The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The “Seven Times” of Daniel 277
More remarkable still was Robert Fleming’s prediction that the
French monarchy would fall towards the end of the eighteenth
century, a prediction made nearly a hundred years prior to that event!
Fleming’s book The Rise and Fall of Papacy was first published in
1701. Commenting upon the fourth vial at Revelation 16:8–9, he
identifies the “sun” as the Papacy, and France as instrumental in
pouring out the fourth vial. After that, France itself will be
humbled:
We may justly suppose that the French monarchy, after it has
scorched others, will itself consume by doing so—its fire, and that
which is the fuel that maintains it, wasting insensibly, till it be
exhausted at last towards the end of this century. 71
I cannot but hope that some new mortification of the chief
supporters of Antichrist will then happen; and perhaps the French
monarchy may begin to be considerably humbled about that time;
that whereas the present French king takes the sun for his emblem,
and this for his motto, “Nec pluribus impar,” he may at length, or
rather his successors, and the monarchy itself (at least before the year
1794) be forced to acknowledge that, in respect to neighbouring
potentates, he is even “Singulis impar.” But as to the expiration of
this vial, I do fear it will not be until the year 1794. 72
Shortly after the Republic had been proclaimed in 1792, when
the horrors of the French Revolution were at their most extreme
and Louis XVI was about to die on the scaffold, Fleming’s
remarkable “predictions” were recalled to memory. Thus his book
began to be reprinted both in England and America. The sensation
his predictions produced was great and caused much excitement;
and their (partial) fulfillment was a strong incentive to increased
study of biblical prophecies after the French Revolution.
Fleming’s calculation of the 1,260 year-days (552–1794) was
taken over by many others, although the termination date for them
was soon changed by many from 1794 to 1798, the year when the
Pope was deposed as ruler of the Papal States and banished by
French troops. Thus the 1798 date came to be regarded as marking
the beginning of the “time of the end” by Adventist groups. The
calculation was later adopted also by C. T. Russell and his followers
71 Robert Fleming, Jr., The Rise and Fall of Papacy (London, 1849; reprint of the 1701
edition), p.68. Emphasis added.
72 1bid., p. 64. Emphasis added.