I shall place the remainder of the Series in a Tabular form for facility of reference.

It will further be observed, that 27, the sum total of squares of 12, in the whole period, is itself the cube of 3, the number of the squares of 12 in period A.

If, again, we analyze the period of 12 x 20 = 240 years, which measures the interval from the end of the 6th Seal to the 7th, or from the peace of Passau in 1552, to the fall of the French monarchy in 1792, we shall find that 12 x 3 = 36 years, reckoned from 1552, lead us to the year of the destruction of the Spanish Armada, 1588. Thence, 12 x 5 = 60, bring us to the peace of Westphalia, whereby the articles of the peace of Passau were confirmed, and made the basis of the religious jurisprudence of Germany. Thence, 12 years bring us to the restoration of Charles II. in 1660. Thence, 12 x 8 96 years, terminate in 1756, the era of the Seven years' War in Germany; and 12 × 2, from 1756, bring us to 1780, the crisis of the American war and date of the accession of Joseph II. of Germany.

I have further discovered, that the interval from the Deluge, B. C. 3217, to the sounding of the 7th Trumpet in 1792, being 5008 years, is the fifth term in a series of geometrical progression, 313 being the first term, and 2 the ratio. The series is 313, 626, 1252, 2504, and 5008. When applied to the chronology, it will be found that the 4th term, 2504 years, leads us to B. c. 713, the date of the invasion of Judea by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and the interval from B. c. 713 to 1792, which is 2504, being bisected, is equal to the 3d term 1252, and it leads us to the year 540, when Belisarius took Ravenna, and made Vitiges,

king of the Goths, prisoner, whom he sent to Constantinople. This was the first era of the fall of the Gothic kingdom of Italy.*

My chronology of the first four Trumpets appears also to receive strong confirmation from the testimony of Sismondi in his "Histoire de la Chute de L'Empire Romain." Although he places the beginning of the fall of the Empire in the middle of the third century, which is a century earlier than I do, yet when he arrives at the fourth century, he adopts the same arrangement and chronology of the invasions of the northern nations as are given in this Work. He thus arranges them,-1st. The invasion of the Eastern Empire by the Visigoths, in 376,-2d. That of the West by the German nations, from 395 to 410,-3d. The invasion of the Empire by Attila, from 441 to 452,-4th. He dates "les dernieres convulsions de l'Empire d'Occident," the "last convulsions of the Western Empire," from the taking of Rome by the Vandals, 455, to the banishment of Augustulus, 476.t Sismondi is, I fear, not a believer in revelation, but his testimony on a point of this nature is of great value.

There is another point of interpretation in my Dissertation on the Seals, which derives striking support from the language of the same writer. I make the sixth head of the Beast to signify the Heathen Imperial power of Rome, from Augustus to Constantine, and the seventh head the Christian Imperial power, from Constantine to Augustulus, with the new capital of Constantinople. Sismondi, in his 4th chapter, after dividing the fourth century of the Christian era into three periods,—the reign of Constantine, from 306 to 337,-those of his sons and nephew, 337 to 363,-the reigns of Valentinian and his sons, and of Theodosius, from 364 to 395,-then says, "durant la première, l'antique empire d'Auguste et de Rome fit place a une monarchie nouvelle sur les confins de l'Europe et de l'Asie, avec d'autres mœurs, un autre charactère, et une autre religion,”—“ during the "first, the ancient empire of Augustus and of Rome gave place "to a new monarchy on the confines of Europe and Asia, with "other manners, another character, and a new religion."

* I follow Koch, Bredow, and the Ancient Universal History, in this date; Gibbon and Sismondi place it in 539.

See for these dates, Sismondi, pp. 95-99, 109-129, 148-153, 154–159. See my Dissertation, pp. 210-212. I have vindicated and illustrated this interpretation in my Tract, (now out of print,) The Scheme of Prophetic Arrangement of Messrs Irving and Frere Critically Examined,' pp. 53-60.

From Isa. vii. 8, 9. we may likewise infer, that the capital city of an Empire always enters into the idea of HEADSHIP. The words are, the HEAD of Syria is DAMASCUS, and the HEAD of Damascus is REZIN; the HEAD of Ephraim is SAMARIA, and the HEAD of Samaria is REMALIAH'S SON. It must, therefore, I think, be inferred, that the HEADSHIP of a BEAST, or EMPIRE, includes in it the two ideas of its CAPITAL, and the GOVERNMENT or POWER dominant in its capital. Consequently, when Constantinople, or New Rome, became the CAPITAL and seat of Empire, with a new monarchy, as Sismondi terms that of Constantine, this change. necessarily constituted a new HEADSHIP of the Beast.

There are some other points to be briefly noticed by me before I close this Preface.

I wish first to offer some further reasons, confirmatory of the exact date now adopted by me, as that of the opening of the 3d Seal, viz. at the death of Pope Hormisdas, in the year 523. Since the Series of the first five Seals from 33 to 1503, is one of 30 Jubilees, and to the end of the 5th Seal, 1552, a period of 31 Jubilees, we are evidently led by this analogy to the conclusion, that the intermediate periods are also Jubilean. Accordingly, from the 1st Seal to the 2d, and from the 4th to the 5th, there are Jubilean intervals marked by conspicuous events in History. Now, the 3d Seal, whatever be its date, marks that change in the Church, when the spirit of discord and internal warfare, made way for the reign of darkness, and the Church sunk down under the yoke of authority, imposing the ordinances of man, and the creeds composed by man It is plain, therefore, that this Seal must have commenced before the beginning of the 1260 years, wherein the saints were delivered into the hands of the Papacy, that is, before the year 532. On the other hand, it could not have begun earlier than the year 518, seeing that, till then, the Eastern and Western Churches were divided by schism. We thus pin it down to the narrow point of 14 years, within which, the only Jubilean period in this Series is the year 523, which is exactly 490 years, or 10 Jubilees, from the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord,-and from the 1st Nisan, after the death of Lamech, and the beginning of the administration of Noah, B. c. 3251, precisely 77 Jubilees, being 34 Cycles of 1078 years. Moreover, as the 5th Trumpet, when the key of the abyss was given to the fallen Star, sounded in the year 518,

being the date of the accession of the Emperor Justin, and his acknowledgment of the POPE as SUPREME PONTIFF, (that date being also confirmed by Jubilean time,) it appears impossible to select any other date in this series of Jubilees than 523, as the era of the 3d Seal. It is also a general principle, that great periods of the World and the Church, are marked in History, either by important events, or changes of reigns and administrations. The death of Pope Hormisdas, even were its importance overrated by me in p. 8, is, therefore, in itself sufficient to mark the exact year of this Seal, the period of it being previously ascertained, by the great land-marks of Prophetic Chronology, already mentioned. But while I have been writing the foregoing remarks, a new body of evidence has been seen by me, confirmatory of the accuracy of this date. The year 523, I find, is from B. c. 556, the era of the defeat of Neriglissar by Cyrus, and his death, which was the beginning of the fall of Babylon, precisely 1078 years, which is a Cycle composed of that of 1040 years + that of 19 X 2 38,* at the end of which the Moon is slow 5 H., 26. M. From the year B. c. 518, marked as a great Scriptural era in Zech. vii. 1-3. (as being exactly 70 years from the destruction of the first Temple in B. c. 588,) the year 523 is precisely the perfect Cycle of 1040 years. From B. c. 165, the date of the cleansing of Jerusalem by Judas Maccabæus, and the restoration of the worship of God after the pollution of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, to 523, is the perfect Cycle of 687 years. From A. c. 132, the date of the rebellion of the Jews under Barchochebas, the false Messiah, to 523, is the Cycle of 391 years, the Moon being slow at the end of it, 5 H., 15 M. Again, computing forward from the year 523, the perfect Cycle of 687, it leads to 1210, the 2d year of the 4th Seal, and of the Albigensian crusade. Computing from 523 the Cycle of 1040, it brings us to 1563, when the Council of Trent ended, and the abominations of Rome Papal were sealed up, never to be loosed till the day of her destruction. Lastly, the Cycle of 315 × 41260 years, being reckoned from 523, we arrive at the year 1783, the date of the general Peace after the American War, and carried on to 1840, shown in my former Works to be

* See as to these Cycles my Synopsis of Chronology, pp. 7 and 8.
Ibid. p. 8.

Ibid. p. 8.

*

=

a great era in Chronology, the period becomes the Cycle of 1317 years, composed of that of 334 x 3 1002 +315,† and at the end of it the Moon is fast 5 H., 51 M. By this complex body of evidence, the year 523 is proved to be a great era, and the date of the 3d Seal incontrovertibly established.

In treating of the Symbolical History of the Witnesses in chap. ii. of this Supplement, I have said nothing of an interpretation offered in the pages of the Investigator, by a writer who signs himself E., and is, as the public is now informed, Mr Elliott of Tuxford. This interpretation is not new, but only a new version, as it were, of that of Mr Fleming, in his Discourse on the 'Rise and Fall of Papacy,' which was refused by me in my Dissertation.§ Mr Elliott's new version of it is substantially as follows:-(Investigator, vol. iii. pp. 190-196.)

66

The 5th Lateran Council was summoned by Pope Julius II. for the extirpation of all heretics. It was in the eighth session of the Council, Dec. 1513, (says Mr Elliott,) that the adhesion of France was received, up to which period nothing had been done of importance. But now they proceeded at once to make arrangements for effecting the objects of the meeting among them, that of the total extirpation of heretics. The Bohemian brethren seem to have been the only witnesses regarded by the Catho"lics as not yet quite silenced." Here the learned writer somewhat differs from his authority, for Mr Waddington's words are, an edict of safe conduct was granted to the Bohemian schismatics, "for their heresy was rising again into formidable attention." A bull, continues Mr Elliott, was issued, inviting those heretics to the Council's next Session, with a promise of a safe-conduct. At length the next Session came, it was held May 5th, 1514. This was the time for the heretics, in other words, the Witnesses, appearing. But where were now the Wickliffs, Husses, and Jeromes? Alas! not one appeared. Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, they were silenced, they were dead. The threats of the bull of convocation seemed already to have accom

* Fulness of the Times, p. 153;-Introductory Dissertation, pp. 41, 2. Note; -Supplementary Dissertation, p. 75;-Synopsis of Chronology, Preface, pp. xxii, There are other great periods coming out in 1840, which are not mentioned in my Works.

xxiii.

Synopsis of Chronology, p. 8.

§ See Dissert. on Seals, Note, pp. 21, 2. 3d edition.

b

Vol. iii. pp. 189-195.