This title was confirmed and acknowledged by Justinian in his epistle to Epiphanius, bishop of Constantinople, of date 25th March, 533. He acknowledges his epistle to the Roman pontiff, and maintains that he is the head of all bishops, and that "by decisions and right judgment of his venerable see, heretics are corrected."

The same power, Justinian, in his Novella, gives to Rome the supremacy of the pontificate, and gave to the pope the precedence of all the priesthood:

"The authenticity of the title," says Mr. Croley, "receives unanswerable proof from the edicts of the Novella' of the Justinian code. The preamble of the 9th states, that as the elder Rome was the founder of the laws; so was it not to be questioned, that in her was the supremacy of the pontificate.' The 131st, on the Ecclesiastical Titles and Privileges, chapter ii., states: We therefore decree that the most holy pope of the elder Rome is the first of all the priesthood, and that the most blessed archbishop of Constantinople, the new Rome, shall hold the second rank, after the holy apostolic chair of the elder Rome."[Croley, pp. 114, 115.]

5. Three of the first horns, or kingdoms, were to be plucked up by the roots before him. (1.) In A. D. 493, ten years from the time of the establishment of the last of the ten kings, the Heruli, in Rome and Italy, were subverted by the Ostrogoths. (2.) In 534, the Vandals, another of the ten kingdoms, were conquered by the Greeks, for the purpose of establishing the supremacy of the Catholics. (3.) In 538, in the month of March, the Greeks conquered the Ostrogoths,

in Rome and Italy,* and opened the way for car rying into effect the decree of Justinian, constituting the Bishop of Rome head of all the churches for the Ostrogoths were Arians, and bitter enemies of the Pope and the Catholic faith; hence, while they held Rome, the decree could not be carried into effect. But when the same power that issued the decree conquered and possessed Rome, it could be established.

These are all the circumstances predicted to precede the period specified. We must, therefore, begin at that point, or we must leave a vacuum in the series of events; the chain will be broken. Predicted events during the period.

1. Blasphemy. "He shall speak great words against the Most High."

2. Persecution. of the Most High."

"He shall wear out the saints

3. Assumption of authority. "Change times and laws."

All history of those ages testifies as to the accomplishment of all these by the papal power. 4. Dominion over the saints. "They shall be given into his hands."

The event to end the period.

'They shall take away his dominion." In the month of February, 1798, Berthier, a French general, by order of the French republic, entered Rome with an army and took it; deposed the pope, abrogated his government, and in its place set up an entirely new form of government, viz., a republic, and then carried the pope a prisoner to France, where he died.

From 538, the date of the last circumstance

* See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

predicted to precede the period, to 1798, the date of the event which was to terminate the period, was twelve hundred and sixty years. A more perfect demonstration than this cannot be desired,

1. That the prediction of the reign of the little horn is a prediction of the great anti-Christian or papal apostacy.

2. That a time, times, and dividing of time, is twelve hundred and sixty years.

3. That the period has already passed by, and we are forty-three years this side its termination.

II. THE CONDITION OF THE PAPAL POWER AFTER HIS DOMINION WAS TAKEN AWAY.

"To consume and destroy unto the end." The great error of most expositors, in calculating "the time, times, and dividing of a time," and explaining the prophecy, seems to have been, in supposing that popery would cease to exist after the close of that period; whereas, the prophecy gives us most clearly to understand that it was to exist after that period, and undergo a consuming process, even from its fall "to the END." This consuming process has been realized in its history.

1. One of the fundamental principles of popery was the suppression of the Scriptures. But since 1798, the word of God has been translated into more than one hundred and fifty different languages in which it was never before published; and is now scattered among nearly all nations, in their own languages. This work of Bible distribution is not confined to Protestant communities

८.

alone it has gone among Jews, Mahomedans, Pagans, Greeks, Catholics, and, finally, infidels. Yes, Catholic-infidel France, is receiving the blessed volume of truth. According to the report of the Bible Society, there were distributed in France, last year, 250,000 copies of the holy Scriptures; and also that eighty, out of one hundred and fifty colporters or Bible distributers were but a short time since, Roman Catholics. The very fact of the universal spread of the word of God is one of the heaviest blows that the papal superstition could receive. Under such a stroke it can but writhe and languish.

2. The Inquisition has been abolished since that period. The light of the 19th century will not tolerate such an engine of torture.

3. Monastic institutions in some of the darkest papal countries of Europe have been abolished.

4. Protestants are tolerated in all papal countries. Even in the city of Rome, the church of England has had a place of worship, and regular services each Sabbath for some thirty years.

5. The pope acknowledges his own weakness and want of power to suppress heresy. He feels the smart of his mortal wound and the weakness of his broken arm, as the following extract from his ENCYLLICAL LETTER of September, 1840, will abundantly show.-[Signs of the Times, Feb. 15, 1841.]

He says, "Indeed, are we not compelled to see the most crafty enemies of the truth ranging far and wide with impunity?" Again ;-"We refer you to facts, venerable brethren, which not only are known to you, but of which you are witnesses; even you, who, though you mourn, and,

1

as your pastoral duty requires, are by no means silent, are yet compelled to tolerate in your dioceses these aforesaid propagators of heresy and infidelity." Hence, it is easy to conceive the state of anguish into which our soul is plunged day and night," &c.

66

Once, the Holy Inquisition could quickly check the audacity of heretics and infidels, and the pope and his priesthood were not COMPELLED TO TOLERATE" them in their "DIOCESES;" but now they have no alternative but to submit.

6. Another heavy stroke in the consumption of that little horn, is, the recent quarrel between him and the Spanish government. That government, provoked at the audacity of the pope, has issued an act, declaring the supremacy of the Roman pontiff to be at once and forever abolished in the kingdom of Spain. Can we ask for a more explicit fulfilment of prophecy than we have of the consumption of popery from 1798 until now?

True, the pope is making gigantic efforts for the propagation of his system, but it is all done by Jesuitical trickery, not by the authority he once derived from Justinian to correct heretics, by decision and right judgment of his venerable see.

III. THE LENGTH OF "A TIME - -OR, HOW MUCH IS TWO TIMES?

"A time" is an arbitrary period given by the Lord to measure the duration of prophetic events. It is used both in a literal and figurative sense; and the nature of the prophecy in connection with which the period is given must de