tempus, consilio Dei exacte definitum et circumscriptum, [and so are all times and seasons]; qualia fuerunt tempora afflictionis Ahabicae et Epiphanicae. Et in hisce, quidem putem posse modestum hujus prophetiae interpretem subsistere. "Of those who think that a definite quantity of time (definite for us) is signified, he says:" Lubens hic feram modestos ingenii lusus, qui conciliari poterunt cum historia." Whether he would call the lusus of Mede, Faber, and many others here, modestos, one might indeed well doubt.

Ewald (Comm. in Apoc. 11: 2,) has well stated the meaning of 42 months: "Spatium tantum significat, ut non brevissimi ita nec nimis longi temporis. Septem enim annorum spatium cum Hebraeis jam vetustioribus, spatii satis longi notatio sit vaga (Judg. 6: 1, 25. 12: 9. 2 Sam. 24: 13, Ezek. 39:9); seriores quidem post exilium Judaei, spatium paullo minus expressuri, numerum hunc sacrum dividere consueverunt ; ita ut in vita quoque vulgari, tres anni cum semestri, annorum aliquot, seu spatii temporis satis longi, nec tamen nimii, notatio esset vaga."

It would be difficult to state my own views more exactly than Vitringa and Ewald have done, in these and similar declarations.

In Chap. XII. of the Apocalypse, we have an account of the wasting and treading under foot the holy city by the Gentiles, for 42 months, v. 2. The testimony of the two witnesses is also to be borne, during the same period, i. e. 1260 days, v. 3. The question with which we are at present concerned, is, whether this period is to be considered as literally designated; or representatively designated, i. e. one day put for a year; or, finally, whether the period named stands as a definite for an indefinite time, according to the views above explained.

Much depends, in respect to a satisfactory answer, on the view taken of the contents of the chapter in which these designations of time are made. I do not deny that there is room, from the nature of the symbols and figurative language so almost exclusively employed, for hesitation and doubt in the mind of a careful and enlightened interpreter. But, considering the specification made in vs. 2 and 8, viz., that the holy city, the great city... where our Lord was crucified, is the place where all the things predicted in this chapter are to happen, 1 cannot refrain from the belief, that the persecuting Jewish metropolis is the principal scene of the whole; yet not in such

a sense as to exclude the land of Palestine, which must sympathize and suffer with its capital. I regard nearly the whole of chapters VI.-XI., as a prediction that the Jewish persecuting power, (and the Gentile Roman power, which, although arrayed against the Jews in general, still co-operated with them in persecuting Christians), should fail in their attempts to extinguish the religion of Jesus, which would rise and triumph upon their fall or ruin. Principally, however, the Jewish persecuting power is regarded; and the Roman or Gentile power comes in here, only so far as it acted against Jewish Christians because they were Hebrews. As seen in prophetic vision, the unbelieving city falls; the church triumphs; and neither Jews nor Gentiles were able to prevent the spread, the increase, and the prevalence of the new religion.

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As to the time now in which all this is to take place, viz., 42 months or 1260 days 3 years, I must believe, that the reference made by this designation is to the former periods of affliction and distress, in the days of Ahab and in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Sufferings such as were endured by the Jews in those times must come upon the wicked Jews (v. 2), and days like those of Antiochus, which would clothe the church in sack-cloth (v. 3), must come upon the faithful. From the nature of the case, the pious and impious must in common be involved in civil commotions and calamities. the church, even when apparently extinct for a short time (11: 7-10), shall revive and flourish and triumph, (vs. 12—19). Persecution by enemies domestic or foreign, shall not be able to extinguish it.

But

The period in which all this is to happen, I would not limit, however, merely to the seige and sacking of Jerusalem; for this metropolis is plainly a mere representative of the land or nation to which it belongs. The whole signified is, that times like the 3 years of Antiochus' persecution and wasting are to come, and to endure for a considerable period; yet, at last, persecutors are to be crushed, and the church is to survive and triumph.

In chap. XII. of the Apocalypse a new scene and a new vision opens. The writer has followed to the end the destruction of the anti-christian Jewish power; and now he commences a development of new symbols, by which the anti-christian Pagan power is represented as being destroyed. The woman clothed with the sun, (the emblem of the new religion or new dispensation), is presented as being persecuted by the dragon

(the emblem of Satan and his servants), and as fleeing for safety to the wilderness (as Israel of old did from the Egyptian tyrant), where she was to continue 1260 days, i. e. 31 years, v. 6. In 12: 14, the period of the woman's retreat to the wilderness, is called "a time and times and half a time;" which is only another mode of expressing the same period as before, i. e. 42 months.

Now as the public ministry of Christ, (who, I cannot well doubt, is the child which the woman is to bear, and who is caught up unto God and to his throne, 12: 5), lasted about 3 years, after which his ascension took place, I should feel almost certain that the writer of the Apocalypse had his eye upon this period throughout the first half of his 12th chapter, were it not that the beast is represented (13: 5) as having power for the same period, i. e. 42 months. As this seems plainly to mean, that the heathen civil persecuting power and heathen idolatry should continue during such a period, while spiritual Jerusalem is afflicted, we seem here to be compelled to adopt a tropical exegesis of the 42 months, i. e. to construe it as signifying an indefinite and considerable period. But still I do not feel very confident, that this need or ought to have a direct bearing on the periods previously named in chap. xII., while the subject in some respects is different.

It is not my present design to enter into a discussion respecting the specific objects intended to be pourtrayed by the writer of the Apocalypse, in chapters XII. seq. of this peculiar book. Enough, that the 3 years of the woman's retreat to the wilderness' (126, 14), are the consequence of persecution; enough that the beast which "makes war with the saints, which opens its mouth in blasphemy against God" (vs. 6, 7), has power for forty-two months. Here is the same reference as before, to the times of Antiochus the persecutor; and even the very language of Daniel respecting him is borrowed. The sum of the whole is, then, that times like those of Antiochus are to come on the church, through the instrumentality of heathen powers, and that fierce and bloody persecution may be expected. But all will end, at last, in the triumph of the church and the universal reign of the Prince of Peace.

But suppose now, that 1260 literal years are to be assumed, as the period in which the church shall actually be in the wilderness, driven from the society of men and upheld as it were by special miraculous power; can any one, without discolour

ing historical facts, find such a period in past history? I cannot. If I take, as the terminus a quo, the famous periods so often named and insisted on, viz., 603 or 615 A. D., and count 1260 years onward, I am unable to find so many years of persecution and desolation of the church. This celebrated period would end in A. D. 1863 or 1875. Are we then to regard the church as in the wilderness, ever since the glorious light of the Reformation burst upon her; and the beast and the false prophet as possessing completely desolating and crushing power over her? Let the ends of the earth respond to this, to which Protestants have long been sending the light of salvation. Let Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, America, the isles of the sea, answer and say, whether the beast and the false prophet are able to crush them or send them into the wilderness; or whether persecuting power has not long since begun to hide its head and retreat from the predominating influence of the church, which bids defiance to all her enemies!

Facts then oblige us to interpret the 3 years of the retreat of the church before heathen power, and the persecution and predominance of the beast, as not meaning 1260 years. Nor can we well suppose that it means literally but 3 years. This would be equally at variance with facts, and alien from the usus loquendi of the writer. We must therefore interpret it, as before, to mean a considerable, yet not a very long period.

Pass we on, now, to the consideration of the 1000 years, mentioned in Rev. 20: 2-7, during which Satan is to be bound, and the triumph of the gospel to be universal.

And here permit me to remark, that I cannot perceive how the common proverbial saying, "A thousand years are with the Lord as one day, and one day as a thousand years" (2 Pet. 3:8), can possibly have any direct bearing upon the designations of time in the prophecies. The simple object of that saying is, to declare that lapse of time is no measure of the divine existence or purposes; or that what may seem to us as long delay, cannot appear so to the divine mind, whose thoughts and purposes are not measured by the revolutions of time. If it be applied to measure the designations of time in the prophecies, then one day, instead of being one year (as it is usually reckoned), might be counted as a thousand years; and on the other hand, the argument derived from it would be equally good, to prove that the thousand years of the Millennium will amount after all, to no more than one day. We may dismiss this text,

therefore, as being, in respect to limitation of time, quite foreign to our present inquiry.

But what is the usus loquendi of the Scriptures in regard to the number one thousand? A few examples will shew its tropical or secondary use. "The Lord... make you a thousand times as many as you are.-God, who keepeth covenant to a thousand generations.-How should one chase a thousand ?— The word he commanded to a thousand generations.-He cannot answer him one of a thousand. If there be an interpreter, one of a thousand.-The cattle on a thousand hills are mine.A day in thy courts is better than a thousand.-A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand.Though he live a thousand years twice told.-One man among a thousand have I found.-Where were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings.-One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one.-A little one shall become a thousand.-The city that went out by a thousand.”

Nothing can be more certain, then, than the tropical use of this number, i. e. than that it stands for a large and indefinite number. What reason have we for construing it otherwise, in respect to the period of the church's prosperity?

I know of none. If the writer in the Apocalypse has not elsewhere usually employed numbers, in respect to time, in a literal and definite sense, why should we understand him as having so employed them here? The nature of the case does not decide in favour of a literal sense. A long period the writer plainly means to designate a very long one. Nay, we may say in general, that the period of the church's prosperity is to be as much longer than that of her adversity, as one thousand is more than three and a half. So much, I think, we may truly gather from the designation. And what a joyful prospect does this disclose! For 1800 years the church has been, now and then, and in many respects, in deep affliction. The beast and the false prophet, i. e. heathenism and false religion, still bear sway over more than three quarters of our ruined race. But the time of deliverance, as we would hope, draws near. And when it comes, if the prosperity and universal sway of Christianity is to continue as much longer than the days of oppression and contest, as 1000 exceeds 34, then will it be true indeed, that the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head. Then will it prove to be fully true, that the triumphs of redeeming love will bring home to glory such multitudes of our VOL. V. No. 17.

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