his successors were unfortunately addicted.122 And under them the spirit of persecution revived, though in a subdued and less terrific form: as they sentenced the Catholics, if not to death, to banishment from their territories, and obtruded heretics into their charge and function. 123 Athanasius, who was an early victim of this proscriptive fury, declares, that the authors of it were instigated by a spirit of infidelity, having been corrupted by the sceptical writings of Porphyry, and that the persecution excited against the Christians, was a conspiracy of the heretics with the pagans, for the utter subversion of their religion.124 And Jerome, who lived to witness and deplore the judgments which immediately followed, on the descent of the northern nations, attests, how long this spirit prevailed, and how widely it was diffused through the population, as he asserts that to his own times they were universally polluted with heresy.125 The irruption of the barbarians, whose domination in the Empire, after its partition, the Evangelist had not less accurately prefigured, brought with it a dreadful aggravation of these evils. By the hordes who now spread desolation wherever they

122 S. Hier. Suppl. Chron. Euseb. p. 182. ed. Scalig. 123 Bergom. Chron. ut supr. ad A. C. 239. fol. 208. conf. S. Athan. Hist. Arian. § 10. 17. 20.

124 Id. ibid. § liv. lvii.

125 Hier. Com. in Ezech. cap. viii. proœm.

appeared, all the excesses which had been perpetrated by the first pagan persecutors, were visited with accumulated vengeance. The Goths, the Huns, the Vandals, and even the Longobards are represented as respecting neither age nor sex in their indiscriminate massacres.126 To this system of devastation and terror the Church was exposed, as nearly as possible, for the period of 666 years; when an effectual termination was put to these excesses, on the reduction of the Lombards and extinction of the Goths, by the peaceable establishment of the Western Emperor and the Pope, in their vacated dominions.

In the coalesced power to which the remains of the imperial authority now passed, at the very epoch assigned to their origin, the same spirit revived, as the Evangelist has already foreshewn. On its nature, as idolatrous and tyrannical, it is unnecessary at present to enlarge, as a fitter opportunity will soon occur for entering on the subject; and as our national history bears the melancholy evidence of its character, in both qualities, engrained on its pages in letters of blood.

The close of the first period of 666 years, to which St. John's prophecy extends, it must be therefore admitted, is marked with a precision not less wonderful than that by which we formerly observed 126 Bergom. ut supr. ad A. C. 338. fol. 206, 207. A. C. 593. fol. 235. A. C. 754. fol. 247.

its epoch was distinguished. Had the Evangelist's claims to inspiration rested on no other evidence; in the accuracy with which he has predicted occurrences, so immeasurably placed beyond human calculation or conjecture, they must have been established beyond controversion or doubt. And in the extraordinary events which thus verified his predictions, we retain, at this day, evidence not less strong, though perhaps less striking, of the direct intervention of a power superior to nature, than they had who were eye-witnesses of the miracle which he wrought, in conjunction with St. Peter, on the mendicant who lay at the gate of the temple. Nor can the method of proof, by which their accomplishment has been established, be denied the claim of strict demonstration. The similarities which are commonly traced between prophetical revelation and historical narrative can but enforce moral conviction; as merely possessing a relative agreement they prove a coincidence, but do not establish an identity. But when expressed in time, they are reduced to positive homogeneous quantities, and are consequently appreciable by a common standard of measure. And in this form they become legitimate subjects of strict demonstration. The proof which the mathematician effects derives its conclusiveness solely from the employment of such a measure of quantity.128 The 128 Vid. Locke ubi supra.

127 Acts iii. 11.

geometrician can, by no other mode of eviction, shew the equality of the three angles of a triangle to two right angles, or evince the truth of any theorem which he professes to demonstrate. The mechanic, when he undertakes to establish the agreement of his measurement with the dimension of an object of which he takes the size, adopts no other method but that of shewing, by the application of his rule, the exact correspondence of their respective proportions.129 A method of demonstration, in every essential respect the same, having been employed in the preceding deductions, I cannot perceive how the results at which we have arrived can be denied to be equally conclusive.

Having thus far considered the first period of 666 years, to which the Apocalyptic prophecies extend, our enquiry is necessarily directed to the second, of 1260 years, by which it is directly succeeded. On the just estimation of the latter term, it is very generally agreed,130 properly depends the computation of the probable time of the Millennium. As both periods have a common point of contact in A. D. 736, the epoch from which the latter of them is deduced has been necessarily established, by the method of proof by which the close of the former has been established. Of the events which have succeeded that date, a great part has become matter of historical certainty; and, as preserving 129 Vid. Locke ubi supra.

130 Vid. supra. p. 29, 30.

an exact correspondence with the author's predictions, has so far contributed to multiply the proofs of his inspiration. But respecting a large portion which remains to be fulfilled, in which also the particular period of the Millennium is included, we have no evidence that it will be eventually fulfilled, different from the earnest which we have thus received of his infallibility. It thus becomes to us an object of faith, not matter susceptible of demonstration. Of this description is not only the whole period of the 1000 years that ' must be fulfilled,' but a part of the 1260 years by which we are assured, that time of righteousness and peace will be directly preceded. Both of these periods refer to the state of the Church; the one as it shall finally flourish under the dominion of Christ, the other as it is oppressed under the usurpation of Antichrist.

In contrasting these different conditions of the Church, as existing in a state of righteousness under Christ, and of apostacy under Antichrist, the Evangelist assigns them a different seat of dominion, representing the throne of the one as raised in the new Jerusalem, and of the other as set up in Babylon.131 A late writer, into whose motives it is not difficult to penetrate,13% has sought

131 Rev. xvii. 5. 9. xxi. 2, 3. 22.

132 Vid. Nimrod. ut supr. Vol. III. p. 536. seq. Comp. ib. p. 322, 323. Vol. I. p. 10, n. 6. &c.