instances of folly and superstition, the Crusades. Having lost the substance, they grasped at shadows; having lost Christ, as he is revealed in the word of truth, in the light of the Scriptures, their furious zeal shewed itself by an attempt to rescue that land in which He suffered, from the hands of Musselmen; whilst at the same time they were persecuting his faithful followers with tortures, fire, and sword. 3d. Another reason why the Edict of Justinian appears to be the correct date is, that it is the period when the church was cleansed from the heresy of Arianism; which prevailed to such a degree at this time that Jerome says "the whole world groaned, and wondered to see itself Arian." The point of time when "the earth," or the Roman empire, helped "the woman,' or the church, to escape from being overwhelmed by this " flood," was in this very year, A. D. 533 at which time the Emperor Justinian, in his great zeal for orthodoxy, brought the Arian nations to such utter ruin, that this heresy never was able to lift up its head again as a persecuting power, and not for many centuries even as an opinion. And this great event, whereby to determine the commencement of "time, and times, and half a time," during which the church was to abide in the wilderness from "the face of the serpent" (Rev. xii.); as it happened in the same year that Justinian made the Pope the head of all the churches; and as it is expressly named as being the precise time when Satan, being driven from persecuting the saints under the form of Arianism, as he had before been driven from doing so under the form of Paganism, betook himself to this Papal apostasy: so it determines, beyond all dispute, that it is not to any edict of Phocas, issued so many years subsequently, but to that of Justinian, that the preference on this occasion is to be given. 4th. Another most important confirmation is, that as this great period of 1260 years is considered but as constituting the latter half of the complete period of 2520 years, or "seven times;" so the year 533, being exactly the middle point between the first commencement and first termination of this complete periodthat is, between the years 727 B. C., and A. D. 1793-therefore the Edict of Justinian, which was issued in this year, forming such middle point, must of necessity be the true era from which to date the first or inchoative commencement of the reign of Popery, or the captivity of the Christian church. 5th. This conclusion further receives additional evidence from the events which, in connection with Popery, happened in the year A. D. 1793. If the great catastrophe which at this period convulsed the world, and which has been already described in the Fifth Period, gave a fatal shock to the kingdoms of Europe, and to those of the West in particular, as an earnest of the approaching deliverance of the Jews from their long captivity; it bore with a not less terrible aspect on the existence of the Papal power, as an earnest of the approaching deliverance of mankind in general from its soul-destroying dominion. The first licensed act of infidelity, which was the new power that the French Revolution brought into action, was to aim the most deadly blows at that superstition which Voltaire and other Atheistical writers had long held up to the scorn and derision of the world. It began with seizing all the church property to supply the demands of the state; massacring and expatriating its clergy, denouncing the Roman Catholic religion throughout the whole extent of the French empire, prostituting its churches to the most infamous of purposes, and unblushingly avowing its own creed to be Atheism ! Its principles were widely spread over all the Papal nations, England not excepted; and during its reign in France, up to the time of the fall of Napoleon, Popery seemed incapable of ever again rearing its head. Though its power was, however, thus shaken, and events subsequently transpired which sufficiently proved that its downfall was not far distant, yet it has been suffered, in the all-wise providence of God, again for a time to gain a limited and increasing ascendancy. This circumstance, instead of invalidating in the slightest degree the correctness of the above reasoning, the rather most fully confirms it. For if the complete period of seven times, of which this period of " time, and times, and the dividing of time," unquestionably forms the latter half, had two commencements, and consequently two terminations—which has been proved to have been the case-then must the half-period have the same peculiarity. Consequently, though the year 533 formed the first commencement of Popery, and the year 1793 its first termination; yet it requires, in order that the halfperiod may fully harmonize with the full period, that there should be a second commencement, and a second and final termination. It is further required that this second commencement and second termination should correspond with those of the complete and full period, in a similar way to the first commencement and first termination. Accordingly, as the middle point between the year before Christ 677, and the year A.D. 1843, is 583, this is the year which must in some way or other have marked the full and complete rise of Popery. The force of this argument will appear clearer light by being condensed thus: in a A.D. 1793 2520 yrs. restoration A.D. 1843 The downfall of of 1260 yrs. It will be recollected that the precedent for applying this peculiarity of structure, of a double commencement and double termination, is found in the "Third Period," and has in that instance the high authority of Dr. Prideaux for its adoption. Independent, however, of such precedent and such authority, the circumstance of this period of 1260 years having been prophesied of under the three distinct aspects above noticed, it is required that it should have another and more final commencement than the Edict of Justinian. For although by this edict the saints were delivered into the hands of the Pope, yet it was not until fifty years subsequently that the ten Papal kingdoms were finally established, nor that Popery assumed its most awful and distinguishing characteristic, the Divine attribute of infallibility. The second and third aspects, therefore, under which the Papacy is presented to our view in this prophetical period, would be without a distinct |