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nological exactness is not to be expected. There is much to the purpose, on this head, to be found in Daubuz's Preliminary Discourse, where he produces, as an example, Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks, the begin ning and ending of which, even though the prophecy is fulfilled, are difficult to be determined to this day.

From this view of the subject, I conclude that an error of four or five years would not altogether invalidate my scheme of calculation; for I might be right as to the period of history, although the instant from which the number is reckoned may not be ascertainable. Mr. Faber is of opinion that the year 606, on account of the grant of supremacy made by Phocas to pope Boniface III. is a more important period in the history of the apostacy, than the era of the publication of the Justinian Code; but surely-and particularly as considered in conjunction with the other matters connected with this body of lawsthere can be no comparison. Phocas, indeed, settled a point which had long been disputed between the popes of Rome and the patriarchs of Constantinople, by ratifying, by a new grant to the former, what had been before allowed by Justinian-at least as it respected the west, which is all that is essential to our argument-but which they could not at once enjoy unmolested.

Were it necessary farther to illustrate the importance of the era I contend for, from which to date the 1260 years, facts in abundance might be multiplied to do it. Two or three shall suffice. It was in the year 529, and not till then, that the pope was acknowledged by the bishops of Gaul, as their patriarch, or head; and then it was first determined by the council of Vaison that he should be mentioned in their public prayers; and it was in this same year that the fathers of the council of Orange sent their decrees about grace to Boniface II. for his approbation, and who approved them the year following. This appears to be the first instance of such respect being paid to the popes by the clergy of Gaul, the government of which country has since been the chief champion of the beast. See Allix's Hist. of the Albigenses, p. 104, 105. In the year 531 a council was held in Rome, to receive and judge of the complaints of Stephen bishop of Larissa, metropolitan of Thessaly; here it was remonstrated by Theodosius, bishop of Echinus in Thessaly, who desired justice of the pope in the affair of Stephen, that though the holy apostolic see had the primacy over all churches,

and appeals might be made from all parts to his jurisdiction, yet he had a particular jurisdiction over Illyria, &c.. Dupin's Eccl. Hist. of the Sixth Century, p. 122.

Thus, it appears, that though Phocas might make a grant (for the fact is doubtful, not being mentioned by any author till the 16th century) in 606, to settle the dispute about the primacy between the Roman pontiff and the patriarch of Constantinople, yet the former had, for some time before that, claimed and exercised the power of supremacy over all churches, particularly in the west, the great scene of the beast's empire; and that the year 529 was a remarkable epoch in the history of usurpation over conscience, and likely enough to be the year from whence the prophetic number 1260 is to be dated: but no certainty can possibly be arrived at, till some extraordinary events shall prove its termination; and even then, it' is likely, that the particular year, on account of the combined and progressive nature, both of those events from which it took its rise, and of those with which it will finish, will be doubtful. Whether the events of our times indicate this termination, deserves to be well considered.

I come now to an objection of Mr. Faber's which appears, at first sight at least, to have more force in it than any other which he has brought forward, and I shall endeavour to examine it with the candour it deserves: it respects that part of my scheme (as he calls it) where I suppose the 2300 years of Daniel (chap. viii.. 14.) to commence with the expedition of Xerxes, 481 years before Christ.

I cannot pretend to enter deeply into the controversy about what is meant by the little horn, or by the abomination of desolation, &c. &c. for this would require a greater portion of my time than in justice I can at present spare. But I still think that, the little horn in chap. viii. signifies, ultimately and essentially, the same tyranny as the one in chap. vii. 8. The tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes appears plainly to me to be primarily intended by this horn; but, on account of his violent persecution of the Jews, the extravagance of his impieties, and the aptness' of the circumstances attending his persecutions to represent the enormities of the papacy, he is made the type of that impious and persecuting hierarchy. On this ground, therefore, I shall examine my hypothesis*. If Mr. Faber's

* But should this little horn of the he-goat not typify the papacy, but Mohammedism, or the Turks, as the desolating abomination that was

explanation be admitted, then, indeed, my system would require more correction than I think it does; but as this is, at least, disputable, and as I cannot agree to it, I shall only attempt to support, as far as I think it right, the scheme of interpretation found in this work, upon that ground on which it is placed; for-next to its agreement. with scripture-it is its own consistency, and the solidity of the parts among themselves, with which I have to do, and not as it may be opposed to the scheme laid down in The Dissertation on the Prophecies, or to any other.

When I compare what is said of the little horn in chap. vii. with what is said of that in chap. viii. I am confirmed in the opinion that they mean, essentially, the same tyranny; as does also the ten horned beast in Rev. xiii. though with some additions and new modifications: for what Mr. Faber has said about a horn, as never being the symbol of an empire, but of a single kingdom only, appears to me to be all assumption. To save time, let the reader compare the different passages which relate to the symbolic monsters.-That some difficulties attend this explanation of the little horn in Dan. viii. must be acknowledged, but not so many, I believe, as what attend every other I have seen. The interpretation of Mr. Faber is attended, I think, with insuperable difficulties. He makes Mohammedism this horn. But the goat is a symbol of the Macedonian empire, and Mohammedism sprung from Arabia, which was never a part of the Macedonian empire. It sprung up, too, some hundreds of years after the Macedonian empire was no more.-But, he will say, it planted itself in Syria between the years 632 and 639 (vol. i. p. 279) and it was now that it became a horn of the he-goat. Yes, but this was thirty years after the year 606, and, according to his own rule, (p. 261) an error of thirty years (respecting a chronological prophecy) as effectually invalidates a numerical calculation as an error of thirty centuries.-Again, seeing that Syria had so long ceased to belong to the empire of the goat, and even the to defile and tread under foot Jerusalem and the Holy Land, literally, or the Christian church, figuratively, as Mr. Faber interprets it, yet, as far as the number 2300 is concerned, it would come to much the same, for the papal pollutions, which have defiled the church of God, and the abominations of the Moslems, are to be swept away about the same time. But, although they will end nearly together, yet there does not appear to be any prophecy which obliges us to conclude they began at the same time, and that Mohammedism is to last just 1260 years, as Mr. Faber and others conclude.

goat himself ceased to be, Mohammedism was no more a horn of this goat than of the Persian ram, or of the Chaldean lion, whose dominion in Syria preceded that of the goat; and hardly so much so as of the Roman beast, which it immediately succeeded.-Again-seeing that a horn signifies a kingdom, or power, temporal or spiritualhow Mohammedism could be reckoned a horn treading under foot the sanctuary (or a horn at all) in 606, because Mohammed then retired to his cave of Hera to forge his imposture, when he did not even publicly preach his doctrine till two or three years afterwards, nor till sixteen or eighteen years afterwards take the sword to enforce it, is hard to conceive. At any rate, this does not make Mohammedism a horn, treading under foot the Greek church, and causing the sacrifice of praise to cease from that time, which seems to be necessary to Mr. Faber's system of calculation. We have no such marked inaccuracies as these in any other symbolic prophecy. It is not likely, then, that this little horn can be Mohammedism. Difficulties also attend the explanation of the phrase, the abomination which maketh desolate, as used by Daniel, and our Lord. Perhaps the best way of explaining it may be by considering it as a general phrase, comprehensive of various events, as bishop Newton does. What is meant, also, by the sanctuary, and the daily sacrifice-seeing the expressions are equivocal-will admit of dispute; but I conclude them to have a mystical sense, and to signify the true church and service of God. But the discussion of these matters I shall now wave.

The numbers 2300 I take as I find it in our common translation, which follows the Hebrew. Mr. Faber has adopted the number 2200; but, though this may better favour his scheme of interpretation, I think it is unjustifiable, seeing that there appears no sufficient authority for it.

When I wrote The Signs of the Times, I was led to fix the commencement of the number 2300 from 481 B. C. in the same way as I was to fix the rise of the numbers 1260, 1290, and 1335, from the year of the Christian era 529, namely, from reckoning backwards. In Daniel xii. 11, it is said, And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be 1290 days. By which I suppose is meant, that thirty years after the completion of the 1260 of the beast's prosperity, the desolating abomination is to be taken away. And I have always concluded that

this complete removal was to contemporise with the cleansing of the sanctuary from the transgression of desolation, in chap. viii. 14. Hence, I have argued, that, if the 1260 years were completed in the year 1789, then this cleansing must be effected in 1819; and, consequently, that the number 2300 must commence B. C. 481, which was the year in which Xerxes began his great expedition.

The next inquiry, of course, was whether this would agree with the vision of Daniel? To settle this it was necessary to inquire into the import of the question which one saint is said, at ver. 13, to have put to another saint. In our translation there exists no litttle obscurity. Mr. Lowth renders it, For how long a time shall the vision last, the daily sacrifice be taken away, and the transgression of desolation continue? Which seems to be the true import of the inquiry. From whence then is the vision to be dated? Mr. Faber dates from the attack of the he-goat, but this appears too arbitrary. It seems natural to reckon, either from the first scene in the vision, the pushing of the ram, or from the period of the little horn, or from the time when Daniel saw the vision. If we reckon from the time when Daniel saw the vision, the 2300 years were run out half a century ago; but the sanctuary was not then cleansed, nor does it appear that the work was begun, but all things continued to go on as from the beginning. If we reckon from the excesses of the little horn, be it Antiochus, or the papacy, or Mohammedism, there appear insuperable objections. The first scene in the vision therefore appears the most proper to date from, viz. the pushing of the ram. But from what point, in the history of the Medo-Persian 'empire, this number is to be dated, is still a difficult matter to ascertain; nor do I believe that it will ever be ascertained, with any thing like certainty, by any other means than by reckoning backwards, after the full accomplishment has fixed its termination.

Being led to the expedition of Xerxes, as I have stated, I supposed it probable that this might be the point of his tory from which the number was dated; and I still think it possible. I reason thus. Although this expedition was not successful, yet, seeing that the pushing of the ram appears not to be a representation of the victories of any one particular prince, but an hieroglyphic picture of the conquests of the Medo-Persian power from first to last, without regard to any particular defeats, whether suffered by Cyrus, the founder of the empire, or by any of his successors;

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