than a week, "septimana." On these authorities we deny Mr. M.'s "general rule," and require better authority than Grotius, or any he adduces, before we can receive it. The word in question is clearly masculine--and as clearly the plural of yw, which last occurs but twice in the Scripture namely, Gen. xxix. 27, 28—and both words always mean a week of days, and nothing else. Seven (the numeral) and its derivatives are always feminine; and these do of course require days to be added, to designate a week; but no one, who can distinguish a from a , will be likely to agree with Mr. M. in thus barbarously interchanging words of such different form and origin. The passage in Daniel itself ought to have kept him. from such a mistake, for the words all occur in such connection as to prove their distinctness: a "week" yw, and "the midst of a week," both singular and masculine: "seven weeks,” v. 25, in which seven has the feminine termination nya yaw; and where, if it had been seven sevens, as Mr. M. asserts it to be, nyaw nya must have been the words employed: as Deut. xvi. 9, Myaw nya; where, though weeks, it is properly sevens. But Mr. M. gets deeper in error as we proceed; for his suggestion (First Inq. p. 9), "that if Daniel had meant sevens of days he would, in conformity with the custom of all the sacred writers, and in consistency with himself, have inserted the word days," would render the prophecy unintelligible indeed; for "a week of days" (which this would be, and not seven days) always denoted in Hebrew a week of holy-days, or fast days. Such is its meaning in Dan. x. 2, 3; where it is evident that the Prophet had fasted two previous weeks in preparation for the holy week of unleavened bread, which expired on the twentyfirst of the first month; and "on the four-and-twentieth day of the first month" he saw the vision. And not only the masculine plural of Dan. ix. 24, x. 2, but the feminine plural also, with days added, denotes one or other of the two holy-day weeks of Unleavened Bread or Tabernacles, as Ezek. xlv. 21; or, as we rather think, the week of Unleavened Bread alone; for the words in Ezek. xlv. 25 are both different; the week omitting 1, and the days having the article prefixed. The prophecy, according to this suggestion, would have declared seventy

Every competent Hebrew scholar knows that the vau is often omitted, and its place supplied by the holem point, or by kibbuts for schurek. Our argument would derive a double force from appealing to the points, but we have forborne this advantage, in order to meet Mr. M. on his own ground; who is so unacquainted with this part of the subject, that he does not even know that the word weeks," Lev. xii. 5, is made dual by the points! (First Inq. p. 8, note). Yet in this passage, Dan. ix., an appeal to the points is absolutely necessary, since the word seventy," and the word for "weeks," are both written with precisely the same letters, aw, and only distinguished from each other by having different vowel points.

passovers," or seventy weeks of holy-days, are determined upon thy people;" which we leave Mr. M. to explain; and to assist him in his inquiries, as he may only have "Cruden" at hand, we subjoin all the texts wherein these words occur: y, written fully, is only found Dan. ix. 27, twice with the 1, supplied by the points, only twice, Gen. xxix. 27, 28: Dyaw, in the plural masculine, Dan. ix. 24, 25, 25, 26; x. 2, 3: pointed dual, Lev. xii. 5. These are all the instances in Scripture. The feminine form of the word is still less frequent-viz. Ex. xxxiv. 22; Num. xxviii. 26; Deut. xvi. 9, 9, 10, 16; 2 Chron. viii. 13; Jer. v. 24; Ezek. xlv. 21. These are all the passages which can by possibility have any bearing on this inquiry.

Mere controversy is a wearisome and profitless employment, and we now gladly turn to what may be more satisfactory to Mr. M., and more pleasant as well as profitable to ourselves and to our readers. We will therefore endeavour to shew what are the principles which must regulate the question at issue, and how these principles bear us out in the interpretation we contend for. Where a prophecy contains within it a period of timewhether plainly written, as Jer. xxiv. 11, 12, or symbolically expressed, as Dan. iv. 16, ix. 24-every one allows that the time forms an integral part of the prophecy; and that for understanding the prophecy we must understand the time it denotes, and connect it with the persons and actions it foretells; as we cannot otherwise know when to expect them, and the prophecy would lose its most important purpose of regulating our conduct and preparing us for the gracious dealings of our Lord. The prophecies, too, are always meant for the people of God, because they alone believe them and profit by them; and for the same reason the times generally make known the conclusion of tribulation to the church-a time of comfort, and not of sorrow. Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy years' captivity was given for the support of the faithful through that affliction which was brought upon them by the sins of the nation; and Daniel took the comfort it afforded, and "understood by books the number of the years" (Dan. ix. 2). The seventy weeks given to Daniel supported the church till the time of our Lord, and kept Simeon and Anna, and many more, "waiting for the consolation of Israel." In like manner we maintain that the other numbers in Daniel are given to support the church under a time of trial and expectation, and to instruct them when to expect deliverance. Whether these numbers occur in prophecies or in visions, they must follow the same rule: if the numbers form a part of the vision, they must be rendered into the time of real life, to correspond with the like rendering of the symbols seen in vision into the actions of real life. In Dan,

ix. 24 we interpret "the people," "the holy city," and "the Messiah" respectively; and also interpret the "seventy weeks" as four hundred and ninety years, when the prophecy was accomplished. In like manner we maintain that in Dan. viii. 1, 14, when we interpret the symbols or animals, and transfer their actions seen in the vision to the actions of kings in real life, we must also transfer the numbers of the vision-not unchanged, as Mr. M. does, but changed into those times which suit with the events of real life-and for doing this we have only to prove that the numbers form part of the vision, and not part of the interpretation. Mr. M., on the contrary, contends for what he calls the literal interpretation of the numbers in these two chapters; asserting that the seventy weeks are weeks of years, and therefore need no interpretation; and that the two thousand three hundred "evenings-mornings" of viii. 14 are to be interpreted as so many literal days. Now it happens, most unfortunately for Mr. M.'s hypothesis, that in the prophecy ix. 24 no mention of years occurs (as we have proved above); and in the vision viii. 14 no mention of days occurs; for what is made days" in our translation, is in the original evenings-mornings, as in the margin: which form of words we maintain to be the symbolical expression for a year, as truly as the goat is the symbol of a king; which is put beyond doubt in ver. 25, where these words and literal days both occur.

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Applying our principles of interpretation to this vision, it is manifest that the numbers by which time is denoted must be regarded as a part of the vision: first, because these numbers are given in ver. 14, and the vision is stated to have concluded in ver. 15, and not till then: "And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought for the meaning. Up to this time, therefore, Daniel knew not "the meaning" of any part of the vision, either the symbols or the numbers. Secondly, we know that these numbers form a part of the vision, by the testimony of the angel, who, after interpreting all the other symbols, asserts that the numbers do really form a part of the vision, but leaves them "shut up" in their symbolic formuninterpreted: "The vision of the evening and the morning" (Mr. M.'s literal days)" which was told" (told, though a vision)" is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision, for it shall be for many days." Having proceeded thus far in our understanding of the component parts of the vision without any interpretation, we find all the symbols explained by the angel, as clearly as if he were narrating a past history, instead of predicting a future course of events: "The ram having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia; and the rough goat is the king of Grecia," &c. leaving nothing unexplained of the first twelve verses of the vision. But the 13th and 14th verses of the

vision, which contain the times, the angel does not explain; he repeats them in the same form as in the vision, with an emphatic caution not to fall into Mr. M.'s error of separating them from the vision; for they are "told" in vision, and shall be as "true" in the fulfilment as all the other parts, though "shut up" for many days. For, after the interpretation by the angel, the symbols were not "shut up," and the time is the only part of the vision to which the concealment can be applicable. Yet, in defiance of this plain common-sense observation, Mr. M. maintains that the time, both in the vision and in the interpretation, is to be understood as so many literal days, and therefore that no mystery whatever remains to be shut up.

Another plain observation refutes Mr. M.'s hypothesis of literal days. The vision is for "many days" (ver. 25); and in the midst of the events of the vision (ver. 13) stands "the transgression of desolation," to which our Lord refers in Matt. xxiv. 15, Mark xiii. 4; which we know, from Luke xxi. 20, was the time when "Jerusalem was compassed with armies and the desolation thereof nigh." The number two thousand three hundred, therefore, of very necessity joins on to, or includes, this event, because it is asked "How long shall be the vision, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot; " which treading under foot certainly began A. D. 70. It must also of very necessity reach down to the cleansing of the sanctuary. "Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" (ver. 14); an event which, by the confession of all, is still future, and therefore cannot be included in two thousand three hundred literal days.

But if we are convinced that the reckoning by literal days is inadmissible, and that each day symbolizes some other period of time, we easily arrive at the conclusion that the period denoted by a day is a year; first, from analogy, because, a day being one revolution of the earth on its axis and a year one revolution in its orbit, the lesser revolution aptly symbolizes the greater: secondly, from Scripture authority, which sets it beyond doubt; as Numb. xiv. 34, "each day for a year;" and, Ezek. iv. 6, "I have appointed thee each day for a year; Daniel's seventy weeks, which the event has proved to be fulfilled in years.

or,

We have endeavoured to put our argument in a brief and intelligible form; and if we have succeeded in so doing, we care. not for slight inaccuracies of expression which, any small critic may peck at. In our former review Mr. M. misunderstood our meaning in numerous instances which we have not thought it worth while to encumber our pages and weary our readers by explaining. Few of those who read our remarks will so mistake us; and if they assent to our arguments, we are not very

anxious about what they may think of ourselves. Mr. M.'s string of quotations from different modern interpreters is just so much labour lost; for he is trying to refute what we never said; and we think it better to endeavour to practise watchfulness, rather than make a boast of it to others. We must, however, tell Mr. M., that he is not yet acquainted with the belief of those whom he opposes. He has yet to learn that the coming of the Lord is the very next event of magnitude which they look for; that, so far from deferring it till 1847, they generally, and almost universally, believe that the cry is already gone forth, "Behold, I come as a thief;" that the seventh angel has lifted the trumpet to his mouth, and the seventh vial is now suspended in the air, at whose effusion a great voice shall come out from the Throne, saying, "It is done," and "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." In this expectation do we watch and pray "that we may be accounted worthy to escape all those things that are coming on the earth, and to stand before the Son of Man." "For then shall be a time of tribulation to the whole world such as has not been since there was a nation upon the earth, no, nor ever shall be ;" an earthquake, which shall engulf Babylon, the mother of abominations, and all her adherents "such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great." And that in this very time in which we live-on the very verge of fate-is the identical time of which it is said that false Christs, spirits of devils, and all kinds of delusions, should be abroad, so plausible as to deceive," if it were possible, the very elect." That now is the time for the wise virgins to fill their vessels with oil; for "in such an hour as we think not the Son of Man cometh." As, to the antediluvians Noah's preaching was the only sign; which neglecting, "they ate and drank till the flood came and swept them all away" and as, in the days of Lot all things. continued as before, with no sign of wrath, till he entered Zoar; and as our Lord forewarns us that two men shall be in the field, and two women at the mill, and the "one shall be taken, and the other left "-all the ordinary occupations of life, all its public affairs, going on as usual up to the time of his coming: so we cannot but think it a fearful delusion to interpose any hypothesis as a sort of screen between us and the coming of our Lord. Far be this from us-far be it from all we love! Never may we be of the number of those who say "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation!" Let us rather be associated with that favoured band who are not only "looking for but hastening the coming of the day of God". -" looking for a new heaven and a new earth,