or will doubt their lying deep in the workings of that system upon our natures, or that they must be guarded against by a watchfulness over every movement of pride, and by a strengthening of every principle of obedience and humility in man.

It is a superficial view of things, to give into the faith, that a present difficulty overcome, all will be well. It is painful to find the great men, now struggling for our preservation, giving strength to this faith; and to stave off an immediate and pressing evil by winning the people to their side, imbuing them with a rash confidence in final and permanent success, through declamations about their light, their knowledge, their virtue and their power, thus fitting them to renew the very evils dreaded now, or to bring down upon themselves even worse than present dangers-worse to them, because made presumptuous through present escapes. Let the voice of our wise Witherspoon warn us,-"I look upon ostentation and confidence to be a sort of outrage upon Providence; and when it becomes general, and infuses itself into the spirit of the people, it is a forerunner of destruction."

We must beware then of that popular, but most dangerous creed, that a free country will work off its evils. No country is free, that is not moral; and no country moral, that bows not itself in lowliness of spirit, to its God, and moves not on in patient Obedience, through the many wise arrangements of His Will.

ARTICLE II.

HOW ARE THe designatIONS OF TIME IN THE APOCALYPSE TO BE INTERPRETED?

By M. Stuart, Prof. of Sacred Lit. in the Theol. Sem. Andover.

A question, which, every considerate reader of the Scriptures at the present time must well know, is more easily asked than answered. It would seem, however, when one reads the mass of English and American interpreters of prophecy from the time of the venerable Joseph Mede down to the present day, as if they had seen or felt little of the difficulty which has been suggested. Since the publication of the Clavis Apocalyptica by Mr. Mede, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, most of the expositors in our language have in a manner taken it for granted, that one day stands for a year in the prophetic writings, particularly in those of Daniel and John.

As this assumption lies at the very basis of all the calculations which have been made by these interpreters, respecting the time when events predicted in the Apocalypse and in the book of Daniel will be fulfilled; and as it has given birth to a multitude of confident and often repeated assertions, respecting the period when the reign of the man of sin will cease and the days of latter glory be introduced; it becomes a matter of deep interest to all who love the word of God and the cause of truth and righteousness in the world, to examine soberly and carefully, whether there is any good foundation for the opinion which has just been mentioned.

No article of our creed essential to saving faith depends indeed upon the point before us; but the anticipations, the hopes, the fears, and therefore the quietude, of many a christian mind, stand connected with its views of the time when the day of glory shall be ushered in. Christian action, moreover, may be seriously affected by these views.

Before I proceed to examine in detail the particulars, which must be considered in order to come to a satisfactory conclusion relative to the point before us, it is proper, and perhaps necessary, that I should premise some general considerations respecting the interpretation of the prophetic books; and particularly that of the Apocalypse.

VOL. V. No. 17.

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It will be admitted by all, that one great object of prophecy was to teach; and of that part of it which properly comes under the denomination of prediction, to teach something relative to future events. If this be not so, for what purpose could prophetic inspiration be given? The prophet surely designed, when he uttered any predictions, to give some light, to administer some consolation, to disclose some matter of grief or of rejoicing, or in some way to act upon and influence the men to whom his prophecy was first directed, and for whom it was in some particular manner uttered. But if this be true, then it would seem to follow, that he must have spoken or written in such a manner as to be intelligible at least in the main, to sensible and enlightened men of his time and nation. Just so far as his words were unintelligible, or were not actually understood, so far there was in them neither light, nor consolation, nor matter of grief or joy; nor could they produce any influence whatever, at least no good one. If Daniel or John spake what they neither understood themselves, and what others whom they addressed could not understand, then the books which they have written, so far as they consist of such unintelligible prophetic declarations, were to them and their cotemporaries nothing more than a prediction written in Chinese would be to us, if now presented to the religious community of our country.

Nay, I might well say, the case in respect to the prophets would be a much more desperate one than ours. Men could be found, here and in England, who understand and could interpret a Chinese writing. But if John, for example, did not, even when under the influence of divine inspiration, understand what he himself wrote; and if the Christians whom he addressed did not understand him; then how could any subsequent generation discover the meaning of the apostle's predictions? Will you say, that such generation must apply the laws of interpreting language, in order to understand them? The answer is, that John and his cotemporaries could do the same. The laws of exegesis, i. e. the fundamental laws of it, are founded in the reason and common sense of all ages and of all nations. They were common to John and his cotemporaries, and to all who have lived since their time and have read their writings. If now John himself, and the churches whom he addressed, did not and could not understand the predictions which he wrote; if they could not, with all the advantages they possessed from living in the same age and same country, and from speaking the

same language, explain what the apostle meant; then how could any subsequent generation expect rightly to interpret what had hitherto been beyond the reach of human effort to explain, even when made under the most favourable circumstances? The expectation would be unreasonable and illusive.

But it will probably be said here, that events themselves explain predictions; and consequently, when things predicted take place, then, and not till then, the prophecy will be understood. This suggestion is the common, I might almost say, the general one, whenever a difficulty occurs in the prophetic writings which an interpreter does not know how to overcome.

It would be inconsistent with my present design, to discuss this topic at length. I have done it in another place; and what I should have to say, is already before the public.* It is enough for the present merely to suggest, that the assumption before us manifestly involves a ὕστερον πρότερον. What are the things predicted? According to the statement of those who advocate the views in question, the prophecy when uttered was unintelligible; and it remained so until its fulfilment. But now, when it is fulfilled, it becomes intelligible. But what, I ask, is its fulfilment? When we so speak, we mean of course that certain events tally with certain predictions. But how do we, or can we, know this fact? This cannot possibly be known in any way, unless we first assign some definite meaning to a prophecy, and then compare certain events with that meaning, in order to know whether there is a correspondence between the two. In doing this, however, we have done what we had no right to do, according to the statement before us; for if we are to credit this, the laws of interpretation will not enable us to give any definite meaning to the prophecy, and yet we do after all make out some kind of meaning for the prophetic words, before we can compare events with them. This then involves a real ὕστερον πρότερον, on the ground assumed by the objector; for we do first, in such a case, what we were forbidden to do first if he is in the right. Yet after all, we do no more than we always must do, before we can tell whether any writing is good or bad, consistent or inconsistent, prophetic or hortatory; for how can this be told before some meaning is given to it?

To say that the objects or events to which any prophecy re

* See Biblical Repos. Vol. II. p. 217.

lates, may be and usually are better understood when they make their appearance or take place than before, is beyond all doubt true. He who has visited Jerusalem in person, understands it better than he did while his knowledge was derived only from maps and the reports of travellers. So the humblest Christian who lives in the light of gospel-day, may know more in some respects of his Saviour and of the gospel dispensation, than any priest or prophet of old did. But this affords no evidence that what the prophets have actually uttered, means any more than what according to the usual principles of language it purports to mean. How far the prophets themselves were enlightened, and how much they were instructed to communicate, must be judged of by us not by reasoning and argument dependent on principles a priori, but from what they have actually communicated by their words.

If any one should still urge, that the prophets often declare themselves to be at a loss respecting certain things which are proffered to their view or are said to them, and therefore they could not have understood those things; the obvious answer is, that this applies only to certain symbols, when first proffered to view, the particular significance of which would of course need some explanation; or else to some declarations of a peculiar and apparently dubious nature, the application of which, for the like reason, needed to be pointed out. But let it never be forgotten, that when the prophets complain of obscurity, an angel-interpreter is always at hand in order to remove it. In the books of Daniel, Zechariah, and John, for example, we every where find the holy seer in company with a heavenly interpreter; elsewhere the prophets do not allege any obscurity.

Nothing can be more instructive than the views of Paul, in relation to this important subject, viz., the intelligibility of prophetic revelations; 1 Cor. XIV. When the gift of tongues enabled some members of the Corinthian church to speak in a language unknown to the brethren in general, Paul reprehends in a severe manner those, who displayed such a talent without at the same time causing what they said to be interpreted. The church, says he, receives no edification from such gifts thus employed. In the church, he goes on to say, I had rather speak five words in the exercise of my faculty of intelligence, [dia Tov voós μov, i. e. in such a way as my understanding dictates τοῦ νοός μου, in order to be understood by others], to the end that I may instruct others, than ten thousand words in a foreign language;