great events which are to occur, and which evidently must fill a considerable period of time. Seven seals are to be opened, seven trumpets are to be blown, seven vials are to be poured out. Histories are given, of dominions and wars and tribulations, which, from the peculiar expressions used, are evidently of long duration. Now it can be no matter of surprise, that when the Holy Spirit saw it right to conceal the facts themselves from the merely casual reader, under the guise of symbols, he should also shroud the period of duration under a similar veil. In fact, as Mr. Faber has observed, the very consistency of the symbolic language required this course. When speaking of a nation, which is long-lived, there is no difficulty in saying, they shall afflict them four hundred years;" or, "these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. But when, for a nation, the symbol in miniature of a ram, or a he-goat, is shown, it would evidently be a violation of the harmony of symbolic language, to speak of a beast as living or acting for 1260 or 2300 years. The nation is shown in miniature; the time is stated in miniature also. Mr. Burgh's reasoning, therefore, from a literal prophecy to a symbolical one, is utterly untenable. Just as rationally might he argue, that because a prophecy was given concerning a virgin, and her miraculous conception, in Isaiah vii. 14, which prophecy was literally and exactly fulfilled,-therefore we must also expect a literal and exact fulfilment of the prophecy of a woman, sitting on a scarlet-coloured beast, having seven heads and ten horns, which we find in Rev. xvii.

So much for the negative argument,-for the reasonings of Mr. Burgh against the year-day interpretation. But we must now set forth our argument affirmatively, or show why we adopt that system of interpretation which holds the day, in a symbolic prophecy, to mean a year. For we are ready to admit, most entirely, that before such a view can be lawfully adopted, it must be shown to be-not merely probable and allowable, but the evident intent of the sacred writers.

And first, then, let us observe that this mode of interpretation is no mere human fancy, but is suggested to us by many plain passages of Holy Writ. That a day may stand for, or represent, a year, is again and again set before us in the scripture history. Thus, in Numbers xiv. 34, we read

"After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, " even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniqui"ties, even forty years."

Again, in Ezekiel iv. 5, 6, we read

"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." Mr. Burgh's objection to the adducing these two cases is a very strange one. He says, that they are not in point, inasmuch as "the period embraced in the prediction is declared, as it was "fulfilled, in years."

Thus, God condescended to explain to Ezekiel that each day stood for a year; and therefore we are not to interpret other productions according to that system, except they also are so explained. So that because God, when he first represents a longer period by a shorter, to his church, graciously explains his meaning, we are not to attach that meaning, in any future case, to a stated period, except the explanation is always repeated also!

This is puerile. Our position is merely this, so far as we have yet gone, that the idea of regarding a day, in prophecy, as representing a year, is not a mere human fiction, but a lesson derived from certain instances in Holy Writ.

But we proceed, in the next place, to show that distinct prophecies of days have been fulfilled in years. And first we adduce the clear and unquestionable instance of Daniel ix. 24. Seventy "weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to "make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting

righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to "anoint the Most Holy." That this prediction relates to the Messiah, and that it was fulfilled by the coming and suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in four hundred and ninety days, but in four hundred and ninety years, all parties,- Messrs. Maitland, Burgh, and Todd included,—will admit. Here, then, we have the strongest possible proof, that in prophetic language a day is sometimes put for a year,-that it is possible to conceive.

In what way do the literalists meet this argument? By the usual resort of hard-pressed controversialists,-by proposing to amend our translation of the passage. The word shabua, which is translated "week," they suggest, is, literally, "seven," and may mean sevens of years, as well as sevens of days.

very

This is unquestionably true; but although true, it is little to the purpose. Shabua, abstractedly, is a seven; but, in the actual use of the language, it is just what our translators have called it, a week. Mr. Faber boldly challenges his opponent on this point-"Let Mr. Maitland, if he be able, produce, out of the

"whole Hebrew Scriptures, a single instance, where the word "shabua, standing absolutely or without any explanatory adjunct, "denotes otherwise than a week, or a period of seven natural days, " and then he will have done something to the purpose." But this challenge, we believe, Mr. M. has never answered. The fact, then, stands thus,-a period of seventy weeks, which would be equal to four hundred and seventy days, is stated in the prophecy. The fulfilment came at the end of four hundred and ninety years. This prediction occurs in the ixth of Daniel. All we ask is, to be allowed to interpret the viith, and the viiith, and the xiith chapters of the same book, upon the same principle which is thus authoritatively established.

Besides the above-cited instances in which, distinctly and undeniably, a day is set for a year; and besides the positive precedent furnished in Dan. ix, we have further to observe that both in the very passages which are in dispute, and also in others which do not come within the range of the present controversy, there is an obvious fitness and propriety in the interpretation we propose, and great difficulty, amounting almost to impossibility, in affixing a literal meaning to them. Take, for instance, a minor prediction, long since fulfilled, the message to the church of Smyrna, Rev. ii. 10. It is there said, to a whole church-" Ye shall have "tribulation ten days." Will any one deliberately contend that this must be understood literally? Tribulation extending over a whole church, and lasting ten days! Such a reading is not defensible for a single moment. Ten years may be meant,—which is the ordinary way of explaining the passage;-or ten persecutions; but literally, ten days, is a sense which scarcely even Mr. Maitland himself will think of defending.

The same remark applies, with still greater force, to Daniel viii, verse 14. Mr. Burgh will perhaps object, that this is one of the passages actually in dispute. But our remark is not the less valid on that account. We take merely the broad outline of the prophecy. The scene of action is distinctly in the east,—the realms composing the Persian and Macedonian empires. An anti-christian tyranny," the transgression of desolation," is foretold, and we have seen the prediction fulfilled in the rise and long endurance of the Mahommedan sway. The enquiry is made, "How long shall BE "the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of "desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden "under foot?" (v. 13)—to which the answer returned is, "Unto "two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary "be cleansed."

Now it is a matter quite undeniable that in the whole of the

countries denoted in this prophecy, "the transgression of desolation" has reigned for many centuries; and still the sanctuary is not yet cleansed. How is it possible, then, to imagine that these 2300 days are to be taken for days literally? But interpret them by Ezekiel's method, and as the seventy weeks must be interpreted, consider them as representing 2300 years, and the prediction is vindicated at once.

But we turn, lastly, to those very passages concerning the meaning of which the dispute exists. In the eleventh of Revelation it is declared that the holy city shall be trodden under foot forty and two months. It is added, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophecy a thousand two hundred and "threescore days."

The question is, whether this represents a long period, already, and for many centuries current, or whether the whole scene is future, and intended to pass over, when the fulfilment comes, in the space of three or four years ? In other words, are the 1260 days, literal days, or do they represent the same number of years?

Now in the study of Scripture it is never safe to isolate a passage. Our plain duty is, to bring together all the portions of God's word which bear upon the subject before us, so as to gain the greatest possible insight into the whole mind of the Spirit. This period of 1260 years is alluded to several times in scripture; and it would be most irrational to imagine that all these places speak of so many separate, different, and unconnected periods of that duration. To understand this great, and certainly not very plain question, we are bound to look at all these passages, and to endeavour to gather the general intent of each.

Now in every mention of this period, we find something connected with long duration,-something inconsistent with the rapid passing away of the events predicted, in the course of a few months. Daniel, in describing the Roman little horn (chap. vii. 25,) says, "he shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and "they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the " dividing of time." Now, as in Rev. ii. 10, by a tribulation of ten days can scarcely be meant a persecution of ten literal days,a persecution which a man would evade by secreting himself for a fortnight;-so, here, it is impossible to understand how the saints could be worn out by a tyranny which was to come to an end in three natural years and six months. The expression carries us, at once, to the idea of long duration.

The like remark applies to the last vision of Daniel. A long history is related; kings rise and fall; "they that understand "among the people shall instruct many; yet they shall fall by the

"sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.” Then the question is asked, "HOW LONG shall it be TO THE END of these wonders ?" And the answer is, "It shall be for a time, "times, and a half." Can any one read the xiith chapter, and so much as imagine for an instant, that Daniel learnt thereby that these wonders were to end in three years and a half? If So, how could he have described it at the opening of the vision in these words, "The thing was true, but the time appointed was long."

We pass on to the ixth of Revelation. Here we have a great history. A mighty empire is to rise up on the ruins of another. Mr. Burgh admits that the scene of the action is in the east. The destruction of the third part of men clearly points out the fall of the empire of the east. At all events a great work is allotted to the Euphratean horsemen. And what is the time allowed? "An hour and a day and a month and a year." The fulfilment of this prescribed period, reckoning it from the days of Alp Arslan to the fall of Constantinople, is obvious to the view of the most cursory reader of history. But what are the "two hundred thousand thousand horsemen" to do in a period of thirteen months, taking the year, the month, and the day, as Mr. Burgh proposes, literally? Such a reading reduces prophecy to unintelligible absurdities.

The next scene which is offered to us is the history of the Two Witnesses. Here Mr. Burgh again insists upon the literal reading. Of course endless inconsistencies await him. "When they

shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." Mr. Burgh would understand the two witnesses to be simply two witnesses,-two men, declaring the truth of God.

And yet the Beast is admitted to be, not a Beast, but an ungodly or Anti-christian empire. Thus in the same verse we have the typical and the real jumbled up together. "The Beast" kills two witnesses. These two witnesses are interpreted,more literally than the letter,-to be two men; but the Beast that kills them is a symbol! And this Mr. Burgh calls "taking the prophecy in its plain and obvious meaning.'

However, the point which more immediately affects our present enquiry is, that when dead, their bodies are "to lie in the street "of the great city three days and a half," during which time 66 they that dwell on the earth shall rejoice over them, and make "merry, and shall send gifts one to another," &c.

Is it not clear, that if these "three days and a half" be interpreted literally, the time is totally insufficient for the action? It is only by giving the passage the interpretation which has