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Before considering further the relation of the growing papacy to the imperial power in the Western Empire, I must call attention to an important fact generally overlooked or disregarded by expositors. The 1,260-year period not only marks the time of triumph by the beast-power, but also measures the period during which the woman, or true church, was to be secluded in the wilderness.
The next question to arise is, What date shall we select as the proper time from which to measure this 1,260-year period? It is important that we correctly solve this question. Expositors have selected different dates.
And again, after describing the 1,260-year reign of the papacy, Daniel said: "But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. There is abundant evidence to be seen by the careful observer that there are now at work in the Christian world forces that are preparing for great changes.
In the description under consideration it evidently can not signify the ordinary 24-hour day nor yet the year-day; for it covers the Protestant period following the 1,260-year reign of Romanism and preceding the Last Reformation the same period of time covered by the second beast of Revelation 13.
This intricate picture of symbolical imagery is placed chronologically just after the 1,260-year reign of Romanism and hence it was to meet its fulfilment during the Protestant era. It describes in the most graphic and realistic manner the evil characteristics and tendencies of the sect-system.
But the description continues, covering the era of modern sects and leading up to the work of a final reformation. After describing the 1,260-year prophecy of the two witnesses, the narrative continues: "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
We have seen that the 1,260-year universal reign of the first beast of Revelation 13 ends with the period of the Reformation. There is no doubt that these references point out the work of the Reformation which broke the power of Rome's universal supremacy and her long reign of tyranny over the earth.
Bearing in mind that the 1,260-year period measures both phases, we are obliged to select for our beginning a time about half way between both extremes, a time when, we might say, the "falling away" from the pure apostolic truth and standard was about half completed and when the papacy was about half developed.
We regret that the true work of reformation did not long continue. A.D. 1530 marks a new epoch the rise of organized Protestantism; marks the end of the 1,260-year period, and the introduction of another ecclesiastical power. The historian D'Aubigne recognizes the distinction between the Reformation as such and organized Protestantism.
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