of the middle watch again, Satan was permitted to show his wicked spirit; and the history of the Jewish nation, from the death of Solomon until the Babylonish captivity, is almost one uninterrupted record of wickedness, the result of rebellious wills. What a mystery is this mystery of iniquity! The final conquest of the holy land by David, 1020 years before Christ, is also the centre point between the death of Joshua, 1434 years before Christ, and the time when the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god, 606 years before Christ.

This opens up another door in the history of the world, and then is given in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar a vision of what would happen until the end. "Thou,

O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet, that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer thrashing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." (Dan. ii. 31-35.) Hitherto God has always restrained in the first chamber, and suffered Satan's self-will in the second

Satan forthwith set up

chamber, of each period. From hence Satan takes the initiative, and God then restrains, and by Satan's own instrumentality destroys his power. This image was a counterfeit of that universal kingdom which it now became manifest was to come. a human image of the divine kingdom. It is gold when it begins, it is iron and clay when its end comes, and without any intervention on God's part, it will destroy itself, for the stone which smote the image upon his feet, and broke it to pieces, was cut out without hands. It is one and the same image-one and the same powerone and the same dominion that has, under various forms, tyrannised over men for upwards of 2500 years. As we have already seen, its first two heads, the Babylonish and the Persian, were exact representations of its spirit and conduct until its destruction. In another vision Daniel received another view of the same tyrannical and despotic power, the result of self-will. "Daniel spake, and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea." (Dan. vii. 2.) The four winds are unclean spirits, and the great sea is the human race. "And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another." These are the four several kingdoms which have destroyed and succeeded the one the other. "The first was like a lion, and had eagles' wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it." This was the ancient kingdom of Babylon like a lion; but it had eagles' wings, that is, it renewed its youth, and its wings were plucked off; it came to its end in one form, but it received a man's heart, and stood upon the feet as a man, its power

:

was revived in another form. The figure of eagles' wings teaches that the time was distant when this would take place; but it has come, and it has been fulfilled for 590 years after Christ, the exact number of those before Christ, when the Babylonish king pitched against Jerusalem, and built forts against it round about, and the city was besieged, pope Gregory, surnamed the Great, ascended the papal chair, and did against the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, what Nebuchadnezzar, who was a figure of him that was to come, did against the earthly Jerusalem, which also was a figure of that which was to come. And just as it was 606 years before Christ that the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into the king of Babylon's hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god; so God gave the king of Israel into the hands of the king of spiritual Babylon 606 years after Christ; and the pope of Rome did then what Nebuchadnezzar did with the house of God, and with his vessels, 606 years before Christ. But "God disappointeth the desires of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprize." (Job v. 12.) "The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." (Psalm xxxiii. 10-12.) The occasion of the introduction of christianity into Kent, then one of the kingdoms of the English heptarchy, was the marriage of Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert king of Paris, to Ethelbert,

afterwards king of Kent; before their union he was obliged to stipulate that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her religion. But the actual instrument in the providence of God was no other than the very man whom Satan made use of to destroy the life of God's church. For the declaration of the pope of Rome, as universal bishop or lord of the christian church, was making his will the will of all men in matters of religion. The king of the first Babylon exercised a civil power which was absolute and despotic; the king of spiritual Babylon then revived that power in a spiritual form, and this was done by the wicked one in accommodation to the altered circumstances of society, resulting from the preaching of the gospel. In the 27th year of the christian era, our Lord began his public ministry, to teach and to preach that the kingdom of God was come. It was 536 years before Christ that the ancient Israel, the figure of the coming Israel, was delivered from their captivity, when Ezra and others returned to Jerusalem, and commenced to rebuild the temple of God. The christian era is itself dated from the time when God called His Son, the child Jesus, out of Egypt, and marks the period of His return to the holy land. "Some rays of light had penetrated the southernmost counties of Scotland at an early period. Ninia or Ninian was bishop of Whitern, on the borders of Scotland, in the year 400; and his successors sometimes extended their labours as far north as Glasgow. Indeed Kentigern is said to have actually removed his chair from Whitern to Glasgow before the arrival of Columba, and to have invited this Irish missionary to visit him there. It was in the year 563, (that is 536 years after Christ, accompanied by His twelve disciples, began to preach and to teach in Judea,

thus corresponding with the liberation of the ancient Israel,) that Columba, with twelve other monks, removed from the north of Ireland to Iona, Hii, I, or I-colm-kill, an islet on the outer shore of Mull, one of the larger of the Hebrides, or western isles. The Scottish king of Argyle, Brude or Bride, favoured his enterprise; and Aidan, a successor of Brude, paid him the highest reverence. Columba had the sole jurisdiction of this little island, which became covered with cloisters and churches, and was the residence of a numerous and learned body of monks. For several centuries, Iona was the centre of the Scottish church, and the place where most of her clergy were educated. There also the Scottish kings for many generations were interred. Columba died in the year 597."-(Mosh. Church History, vol. ii. p. 6.)

The year of the death of Columba in Scotland was the year of the arrival in Kent of Augustine from Rome, on his mission to England. Between the time of the preaching of the apostles and the occurrences referred to, the gospel had defeated the wicked one. Until the year 303, Satan wielded the civil sword of persecution most mercilessly against the christian church. During the same period errors began to manifest their fruits. Satan soon discovered that the preaching of the word would be his destruction, and he also experienced the hopelessness of extinguishing the light of life by destruction of human life. The preaching of the gospel, even where it did not actually convert, had a beneficial influence upon the minds of those to whom it was preached; so that the forlorn hope of the wicked one was to plant his own tares in the church among the wheat, as he had done in the world, and through their