of the description now before the reader would not be complete, were it to take no notice of this matter, but at the same time it would be an endless and futile labour to attempt to give a history of all the varying schemes of those who have fixed. upon particular years for the period of the coming of Antichrist, of the second advent of the Lord Jesus, of the expiration of the times of the Gentiles, the destruction of Babylon, the cleansing the sanctuary, or any other of those notable events contained in the prophetic portion of God's word. They are for the most part refuted by the event; and the authors of the respective systems advocated are either fallen into oblivion, or are only referred to on account of the value attached to those intrinsic principles of interpretation which exist in their writings, and which are still useful in respect to certain particulars of prophecy, independent of the system which they may have respectively advocated as a whole.*

Great however as have been the different opinions on these points, they ought not to be allowed to weigh with the discreet and scriptural inquirer, so as to prejudice him against all examination of the systems of former interpreters; still less ought they to lead to the conclusion that these dates are in no wise to be understood. They are inserted in the prophecies by the Author of those prophecies himself; and we cannot reasonably question that they are intended, like all other portions of scripture, to be of service to the Church of God at some particular period of its history; and therefore for any to set their faces upon principle against all attempts to interpret them, would be to encourage the Church of Christ to despise

the prophecy, or some previous event supposed to be alluded to, down to the end of time; to which calendar all the events of these prophecies are to be referred and placed in their chronological order or place. But others, as Daubuz, think there is no perpetual line of time or chronological series; but that we find therein only some special events whose duration is specified; and that we must therefore expect to find several intermediate spaces of time, which are not determined by any symbol.

* The reader who has a desire for entering into these discrepancies will find the following formidable array of different dates brought forward by Calmet (a Roman Catholic writer) which have been assigned by different expositors for the rising of Antichrist. Arnaud de Villeneuve 1326, Francis Melet 1530 or 1540, John of Paris 1560, Cardinal de Cusa 1730 or 1734, Peter D'Aille 1789, Jerom Cardan 1800, and John Pico of Mirandolo 1994. Bengel also notices the following years, as being periods which were immediately preceded by a great expectation that the world would come to an end; (but this expectation existed without any adequate cause,) viz. 1288, 1388, 1488, 1588, and 1666. Pref. p. 311. The Rev. S. R. Maitland gives us the following dates which have been fixed upon for the termination of the 1260 years of Dan. vii. viz. 1650, 1655, 1670, 1686, 1694, 1697, 1716, 1736, &c. Reply to Cuninghame, p. 113. And in his "Reply to a Review in the Morning Watch" he adduces various instances from modern writers, who differ from each other in regard to important events which they fix the accomplishment of as follows: 1843, 1866, 1873, 1888, 1917, 1920, 2000.

one of the great beacons which her Lord has given to her. It has been shown, in a former chapter, that they were evidently intended to be sealed up from certain ages and generations of the Church: they are as clearly to be opened and understood in the generation for which they are written. Whether that is yet "a generation to come," or they have been already opened, or are now opening, may admit of question; though I am decidedly of opinion, notwithstanding the diversity of expositions, that the Lord has been opening them to the Church ever since the era of the Protestant Reformation, since which period it is that the minds of Christians have been more intensely turned upon prophecy, and these different interpretations have appeared. This is no more than what might have been expected from human nature, and the character of the events to which the prophecies are supposed to relate. The Reformation necessarily opened men's eyes in a great measure to the past; and it was accompanied and succeeded by events of no ordinary character, bearing upon the future destinies of the Church. This is still more remarkably the case in respect to the French Revolution; and when therefore we consider the proneness of mankind to magnify the importance of the times in which they themselves live, and of believers more especially to anticipate that crisis of events which they are desiring, it is no wonder if they have misplaced circumstances which, after all, may prove decidedly to belong to the great chain of incidents ultimately to be embraced in a sound and proper interpretation. The nature of the case would farther lead one to expect, in regard to events extending over a large period of history, some of the more important of which are crowded into the latter times of it, that whilst some interpreters might be led too eagerly to adopt an event as predicted in the word of God, or to misplace one really predicted, in order to make it comply with an erroneous chronological system; other interpreters would more carefully compare and examine events with the prophecy, and by the principles of a judicious criticism be led to reject some events, and more correctly to define the features of others, and to fix them to their right places. In this undertaking it is evident that the more modern interpreters must have a decided advantage; inasmuch as they not only avail themselves of the criticisms and discoveries of their earlier brethren, but are likewise warned by their errors, and are materially assisted by that greater developement of events which the lapse of time is continually producing.

One farther argument, in reference to the discrepancy in the periods assigned, may be noticed in this place, viz. that there

exists much difference of opinion in regard to a period which all learned men agree has long since been fulfilled. I allude to the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, which was to be dated from the going forth of a certain decree to rebuild Jerusalem. But, as has been already noticed, (p. 320,) there were four decrees; and those who lived during the time whilst the 490 years were running out, could not a priori be certain which of the four commandments issued by the kings of Persia it was to be dated from, though they might justly have assumed that it must be from one of them; and any difference of opinion, therefore, arising from all four periods having been fixed upon, would be no sufficient reason for discarding every one of the hypotheses built thereon, as if all must be equally erroneous. The two first decrees by Cyrus and Darius appeared the most likely to be the real ones; but the first passed away forty-six years before Christ, and the latter twenty-eight years before, and yet he appeared not. It was between the period of the expiration of the second and third edicts that his birth took place; and it now appears, that it is from the third, issued in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, that it was really to be calculated, and not from that of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes; so that even during the life of our Saviour, the period was not elucidated with absolute exactness. Yea, it is not without difficulty even now; as may be seen by the various attempts (noticed by Dr. Prideaux) for reconciling the expiration of this period with the circumstances of the death of Christ.*

If then this perplexity occur in a prophecy which all admit to have been fulfilled, how much more ought we patiently to wait the result of the hypotheses concerning periods not yet fully accomplished. Even writers of history are not fully agreed as to the dates of some important events. Take the Protestant Reformation for example, which has been variously dated from the time of Wickliffe, Luther, Henry VIII, the Smalcaldic League, Edward VI, &c. But were it to be advanced as an argument drawn from this discrepancy, that no Reformation had actually taken place at all, we should at once reject the argument as absurd.

2. Passing on to the chronological periods themselves, that which is of principal importance is the 1260 years-mentioned by Daniel and St. John, under various forms of expression, no

These are of such a character, that a modern writer on prophecy has imagined each week to be a Jubilee of years; and that Messiah, instead of being cut off at the end of the 69 weeks, cuts off his enemies. See an article by Maramensis, Inv. vol. ii. p. 121. Another writer has adopted the expedient of separating the 69 weeks from the one remaining week by a hiatus of upwards of 1800 years!

less than seven times.* This period relates to the manifestation and duration of the Little Horn, which, it has been already shewn (p. 276, &c.) is, by the generality of modern interpreters understood to be the papacy. A similar concurrence will be found to exist among the more eminent expositors of the present day, in fixing the period of this rise to the year of our Lord 533. Mr. Cuninghame, who ably vindicates this date, adopts it for the following reasons.. He first lays down as a proposition, that the commencement of the 1260 years is to be marked by the giving the suints and times and laws (of the church) into the hands of the little horn, (On the Apoc. 3rd edition, p. 256.) And he next adopts the axiom of Mr. Faber, that the giving the saints into the hands of the papacy must be by some formal act of the secular power of the empire, constituting the pope to be the head of the church. He therefore fixes upon the year 533, in which, in the reign of the emperor Justinian, by an act of the secular government of the empire, the Roman Pontiff was thus acknowledged. The emperor first issued a decree defining his own faith, especially in the article that the virgin Mary was the mother of GOD, (thus publicly avouching the principles of demonolatry;) and he required all his subjects to conform to it under penalty to the disobedient, and to their children, of the confiscation of their property. He then submits this edict to the pope, and in the epistle which accompanies it he styles him, the acknowledged head of all the churches, and all the holy priests of God, and desires his approbation of what he had done. This was given by the pope in the following year; and consequently we have here, in the view of those interpreters who adopt this date, the civil power usurping the authority of Christ, and issuing blasphemous things against God; and the two-horned beast of Rev. xiii. now rising up out of the earth, (answering also to the little horn of the ten-horned beast in Dan. vii.) is evidently prepared to play into his hands and to cause men to worship the beast. The epistle of the pope in reply bears date March 534; and immediately after this, Justinian, in an edict addressed to the præfect of Africa, invokes the virgin Mary, thus giving public

* It is mentioned as three times and a half, 42 months, and 1260 days, which, calculating by lunar time, will all agree. See Dan. vii. 25, and Rev. xi. 2, 3; xii. 6, 14, and xiii. 5. Mr. Habershon notices that three distinct events are mentioned in connection with these three forms of expression; viz. the first having respect to popery as it appears under the actual dominion of the pope himself; the second to the tyrannical dominions of the ten papal kingdoms;— the third to the depressed condition of the church of Christ.

†The names of Cuninghame, Frere, Irving, Keith, Habershon, and many others have sanctioned this date. Mr. Faber likewise adopted it in the former editions of his Sacred Calendar, but has abandoned it in the last edition, for a reason which will presently be noticed.

evidence that the faith of the head of the empire, to which all his subjects were required to conform, was not only blasphemous but demonolatrous. Finally, all the preceding acts of Justinian for establishing a secular and ecclesiastical supremacy in the church (including also a letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, in which the above titles were likewise given to the pope,) were inserted in the volume of the Civil Law, published by Justinian, which became the basis of the jurisprudence of all the kingdoms of the western empire.*

At the termination of the 1260 years of the tyranny of the Little Horn the ancient of days sits, and the judgment commences which consumes and destroys him: and 1260 years from A. D. 533 brings us down to the French Revolution 1792-3. From which circumstance, as Mr. Cuninghame decidedly considers this to have been the period when judgment commenced upon the papal power, he adduces it as an argument a posteriori for adopting the year 533 as that of the rise of the beast: maintaining that argument backward from the period of the break-up of his power, so manifestly occurring at that time, we are necessarily brought back to the time of Justinian.

There is likewise another event which leads to the same date: the three times and a half are with a high degree of probability supposed to be a moiety of seven times, which seven times are further supposed to be "the times of the Gentiles," i. e. the times of Gentile domination over Israel. Mr. Cuninghame dates this from B. c. 728, when Israel became tributary to Assyria, and were very soon after led into captivity, and when the Assyria-Babylonian empire likewise began to obtain that universal sovereignty which is ascribed to it in the vision. The bisecting point of the seven times, dated from 728 B. C. is A. D. 533.t

* Mr. Cuninghame, who notices these matters (Crit. Examination of Faber, p. 90.) states also that the previous edicts of Gratian and Valentinian the iii. on which Mr. Faber lays emphasis, are not to be found in that volume; a distinction which he thinks of a very prominent character between the two former edicts and that of Justinian, as to their becoming the settled and ultimate law of the empire.

+ It has already been observed that Mr. Faber formerly advocated the view of Mr. Cuninghame, (which Mr. Cuninghame, indeed, in some measure derived from him,) but that in a subsequent edition of his work he has departed from it. He has adopted instead, the period of the ten Gothic kingdoms unanimously recognizing the papal supremacy. The abandonment of the year 533 by Mr. Faber, appears to be in consequence of its being necessary to adapt the 1260 years, with the other parts of his exposition, to a new principle adopted in his scheme; the object of which is evidently to prevent his readers from coming to the conclusion (which was inevitable in his former editions,) that the second advent of Christ is premillennial. But he is singularly inconsistent in maintaining his new views: he considers that the point of time, from which the 1260 years are to be calculated, is the completion of the great demo