broken by their last decisive overthrow in the val ley of the Lord's judgment. 12. The third part of the bestial confederacy wil be spared and converted. 13. This third par will be scattered among the nations, and will be instrumental in preparing the way for the restoration and conver sion of the ten tribes. 14. The ten tribes will be restored and will be for ever united with the tribe of Judah, so as to form with it only one nation. 15. At the end of 75 years, after the termination of the 1260 years, the season of millennian rest will commence *.

Au

Though I am unable to assent to the ingenious Mr. King's scheme of apocalyptic interpretation, his remarks upon Pales-, tine, considered as the centre of the millennian empire of Christ upon earth, are highly worthy of notice. "How ca"pable this country is of a more univeral intercourse, than દ any other, with all parts of the earth, is most remarkable; "and deserves well to be considered, wen we read the nu"merous prophecies which speak of its fiture splendour and "greatness, when its people shall at lengt be gathered from "all parts of the earth unto which they ar scattered, and be "restored to their own land. There i no region in the "world, to which an access from all pars is so open. By. means of the Black sea, and the Medierranean, there is an easy approach from all parts of Eurpe, from a great part of Africa, and from America. By means of the Red sea, and the Persian gulf, and the well-hown roads from "thence, there is an approach from the res of Africa, from "the East Indies, and from the Isles. And lastly, by means "of the Caspian, the Lake or Sea of Baykal, and the near "communication of many great rivers, the approach is facilitated from all the northern parts of Tatary. In short,

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 ime, that must take place: how it will take place, we know not beyond what is revealed. Respecing the yet future and mysterious Millennium, he less that is said the better. That it will be a seaon of great holiness and great blessedness, is certin; and that "the kingdom, " and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom "under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the sants of the Most High," when

"if a skilful geographer were to sit down to devise the fittest "spot on the globe or universal empire; or rather, a spot, "where all the great ntercourses of human life should uni"versally centre; and from whence the extended effects of "universal benevolace and good-will should flow to all R2 parts of the earth and where universal and united homage "should be paid, with one consent, to the Most High; he "could not find anther 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 holly neglected; especially when it is con"sidered, how mny 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 Bing. p. 126.

* Dan. vii. 27. The expression under the whole heaven plainly shews, that the popphet is speaking of an earthly kingdom: and this kingdom is evidently the same as the apocalyptic millennian kingdom; which,in a similar manner, is to succeed the tyranny of the ten-hornedbeast, and which is to be seated, not in heaven, but upon earth. Compare Rev. xx,

"that

"that season commences, is equally 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. 2

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CHAP

CHAPTER XIÍ,

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.

I. 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 revolt of the East however, after its completion by the rise of Mohammedism, 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 Mohammedism, the completion of the eastern revolt, 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; until, 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.

*

3

Hence