koly 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 witnesses began to prophesy in sackcloth during the long period of 1260 years, the same period in short as that during which the saints were given into the hand of the little horn.*

Not but that the Apostacy, as I have already observed, S had long since individually commenced. The forbidding to marry, the abstaining from meats, the excessive veneration of supposed mediatory saints and angels, began to creep into the Church even in the fourth century no date can be affixed to individual criminality. 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 himself. Hence we find, that in the unchronological prophecy of St. Paul‡ some of the leading features of the Apostacy are marked out in general terms, the prophecy itself affecting every individual to whom the description applies while, in the chronological prophecies of Daniel and St. John relative to the sume Apostacy, since the divine 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 conspicuous act of the head of a community, 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 holy city or the Church under foot by the new gentile members of the revived 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.

During this period, the Roman beast may be considered as gradually rising out of the sea, and as coming to life again.

1 Tim. iv. 1, 2, 3, 7, 8.

..........

year, the saints were formally given into the hand of the 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 a spiritual universal tyrant then was set up in the Church, 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 wilderness from the pollution of the holy city by the new gentilism of Popery, and the witnesses 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 they should continue so long to prophesy in sackcloth, or, in other words, to profess the fundamental 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 witnesses from the seventh century" (the century 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 of 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 we cannot discover, in this same year 606, any marks of the rise of that transgression of desolation, which is so closely connected with the little horn of the he-goat, and which is to continue during 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 Mohammed as to take place when the trangressors are come to the full. St. Paul

says,

that

to

le

of the desert, he began at first only privately to preach his heterogeneous system of theology about the year 608 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 Abubeker, ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca were introduced to the private lessons of the Islam; the prophet persevered ten years in the now more public exercise of his mission; and the religion, which has since overspread 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 connected with the he-goat's little horn springing up at the very time when we were taught by prophecy to expect that it would spring up, namely at the beginning of the 1260 days. Small as it was at first, it soon waxed exceeding great; and, in a very short space of time succeeded in completely polluting the spiritual sanctuary of the eastern church. The exact resemblance between this desolating transgression and the religion of Mohammed, in all other respects as well as in their chronological correspondence with each other, shall presently be shewn I 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, if 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 two powers. 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 penmen 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. 282-285,

positively determine the point, it seems to me most natural to compute it from some time or another during the settled existence of the Persian empire. The prophet represents the two-horned Medo-Persian ram, not as rising from the sea, but as standing by his river in other. words, he does not speak of the origin of the united monarchy, which is a fixed determinate period; but of some period, which he does not specify, in the course of its regular and settled government.* 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 two 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 upon 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 continued standing from the year A. C. 536 to the year A. C. 330: but he continued standing undisturbed only till the year A. C. 334, 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 Persian empire, it will be found somewhere between the

* The ram, or, as he is termed in the former vision, the bear, 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 remarks upon the two symbols of the sea, and a river, in the 2d chapter of the present work.) To rise out of the sea, and to stand upon the bank of a river, certainly denote, according to the analogy and precision of symbolical language, two very different states of an empire, the one posterior to the other. The river Ŭlai, near the palace Shushan, is here used as a symbol of the Persian monarchy, in the same manner as the apocalyptic Expbrates represents the Turkish empire. Rev. ix. 14. and xvi. 12.

† Anno A. C. 536, Cyrus, Cambyse patre in Persia et Cyaxare socero in Media vita functis, Orientis monarchia potitus est: a qua et agx illius annos septem, in 8°. rauas ipsius dinumerat Xenophon; et primum illius annum, ex ipsis Medorum et Persarum archivis, sacra deducit Scriptura. Usser. Annal. p. 146.

Usser Annal. p. 285, 286, 312, 321, 323, 324.

year A. C. 536, when the ram began to stand, and the year A. C. 330, when he was completely overthrown.*

Now, if I be right in dating the 1260 days from the year 606, the year in which the Mohammedan abomination of desolation commenced, the year in which the Roman beast revived, the year in which the saints were given 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 the 2200, 2300, or 2400, days, whichever of these numbers be the proper reading; because, as we are expressly informed by the two interpreting angels, the 2200, 3300, or 2400, 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 which of those three numbers is the true reading, and consequently from what era we are to date the vision of the ram and the hegoat.

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. 484 and if lastly 2400 years, 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 standing upon the bank of his river; 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 dissolved: 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 the ram may be considered as standing for, although the be-goat began to "smite" him in the year A. C. 334, he had not finally "cast him down to the ground" till the year A. C. 330. 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 Persians 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 regnum finiretur. Usser. Annal. p. 321.