rising Son of Perdition a degree advanced. Secondly, all the main and evident degrees of the empire's ruin fell in the compass of an age; and the knowledge and observation of that age only, within which the times of this fall are comprehended, was sufficient both to warn them who then lived that that which should come was then a-coming, and to inform us who now live that it is already come.

Now which were these main and evident degrees of the empire's falling, and at what time, I will tell you as soon as I have removed an usual mistake in this business, which is to reckon the times of the empire's ruin, and so likewise of the APOSTASY attending it, only from the azun, or full height, thereof. But this is too much against reason, and not agreeable to the course we otherwise use in the like. For as, when we reckon the age of a man, we reckon not from the time since he came to man's estate, but from the time of his birth, so should we do here for the times of the Man of sin. I say not, we should begin to count his age from his conception, for that we use not in other things, but from the time he was first editus in lucem, when he first began to appear in the world and so likewise the fall of the empire and the APOSTASY, not from the time they were consummate, but from the time they first evidently appeared. As, therefore, I hold their opinion the best and most agreeable to truth, who begin the seventy years of the Jewish captivity in Babylon, not from the consummation thereof under Zedekiah, when the city and temple were utterly rased, for that is impossible, (there being not 6 years in all between the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar and the last of Cyrus,) but from the beginning thereof under Jehoiakim, eighteen years before, or at the most but from Jehoiachin. So are these Latter Times of the Roman state to begin when the empire first began to fall, and not when it was utterly rooted up. Take, for another example, the computation of the time allotted to the calamity of the Jews under Antiochus, which I the rather

allege, because he is commonly counted for a type of Antichrist. The beginning of that 2300 evenings and mornings, or six years and somewhat more than a quarter, which that calamity was to continue, from the beginning thereof until the Temple should again be cleansed, Dan. viii., 13, 14, was not to be reckoned from the height thereof, when "the daily sacrifice should be taken away," (for thence it is but three years, 1 Mac. i., 54, &c., with chap. iv., 52,) but from the beginning of the transgression which occasioned this desolation, and is described 1 Mac. i., 11, &c. So likewise the end of the kingdom of the Greeks, wherein this calamity was to happen, is not to be counted only then, when Æmilius the Consul had quite finished the conquest of Macedon, (for this points out only the height of that calamity,) but from the beginning of that last fatal war, which put an end to that kingdom; which was about some three years and a half before, and jumps with the beginning of the "transgression of desolation," as the finishing of the conquest doth with "the taking away of the daily sacrifice."

But, leaving this, let us return again and see which were those main and evident degrees of the empire's downfall, and when they befell, which (I suppose) may not unfitly be sampled by those of the Babylonish captivity.

As, therefore, the Babylonish captivity had three steps or degrees, the first in the days of Jehoiakim, when Daniel went captive; the second under Jehoiachin or Jechonias, when Ezekiel went captive; and the last under Zedekiah, when the temple and city were wholly rased and consumed: so (omitting the political change under Constantine) the chief and principal moments of the ruin of the empire by the sword (and by the sword the Beast had its deadly wound, Apocal. xiii., 14) may fitly be reduced unto three:

1. The first was presently after the death of Julian, the last of heathen emperors, about the year 365, ominously marked with that universal, stupendous, and neverbut-then-sampled earthquake, whereby the waters of the

sea were rolled out of their channels, and left ships hanging upon the tops of houses. From this time forwards, all the nations, with one consent, seem to have conspired the ruin of the empire. Now that terrible and fatal storm of the nations of the north, Almanes, Samaritans, Quades, Picts, Scots, and Saxons, especially the Goths, began to break in upon it; almost without intermission harrying, burning, wasting, destroying the most part of the provinces thereof, almost for 45 years together. And, to mend the matter, the Goths soon after their coming were admitted as inhabitants, and dispersed as free denizens into the bowels and heart of the empire, advanced to be commanders, and bore the greatest sway in their armies; by which fatal error the empire received her bane, and the Romans were no longer masters of their own strength; which they quickly and often repented; but even that cost them dear, when they had indeed eyes to see it, but never ability to mend it. This was the first degree of the empire's ruin.

2. The second was about the year 410, when Alaricus the Goth sacked Rome itself, the proud lady of the world, when, as St. Jerome saith, The city which had conquered the whole world was itself taken, being undone by famine before it was by the sword, insomuch that there were but few left to be taken prisoners.* And from this very year the plurality of kings foretold of began to come upon the stage; five or six new kingdoms presently appearing within the territories of the empire,-of the Goths, of the Burgundians, and, though somewhat later, of the Franks in Gallia; of the Suevians and Alans and of the Vandals in Spain; and, as Sigonius thinks, of the Hunnes in Pannonia; certainly they could not be much later than this very year. But this number of kings we will leave till they be better increased, as continually they did.— And thus you see the second degree of the ruin of the empire.

3. The third was about the year 455, presently upon

* Capiebatur urbs quæ totum cepit orbem, imò fame periit antequam gladio, et vix pauci qui caperentur inventi sunt.

the death of the third Valentinian, the last (as Sleidan well observed) of the Emperors of the West, and consequently of the ancient Rome; then when Gensericus the Vandal took the City now the second time, fired it, and spoiled it of all the goodly and glorious ornaments which Alaricus had spared, amongst which were the golden and silver vessels of the Temple of Jerusalem, brought thither by Titus, all which, with an innumerable multitude of Roman captives, he carried away with him. Now was the prediction (which Varro reports that Vectius Valens the augur made of twelve vultures to Romulus, the founder, That his city should continue 1200 years) fulfilled, and those years newly expired: and, which is more to be heeded, now was the plurality of kings lately risen in the ancient territory of the empire, as Daniel and St. John had prophesied, increased unto the full number of ten, which, together with the provinces wherein they were seated, and the names of the kings which reigned the next year after the city was taken, are these which follow:

Kingdoms of the

ANNO DOMINI 456.

Provinces.

Reigning Somewhat of
Kings' names their changes.
Vortimer
Hengist....

Childeric... A.526. This
Gunderic... kingdom of
the Burgun-
dians was
subdued by
the Franks:
but to fill up
the number,
that of the
Ostrogoths
became two,
bythe coming
of the Lon-
gobards into
Pannonia the
same time.

N

Marcianus