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the least multiple of a time to represent times, and the simplest frac tion of a time, viz. half a time, to represent the dividing of time, we shall thus have "a time, times, and the dividing of time,” equal to three and a half years, the number of years in the papal period, as given in the Apocalypse. We have thus, now, found a key, by which we shall be able to decipher the formula in Daniel, xii. 7, and reduce it into plain numbers. The word "time" in that formula must hence be taken to denote a year of 360 days, which, according to the usual method of interpreting, must be reckoned years. The word "times" must, in like manner, be taken to denote some indefinite multiple of 360 years; and the expression, a part of a time," must be taken to denote half a time, or 180 years. It is evident, therefore, that the formula, "time, times, and a part of a time," will thus be resolved into an infinity of numbers; for although the first and last terms of it are constant quantities, the middle term must vary according to what multiple of a time is taken. We shall thus obtain a vast variety of numbers of years, beginning with the third year of Cyrus, or 534 years B. C., at the termination of some one of which the papal period should end; and by subtracting from each of these numbers the number of years they comprehend before the Christian era, we shall obtain the various years of our Lord, on some one of which the 1260 years of the papal supremacy should close. The series of numbers

Such are the different years of our Lord, in some one of which the period, 1260 years, of the papal supremacy, should terminate. Let us by reasoning endeavour to determine on which one of them that event is likely to fall out. On the first of these dates, the year 726, the papal period could not terminate, for in that case it must have begun in the third year of Cyrus, or 534 years B. C.; 1260 years backwards from 726 leading us to the third year of Cyrus. Neither, it is evident, could the period of papal supremacy end in the second of the above dates, the year 1086; for then the papal period must have commenced 174 years B. c., which is quite absurd. Neither is it at all probable that the papal period should close in the third of these dates, the year 1446; for, in that case, it must have begun in A. D. 186, a date at which nothing bearing the slightest resemblance to the papal apostacy had been set up, the emperor Constantine having begun his reign only in the year 306, 120 years afterwards. It is highly feasible, on the contrary, that the period of the papal supremacy should have terminated at the fourth of these dates, the year 1806; for 1260 years backwards from that date brings

us to the year 546, and we know that the supremacy of the pope was established by an edict of the emperor Justinian in the year 533. Proceeding to the fifth of the above dates, the year 2166, the probability of the 1260 years terminating then is somewhat lessened; for 1260 years backwards from that date brings us to the year 906, 373 years after the year 533, in which the Pope's supremacy was established. The sixth of the above dates, or the year 2526, carries still less probability of its being the end of the papal period; for 1260 years backwards from that date brings us to the year 1266, no less than 733 years after the year 533, the date of the establishment of the Pope's supremacy by Justinian. Of all the above years, the year 1806 is, therefore, the most probable for the termination of the papal period; and it now remains that we should consult chronology, and ascertain if, in that year, any event took place affecting the papal power and influence.-Having had, at the time we entered upon these researches, no good chronological table in our possession, but only a very imperfect one at the end of a gazetteer which we purchased many years ago in numbers, published by William Lochhead, at Berwick,-judge, reader, of our delight and surprise, when, opposite to the year 1806, we found the following passages:—

"The Germanic constitution dissolved by the confederation of the Rhine, formed by Bonaparte, July."

"The emperor of Germany resigns his dignity as emperor of Germany, and the Holy Roman Empire is abolished, Aug. 6."

And, on looking into Sir Walter Scott's History of Bonaparte, we found the following observations: "Francis of Austria, seeing the empire, of which his house had been so long the head, going to pieces, like a parting wreck, had no other resource than to lay aside the imperial crown of Germany, and to declare that league dissolved which he now saw no sufficient means of enforcing. He declared the tie dissevered which bound the various princes to him as emperor, to each other as allies; and although he reserved the imperial title, it was only as the sovereign of Austria, and his other hereditary states. France became, therefore, in a great measure, the successor to the influence and dignity of the Holy Roman Empire, as that of Germany had been proudly styled for a thousand years; and the empire of Napoleon gained a still nearer resemblance to that of Charlemagne." Vol. i. p. 276, 1st ed.

Having thus confirmed by history the correctness of the result that we had arrived at by interpretation and reasoning, let us see if the date of the "tempus determinatum," which closes the narrative of the domination of the power whose acts are described in Daniel, chap. xi. v. 32, 33, 34, and 35, corresponds with the characteristic assigned to that date in Daniel, xii. 4. In the year 1806, did many run to and fro? and was knowledge more than commonly increased?— The sort of knowledge here meant, we believe most people will agree with us in thinking, is religious knowledge; for it is very unlikely

that prophecy would take notice of any other. Now, on looking over the History of the British Bible Society, we find, with 1806-7 in the margin, at the top of the page, the following passage, remarkably confirmatory of our result: "The proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society were also characterized by certain communication of an interesting nature from other parts of the European continent, to which, as they fix the era of its entrance on stations, since become conspicuous for activity and influence, it will be proper to pay some attention."-Many, in the year 1806, certainly did run to and fro, and the knowledge of the scriptures was remarkably increased.

PART II.

Commentaries on those parts of the Revelations which more especially concern the Papal power.

THE Apocalypse of St John is Jesus Christ's revelation, which God gave unto him, to signify unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and Jesus Christ sent and signified the revelation by symbols unto his servant John, who, at the command of his Lord, (Revelations, i. 19,) wrote what he saw in a book, for the instruction, we presume, of the Christian church. Into an elementary exposition of this singular and mysterious book it is not our design to enter. Such an undertaking would be foreign to the more special purpose of this work, which is only to treat of the Antichristian powers. We shall, therefore, merely give a very compendious history of the Revelations as far as the tenth chapter, which is the first wherein any distinct mention is made of these powers.

Some will ask, Of what use is it so curiously to inquire into the history of the future, shadowed forth in the mirror of prophecy? and why should the midnight lamp be trimmed, and the sunny hours of life be wasted, to meditate upon a subject, the knowledge of which cau never be of any utility? It is of much use, we answer, as regards the temporal infinite as regards the eternal welfare of man. Was it of no consequence to the Learning and Arts of Europe to know, that the priestly lord of papal Christendom, who starved them in his donjon keep, was the renounced of Heaven; and that heavenly justice would smile on their efforts to escape from his thrall? Was it of no consequence to the faithful Christian church to know, that when they abjured the idolatrous rule of papal power, and, raising high their right hands to heaven in open defiance, trampled its missiles of vengeance under their feet, that they were fighting the good fight of truth, and that white-handed Faith, and smiling Hope, would welcome them to heaven from their death-beds of fire ? What steeled the heart of Luther, and made the face of Knox as brass before the browbeating

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lords of feudal Europe, but the stern, the solemn conviction implanted in their bosoms from reading the words of prophecy, that in the execution of their glorious duty they were the approved soldiers of God, with the artillery of his Word battering Error from the strongholds of sovereign power, while Art and Science, Learning and Liberty, followed their march? And shall it be of no consequence to the future generations of men, when yet another Antichrist is to arise in the world, to have him limned at full length from the different views and partial sketches which prophecy shews forth, that so by the lineaments of his fierce countenance, and the appointments of his blasphemous vesture, he may be recognised and abjured by the faithful when he shall appear We should not labour all for food and raiment for the body which perisheth, nor for strutting a short hour upon the stage of life, an object of the world's vain regard,—for "what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

?

The first chapter of the Revelations contains chiefly a history of the object of the Book; and of the vision of our Saviour in his glorious apparel of High Priest of the Christian Church; and of the commission he gives to St John to write to the seven churches. At the time of his seeing this glorious vision, the evangelist describes himself to have been in the spirit: what this state was, it is impossible for us to know; unless it were that wherein all surrounding objects were shut out from his perceptions, and his perceptive organs were for a time rendered incapable of being impressed with any but those ideas which the Almighty chose to be perceived. That God has the power of effecting in his creatures the perception of what ideas he pleases, we have from philosophy alone already shewn the possibility. The only question that we must ultimately come to with a philosophical deist, upon the reality of divine knowledge having been communicated to St John in the way he here describes, must be—will the Almighty intellect, who presides in the universe, think it consonant to his character and greatness to reveal the history of futurity to man? This is simply a point of belief, to those who will not take the pains to study, with an unbiassed heart, the sure word of prophecy, to learn that God already has done so. — -The second and third chapters contain an enumeration of the gracious promises and threatened awards of our Saviour to the seven churches, according to their works of good and evil; and do not concern the subject of the present dissertations. The fourth and fifth chapters unfold to us a scene in heaven. God is there represented as holding in his hand a book sealed with seven seals, which none in heaven is found worthy to open, except 66 a lamb as it had been slain," in the midst of the throne," having seven horns and seven eyes," the emblem of our Saviour possessed of omnipotent power and omniscient knowledge: a horn in prophecy being always the emblem of power, and an eye being a well-known emblem of discernment; -the number seven denoting completeness in whatever it is joined to. The sealed book mentioned here does not resemble one of the present day. Before the art of printing was invented, the manu

scripts were written upon paper or parchment, the sheets of which were rolled together, so that when they were all written on both sides, the writing must needs appear upon the outside of the roll, as we are told it did in this case.-' -The arrangement of this sealed book, as the reader will soon see, is under seals, and trumpets, and vials,—the seven seals forming seven successive periods of history; the seven trumpets, again, forming seven successive and different series of acts comprehended under the seventh seal; and the seven vials, again, being seven successive parcels of acts included within the seventh trumpet: -the seventh seal, and seventh trumpet, and seventh vial, all ending at one and the same time. Accordingly, when "the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air," "there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done." This notion concerning the arrangement of the sealed book, Bishop Newton has, we think, very properly followed in his explication of its fulfilment. Mr Irving, however, has, in the most forced and perverted manner, departed from the simplicity of the arrangement here pointed out. Most true it certainly is, that the Book of Revelations is not, as Mr Irving observes, “a prophetic narrative in chronological order;" but we do contend, that the sealed book, which comprehends the little book in its more succinctly emblematic story, is "a prophetic narrative in chronological order," which embraces every event narrated in the Revelations up to the pouring out of the seventh vial, in Rev. xvi. 17, at the time of the great earthquake which is mentioned in v. 18 of that chapter, which earthquake is typical of that time of great trouble, which, as we shall afterwards see more clearly, is to happen when the Jews, according to Daniel, are to be delivered that is, at the end of the 1335 days, whenever that may be, when Daniel shall stand in his lot among his risen brethren - at the time, too, when the kings of the earth, with their armies, Rev. xix. 19, are congregated by the beast and the false prophet to make war against him that sits on the horse—immediately upon the commencement of the Millennium. It is upon the arrangement of the sealed book, then, that the Apocalypse of St John must be studied with clearness and advantage. The little open book must be regarded merely as a partial transcript from its sealed parent, containing more characteristic types than the latter, of the two Antichristian powers, that the church of Christ may be the better able to discern the true characters of their idolatrous and abominable prototypes when they appear in this world; and therefore the narrative of this little book must not be taken into account in studying the arrangement of the larger. Perhaps the reader may ask, Why does the scheme of the sealed book end at the commencement of the Millennium-at the return of the Jews to the land of Palestine, when the narrative of the Apocalypse reaches to a remoter date, even to the precincts of eternity upon a new earth, and under a new heaven? The reason is this: the sealed book is a history of the Christian Church, and of that alone, and therefore the plan of its history comprehends only the time between the vision of St John in the isle of Patmos, and the time when our Saviour in glory shall have come to the