kingdom of the Heruli and Rugii in Italy, 139 'horn. After the kingdom of the Ostrogoths had subsist- ed in Italy its allotted time, it was attacked by Bellisa- riiis ; and at length was utterly eradicated by Narses the lieutenant of the Eastern emperor, and his auxilia- ries the Lombards. 3. Italy now became a province of the Constantinopol- itan empire., and was governed by an imperial officer, who bore the title of Exarch of Ravenna. Scarcely however was the Exarchate established,* when the Lom- bards, who had lent their assistance to Narses in his at- tack upon the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, began to med- itate the conquest of Italy for themselves. Narses was engaged in the settlement of that country under the government of the Constantinopolitan emperors from the year 554- to the year 568 ; and it was in the year 567-, that Alboin, king of the Lombards, undertook the sub- jugation of it. Descending from the same Julian Alps that his Gothic predecessor Theodoric had done, he be- came, without a battle or a siege, master of Italy from the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome. The exarchate of Ravenna still feebly subsisted, but it was at length completely subdued by the Lombardic monarch Aistulphus about Me year 752. This conquest however was only the prelude to the utter eradication of the third and last horn, which interfered with the ag- grandisement of the Papacy, and which was therefore to be plucked up by the roots before it. Alarmed at the growing power of Aistulphus, the Pope applied for as- sistance to Pipin king of France ; who, in the course of two successive expeditions into Italy, wrested from that prince the whole district of the Exarchate, and bestowed it in perpetual sovereignty upon the Bishop of Rome. " After this double chastisement, the Lombards lan- guished about twenty years in a state of languor and de- * " The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of Alboin — But his ambition was yet unsatisfied ; and the conqueror of the Gepidje turned his eyes from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po and the Tiber. Fifteen years had not elapsed, since his subjects, the confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of Italy : the mountains, the rivers, the high-ways, were familiar to their memory : the report of their success, perhaps the view of their spoils, had kindled in the rising generation the flame of emulation and enterprise. Their hopes were encouraged by the spirit and eloquence of Alboin." Hist, of Decline and Fall, V^oL viii. p. 122, 123. 145 cay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition ; and, instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims, evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection, and terminated without glory." Charlemagne had now succeeded his father Pipin, and like him assumed the character of the cham- pion of the Church. At the request of the Pope he for- mally undertook his cause ; entered Italy at the head of a large army ; completely eradicated the horn of Lom- bardif ; and bestowed great part of its dominions upon the successors of St. Peter.* Thus were three o^ the first horns plucked up by the roots before an eleventh litt'e hum, which silently arose among them, till it had supplanted the three horns, that stood in its way and prevented its full expansion. f * Mr. Sharpe briefly observes, that tie three horns, eradicated before the little horr, were "the three Gothic iingdo?>is" Or " the three dhtiact national go-vernments of Gothii kings, seated successively in Rome itself:" and he adds, that these three kingdoms con- stituted the short-lived seventh head of the beast meniioned in the Apocalypse ; that the last of them was wounded to death by the sword of Justinian in the hand of Bellisa- rius ; and that the ivbcle period of their joint dominion amounted not to more than 70 years. (See Append, to three Tracts, p. 43 — An Inquiry into the description of Babylon, p. ?, 9 --and Append, to Inquiry, p. 2, S, 4, 5.) What three Gothic kingdoms Mr. Sharpe alludes to, I cannot imagine from his chronological and circumstantial description of them. I am only aware of the three folloiving Gothic kingdoms havings been ever seated in Italy : that of the Heruli ; that of the the Ostrogoths ; and that of the Lombards. Of these Justinian only subverted that of the Ostrogoths : as for that of the Lombards, it continued many years after the termination of his reign ; and, after overturning the government of the Greek Emperors in Italy, it was in its turn destroyed by Charlemagne. So again Mr. Sharpe speaks of three Gothic kingdoms seated in \\.2\.-j pre-vious to the reign of Justinian, and jointly continuing about 70 years. Upon adverting to liistory, we shall find, that the fivo Gothic king- doms of the Hendi and the Ostrogoths continued something more than 70 years ; and that the last of them was subdued by Justinian ; but it will prove a vain labour to look for a third, the duration of which jointly with that of the other two shall amount to about 10 years. The whole duration of the three kingdoms O^ the Heruli, the Ostrogoths, and the Lojnbards ,convpr<£h.end& a space, not merely of 70 years, but of little less than three centuries : for the kingdom cf the Heruli was erected in the year 476, and the kingdom of the Lombards was subverted by Charlemagne in the year 774. As for these three kingdoms, they cannot be at once both three horns and the seventh bead of the selfsame beast at the self-same time and in the self-same capacity : both because such an opinion is a palpable contradiction, confounding together in a strange manner the different members of the beast ; and because 298 \ears, the period of their joint duration, can scarcely be called so tiery short a time, compared with the duration of any of the other heads. It is to be wished, that Mr. Sharpe had explicitly said what three Gothic kingdoms he intended. f Bp. Newton's Dissert, on Rev. xiii. and xvii. — Hist, of Decline and Fall, Vol. v5. p. 226 — 2S7— Ibid. Vol. \ni. p. 11 — 15, 214 — 257, 353-398 — Ibid. Vol. viii. p. 122, 126, 127, 145, 147— Ibid. \'el. is. p. 145—150, 156— 159— Bp. Newton's Pi«sert. XIV. It is curious to observe the gradual rise of papal dom- ination during the turbulent age, in which the three horns were successively eradicated. Under the reign of Odoacer, the Bishops of Rome had acquired so much in- fluence, that even the victorious I'heodoric found it pru- dent to pay court to them. Though he assumed the su- premacy of the Church, he was not ignorant of the dig- nity and importance oi the Roman pontiff. " The peace or the revolt of Italy might depend on the character of a wealthy and popular Bishop, who claimed such ample dominion both in heaven and earth."* Accordingly we find, that, toward the close of the Ostrogothic sovereign- ty, the Pope took a leading part in the revolution whicli once more brought Italy under the sway of the emperors. " The deputies of the Pope and clergy, of the senate and people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and to enter the city, whose gates: would be thrown open for his reception. "f And after- wards, when the Ostrogothic monarchij for a short time recovered itself previous to its final subjection, the em- peror Justinian was roused from his slumber " by the Pope Vigilius and the Patrician Cethegus, who appear- ed before his throne, and adjured him, in the name of God and the people, to resume the conquest and deliv- erance of Italy. '':[: At this period, as Machiavel very justly remarks, the Papacy was greatly assisted in its acquisition of tempo- ral authority by the circumstance of Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths making Ravenna his metropolis ;§ for, " there being no other prince left in Rome, the Romans were forced for protection to pay greater allegiance to the Pope." During the struggles between the Lombards and the imperial lieutenants at Bavenna, the power of the Popes continued gradually on the increase. Availing them- * Hist, of Decline and Fall, Vol. vii. p. 37. t Ibid. p. 223. \ Ibid. p. 378. § Ravenna was the metropolis likewise even of the JVestern empire itself some years previous to its fall. Honorius first fixed his residence there in the year 404, as a place of security against the inroads of the northern nations. (Hist, of Decline Vol. V. p. 207.) Thus was he '.vho letted gradually taken out of the ivay, to make room fpr the Apostacy and the fuU revelation of the man of sin. 142 selves of those turbulent and unsettled times, and find- ing that their influence was sufficient to turn the scale wliichever way they pleased, they began, as Machiavel observes, to treat and confederate sometimes with the Impeinal'ists and sometimes with the Lombards^ "not as subj cts, but as equals and companions." in short, throughout a period of anarchy, when the minds of men were kept in a constant ferment by the frequency of pohtical changes, " the want of laws a- mong the Romans could only be supplied by the influ- ence of religion ; and their foreign and domestic coun- sels were moderated by the authority of the Bishop. His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and prelates of the West, his recent services, their grati- tude, and oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christ- ian humility of the Popes was not offended by the name of Dojninus or Loi'd ; and their face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient coins. Their tempo- ral dominion is now confirmed by the reverence of a thousand years ; and their noblest title is the free choice of a people whom they had redeemed from slavery."* Such was the state of the Papacy immediately before the subversion of the k'mgdom of the Lombards^ the last of the three horns w-hich stood in its way, and which was therefore destined to fall before it. When this horn was completely eradicated, the eleventh little horn attain- ed to its full growth in temporalities, by the acquisition of the exarchate and a considerable part of the kingdom of Lombardif^ and by the complete subjugation of Rome. It had already become a spiritual empire, when in the year 606 the saints were delivered into its hand. Here then we behold a little //'or;/ springing up among and behind the first ten horns, and advancing itself up- on the ruins of three of those horns, which were suc- cessively eradicated before it. No other pozcer but the Papacij arose under similar circumstances, no other cor- responds in every respect with the character of the little horn ; whence it is concluded, that the symbol of the lit- * Hist, of Decline and Fall, Vol. ix. p. 14-i, \i'3 tie horn is designed to typify t/ie Papaaj and nothing but the Papacy. It is in vain, that the Romanists would persuade us, that the little horn is Antichrist^ and that his reign is still remote. Since three of the Jirst horns, into which the Roman empire branched out, were to fall before the little horn ; if the prophecy has not been al- ready accomplished, it is noxo impossible that it ever should be accomplished. From the various political changes which have taken place in the course of the last twelve centuries, the ten primarij horns can no longer be pointed out ; consequently no three of them can nozi} be plucked up before amj little horn, which the Papists may fancy will hereafter arise. By attending however to the voice of history we find, that it has been the fate of three of the primary horns successively to quit their original settlements for the purpose of fixing themselves in Italy, so as to stand " before" the Papacy : and we further find, that it has been the fate of exactly these three, and no more, to be completely eradicated " before" the grow- ing power of the Bishops oj' Rome. None, except these three, were ever plucked up under such circumstances : that is to say, none, except these three, ever fell " before" ^;'oi?- 2}ices of the Medo-Persian empire, before they became heads of the Macedonian empire. In preference then to Sir Isaac's scheme, I am rather * It Is almost superfluous to remind the reader, that the four heads of the third beast in the vision of the four great beasts are the same as thifour horns of the he-goat in the viiioii of the ram and the he-nxt. 147 inclined to think, that the four beasts are the four great empires^ considered as respectively extending to their several utmost hmits : so that the Medo-Persian empire comprehends not only Media and Persia^ but likewise Chald^a^ Assyria^ Asia Mi?wr, Syria^ and Egypt ; the Macedonian empire^ not only Greece^ but likewise tlie former empire of Persia : and the Roman empire^ by a parity of reasoning, not only Italy and the Westy but likewise Greece, Egypt, and Asia as far as the Euphrates.* As for specifying i^vhat powers are now the ten horns, I cannot but consider it as absurd to attempt it. History has decidedly shewn, that the kingdoms, into which the Roman empire was divided, never continued long in the same state : nor is it at all necessary for the completion of the prophecy, that they should have done so. T'dDO of the horns of the Macedonian he-goat were soon swal-^ lowed up by the most powerful of the other two horns : and the great Latin citij, exclusive 1 apprehend of those protestant powers which have come out of it, will event- ually be divided into no more than three parts. ^ Still however the Roman beastly symbolically represented as having ten horns,X because such was the original num- ber into which his empire was divided ; asyo^^r was the original number into which the em^\xe oi the he-goat was divided. " Though the kingdom of Alexander," says Bp. Newton, " was divided mto four principal parts, yet only two of them have a place allotted in Daniel's last prophecy of the things noted in the Scripture of truth, Egypt and Syria. These two were by far the greatest and most considerable : and these two at one time were in a manner the only remaining kingdoms of the four : the kingdom of Macedoii having been con- quered by Lysimachus and annexed to Thrace ; and Lysimachus again having been conquered by Seleucus, * This will shew us the reason why the Roman Least is represented as being coia^ pounded of a lion, a bear, and a leopard. (Rev. xiii. 2.) His empire comprehended the greatest part of the dominions of the Babylonian lion, the Medo-Persian bear, and the Macedonian leopard ; in addition to which he had ten horns or kingdoms ul his peculiar sovereignty in the West. ^ S?e Rev. xvj, 19, Concerning this earthquake more will bfi said hereafter. \ See Rev. ivii 1 (h us and the hin^dnms of Macedon and Thrace annexed to Sijriay* 5ucli being the fate of two out of the four horns of the he-goat^ I know not why some expositors stiould apparently think themselves bound to labour to discover ten horns for the Roman beast at any other pe- riod except that vt'hen his empire was originalhj divided. ■]• Machiavel, as we have seen, merely as a political histo- rian, and without the least intention of supporting a fa- vourite system, informs us, that the empire was broken by the northern nations into precisely ten primarij king-' doins. This circumstance alone therefore issutficient for the completion of the prophecy, that the ten horns of the fourth beast are ten kings that shall arise out of his kingdom ',% just as the division of Alexander's empire m- to four kingdoms was alone sufficient for the completion of the prophecy, \\\2X four kingdoms should stand up out of his nation. § The special badge of the he-goat is his four horns^ and the special badge of the Roma?/, beast is his ten horns ; although both these numbers afterwards varied. Hence we may just as reasonably expect, that the Macedonian beast should always have four horns during the whole period of his existence after their rise, becauseybwr horns are said to liave sprung up out of him when his great horn was broken ; as that the Ro' man beast should always have ten ho?'ns dunng the whole period of /z/^ existence after their rise, because when his empire was divided exactly ten kings were to arise out of it. The two symbols are, in fact, each formed from a view of the pnmari/ division of the Macedonian and Roman empires ; nor was it designed, nor indeed was it possible, that they should be exhibited as perpetually varying with the ever varying revolutions of nations. On these grounds 1 think it of very little consequence to the completion of the prophecy to have discovered, that there were ten kingdoms in M^ y^«r 1210 at the time of the diet of Ratisbon ; ten likewise at the Refor- * Dissert, xvi. + Sir Isaac Newton very justly remarks, that, " whatever was their number afterwards, they are still called the ten kings from their first number." Observ. on baniel, C vi, p. 73. I Dan. vii. 34. § Dan. viii. 22. 149 mation ; and ten also in the year 1706.* The ten horns o^ the Roman beast are certainly the ten primary king- doms enumerated by Machiavel ; and, since three of the ^rst horns were to be plucked up before the little horn^ we must seek for those three horns among the ten pri- mary kingdoms : how the empire Avas afterxQards divid- ed is a matter of no great moment; its subsequent po- litical revolutions affect not in the slightest degree the accuracy of the prophecy. CHAPTER V. Concerning the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and the little horn oj the he-goat. NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S dream of the image, and Daniel's vision oi the four beasts and the little horn oJ" the fourth beast, contain predictions relative to the four great empires and the domineering tyranny of the Papacif. These matters so important to the Church having been clearly set forth, the Holy Spirit, now pur- posing to describe the exploits of another great enemy tc Christianity ; recalls, in the vision of the ram and the he- gout, the attention of Daniel to the second and third em- pires, whose prophetic history had been already detailed, for the purpose of introducing another little horn, which was to come out oi one of the principal horns of the Ma- cedonian beast, 2l% the former little horn sprung up among the ten hrns of the Roman beast. In Daniel's vision oi the ram and the he-goat, the ram symbolizes the same power as the bear mentioned in the preceding vision ; and the he-goat, the same poKer ^isthe leopard. The ram therefore, standing before the river, \% the Medo-Persian empire ; and his tioo horns 2CiQ the two kingdoms of Media and Persia : the higher one, * ^ee Bp. Newton's Dissert, xlr. 150 which came up last, being Persia, the head of the em- pire ; and the lower one, which came up first being Media, united with, though subjected to, Persia. The ra}n ex- tended his conquests zc^esfward, northioard, and south- Xi)ard : zoestward, as far as the extreme hmits of Asia ; northward, over Armenia, and Cappadocia ; and south- ward, over Egypt, and as far as the Persian gulph. East- ward he made comparatively but httle progress, being stopped by the vast deserts of Tartary, and the mighty empire of Hindostan. In the plenitude of his power however, and at the very time when no other beast could stand before him, he was attacked by an unexpected enemy, the he-goat, or the Macedonian empire. Moving with unexampled rapidity from the West, the founder of this mighty sove- reignty soon completely overthrew the ram, and broke his tzco horns. After this daring exploit, the he-goat " waxed very great," extending his arms even into Hin- dostan, as well as subjugating Egypt and all the other dominions of ///e;-ora. But, notwithstanding this sudden and astonishing asquisition of power, his great horn was destined to be broken even in the very height of his strength. Accordingly, the imperial dynasty of M^^r^«^ horn lasted no more than fifteen years after the death of Alexander ; within which short space of time his suc- cessors, Philip Arideus, Alexander Egus, and Hercules, were all murdered. After them the empire was divided into four kingdoms, typified by the four horns of the goat, and the four heads of the leopard mex\i\QX\eA in the preceding vision. Cassander held Macedon and Greece ; Lysimachus had Thrace and Bithijnia ; Ptolemy made himself master of /?§•//;:>/ ; and Seleucus obtained Sijria and the East. Thus exactly was fulfilled the prophecy, X\\?Li four kingdoms should arise out of Alexander's em- pire, governed by princes of his own nation, though nei- ther of his own family, nor with power equal to that which lie had possessed. Hitherto all commentators are agreed ; but there has been the same discrepancy of opinion respecting the little horn of the he-goaf, as the llltlc horn of the fourth beast whose prophetic history we last considered. Bp. Newton 161 observes, that the generality of expositors, both ancient and modern, Jewish and Cliristian, have referred the ex- ploits o(this second little hum to Aiitiochus Epiphanes ;* but this opinion has been so amply refuted both by him- self and Sir Isaac Newton, that it would be superfluous for me to do more than barely mention that it has exist- ed. I am inclined to think however, that these two em- inent writers have been more successful in combating the formerly received interpretation, than in establishing their own. They both contend, that the little horn^ is the Roman empire ; and that it became the little horn of the he-goat by subduing Macedon and Greece : that this supposition is strengthened by the progress of the Roman conquests from Mucedon ; which, like those oi the little horn^ extended towards the souths the cast^ and the pleas- ant land : and that lastly it is decidedly established by the circumstance of //ze ///^/e /?or« being represented as standing up against the Prince of princes^ as taking awaij the duilif sacrifice^ and as planting the abomination of desolation in the sanctuari/, which our Lord himself refers to the conquest of Jerusalem b/j the Romans. 1 readily allow, that these points of resemblance are very striking; nevertheless it will be found upon exam- ination, that there are insuperable objections, principally of a chronological nature, to this exposition of the pro- phecy. 1. Thefrst objection^ that may be urged against it, is the improbability, that the same power ^ssMxch. in the former vision was represented under the symbol of a great and terrible beast, should now be described under that of on- ly a little horn. In prophetic imagery there is to the full as exact a discrimination of ideas as in ordinary lan- guage ; otherwise, as I have already sufficiently proved, there couldhe no definiteness and precision in any of the symbolical predictions. Accordingly we shall find, that an universal empire is never symbolized by a horn,'\ but ^ See Bp. Newton's Dissert, xv. and Pol. Synop. in loc. f It may perhaps be thought, that /.6f |-r^a< Zior« oithe hs-goat is an exception to this rule, inasmuch as it represents, not a kingdom springing out of th: Macedonian empire, h\lt the imperial dynasty of Alexander which presided over the TO^o/f empire, -rhis objection however will vanish, when we CGnsider,that,if a bs.tst be described with 152 ahvays by a beast; and, on the other hand, that a Icings doni^ sjDringing out of such an empire when it ooaies to be divided, is never symbolized by a heasty but always by a horn. On these grounds, I can scarcely think it possible, that fhe Roman eiiipire should be represented, in one vision, as ?i fourth distinct beast ; and, in another, as only a little horn of the he-^^oat^ which typifies the same pozcer as the leopard, or third beust^ of the former vision. 1 know, that Sir Isaac and Bp. Newton argue, that, when the Romans conquered Macedon, they became in that capacity a little horn of the third or Macedonian beast ; while, in the mean time, so long as we ct^nsider them confined to Italy and the V\^est, they are to be ac- counted a distinct fourth beast. But, if this mode of in- terpretation be allowable, the confusion, which it must introduce, will be endless : for, upon the same principle, as soon as the Greeks have conquered a single Persian proiince, we must begin, in a similar manner, to reckon them a horn of the second, or Persian beast : whence it will necessarily follow, that the two Greek kingdoms of Syria and Egypt being originally provinces of Persia^ must for that reason be accounted horns o^ the same sec- ond beast ; not, as they are represented by the prophet, horns of the third, or Macedonian beast. 2. Another objection against it is, that it renders Dan- iel liable to the charge of unvarying repetition. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the history of the four em^ pires \s simpli/ detailed, without the introduction, if I may use the expression, of any episodical matter. In the vision of the four beasts, the history of the same four empires is repeated, for the purpose of introducing the exploits o^ the little horn of the fourth beast. In the vi- sion of the ram and the he-goat, the history of the second and third empires is again repeated, for the similar pur- pose of noticing in its proper place the tyranny of the only one h'.rn, that horn must necessarily be identified with the beast itself; because, as the circumstance of there being more than one horn shews that the empire is in a divided state, so tlie circumstance of there being no more than one horn shews that the empire is in an undivided state. When a beast therefore has more horns thaQ o/vr, those horns typify k'mgdoms ; but, when a beast has no mere than 0/71? horn, it is evident, that that fjor/i cannot signify a lingdom, because the eir.pire is yet undivided : it remains consequently, that the .'ingU horn must be identified with the beast, and Signity the dynasty by ivLich he is gorjerned. 153 third beasf s little horn. And, in the last of DaniePs vi- sions, a detailed account is given of the wars beticeen the Greek kings oj" Syria and Egiipt, and of the Roman con- quests in the East, in order that we may be conducted in strict chronological succession to the super-eminent wickedness of the king, who zvas to exalt himself above every god. From this statement then it is evident, that, if the little horn of the he-goat or third beast be the Roman empire, the vision of the ram and the he-goat is a mere repetition of the greater part of the vision of the Jour beasts ; the only additional circumstance that is mentioned being the sacking of Jerusalem, which itself is repeated in the subsequent vision, if we adopt the opinion, that the abomination or transgression of desola- tion, predicted by Daniel in each of these visions, signifies in both cases the Roman profanation of the Jeivish temple. 3. The last and most sei^ious objection however against the interpretation of Sir Isaac Newton and the Bishop is, that it cannot be reconcded with Daniel's chronological numbers. The prophet, as I have just observed, men- tions the abomination or transgression of desolation in two successive visions ; that of the ram and the he-goat, and that of the things " tioted in the Scripture of truth ;"* and he afterwards speaks of it yet a third time in connec- tion with certain chronological n umbers. •!• Now our Lord declares, that the abomi?iation of desolation, spoken of by Daniel, relates to the sacking of Jerusalem : and the authority of such an expositor of prophecy who shall presume to question ? The state of the case then is, as follows : the phrase of abomination or transgression of desolation occurs three times in the book of Daniel : did our Lord mean to intimate, that, zvherever it occurred in this book, it always related to the sacking of Jerusa- lem ; or that it was only to be referred to that event in one or in two instances out of the three ! This question, must be resolved by a careful comparison of these sev- eral prophecies of Daniel with each other. When Daniel speaks of arms, like those of a man, (an apt symbol of « powerful and -warlike state, J stajiding up * Dan. -nu. 13. and xi. .'^1. f Dan. zii. 11, 12. VOL. I. 20 Io4 after the days of the northern king of Syria, polluting the sanctuary, taking away the daily sacrifice, and setting up the abomination that maketh desolate :* there cannot be a doubt, but that by those nervous and mighty arms the Homan empire is symbolized ; both because the east- ern conquests of that repubhc followed the preceding events in regular succession of time, and because the subsequent events foretold in the prophecy followed the eastern conquests of Rome with the same chronological regularity. Hence we may safely conclude, -that the tibominatioi of desolation, there mentioned, \9. the abomina- tion of desolation which our Lord applied to the Romans.f Hilhf rto the subject is sufficiently clear : but we must now endeavour to determine, whether the transgression of desolation, connected with the litt'e horn of the third beast or the he-goat, be the same as tlie abonwiation of desolation, set up by the warlike arms of the Roman em- pire m the temple of Jerusalem. When Daniel mentions the abomination of desolation the third and last time, he merely attaches to it certain «?i;;wZ>(?/\?, evidently speaking of it as a thing which he had already noticed in a preceding part of his prophecies. Such being the case, this last mentioned abomination of desolation must be the same as either the abomination of desolation, connected with the little horn of the he-goat ; the abomination of desolation, set up by the arms of the Roman empire ; or, lastly, as both these abominations of desolation, considered as one and the same. Sir Isaac Newton and the Bishop do conceive them to be one and the same : for they maintain, that they both equally re- late to the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans, and their idolatrous zd'orship of their standards within the very pre- cincts of the temple. If then they be the same, the last mentioned abomina- tion of desolation must be the same likewise: in other words, all the three abominations of desolation, predicted by Daniel, must be equally referred to the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans ; for we have already seen, * Dan. xi. 31. f The same Roman abomhiation of d:solation IS described, along with the destmctiou of Jcru3ale;n, m Daniel's prophecy of the 70 ivedj. See Dan. is. 24 — 27. 133 that the last mentioned abomination must be the same as either the one, or the other, or both, of the two former fibominations . But, if all the three abominations of deso- lation are to be considered as relating to one and t he same event, namely, the sacking of Jerusalem bij the Romans ; then the chronological numbers, attached to the last men- tioned abomination, will be found perfectly to harmonize with the era of the siege of Jerusalem : for, if thei/ do not harmonize with that era, the abomination connected with them cannot possibly relate to that era: and, if the last mentioned abomination, connected with those num- bers, do not relate to that era, then neither can one out of the two former abominations relate to that era ; inas- much as the last mentioned abomination must be the same as either the one, or the other, or both, of the two former abominations of desolation. These matters being premised, we will next consider how far the numbers, attached to the last mentioned abom- ination of desolation, will harmonize with the era of the siege of Jerusalem. We are informed then by Daniel, that, at the end of a time, and times, and half a time, or 1260 years, the res- toration of the Jews will commence ; and that all the matters comprehended within the period of the wonders will be finished : that " from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken aioay, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be 1290 years''' to some event or another, which however he does not spe- cify : and that " blessed is he, that vvaiteth, and cometh to the 1335 years'' after the time vi'hen the abomination of desolation shall be set up.* Such are \\\q numbers, which the prophet has connect- ed with the last mentioned abomination of desolation ; numbers, which by no efforts of calculation can be made to harmonize with the era of the siege of Jerusalem. The capital of Palestine was taken by the Romans, and one o{ the abominations of desolation spoken of by Daniel was set up by them in the holy place, in the year of our Lord 70. f The Jews however were certainly not begin- ning to be restored to their own country, neither were * Dan. xii, 7, 1 1 , ] 2. f Chronol. of Univ. Hist. p. 569. 166 all the matters which are comprehended within the period of the wonders finished, in the year 1330, or \'260 years after the sacking of Jerusalem : nor is it easy to say what particular event, to which the prophet might possi- bly alkjde, happened /« the year 1360, or 1^90 yeais after the saime epoch : nor yet shall we be able, without the exertion of extraordinary ingenuity, to point out the peculiar blessedness of living in the year 1405, or 1335 years after the Romans had set up the abomination of desolation in the temple and had taken away the daily sacrifice* Thus it is abundantly manifest, that the abomination of desolation last mentioned by Daniel^ cannot possibly be the same as the abomination of desolation set up by the Romans^ and alluded to by our Lord : that is to say, it cannot be the same as the abomination of desolation^ set up by certain symbolical arms, which were to invade the East, after the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.-j- But, if it be not the same as the abomination of desolation set up by the symbolical arms of Rome, it must be the same as the abomination of desolation connected zcith the little horn of the he-i^oat : for it is scarcely probable, that Daniel should speak oi some third abomination of desolation, en- tirely distinct from the two former ones ; and yet should give us no sort of intimation by whom this supposed dis- tinct third abomination should be set up. If then the last mentioned abomination of desolation be the same as the abomination of desolation connected with the little horn of the he-goaf, (and there is no other mentioned in the whole book of Daniel, excepting this, with which it can * The computation ■will answer no better even if it be made from the year 130, when Jerusalem was finally destroyed by Adrian. This event however certainly cannot be alluded to by our Lord ; both because he declares that the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel should stand in the holy place before that generation had passed away, and because he warns his disciples to flee from Jerusalem when they beheld it compassed with armies. Jerusalem accordingly was sacked before that generation did pass away ; and the Christians, profiting by the prediction of their master, saved their lives by flit^ht. These circumstances decidedly prove, that our Lord's prophecy relates to the days of Titus. See Matt. sxiv. 15—20, 34. and Luke xxi. 20 — 24, 32. f Bp. Newton very justly applies the three verses immediately preceding the men- tion of the symbolical Roman arms to the history of Antiochus Epiphanes : consequently the abomination, set up by these arms, must of course be posterior to the days of that tyrant. (See Dissert, xvii.) '= And after him (Antiochus) arms shall stand up." ^an. xi. 3 J. 167 be identified) it will necessarily follow, that the little horn's abomination of desolation must be something en^ tirelif distinct from the abomination of desolation set up bij the symbolical arms : consequently, since the abomination of the little horn is not the same as the abomination set up by the arms^ the little horn itself must be some power totally dijferent from the power symbolized by the arms : but the arms are allowed by every commentator to sym- bolize the Romans^ and no one ever yet doubted that the abomination which they set up is the very abomination alluded to by our Lord : therefore, finally, since the little horn is not the same as the symbolical arms, it certainly cannot be the same as the Roman empire in the East. On these grounds, which to myself at least appear satisfactory, 1 am obliged to dissent in toto from the interpretation proposed by Sir Isaac and Bishop New- ton. The eastern conquests of the Romans are very fully predicted in the e'eventh chapter of DaniePs proph- ecies ;* but they cannot, for the preceding chronological reasons, be at all alluded to in the tii)elfth chapter and in the history of the little horn of the he-goat. Before I dismiss this part of my subject, I cannot re- frain from observing, that the force of Daniel's chrono- logical numbers, which I have so largely insisted upon, has in a manner compelled Bp. Newton, notwithstand- ing his previous interpretation of the vision of the ram and the he-goat., to notice, among various other conjec- tures, what i am persuaded is the true exposition of the abomination of desolation connected ivith tJie little horn^ as contradistinguished from the Roman abomination of desolation. " The setting up" says he, " of the abomi- nation of desolation appears to be a general phrase, and comprehensive of various events. It is applied by the writer of the first book of Maccabees to the profanation of the temple by Antiochus, and his setting up the image of Jupiter Olympius upon the altar of God.'\ It is ap- plied by our Saviour^ to the destruction of the city and * Ver. 30, 31. f 1 Mac. J. 54. \ It is more than merely applied : our Lord expressly pronounces, that tie approaching profanation of the temple by the Romans was the event intended by some one of the abomina- tions of desolation mentioned by the prophet Daniel. The abominaticr. to which oiu' Lord alluded, is, as we have seen, that predicted in Dan. x\. ?>\. lo8 temple by the Romans, under the conduct of Titus, in the reign of Vespasian.* It may for the sanne reason be ap- phed to the Roman Emperor Adrian^s building a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, in the same place where the iem- jyle of God had stood ; and to the misery of the Jews, and the desolation of Judea, that followed. It maij imth equal justice be applied to the Mohammedans invading and desolating Christendom, and converting the churches tnto mosques : and this latter event secmeth to have been particularly intended in this passage.-^ If this intepret- ation be true, the religion of Mohammed loill prevail in the East the space of 12G0 years: and then a great and glorious revolution will follow ; perhaps the restoration of the Jews, perhaps the destruction of Antichrist : but an- other still greater and more glorious imll succeed ; and what can this be so probably as the full conversion of the gentiles to the Church of Christ, and the beginning of the millenniuni or reign of the saints upon earth ? for, bless- ed is he, that waiteth and cometh to the 1335 days.^'% Mr. Kett, in his exposition of the vision of the ram and the ^^-^^oa/, supposes the little horn of the he-goat ov Mace- donian empire primarily to mean the Mohammedan Aposta- cy of the F.ast, and ultimately the Gallic Infidelity of the West. This opinion however he maintains, without wish- ing to invalidate the former applications of the prophecy l)oth to Antiochus Epiphanes, and to the Romans. In short, unless 1 have entirely mistaken his meaning, the little horn of t lie he-goat was designed by the prophet to typify no less thmi four distinct powers; Antiochus Epi- phanes, the Roman empire in the East, the Mohammedan superstition, and the infidel republic of Fra7ice.^ Had Mr. Kelt confined the application of this symbol to the false religion of Mohammed, I could have given my hearty assent to his scheme : but unfortunately he has mar- red his whole exposition, by involving the prophecy re- specting the little horn of the he-goal or third beast in the same perplexing confusion of primary and secondary and nltimate accomplishments, as he had previously done * Matt. xxiv. 15. f Dfin. xli. 11. | Dissert, xvii. § I-Iisi. the Inter. Vol. 1. p. 34G— 3Jf>, "GO. U9 that respecting the little horn of the fourth beast. So lax a mode of interpretation as this ought ever to be vvarm- Iv protested against, because it utterly destroys all de- finiteness and precision in the sacred oracles. \{ the same prophecy may be construed to relate to so many to- tally different periods and events^ we must bid an ever- lasting farewell to all certainty of exposition. So far as any knowledge is concerned that lee can derive from a prophecy of such a nature, it must, so long as this world endures, remain to us a sealed book. Sir Isaac Newton and the bishop have amply refuted the opinion, that the little horn of the he-goat is Antiochus Epiphanes : and, how far their application of it to the Roman empire be tenable, the reader must judge for himself from what has been said upon that subject. As for Mr. Kett^s con- jecture, that it relates ultimately to the infidel power of France^ it will be sufficient to observe respecting it, that a horn, which was to spring up in the East, can never be designed to typify a power, which has arisen m Mc West. In the right interpretation of prophecy it is not enough to discover mere yja>V/a/ resemblances, and thence to infer that such a symbol belongs to such an event: be- fore we venture to decide, we ought to point out a per- feet similitude between the type D.nd its antitype, a simil- itude of such a nature as utterly to exclude all events which will not tally in every respect with the symbolical history under consideration. Thus, in the present in- stance, Antiochus Epiphanes has some features which very much resemble those o^ the little horn; but the pe- riod of his persecution cannot be accommodated either to the 2300 days mentioned in the vision of the ram and the he-goat or to the three prophetic periods of 1260., 129u, a)id 1335, days, specified towards the conclusion of Daniel's last vision, even if those days, contrary to the whole method of prophecy, be computed as natural ones: therefore the little horn cannot be Antiochus Epiphanes. So again : the Romans have many features in common with the little horn, insomuch that the grand character- istic of both is designated by the very same phrase of setting up the abomination of desolation ; yet the era of the sacking of Jerusalem can in no wise be reconciled 160 with the periods of X^GO^ 1990, and \335, i/ears: there- fore the little horn cannot be the Roman empire* Lastly, the impious wretches^ who converted France into an athe* istical democracy, have doubtless, like the Utile horn, waxed great against the host of heaven, have magnified themselves even against the prince of the host, and have cast down the truth to the ground ; nevertheless, those hardened miscreants, Voltaire and his associates, did not arise in the East, but in the West, and the period of the French revolution can as little be accommodated to the prophetic numbers as either of the two foregoing periods : therefore French Injidelitij cannot be the little horn. 1 shall now endeavour to ascertain, what that power is, which alone is designated by this si/mbol. Daniel informs us, in his account of the vision of the ram and the he-goat, that he heard a certain saint inquir- ing, " For how long a time shall the vision last, the daily sacrifice be taken away, and the transgression of desola- tion continue, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?" The answer made to this quest- ion was, " Unto tzvo thousand and three hundred days i'^ or, as the Seventy read, " two thousand four hundred daifs ;" or as certain copies mentioned by Jerome read, *' two thousand two hundred daijs : then shall the sanc- tuary be cleansed/* Bp. Newton doubts, whether Me^e prophetic days are to be calculated from the establishment vj" the Persian empire, from the invasion of Asia bi/ Alex- ander, or from the beginning of the history of the little horn. Whatever doubt there may be upon this point, and whatever difficulty there may be in ascertaining which of the three readings is the true one, I cannot but think it sufficiently evident, both that the 1260 days are a certain part of the 2300 days, and that these two periods exactly terminate together in the self same year. We are expressly told, that the vision of the ram and the he- goat, whenever it begins, reaches to the time of the end :'\ * I have already assigned other reasons, besides this chronological one, why it is scarcely probable, that the he-goat's litiU horn should have been designed to symbol- ize the Romans. f " Understand, O son of man, for the vision shall reach even unto the time of the end — it shall reach even to the appointed time of the end." Dan. viii. 17, 19. i6i and we are no less expressly informed, that to the endofthe period of the i, \ R.ev. xii. 6, 14. Throughout the whole of tliis statement, the reader will of course understand me to mean, not that the sanctuary will be perfectly cleansed, or that the beast and the king and the horns will be perfectly overthrown ; but only that those great events will then begin to take place, that God's controversy with the Jiations will then commence. Matters of such moment may begin, but cannot be accomplished, in a single day. Accordingly we have reason to beheve from Daniel, that the whole length of Cadi's controversy will be no less than ?>0 years. § Dan. viii. 14, 25. || Dan. vii. 25, 26. f Dan. xi. 40. xii. I, 7. ** Rev. xlx. 19, 20. f f 2 Thess. ii. 8. The reader will here again understand me to mean, that thesf cVents will begin to take place at the end of the two conterminating period?^ 163 passages, and from the plain declaration of the angel both in the vision oi the ram and the he-goaf^ and in the last chapter of DaniePs prophecies, it must, I think, undeni- ably follow, that the 2J00 days, and the 1260 days, ter- minate together : that, in the course of the memorable period which commences at the termination of these days, the papal horn, the little horn of the he-goat, the ten-horned beast or revived Roman empire, the king who magnified himself above every god, and the man ^tf sin, (whatever powers they may severally prefigure) will all be overthrown, in some manner or another, natural, or supernatural, by the victorious Word of God : and that in the course of the same nnemorable period, the abomi- nation of desolation connected with the he-goat's little horn, will be removed ; the sanctuary of the spiritual temple be cleansed ; and the Jews be restored to their own land. It has been shewn, that the period, whence the 1260 days ought apparentlij at least to be computed, is the year 606" ; because in that year the saints were given in- to the hand of the papal little horn. Having therefore ascertained this period, as far as matters of this nature can be ascertained, we shall now be able both to point out the power symbolized by the little horn of the he-goaty and to determine whether 2200, 2300, or 2400 days, be the proper reading of that greater number, of which the 1260 days constitute the last part. Since the angel informs Daniel, that all the ie true, the religion of Mohammed ii-il! frevail in tht East the sface "f KCO ^-(vro." Dissert. X\'IL 165 ish in his revived state. Thus it appears, that the heast was to revive at the very time when the saints were given into the hand of his little horn. Whence we must al- most necessarily conclude, that the revival o^ the beast \» so closely connected with the giving of the saints into the hand of the little horn, that in some sense or another he revived by committing the sin of thus giving the saints into the hand of his little horn. Here therefore it will be proper to consider the meaning of this revival. " A beast" as it is most truly remarked by Bp. New- ton, and as I have very fully stated in a preceding chapter, *' A beast, in the prophetic style, is « tyrannical idola- trous empire : the kingdom oj" God and of Christ is never represented under the image of a beast." This being the case, an empire is said to continue in existence as a heast, so long as it is a tyrannically idolatrous empire : when it puts away its idolatry and tyranny, and turns to the God of heaven, the beast, or those qualities whereby the empire was a beast, ceases to exist, though the em- pire itself may still remain as a body politic of faithful worshippers : and, when it resumes its tyranny and idol- atry, though they may not perhaps bear precisely the same names as its old tyranny and idolatry, it then revives, it then once more recommences its existence in its original character of a beast. To this description the character of the ten horned or Roman beast exactly answers. That empire was originally a beast by its profession of pagan- ism : it ceased to be a beast by its embracing Christianity under Constantine : and it once more became a beast by its setting up a catholic spiritual tyratit, and by its persecu- ting at his instigation all, zvho refused to own his supre- macy, and to embrace his new idolatry. On these grounds, St. John informs us, that the ten-horned or Roman beast " was, and is not, and yet is." It was, while in its orig- inal pagan state : it is not, while in its Christian state under Constantine : it is, while supporting papal tyranny and idolatry. In this last of its three states, St. John beheld it rise from the sea of Gothic invasion : and in this last state it is to practise prosperously, as he carefully informs us, 42 months, or 1260 daijs. The same dura- tion is assigned to the tyrannical reign of its own little 166 horn^ or the Papacij ; and for this plain reason ; the em- pire revived, or once more became a beast, by giving up the saints into the hand o{ its little horn : and this it as- suredly did, not by encreasing the territorial possessions of the horn (for partial temporal dominion does not confer the power of general persecution,) but by conferring up- on him spiritual supremacy. Precisely at the time then when the papal horn was declared to be universal bishop and supreme head oj' the Church, the saints were given up into his hand. He then first acquired the power of general persecution. Though he might not immediately begin to exercise that power by wearing out Me saints oj^ the Most High, it was then undoubtedly first conferred upon him. The true key then to fixing the date oi the \^60 years- is that furnished us by the prophet himself. We have neither to concern ourselves with the rise of the papal horn abstractedly, nor yet with its attaining to the summit of its temporal pozi'cr : we have simply to inquire when the saints were first given up into his hand, and when the old pagan beast revived by setting up a catholic spiritual idolatrous tyrant in the Church. In the West, the year 604 beheld the death of Grego- ry the Great, Bishop of Rome. The pontificate of this good man, for I cannot but consider him as a good man tinctured as his piety was with the growing superstition of the age,* was remarkable for his protestation against universal episcopacy by whomsoever assumed, and for his censure of the idolatrous veneration of images then creeping fast into the Church. Great as the power of the Roman archiepiscopa! see then was, the sentiments of Gregory on the important question of catholic supre- macy are worthy of our particular attention, inasmuch as * See the testimony born to his virtues even by Mr. Gibbon, though he feebly attempts to ridicule his piety on account of the superstition with which it was undoubtedly alloyed. (Hist, of Decline and Fall, Vol. viii. p. 168, 169.) It may not be improper here to observe, that much real piety may subsist, both along with the luHl-ivorship of supcntitioii, provided it grow not to such a height as utterly to «.'hoke the good seed of the word ; and along with the eccentric reveries of enthusiasm, provided they do not exchange their harmlessly ridiculous cast of countenance for fhe Satyr's mask of avowed licentiousness and open profaneness. But the co-ex- istence of religion and infidelity is impossible : a religious irfdd is a contradiction m •lertns. 167 they differ so very essentially from those of his successors. " 1 speak it confidently," says he, " that, whosoever call- eth himself universal bishop^ or desireth to be so called, in the pride of his heart he doth forerun Antichrist. ^^* Accordingly, when the Bishop of Constantinople accept- ed this presumptuous title, which in his case was a mere title never acted upon, the observation made by Gregory respecting it was, " By this pride of his what thing else is signified, but that the time of Antichrist is now at hand !"f Respecting the introduction of images inio churches, which proved at length the fruitful source of popish demonolatr}', Gregory's conduct shews indeed, that his judgment in that particular was erroneous ; but effectually demonstrates nevertheless, that he expressly reprobated the idolatrous veneration of saints and angels. Serenus of Marseilles, finding that some of the people had begun to adore the images which were originally placed in the churches merely as memorials, very wisely broke them in pieces : but this laudable action of his gave so much offence to the superstitious part of his con- gregation, that many of them withdrew from his com- munion. Gregory, hearing of the unhappy dissension, wrote to Serenus, advising him to conciliate the affections of his people by permitting them to retain their images, which might (he observed) be considered as a sort of in- structive books for the illiterate ; but, at the same time, along with this permission to caution them most serious- ly against paying the least adoration to them. Events have shewn, that the Bishop of Marseilles judged more wisely than Gregory : but it is evident, that image-ivor- * Ergo fidenter dico, quod quisquis se unlvsrsahm :a:srdot;m vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in elatione sua Antichristum prce currit. Lib. vi. Epist. 30. cited by Bp, Newton.) The accuracy of this declaratioo of Gregory is not unworthy of our notice. He does not say, that the person, who assumes the title of Uni'-jersal Bishop, is Antichrist himself , but only that he is the precursor of Antichrist. Gregory then conjectured, and he conjectured rightly, that the assumption of universal episcopacy was the leading badge of the commencement of the little horns tyranny : but, not attend- ing to the prediction that this tyranny should continue 1260 years, he fancied that the reign of Antichrist was close at hani Hence he both wrote, preached, and (we may add) lived, under the firm persuasion that the end of the world was fast ap- proaching. f Ex hac ejus superbia quid aliud, nisi propinqua jam esse Antichristi tempora, desifnatur ? Lib. iv. Epist. 34. cited by Bp, Neyrton. 168 ship had not in bis time been formally established by the authority of the Roman pontiff. Gregory was succeeded by Sabinianus, whose short pontificate was remarkable only for rapine and extortion, for a systematic grinding of the faces of the poor, and for mean abuse of the memory of his liberal predecessor. But, though the individual Sabinianus was a wicked man, the saints were not as yet formally delivered into the hand of t/ie iilfie korn^ nor was idolatry as yet openly established in the Church : consequently i/ie I960 days had not then commenced, nor had the Roman beast reviv- ed by publicly relapsing into the abominations of pa- ganism. Upon the death of Sabinianus, Boniface the third as- cended the papal throne, in the beginning of the year 606 : and one of his first acts, an act which took place in this very year 606, was to procure from the tyrannical usurper Phocas a grant of the title of Universal Bishop and Supreme Head of the Church ; the identical title, which Gregory only a few years before, and that in the lifetime of Boniface himself, had stigmatized as a badge of the precursor of Antichrist * * Bp. Newton's Dissert. — Milner's Eccles. Hist. — Bowyer's Lives of the Popes. — The account, which Cardinal Baronius gives of this grant, is interesting, because it tallies so exactly with the prophecy. In the spirit of a true Papist he maintains, that dejure the Pope was always the uni-uersal bishop, ■A.nA that Phocas did not so much confer upon him what he did not possess already, as sanction by his imperial authority the undoubted right of the Pope, thus constituting him universal bishop de facto as well as de jure. Now what is this, but, in the language of the prophet, g'-ymg the saints into his hand ; that is to say, decreeing him by imperial authority to be a spiritual sovereign over all Christians, or (as they are constantly termed in the New Testa- ment) saints ? " Anno Chrlsti 606 to, indictione nona, decimo quinto calendas Mar- tias, ex diacono Pontifex Romanus creatus est Bonifacius ejus nominis tertius. — Quo tempore intercesscrunt quajdam odiorum fomenta inter eumdem Phocam imperato- rem atque Cyriacum patriarcham Constantinopolitanum. — Hinc igitur in Gyriacum Phocas exacerbatus in ejus odium impcriali cdicto sancivit, nomen Universalis decere Romanam tantummodo ecclesiam, tanquam quse caput esset omnium ecclesiarum ; solique convenire Romano Pontilici, non autem episcopo Constantinopolitano qua sibi illud usurpare prssumeret. Quod quidem hunc Bonifacium Papam tertium ab jmpcratore Phoca obtinuisse, cum Anastasius bibliothecarius, tum Paulus Diaconus (De gest. Longobard. L. 4.) tradunt — Sed, quod ad Phoc-E edictum attinet, baud eo quidem ipse (quod garriunt novatores) hoc tribuit privilegium ecclesix Romanx, ut in catholica primatum ageret ; hunc enim jam ipsam habuisse, semperque exer- cuisse, ab ipso sui principio, non solum super omnes alios patriarchas orientales, sed et multo magls super omnium novissimum Constantinopolitanum, quam plurimis est superius locis latissime demonstratum : nee in eo fuit aliquando cum episcopis Con- stantinopolit*nis controversia, quippe qui numquam eumdem primatum in dubium revocaru.nt ; sed in eo tantimi, quod ipsi uuxjer tituhun sIbi iEit;n:ais>:i usurpasscnt 169 From ihs year then it seems most natural to date the 1260 days : for, when the Roman Bishop was appointed Supreme Head of the Churchy and when all the churches (quod Romanis Pontiflcibus cum ab aliis, turn ab ipsis CEcuminicis synodis,jure tri- butum vidimus), et reciamantibus licet iisdem Romanis Pontiflcibus, conservassent hactenus favore Mauritii imperatoris. Hanc igitur causam sententia sua Phocas de- cidens, earn adjudicavit Romano Pontifici, ut ipse solus, non etiam Ccnstantinopoli-* tanus, diceretur (Ecumenicus." Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 606. Some, I believe, have doubted whether such a grant vi^as ever made by Phocas ; but, as it appears to me, without much reason. We know how severely the title of Uni-versal Bishop was reprobated by Pope Gregory at the end of the sixth, and at the beginning of the seventh, century : we know likewise, that the title was borne not long afterwards by the Roman PontifF, and that it was formally confirmed to him by the second council of Nice in the year 787. Hence we are certain, that it cannot have been assumed very late in the seventh century. Now Baronius tells us, that it was assumed in the year 606, giving for his authorities Anastasius and Paulus Di- aconus ; the former of whom flourished in the ninth, and the latter in the eighth, century : and I can see no reason why we should refuse to credit an assertion, which places the assumption of the title about the very time when we must una-voidably sup- pose it to have been assumed. In short, if the account be nothing more than a for- gery, it is both one of the most unnecessary and one of the most ill-contrived for- geries that ever was executed : unnecessary, because the Pope had been solemnly declared Universal Bishop by the second council of Nice in the year 787 ; il!-con-» trived, because the wily defenders of the Papacy must have departed very far from their wonted subtlety to deduce falsely the grant in question from such an infamous monster as Phocas. Had it never been made by any emperor, and had they been disposed \.o forge it for the purpose of aggrandizing the Papacy, they would surely have pitched upon a more reputable patron than Phocas ; and would have ascribed it (as they did to Constantine, the original grant of St. Peter's patrimony) not to a raurderous usurper, but to some emperor, whose character stood high in the chris- tian world. On these grounds, I give credit to the assertions of Paulus Diaconus and Anastasius, neither of whom lived very long after the time when the grant is said to have been made : and probably on the same grounds, " the most learned writers, and those who are most remarkable for their know^ledge of antiquity," as it is observed by Mosheim, " are generally agreed," that the title of Universal Bishop was formally conferred by Phocas upon Boniface. Eccles. Hist. Vol. II. p. 169. The general agreement of various writers on this point, and the grounds whiclx the Romanists take, are well stated by Dr. Brett from Bp. Carlton's book of juris- diction, regal, episcopal, and papal, cap. vi. p. 82, 83. " Phocas," says he, " fixed Boniface, the third Pope of that name, in that universal pastorship, which the Ro- man see claims and exercises over the other sees of Christendom at this day : and this, as Baronius and Estius, so these following historians assert. — I will begin with Paulus Diaconus, who saith, Phocas statuit sedem ecclesi^ Romance ut caput et omnium ec-^ elesiarum. Abbas Usburgensis says the same : to wit, that Phocas ordained, that the see of the Roman apostolical church should be the head of all churches. Platina says, that Boniface III. agrees with them herein, though he declares it in different words ; Bonifacius obtinuit a Phcca, ut scdes beaii apostoli, qua est caput omnium ecclesiarum, ita di- eeretur et haberetur ab omnibus. Blondus saith, Phocas antistitem Romanum principem epis- coporum omnium constituit. And Nauclerus saith, Phocas ad tini-versum orbem, dimissa sanctione, constituit, ut Romanie ecclesia, Romanoque Pontifici, cmnes urbes ecclesite obedirent. And now our Romanists believe, as others have declared before them, that the Ro- man chair had this primacy by divine right, antecedent to Phocas's decree, by which he only engaged to make it law in the empire." (Independent power of the Church not Romish, p. 268, 269, 270.) This opinion, which (as I have already observed) exactly accords with the prediction, that the Roman beast should deliver the saints or Christians into the hand of his little horn, is thus stated by Estius the schoolman. Nee aliud a Phoca imfeiatore impetra-uit Bonifacius tertius, quam ut cathedra Romana pr\- YOL. I. 22 170 were declared to be subject to him in spirituals, tlie saints were undoubtedly delivered into his hand. Hitherto they had not been necessarily or universally subject to him ; henceforth his merciless tyranny armed the secular power against them, and pursued them with implacable animosity to the very ends of the earth. I mean not in- deed to say, that he immediately began to exercise this unchristian authority ; but now ii certainly was, that the sahits were delivered into his hand, and placed under his control. In order, as it were, more decidedly to shew that at this eventful era the 126u daijs commenced, and the Ro- man beast revived, scarcely had a year elapsed from the establishment of this sacerdotal empire, when the very idolatry, which had so lately been opposed by the zeal of Serenus and censured by the piety of Gregory, was publicly authorized by the sovereign pontiff. The an- cient Pantheon, formerly the general sink of all the abom- inations of paganism, was now restored, though under a different name, to its original destination.* The medi- atory demons of corrupted Christianity occupied the va- cant places of the mediatory demons of the gentiles ; and, instead of Jupiter and his kindred deities, the virgin- mother of Christ and all his martyred saints receive the blind adoration of the revived ien-horned beast. ■\ The KlatutK, qui el jure drolrto co;npctcbaty Imperldll potentate tiieretur contra prtssumpilonem Eph-^ cnpi Constant inopolitani, qui je palani in suis Uteris Universalem Episcopum scribebat. (Comment, in senten. L. iv. § 9. Tom. iv. Pars Post, cited by Brett, p. 264.) Pro- testants have frequently urged to Papists the disgraceful manner in whicli this grant was made : but they never, on that account, ventured to exchange their patron- Phocas for one that would have done them more credit. Thus, when Illyricus maintained against Bellarmine.that Antichrist was born, when Phocas, in the year 606, granted to the Roman PontifF, that he should be called t'je head of the ivhole church ; the Cardinal readily allowed the truth of the premises, but denied the validity of the conclusion. See Brightman. cont. Bellarm. de Antichris. Cap. 3. Fol. 297. * " Annus Christi 607 cceptus est ab indictione 10 ma. Quo Bonifacius — ex pres- bytero ordinatus est, ejus nominis quartus, Pnntifex Romanus die 1 8 va Sept. — A Phoca Augusto impetravit Pantheon, — Jovi vindici consecratum, quod adhuc intac- f um remanserat a demolientibus damonum sedes Romanis Christianis : illudque ex- purgatum ab antiqu.ns sordibus idololatrise, in honorem Dei-genetricis Maris et om- nium sanctorum martyrum consecravit. Narrat hac Anastasius ; quorum etiam meminit Beda." Baron. Annal. Eccles. a. d. 607. f Dr. Macleane, in the chronological table affixed to Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, describes this event in the following words : " Here (in the Pantheon) Cybele was succeeded by the Virgin Mary, and the Pagan deities by Christian martyrs. Idolatry still subsisted : but the objects of it were changed. 171 fix)hj city was now trodden under foot by a new race of gentiles, differing from their pagan predecessors in name rather than in nature ; and the zvitnesses began to proph- esy in sackcloth during the long period of 1260 tjeurs, the same period in short as that during which the saints were given into the hand of the little horn* Not but that the Apostacij, as 1 have already observed, had long since individually commenced. The forbidding to marry ^ the abstaining from meats^ the excessive vcne- ration of supposed mediatory saints and angels^ began to creep into the Church even in the fourth century : but no date can be affixed to individual criminality. -j- In the strictly chronological prophecies of Daniel and St. John, periods of years are always computed from some specific and definite action either of a community or of the head of a community ; not from the unauthorized deeds of individuals, the commission of the first of which deeds can only be known with absolute certainty by God him- self. Hence we find, that in the unchronological proph- ecy of St. Paulij: some of the leading features of the Apos- iacy are marked out in general terras, the prophecy itself affecting every individual to whom the description ap- plies : while, in the chronological prophecies of Daniel and St. John relative to the same Apostacy^ since the di- vine wisdom thought proper to specify a certain term of years for the tyrannical reign of the man of sin, it was necessary to date those years not from general acts of individual criminality, but from some overt and conspi- cuous act of the head of a comtnunity, of the man of sin himself This act is determined to be the delivering of the saints of God into the hand of the little horn, the commencement of the treading of the holif city or the Church underfoot by the new gentile members of the re- vived beast ^ and the beginning of the faithful witnesses to prophesy in sackcloth. Now it will be difficult to pitch upon any era for the date of this sufficiently conspicuous act except the year 606 .• for in this and in the following * Rev. xi. 2, 3. f During this period, the Roman beast may be considered as gradually rising out of thi sea, and as coming to life again. ^ 1 Tim, iv, 1,2, 3, 7, 8, 172 year, the saints were formally given into the hand of //?<» little horn ; and the Apostacy of individuals became the embodied and established Apostacy of a spiritual catholic empire over which the man of sin presided. When « spiritual universal tyrant then was set up in the Churchy and when idolatry was (immediately upon his being thus set up) openly authorized and established by him ; the afflicted woman the true Church seems to have fled into the loilderness from the pollution of the holy city by the new gentilism of Popery, and the zcit- nesses appear to have begun to prophesy in sackcloth. Not that an incessant persecution was to be carried on against them throughout the whole term of the 1260 years ; but that the}^ should continue so long to prophe- sy in sackcloth, or, in other words, to profess the funda- mental truths of the Gospel in a depressed and afflicted state. Accordingly, as Bp. Newton well observes, and afterwards satisfactorily proves, " there have constantly been such zvitnesses from the seventh century" (the cen- tury in which the Apostacy^ considered as the open act of a community under its proper head^ commenced) " down to the Reformation, during the most flourishing period of Popery." Thus it appears, that the tyrannical reign oi the fourth beast's little horn, and consequently the prophetic period of 1260 days, are most probably to be dated from the year 606, and will therefore, upon such a supposition, terminate in the year 1866. Let us next turn towards the East, and see whether vre cannot discover, in this same year 606, any marks of the rise of that transgres- sion of desolation, which is so closely connected with the little horn of the he-goat, and which is to continue dur- ing the same period of 1260 days. In the East, the year 606 beheld the crafty impostor Mohammed retire to the cave of Hera to consult the spirit of fraud and enthusiasm, and to fabricate that false religion, which soon after darkened the whole oriental world.* Having fully digested his plan in the solitude * The coincidence of the rise of Mohammedism, and the commencement of Popery properly so called, is thus stated by Mr. Whitaker. " Daniel states the rise of Moham- med as te t^ke place when the trangreasojs are come to the full. St. Paul says, that 173 of the desert, he began at first only privately to preacH his heterogeneous system of theology about the year 60S' or 609. Mecca was the theatre of his first labours ; and his earliest converts were his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend. At length, by the persuasion of Abube- ker. ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca vi'ere introduced to the private lessons of the Islam ; the proph- et persevered ten years in the now more public exercise of his mission ; and the religion, which has since over- spread so large a portion of the globe, advanced with a slow and painful progress within the walls of his native town.* Here then we behold the desolating abomination con- nected with the he-goafs little hum springing up at the very time when we were taught by prophecy to ex- pect that it would spring up, namely at the heginning of the \^60 days. Small as it was at first, it soon waxed exceeding great ; and, in a very short space of time suc- ceeded in completely polluting the spiritual sanctuary of the eastern church. The exact resemblance between this desolating transgression and the religion of Moham- med^ in all other respects as well as in their chronolog- ical correspondence with each other, shall presently be shewn : 1 shall first however try to ascertain the period, from which the 2200, 2300, or 2400, days^ mentioned in the prophecy of the ram and the he-goat are to be dated ; and, li that can be in a measure ascertained, the proper reading of the number will be ascertained likewise. Although it certainly is a matter of doubt from what precise'era this period ought to be dated, and although (as Bp. Newton justly observes) the event alone can the delusion of the man of sin shall be sent as a punishment, because men believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness ; where surely the same period {that in which the sins of the people call for judgment) is characterized for the rise of these iivo poiuers. Now St. John ascribes to each of them the same duration, and speaks of the time of their end as the same, and consequently in his account they must begin at the same time ; in exact correspondence with each of the separate declarations of the two former writers. Such coincidences in prophecy, of which the holy pen- men themselves do not seem aware, prove, like the same in history, that the writers drew originally from one source, with this only difference, that in the former case their information must have more than a human origin, even the operation of that self-same spirit, who divideth to every man severally as he will." General View of Proph. p. 95, 96, 97. * Prideaux's Life of Mohammed p. 16—49— Hist, of Decline and Fall Vol. 9. p. 28p— 285. 174 positivehj determine the point, it seems to me most nat- ural to compute it from sometime or anotlier during the &ettled existence of the Persian empire. The prophet represents the two-horned Medo-Persian ram^ not as ris- ing J^rom the sea, but as standing by his river : in other words, he does not speak of the origin oi the united mon- archy, which is a fixed determinate period ; but of some period, which he does not specify, in the course of its regular and settled government j^ Now the Medo-Per- sian ram rose out of the political sea of nations in the year A. C. 536", when the two kingdoms of Media and Persia, the tzco horns of the ram, were united under the single government of Cyrus ; whence that year is termed the first year of Cyrus :■!• but he continued standing up- on the bank of his symbolical river, till the he-goat " smote him, and brake his two horns, and cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him." This happened, in the year A. C. 330, when the unfortunate Darius, after the last decisive battle of Gaugamela, was basely murdered by Bessus, and the Persian empire thus completely extinguished. The ram therefore con- tinued standing from the year A. C. 5S6 to the year A. C. 330 : but he continued standing undisturbed only till the year A. C. 33\, when the Macedonian he-goat began to smite him by invading his territories, and by gaining his first victory over him at the River Granicus.:}: If then we ought to seek the date of the vision during the standing of the ram, or the settled existence of the Per- sian empire, it will be found somewhere between the * The rmn, or, as lie is termed in the former 11/sion, the hear, is said, in the prophetic language, to arise out of the sea ; to denote the rise of the Persian empire amidst wars and tumults : but, when Daniel beheld him in his present •vision, he was standing by the river ; to denote, that the Persian empire had already arisen, and was then standing in a tranquil, regular, and firmly established, state. (See the preceding re- marks upon the tivo symbols oi the jfa, and a rmer, in the ^d chapter of the present tvori.) To file out of the sea, and to stand upon the banh of a ri'ver, certainly denote, according to the analogy and precision of sjanbolical language, ttvo -very different states of an em- pire, the one posterior to the other. The river Ulai, near the palace Shushan, is here used as a symbol of the Persian monarchy, in the same manner as the apocalyptic Eu- phrates represents the Turkish empire. Rev. ix. 1 4. and xvi. 1 2. f Anno A. C. 536, Cyrus, Cambyse patre in Persia et Cyaxare socero in Media vita functis, Orientis monarchia potitus est : a qua et aqxP'^ illius annos septem, m 8^. Tca.iSim; ipsius dinumerat Xenophon ; et primum illius annum, ex ipsis Medoruic et Persarum archivis, sacra deducit Scriptura. Usser. Annal. p. H6. \ Usser Annal. p. 285, 286, 312, 321, 323, 32*. 17^^ fiear A. C. 536^ when the ram began to stand, and the year A. C. 330, when he zvas completely overthrown * Now, if I be right in dating the 1260 days from the year 606, the year in which the Mohammedan abomina- tion of desolation commenced, the year in which the Ro- man beast revived, the year in which the saints vv^ere giv- en into the hand of the papal little horn ; the 1260 days will expire in the year 1866. These 1260 days, as we have already seen, synchronize with the last 1260 days of Me 2200, 2300, or 2400, days, whichever of these numbers be the proper reading ; because, as we are ex- pressly informed by the two interpreting angels, the 2200, 3300, or 2-iOO, days, and the 1260 days, both equally bring us down to the time of the end, and consequently terminate together. This being the case, we have only to compute backward 2200, 2300, and 2400, years from the year of our Lord 1866 ; and, according to the epochs to which they respectively lead us, we shall be able to decide with some degree of probability zohich of those three numbers is the true reading, and consequently from ■what era we are to date the vision of the ram and the he- goat. If then we compute backward 2200 years from the year of our Lord 1866, we shall arrive at the year A. C. 334 : if 2300 years from the same period, at the year A. C. 434 : and if lastly 2400 ijears, at the year A. C. .534. All these three dates, namely the years A. C. 334, 434, and 534, fall within the period, during which the ram continued stajiding upon the ba^ih of his riter ; for he stood there, as we have seen, from the first year of Cyrus or the year A. C. 536, to the murder of Darius in the year A. C. 330 when the Persian monarchy was dissolv- ed : we must be guided therefore by circumstances in making our choice among them. The year A. C. 534, * The Persian monarchy is not reckoned to have ended till the death of Darius ; so long therefore t/je ram maybe considered as standing : for ahhough the he-goat be- gan to « smite" him in the year A. C. 334, he had not finally " cast him down to the ground" till the year A. C. 3S0. Hence Abp. Usher observes from Justin, that Darius was seized by Bessus in Thara or Dara, a town of the Parthians, as if it had happened by a kind of fatality, that the empire of the Persian! should end in the land of those, who were destined hereafter to be their successors. Fato quodam factum hoc fuisse, ut in terra eorum, qui successuri imperio erant, Persarum ngnumfniretur. Usser. Annal. p. 321. 176 to which we are led by adopting the reading of the Sev- entif or 2400 duifs^ is the third year of Cyrus ; a year, in in which nothing very remarkable happened, and from which therefore we can scarcely suppose the vision to be dated.* The year A. C. 434, to which we are led by adopting the reading of the Hebrew or 2300 daifs^ is e- qually devoid of any striking incident that peculiarly af- fected the empire of tlie ram; from this year therefore we can with as little reason suppose the vision to be dat- ed as from the former year. But the year A. C. 334, to which we are led by adopting the reading mentioned by Jerome or 2200 daifs^ is big with events most materially important to the Persian monarchy : for, in this very year, the Macedonian he-goat " came from the West on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground ;" in this very year, he first " ran unto the ram in the tury of his power," and smote him upon the banks of the riv- er Granicus:-|- hence I cannot refrain from thinking it most probable, that the year A. C. 334, in which the he- goat began to attack the ram as he was standing in the hitherto undisputed possession of his authority, is the real date of the vision ; and consequently that the num* her 2200 is the true reading.;}: *"' It was in this year that Daniel saw the vision with which his book concludes : but it seems harsh, merely on that account, to date from it X.\\e present vision, which he saw in the tliird year of Belshazzar, or in the year A. C. 55S. Had he seen them b'iib in the third year of Cyrus, I should have thought the year A. C. 534 a probable date. f Alexander, says Dean Prideaux, " flew with victory swifter than others can travel, often with liis horse pursuing his enemies upon the spur whole days and nights, and sometimes making long marciies for several days one after the other, as once he did in pui-?uit of Darius of near fortv miles a day for eleven days together. So that by the speed of liis marches he came upon liis enemy before they were aware of him, and conquered them before they could be in a posture to resist him. Which exactly agrceth with the description given of him in the prophecies of Daniel some ages be- fore, he being in them set forth under the similitude ol a panther or leopard ivith four •wings : for he was impetuous and fierce in liis warlike expeditions, as a panther after its prey ; and came on upon his enemies with that speed, as if he flew with a double pair of wings. And to tliis purpose he is in another place of those prophecies com- pared to a bc-goat coming from the West with tliat swiftness upon the king of Media and Persia, that he seemed as if his feet did not touch the ground. And his actions, as well in this comparison as in the former, fully verified the prophecy." (Cited by Bp. Newton.) So astonishingly rapid indeed was the progress of Alexander, that, bet^vecn the years A. C. 334 and 330, he began and completed the conquest of the whole Persian empire. \ It is rather a curious circumstance, tliat this -very year, to wliich I have been led by calculation, is one of the three years, which Bp. Newton conjectured to afford pro- table dates for the comraencemciit of the period of 2000, L'20O, of £400, years. See Dissert, xv. 177 The sum of what has been said respecting the date of the 1260 ^^/.s amounts then to this. Since the deso- lating transgression of Mohammedism is to flourish 1260 years, since I he saints are to be delivered into the hand of the papal little horn for the space of 1260 years, since the Roman heast is to practise prosperously in his revived state during the same space of 42 prophetic tnonths, and since the two horns and the beast are all to perish together at the time of the end, which commences at the termination of the \260 t/ears ; it seems necessarily to follow that the date of those years can only be an era marked by the following triple coincidence : — the rise of the desolating transgression of Mohammedism : — the commencement of the papal little liorn^s spiritual universal empire ; — and the revival of the Roman beast by confer- ring upon his little horn that spiritual universal empire^ or, in the language of prophecy, by giving the saints into his hand. If therefore we pitch upon any era not mark- ed by this triple coincidence, we shall have reason to suspect that it cannot be the true date of the \Q60 years ; because, since the 1260 years of Mohammedism, the 1260 years of the papal horn, and Me 1260 years o( the revived Roman beast, all apparently terminate together at the time of the end, they must in that case all necessarily be- gin together. This hovvever is not the only test which the prophet has given us to ascertain the true date of Me \2bO years. He has checked (if I may use the expression) this peri- od by another larger period, which comprehends it, and which terminates along with it. This larger period is stated by three different readings to be 2200, 2300, or 2400 If ears. Thus it appears, that, after we have discovered an era for the date o{ the 1260 years marked by the triple coin- cidence of t/?e i^ise of Mohammedism, the giving up of the saints into the hand of the papal little horn, and the revival of the Roman beast bii thus giving up the saints : we must next examine, whether a computation deduced from this era will make the larger period of 2200, 2J00, or 2400, years, and the smaller period of \260 years., rightly correspond together. This must be done by first VOL. I. 2.3 178 computing forwards 1260 y«?«r* from the date which we have pitched upon, aud afterwards by computing back- war^is 2200, 2300, ««f/2400, years from the era to which the first computation brought us down : for, since this era is eqcmlly the supposed termination of both the pe- riods, it is evident, that, if we compute backwards from it the number of years which compose the larger period, we shall arrive at the beginning of that period. Three different numbers of years however are assigned by three ditF'^rent readings to the larger period. If then the sec- ond computation backwards from the era, to which the first computation forwards brought us down, bring us, through the medium of any one of the three numbers mentioned by the three different readings, to an era from which the vision o\ the ram and the he-goat may be rea- sonably dated ; we shall have attained to a very high de- gree of probability, both that that reading is the true one, and that we have pitched upon the right date of the 1260 years^ because the two periods, larger and smaller, are found upon trial exactly to check each other. But if, on the contrary, the second computation backwards from the era, to which the first computation forwards brought us down, does not bring us, through the medium of any one of the three numbers mentioned by the three differ- ent readings, to an era from which the vision of the ram and the he-goat may be reasonably dated ; we may then be morally certain, that we hd.venot pitched upon the right date o{ the 1260 ycars^ because the two periods, larger and smaller, are wo/ found upon trial to check e2Lch other. Now 1 am strongly inclined to believe, that the year of our Lord 606 is the only era which answers to both these tests. It was in this year that the Mohammedan abomination of desolation was set up ; and it was in this year that the Roman beast revived by giving the saints into the hand o^ the little papal horn. Moreover, if we first compute forwards from this era 1260 years, we shall arrive ^t the year 1866, the supposed termination both of the larger and the smaller period ; and, if we next compute backwards 2200 years from the year 1866 in order to arrive at the con)mencement of the larger peri- od, the computation will bring us to the year A^ C. 334, 179 which is one of the most probable dates that could have been assigned even a priori to the larger period, for it was in this very year that tJie he-goat began to smite the i'wn as he was standing upon the bank of his river. The propriety of fixing upon the year 006 as the date oi the 1260 years will be yet further manifest, if it be shewn that, to all appearance at least, no other era what- soever can answer to the tests furnished by the prophet. Mr. JNlede supposes, that the 1260 years ought to be dated from the year 455 or 4o6, when the power of Rome was completely broken by the Vandals though the name of Emperor was yet continued.* independent however of this opinion's having been confuted by the event, f the erroneousness of it might easily have been detected even when it was first advanced. The year A56 was neither marked by the rise of any poner whi<-h answers to the description oi the desolating transgression connected zcith the he-gout's little horn., nor by any for- mal giving up of the saints into the hand of the papal horn ; nor yet, when it is checked by the larger period, according to any one of its three readings, will it bring us to an era from which the vision of the ram and the /^e- goat can be reasonably dated. Bp. Newton seems to hesitate between the ijcar 727, when the Pope and the Momans finall}' broke their connection with the Eastern E,mperor ; the year 7o5, when the Pope obtained //ze Exarchate oy Ravenna ; the year 77 i, when he acquired by the assistance of Charlemagne the greatest part of the kingdom of Lombardy ; and the year 7S7, when the ■worship of images was fully established, and the supre- macy of the Pope acknowledged by the second council of Nice : of these difTerent dates however he is inclined to prefer the first. :J: Now, upon examination, not one * At least he seems to hesitate between ibis year, and the years S65 and 410. He was induced to look to so early a period from an idea, that, as soon as he that leited was taken out of the way, the man of sin should immediately be revealed. St Paul however does not specify any precise time. He only intimates, in, general terms, that that Wicked One should not make his appearance till after the remo\'al of him. ibat letted. See Apostacy of latter times Part. I. Chap. 13, 14. f lithe \2^Q years be dated from the year 456, they will expire in the year 17Iff. That year however has certainly not been " the time of the end." Both the little horns are still in existence, and the Jckfs are yet scattered over the face of the earth. \ Up. Newton's Dissert, xxvi. 3. of them willbe found to answer to the tests furnished by the prophet. In none of these years, except the last, were the saints given into the hand of the papal horn ; and, as for the acknowledgment made by the council of Nice, it was only a repetition of the grant already made by the sixth head of the beast : in none of them did amj abomination oj" desolation connected with the little horn of the he-goat arise : and none of them will bear to be checked by the larger number according to any one of its three readings. There is yet another date fixed upon by Mr. Mann, which prima facie was more probable than any of the preceding ones. About the year 535 or 534,* the Emperor Justinian declared the l^ope to be the head of all the churches : whence it seemed not un- likely, that the 1260 i/ears ought to be dated from that era.-)* This opinion however, like that of Mr. Mede, has both been confuted by the event,^ and might have * Mr. Sharpe asserts, that this happened in the year 540. (Append, to three Tracts on the Hebrew pronunciation p. 30.) Exactly the same objections apply to this year as to either of the others. f See Bp. Newton's Dissert, on Rev. xiii. ^ If we compute tbe 1 260 years from the year 533 or 534 we shall arrive at tie year 1793 or 1794, when neither the series of events (Dan. xi. 40 — 45. Rev. xvi. 17 — 21. xviii. xix.) which terminate in the destruction of i'o/'f>;y and Mohammedism had commenced, and when the restoration of the Jeivs was still future. The remark- able events, which lately took place in the year 1798, led many to suppose, that Popery was then overthrown, and consequently that the 1260 days must be expired. Hence Dr. Valpy and Mr. King named the year 538 as the era from which that period ought to be dated. Much the same opinion was entertained by the Arch- deacon of Northumberland and Archdeacon Daubeny. I need not therefore be ashamed to mention, that I also had once adopted a similar opinion. Our error arose from not suiEciently attending lo the general tenor of prophecy. The expi- ration of the 1 260 years is to usher in, not only //>/. dntimjall of Popery., but likewise ihe subversion of Moharnmcd'sm, the oi'irthoiv of the Irfdel tyrant, and the commencement cf the restoration of the fezi's. These events moreover, or at least the greater part of them, are to take place in Pelestine, not in Europe. Hence it is manifest, that the 1260 years have not yet expired. I cannot refrain from transcribing the judicious remarks of Dr. Zouch upon this subject. " Though the reduction of Rome in 1 798, and the consequent subversion of the papal power in that city, have been declared to be events which determine the final accomplishment of the prophecies relative to the fall of .Ajitichrist, it should be remembered that similar events have occurred in former times. Rome has been frequently taken and plundered by a foreign enemy ; and perhaps the late conquest of it was attended with less atrocious acts of rapiRe and horror, than those which history records, as the dreadful concomitants pf its former subjugations. The historian thus describes the enormities committed at Rome, when it was laid waste in 1527. Quanta fuerit militum Crmanorum ac His- panorum atrocitas et I'iolentia Roma, •verbis explicari "vix potest. Nam pmtcr horrendas la- nienas, direptiones , libidines, de-vastationes, contumelia ac tiidihrii genus nullum in Pontifceni Cardi'ialesqae reliquamque turbam pratermissum fuit." (Preface to Zouch on Pro- phecy.) When Dr. Zouch wrote, Cardinal Chiaromonte had been elected Pope in 181 been confuted before the event. Mr. Mannas assertioa I do not contradict, but 1 doubt whether he has not ocieatlv mistaken the nature of Justinian's 2:rant. Pho- cas declared the Pope to be at once head of all the churches which is a title of dignity, and sole universal bishop which is a title of authority : whereas Justinian conferred upon him only the first of these titles, styling" at the very same time the patriarch of Constantinople head of all other churches.^ A comparison is accord- ingly drawn very judiciously by Brightman between the grant of Justinian and the grant of Fhocas : in which he states, that the former only gave the Pope precedence over all other bishops, and did not, like the latter exclu- sively^ constitute him Universal Bishop.'\ Upon exam- ining the passage in the Novellce to which he refers, I find him perfectly a'-curate. The Emperor is simply laying down the precedency of the diiferent patriarchs and prelates thrnnghout his dominions. Of these, the patriarchs come first ; next, the archbishops ; and last, the bishops : and, of the patriarchs, the first place is as- signed to Rome ; and the second, to Constantinople. J Thus it appears, that the supposed grant of universal epis- copacij dwindles into a mere question cy^ empty preceden- cy. Indeed had Gregory himself borne the title of Uni- versal Bishop, or had it been generally borne by his pre- decessors, he could not, in common decency, have cen- the year 1800, but had not yet been enthroned at Rome: we have since beheld Popery formally reestablished in France, and a compact entered into between the present usurper of the throne of the Bourbons and the sovereign pontiff. * " Omnium aliarum caput." This plainly shews, that in the mind of Justinian both the titles were mere titles. Head of all the cburcbes, and Head of all the ether fburches, remind one of Primate of all England, and Primate cf England. The tWO first as little confer uni-versal episcopacy in the Roman empire, as the two last do in our own country. Nay even the title of Ecumenical seems to have been borne both by the patriarch of Constantinople and by the other eastern patriarchs ; and con- sequently, when borne by more than one^ was a mere title. Phocas was the first, who gave it exclusi-vely to the Pope, and forbad all other prelates to assume it. f " Anno 606 to, — hie (Phocas) Bonifacio III. concessit, ut Romanis Uni-versalU Episcopus haberetur : non solum ut ordine ac honore rehquos antecederet, uti decrevit Justinianus primatum sacrarum synodorum definiens, sed cuitotus orbis sua disecesis foret." Apoc. Apoc. Fol. 205. i " Sancimus, secundum earum (sciL sacrarum synodorum) definitiones, sanctis- simum senioris Romse Papam primum esse omnium sacerdotum : beatissimum autera archiepiscopum Constantinopoleos novae Romae secundum habere locum post sanc- tam apostolicam senioris Romae sedem : aliis autem omnibus sedibus prseponatur."' Justin. Novell. Tifc 14. Copstitut. cxjyd, Cap, 2. 182 sured his Byzantine brother as the precursor of Anli- christ for assuming it. In addition to this reason, the prophetic tests afford the same insurmountable objection to the date proposed by Mr. Mann as they have already afforded to those proposed by Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton. No desolating transgression connected with the little horn of the he-horn arose in the years 533 and 53\\ nor will either of those years bear to be checked by any of the numbers which the different readings assign to the larg- er period. It is somewhat remarkable, that, although Bp. Newton acknowledges that " the religion of Mohani' med will prevail in the East for as long a period of time ■as the ti/rannij of the little horn in the West," and al- though he is struck with the wonderful coincidence of *' Mohammed's having first contrived his imposture in the year 606, the very same year wherein the tyrant Phocas made a grant of the supremacy to the Pope ;" yet he is unwilling to date the 1260 i/ears from that era, merely because the Pope did not attain to the height of his tem- poral dominion till the eighth centnrij.* The saints how- ever were given into his hand, not surely by the grant of the Exarchate and the kingdom of Lombard y which in itself conveys not an atom of catholic spiritual poicer in the Churchy but by constituting him supreme in ecclesi- astical matters by making him a Bishop of all other Sishops : and the prophet expressly informs us, that the 1260 ijears are to be dated from the era, when the saints were thus given into his hand. I * Dissert, xvii. " A time timis and a half ixs three prophetic years and a half ; and three prophetic years and a half are 1260 prophetic days ; and 1260 prophetic days are \2C)Qi years. The same time therefore is prefixed for the desolation and oppression of the eastern church, as for the tyranny of the little horn in the luestern church : and it is wonderfully remarkable, that the doctrine of Mohammed was first forged at Mecca, and the supremacy of the Pope was established by virtue of a grant from the wicked tyrant Phocas, intlie very same year of Christ 606." Ibid, f Mr. Bicheno has proposed a scheme difTering both from mine, and from those of all the preceding authors, — He supposes, that the 1 260 years are to be computed from the year 529, when the code of Justinian, which he styles the strong hold of cler- ical tyranny, Was first published. They terminated consequently in the year 1789, when the French revolution took place. — To the 1 260 years thus commencing he adds 50 years, in order to complete Daniel's 1290 years. This second operation brings us down to the year 1819 ; at which period he conceives that the antichristian poivers (against whom the judgments of God began to go forth at the close of the 1 260 years in the year 1789) will be finally broken, and that the restoration of the Ji^vs will commence.-^From the year 1819, when the sanctuary wi]l be completely cleansed, by 183 The result of the whole is, that, since the year 606 is the only era which perfectly answers to the prophetic the overthrow of the Papacy which he assumes to be the desolating transgression men- tioned in Dan. viii. 13. and xii. 11, he next computes backwards 2300 years, m order to arrive at the beginning of the vision of the ram and the he-goat. This third opera- tion brings us to the year A. C. 481 ; at which period Xerxes set out to invade Greece, for Mr. Bicheno supposes that the wars of that prince are foretold in Dan. viii. 4, 20.— Lastly to the 1 290 years, terminating in the year 1819, he adds 45 years, m order to complete Daniel's 1335 ^fi^rj-. This final operation brings us down to the year 1864 ; when the restoration of the Jezvs (to which he assigns the space of 45 years) will be completed, and when the distant heathen nations will be converted to Christianity. (Signs of the times Part I. p. 52 — 61.) J feel some degree of unwillingness to urge any objections against this scheme of Mr. Bicheno ; because so fery short a space of time, about 13 years only, will either practically demonstrate it to be right (at least so far as the restoration of the Je-ws is concerned,) or effectually j>reclude the necessity of any verbal confutation. With my present views of the subject, it certainly appears xo me erroneous in every point ; and it is my firm behef that the rapidly approaching jf^r 1819 will prove it to be so. — ^Jirst object to the era, from which the 1 260 years are computed. The fustinian code, says Mr. Bicheno, granted vast potvers and privileges to the clergy, and perfected thl union betiveen things civil and ecclesiastical. All this may be very true : but how^ can a grant of privileges to the clergy in general, both in the east and in the ivest, be a delivering of the saints into the hand of the papal horn in particular, -whose jurisdiction zvas confined to the patriarchate of the IVest ? Mr. BichenO replies, If fustinian did not declare the Pope- head of all the churches in the year 529, he certainly did as early as the year 534. Now, even supposing that Justinian had conferred the power of Universal Episcopacy upoa the Pope, which he certainly did not for he granted him nothing more than an empty precedence over all the other patriarclis, what has this to do with the date which Mr. Bicheno has chosen ? If the 1260 years be computed from the year 534, they carry us beyond the year 1789 ; and an error of fve years as effectually invalidates a nu- merical calculation as an error oi fve centuries: if they be not computed from the year 534, but from the year 529, they will no doubt bring us exactly to /i5f ^(»ar 1789; but, in that case, what can an event which happened in the year 534 have to do with a date which is declared to be the year 529 f — I next object to the supposed termina- tion of the 1 260 years. Though I think Mr. Bicheno perfectly right in supposing that the judgments of God v.'ill begin to go forth against his enemies at the end of the 1260 years, and that 30 years will elapse before those enemies are fnally destroyed ; 1 believe him to be quite mistaken in assigning the termination of those 30 years as the proper date of the commencement of the restoration cf the feivs. Daniel plainly teaches us, that the Jczvs will begin to be restored, not at the end cf the 30 years, but at the beginning of them ; that is to say, not at the end of the 1290 years, but at the end of the three times and a half or the 1 260 years, (Dan. xii. 6, 7.) Accordingly, after hav- ing described the expedition and overthrow of the king zvho magnifed himself above every god 2.S taking place at the time of the end or at the termination of the 1260 years, he adds that at that same time the nation of the Jeivs should be delivered. (Dan. xi. 40 — 45. xii. 1.) What probably led Mr. Bicheno into his mistake was his referring the expression at that time (xii. 1.) to the overthroiv of the king (xi. 45.) instead of re- ferring it (as he ought to have done) to the beginning of the king's expedition or the com- niencement of the time of the end. (xi. 40.) That the latter reference is the proper one, is manifest both from the subsequent declaration of Daniel (xii. 6, 7.) and from the unvarying tenor cf all the prophecies which speak of the restoration of the Jews, They unanimously represent tliem as being opposed in their own land, and even Ijesieged in their own capital city, by the antichristian confederacy : hence it is plain, that their restoration must have commenced, not contemporaneously with the overthrow of that confederacy, but some time previous to its overthrov,' ; otherwise how can the various matters, which are predicted respecting them, receive their accomplishment ? Hoiv long indeed before this overthrow their restoration will commence, the unchro- ndogical prophets jio where tell us ; but Daniel, as we have seen, amplv makes up tS4 tests, there is at least a venj hlg;h degree of prohahility that it is the true date of the commence. uenf of the 12 »0 dai/s* In this year, the saints were given mro the hand their deficiency by informing us, that they will begin to be delivered at t/je time of the end or at the close of the \ 260 years, when all the predictions relative to the v/on- derful events comprehended within the three times and a half &h.?i\\ have been xuliiiled. On these grounds we may safely, I think, conclude, that the 1260 years did not expire in the year 1789, because the yetcs did not then begin to be restored: and, even if their restoration should commence in the year 1819 as Mr. Bicheno expects, »uch an event would be no demonstration of the rest of his system ; on the contra- ry, it would confute it, because it would prove that the 1260 years, instead of expir- ing in the year 1789, expired in the year 1819. — I thirdly object to his computing the 1290 years and the 1335 years from the year 529, on the ground that the abomination of desolation, mentioned in Dan. viii. 13. and xii. 1 1, is the Papacy. That these tzvo periods are to be dated from the same era as the 1260 years, cannot, I think, be reasonably doubted : in this point therefore Mr. Bicheno and I perfectly agree. We both like- ^vise agree, that all the three periods are to be dated from the setting up of the abomination if desolation : for neither can this position be reasonably doubted. We lastly agree, that one and the same abomination of desolation is spoken of both in Dan. viii. 1 3. and in Dan. xii. 1 1 ; and that this abomination cannot be referred to the pollution of the literal temple by the Romans as predicted (according to our Lord's own exposition) in Dan. xi. 31, because the numbers connected with it render such a reference impossible. Thus far we are perfectly agreed ; but here we begin to differ. Mr. Biclieno main- tains, that the desolating transgression, connected with the little horn of the he-goai and with the numbers 1290 and 1335, is the Papacy, which he contends was set up by the code of Justinian in the year 529 : I, on the contrary, most explicitly deny that this deso- lating transgression is the Papacy. L.et the little horn of the he-goat be Antiochus Ep!phanes,the Roman empire, or any other potver ; it certainly cannot be the Papacy, because the Pa- pacy never was a horn of the he-goat or Macedonian empire. Hence it is evident, that the desolating transgression connected with the Macedonian little horn, which was to take away the daily sacrifice and to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot, cannot be the Papacy ■• and, if it be not the Papacy, we have no right to date the \260 years the 1290 years 2.nd the lHo years from the year 529, unless it can be shewn that some desolating transgression, \\'hich afterwards became a horn of the he- goat and which fully answers to the prophetic description of it, arose in the year 529. This however Mr. Bicheno will find it no very easy matter to do : therefore tht three periods cannot be dated from the year 529. -Here I might stop ; for, if Mr. Bi- cheno's foundation give way, his superstructure falls to the ground of course : vet I cannot refrain from noticing the strange era which he has pitched upon as the prop- er date of the larger number 2300, and consequently of the vision of the ram and the he- goat. A computation deduced, not from the end of the 12G0 years as it ought to have b£en, but from the end of the \290 years (that is to say, from what he supposes to be the end of the \2Q0 years), brings him to the year A. C. 481, in which Xerxes set out to invade Greece ; and this famous expedition he aflirms to be specially predicted under the imagery of the pushing of the ram. Never surely was history more injudi- ciously brought forward as the interpreter of prophecy. Daniel tells us, that the pushing of the ram was SO irresistible, that no beast could stand before him, and that none could deliver out of his hand, but that he did according to his will, and be- came great. Herodotus assures us, that the huge unvneldy armament of Xerxes was totally discomfited by the Greeks, and that the king himself was compelled to flee with disgraceful precipitancy into Asia. In fact the the pushing of the ram relates al- most exclusively to the victories of Cyrus, which were achieved long before Xerxes came to the throne. My general conclusion is this : that Mr. Bicheno's scheme, though not deficient in ingenuity, rests upon no solid foundation. A very few years however, as I have already observed, will irrefragably decide the question between us. Mr. Fleming fixes the rise of Popery properly lo called, that is to say, the com•^ 186 Khi the papal horn : in this year the Mohammedan trans," gression of desolation^ which shortly after its rise became by the conquest of Syria a horn of the he-goat^ was set up :* and a computation, deduced from this year, brings us precisely to the very year in which Alexander invad- ed Asia, one of the most proper dates that could have been assigned even a priori to the vision o{ the ram and the he-goat. Positive certainty indeed in such matters is the high privilege of God alone : yet a triple coinci- dence is not, 1 think, to be slighted. According to what is called the doctrine of chances^ the improbability of an accidental triple coincidence bears a much higher ratio to the improbability of only an accidental double coinci- dence, than the number three does to the number tzi)o.\ I shall now proceed to compare the character of ^/^e he-goafs little horn with the character of \lohttmmedism^ in order that their identity may be proved as well by circumstantial as by chronological correspondence. I. " For how long a time shall the vision last, the dai- ly sacrifice be taken away, and the transgression of des- niencement of the spiritual empire of the Pope, to " that memorable year 606, whert Phocas did in a manner devolve the government of the West upon Boniface the third, by giving him the title of supreme and universal Bishop .■" yet he afterwards, with an inconsistency similar to that of Bp. Newton, dates the 1260 years from the , year 758, when he supposes the Papacy to have been established. His own expres- sion, " by steps he hath been raised up, and by steps must he be pulled down," might have shewn him, that the tyrannical reign of the papal born ought to be dated, not surely from the era of its meridian splendor, but from the very first year that it commenced, from the time w^hen the saints were first given into the hand of the born. We date the age of a man from the day of his birth, not from the period of his adolescence : why then must a different mode be adopted in computing the duration of a spiritual catholic empire ? Besides this objection to dating the 1260 years irom. the year 158, that era is equally unable to bear the tests proposed by the pro- phet as every other era which has been pitched upon, one only excepted, the year 606, which has been found exactly to answer to those tests, and which I have there- fore concluded to be the true date of the 1260 years. Mr. Galloway adopts the first conjecture of Mr. Fleming, rejecting very judiciously his subsequent inconsist- ency. (Comment, p. 88, 129.J * The extreme accuracy of the prophet is highly worthy of our notice. He does not direct us to date the 1 260 years from the rise of the he-goat's little horn, but from the incipient pollution of the spiritual sanctuary and the setting up of that desolating trans- gression which afterivards became a horn of the he-goat. (Dan. xii. 11.) Had we been directed to date them from the rise of Mohammedism as a horn of the he-goat, we must liave dated them some years later than the year 606. f What I mean is this, if the gravity of my subject will permit me to use such a mode of exemplification. A double coincidence I compare to throtuing tivo aces ivitb tivo dice ; a triple coincidence, to throtuing three aces ivith three dice. Now it is well known, that the chance against throwing the latter i?j to thp chance agaijist throw- ing the former, much more than three to t-wo. VOL. T. '?t 186 olation continue, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot ?" 1. We have seen, that the poicer sifinholized hij the lit' tie horn