All these matters are clearly predicted by the prophets. The manner, in which they will be accomplished, affords a vast field for conjecture: but their accomplishment itself is no vain speculation: in God's own good time, that must take place: how it will take place, we know not beyond what is revealed. Respecting the yet future and mysterious

merous prophecies which speak of its future splendour and σε greatness, when its people shall at length be gathered from "all parts of the earth unto which they are scattered, and be "restored to their own land. There is no region in the "world, to which an access from all parts is so open. By means of the Black sea, and the Mediterranean, there is an easy approach from all parts of Europe, from a great part of Africa, and from America. By means of the Red sea, and the Persian gulf, and the well-known roads from thence, there is an approach from the rest of Africa, from the East Indies, and from the Isles. And lastly, by means "of the Caspian, the Lake or Sea of Baykall, and the near "communication of many great rivers, the approach is faci"litated from all the northern parts of Tartary. In short, "if a skilful geographer were to sit down to devise the fittest "spot on the globe for universal empire; or rather, a spot, "where all the great intercourses of human life should universally centre; and from whence the extended effects of "universal benevolence and good-will should flow to all parts of the earth; and where universal and united homage "should be paid, with one consent, to the Most High ;` he "could not find another so well suited, in all circumstances,

"

as that which is with emphasis called The Holy Land. These "observations perhaps may not deserve great weight, but "they ought not to be wholly neglected; especially when it "is considered, how many passages of Scripture there are, "which plainly declare, that the time shall at length come, "when Zion shall be the joy of the whole earth." Note to Hymns to the Supreme Being, p. 126. It

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terious Millennium, the less that is said upon the subject the better. Unable myself to form the slightest conception of its specific nature, I shall weary neither my own nor my reader's patience with premature remarks upon it. That it will be a season of great blessedness is certain: further than this we know nothing definitely. "The secret "things belong unto the Lord our God: but "those things which are revealed belong unto us "and to our children for ever, that we may do "all the words of this Law*."

* Deut. xxix. 29.

CHAP.

CHAPTER XII.

Recapitulation and Conclusion.

FROM what has been said we learn, that the 1260 days are the appointed hour of the powers of darkness, the space of time allotted for the prevalence both of Popery and Mohammedism and for the short-lived triumph of Antichrist.

In the year 606, the saints seem to have been first given by the secular power of the Roman empire into the hand of the Papal little horn; consequently from this year the 1260 days ought most probably to be computed. The desolating transgression of the Mohammedan little horn however is destined to prevail during the same space of time, that the Papal little horn is permitted to reign. Hence, in order that the two periods of 1260 years each might be made to synchronize together, it seemed necessary, that the desolating transgression of Mohammedism should first make its appearance in the very year that the saints were delivered into the hand of the Papal little horn. Accordingly we find, that it did first make its appearance in that year; for the year 606 is the most proper date of the Mohammedan imposture, because in that year Mohammed first retired to the cave of Hera.

1. The Papal horn arose, as we have seen, at the precise time when Daniel predicted that it should arise; namely, while the Roman empire was falling asunder, and while ten independent kingdoms were springing up out of its ruins. It arose gradually and almost imperceptibly among and behind the ten horns of the fourth beast; three of which were successively eradicated before it, and by their fall gave it an opportunity of becoming a temporal no less than a spiritual power. For some time after its rise it was only an ecclesiastical kingdom: but that kingdom, though small at first, continued perpetually to increase in size; till, in the year 606, when the Pope was declared Universal Bishop and supreme head of the catholic Church, it became a mighty ecclesiastical empire. At this era, which seems to be the proper date of the 1260 years, and the epoch when the old pagan Roman beast which had been mortally wounded by the sword of the Spirit under his sixth head revived under the same sixth head by setting up a spiritual tyrant in the Church and by relapsing into idolatry, St. John first introduces upon the stage the power which Daniel symbolizes by the little horn of the fourth beast. That power however was now become an universal empire, instead of being, what it had -hitherto been, a limited ecclesiastical kingdom. Hence the Apostle, instead of representing the ten-horned beast as having likewise a little horn, describes him as attended by a second beast, whose character precisely answers to that of the little

horn.

horn. By the instigation of this corrupt spiritual power, the ten-horned beast, or the secular Roman 'empire, wages war with the saints during the period of the 1260 days, through the instrumentality either of his last head or his ten horns.

2. The desolating transgression of Mohammedism arose in the same year that the Papal horn became an universal spiritual empire. A few years after its rise, it acquired its predicted character of a little horn of the Macedonian he-goat; and soon, agreeably to the prophecy, waxed exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. In the course of its progress it cast down many of the symbolical stars or Christian pastors, to the ground; took away the daily sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; polluted the spiritual sanctuary; and presumed to magnify itself against even the Prince of princes. As for its character, it was notorious for trampling upon the truth; for prospering in a wonderful manner; for making its appearance, exactly when the transgressors were come to the full by publicly re-establishing idolatry; for teaching dark sentences; for being mighty not through its own unaided power; for exterminating its opponents. with the utmost barbarity; for persecuting with peculiar violence the people of the Holy Ones; for advancing itself by craft; and for destroying many while in a state of negligent security.

In the Apocalypse a more full account is given of the agents by whom this apostate religion should