passage of Sir Isaac Newton, which not only shows his opinion but that of the early fathers. In his exposition of ver. 25,—“ Know, "therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the Com"mandment to restore and build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, "shall be seven weeks"-he thus writes:

"The former part of the prophecy (ver. 24) related to the first 'coming of Christ, being dated to his coming as a Prophet: this, 'being dated to his coming' to be Prince or King, seems to relate to 'his second coming. There, the prophet was consummate, and the 'Most Holy anointed: here, He that was anointed comes to be 'Prince and to reign. For Daniel's prophecies reach to the end of the world; and there is scarce a prophecy in the Old Testament 'concerning Christ, which doth not, in something or other, relate to 'his second coming. If divers of the ancients, as Irenæus, Julius 'Africanus, Hippolitus the Martyr and Apollinaris, bishops of Lao'dicea, applied "the half week" to the times of Antichrist; why

may not we, by the same liberty of interpretation, apply "the seven 'weeks" to the time when Antichrist shall be destroyed by the 'brightness of Christ's coming?"

I would add that this also accounts in some degree for the precise period of three-and-a-half years, by referring it to the greater period of the complete week, or seven of years, as its half: while it furnishes another and decisive argument against those who interpret the 1260 days as years; inasmuch as they will have to show two periods of 1260 years instead of one.

(K.) Page 236.

ON THE TEN HORNS OF THE BEAST.

I REFER again for the verification of this assertion to Mr. Tyso's work, who has been at the trouble of comparing twenty-eight different authors; the result of which is sixty-five kingdoms, and this, reckoning only once the kingdoms common to different lists! And if twenty-eight authors furnish this number, how much greater would it be if all the lists that have been given could be compared ?

I fully agree with him in his concluding remark on this division, and think that the simple question proposed, and not by him for the first time, is in itself fatal to these interpretations of the ten-horns, independent even of their variety: viz.—

'It is' (he says) 'generally considered by commentators that the 'lower parts of the metallic image represent the Roman Empire, and 'that the legs symbolize the two parts into which it was divided, 'commonly called the Eastern and Western: and that the ten toes represent ten parts into which the Western Empire has been 'divided. But is there not a great incongruity in representing the ten toes as belonging to one foot, while the other is utterly without?'

(L.) Page 239.

ON THE 1260 DAYS.

THE argument for and against the day-for-year system of interpreting this period, may, as far as the appeal is to Scripture, be stated in a short space.*

I. For this mode of interpretation the warrants from Scripture referred to are only three,-viz.

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1. Numbers, xiv. 33, 34 :-" And your children shall wander in "the wilderness forty years—after the number of the days in which 'ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, and ye "shall bear your iniquity even forty years." But this, it has been very justly remarked, is not a case in point, inasmuch as the period embraced in the prediction is declared, as it was fulfilled, in years; and the forty days are mentioned, not at all as an expression for that period, but its reason; whereas "the 1260 days" are always the

* For a fuller discussion of this question the reader is referred to Maitland's (S. R.) First and Second Enquiry into the grounds on which the Prophetic Period of Daniel and St. John has been supposed to consist of 1260 years' (London, 1826 and 1829); as also his subsequent Letters to the editor of the Morning Watch (1830); to the Rev. William Digby (1831); and to William Cunninghame, Esq., of Lainshaw (1834), in reply to their strictures on the same; which may be considered to have set the controversy for ever at rest.

expression for the period which is the subject of the Prophecy in which they occur.

In other words, to make the cases parallel, the passage in Numbers should have said, "ye shall wander in the wilderness and bear your iniquity forty days," without any intimation that forty years were intended, and leaving this to be gathered only from the event.

2. The second passage adduced is Ezek. iv. 4-6, where the Lord, having directed the prophet to pourtray a siege of Jerusalem as "a sign to the house of Israel," adds—“ Lie thou also upon thy left "side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according "to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt "bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their "iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and "ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. "And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right "side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year."

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But this is as little to the purpose as the former; or rather is, as well as it, a proof plain against the system it is adduced to support. For, again, the very words relied on—“ I have given thee a day for a year"-apprised the prophet and his people that a period of years was intended of which the prescribed days were but the type. In other words,-again in this instance, a prophecy fulfilled in years was announced in years; while we are asked, on the warrant of this, to believe that a prophecy announced only in days was to be fufilled in years.

3. And last, the prophecy of "the seventy weeks," Dan. ix.

27, is instanced as a prophecy expressed in days and fulfilled in But, not to enter here on the question as to the calculation od,* it is enough to say that, in the first place, a week eriod between Sabbath and Sabbath, inasmuch as every was with the Jews a Sabbath as well as every seventh rd here rendered "week" equally denotes a period of this also see the works mentioned in the last two Notes.

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seven years; and accordingly in chap. x. 2, where this word is used for weeks in our sense, the word "days" is added to qualify it,"In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks," or with the margin, "three weeks of days:" So that this Prophecy would literally read-"Seventy sevens are determined," i. e. 'Seventy sevens (of years)" determined by the context, ver. 2, &c., the inquiry of Daniel as to the Seventy years. And, in the second place, even did the word mean here weeks of days, the passage is still not in point: for this word is not once used to express the period in question, though, it is remarkable, it is expressed in three different ways-in years, in months, and in days-" three years and half;" "forty-two months ;" and "one thousand two hundred and three score days." And, therefore, unless it is pretended that every notation of time has its typical import-minutes, hours, and weeks, as well as years, months, and days-this passage affords no precedent.*

In addition to these, the "ten days," Rev. ii. 10; and "five months," Rev. ix. 5, 10; and "the hour, and day, and month, and year," Rev. ix. 15, are instanced: but as it is a question whether or not the two last at all, and how the first of these predictions has been fulfilled, no argument can be drawn from them.-See Note on ch. ii. 10 p. 45.

II. Against this mode of interpretation the arguments on the other hand are many, some of which I will merely enumerate without dwelling on them. And,—

1. All the chronological prophecies in the Bible which have undoubtedly been fulfilled, whether expressed in days, months, or years, have been fulfilled literally; as for example,-The "120 years" and "the seven days" notice of the flood, and "forty days" rain, Gen. vi. 3; vii. 4. The " 400 years" sojourning of the Israelites, Gen. xv. 13. The "forty years" wandering in the wilderness, Num. xiv. 33, 34. The "three score and five years" allowed to

* Accordingly, it is admitted to be irrelevant by some of the most strenuous advocates of the year-day system, and, among them, Elliott in his Hora Apocalypticæ.'

Ephraim, Isa. vii. 8. The "seventy years" of Tyre, chap. xxiii.

15. The seventy years" captivity in Babylon, Jer. xxv. 11: and a number of others less notable.

2. In the same book in which the mention of "the 1260 days" first occurs, namely, in Daniel, chap. vii. 25, where it is expressed, “a time, times, and dividing of time," we have at once both the definition of “a time,” as meaning “a year," and the proof that a literal year is intended: namely, in chap. iv. 34, “the seven times" decreed to pass over Nebuchadnezzar, which the mode of calculation adopted for the time, times, and half” would make 2520 years that the monarch was removed from his kingdom; but which the authors of that calculation are therefore compelled to admit are years, as proved by the event; and thus are forced to assign two different meanings to the same word in the same prophet!

3. Presumptive against such a period as one thousand two hundred and sixty years being the subject of the prophecy, is the fact that it would have effectually prevented that expectation of the Lord's coming which the Church is continually exhorted to cherish, and which is said to be the attitude of the faithful servant: that is, unless the Prophecy were to remain wholly unintelligible, and therefore useless. For it would, if at all understood, be an infallible and positive information to the Church that the coming of the Lord could not take place for 1260, or a thousand, or so many hundreds of years as remained unexpired of the period. And, that the Lord has not come for so long is one thing; but that he should have told his Church he would not, is quite another. It will be found, however, that the Scripture interposes no period between any existing generation of men and the Lord's coming, which does not admit the possibility of his coming to that generation.

4. As it will not, of course, be contended that days always mean. years, or a year 360 years, in prophetic language-(for in that case a prophet meaning to say 1260 days, or 3 years literal, would have no way to express himself)—it follows that, admitting some instances could be found in which a day means a year, still in others it would