CHAPTER XI CONFIRMATION OF THE YEAR-DAY THEORY AFFORDED BY THE ASTRONOMICAL CHARACTER OF THE PROPHETIC TIMES

This subject has been more or less elucidated in the works I have written during the last twenty-six years, including, “The Approaching End of the Age,”published in 1878; “Light for the Last Days,”in 1887; “The Divine Programme of the World’s History,”in 1888; and “Creation Centred in Christ,”in 1896. The Astronomical Appendix to the last named work fills a volume of 627 pages, and contains tables of 101,217 solar and lunar dates, for a period of 3,555 years, from B.C. 1622, to A.D. 1934, stated in days, hours, and minutes, calculated from the prophetic times contained in the book of Daniel. The complete and unanswerable demonstration afforded by these extensive tables—tables which have been accepted, and are-in use, by astronomers throughout the world,—of the year-day theory, according to which the 1,260 and 2,300 “days”of the prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse, are interpreted to mean 1,260 and 2,300 years, settles the question of the historical fulfilment of these periods. Astronomy proves N that these periods are vast in their dimensions, twelve to twenty-three centuries in length; and that therefore they cannot be measures of the brief course of events in any single lifetime, as according to the Futurist theory they “are; but measures of great and long continued historical movements, as the rise and fall of the Papal and Mohammedan powers, or the down treading of the Jewish sanctuary, from the invasion of the west by Persia, to the decline of the Turkish power in the present day.

I will now briefly relate the facts connected with the origin of my interest in the prophetic times, and the progress I subsequently made in their elucidation.

It was in the early part of the year 1870, that I crossed the Pyrenees on my way from France to Spain. The snow lay thickly on the hills, and glittered on the Sierras, whose sharply pointed peaks stood outlined against the clear southern sky. The trains were crowded with travellers, largely of the agricultural class. There was a perfect babel of patois, in which through familiarity with French, and the study I had bestowed on Spanish, I could distinguish here and there intelligible sentences. On reaching Madrid I went with Mr. William Green, the friend and biographer of Matamoros, to see the newly opened Quemadero. Some workmen employed in cutting a road across the summit of a low hill close to the city had inadvertently dug into a broad bank of ashes, which had been, buried for one or two centuries. Mingled with the ashes they had found a large quantity of charred human bones, together with fragments of rusted iron, and melted lead. The spot was speedily verified as the famous Quemadero, or place of burning, one of twelve places where so called “heretics”were annually burned in Spain, during the reign of the Inquisition. I found the road had been cut through the centre of this bank of blackened bones and ashes. The strange stratum displayed seemed about six feet in depth, and covered quite a large area. There, then, exposed to the light of day were the ashes of Spanish martyrs. I stood in silence and looked at the ghastly monument. I had seen before not a little of Romanism on the continent, and in other countries, and had read of the multitude of martyrs who had suffered cruel deaths in past centuries at the hands of Spanish priests and inquisitors, on account of their faith in the pure gospel of the grace of God, and their opposition to Popish superstitions and idolatries. Now, for the first time, I found myself face to face with a terrible demonstration of the truth of these histories. There, lying before me were the bones and ashes of Spanish confessors and martyrs who had suffered death at the stake. I could examine them, and satisfy myself of their character. I could handle them, and did. Reverently I removed some burnt bones from the general mass, and wrapped them, together with a quantity of ashes, in a Spanish newspaper which I still possess, bearing the date of the day. Sadly turning from the spot I carried the parcel to my hotel where that evening under the influence of strong emotion, I wrote the following lines,—

Ye layers of ashes black, and half-burnt bones,
Ye monuments of martyrs’ stifled moans,
Of human agony and dying groans,
Cry out till every ear has heard your tones !
Cry till the murderess trembles, though her brain
Is drunken with the blood of millions slain:
She did not mean to show you; ’twas the spade
Of simple workmen which your horrors laid
Unearthed and bare before the light of day;
They only dug to open a new way.
As they advanced, the ground beneath them grew
In patches softer, changed its wonted hue,
And with the smell of death defiled the air.
They dug, and they discovered layer on layer,
Black bones, and rusted chains, and human hair,
And iron nails, and bits of melted lead,
And the burnt fuel of unnumbered dead.
They cut the heap across—it crowns a hill;
Its length is shown—its breadth lies buried still.
Doubtest thou, reader? I was there to-day;
I saw them at their work ; I brought away
Some pitiful remains which, while I write
These very words, are lying in my sight.
A piece of paper on this table holds
Some of this martyr-dust within its folds.
I pause and gently touch it with my hand ;—
It is not common earth; it is not sand :
I look at it; the tears have filled my eyes;
My God, what is it that before me lies?
The ground beneath was gravel and was red,
But this is dark and formed a separate bed.
How soft it is and light! it feels like soil
That has been saturated once with oil:
‘Tis fullof small black cinders; most is gray
And ashen; here is something burnt away
Black as the blackest coal; this was the meat
Of some relentless and devouring heat.
A little box beside the paper stands;
Its relics I collected with these hands:
I take a something from it like a stone,
‘Tis gray and light, ah ’tis a piece of bone ;
This was the side on which the muscles grew,
The other side its chambers are burnt blue.
These four are lumps of iron; they are red,
I ,ike fetters that have rusted off the dead.
This was an iron bolt, ’tis long, and curved,
To hold a chain or cord it doubtless served;
This is a hollow bone burnt through and through,
It leaves upon my hand a dusky blue;
This was a bar of iron, now mere nist;
And this is indistinguishable dust.
O Rome ! them Mother of a cherished race,
Blush not to show the world thy kindly face !
Thy bosom—hide its demons, hush—thy breast,
“Tis there alone that suffering men find rest.
How mild the chastisements thy love has used
Whene’er thy children have thy laws refused!
Gentle coercion ! pity’s tender tones !
TELL ME , THOU MURDERESS BLACK , WHAT MEAN THESE BONES?
These bones before me, those upon that hill,
Who, what were these thus slaughtered by thy will?
What did these helpless women? these poor men?
Why didst thou shut them up in thy dark den?
Why didst thou rack their limbs, and starve their frames,
And cast them bound into devouring flames?
True, they reproached thee for thy crimes and lies,
And prayed for thee with sin-forgiving sighs;
Thy multiplied idolatries abhorred,
No mediator honoured but their Lord;
Condemned thy priestcraft, and thy love of gold;
Clung to God’s word, and for its truths were bold;
Adorned by blamelessness the name they bore;
Loved not their lives to death: what did they more?
Were they adulterers—these prisoned saints?
Or murderers—these who died without complaints?
Hush ! for they sleep in Jesus—soft their bed;
His suffering saints their Lord hath comforted!
Hush! for the sevenfold wrath of God grows hot!
Hush! for her deep damnation slumbereth not.

That very year, l87O, within a few months from the date when I wrote these lines the papal temporal power fell, and fell forever.

Such was the origin of my interest in the fulfilment of prophecy in papal history. It was that day when standing breast deep in the ashes of Spanish martyrs, that my attention was specially and strongly directed to it; and it was”the promulgation the same year of the blasphemous decree of papal infallibility, and the coincident fall of the papal temporal power, which led me to study and write on the subject. The lines which I wrote in Madrid on the opening of the Quemadero subsequently grew to a volume entitled “The City of the Seven Hills.”As the fruit of eight years of study, from 1870 to 1878,1 published “The Approaching End of the Age,”a work which has since gone through many editions. Other works on the same theme followed. In 1896 my Astronomical Tables, based on the prophetic times regarded as astronomical cycles, were published. The discovery of the astronomical character of the prophetic times was made in the following way.

In July, 1870, while the Vatican council was being held in Rome, and at the date when the decision was arrived at in France to declare war against Prussia, I left Paris, terminating a gospel mission, which had extended over nearly two years, in which with the help of twenty-five Protestant pastors, including Bersier, Pressense, Armand de Lille, Lepoids, Cook, Jaulmes, Hollard, and others, I had organized and held eight hundred gospel meetings, in seventeen parts of the city, attended by many thousands drawn from all ranks and persuasions, Protestants, Romanists, and Infidels.

The decision of Napoleon III to declare war against Prussia was made Friday, July 15th. The declaration of war was signed on Sunday, July 17th. The infallibility of the Pope was Decreed by the Vatican council on Monday, July 18th. The declaration of war was delivered at Berlin on Tuesday, July igth. In the war which followed Imperial France, and the Papal power fell together.

The startling coincidence of the papal self-exalting act, with the overthrow of the papal temporal power, profoundly impressed me.The spectacle of the Paris^m which we had just held so many gospel services, suddenly invested by German armies, surrounded by a gigantic ring of artillery fire from which there was no escape; of the tragic fall of Napoleon, the rise of united Germany, the unification of Italy, all pointed to the passing away of the old order of things on the continent, and the advent of a new era. And then the question arose, what had the Word of God to say about these events? What did it indicate as to the rise, course and fall of the papal power? The search for an answer to that question led to a careful and extensive study of the subject. In the course of that study I met with the very able work of Professor Birks, of Cambridge University, on “The Elements of Sacred Prophecy.”The four last chapters of that book contain an admirable elucidation and defense of the year-day theory. The argument in these chapters appeared to me absolutely unanswerable, and in fact has never been answered or confuted. One section of these chapters proved of special interest, that on the Cyclical character of the Prophetic Times. A prolonged subsequent sojourn in England gave me the opportunity to examine this subject minutely, and to make the calculations necessary to prove that the prophetic times are astronomical cycles of long range, and surprising accuracy. In the course of this mathematical investigation I made further discoveries confirming and extending the evidence of the astronomical character of the prophetic periods, and of their fulfilment in the history of the four kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome; and in the duration of the Papal and Mohammedan powers.

The work of Professor Birks on “The Elements of Sacred Prophecy”has been long out of print, and is difficult to procure. I therefore quote the brief section whose study led me to the investigation of the prophetic times.

“The cyclical character of the prophetic times,”says Professor Birks,” seems to have been first unfolded by M. de Cheseaux, a French writer. 1 purely as a curiosity of science ; but it is Mr. Cunninghame who has revived attention to this interesting topic. Though unable to concur in the whole superstructure which he has reared on this basis, the first principles, 1 believe, are both true in fact, and form a remarkable and collateral confirmation of the figurative view of these prophetic times. Two or three remarks will perhaps make the subject plain to general readers, so far as it bears on the present argument.

“1. On the fourth day of creation it was announced as the divine purpose in the appointment of the heavenly luminaries—’ Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.’ The division of time was one main purpose of their institution as lights in the firmament. The word rendered ‘ seasons ‘ is the same which here denotes the times, and there is consequently a tacit reference to that original ordinance of God.

“The revolutions of the sun and moofi have thus, in every nation, formed llic basis of the calendar. The day, the month, and the year, are the first dements on which it depends. If the natural month and year had been each a complete number of days, or a simple fractional part, the calendar we uld have been quite simple. But this is not the case, and hence the Vii ious intercalations used to bring them into agreement.

‘ Where the calendar is adapted to the sun only, its construction is very simple. The Julian year is a close approximation, and the Gregorian is pr ctically correct for some thousands of years.

‘ Hut in the sacred calendar of the Jews, and those of Greece and the eastern nations, the motions both of the sun and of the moon enter into llic reckoning. And hence arise mixed calendars, more natural, since they arc fitted to the motions of both the natural lights of heaven, but more complex in their adjustment.

“The most natural niode of adjustment is by taking the nearest integer of the lowest period contained in the higher, and making this the unit for the next higher.denomination, intercalating where necessary.

“Thus the natural month is nearer thirty than twenty-nine days. Therefore thirty days will be the calendar month, and the unit of every reckoning where months occur.

“Again, the year is nearer twelve than thirteen calendar months. There- fore twelve calendar months will form the calendar year, and five days are intercalated to complete the whole number.

“2. Now just as the day and the month were taken for the basis of these shorter periods, so may the month and year be taken as the basis of higher intervals. These give us cycles, or periods of complete years which are almost exactly a complete number of natural months.

“The intervals of years which most fully possess this character, adopting the most exact scientific measures of the lunar month and solar year, are 8, II, 19, 30, 49 . . . . 315, 334, 353, 687, 1,040 years. Afterthis limit the increasing accuracy of the series is limited by the moon’s acceleration, and the uncertainty of our measures of time.

“Now.from this series there result several interesting conclusions which bear on the present question.

“The period of nineteen years, though not directly recognized in the Jewish calendar, formed the basis of that used by the Greeks, and was no less an integral element of it than the month or the year. Now the very next period to this, in the above series, is thirty years; which, on the year-day theory, is the prophetic month, and has thus a real existence as a cycle, no less than the natural month of thirty days, to which it bears a close analogy.

“The next period is that of forty-nine years; which, according to the dates in Josephus of sabbatic years, and the more probable view of the sacred text, is the interval from jubilee to jubilee; and therefore is fundamental in the Hebrew calendar. This will be a second scriptural instance, like the prophetic month, of a luni-solar cycle adopted for a higher unit, composed of a complete number of years.

“Let us now pursue the analogy a step further. As twelve common months of thirty days, form a year of three hundred and sixty days, which, with five days intercalated, make the solar year; so twelve prophetic months of thirty years will form a ‘ time’ of three hundred and sixty years, exceeding by seven only the very exact luni-solar cycle of three hundred and fifty-three years; which forms a kind of natural unit in the series.

“Again, a ‘time, times, and a half will compose a period of one thousand two hundred and sixty years. And this is exactly four times the accurate cycle three hundred and fifteen years, and, therefore, partakes itself of the same cyclical character.

“The most perfect cycle, perhaps, which can be certainly ascertained, in consequence of the moon’s acceleration affecting the higher periods, is one thousand and forty years. Now, on the year-day theory, this is exactly the difference between the two grand numeral periods of one thousand two hundred and sixty, and two thousand three hundred years.

“Finally, the highest prophetic period, two thousand three hundred years, is itself a cycle—4×315+1,040,—and is perhaps, the only secular cycle composed of centuries only, that is known to exist.

“From these remarks it appears that the prophetic month of thirty years, and the ‘ time,’ composed of twelve such months, as such have a scientific character, though less distinct, yet of the very same nature with those of the common month and year. It appears also that the two main periods of one thousand two hundred and sixty, and two thousand three hundred years are cycles; and that their difference, one thousand and forty years, is the most perfect cycle certainly ascertained. The interval of one thousand, two hundred and ninety years is also a cycle, and that of one thousand three hundred and thirty-five is defective only by one single year.

“These remarks seem to prove that the year-day interpretation, besides its direct scriptural evidence, has a further and collateral support in the analogies of science. The same principles of the intersection of the solar and lunar periods, by which the units of the ordinary calendar is determined, when carried further up the ascending series of time, produce, even from the abstract relations of the celestial periods, the larger but corresponding units of thirty, and three hundred and sixty years, or the prophetic month and time.

“And surely, in the view which is thus unfolded, there is a simple grandeur which harmonizes with all the other features of the inspired predictions. A fresh light is thrown upon the words of the Psalmist, where the same word is employed as in these mysterious dates__’ the appointed the moons for seasons.’ We are raised out of the contracted range of human reckonings to a lofty elevation of thought, and catch some glimpses of that mysterious wisdom by which the Almighty blends all ( the works of Nature and of Providence into subservience to the deep councils of His redeeming love. A divine ladder of time is set before us, and, as we rise successively from step to step, days are replaced by years and years by millennia; and these, perhaps, hereafter, in their turn by some higher unit, from which the soul of man may measure out cycles still more vast, and obtain a wider view of the immeasurable grandeur ot eternity. When we reflect, also, that the celestial periods by which these cycles are determined are themselves fixed by that law of attraction which gives the minutest atom an influence on the planetary motions, what a combination appears in these sacred times of the most contrasted elements of omniscient wisdom! Human science sinks exhausted at the very threshold of this temple of divine truth. It has strained its utmost efforts .in calculating the actual motions of the moon and the earth; but the determining causes which fixed at first the proportion of their monthly and yearly revolutions have altogether eluded its research. Yet these elements of the natural universe are linked in, by these sacred times and celestial cycles, with the deepest wonders of Providence, and the whole range of Divine prophecy. How glorious, then, must be the inner shrine, lit up with the Shechinah of the Divine presence, when the approaches themselves reveal such a secret and hidden wisdom!

“Every one of the passages in Daniel yields distinct evidence in favour of the year-day system. And when these various indications are compared together, and combined with the truth which has just been unfolded, of the connection of these numbers with the natural cycles of science, the proof seems the highest almost of which such a subject is capable, and forms little short of the convincing power of a mathematical demonstration.”

For more than twenty years I pursued the study of the astronomical character of the prophetic times. The further I investigated the question the more evident it became that not only these, but the whole system of Revealed Redemption Chronology, Levitical, Historic, and Prophetic, is adapted to the time order of Nature. The revealed periods vary from a few days to thousands of years, yet their character in this respect is the same. Calendars of human invention, both sacred and civil, invariably fall out of agreement with solar and lunar revolutions in the lapse of time. The number of such calendars is very great. They are of Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, Indian, Chinese and other origin. All alike fail to keep time with Nature. But not so is it with the divinely revealed time system in Scripture. The Levitical times are adjusted to both solar and lunar revolutions, and adjusted in such a way that their slowly accumulating errors are corrected in the prophetic times; while the adjustment of the latter to solar and lunar revolutions is far reaching and complete; so complete that it is possible to calculate from the prophetic times regarded as astronomical cycles tables of the whole course of vernal and autumnal equinoxes, of summer and winter solstices, of mean and true new moons, of the new moons of solar eclipses, and the full moons of lunar eclipses ; in short all the solar and lunar elements required in a calendar of times extending over thousands of years, embracing the whole course of human history.

In my work entitled “Creation Centred in Christ”I have published such tables; and have given the following account of the incommensurateness of the natural time units, days, months and years; and of the cycles to which these incommensurate periods give rise, in which their harmonization is accomplished (“Creation Centred in Christ,”Vol. I, PP- 324-330).

CYCLICAL CHARACTER OF THE PROPHETIC TIMES DISCOVERIES OF M. DE CHESEAUX

The perplexities and difficulties which encumber the attempt to adapt brief periods of time to both solar and lunar movements, as in the Civil Calendar, disappear directly it is a question of longer intervals.

Short, periods have to be artificially harmonized, larger i>nes harmonize| themselves. There exist various periods which are naturally measurable both by solar years and lunar months, without remainder, or with remainders so mail as to be unimportant.

Such periods are therefore SOLI – LUNAR cycles, and we shall henceforth speak of them as such. They harmonize with more or less exactness solar and lunar revolutions, and they may be regarded as divinely appointed units for the measurement of long periods of time, units of precisely the same character as the day, month and year (that is, created not by artificial means, but by solar and lunar revolutions), but of larger dimensions. They are, therefore, periods distinctly marked off as such, as much as the fundamental revolutions on which our calendar is based; that is, they are natural measures of time furnished by the Creator Himself for human use.

The lunar cycle of nineteen years employed by the Greeks is one of these periods, and the ancient cycle of Calippus is another. Their discovery has always been an object with astronomers, as their practical utility is considerable. But it was exceedingly difficult to find cycles of any tolerable accuracy, especially cycles combining and harmonizing the day and the month with the year.

About the middle of last century a remarkable fact was discovered by a Swiss astronomer, M. de Cheseaux, a fact which is full of the deepest interest to both Jews and Christians, and which has never received, either at the hands of Bible students or scientists the attention which it merits.

The prophetic periods of 1,260 and 2,300 years, assigned in the Book of Daniel and in the Apocalypse as the duration of certain predicted events, are soli-lunar cycles, cycles of remarkable perfection and accuracy, but whose existence was entirely unknown to astronomers until, guided by the sacred scriptures, M. de Cheseaux discovered and demonstrated them to be such. And further, the difference between these two periods, which is 1,040 years, is the largest accurate soli-lunar cycle known.

The importance of this discovery, and the fact that it is exceedingly little known, will explain our entering into a somewhat full account of the matter here. It is, besides, vital to our own immediate subject, and was, indeed, the means of leading me to the present investigation.

M. de Cheseaux was the astronomer who observed and described the six-tailed comet of the year 1744. His book on the cyclical character of the prophetic times is out of print, difficult to procure, and even to consult. A copy of it exists in the library of the University of Lausanne, and another in the British Museum. It is entitled, “Memoires posthumes de M. de Cheseaux,”and was edited and published by his sons in 1754. It contains “Rerriarques historiques, chronologiques, et astronomiques sur quelques endroits du livre de Daniel.”The calculations of the astronomical part were submitted to Messrs. Mairan and Cassini, celebrated astronomers of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, neither of whom called in question the accuracy of M. de Cheseaux’s principles, or the correctness of his results. M. Mairan, after having carefully read his essay, said “that it was impossible to doubt the facts and discoveries it contained, but that he could not conceive how or why they had come to be embodied so distinctly in the Holy Scriptures.”M. Cassini wrote, after having read the treatise and worked the problems, that the methods of calculating the solar and lunar positions and movements which M. de Cheseaux had deduced from the cycles of the book of Da< |el were most clear, and "perfectly consistent with the most exact astronomy"; he wished the essay to be read before the academy. From the year 1754 to 1811 M. de Cheseaux's discoveries seem to have almost completely dropped out of sight. The stirring events of the French Revolution, which took place in the interval, may have caused his remarkable treatise to be forgotten. In the year 1811 Mr. William Cunningham, of Lainshaw, in Scotland, the author of several valuable works on prophecy, noticed a reference to de Cheseaux's discoveries in the writings of M. Court de Gibelin. Mr. Cunningham published the fact in an article which appeared in the Christian Observer for that year. In 1833 Mr. Cunningham published a letter in the Investigator^ a monthly journal of prophecy, describing his finding a copy of M. de Cheseaux's work. "During the twenty-two years,"says Mr. Cunningham, "which have elapsed since my communication to the Christian Observer I have sought for the work of M. de Cheseaux without success till the present year. A young relation of mine having last year gone to Heidelberg to complete his studies, I requested him to endeavour to procure the book for me. His inquiries among the booksellers, were quite unavailing. At length, having become acquainted with a student from Lausanne, where the work was originally published, by his assistance search was made in the library of the university of that city. The first attempt was unsuccessful; but on a second and more careful search, the book was discovered, and a manuscript copy of that part which relates to the book of Daniel was taken for me, arid is now in my possession." The cyclical character of the prophetic periods of 1,260 and 2,300 years, and the 1,040 year's period which measure their difference, was subsequently called in question by Mr. Frere, a well- known writer on prophecy. In a letter to the Investigator dated January, 1835, Mr. Cunningham says, "With regard to Mr. Frere's vain endeavour to shake the cyclical periods of de Cheseaux . . . if a scientific friend, who last summer favoured me with some remarks entirely confirmatory of the importance of the conclusions of M. de 'Cheseaux, and also showed me the principle of calculating the cycles by continued fractions^ shall not take up Mr. Frere's paper, I will myself do it."The scientific friend here alluded to was believed by the editor of the Investigator to be Professor Birks, of Cambridge, who subsequently published in the pages of that journal a letter on the method of calculating these soli-lunar cycles by continued fractions, and also embodied in his valuable work on the elements of prophecy, published in 1843, a brief account of the astronomic character of the prophetic times. It was when reading this work of Professor Birks just after the fall of the Papal Temporal power in 1870, that my attention was arrested by that portion of it referring to these remarkable cycles, and I was consequently led to investigate their character with considerable care, and in doing so made a number of chronological discoveries, some of which I have since published in my writings on the fulfilment of prophecy. The astronomic portion of my work on "The Approaching End of the Age "was submitted, prior to its publication, to the criticisms of Professor Adams, of Cambridge. For this purpose I became Professor Adams' guest at the Observatory in Cambridge, and he verified de Cheseaux's Calculations with reference to the prophetic times. I still possess the papers in his handwriting in which the calculations are worked out. The following is a translation of M. de Cheseaux's ac-rount of his discovery of the astronomic character of the 1,260 and 2,300 years' prophetic periods: "We all know what a cycle is—that is to say, a period of time which harmonizes different celestial revolutions, comprehending, each of them, a certain number of times precisely, without fractional remainder. Such is, for ex- ample, the period of 4 Julian years, or 1,461 days, which, according to the ideas of the ancients, should contain exactly 4 solar years and 1,461 days; so that, supposing the sun on the 12th of April, 1749, at noon in Paris to be in 22° 40' of Aries, it should in 1,461 days, and at the same hour of midday, be found again precisely in the same position. The error is, as we know, 44' of an hour. This cycle belongs to the first order—those which are employed to harmonize solar years and days. "Cycles of the second kind are designed to bring lunar years or months into agreement with solar years. Such is Melon's cycle of 19 years. This ancient astronomer supposed that if the sun and moon were found, for example, on the first day of the year in conjunction at a certain point of the ecliptic, they ought to return again at the end of 19 solar years, or of 235 complete lunar months, to the same position without fractional remainder. The error of the cycle is about 2h, 3m; by which the solar year finishes earlier than the lunar. "Cycles of the third kind are 4 those which harmonize solar days with lunar months, as, for example, the cycle of 1,447 complete days, which comprehends at the same time 49 lunar months with 1.5’ nearly. "Lastly, we may make a fourth kind of cycle of those which unite the previous classes, and harmonize at the same time the solar year, the lunar month, and the day. Such ought to be the cycle of Melon, and still more the period of Calippus. The discovery of these cycles has been an object of the researches of almost all astronomers and chronologists, and it has seemed to them so difficult that they have almost laid it down as a fact that it was impossible to find those of ihe fourth class. It has been ihus far a kind of philosopher's stone in asironomy, like perpetual movement in mechanics. There have been times when, seeking to assure myself effectually that it was not possible to succeed in the matter, I commenced my research by the second kind of cycle. Supposing a lunar month of 29 d., 12 h., 44m., 3 s., the error is 7”’, by defect: in a solar year of 395 d., 5 h., 49 m., the error is not more than 5 s. by excess. I observed that by adding on the one side and on the other two periods of time proportional to these two revolutions, that is to say, 57"to the first and 11’ to the second, their agreement became very approximalely as 29 d., 12.75h. to 365.25d., or as 2,835 quarters of an hour to 35,064 quaners of an hour; or in dividing these two num- bers by 9, which is iheir common measure, as 315 to 3,896. This agreement was at the same time so simple and exact that, giving the lunar month its true lenglh of 29 d., 12 h., 44m., 3s. 7"', the resulting measure of the solar year is 365 d., 5 h., 48 m., 16 s., that is to say, 39 s. only too short. From that I concluded that at the end of 315 solar years or 3,896 lunar months the sun and the moon should meet very nearly at the same point in the ecliptic. We find, in fact, that at the end of 315 Julian years, 2d., 4h., 27m., or al ihe end of 115,051 days, 4h., 27 m., the sun and the moon return, to ihe 7th or 8th minute of a degree nearly to the same point of the heaven from which they started. This 7' or 8' of a degree makes an error of 3 h., 24m. as to the solar year, which ends 3 h., 24m. after the lunar; that is to say, which recommences for ihe 316th time at the end of 115,051 d., 7 h., 51 m. This difference of 3h., 24 m. belween the duration of 315 lunar years and that of 315 solar years, or the error of 315 years' cycle, is that of the cycle of Meton as

“The cycle of 315 years thus found, I forthwith observed that it was the quarter of the 1,260 years’ period, or the 3 and a half “times” of Daniel 8: 12, and 12: 7, compared with Apoc. 12: 6, 14; and consequently that this prophetic period was itself a lunar cycle of such a character that at the end of 1,260 Julian years—10d+6h,14 m., or of 460,-205d., 6 h., 14 m., the sun and the moon return within 1/2° nearly to the same point in the ecliptic, and that at the end of 1,260 Julian years — 10 h. + 7h., 23 m., or of 460,-205 d., 7 h., 23 m., the sun returns to the same point of the ecliptic exactly.

“This period has not only the advantage of comprehending a round number of years, a number sufficiently remarkable on account of the number of its aliquot parts [for 1,260 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 28, 30, 35, 36, 42, 45, 60, 63, 70, 84, 90, 105, 126, 140, 180, 210, 252, 315, 420, 630; that is to say, by 35 divisors, which is, I believe, the largest number of divisors a number of this kind can have], but also that of containing a number of days whose length occupies about the mean between those of the lunar and solar years comprised in this number. 1

“The agreement of this period, destined by the Holy Spirit to designate civil periods, with the length of the most remarkable periods of celestial movements, led me to conjecture that it might also be such with the period of 2,300 years- I examined then this last period by astronomic tables, and I found that at the end of 2,300 Gregorian years less 6 h., 14 m., or of 840,057 d. less 6 h., 1401., the sun and the moon return within half a degree nearly, to the place from which they started; and at the end of 840,057 d., 7 h., 23 m. the sun returns exactly to the same point of the ecliptic; from which it follows that the prophetic period of 2,300 years (remarkable also by the number of its aliquot parts, and because it contains a complete number of cycles) was also a cyclical period, and this cyclical period was also so perfect that although 30 times longer than the Calippic period, its error is, however, much less than double, since it only extends to 13h., 37m., and being proportionately subdivided in the period of 70 years, it is reduced to 29 m., that is , to say, to the 17th part of the error of the Calippic period, which I said just now was 8 h., 12 m.

“The equality of the errors of this cycle of 2,300 years with those of the preceding led me to conclude that their difference, that is, 1,04.0 years, ought to be entirely exempt from error, and should give a perfect cycle, and one all the more remarkable because it unites at the same time the three kinds of cycles, and forms consequently this famous cycle of the fourth kind vainly sought so long, and ultimately believed to be chimeric or impossible. Having then examined this period of 1,040 years by the tables of the most celebrated modern astronomers, I found that it held about the mean between them, as one may see in this little table:

“These differences are absolutely insensible for so large a period, and it would be impossible that the best astronomic tables should be exempt from them, on account of the imperfections of ancient observations upon which they are founded, from which it seems that we should conclude, according to all appearance, that this period of 1,040 years, or solar revolutions, indicated in a certain way by the Holy Spirit, is a cycle at once solar, lunar, and diurnal, per- fectly exact. . . . May I be permitted meanwhile to give to this cycle the name of THE DANIEL CYCLE?”

Convinced by the studies which I have conducted that the prophetic times are so closely adjusted to the revolutions of the sun and moon that I could derive the one from the other, and believing that it would clearly demonstrate the astronomical character of the prophetic times in Daniel to do this, i. e., to derive the course of solar years and lunar months, in days, hours, and minutes, for thousands of years, either past or future, from these prophetic times, I have had the solar and lunar Tables calculated, contained in the second volume of my work on “Creation Centred in Christ.”These astronomical Tables contain more than 100,000 solar and lunar positions, verified by 12,000 eclipses; and the whole of these 100,000 positions have been calculated by means of the prophetic periods regarded as Astronomical cycles. The tables have been submitted to the highest’astronomical authorities, and approved as correct and trustworthy. The demonstration they afford of the truth of the year-day theory, according to which the “days”of the prophetic times in Daniel and the Apocalypse are interpreted as signifying years, is complete. These mysterious prophetic times are not brief periods adapted to the measurement of events in any individual life, but vast periods, stretching over thousands of years, adjusted to the chronology of the history of Israel, of the Christian Church, and of the Gentile kingdoms, outlined in the word of God.

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