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of the chronologically progressive image. The times, therefore, of the image are seven prophetic times or 2520 natural years.

Now these times must be reckoned from the birth of Nebuchadnezzar, the golden head of the image: which birth, as we have learned from the independent testimony of Berosus, must have occurred, at some point between the years before Christ 658 and 646, or about the middle of the seventh prechristian century.

It seems, however, to have been ascertained, on testimony equally independent, that the seven times, expiring as they do synchronically with their own latter moiety the three times and a half of Daniel and St. John, will expire in the year after Christ 1864.

Hence, expiring in the year after Christ 1864, they must have commenced in the year before Christ 657 which year 657 is thus brought out as the year of Nebuchadnezzar's nativity; a circumstance, itself fixed anteriorly and independently to the middle of the seventh prechristian century.

Such being the case, the age of the image, from the protrusion of its head to its final dissolution, is equivalent to those seven prophetic times, which our Lord denominates the times of the Gentiles, and which constitute the great calendar of chronological prophecy the seven prophetic times comprehend 2520 natural years: and the 2520 natural years commence in the year before Christ 657, and terminate in the year after Christ 1864.

IV. The remainder of the prediction, relative to the great metallic image, is easily dispatched.

A stone, cut out of a mountain without hands, smites the image upon its feet: and forthwith the whole fabric falls asunder, its several component parts being reduced to their individual atoms ; so that, as a body politic, its place is no longer found.After this achievement, the stone, rapidly increasing, becomes itself a great mountain, and fills the whole earth.

Such is the hieroglyphical picture : and, according to the inspired interpreter, the import of it is, that during the reign of the four successive Empires, the God of heaven should set up an indestructible kingdom, which should break in pieces and dissipate all its four predecessors, but which itself should stand for ever.

The mystic stone is doubtless the kingdom of the Messiah. This kingdom, by the gradual preparation of prophecy, was hewing out of the mountain of the Levitical Church, during the reigns of the three first Empires : it was finally cut out or separated from that mountain during the reign of the fourth Empire, when the Christian Church was personally founded by its divine Lawgiver : it began to smite the great image upon its Roman feet, synchronically with the commencement of the figurative day of judgment, at the sounding of the seventh apocalyptic trumpet in the year after Christ 1789; nor will its blows be discontinued, with whatever short intervals, until every polity, which

in its principles is opposed to the principles of the Gospel, shall be dissolved at the close of the latter three times and a half': and it will itself become a vast mountain or religious establishment, filling the whole earth, during that period of blessedness, which St. John limits precisely to 1000 years, and to which Daniel subjoins an additional smaller period of 335 years'.

V. Within the now established grand calendar of seven prophetic times, all the other numbers which specially concern the Church, with the exception of St. John's 1000 years and Daniel's 1335 years and 2300 years, will be found to be comprehended.

1. The 70 years of the Babylonian captivity of Judah, itself an eminent chronological and circumstantial type of the Church's captivity among the Gentiles during the term of the seven prophetic times, commenced in the year before Christ 606, and ended in the year before Christ 536.

2. The 70 prophetic weeks, determined to make an expiation for sin by the death of Christ upon the cross, commenced in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus or in the year before Christ 458, and terminated even to a month with the crucifixion in the year after Christ 33: the subincluded 7 weeks, which reach from the going forth of the decree to the completion of the figurative holy city, com

1

Compare Dan. ii. 34. Dan. vii. 9-11. Rev. xi. 15—18.

2 Rev. xx. 1-6. Dan. xii. 12.

menced in the year before Christ 458, and termi, nated in the year before Christ 409: and the sub included 69 weeks, which reach to the opening of the Gospel Dispensation by John the Baptist, coms menced in the year before Christ 458, and terminated in the year after Christ 26. The single week, during which the new covenant is made and the old one disannulled, commenced in the year after, Christ 26, and terminated in the year after Christ 33. The insulated half week, during which the sacrifice and meat-offering are abolished by the desolating abomination of the Romans, commenced in the middle of January in the year after Christ 67, and terminated in the middle of July in the year after Christ 70. And the utter end will be poured upon the Roman desolator at the close of the seven prophetic times or in the year after Christ 1864'.

3. The 1290 prophetic days, mentioned in Daniel's last vision as reaching from the time when the Romans set up the abomination of desolation in the temple of Jerusalem to the time when many should begin to be purified and tried, commenced in the year after Christ 70, and terminated in the year after Christ 1360.

4. The three prophetic times and a half, marked out as the reign of the little Roman horn, and variously expressed by Daniel and St. John as three times and a half or 42 months or 1260 days, commenced in the year after Christ 604 which is the

See my Dissert, on Daniel's lxx Weeks.

dividing point of the seven times, and will terminate in the year after Christ 1864.

5. The 5 prophetic months or the 150 prophetic days of the Saracenic locusts commenced in the year after Christ 612, and terminated in the year after Christ 762.

6. The day and the month and the year or the 396 prophetic days of the Turkish woe commenced in the year after Christ 1301, and terminated in the year after Christ 1697.

7. The prophetic three days and a half, during which the two apocalyptic witnesses lay dead, commenced in the January of the year after Christ 1686, and terminated in the August of the year after Christ 1689.

Thus are all these subordinate numbers spread out upon, and included within, the master-number of seven prophetic times: which seven times are the chronological measure of the great metallic image, and which constitute the grand calendar of prophecy. For, as we have now sufficiently ascertained the matter, those seven times commenced in the year before Christ 657, and will terminate in the year after Christ 1864.

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