The Holy City is trodden by the Gentiles fortytwo Months*. It is given to the Beast, to exercise his power forty-two Months +. The Two Witnesses preach in sackcloth 1260 Days §.

The Woman is in

the Wilderness 1260 Days ||; and she is also said to be in the Wilderness a time, times, and half a time; that is, three years and a half **.

Now, if we examine the records of Scripture, we find that the period of three years and a half represents an idea; one of spiritual toil, pilgrimage, and persecution.

First, it may be observed, that three and a half, being the half of seven, which is the number of completeness, represents a semi-perfect state; one of transition and probation.

In illustration of this, it may be remarked here, that the body of the Two Witnesses remains unburied three days and a half ++.

The same kind of opposition to the Apostolic number Twelve may, perhaps, be thought to exist in the half of that number, Sia; and to exhibit itself in the remarkable combination of Six Hundreds, Six Tens, and Six Units, which constitute the number of the name of Antichrist ‡‡.

To proceed to facts.

Three years and a half, or forty-two months, or 1260 days are, as we have seen, the time of the

*Rev. xi. 2. § Rev. xi. 3.

Rev. xi. 9. 11.

† ποιῆσαι.

|| Rev. xii. 6.

Rev. xiii. 5. ** Rev. xii. 14.

Rev. xiii. 18.

pilgrimage of the Woman in the Wilderness, that is, of the Church in her trials*. This number† forty-two connects her with the History of the Israelitish Church in the Wilderness. Its haltings are enumerated in the Book of Numbers ‡, and they are Forty-two. And all these things (says St. Paul) happened to them as types of us §. They foreshadow the history of the Christian Church in her pilgrimage through the Wilderness of this World to the promised land of Heaven.

Again: I tell you of a truth, says Our Blessed Lord, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. And St. James says, Elias prayed it might not rain; and it rained not on the Earth by the space of three years and six months **.

It also pleased God to strengthen the type, if we may so speak, by assigning precisely the same duration of three years and a half to the great persecution of the Church of Israel by Antiochus Epiphanes, the figure of Antichrist.

St. John's precursor tt, Daniel, had named that

* Primasius ad loc. Numerus XLII Mansionum Christianitatis omne tempus designat.

† By Haymo in Apoc. lib. ii. iv., and Aquinas, p. 323.

Num. xxxiii. 1—50.

|| Luke iv. 25.

§ 1 Cor. x. 6—11.

** James v. 17.

+ See Josephus, B. J. i. c. 1. Lowth on Dan. xii. 7. Ussher's Annals, pt. ii. Prideaux, Connexion, ad a. D. 168, 165.

period as the duration of that persecution. He had also identified it with the future time of the trials of the Christian Church, which are more fully described by St. John *.

Thus the very mention of three years and a half

to the ear of an Israelite had an ominous sound. It was the chronological symbol of suffering.

And to us Christians there is another reason why it should be identified with a time of trial, if, as some ancient Writers † assure us, and there is good. reason to believe ‡, this period of three years and a half § was the duration of the earthly Ministry of Him, the great PROPHET, the Divine WITNESS of the truth-Who was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ||; and Who, as Daniel prophesied, caused the sacrifice of the Temple to cease in the midst of a Week by His own oblation on the cross**

* See Lowth on Dan. vii. 25.

† Euseb. i. 10. Theodoret, ii. p. 1250, ed. Hal. Cf. Melito ap Routh. R. S. i. 136.

See Hengstenberg's Christology on Dan. ix. 27.

§ Some of the Fathers also supposed that this was the duration of the "flight in Egypt" of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Child. See Catena Cramer, p. 358. 366.

|| Isa. liii. 3.

** Dan. ix. 27.-Lightfoot Harm. N. T. ad cap. xi. "The forty-two months," "1260 days," and a "time, times, and a half time," are but borrowed phrases from Daniel, who so expresses the three and a half years of Antiochus' persecution (Dan. xii. 7); and they mean times of trouble, and are used to express that,

Hence this period of three years and a half, fortytwo months, or 1260 days, is employed in the Apocalypse as a typical exponent of an idea; just as the numbers twelve and twelve times twelve do not represent a precise sum, but a well-defined principle *.

We observe, in passing, that the Locusts of the fifth Trumpet are said to have power to injure for five months. This number also expresses an idea. It designates the time of the duration of the Deluge ‡ ; and indicates that the Locusts would cover the World, like the Flood; but that the Ark of the Church

and not any fixed time. The Jews have learned to make the same construction of it and this also, that comfort might stand up against mercy, was the time of our Saviour's Ministry. Christ preached three and a half years in trouble. So the Two Witnesses in sackcloth. He having finished His ministry was slain; so they. He revived and ascended; so they likewise. Their case is paralleled with Christ's, their Master's. See also Vitringa, p. 449. 463. 1 Macc. xiii. 50, 51.

Haymo in loc. Dies 1260.] In hoc tempore Ecclesiâ in solitudine a curis temporalium rerum quiescente, pascunt eam Doctores exemplo et doctrinâ per Epistolas, Evangelium et expositiones librorum pabulo divini sermonis. Sicut Antichristus 1260 diebus regnabat, ita et Christus 1260 diebus, i. e. tribus annis et dimidio prædicavit, ideoque totum præsens tempus possumus accipere per hoc numerum a quo divina prædicatio cœpit. Desertum populi ex Ægypto egressi significabat hanc vitam, in quâ pascimur vero Manna, id est, corpore Christi; adsunt quoque igniti serpentes, &c. See also Aquinas. + Rev. ix. 10. Gen. vii. 24. viii. 3.

would float upon the waters, and rest securely, when they were abated.

On the whole, we arrive at this conclusion, that we ought not to attempt to deduce any arithmetical results, with regard to the future, from this number of three and a half years, forty-two months, or 1260 days.

Let us not, however, imagine that these numbers are. superfluous. Nothing in Scripture is so. God has ordered all things in measure and number and weight*. We cannot now understand all the harmonies of the divine Arithmetic, yet some we can. These numbers in the Apocalypse are of great use. They do not indeed gratify the cravings of human curiosity. They do not enable us to construct a prophetical Ephemeris, or an Apocalyptic Almanack. But they present to us certain parallelisms. They show that the sufferings of Scripture coincide with those of the Church, and with the Empire of the Beast. They remind us of our own ignorance, and of God's knowledge. They teach us patience. They tell us that the days of man are few, and that a Millennium is a moment to the Eternal. They warn us that we are not to expect sabbatical perfection in this World. They have an analogical value.

* Wisdom xi. 20.

The true temper of a Christian, in regard to future "times and seasons," is beautifully pourtrayed in the admirable letter of St. Augustine to Hesychius, De fine Sæculi, Epist. excix.