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given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And the same time is there fixed for his doing this. "And power was given unto him to continue (or practise and make war) forty and two months," after he was recovered to life from being wounded unto death, (Rev. xiii. 3, 5, 7,) which is just three years and a half, or twelve hundred and sixty days.

In

Daniel heard, but did not understand the answer, and, therefore, put the following question, "Then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?" The answer is, "From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." Here are two different numbers or times mentioned, and neither of them agrees exactly with the foregoing answer. In that, the time of the continuance of the persecuting power which shall scatter and wear out the saints is limited to one thousand two hundred and sixty years. the answer to Daniel's question, two different numbers of years are mentioned, when those evil things shall come to an end, and the profanation of the church, and the worship and ordinances of Christ, shall cease, and the church shall be restored to due order, and be blessed and brought to a happy, glorious state, viz., one thousand two hundred and ninety, and one thousand three hundred and thirty-five years. The first is thirty years longer than the time mentioned above and in the Revelation, and the last exceeds it seventy-five years. This seeming difference may be reconciled by observing, that these answers do not respect precisely the same event. The former expresses the time of the continuance and reign of antichrist, in which he shall oppress the church of Christ; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, he shall be destroyed. The latter looks forward to the recovery of the church of Christ from her low, afflicted, broken state, to a state of peace and prosperity, in the proper use and enjoyment of the worship, institutions, and ordinances of Christ, which have been so greatly corrupted by the false church of Rome. It may take some time to effect this, after the pope and the church of Rome are wholly destroyed and extinct. As the corruption and perversion of the church, worship, and ordinances of Christ were brought on by degrees, and considerable advances were made in this after antichrist arose, and the pope became a persecuting beast; so doubtless the church will not be wholly purified when this beast shall be destroyed; but it will be some time after this before all

corruptions and errors in doctrine and practice will be wholly extirpated, and the church appear in her true beauty, and come to a state of universal, established peace and prosperity. Within thirty years after the beast shall be slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame, or at the end of one thousand two hundred and ninety years, the church may become universal, and all nations be members of it, and it may arrive to a state of great purity and peace, and an end be put to all her troubles, and most of the wicked be swept off from the face of the earth by some remarkable event and sudden stroke, by which the kingdom of Satan shall be nearly extinct, and his influence among mankind almost wholly cease. But the church of Christ may not arrive to the most pure and happy state which it shall enjoy under forty or fifty years after this. For this happy period Christians must wait; and they will be in a peculiar and high degree blessed who shall come to this happy and glorious state of the church, when the first resurrection shall be universal and complete, and the millennial state established and brought to its full stature and proper height in holiness and happiness, which took place in a considerable degree, and might properly be said to have begun, a number of years before. But these events, and the precise time and manner of their taking place, will be fully known, and the prophecies by which they are foretold will be better understood when they shall be actually accomplished, and all the mistakes which are now made respecting them will be rectified; until which time, they must be in some measure sealed. Nevertheless, it may be evident from divine revelation, that the end of the reign of antichrist draws near, and the time of deliverance of the church from the dark and low state in which it has been near twelve hundred years, and of the ruin of the kingdom of Satan in the world, is not far off, and that these great events will come on within two hundred years, or about that time, and that the seventh thousand years of the world is the time fixed for the prosperity of the church of Christ, and the reign of the saints on earth. And it is hoped that what has been now observed on this point is sufficient to convince every unprejudiced, attentive inquirer that there is satisfactory evidence from prophecy and other things contained in Scripture, that the predicted millennium will take place at that time.

It has been observed, that as antichrist rose gradually from one degree of influence and power to another till he became a complete beast, so this persecuting, idolatrous, anti-Christian power will fall by degrees, until it is wholly taken out of the way; and there may, and probably will be, one thousand two

hundred and sixty years between the most remarkable steps by which he rose, and as great and remarkable steps by which he is to fall and go into perdition.*

The corruption and apostasy of the church had early beginnings, and the usurped, tyrannical, and worldly power of the bishops, especially of the bishops of Rome, soon began to take place. The apostle Paul, speaking of the grand apostasy which has actually taken place in the church of Rome, under the influence and power of the man of sin, that is, the pope, says, that the seeds of all this were then sown, and this mystery of iniquity did then begin to work with power and energy, regreira, which was to be kept under powerful restraints for a while, but should openly appear and be acted out when these restraints should be taken off. (2 Thess. ii. 3-8.) In the third century, "the bishops assumed in many places a princely au thority, particularly those who had the greatest number of churches under their inspection, and who presided over the most opulent assemblies. They appropriated to their evangelical function the splendid ensigns of temporal majesty; a throne surrounded with ministers, exalted above their equals the servants of the meek and humble Jesus, and sumptuous garments dazzled the eyes and the minds of the multitude into an ignorant veneration for their arrogated authority." And about the middle of that century, Stephen, the bishop of Rome, a haughty, ambitious man, aspired to a superiority and power over all the other bishops and churches, and his preeminence in the church universal was acknowledged. From this time to the reformation from popery in the sixteenth century, when the pope began to fall in a remarkable degree, and lost a great part of his power and influence, which he is never like to regain, are one thousand two hundred and sixty years. Luther, the first reformer, arose in the year of Christ 1517. If we

The time of the captivity of the Jews by the Babylonians was fixed in the prophecy of Jeremiah to seventy years. But this prediction had reference to different beginnings and endings. It was just seventy years from the first captivity, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when Daniel and many other Jews were carried to Babylon to the decree of Cyrus giving leave to the Jews to return, and ordering that the temple and Jerusalem should be rebuilt. And it was seventy years from the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple to the publishing of the decree of Darius, by which the building of the temple was completed and the Jews restored to their former state.

So the one thousand two hundred and sixty years of the captivity of the church of Christ in spiritual Babylon will doubtless have different beginnings, and, consequently, different endings. As the power and tyranny of the bishop and church of Rome rose from less beginnings to their full height, so the fall is to be gradual, till it is completed. And from each remarkable advance, there are one thousand two hundred and sixty years to as remarkable successive events, by which the kingdom and the power of the beast shall decline, and be utterly destroyed.

+ Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, third century, chap. ii.

reckon back from that time, one thousand two hundred and sixty years will carry us to the year 257, which is the very time in which Stephen, bishop of Rome, claimed and usurped the power and preeminence above mentioned, and which was, in some measure at least, granted to him.

And as this man of sin rose higher and higher, and became more conspicuous by one remarkable step after another, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, until he was publicly invested with temporal dominion about the middle of the eighth century, viz., in the year 756, when he became a complete beast, and assumed the greatest authority both in civil and religious matters in the Christian world, and, in fact, had more power and influence over all persons and things in the church and state than any other man, so there is good reason to conclude he will gradually fall, by one remarkable event after another, from the time of the reformation in the sixteenth century, when his power and influence in the Christian world were so greatly eclipsed, until this son of perdition shall be utterly destroyed, not far from the end of the twentieth century, or the beginning of the seventh thousand years of the world. And with the fall of this son of Satan, the kingdom of Satan, which has been so great and strong in this world for so long a time, will come to an end, and he will be cast out of the earth, and chained down in the bottomless pit; which event will be succeeded by the kingdom of heaven, which shall comprehend all the men then on earth, in which the saints shall reign a thousand years.

The facts and events which have taken place since that time, especially in the present century, coincide with such a conclusion, and serve to strengthen and confirm it. The pope and the hierarchy of the church of Rome are sinking with a rapid descent. The kings and nations who once wandered after this beast, and joined to support and exalt this antiChristian power, now pay little regard to him; they neither love nor fear him much, but are rather disposed to pull him down and strip him of his riches and power. The dissolution of the society of the Jesuits, the banishing them and confiscating their riches, who were a great support of that church and the pope; the kings' taking from the pope the power, which he claimed as his right, to nominate and appoint all the bishops to vacant sees, and actually taking it upon themselves to do this, by which a vast stream of money, which used to be poured into the coffers of the pope, is taken from him, and falls into the hands of these kings; the increase and spread of light, by which the tyranny, superstition, and idolatry of the church of Rome and its hierarchy are more clearly discerned

and exposed to the abhorrence and contempt of men; and especially the great increase of the knowledge of the nature, reasonableness, and importance of religious and civil liberty, and the rapid spread of zeal among the nations to promote these, all these are remarkable events, which, among others not mentioned, serve to confirm the above conclusion that the pope is falling with increasing rapidity; and there is reason to expect, from what has come to pass and is now taking place, and from Scripture prophecy, that yet greater and more remarkable events will soon take place, and come on in a swift and surprising succession, which will hasten on the utter overthrow of the beast and all his adherents, and that the time predicted will soon come when the ten horns, or kings, who have agreed in time past, and given their kingdom unto the beast, shall change their minds, and hate the whore, and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. (Rev. xvii. 16, 17.)

SECTION IV.

In which is considered what Events are to take place, according to Scripture Prophecy, before the beginning of the Millennium, and to prepare the Way for it.

By attending to the events predicted, which are to take place before the millennium, and which are to introduce it, further evidence will come into view that it will not commence long before the beginning of the seventh thousand years of the world, nor much later, and, therefore, that it will be in that thousand years, and begin about two hundred years from the end of the eighteenth century.

The seven vials, or cups-which contained the seven last plagues, or remarkable judgments, which are to be executed upon the beast and his adherents, and upon the world of mankind are to be poured out during the time of the reign of the beast and the existence of the false church of Rome, and which will issue in the destruction of the beast and of that church. This is evident from the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the Revelation. The first vial respects the beast and his followers, and brought sore calamities upon them, expressed in the following words: "And there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them who worshipped his image." (Rev. xvi. 2.) A number of these vials must have been already poured out, as the beast has existed above a thousand years

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