question, a Grecian would be utterly confounded. To the Greeks such a term, or such a division of time, as half a day, has never been known in its literal sense. They had subdivisions into watches and hours,but a broken portion of a day they have always reckoned, and do even now reckon, for an entire day; as medical men are obliged by the laws of nature to do in fevers, &c., among ourselves. It is on this mode of reckoning, and this only, that we can explain our Lord's lying three days and three nights in the heart of the earth: for he only rested in the grave the latter part of Friday, the whole of Saturday, and part of Sunday; yet it is called three night-days. This solitary expression, therefore, Rev. xi. 9-11, the Apostle who wrote the book, and every Grecian who read it, must have understood symbolically, and interpreted three years and a half; because, if interpreted literally, as three natural days and a half, they would be unable to give it any definite meaning at all.

Having thus shewn that Mr. Maitland cannot maintain his position, even if we concede that an appeal to early authority is a conclusive test, we now proceed to shew, that in this question of interpreting prophetic times the opinion of the early Fathers is of no authority whatever. After appealing to the primitive church, Mr. Maitland says, p. 77, "I know that this proud age looks with pity or contempt on all that have preceded it; and such a reference to the unvarying (which we have just proved to be not unvarying') interpretation of the Christian church may only provoke a smile. Still, notwithstanding the march of intellect, I cannot help thinking that there were some among the various classes which I have specified, who understood the prophetic style quite as well as we do.”—This is a kind of appeal which has great influence over many; and we are aware that such persons will be greatly startled when we assert, in the most positive terms, that these primitive Christians could not have understood the prophetic times. That they should have understood them it is impossible to allow, for the following reasons. It will at once be granted that no duty is more frequently enjoined in the New Testament than that of watchfulness; and it will also be granted that the uncertainty of our Lord's coming is made the great motive for watchfulness. Such is the case in the various addresses of our Lord; as Matt. xxv. 13: "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh." It forms the burden of the Apostolic exhortations; as 1 Thess. v. 2, 6: "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night' "therefore let us watch and be sober." And it forms the concluding admonition to the Gentile church (Rev. xvi. 15): "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments." Now it is not a matter of speculation or pro

bability only, but it is a clear self-evident truth, that just in proportion as the primitive Fathers understood the correct interpretation of the prophetic periods, just in the same proportion would this chief motive for watchfulness-namely, uncertainty -be removed; and because we do maintain that their watchfulness was constant, and that therefore this great motive for watchfulness, the uncertainty of our Lord's coming, was in full operation, we do also maintain that they could not by possibility have understood the prophetic times. Understand these times in either way, make them days or years, they could not have known either their commencement or their period; for any knowledge of this kind would have removed the uncertainty of the day of the Lord.

These considerations bear with equal force, but in an opposite scale, on our own times. For as the watchfulness of the primitive churches was kept alive by the possibility of his speedy coming, resulting from its uncertainty-since that which might be at any time, might be, for aught they knew, to-morrow,-so now the same watchfulness can only be kept alive in us by a sense of the certainty of his speedy coming, while we know not the day nor the hour, and by the possibility of its being even tomorrow. And such we say, from our own knowledge, is the practical result of the two modes of interpretation: for all those who interpret the 1260 days as the Papal period are kept in constant watchfulness, because they believe that "the times of the Gentiles" are nearly run out, and the coming of the Lord draweth nigh; while those who, like Mr. Maitland, postpone the 1260 days to some future time are obliged to regard the greater part of the Apocalypse as still unfulfilled; and it stands as a screen, or barrier of security, between them and the coming of the Lord, since they need not take alarm till they think the prophecies of the Apocalypse begin their course of fulfilment. We also have an advantage which the primitive church had not, in the lessons to be learned from the great interpreter TIME; and we think that no one will be so unreasonable as to maintain that the events of eighteen centuries have thrown no light on the prophetic page, and that we have not in these respects advantages which the Fathers did not possess. It is not, therefore, from looking" with pity or contempt" on preceding times that we deny them any authority in this question, but simply because it is impossible that they could know any thing about the matter. Doctrines they knew; future events they knew; that false doctrines should arise and bring about certain events, they also knew but the mode of computing the prophetic periods, so as to be able to say when these doctrines should arise and these events take place, they knew not, but were constantly looking for those signs by which they might gladden their hearts with the hope of the coming of Christ. We may grant to Mr.

Maitland that they "understood the prophetic style quite as well as we do;" but this by no means obliges us to concede a further proposition, which involves contradictions; or to grant that they were at the same time both certain and uncertain of the same fact; that they knew a time must intervene before the coming of the Lord, and yet continually looked for him suddenly and unexpectedly, " as a thief in the night."

Much confusion exists in Mr. Maitland's mind respecting symbols and language, and still more respecting symbolical and and figurative language. He says, page 3, "the beasts were emblematical, but nothing can be more literal than the language," and so in other places. Now all this arises from his supposing emblematical or symbolical to be the same with figurative, which is a complete mistake. An emblem or symbol foreshews in a lower kind or degree the future actions of another in higher kind or degree; and symbolical language only declares in like manner that which cannot be acted. Figures, on the contrary, accumulate the attributes of something higher in kind or degree, for the purpose of ennobling and exalting that to which they are applied; and figurative language the same. If Mr. Maitland considers that symbols and figures, so far from being synonymous, are opposite processes, it may extricate him from his present confusion. All the modes by which ideas are conveyed to the mind, whether by vision, by hieroglyphics, or by language, proceed on the one principle of explaining that which is unknown by means of that which is known shewing out any new, or diverse, or complex object, by combinations of simple objects; and any new ideas, by means of those ideas already familiar to the mind. Symbols and symbolic language are both framed on this one principle; the symbols being objects addressed to the eye, the symbolic language words addressed to the ear. It is absurd to talk of symbols being described in literal language, because they cannot be rightly described in any other; and it is equally absurd to infer, that, because the description is literal, while the interpretation is confessedly symbolical, that the other words, which are not descriptive, shall be literal both in the vision and in the interpretation. symbol is made to act the thing signified, as far as possible; yet as times cannot be acted, they must be declared. When the symbols are beasts, whose term of life is short, there would be an incongruity in giving long periods (like 2300) in years; which gives still further propriety to the term, days, employed. In interpreting the vision, we must make the same change both in the symbol and in the times of the symbol: we must transfer the character of the symbol to the thing signified, and we must translate the symbolic words into words suitable to the thing which the symbol denotes. All this seems to us so very plain and obvious that we wonder how any one can think otherwise.

The

Nor is there any difficulty in ascertaining when language is symbolical, and when not; for the symbolical language always forms part of the vision, and is often expressed in an unusual and not in the ordinary manner. Thus in Dan. viii. 14, the time of the vision is given by the angel before he is commissioned (ver. 16) to shew the interpretation thereof; and the period is here called "evenings and mornings," not days. Again, the most cursory examination will convince us that days will not answer to any of the circumstances of the vision; for it clearly begins with Alexander, and runs beyond "the latter time" (ver. 23) of the four successors of Alexander, whereas 2300 days are little more than six years. Our Lord also refers to this vision when speaking of the abomination of desolation preceding Jerusalem's destruction (Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14); which, taken in any possible sense, compels us to understand years for 2300 days cannot by any ingenuity be extended down to the time of our Lord; and if, on the other hand, the time is connected with the last Antichrist, 2300 days cannot be extended back to the time of Jerusalem's destruction. The same argument applies to the periods in the Apocalypse; only, as it becomes in this book a question which involves interpretation, we cannot make it so self-evident, as in Daniel: but surely to any rational interpreter it is no less certain, for the numbers are given in visions whose commencement every fair interpretation must join on to the Apostolic times. In chap. xi. the Apostle John is commanded to " rise, and measure the temple of God;' which, bringing him into contact with this vision, plainly shews that it commences with his times: the numbers are then given in the earlier parts of the vision, down to the revival of the two witnesses; after which time no more numbers are given, though there are many events, and such as must occupy a considerable portion of time. The same observations apply to xii. xiii. in which chapters numbers also occur. But Mr. Maitland understands these numbers to denote only a period of 1260 natural days" (First Inq. p. 2), and perceiving the expediency of endeavouring to understand the vision also literally, he labours in the Second Inq. p. 16, to bring a literal interpretation of the two witnesses within the verge of probability. But a less successful attempt we have seldom seen: for these two witnesses of God, who are said to prophesy in sackcloth, he by his literality converts into the most tremendous scourges of mankind, "killing infallibly all who attempted to hurt them"-" terrible and invincible to a world groaning beneath the torment for three years and a half"-" groaning in hopeless misery under plagues like those of Egypt" (p. 17). All this needs no comment, and sufficiently shews the absurdity of endeavouring to interpret symbols literally. Others, following out Mr. Maitland's principle,

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have carried literal interpretation into all parts of the Apocalypse; and expect literal angels; a literal dragon, whose tail shall sweep down the literal stars of heaven; a literal woman, with a crown of literal stars, and the moon literally under her feet; and all such like absurdities. Of these we do not accuse Mr. Maitland; but we warn him to stop in time, or such follies as these will be the inevitable consequence. The coming of the Lord is now generally inquired into: many believe it to be near at hand : Satan trembles for his usurped dominion: he will do his utmost to discredit the belief in the advent, and to discourage the study of those prophecies from whence alone the signs and tokens of the approaching day of the Lord can be ascertained. When he cannot prevail to the extent of wholly destroying the faith in the second advent, his next endeavour is to postpone it as long as possible; and when he can get good and pious men to throw suspicion and doubt over those interpretations of the Scripture which lead to expect the speedy return of our Lord, and lull the watchfulness necessarily consequent on such an expectation, this is a master-stroke of his policy. Again would we press it on Mr. Maitland, and entreat him, with all earnestness and sincerity, to beware, lest, in pursuing what he thinks only a critical inquiry, he may be forwarding the work of Satan, and, when the church stands on the very verge of a precipice, lulling her into a fatal security where the next step may be irremediable destruction.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING WATCH.

MR. EDITOR, I beg to assure your correspondent "Philanastasius," that I receive his remarks on my paper in a former Number in the same spirit in which they are offered; and shall truly rejoice with him, if the discussion should be made subservient to the eliciting of THE TRUTH. This, I trust, is the simple object which we both have in view; and that we shall ever feel the interpretation of God's word too sacred an object to admit of our being influenced by other motives. If the arguments adduced in opposition had convinced me that my position is untenable, I would with the same readiness relinquish it, as I now proceed to state my reasons for still maintaining it. In replying to the objections of Philanastasius, I will observe the order in which he has urged them.

1. In the first place, I must admit the inadvertence with which I am charged, in quoting inaccurately the expressions which I mean to distinguish. I ought to have stated these to be αναστασις εκ νεκρών Οι εκ των νεκρων, and αναστασις νεκρων oι των