that period, darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people; the nations were sunk in ignorance and barbarity; the world in general was wondering after the beast; and the true church of God was hardly to be seen any where, except in the valleys of Pied

be observed.-1. The days there mentioned are not to be taken literally for so many natural days, but must be taken, prophetically, for so many years, a day being put for a year. This way of expressing a particular number of years by so many days, is a thing frequent in scripture. To this purpose is what you have in Ezek. iv. 5. 6. "I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, "according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety "days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.— "And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right "side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty "days; I have appointed thee each day for a year." And to the same purpose is what you have in Numb. xiv. 34.

After the number even forty days,

"of days in which ye have searched the land, "each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities." In correspondence with this, you will observe, that the seventy weeks mentioned in the 9th chapter of Daniel, as expressive of the period betwixt the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, and the coming of Christ, signify seventy times seven prophetic days, a day for a year; that is a period of four hundred and ninety years. The same is the case with these twelve hundred and sixty days now referred to; they do not denote so many natural days, but so many years. This is a point generally agreed upon by all who have turned their attention to this subject.2. These twelve hundred and sixty years, are not so manny common years, consisting each of three hundred and fixty-five days, and the fourth part of a day,but so many years, consisting only of three hundred and sixty days; each of these years, therefore, fall five days, and the fourth of a day, short of the common year. This is plain from a comparison of Rev. xi. 2. 3. with Rev. xii. 6! 14. and Rev, xiii. 5. in which these three numbers, time, times, and half a

mont, among the Waldenses. Several, indeed, both of her ministers and members, were at different times to be met with, scattered here and there through different other countries; and near the conclusion of that period, a considerable body of them were to be found collected

time, signifying three years and a half, forty-two months, and twelve hundred and sixty days, are all represented as equal numbers, describing the period of the reign of the apocalyptic beast, of the concealment and nourishment of the church in the wilderness, of the witnesses prophecying in sackcloth, and of the holy city's being trodden under foot of the Gentiles. Now, three years and a half, each year consisting of three hundred and sixty days, amount precisely to twelve hundred and sixty days. And, in like manner, forty and two months, each month consisting of thirty days, amount exactly to the same number of twelve hundred and sixty days. These three numbers are, therefore, all one, and plainly point out, that the prophetic year consists only of three hundred and sixty days, and of consequence falls five days, and the fourth of a day, short of the common year. In the space of seventy years, these five days, and the fourth of a day, amount to one whole year; and, in the course of twelve hundred and sixty years, they amount to eighteen years. Let these eighteen be taken from the twelve bundred and sixty, for the purpose of making the prophetic and the common year to quadrate, and this at once reduces thtwelve hundred and sixty prophetic years to twelve hundred and forty-two common years.

The second point mentioned is, that this period of twelve bun dred and sixty prophetic, or twelve hundred and forty-two common years, commenced during the reign of the Emperor Constantine, near the beginning of the fourth century, and expired at the time of the Protestant Reformation, a little after the middle of the sixteenth century. And, for the illustration of this, it will be necessary to attend a little to the time fixed for its commencement; with regard to which, you will observe, that ConstantineTM having obtained, in the month of September 312, a complete vic

together in the kingdom of Bohemia. Still, however, it' was principally in the valleys of Piedmont, among the people called Waldenses, that the church, was to be found in any proper organized state for the greater part of the period now under review. There was but little

tory over the bloody persecuting tyrant Maxentius, he presently put a stop to the last, and most severe of all the ten heathen persecutions, and openly avowed himself a convert to the Christian faith. Happy had it been had the matter rested here; but the very next year an entirely new scene began to open, which was almost fully completed by the end of the year 318. The whole frame of the church was altered, and new-modelled. The government which Christ himself had appointed for her, by bishops, or pastors, presiding over single congregations, and presbyters, or elders, was wholly laid aside, and a new order of things introduced, by which the church, being divided into large dioceses, after the model of the civil state, was to be governed by diocesan bishops, (baving a number of pastors and congregations among them,)archbishops, metropolitans, primates, and patriarchs, the Bishop of Rome having a supremacy of rank and honour assigned him above the whole, on account of his being settled in the metropolis of the Roman empire. Thus the church was wholly cast out of the Christian into an Anti-christian form; and all this* was accompanied with the turning of things purely religious into matter of civil law, and employing the power of the civil ma-^} gistrate for enforcing the decisions of the church, and promoting the interest of Christianity. This, however little observed at the time, and though done in all likelihood with a good design,' was the real rise of Antichrist, the apocalyptic beast, and is there fore the time from which the beginning of his twelve hundred and sixty days reign take their date. We indeed know, that different writers of considerable note, and particularly those of the Episcopal communion, overlooking this important event, endeavour to fix the rise of the beast at a much later date; they gen ૨૨

notice taken of this people before the twelfth century: long before this, however, they had made a material separation from the Romish church; and even as early as the ninth century, they were bearing an explicit testimony against a variety of her corruptions.* It is prin

erally attempt to fix it about the year 756, the year in which the Pope of Rome became a temporal prince, by having the exarchate of Ravenna fixed upon him. This opinion of theirs may be easily accounted for. It cannot be thought that the Episcopalians, in a consistency with their own principles, could see, that the change made upon the constitution of the church, which has been just now mentioned, was the real rise of Antichrist; they have therefore been shut up to think upon something else, as constituting his rise; and this, of his being made a temporal prince, has appeared as feasible to them as any other. His being a temporal prince, however, itself forms no part of his Antichristian character ; and that his real rise was in that change made in the constitution of the church, in the days of Constantine, about the year 313, or betwixt that and the year 318, is not only supported by the history of that period, but rendered quite certain by different passages of the holy scriptures. The first passage we mention in confirmation of this, is what you have in the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation, where the twelve hundred and sixty days of the church's concealment and nourishment in the wilderness, and so of the reign of the beast, with which it is commensurate, is represented as beginning with her bringing forth a manebild which, is to rule all nations, and with that child's being caught up to God, and to his throne, which, by the common consent of almost every interpreter, is allowed to have a respect to that high exaltation given to the church in the days of Constantine, when she herself was delivered from persecution, and her members advanced to places of power and trust in the civil state. Another pas

* Abstract of the History of Popery, by several English Gen tlemen, in Weekly Packets, vol. ii, p. 420,

cipally among this people that we have to look for coyenanting, if it can at all be met with during this dark period; and the instances of it among them are not few. The year 1532 was particularly famous among them for the practice, of it; but instead of spending

ssage, in confirmation of the same point, you have in 2 Thess. ii. 6. 7. 8. where the apostle, speaking of the apocalyptic beast, under the designation of the man of sin, says, "Ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time; for the mystery "of iniquity doth already work; only be that letteth, will let till “be be taken out of the way; and then shall that wicked be revealed." No Protestant, so far as I know, ever doubted but that the Pagan Roman emperors, or the Heathen Roman empire, here, intended by that which letted, or stood in the way of this man of sin being revealed. These not only did let in the apostle's time, but were to continue to let or hinder the revelation of him, till they were taken out of the way, and then presently was the man of sin to be revealed. Now, every one knows, that it was just by the conversion of Constantine, and what accompanied it, that the heathen Roman emperors were removed, or the pagan state of the Roman empire taken out of the way; this period, therefore, must be the true date of Antichrist's rise.

are

But from this let us next turn our attention for a little to the time fixed by scripture-prophecy for the termination of these twelve hundred and sixty days; and from the 11th chapter of the Revelation, it is evident, that this is no other than the period of the Protestant Reformation. You will accordingly observe there, that the twelve hundred and sixty days of the witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, the same with those of the reign of the beast, are represented, as just coming to a period before the sounding of the sixth trumpet. Now, the sounding of that trumpet is the very thing that introduces the Protestant Reformation, in the kingdoms of this world beginning to become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, (Rev. xi. 15.), that turns the tide against Antichrist in favour of the church, and that introduceth the