difficulty of which has long been felt and acknowledged, will remove the only objection that can be made to the consistent and uniform interpretation of the entire prophecy which has now been exhibited : and we thus obtain a wonderful prediction, in all respects worthy of its divine author; a prediction, not stopping short with the mere overthrow of Jerusalem and a figurative synchronical coming of the Son of man, but reaching in regular chronological succession from the apostolic age to the final consummation of all things. DISSER DISSERTATION IV. A Vindication of the Protestant mode of calculating the 1260 days in opposition to that adopted by the Romanists. THERE is a celebrated period, mentioned in the prophecies of Daniel and St. John under the varied appellations of a time two times and the dividing of a time or forty two months or twelve hundred and sixty days. Both Romanists and protestants are agreed, that the same period is intended by these three several designations: for, at the ancient rate of assigning 360 days to a year, three years or times and a half, 42 months, and 1260 days, will be found exactly equivalent *. Nor is this the only proof of their identity either the same, or necessarily parallel, events are ascribed both to the three years and a half, to the 42 months, and to the 1260 days; *Bp. Walmesley's General Hist. of the Christ. Church de duced from the Apocalypse; published under the assumed name of Signor Pastorini. p. 348, 349. Mede and all other protestant expositors in loc. but, if the same or parallel events occur during the lapse of each, they must plainly coincide in their chronological duration. So far then no difference appears among expositors, whether of the Papal or of the Protestant communion: but, at this point, a very essential discrepancy commences. The Romanists, for obvious reasons, maintain, that the period, thus variously expressed, is to be understood literally; or, in other words, that the period in question comprehends no more than three natural years and a half or 42 natural months or 1260 natural days: the Protestants, on the contrary, maintain (and they deem themselves to have ample reasons for their opinion), that the period is to be understood mystically; or, in other words, that it comprehends 1260 prophetic days which are equal to 1260 natural or solar years. On this point therefore it is, that the parties join issue. A work, which is intitled A Key to the Old Tes tament, has recently been printed in the diocese of Durham by Mr. Rutter, a clergyman of the Romish Church. To the vein of primitive piety, which runs through it, I am most happy to bear my testimony. Perhaps it may be a little too much tinctured, with what we Protestants should call Hutchinsonianism, or with what our Romanizing brethren (I presume) would denominate Origenism: but, in a practical work, a Christian will delight to find his Master, even where strictly legitimate criticism might not be able to discover him; and, in the pre sent sent practical work, the reformed Christian will perceive with satisfaction, that relics and images and deified saints and all that constitutes the proper machinery of papal mythology have disappeared, leaving only the true foundation on which all sincere believers equally build. I have observed indeed a passing reference to purgatory and to prayers for the dead: but, with this and a few other exceptions, the book, like some of a similar strain which I have seen written by pious Romanists, is remarkably free from Popish peculiarities *. It * Mr. Rutter would fain prove from a passage in 2 Maccabees the lawfulness and efficacy of prayers for the dead, which of course involves the doctrine of purgatory: and he expresses his astonishment, that Protestants should reject from the sacred canon of inspiration the Apocrypha of the Old Testament; while yet they admit into it certain books of the New Testament, respecting which doubts were for some time entertained in the Church. Key. p. 223, 224, 437. I. It is not very difficult to give him a sufficient reason for our rejection of the Apocrypha. All the books arranged under that title purport at least to have been written before Christ. If then any of them were written after Christ, their very profession of higher antiquity stamps them with the brand of imposture: if, on the contrary, they were actually written before Christ, and if (as the Romanists pretend) they ought to be received as inspired; it is utterly unaccountable, that, from the time of their composition down to the present day, they should have been uniformly rejected from the sacred canon of the Old Testament by the Jewish Sanhedrim. We all know the even superstitious veneration of the Jews for their holy books, which prompts them to the singular mode of authenticating their canon by numbering every It was to be expected, that a Protestant could not discuss the predictions of Daniel and St. John with out every letter contained in each separate tract. Is it credible then, that, while they were providentially led to such extreme carefulness respecting the genuine oracles of God, they should pertinaciously reject as uninspired certain books for which the Romish Church claims the authority of inspiration? In fact, Mr. Rutter does not seem to be aware of the strange contradiction, which the system of his Church necessarily involves. A book, which expressly professes itself to have been written by Ezra (Ezra vii. 28), was received by the Sanhedrim into the sacred canon: yet two other books, which equally profess themselves to have been written by the very same Ezra or Esdras (1 Esdr. viii. 68, 71-74. 2 Esdr. i. 1, 4.), have been uniformly rejected by the Sanhedrim. Now, if these two other books, which profess to have been written by Ezra, were not written by him; they are ipso facto gross impostures. If, on the contrary, they were written by him agreeably to their own profession, and if they are equally inspired with that Hebrew book of Ezra which we all agree in deeming canonical; let Mr. Rutter inform us, how it happened, that the Jews admitted one book of Ezra into the canon; but rejected two other books, notwithstanding those two other books claim, not only to have been written by the same author, but to have been composed under the same divine inspiration. Just the same remark applies to the Wisdom of Solomon. It professes to have been written by that prince (Wisdom vii. 1-13.): if therefore it was not written by him, it is a palpable forgery; if it was, how came the Sanhedrim to reject it from their canon while they admitted Proverbs and Ecclesiastes? I need scarcely say, that the song of the three children and the history of Susanna and the destruction of Bel and the Dragon, which all claim to have been written by Daniel, are in a similar predicament: or that the prayer of Manasseh and the pretended supple |