obtained in the church for the last three hundred years, that its fulfilment can be seen to be possible. Three years and a half, would be, indeed, about a reasonable period for a short-lived triumph of the enemies of Christ ;-but eighty-four hours, or from Wednesday morning to Saturday noon, is clearly an interpretation which is quite untenable.

We well remember, that when Mr. Irving, some ten or twelve years since, objected to Mr. Maitland's proposition, to consider the three years and a half as literal years, he argued, that if the years were to be taken literally, the beasts also, (Dan. vii. 4-7), ought also to be so taken. To which Mr. Maitland instantly replied, "I do so take them. The prophet says, that in his vision, he saw four beasts. I believe that he did see four beasts. That these four beasts, symbolized four kingdoms, is part of the interpretation, not of the vision. I take the whole literally, beasts to mean beasts, kingdoms to mean kingdoms, years to mean years."

This was an adroit, but most disingenuous, reply. Mr. Maitland took advantage of Mr. Irving's error, in adducing an inappropriate instance. But he could not have forgotten that there were other places in Scripture, in which the 1260 years were mentioned, and in which his literalism would wholly fail him. The whole of the xiith. and xiiith. of Revelation presents such a case. The woman flees from the dragon, into the wilderness "where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days." How does Mr. Maitland read this? The woman, he will tell us, is a symbol; the dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, is a symbol; the wilderness is a symbol; but the 1260 days means just 1260 days and nothing more!

Again, "to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent." Here Mr. Maitland would confess that the wings of an eagle are symbolical; the wilderness symbolical; the serpent symbolical. And yet he will insist that the "time, times, and a half," is strictly literal, and means simply three years and a half, neither less nor more!

Once more, a beast rises out of the sea, "having seven heads and ten horns; and a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months." Here also, Mr. Maitland will admit that the beast symbolizes an empire; the sea something else; but still he will take the fortyand-two months to mean exactly forty-two ordinary months, or a literal three years and a half.

This Mr. Maitland and Mr. Burgh may call "a system of interpretation." But such a description is merely an abuse of language: it is no system at all; but merely an arbitrary misuse of the prophecies, wrenching them to suit a purpose.

One more of Mr. Maitland's pleas we must briefly advert to. He objects to the received interpretation of Dan. vii. 25,-that it is inconceivable that "the saints should be given into the hand of the little horn" for 1260 years, and not know it. He tells us that the discovery that the Pope was Antichrist was not made until a short time previous to the Reformation; and, therefore, he concludes, it must be held that the saints had fallen into the hands of the little horn for some centuries, without knowing it.

Now this is the merest assumption that can be conceived. Where does Mr. Maitland learn that the saints of the seventh and eighth centuries knew nothing of the existence and tyranny of the Man of Sin? The church, (the woman) was now driven into the wilderness, the saints were "destitute, affiicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." The few records which they might have left, were burnt, wherever found, by their monkish persecutors. What can be more irrational, then, than for Mr. Maitland to come forward at this time of day, and to assume that "they knew not that they were in the hands of the persecuting Little Horn," merely because scarcely a fragment of their peculiar and personal belief has come down to us?

But we may go further than this. Positive evidence, indeed, there is scarcely any; the Christians of the 1260 years being treated by the Papacy just as the Romans treated the Carthaginians, -but all the presumptive evidence we have, tends to show that the saints of those days did know that the Man of Sin had reared his head; and that their separation from the external and ascendant Church chiefly arose from this very consciousness.

They found the Church ruled by an usurping despot, in the name of Peter. What was their course? An eminent Christian among them had obtained,-a rare possession,-a copy of the Scriptures, and he there found that the most prominent and principal place in the construction of the visible Church, bad been assigned, not to Peter, but to Paul. He therefore, clearly in contrast and opposition to the prevailing system,-took for his system the name of Paul, and commenced the Paulician sect. Not content with this, but, running into extremes, like other rash and fallible human beings, he rejected or lowered in authority, the two epistles of Peter. Is not the animus of these acts sufficiently

plain? Does not the antipapal spirit shew itself in the most distinct and striking manner?

But this is not all we learn, of these early Protestants. Our knowledge of them is chiefly derived from their persecutors, and we must therefore expect to find them charged with all kinds of heresy and crime. But even amidst these calumnies the main characteristics of a true faith may be seen. They opposed themselves to all the leading points of the superstition and apostacy then rising into power. The worship of the Virgin had taken the place of the worship of God. But the Paulicians, we are told, "treated contemptuously the Virgin Mary." Relics, especially fragments of the cross, &c., were becoming objects of adoration."They loaded "the cross of Christ with contempt." 2 The Lord's Supper began to be turned into a propitiatory sacrifice for the remission of the sins of men. "They disparaged the nature and institution of the "Lord's Supper." The images of saints shared in the worship awarded to the Virgin, and to the wood of the cross, "They held the images of the saints in no reverence."

In short, making the necessary allowance for the distortions and calumnies of their enemies, we discern in these early opposers of the papal apostacy, exactly those features which might reasonably have been anticipated. And when we add to this, that, under the various names of Paulicians, Cathari, Paterines, Albigeois, and Vaudois, they had to endure the most terrible persecutions which the popes could arouse against them, for more than a thousand years, we are at a loss whether to wonder most at the simplicity or the ignorance displayed in Mr. Maitland's question, "Could the saints be under the power of the Little Horn for many centuries, and not know it?"

There remains only, we believe, one other point, constantly pressed alike by Mr. Burgh, Mr. Maitland, and Mr. Todd, which is this," If you assert that the divided Roman empire existed, under ten kings, for the term of 1260 years, tell us, with perfect distinctness and entire certainty, which were the ten kingdoms; and when the 1260 years began and ended. If you cannot do this with clearness and positiveness; or if there is an evident discrepancy among your writers on these points, we shall hold this uncertainty and variation to be a full justification for rejecting your system in toto."

Such is the main objection advanced by Mr. Burgh,-treading in Mr. Maitland's footsteps, and a reliance on which encourages him to cast aside the whole body of existing commentators, and to offer an entirely new system of interpretation of his own. But

1 Mosheim, cent. ix. c. 5.

Ibid.

we entirely deny the validity of this objection, and assert, that a degree of doubt and hesitation, as to many points of detail, is quite allowable, and in fact inevitable, in the interpretation of prophecies as yet only partly fulfilled.

Mr. Burgh observes, that in the case of many fulfilled predictions of the Old Testament,-such as the judgments pronounced against Tyre, Nineveh, Egypt, and Babylon,-we are able to compare the prophecy with the fulfilment, in the face of all the infidels in the world; and out of such fulfilment to draw an unanswerable proof of the truth and divine authority of Scripture. He then urges, If the seven seals of Revelation vi. have all been opened, —as most commentators believe,-how is it that, instead of pointing to an accomplishment of the prophecy, open and level to every one's understanding, the whole body of commentators are engaged in contending with each other, in defence or refutation of some six or eight different interpretations?

We answer, that the prophecies of the Apocalypse, though consisting of many parts, are yet one vast whole, divinely entitled "the Mystery of God." Also, that instead of one plain and literal prediction of the rise or fall of one kingdom, such as that of Persia or Babylon, it presents to us a long series of symbolical prophecies, which, because they are symbolical, are open to a variety of attempts at interpretation. But we have no reason to suppose that, until "the mystery of God shall be finished," (Rev. x. 7), any positive certainty will be granted to us, as to the exact manner of fulfilment of any part of this great series of predictions. Meanwhile, this very position of uncertainty leaves the subject open, not only to sober students and humble enquirers, but also to fanciful and conceited theorists, who cannot be prevented from displaying their ingenuity; and whose endless and contradictory theories enable such objectors as Mr. Burgh and Mr. Tyso to bring together a large array of contradictory interpretations, and then to adopt Pilate's query, and to ask, "What is truth?"

We are not at all bound, and we absolutely decline, either to identify with positiveness the ten kingdoms symbolized by the ten toes and the ten horns; or to fix with certainty the exact period of the commencement of the 1260 years. All the precedents furnished by Scripture discourage any such dogmatizing. A specific term of seventy years was assigned by Jeremiah for the desolations of Jerusalem. But when that term began to draw to its close, we do not find the prophet Daniel, with all his deep study and divinely-imparted insight, prepared to point out the day of the commencement of the term, or the day of its close. The extent of his certainty seems to have reached no further than this,—

that the seventy years must be near their close, and that therefore the prayer of faith might be offered for the pardon and restoration of Israel. So again, when Daniel himself had been inspired to show the period of the coming of Messiah, by the prophecy of the 490 years, we do not find, at the expiration of that term, any distinct knowledge in the Church as to the day and hour of Messiah's appearance. All we hear of is, Simeon's "waiting for the consolation of Israel," and a like expectation on the part of certain others, who "looked for redemption in Israel." (Luke ii. 25, 38.) In all such cases of coming and gradual fulfilment, the watchmen of Israel can only use language like that of the literal watchmen of old, "Me thinketh the running of the foremost is like the run"ning of Ahimaaz the son of Zadoc." "The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi." They see coming and passing events, but at a distance, and through intervening clouds and darkness; and they act the most prudently when they only say, "Methinks it is like" so and so.

But this asserted and defended uncertainty applies only to details, which Messrs. Burgh and Maitland demand, and which we refuse to give. As to the main outline, we deny that any uncertainty exists concerning it. The most careless reader of history must be aware, that the Western Empire was broken up into a large cluster of kingdoms,—not so few as five, nor so many as twenty; but which are stated by various secular or even infidel historians, as being about ten in number. And that this condition of the west has lasted for more than 1200 years;-many attempts to unite these kingdoms into one or two great empires having been made, but all such efforts having failed, and the kingdoms remaining now, as it was foretold they would, still ten in number, minus three subdued by the little horn. And, further, that over-riding and swaying these various secular sovereignties, there has ever been seen a false and apostate church; inspiring the counsels of all these kingdoms, and directing everything to one main end,—the persecution of the saints of God. These leading facts, as unquestionable, as distinctly seen, and as wonderful, as the destruction of Tyre or of Babylon, Mr. Burgh may find (without opening any writer on prophecy,) in any secular historian he chooses to take up.

And so of the 1260 years. Mr. Maitland and Mr. Burgh seem to expect that in some particular year, open proclamation should be made, that from that day forward, for 1260 years, the saints should be given into the hands of the persecuting little horn. We can produce no such fact, nor name any day on which such assignment of the saints took place. But again we can send the objector to Gibbon or the Universal History, for all the facts which are