dently the type of the apocalyptic trumpets and vials.

The seven trumpets, as all commentators agree, sound to the downfall of Rome. But this imagery is doubtless borrowed from the seven trumpets, which, on seven successive days, sounded to the downfall of Jericho. Now it is observable, that, on each of the six first days, the city was compassed only a single time and there was no more than a single blast of the trumpet: but, on the seventh day, the city was seven times encompassed, and the trumpet was sounded seven times; the result of which was, that, at the seventh blast, the wall of Jericho fell as if by an earthquake'. Analogously to this arrangement, the trumpet, in the Apocalypse, sounds six times, during six successive periods, to the downfall of the mystic Babylon: but, when it sounds the seventh time, during the seventh period, its blast is divided into seven portions marked by the pouring out of seven vials; and, at the effusion of the seventh vial, an earthquake lays the great city prostrate. Thus accurately do the type and the antitype agree, if we place the seven vials under the seventh trumpet: but the correspondence is entirely broken by the arrangement which Mr. Mede has advocated

II. This matter being settled, there is another important point in the apocalyptic chronology which it will be necessary to discuss.

1 Josh. vi. 3-21.

2 Rev. xvi. 17-19.

The prophetic part of the Revelation is not only divided into three successive septenaries; but a remarkable period is specified, during which the faithful Church of God is subjected to a very singular tyranny. This period comprehends 1260 natural years or the latter moiety of the grand calendarian term of seven prophetic times: and it is to be computed from the era, when the times and the laws and the saints were unanimously given by the secular Powers of the Western Roman Empire into the hand of the little papal horn1.

The question, then, is, at what precise point of the Apocalypse the period of the 1260 years begins, and at what precise point it ends.

1. This period commences, if I mistake not, with the sounding of the fifth apocalyptic trumpet or the first woe-trumpet.

(1.) In regard to naked chronology, we have seen reason to fix the commencement of the latter 1260 years to the year after Christ 604: and, in regard to circumstantial occurrence, we have found that such their commencement is marked by the revelation of the man of sin.

Now, as our best commentators agree (nor can there, I think, be a shadow of reasonable doubt on the subject), all the seven seals had been opened, and all the four first trumpets had begun to sound, previous to the year 604. The period of 1260 years, therefore, cannot have commenced, either

1 See above book i. chap. 6.

with the opening of any one of the seven seals, or with the sounding of any one of the four first trumpets and, in exact accordance with such a conclusion, the prophetic description of these eleven epochs does not give us the least reason to suppose, that the man of sin was revealed, and that the 1260 years commenced, at any one of them.

Hence we may be morally sure, that the period of the 1260 years must have commenced subsequent to the blast of the fourth trumpet.

(2.) After the sounding of the four first trumpets has been described, St. John evidently points out to us the beginning of some new and remarkable period: for, specially and collectively, he styles the three last trumpets three woes.

By this designation, then, the three last trumpets are thrown together into one class: and we are sure from the chronological order observed in the Apocalypse, that the fourth trumpet cannot have sounded very long before the revelation of the man of sin in the year 604. But nothing, surely, is more improbable, than that so remarkable, an epoch, as the revelation of the man of sin and the commencement of the 1260 years, should not synchronise with some one of the great apocalyptic epochs insomuch that any alleged date of the 1260 years, which could not be made to synchronise with some one of those epochs, would bear upon its very front the stigma of error. Hence we are naturally led to expect, that the man of sin is revealed, and that the 1260 years commence, at

the epoch which immediately follows that of the fourth trumpet. In other words, we are led to expect, that the man of sin is revealed, and that the 1260 years commence, at the epoch of the first woe-trumpet, or at the beginning of that period which is eminently distinguished as comprehending three great woes.

This, I say, we are naturally led to expect a priori: but, unless the chronological era of the beginning of the first woe-trumpet will correspond with the marks by which we are taught to ascertain the commencement of the 1260 years, we have no right positively to conclude that our expectation is well-founded.

Now these marks are: the giving of the times and the laws and the saints, into the hand of the papal little horn, by the ten western kings; the synchronical completion of the great Apostasy, by the revelation of the lawless one as its head; and the immediately consecutive rise of Mohammedism or the eastern little horn of the he-goat'. But, according to the general consent of our ablest expositors, the first woe-trumpet produces the rise of Mohammedism and the consequent ravages of the Saracens. The rise, however, of Mohammedism occurred in the year 608 or 609: for, either in the one or the other of those two years, Mohammed began to propagate his imposture. Yet the rise of Mohammedism is not the earliest event, which

'See above book i. chap. vi. § I. H.

occurs under the first woe-trumpet: a star, previously, completes its fall from heaven; or, in unfigured language, an eminent Christian Bishop, previously, completes his apostasy: and, with this completed fall of the star, which takes place immediately before the rise of Mohammedism in the year 608 or 609, the first woe-trumpet commences. Now the completion of the great Apostasy by the revelation of its lawless head occurred in the year 604, immediately before the rise of Mohammedism, and at the commencement of the latter 1260 years. Hence we may be sure, that the fall of the star, which is similarly completed immediately before the rise of Mohammedism, must be the same event as the revelation of the lawless one by which the great Apostasy is made complete. But the lawless one is revealed, as the head of the now complete Apostasy, at the commencement of the latter 1260 years and the synchronical fall of the star is completed at the commencement of the first woe-trumpet. Therefore the first woe-trumpet must begin to sound exactly at the commencement of the latter 1260 years1.

2. So much for the apocalyptic commencement of the 1260 years: we must now endeavour to ascertain their apocalyptic termination. This ter mination I conceive to synchronise with the earliest effusion of the seventh vial.