us on to 2015. The different methods of reckoning prophetic times are very dissimilar, and would be amusing, were it not that men were led astray by them. The most ancient writers of the christian era, very justly reckon days, weeks, months, and years, in prophecy, just the same as we reckon them in history, that is, common days, weeks, &c. but others of modern times have reckoned prophetic days to be 7 days, 12 days, 30 days, 331 days, 50 days, 84 days, 100 days, 120 days, 190 days, and 235 days!!* Some reckon years lunar, and other solar; some say a year contains 360 days, and others 365 days. Brachmair reckons centuries of days that is 350 years. p. 182. 'When Doctors disagree, who is to decide?' We have often heard of the glorious uncertainty of the law, but who has ever heard of the glorious uncertainty of the prophets.

Mede does not fix upon any particular year, for the commencement of the 1260 days, but supposes they began between 365 and 455, he seems however most inclined to the second epoch of Alstedius 376. Samuel Johnson, M. A. says, Time is 100 years, times 200, and half a time, 50. Vol II. p. 18. but he reckons months as years, p. 125 and 156. Cunninghame in his "Year Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-six a Great Era," says,

*See Bengelius, p. 219.

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'I pass by as unworthy of notice the opinions of those writers, who tell us the 1260 days are literal.” p. 16. To which I reply, I pass by as unworthy of credit, those writers who tell us that 1260 days are years, because time has proved the greater part of them mistaken. "The vision is yet for an appointed time: but in the end it will speak and not lie." The discrepance among the above writers is so great, that we are constrained to ask, who can believe any one of them? Their united testimony cannot produce conviction, because their depositions agree not together. If the 1260 days, be put for years, and their commencement be known, as most commentators suppose, then the time of their termination may be as certainly known. What would be the effects of this foreknowledge? To contradict the scriptures, and render inapplicable the exhortation of our divine Lord, "Take ye heed, watch, and pray, for YE KNOW NOT WHEN THE TIME IS. Mark xiii. 33.

Various writers of eminence have asserted that the saints were given into the hands of the little horn at a particular period. Some say in the first century, some in the second, others in the third, and many in the fourth, and some in the fifth, and others as confidently assert that it did not take place until the sixth, and others give the date at various

times, from the seventh to the twelfth century. See Table III. Yet the saints themselves have never been able to tell: and even to this day, they do not know whether they are in the hand of this persecuting power, or have been delivered from it! or whether the whole period is yet to come! Did not John Bunyan know the day he was put in Bedford jail? and the day when he came out? And are the whole body of the saints so ignorant, or the hand of the little horn so light, that they cannot tell whether they are under his power or not? Whiston, Daubuz, Bicheno, Keith, Cunninghame, Frere, Brooks, and many others tell us that the tyranny of the little horn is expired, and the saints are liberated from his hand; while Faber, A. Q. Brown, Dr. Gill, Bishop Newton, Lowman, Habershon and many others, say the time is not expired, yet the latter are not agreed as to that period within 170 years!!!