CHAPTER X
SOLAR MEASURES OF THE SEVEN TIMES.
If now, from the same two limits of the captivity era, we measure "seven
times" on the full solar scale,
B.C. 747 "seven times" solar AD. 1774
B.C. 557 "seven times" solar A.D. 1934
we are led to the year A.D. 1774, and to the yet future year, A.D. 1934.
That future date is the year in which the seven times will terminate on
the longest scale, from the latest starting-point, and it is therefore
likely to bear to the other critical years of the "time of the end"
about the same proportionate importance as the last stage of the fall
of Judah, under Zedekiah, bore to the earlier stages. That last stage
was not the crisis, but an after-wave of the Babylonian overthrow, the
great crisis of which had come eleven years previously. But of this we
will speak more particularly in a subsequent section, as, avoiding final
stages and future dates, we are here dealing only with preliminary stages
and past dates; that is, with matter of absolute historic certainty, not
with anything in the slightest degree speculative or uncertain. We are
planting our feet at every step on the terra firma of unquestionable fact.
For the present then we consider only the first of these two terminal
dates, AD. 1774, a date removed by 2,520 full solar years from the era
of Nabonassar, B.C.
747.
To what crisis did this first full termination of the "seven times"
lead? To the great crisis which is, by the common consent of all historians,
regarded as the beginning of a new era in the history of European Christendom,-to
the commencement of the era of retribution on the great Roman apostasy
and its head, the Papacy-to the era of THE FRENCH REVOLUTION- to the year
1774, which was that of the accession of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
The French Revolution had three stages: the preparatory stage, in which
deistical and infidel doctrines were made the basis of widespread attacks
on religious faith and existing political institutions; the actual Revolution,
which overthrew Church and State, society and religion, loyalty, nobility,
clergy, laws, customs, institutions,-everything that had previously existed
in France; and lastly the Napoleonic stage, which, after a series of aggressive
wars, which upset every kingdom in Europe, dethroned the pope and five
other monarchs, created eight new ones, carried captive two Roman pontiffs,
incorporated Rome in the French empire, and ended by subjecting France
to a tyranny more complete than that from which it had liberated the country
in the beginning. The whole movement may be said to have extended from
Voltaire to Waterloo; but the accession of Louis XVI. (A.D. 1774), the
accession of the monarch who lost his crown and life in the crisis of
the Revolution, may be regarded as the initial date of the central part
of the movement. Just as in the captivity era, the accession of Nabonassar,
the first king of Babylon, and not that of Nebuchadnezzar, the king under
whom Babylon reached the climax of its glory and the height of its power,
is the starting-point, so here; not the climax of the Revolution which
was to overthrow the Papal Babylon, but the accession of the monarch in
whose reign it took place, is the first point to which we are led. Alison
begins his history of the French Revolution with this year
1774.
In THE EAST this same year brought another well marked stage in the fall
of Turkey: a disastrous Russian war, closed by the fatal and humiliating
TREATY OF KAINARDJE, of which we have spoken elsewhere.
Thus in the West "seven times" solar lead to the French, as
"seven times" lunar led to the English Revolution, both stages
of Papal overthrow, though of widely different character; while in the
East "seven times" solar lead to Kainardje, as "seven times"
lunar led to Carlowitz-names which sound like death-knells in the ears
of Turkish statesmen.
We may add that the previous year, 1773, witnessed the abolition of the
order of the Jesuits by Pope Clement XIV., who was forced to issue a bull
for the purpose, though well aware it would cost him his life, and endanger
the stability of the Papal throne, of which the order had long been a
mainstay. The French Revolution and the Treaty of Kainardje mark the full
solar commencement of "the time of the end."
To the "seven times" prophecy adds its own epact, seventy-five
years, or the difference between 2,520 lunar years and the same number
of solar years. This it adds in two portions, thirty years, and forty-five
years. [Dan. xii. 11, 12.] It does not distinctly intimate the nature
of the terminal event of these added seventy-five years, further than
that they will bring the time of full blessedness. This supplementary
period seems to have a special connexion with Palestine and the Jews,
Daniel’s people, and is chiefly to be dated from a later point. But
just as the oft repeated 1,260 years, or three and a half times,"
measure, as a matter of fact, other series of events than those to which
they are in Scripture especially applied, so these seventy-five years
can be traced from this 1774 terminus as leading to further stages of
Papal decline and fall. Thus "seven times" from the earliest
Nabonassar date, plus its own epact, which is seventy-five years-divided
as the prophecy divides it, into two sections, the first of thirty, and
the second of forty- five years, reach down to the critical years A.D.
1804 and 1848-9. Thus:
1774 + 30 years. = 1804 + 45 years. = 1849
What were these years? A.D. 1804 was that of the coronation of Napoleon
as emperor; and this acme of the glory of the military hero of the Revolution
was also a stage of the deepest degradation to the Pope of Rome. The emperor
commanded Pius VII. to attend the ceremony, obliging the old man to cross
the Alps in mid winter, not to confer a crown, but merely to adorn a ceremony.
Napoleon himself placed the crown on his own head, and the pope, who used
to claim that by him kings ruled and princes decreed judgment, stood by,
a purposely slighted and insulted witness. Later on Napoleon forced this
same pope at Fontainebleau, where he had kept him for some time captive,
to sign a concordat, by which he renounced his temporal authority and
all claim to Rome for ever, and agreed to reside in France in future,
as a salaried servant of the emperor! This agreement did not of course
stand after the fall of Napoleon, but it was a fatal precedent for the
Papacy.
In 1849 again the pope had to flee from Rome; driven away this time, not
by foreign enemies, but by his own subjects, who could endure no longer
the terrible maladministration of the priestly government, which had so
long eaten like a cancer into the vitals of Rome and the States of the
Church. Pius IX. was deposed, his prime minister was killed, and an Italian
republic proclaimed, under Mazzini. The violent revolutions which shook
nearly every throne in Europe during this year 1848 seemed like the result
of some tremendous anti-Papal earthquake. A mere catalogue of its events
sufficiently attests the curiously critical character of the year, which
is often called the year of European revolutions.
[The year of 1848 witnessed the French Revolution, which culminated in
the abdication of Louis Philippe on February 24th. A republic was proclaimed
from the steps of the hotel de Yule, on February 26th, and on May 26th
the perpetual banishment of Louis Philippe was decreed. In June, Louis
Napoleon was elected to the National Assembly, and in the same month occurred
the rise of the red republicans, the war with the troops, the 300 barricades;
Paris also was in a state of siege. The national losses were 30,000,000
francs, 16,000 persons killed and wounded, and 8,000 prisoners taken.
Louis Napoleon was proclaimed president of the French Republic in December
of the same year. The revolution broke out in Paris on February 23rd,
and "before March 5th every country lying between the Atlantic and
the Vistula had, in a greater or less degree, been revolutionised."
A little more than a fortnight after the fall of Louis Philippe a revolution
took place in Rome, leading to the expulsion of the Jesuits, the assassination
of the prime minister and Cardinal Palma; a constitution was proclaimed,
and in November the pope fled to Gaeta, where an asylum had been provided
for him by the king of Naples; in February of the following year the pope
was formally deposed from his temporal authority, and a republic was proclaimed..
This year 1848 also witnessed a revolt in Palermo and in the eastern provinces
of Lombardy, a revolution in the two Sicilies leading to the proclamation
of a constitution; a similar change in Sardinia and in Tuscany; the overthrow
of the Duchy of Parma; a revolution in Venice; another at Milan; the annexation
of Lombardy to Piedmont; the revolt of the peasantry in Cephalonia; tumults
in Vienna, involving the flight of Metternich, and the granting of a constitution
by the Emperor Ferdinand, and subsequently his resignation of the crown
to his nephew Francis Joseph; the king of Bavaria abdicated in favour
of his son Maximilian; an insurrection at Prague on June 12th, and at
Berlin on the 14th; riots and revolution in Hungary, leading to the investment
of Kossuth with dictatorial powers.
Schleswig Holstein threw off the yoke and declared its own independence;
the king of Holland had to revise the constitution; Cabrera was in arms
in Spain; and in our country chartist riots were an unsuccessful attempt
at insurrections; while the state of things in Ireland was such that the
Habeas Corpus Act had to be suspended, and numbers of men tried for high
treason. Thus during the course of this one year the whole of Europe was,
in a way which is unique in history, shaken by the repeated throes of
a great political earthquake, which crumbled into dust the old despotic
monarchies, introducing in their stead constitutional governments.]
But, it will be objected, none of these events, even though reaching to
the close of the added seventy-five years, are terminal; the Papacy was
restored again even after 1848. True; and this is precisely what should
be expected; we are measuring still only from the very earliest date of
the captivity era. If we want to reach the terminus of "the time
of the end," the full and final fall of Babylon, we must calculate
from the latest date, or at any rate from the date of the culmination
of Babylonian power in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
This we will do farther on; but in the meantime we must measure the "
seven times" from the intermediate dates of the captivity era, the
conquests of Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon.
The SECOND commencing date is that of the first overthrow of the ten tribes,
B.C. 723, the year which witnessed the siege of Samaria by Shalmaneser.
B.C. 723 "seven times" solar A.D. 1798
This terminus, if our system is well founded, ought to lead to a more
marked stage of the overthrow of the Papacy, in connexion with the French
Revolution. It is only needful to turn to Alison, or any other historian
of the period, to see that it did so.
"The object of the French directory (in 1798) was the destruction
of the pontifical government, as the irreconcilable enemy of the Republic.
They urged their general to drive the pope and cardinals out of Rome.
Buonaparte proposed to give the Eternal City to the king of Spain, on
condition of his recognising the French Republic. Failing in this he resorted
to a system of pillage, which exhausted its resources, and finally a democratic
demonstration was got up at Rome in the accustomed manner, in which one
of the French envoys was killed by the fire of the pontifical troops.
This misfortune afforded the desired pretext. The French army, pouring
in under Berthier, planted the tricolour on the Capitol, while their Roman
confederates, displaying the famous insignia, S.P.Q.R., shouted for liberty.
The aged pope was summoned to surrender the temporal government; on his
refusal he was dragged from the altar, end the soldiers plundered the
Vatican in the presence of its owner. They stripped his own chamber; when
he asked to be left to die in peace, he was brutally answered that any
place would serve to die in. His rings were torn from off his fingers,
and finally, after declaring the temporal power abolished, the victors
carried the pope prisoner into Tuscany, whence he never returned.
"The Papal States, converted into the Roman Republic, were declared
to be in perpetual alliance with France; but the French general was the
real master at Rome. The citizens groaned under his terrible exactions.
Churches, convents, palaces, were stripped to the bare walls. The works
of art were nearly all carried off. The territorial possessions of the
clergy and monks were declared national property, and the former owners
cast into prison. The Papacy was extinct; not a vestige of its existence
remained; and among all the Roman Catholic powers, not a finger was stirred
in its defence. The Eternal City had no longer prince or pontiff; its
bishop was a dying captive in foreign lands; and the decree was already
announced, that no successor would be allowed in his place."
From the year when these scenes of judgment were enacted in ‘Rome
"seven times" carry us back to the year of the invasion and
ravages of Shalmaneser, the proud monarch of Assyria. Is this accident
or design?
The THIRD critical date of the captivity era was, as we have seen, that
of the invasion of Sennacherib. This was a question of four or five years,
as his ravages of the land of Israel, and subsequently of that of Judah,
were extended over several campaigns, from B.C. 713 to B.C. 708.
If now from these four or five years of the military ravages of Sennacherib
we measure "seven times," to what corresponding events in the
time of the end are we led?
B.C. 713-8 "seven times" solar A.D. 1808-12
To the campaigns of the European prototype of Sennacherib, the modern
scourge and destroyer of nations, Napoleon Buonaparte, employed by the
hand of Providence as leader of the infidel host of revolutionary France
against the Papal nations,-to the years in which he carried rapine and
slaughter into all the kingdoms of Europe.
This is surely a most remarkable coincidence! The awful devastating and
destructive wars of Napoleon, between 1808 and 1812, terminated in a catastrophe
not unlike the one which befell the host of Sennacherib, by the loss of
an army twice as numerous among the snows of Russia. Out of nearly half
a million of men whom he took over the Niemen, only about three thousand
returned to recross that stream! In the course of the years from 1804-1814
no less than ten millions of men-a number absolutely inconceivable by
the mind-fell on both sides in these wars, the money cost of which was
besides incalculable, and the effects of which have never been recovered
by France.
Both Sennacherib and Napoleon were in the zenith of their power and glory
when they started on these campaigns which ended so fatally. Sennacherib’s
ravages formed a marked stage in the fall of Judah, which, though spared
at the time, never recovered the shock, and Napoleon’s campaigns
were a most marked stage in that course of events which is bringing about
the restoration of Judah and Israel in these days. It was under the strain
produced by these wars that the naval power and vast colonial empire of
Protestant England, and the enormous military power and Asiatic empire
of Russia, were developed to their present marvellous expansion, while
the Latin nations lost ground in proportion. The effect on the Jews we
have already noted. The interval between the principal campaigns of these
two great conquerors is precisely the great week, or "seven times
"-2,520 years on the full solar scale.
The FOURTH critical date of the captivity era is the completion of the
deportation of the ten tribes under Esarhaddon, B.C. 676. "Seven
times" solar from this date lead to A.D. 1844, while "seven
times" lunar from B.C. 602 (Nebuchadnezzar) terminate in the same
date, A.D. 1844, and are bisected by the date of the Hegira, AD. 622.
B.C. 676 "seven times" solar A.D. 1844
B.C. 602 3« times lunar A.D. 622 3« times lunar A.D. 1844
In this case both the central and terminal dates are critical in connexion
with that Mohammedan power which has for more than twelve centuries trodden
down Jerusalem. The central one is that of the HEGIRA ERA itself, the
date from which the entire Moslem world reckons to this day, as we do
from Anno Domini; and the terminal date is that of the Hatti Hamayoun,
or decree of religions toleration wrung by the Christian powers of Europe
from the Ottoman Government. In 1844 the Porte was compelled, under threat
of European interference, to issue this edict, abolishing for ever its
characteristic and sanguinary practice of execution for the adoption of
Christianity. This compulsory sheathing of its persecuting sword was a
patent proof that its independence was gone, and a marked era in its overthrow.
As the Mohammedans employ a strictly lunar year, A.D. 1844 is the 1260th
in their calendar.
THE FIRST AND THE EIGHTH YEARS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR are the remaining intermediate
starting-points in the captivity era. In both these years he besieged
and took Jerusalem, and in both he led large numbers of Jews captive to
Babylon. The Jehoiakim stage took place in B.C. 606-5, and the more serious
Jehoiachin stage in B.C. 598. This latter is probably the principal crisis
in the whole captivity era, as we have before shown. Both years witnessed
complete overthrows of Jewish power by Nebuchadnezzar, that singularly
typical, self- exalting monarch, who stands as the express image of the
Papal dynasty of these latter days. There were other monarchs of Babylon,
but HE was the great and typical one. There were other destroyers of Jerusalem,
but HE was the fated and final one. Sennacherib and Shalmaneser exalted
themselves against God, and persecuted His people; but Nebuchadnezzar
exceeded. He is represented as the great incarnation of human power and
pride. It was he who made a great image of himself, and commanded the
world to worship it, and heated the burning fiery furnace of persecution
"seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated," for the
torture and destruction of those who would not bow down to the idol he
had made, or worship the image which he had set up. It was he who boasted
in his pride, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the
house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my
majesty?" It is he who was predicted as the destroyer of the city
and temple of God, and against whose city of Babylon such tremendous judgments
were denounced. In a word, it is he who is the great type of the terrible
Papal antichrist of prophecy and history.
His campaigns consequently against Judah and Jerusalem are the specially
important ones; and after the lapse of "seven times" from them,
we are likely to reach the centre and crisis of Jewish restoration. From
the date of his overthrow of the nation and desolation of the land, we
may expect "seven times" to lead to the restoration of the people
of Judah to their land; and from the date of his overthrow of the throne
of Judah, we may expect "seven times" to lead to the restoration
of that throne, in the person of the Son and Lord of David, the true King
of the Jews; while, from his burning of the temple and breaking down of
the wall of Jerusalem, we may expect "seven times" to lead to
the rededication of the temple and city. Nebuchadnezzar’s three campaigns
against Judah took place in the first, the eighth, and the nineteenth
years of his reign, extending over a period of nineteen years. The dates
of these campaigns were:
B.C. 606-5. Conquest of Jehoiakim. Loss of Jewish independence.
598. Overthrow of Jehoiachin. Fall of the throne of Judah.
587. Burning of the temple and complete destruction of Jerusalem in the
days of Zedekiah.
From these three dates "seven times" run out on the solar, calendar,
and lunar scales as follows:
seven times solar calendar lunar B.C. 606 A.D. 1840, 1878-9, 1915.
B.C. 598 A.D. 1848-9, 1887, 1923. B.C. 587 A.D. 1859-60, 1898, 1934.
Now it will be observed that the full solar termini from all these three
dates are yet future, [ ie, on writing this before 1888. Ed.] and do not
run out until the early part of next century. [ ie., 20th century. Ed.]
Two of the three calendar are also future, though very near at hand; they
will run out this century, and one of them in twelve years. Only the three
lunar and one of the calendar termini are as yet past. We postpone any
remark on the still, future dates, which we have included in brackets,
to a closing section of this work.
As to those already past, " seven times" calendar from the first
starting point brought the year 1878, the year of the Berlin Conference,
which, with the war that preceded it, was beyond all question a very marked
stage in the downfall of the Ottoman power,-a stage in that dismemberment
of Turkey which is to end in the liberation of Palestine from its present
oppressor.
By the Treaty of San Stefano a large portion of Armenia (Turkey in Asia)
was ceded to Russia, the Drobudcha was lost to Turkey, the complete independence
of Roumania was recognised, the limits of Servia and Montenegro were extended,
and Bulgaria was erected into an autonomous Christian principality. The
provisions of this treaty were subsequently modified at the Berlin Conference,
which divided the province of Bulgaria, refusing independence to that
portion of it south of the Balkans; an arrangement which was overthrown
in 1885. The signature of the Treaty of Berlin was preceded by the Anglo-Turkish
Convention, under which, in return for the cession of Cyprus to England
-a further step in the dismemberment of Turkey-this country most unwisely
undertook to defend the Turkish possessions in Asia, including the Holy
Land, against Russian aggression, the Porte promising necessary reforms,
subject to British approval. These reforms have, of course, never been
effected.
The year 1878 was also that of the death of Pius IX., the last pope wielding
temporal power.
It is also noteworthy that "seven times "calendar measured from
B.C. 606, the first of Nebuchadnezzar, is like the "seven times"
lunar from B.C. 578, his last overthrow of Judah, bisected by the Omar
capture of Jerusalem.
"Seven times" calendar B.C. 606 A.D. 637 A.D. 1878-9
"Seven times" lunar B.C. 587 A.D. 637 A.D. 1859-60
Thus these two periods, though starting from different dates-the beginning
and end of the nineteen years of Nebuchadnezzar’s overthrow of Jerusalem,-and
reaching different termini by different scales, meet in this central date
of the Omar capture of Jerusalem.
As to the briefer and earlier lunar termini of the "seven times"
from the Nebuchadnezzar starting-points, they are all past, 1840, 1848,
and 1859-60; and each of these years unquestionably witnessed stages of
decay and fall either of the Papal or Mohammedan power or of both.
In A.D. 1840 Egypt was virtually lost to the Porte. Mehemet Ali, the wise,
despotic, powerful, and warlike viceroy of the country, had been in rebellion
against the sultan since 1831, when his forces invaded Syria, and he defeated
the Turks in the decisive battle of Konieh (1832). He had been remarkably
successful in his career, and with the help of his son Ibrahim had conquered
Syria, Arabia, Candia, and a considerable part of Asia Minor. The Turkish
fleet, which had been sent against him, was by treachery surrendered to
him at Alexandria in 1839, and the empire of the Osmanlis seemed menaced
with dismemberment, if not ruin. Under these circumstances, the powers
of Europe intervened, and the British fleet took Sidon, Beyrout, and St.
Jean d’Acre. Mehemet Ali had to submit to their dictation, and surrender
some of his conquests; but he obtained from the sultan the hereditary
possession of Egypt and the life governorship of Syria as far as the north
of the Lake of Tiberias. The treaty was signed in the month of July, 1840,
and was a great stage in the dismemberment of Turkey, Egypt and Syria
being two of her finest and most important provinces. Egypt has ever since
been virtually independent, though nominally a vassal kingdom..
The second lunar terminus is the year 1848, of which we have already spoken
in another connection; its importance in the movement we are considering,
the fall of Papal and despotic power, is conspicuous. Such a year of revolution
was probably never known in Europe before or since. So strange and unaccountable
was the revolutionary fever which broke out in Christendom, that it attracted
everywhere a marvelling attention. One nation caught it from another;
the infection spread very rapidly, and produced a kind of political delirium;
constitutional freedom was everywhere demanded, and everywhere granted.
In many of these revolutionary movements emancipated Jews took a leading
part: as, for instance, Fould, Crémieux, and Goudchaux in France, Pincherle
in Vienna, Jacobi in Berlin, Riesser in Frankfort, Fischhof in Austria,
and Freund in Hungary. ________________________________________________________________________________
DIAGRAM OF THE PERIODS OF "SEVEN TIMES" AND "THREE AND
A HALF TIMES," TERMINATING IN A.D. 1848-9.
Nabonassar +30 years. +45 years. B.C. 747. + 2,520 years solar + 75 years.
A.D. 1774. —- 1804. —- = 1848-9
Jehoiachin B.C. 598. + 2,520 years lunar. = 1849
Gregory I,
A.D. 590. + 1,260 years solar. = 1849
Phocas,
A.D. 607. + 1,260 years calendar. = 1849
____________________________________________________________________________________
That this year was a great prophetic crisis may be gathered from the fact
that four distinct periods terminate in it:
1. "Seven times" solar from the era of Nabonassar, with the
added seventy-five years (Dan. xii. 11).
2. "Seven times " lunar from the Jehoiachin date.
3. "Time, times, and a half," or 1,260 solar years, from the
bisection date of Gregory the Great.
4. The same period calendar from the bisection date of the pope-exalting
decree of the Emperor Phocas.
We may add also that, dated from this critical year, seventy-five years
more bring us to 1923, the full solar close from the principal date of
the captivity era, that of Jehoiachin -the great Ezekiel starting-point.
Of the year 1860 we have already spoken fully, so need not here repeat
its events. The three final Nebuchadnezzar dates of the captivity era
give rise in the terminal era of the "time of the end" to nine
years of crisis: three at the lunar, three at the calendar, and three
at the full solar close of "seven times" from the three starting-
points.
Of these nine we have now considered the four that are past, and have
found, as we might have expected, that, being only imperfect lunar and
calendar closes of the great period, the crises in the fall of Babylon
the Great and Islam, to which they conduct us, have no character of finality
about them. That is natural, and must be so, if the system we seek to
unfold be the true one. The end is not yet; we must for it await the full
solar close of "seven times" from these dates.
Index Preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Appendix A Appendix B
