doctrinal importance. Those whom history shows to have been so rejected on earth, the revelation of Jesus Christ shows to be rejected in heaven. By the sure word of this prophecy, the mind of God is clearly revealed; therefore, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they who hear, and keep those things which are written therein."

Some surprise may probably arise at the interpretation "for ages past," being attached to the Apocalyptic "forty and two months." The time involved, interpreting as before a prophetic day to represent a literal year, is 1260 years, but as a similar period is again mentioned in the next part of the prophecy, a precise illustration may with advantage be postponed until that part comes under consideration. In the meantime as the fulfilment only is required and not the announcement as previously shown, "for ages past" will be accepted as a general interpretation fully meeting the present necessity.

We have now to seek the verification of these interpretations by the event. It will be seen that the number and particularity of the prophetic terms and symbols fully justify the statement at the commencement of this lecture, that a severe test would be applied thereby to the accuracy of our chronology and of our previous conclusions.

As before mentioned, Gibbon's history terminates A.D. 1453, so that, beyond that he has already notified a reformation in the sixteenth century, and a brief anticipatory reference to its consequences is found in his 54th chapter, his graphic and impartial pages do not supply the illustrations of our subject; his notice, however, sufficiently exhibits the correspondence between the reformation he refers to, and that indicated in the vision, to furnish the immediate subject of search in the records of other historians. He says, under the head of " Introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and France," and still illustrating the unrepented sins of the western professing Christians, the subject of the previous lecture:-"It was in the country of the Albigeois, in the southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were the most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the

neighbourhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the eastern emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary flame of Theodora. It was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of the crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by the founders of the Inquisition, an office more adapted to confirm than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the visions of the Gnostic theology. The struggles of Wickliffe in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual; but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced with gratitude as the deliverers of nations; " and as champions of the gospel, and preachers of truth in the midst of a general apostasy, they stand forth as ambassadors of Christ, invested with the characteristics of the symbolic angel in the vision. A note, by the editor of Bohn's edition, says:-"No salutary change has ever been sudden. Permanent reform has always had such unsuccessful precursors as Wickliffe and Huss. The merit of their triumphant followers was in the favourable conjuncture which called them into action (the appearance of the angel). To estimate rightly the value of the Reformation, we must watch in all its stages, the long previous struggle by which it was prepared, and unveil the antagonist ascendancy in its earliest form. There is not a brighter hour in the history of man." Gibbon continues:-"A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles of faith, they have enfranchised the Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible with truth and piety.

After a fair discussion we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than scandalised by the freedom of our first reformers. In the great mysteries of the Trinity, the reformers were severely orthodox; they freely adopted the theology of the four, or the six, first councils; and, with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is a tenet which entangled the first Protestants in their own scruples, who were also awed by the words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches. But the loss of one mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination; which were enforced by the reformers as the absolute and essential terms of salvation.

"The services of Luther and his rivals" (it must not be forgotten that we are quoting from a sceptic's point of view) "are solid and important, and the philosopher must own his obligations to these fearless enthusiasts. By their hands the lofty fabric of superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercession of the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both sexes were restored to the liberty and labours of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church; and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of the Deity. It only remains to observe whether such sublime simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and indifference.

The chain of authority was broken which restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave from speaking as he thinks; the popes, fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world; and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom, however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigour their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of the magistrates to punish heretics with death. The pious or personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus the guilt of his own rebellion, and the flames of Smithfield, in which he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists by the zeal of Cranmer. The nature of the tiger was the same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the antiquity of the Catholic church; their arguments and disputes were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and the disciples of Erasmus diffused a spirit of freedom and moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a common benefit, an inalienable right; the free governments of Holland and England" (subsequently noted in the prophecy as we shall see)" introduced the practice of toleration; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs; the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private

members; and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh or a smile by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished; the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, whose numbers must not be computed from their separate congregations; and the pillars of revelation are shaken by those men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who indulge the license, without the temper of philosophy."

Such is Gibbon's review of the character and consequences of the Reformation, the great historical feature of the age succeeding the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The immediate effect produced by the preaching of the early reformers, as related by Gibbon, testify the importance of their mission, and proclaim their appearance on the world's platform as the fulfillers of prophecy; and as the Turks were the heroes of the first part of the sixth trumpet's proclamations, the instruments of the fall of Constantinople, and the subverters of Roman authority in the east, so Mezeray, an eminent French historian of the kings of France, a Roman Catholic, exhibits the Turks also as the visible, though indirect, cause of the Reformers being roused into active opposition to the errors of the period. By thus connecting them, he supplies another interesting instance of historic correspondence, inasmuch as such a connection is shown in the prophecy by the successive figurations being embraced under the same trumpet. The historian says, his date being 1517:—

"Christendom enjoyed a most perfect calm, when she was troubled with two of the most horrible scourges or plagues, that did ever torment her. Selim, the Turkish Sultan, having conquered Syria, laid Ismael Sophy's power in the dust, extinguished the domination of the Mamalucs in Egypt, by the utter defeat and death of Campson, the last Egyptian sultan, vaunted that in quality of successor to Constantine the Great, he should soon bring all Europe under his empire; and at the same time the bowels of the