of the interval between the end of the 1260 and end of the 1335 years, noted in Daniel xii as the time of the end, (an interval probably corresponding with the former, if we may rest at all on what is doubtless an obscure prophecy,') is seventy-five years:-just the very same as between Justinian's commencing epoch and that of Phocas.

But in this I anticipate. The present Part of my Work reaches to, but does not include, the 7th Trumpet and time of the end. And, ere entering on it, we are called to mark how in the antithetic vision next occurring, there was beautifully figured to St. John both the continued existence, and a certain chief epoch of advance in the history of, Christ's true Church, during the reign of the Beast, and in contrast and opposition to it; even up to what might seem a primary epoch of the termination of the Beast's 1260 years of prospering. For the present it may suffice to add, as the conclusion of this Section, that there remains to be shown, in order to complete our historic application of this prophecy of the Apocalyptic Beast to the Popes and Popedom, but one thing more only: viz., the fact of some grand antiPapal event occurring about A. D. 1790, such as to constitute a primary epoch of termination to the Beast's 1260 predicted year-days of prospering; supposing Justinian's Decree, following the Pope's assumption of office as CHRIST'S VICAR, or ANTICHRIST, to constitute their primary epoch of commencement. Calculating them from Phocas' Decree, the ending epoch is even yet future.

ere its ultimate end by burning in the lake of fire.-So in the Apocalypse. In Daniel vii. 26 the judgment, on sitting, is said "to consume and destroy the Beast's dominion unto the end:"-an expression implying time.

1 Dan. xii. 7.-12. This prophecy will be remarked on more fully hereafter.

VOL. III.

CHAPTER X.

THE LAMB'S BEAST-CONTRASTED POLITY OF THE 144,000 ON MOUNT ZION, AND ITS FIRST

OMEN OF TRIUMPH.

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"And I looked, and lo, a Lamb1 stood on the Mount Zion, and with him 144,000, having his Father's name 2 written in their foreheads.And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers 3 harping with their harps. And they sung as it were ✨ a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and the elders. And no man could learn that song but the 144,000, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile : 5 for they are without fault before the throne of God."-Apoc. xiv. 1-5.

In the preceding vision the Evangelist had had his view directed to the dark dark scene of the reign of the antichristian Beast :- the Beast the Dragon's substitute, and usurper of Christ's offices, titles, supremacy, and kingdom; with the great Roman city (the throne of the ancient Paganism) for his capital, the apostatized Christian clergy for his priesthood, and all the world wondering after him, worshipping his image, and receiving the impress of his mark and name. But his success, at the

1 Some manuscripts of authority have the definite article, the Lamb.
2 Others read, το όνομα αυτό και το όνομα το πατρος αυτό.

3 So Mill and the authorized Translation. Griesbach reads ; Και η φωνη ἣν ηκεσα ὡς κιθαρωδων "And the voice which I heard was as of harpers, &c." And so Tregelles. 4 Griesbach rejects the s. 5 δόλος. So Mill and the English authorized translation. ψευδος lie ; also in the next clause simply αμωμοι εισι,

Griesbach reads

highest, could not be so complete as that the gates of hell should prevail. There was all the while in existence, although trampled on and oppressed,' another city and another people; the followers of the Lamb, and with the Father's name and mark on their foreheads. Already in the former series of visions,-the Part within written of the Apocalyptic scroll, running parallel with that which we have now under consideration, or the Part without,2-there had been both intimations given, and visions represented, of this the Lord's people; in the midst of others figurative of the growing apostacy, and the punishments consequent thereon, of the rest of Christendom. More especially on the prefiguration of the very first marked commencement of the Apostacy, they had been depicted to St. John3 as the subjects of divine sovereign grace, electing them from out of the midst of mere professing Christendom, and then illuminating, quickening, and stamping them with the Father's appropriating mark as his own the perfectness of their number, however comparatively small, indicated by the declared mystic number 144,000; their preservation, amidst the severest of God's providential judgments on the world they mixed in, ensured by his charge to the tempest-angels concerning them; and other intimations added to the effect that, even though oppressed, and apparently, at one time at least, conquered by their enemies, they should remain. in reality indestructible, and ultimately prove altogether triumphant. It is these 144,000 that St. John has now again represented before him. In the course of the two previous visions of the Dragon and the Beast, he might naturally have thought of them, when told of the children of the mystic woman driven into the wilderness,

1 "And they (the Gentiles) shall tread (kaтnσsơi, trample,) the Holy City forty and two months." Apoc. xi. 2.

2 See Vol. i. p. 105 and p. 1-4 suprà.

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3 Apoc. vii. See Vol. i. pp. 237, 247-249. Apoc. xi. 7, xiii. 7. Apoc. xvii. 14; "These" (the ten kings with the Beast) "shall make war with the Lamb. And the Lamb shall overcome them, (because He is King of kings and Lord of lords,) and they that are with Him, the called and chosen and faithful." These last are evidently a nominative in apposition with the Lamb, as the participators in his victory.

and of the witnesses and saints that would be the object of the antichristian Beast's hatred and attack.' And now he sees them visibly represented before him ; undestroyed as indestructible:-the Mount Zion (a locality of natural features very familiar to his recollection, though here depicted probably as desolate of earthly grandeur, even like a cottage in a wilderness, and a besieged city,) this Mount Zion the symbol of their polity, and a lamb of Him that was their King, their Saviour, and their guide.3 A blessed vision; and with not a little in the circumstantials, mentioned as attendant or consequent, to augment its blessedness!

The thus presented contrast of the Lamb, his people, and polity, to the Beast and his people and polity, must appear to all, I think, in itself very fit and beautiful. And as St. John saw the vision as a symbolic man, it may probably, while depicting the true Augustinian view of Christ's real Church held by the faithful from the earliest Papal times, have yet had the peculiar fitness of special reference to that æra when Christ's saints began to see themselves more openly separated from the Romanists than before:-the time, I mean, of the Walden

Wicliffites, Hussites, &c.-And it will only appear the more striking to any one conversant with Romish views and Romish language, during the 1260 years of Papal supremacy, from the circumstance of the Pope's usurpation to himself and his adherents of all the characteristics here ascribed to Christ and his saints. For the Pope's city, according to them, was the Holy City: his

1 Apoc. xii. 17, xiii. 7.

2 Isa. i. 8: "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a wilderness, and as a besieged city." Compare Apoc. xi. 2, on the holy city being trodden during the Beast's 1260 year-days by the heathen of the outer court of the symbolic temple, and Apoc. xii, on the woman, the true church, having the wilderness as her home for the 1260 years. So in Vol. ii. p. 386, &c.—The reader must carefully distinguish between this earthly Zion in the figurations, as the symbol of the saints' polity during their earthly state, (just as the pictured earthly temple symbolized their worship and church,) and the heavenly Jerusalem, where there was no temple, the symbol of their completed polity and church, in a better state. 3 If we read apriov, a lamb, although distinguished from, it will yet evidently represent, the Lamb that was on the throne.

"Holy Rome."-The sermons of Councils and bulls of Popes offer many

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supremacy and see its mystical Mount Zion: professing Christendom subject to him the twelve tribes of Israel:2 they that became crusaders at his mandate, against infidels or heretics, the takers up of the cross to follow Christ; and the faithful monks and nuns of his jurisdiction, the Apocalyptic 144,000, privileged hereafter to follow the lamb, as the virgin bride of Christ." On the other hand, against the very view of Christ's true Church here implied to have been seen by the symbolic man St. John, as an election of grace out of a professing world, the redeemed by his blood, the living by his life, and first-born and adopted sons of God,-against this the Papal Beast, both by his own mouth and that of his

examples of the Romish Church, or Civitas, being represented under the character of the heavenly Jerusalem. See some at Vol. ii. p. 80, Notes and 3. So Pagan Rome too was in earlier times called ovрavoñoλis.—Strange that at this time of day, and in this kingdom, there should be found any to designate Papal Rome as the Holy City!

1 So Leo X. in the 9th Session of the 5th Lateran Council: "Posteaquam ad universalis ecclesiæ curam et regimen divinâ dispensatione vocati fuimus, ex summo apostolatûs apice, tanquam ex vertice montis Zion, ea prospicere cœpimus, &c." Hard. ix. 1742. So again Hard. vii. 669; &c. "Nos qui civitatis veri David, religionis videlicet Christianæ, circà cujus regimem innitimur."Elsewhere the Pope is made David's representative. So, for instance, Hard. ix. 1684, &c.

2 In the 5th Lateran Council, for example, Session 6, and in that of Trent, Session 1, the Bishops were addressed as the rulers of the twelve tribes of Israel; -"Vos Patres qui sedetis super sedes duodecim judicantes: "-" Sedemus tanquam judicantes duodecim tribus Israel; quibus comprehenditur universus populus Dei." The latter quotation is from the Papal Legate's opening address at Trent. Hard. ix. 1687, x. 14.-Let this be compared with what I have said Vol. i. p. 237 of the twelve tribes of Israel being Apocalyptically used to designate professing Christendom.

3 So Innocent III. in the 4th Lateran Council, of those that took up the cross against the Saracens. Hard. vii. 1. Nearly similar praises and privileges were elsewhere given to crusaders against heretics.

4 Martene de Rit. ii. 189, &c.-So in the once celebrated Golden Legend (History of All Halloween) on the excellence of Virgins; "They have many privileges. They shall have the crown called Aureola. They only shall sing the new song. They shall follow always the Lamb, &c."

Jerom curiously opposes this verse 4 to Vigilantius' statement, that the saints after death slept in Abraham's bosom, or under the altar of God, and so could not be present at their tombs. "Tu Deo leges ponis? Tu apostolis vincula injicies? ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur custodiâ, nec sint cùm Domino suo; de quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur Agnum quocumque vadit? Si Agnus ubique, ergo et hi." (Quoted previously, Vol. i. p. 311, Note ".)

But the yet more ancient Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, A.D. 177, speaking of Vettius Epagathus says that he was a genuine disciple of Christ, "following the Lamb whithersoever he might go :" so showing that they construed the vision, like myself, as figurative of true Christians whilst on earth. By implied reference to the sealing vision.