day's cannot yet have expired. We know however that the 1260 days must long since have commenced. It follows therefore, that they cannot be natural days: and, if they be not natural days, then they must be prophetic days or real years.

2. The argument has hitherto been carried on chiefly with reference to the Romanists, who for obvious reasons maintain that the three years and ở half are no more than three literal years and a halfTM*. Protestant expositors are sufficiently agreed, that they must be years of years; or that the three times and a half, the 42 months, and the 1260 days, must alike be equivalent to 1260 years. But here a second question arises. Though it may be abundantly plain that in the prophetic style days mean years, it still may be thought a matter of doubt what kind of years they mean; whether natural solar years, or years of only 360 days. The former of these opinions is adopted by Mr. Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Mr. Bicheno, and various other commentators on Daniel and the Revelation †: the latter is preferred by Mr. Fleming, and Mr. Butt ‡. The argument, which these writers use to justify their departure from the commonly received mode of computation, is in substance as follows-Since

See Cornelius a Lapide on Daniel and the Revelation, and Lowman's Paraph. Sect. 9.

+ Mede's Works, B. iii. Chap. 10.-Observ. on Dan. and Apoc. p. 114, 305.-Dissert. xxvi. 3.-Signs of the Times. p. 84.

9t infra.

↑ Apoc. Key. p. 20, 21, 22.-Butt on the Prophecies, passim. each

each great prophetic year contains, not 365 years, but only 360 years, as is manifest from three such years and a half containing 1260 prophetic days; the years, which those prophetic days represent, ought to be computed in a similar manner: in which case, the 1260 years, being years consisting of only 360 natural days each, are in reality no more than 1242 solar years, and ought to be estimated as such in all calculations that are made respecting them*.

This opinion, unless I be greatly mistaken, will by no means bear the test of examination.

It seems only reasonable to conclude, that, whatever mode of computation was ordinarily used by the ancient Jews, the same should likewise be used. in the interpretation of numerical prophecies. Now the ancient Jews must either have used true solar years, or by means of intercalation they must have inade a series of their years equal to a series of the same number of solar years. This is manifest from the Levitical ordinance respecting the due observation of two of their great festivals.

From the very time of the original institution of the Passover, the observance of it was fixed to the fourteenth day of the first month Nisan, otherwise denominated Abib or the month of green ears, at which time in Judea the harvest was beginning: and, in a similar manner, the feast of tabernacles was

I suppose they speak in round numbers; for, as I have already observed, 1260 years of 360 days each are nearly equivalent to 1241 solar years and 3244 days.

fixed to the middle of the seventh month Tisri, and to the time of the ending of the vintage. Now, these feasts were thus observed-The Passover they celebrated on the fourteenth day of Nisan or Abib by killing the paschal lamb: the fifteenth was the first of the days of unleavened bread, and was ordained to be kept as a sabbath: and, on the morrow after this sabbath, as being the beginning of the barleyharvest, they were directed to bring a sheaf of the first-fruits for a wave-offering before the Lord.— The feast of tabernacles they celebrated on the fifteenth day of Tisri: and this festival was also called the feast of in-gathering, because it was celebrated after they had gathered in their corn and their wine. If then the ancient Jewish year consisted of no more than 360 days, and if it were neither annually lengthened by the addition of five supernumerary days, nor occasionally regulated by monthly intercalations, it is evident, that all the months, and among them the months Abib and Tisri, must have rapidly revolved through the several seasons of the year. Hence it is equally evident, since the Passover and the feast of tabernacles were fixed, the one to the fourteenth day of Abib and the other to the fifteenth day of Tisri, that they must similarly have revolved through the seasons. Such being the case, how would it be possible to observe the ordinances of the Law, when the months Abib and Tisri had passed into opposite seasons of the solar year? How could the Jews, in the climate of Judèa, ffer the first-fr uits of their harvest after the Passaver, when the month Abih, in which it was cele

brated,

brated, had passed into autumn or winter? And how could they observe the feast of tabernacles, as a feast of the in-gathering of their corn and their wine, in the month Tisri, when that month had passed into spring or summer? It is plain, that, unless Abib and Tisri always kept their places in the solar year, unless Abib were always a vernal month and Tisri an autumnal month, the Passover and the feast of tabernacles could not have been duly observed. And hence it is equally plain, that the ancient Jews could not have reckoned by years of 360 days without some expedient to make those years fall in with solar years. But, if this be allawed, it will necessarily follow, that, whatever might be the length of single Jewish years, a sum of them collectively must by intercalation of some kind have been made equal to the corresponding sum of solar years. A single year might be reputed to contain no more than 360 days, and the small collective sum of three years and a half might be reputed to contain no more than 1260 days; but, unless we calculate numerical prophecies after a manner wholly unknown to the Jews, any large collective sum of years, 1260 years for instance, must contain the very same number of days, and therefore be precisely of the same length, as the corresponding sum of natural solar years

*

The question of the collective length of any series of Jewish years and of the proper mode of calculating numerical prophecies is discussed at considerable length in the first chapter of my Dissertation on Daniel's seventy weeks, to which I beg to refer the reader.

On

On these grounds I consider it as proved, that each day in the numbers of Daniel and St. John is not a natural day, but a year; and that each number is equivalent to a series, not of years of 360 days each, but of natural solar years.

II. Both these prophets give us abundantly sufficient reasons for concluding, that the period of persecution and trouble which extends through the 1260 years, has no connection with the persecutions which the Church endured from the Pagan Roman emperors.

1. The first of them, is his vision of the four great beasts or persecuting empires*, intimates, that the power, into whose hand the saints should be given during the appointed period of 1260 years should begin to arise in the age in which the last beast, or the Roman Empire, was divided into ten horns or kingdoms. The Roman Empire, however, was not thus divided till after it had become Christian, and till all the persecutions of the pagan Emperors had ceased. Whence it will necessarily follow, that the period of 1260 years cannot include the persecutions of Paganism, and that the power symbolized by the little horn of the Roman beast must be some power at once posterior to and distinct from the line of the pagan Emperors. The second of them, in a similar manner, describes a variety of important events as taking place between his own age and that in which the 1260 years may

* Dan. vii.