in numerical force amount respectively to no more than 257 and 661. If we would justify our claims to the wisdom which St. John pronounces necessary to the development of his meaning, I believe we must commence our inquiry into his secret purpose, by rejecting such cabbalistic trifling, as alike unsuitable to the gravity of the Evangelist's subject and character.

We must, therefore, have recourse to some principle of exposition more worthy the dignity of the prophetical style, and the solemn purpose of the Evangelist. As the literal interpretation, in which the number 666 is taken as properly such, must of necessity agree most intimately with the text, and can diminish nothing of the solemnity of the subject, it is clearly entitled to a preference above all other modes of exposition. In this view, the number appears intended to mark the duration of the power, which is characterised by the Apostle in a subsequent description of its nature and qualities. According to the analogy of prophetical language a state is said to be numbered,' when its end is determined; thus of the realm of Belshazzar Daniel declares, God hath numbered thy kingdom

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that Aaravos is an archaisin: Newt. ubi supr. p. 319. We still remain to be informed why the Evangelist should desert the proper, to adopt the obsolete orthography; and why the Greek noun is not, equally with the Hebrew, put in the gender of θηρίον.

F

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and finished it. St. John, whose close imitation of the Jewish Prophet has been already the subject of remark, in applying the number 666 to the beast, whom he describes as wounded to death' and deprived of his authority, is thus to be understood as delivering himself in the same manner. There can be, therefore, no ground of doubt, as to the propriety of considering the number of the beast,' as intended to mark the duration of his power and dominion. The diversity, in the mode of expression used by the Evangelist, is thus rendered accordant with the difference in his purpose; as on other occasions he describes the persecuting power of the beast, in the present passage he prescribes the term of its exercise.

The basis of our computation has been already fixed in A. M. 6000, corresponding with A. D. 1996. In the two sums 1260 and 666, amounting together to 1926, we have obtained a number, which, when subtracted from the basis, necessarily determines the first year of the term expressed by both numbers. On deducting, according to this principle, 1926 years from A. D. 1996, the remainder, expressing A. D. 70, consequently determines the epoch of the period of 666 years; and, as the Evangelist's computation commences with this term, it determines at the same time the epoch of his entire computation. On the extraordinary date at which

80 Dan. v. 26.

81 Rev. xiii. 3. xvii. 8.

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we arrive by this process it will be sufficient at present to observe, that it marks the identical year of the destruction of the Temple. When it is remembered, that from this event the close of the economy of Moses, and the commencement of the dispensation of the Messiah, are alike dated by the Jews and by our Lord; it will be readily conceded, that a more appropriate epoch could not have been chosen by the Evangelist for his computations.

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From the determination of these dates, the distribution of the last period of the Great Sabbatism, during which the destinies of the Christian Church are revealed by St. John, may be now easily effected. The exactness with which the several numbers of which it is composed not only make up the sum of 2000 years, but, according to the septenary distribution of the world's age, precisely intervene between the time of our Lord's advent, in A. M. 4000, and the expectation of the Millennium in A. M. 6000, are surely not to be regarded with ordinary feelings of surprise. If the demonstration which they afford, as integral parts of one consistent scheme, be resisted as inconclusive, I must profess myself unacquainted with a mode

82 Usser. ubi supr. p. 698, ad A. D. 70. 83 Vid. Is. lxiii. 9, 11. Matt. xxiv. 3, 15. Expect. of a Great Deliver. p. 70, 71. n. 165. Israel. P. II. Diss. in Is. ib. 8, 9. p. 243. Coen. Dom. P. 172.

Comp. Assyr. Cramer. Goël Meyer de Temp.

The results at which we thus arrive by a strictly chronological deduction, receive no slight confirmation from the analogy which they bear to the conclusions that Bishop Newton attained by a historical induction. As far as the dates of the preceding scale fall within the term of years to which St. John's predictions extend, the main pivot, on which the Evangelist's prophetical scheme turns, is the epoch identified with A. D. 736 as from this date the earlier period of 666 years may be computed in ascent, as the later of 1260 years in descent. But of the historical character of the period comprising that epoch, the learned commentator delivers himself in terms which I shall venture to cite at large; not merely as corroborative

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of the preceding conclusions, but as preliminary to the establishment of the epoch which I believe to be cardinal in the computation. After objecting to the year in which it is fixed by Mede, he proceeds to observe; These 1260 years of the reign ' of Antichrist are not to be computed from his birth, or infancy, or youth; but from his coming to maturity, from his coming to the throne; and in my opinion their beginning cannot be fixed, con'sistent with history, either sooner or later than ' in the eighth century. Several memorable events ⚫ happened in that century. In the year 727 the Pope and people of Rome revolted from the exarch of Ravenna, and shook off their allegiance 'to the Greek Emperor. In the year 755 he ' obtained the exarchate of Ravenna for himself, ⚫ and thenceforwards acted as an absolute temporal prince. In the year 774 the Pope, by the assist'ance of Charles the Great, became possessed of 'the kingdom of the Lombards. In the year 787 the worship of images was fully established, and 6 ⚫ the supremacy of the Pope acknowledged by the second council of Nice. From one or other of these ‹ transactions it is probable, that the beginning of the reign of Antichrist is to be dated. What appears to be most probable is, that it is to be dated 'from the year 727, when, as Sigonius says, "Rome "" and the Roman dukedom came from the Greeks