us, were seven
years.) Times, that is two times, the least that can be expressed by the
plural, would be two years more; and the dividing of time, or half a
time, half a year; making in all, three years and a half. To the leopard
beast power was also given to continue forty-two months, which at twelve
months to the year, give us again just three years and a half. And this
being prophetic time, a day for a year (Num. 14:34; Eze. 4:6), and
there being accord to Scripture reckoning thirty days to a month, or
three hundred and sixty days to a year (Gen, 7:11, 24; 8:4), we have
in each case twelve hundred and sixty years, for the continuance of the
little horn and the leopard beast.

6. Their overthrow. At the end of the time, times and a half, the
dominion of the little horn was to be taken away. Dan. 7:26. At the end
of the forty-two months, the same length of time, the leopard beast was
also to be slain, politically, with the sword, and go into captivity.
Rev. 13:3, 10.

These are points which prove not merely similarity, but identity. For
whenever two symbols, as in this instance, represent powers that come
upon the stage of action at the same time, occupy the same territory,
maintain the same character, do the same work, continue the same length
of time, and meet the same fate, those two symbols must represent one
and the same power. And in all these particulars there is, as we have
seen, the most exact co-incidence between the little horn of the fourth
beast of Dan. 7, and the leopard beast of Rev. 13; and all are fulfilled
by one power, and that is the papacy. The papacy succeeded to the pagan
form of the Roman empire. It has, ever since it was first established,
occupied the seat of the dragon, the city of Rome, building for itself
such a sanctuary, St, Peter's, as the world nowhere else beholds. It is
a blasphemous power, speaking the most presumptuous words it is possible
for mortal lips to utter against the Most High. It has worn out the
saints, the Religious Encyclopedia estimating that the lives of fifty
millions of Christians have been quenched in blood by its merciless
implements of torture. It has continued a time, times and a half, or
forty-two months, or twelve hundred and sixty years. Commencing in 538,
when the decree of Justinian in behalf of papal supremacy was first
made effectual by the overthrow of the Goths, the papacy enjoyed a
period of uninterrupted supremacy for just twelve hundred and sixty