The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

IV. M’Corkle-1260 Years From Justinian to French Revolution

On every hand and in all sections, intensified interest in the prophecies was noticeable. Men of influence and training searched diligently for light on the meaning of the times. Numerous students of the Word preached and wrote on the anticipated outcome of the current European situation. There seemed to be a general conviction that the French Revolution, and the bold stroke of the armies of France against the Papacy, had definite prophetic significance. SAMUEL E. M’CORKLE, or McCorkle, ¹¹ pastor of the Presbyterian church at Thyatira, near Salisbury, North Carolina, was one of the substantial voices in that section of the South. His views were clearly reflected in an unusual sermon preached on this special Fast Day, appointed by the President for May 9, 1798. His chosen topic was The Work of God for the French Republic, and Then Her Reformation or Ruin. PFF4 62.2

Word had just come of the capture of the pope at Rome, in mid-February, and of his subsequent exile. In the press, he and his haughty dignitaries were popularly declared to be “no more.” In a footnote to his printed sermon M’Corkle, alluding to the French mastery of Rome, makes this cogent observation on the 1260 years, revealing his acquaintance with prophetic expositors back over the years: PFF4 63.1

“It is long since interpreters have said that this would be effected by the French, and that the events would fall between the years 1760 and 1)310. Particularly that a church domination, whose center is Rome, and seat, ten kingdoms of Europe, should last 1260 years—that the first rise of this period was about the year 500.” ¹² PFF4 63.2

M’Corkle continues to explain that, on such a basis, the early date might perhaps be calculated from the time the Papacy first “acted for herself as the Roman church,” and could be considered fully completed in A.D. 550, when Justinian’s general, Narses, “destroyed the Gothic government,” thus ending the seventh form of government at Rome. So the Papacy is called the “8th form” of government. (Revelation 17:11.) Thus the prophesied 1260 years added to A.D. 500 would lead to 1760, when the Jesuits were banished. And 1260 years, calculated from 550, would end in 1810, by which time the final ruin should be accomplished. Such matters were naturally deemed of vital interest and current concern. PFF4 63.3

Reference is next made to the expositions of President Samuel Langdom of Harvard and David Austin of New Haven, bearing on this point. ¹³ Then M’Corkle says that he has not seen J. Thomas Towers’ collection (published 1794), of previous statements along this line,” ¹⁴ but has seen an extract from Robert Fleming’s 1701 works, looking to 1794 for the humiliation of the French monarchy. (Fleming sees the 1260-year period as possibly from 534 to 1794.) So M’Corkle goes on record as believing that* with the tree of liberty planted by the French “before the capitol at Rome; the seat and center of imperial and ecclesiastic domination and persecution”—it had been reserved for France “to accomplish many prophecies which mark, with astonishing precision, the time, place and people by whom these prophecies were to be accomplished.” ¹⁵ PFF4 64.1

M’Corkle adds that the public mind is doubtless too much agitated by Deism and Jacobinism to catch the significance of it all, but declares pointedly that such an attitude will “neither do away with the existence nor force either of the prophecies, or their explication.” And he adds, pointedly, “On record they are, and on record they will remain.” M’Corkle aptly compares the prophecies of the Bible to “the anchor of a ship, which, though out of view, holds her still fast in her moorings, and causes her at last to outride the storm.” Thus, he adds with conviction, will the prophecies hold. ¹⁶ PFF4 64.2

The popular “denial of revelation, and prophecy/’ heard from the skeptical, only calls for a “more critical investigation” of the question of whether this deistic power, which overthrew the tyranny of priests and kings, is itself predicted. “There is no rational doubt,” he says, “respecting the prediction of that domination which is ecclesiastic.” Having just finished the reading of Austin’s stimulating exposition of Revelation 11, “when the papers announced that ‘Rome was free,’” M’Corkle makes this impressive statement in a footnote: PFF4 64.3

“I had the curiosity instantly to take 1260 [years] from [A.D.] 1798, and found the year 538. I then turned to the history of Rome, and found that in that very year Rome was taken from Vitiges, king of the Goths by Bellisarius [sic] Justinian’s general.” ¹⁷ PFF4 65.1

Satisfied on the identity of the power, men were thus seeking to understand the timing of its fall, or at least its “wounding.” Such was the testimony of a respected Presbyterian voice from the South, who also wrote concerning the Great Revival in the Carolinas.” ¹⁸ And such was his instantaneous reaction, in 1798, to the actions of the French at Rome, to the timing of the 1260 years of the spiritual domination of the Papacy. PFF4 65.2