other interpretation is given to them. In particular, I am not able to see how the terminus a quo, can be ascertained, provided we fix upon 1260 years as the length of the period meant to be designated, and then insist upon it that popery is symbolized by the beast described in the Apocalypse. The transactions and occurrences of A. D. 603, or 615, so far as these have regard to the Romish church, are not of a distinctive and important nature enough to mark with certainty the terminus a quo. Every one who is in a good degree familiar with the history of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries of the church, knows that popery took its rise from small beginnings, and that its growth was very slow and gradual; so that any one definite and specific period can hardly be fixed upon for any occurrence which made it substantially what it is. Indeed, it did not reach its full height until the Council of Trent was held, and its creed and policy established by it. Even admitting, then, that chap. xiii. seq. has relation to the Romish church, how can we establish, with any tolerable degree of certainty, an exact time for the beginning of the terminus a quo? The end of such a period it would indeed be easy to determine, could we once find out its proper beginning. But there is one advantage which the patrons of such an interpretation have hitherto enjoyed, and which has shielded them in some measure from criticism. This is, that the terminus ad quem, or end of the period, has hitherto, for the most part, been proposed by them as a period still future. We are bid to wait until that future arrives, and then we may see who is in the right respecting the beast of the Apocalypse. John Albert Bengel, indeed, the most learned, pious, and perhaps consistent of all this class of interpreters, fixed, as we know, upon A. D. 1836 as the year of the grand catastrophes disclosed in the second part of the Revelation. He entertained not even the shadow of a doubt that he was in the right; nay, he verily believed, that his interpretation was given to him by the special grace of God and the peculiar illumination of the Holy Spirit. Yet that year has passed away, without any important changes in the aspects of the world or of the church. And so have other periods fixed upon with the like or even greater confidence, already passed by, without affording us any signs that the great period of 1260 years is at an end.

Most of the hariolations, now rife in this country and in Europe, elude the grasp of criticism by going into the future for a terminus ad quem; for who can positively contradict a declaration, that such or such an occurrence, which is a possible thing, will happen at such or such a definite future period? England and America swarm with books of this class, all founded on the assumption, that Apoc. xiii. seq., respects papal, and not pagan, Rome. This is not the place to examine in detail such a method of interpretation. I must remit the reader to the

Commentary, and particularly to the statements of the contents of the Apocalypse, prefixed to various sections of the book, and to Vol. I. § 27. I would merely remark here, that chap. xvii, the design of which is to show who is meant by the beast, etc., gives us not a single intimation that would of itself lead us to think of Christian instead of Pagan Rome. It is a beast which was then existing, then devastating the church and threatening to destroy it, that is obviously set forth in Rev. xiii. seq. But if this be not enough to show the unfounded nature of the papal exegesis, i. e. of the exegesis which regards the beast in Rev. xiii. and xvii. as the symbol of the pope and popery, let one other circumstance be brought into view. In Rev. 17: 10, the seven heads of the beast are said to symbolize seven kings; the angel-interpreter then adds: "Five of these are fallen; one is; the other has not yet come, and when he shall have come, he will continue but a short time." Now who in all the world can make out, that of popery, which arose near the close of the sixth century, it could be said in A. D. 68, that five popes had already fallen, one was then reigning, and the seventh when he should appear would continue but a little time!! What a tissue of downright anachronisms, absurdities, and monstrosities in exegesis, does this favorite papal application of Rev. xiii. and xvii. lead to and involve! How can any considerate, consistent, and candid interpreter shut his eyes against all this, for the sake of carrying out his favorite argument against the papacy? With regard to the question: In what sense is the papacy predicted or denounced in the Apocalypse? I have more than once expressed my views, in the preceding pages; see above p. 267 seq. I need not repeat again what has already been said. But the supposition that John designed originally and clearly to symbolize papal Rome by the beast from the sea, is one of the most chimerical of all the chimeras that party exegesis has exhibited.

We come next to the period of a thousand years, designated in Rev. 20: 4 seq. Is this to be literally understood, or must we make out of it, as many have done, a period of 360,000 years? Or may it be taken in a generic way, as the designation of a very long period?

Analogy would perhaps decide in favour of the literal construction. Yet the word thousand is so often employed in a general way, for a long or very long period, that one might be justified, perhaps, in doubting here the absolutely literal construction. A few examples from the Scriptures will suffice to illustrate my position; e. g. "The Lord... make you a thousand times as many as you are.-God who keepeth covenant to a thousand generations.-How should one chase a thousand. -The word he commanded to a thousand generations.-He cannot answer him one of a thousand.-If there be an interpreter, one of a thousand.-The cattle on a thousand hills are mine.-A day in thy

courts is better than a thousand.-A thousand shall fall at thy side. -Though he live a thousand years twice told.-One man among a thousand have I found.-Where were a thousand vines, at a thousand silverlings. One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one.-A little one shall become a thousand.-The city that went out by a thousand.-One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

In view of such and so numerous examples of the word thousand indefinitely employed, some doubt may naturally arise in the mind of an interpreter, whether this same word is, or is not, so employed in the passage before us. With absolute certainty the question cannot be determined by us. That the period of the church's prosperity will be at least 1000 years, seems to be certain. That the time may not be longer than such an exact period, can hardly be made out by any exegetical process. Analogy, as to the use of the word thousand, would plead in favour of this; but the definite or nearly definite periods elsewhere designated in the Apocalypse, as we have already seen, would plead in favour of the simple literal interpretation.

As to the period of 360,000 years, i. e. counting each day of the thousand years for a year, I had almost said that I hope it is correctly made out. Yet I know of nothing which will justify this method of reckoning. If the writer had designed to be understood in this manner, would he not have given us at least some intimation of it?

I am aware of the disappointment which some will feel, in view of such results as have been stated; for some evidently have favourite schemes of interpretation, by which they make out from the Apocalypse the destiny of the Romish church, and of the Mohammedan power, and it may be, of other enemies of the true church. It would be superfluous for me to repeat here what I have elsewhere said in relation to this mode of interpretation. It is impossible, with such views as I entertain, to regard the Apocalypse as a syllabus of civil and ecclesiastical history. It was written for the consolation of Christians under a raging persecution, and its main design is to disclose relief from the evils which then pressed upon the church. The distant future is indeed recognized in it. Yet how brief is the recognition! The future events of long periods, and events too of inexpressible interest, are all crowded into the compass of one short chapter (ch. xx.); thus showing that the pressure of the times then passing was the main object which the writer had in view. Of course, if this position be correct, all the calculations about the beginning and ending of the 1260 years, and the exact time of the commencement of the 1000 years, are without any solid basis, and are not entitled to our credence.

Are these views, now, contrary to the spirit and tenor of the N. Tes

tament? Does that bid us to expect, that definite periods of events in the distant future will be revealed to us? The Saviour did not tell his anxious disciples, who inquired with eager curiosity: When shall these things be? either the day or the hour when Jerusalem should be destroyed. Nay he went so far as to declare, that neither man, nor angel, no, not even the Son himself, knew that day; Mark 13: 4, 32. Even after his resurrection, and just before the ascension of Jesus, when his followers renewed the anxious inquiry: "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" his reply was: "IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW THE TIMES, OR THE SEASONS, WHICH THE FATHER HATH PUT IN HIS OWN POWER." Acts. 1: 6, 7.

One is often constrained to ask, when he reads or hears the confident calculations of many, in respect to the time of restoring the kingdom: What? Has the Saviour's solemn and parting declaration been revoked? Is it true, after all, that we may know the exact year, if not the very month or day, when the kingdom of God shall come in full power? Did John indeed obtain more knowledge of this than Jesus himself was willing to communicate, and more than he judged it proper for his disciples to know? We would not deny, that definite periods have at times been assigned to the existence of temporal and temporary evils. In the Apocalypse itself, spiritual Sodom and mystical Babylon are limited to a definite period, as to the persecutions which they would carry on against the church, and were carrying on when the Apocalypse was written. But this is a case wholly unlike to that which is presented, when it is asked: At what definite period will the millennium begin? That the Father has kept this in his own power, I doubt not. How then can we listen to those hariolations which assure us, that this period is well ascertained at present, and that too by men who are altogether uninspired? How many confident vaticinations of this nature have already been wrecked! How many and bitter disappointments are others yet to experience, who put their confidence in them! Enough for us to know, that the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, and that he who shall come, will come, and will not tarry. Even so; Come,

EXCURSUS VI.

Rev. ΧΧ. 3. Καὶ ἔβαλεν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον, καὶ ἔκλεισε καὶ ἐσφρά γισεν ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μὴ πλανήσῃ ἔτι τὰ ἔθνη, ἄχρι τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη· καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα δεῖ αὐτὸν λυθῆναι μικρὸν χρόνον.

Every one must see, that one of the most important words in the investigation of this passage is Gar. We may briefly recapitulate the illustration of it, in this place. It cannot mean simply to live; for to construe it thus, would be to deny the life of the soul after the death of the body. When the Saviour gives promise to the penitent thief, that he should, that day on which he expired, be with him in Paradise; when the same Saviour appealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as being alive, and thus disproved the doctrine of the Sadducees; and when Paul says, that 'to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,' it cannot be consistent with the doctrines of Christianity to suppose that our spirits die with our bodies. Above all, the writer of the Apocalypse himself, as is remarked in the Commentary, assumes a position adverse to this, when he presents, as he does oftentimes and everywhere in his book, the spirits of the just as uniting in the worship and in the halleluias of heaven. In the very passage before us, the seer beheld the wavyás of the martyrs apparently in heaven; and in conjunction with this he sees the approaching avάwots, (if I may coin an expressive word for the occasion),-áváwots of their bodies, and beholds, in prospect, their continued reign after this áráswois, for a 1000 years. "Elnoar, therefore, cannot mean merely to recover a psychological existence which was lost. It cannot mean to live spiritually, i. e. in opposition to being dead in trespasses and sins; for all the saints and martyrs possess such a life from the time when they are first regenerated or sanctified. It cannot mean to become immortal; for from the first moment of their existence as rational beings, they and all the rest of the human race were immortal. It cannot mean merely, that, at the time when the Millennium commences, they begin to be happy, i. e. to enjoy life; for those who die in the Lord are blessed ἄπαρτι, aлagri, i. e. immediately or without delay. Whatever your means here, it must from the nature of the case be something different from that which can be predicted of the rest of men (oi λoizoi), whether these are Christians of the lower rank, or the wicked in general, or both. It must import, moreover, a striking change in their antecedent condition; for less than this the language cannot imply, without stripping it