To restrain the

seven hundred and seventy years. words, then, to three years and six months of a literal treading down still future, is to make this note of time entirely unmeaning. For our Lord's own words prove that the treading down, which begun under Titus, will not cease till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. This is certainly not before, but after, the time, times, and a half. Therefore the treading down of the literal city is to be continuous, in one unbroken period, for near eighteen centuries. How, then, could it be defined by a space of three years and six months? On the other hand, a treading down of the visible Church for 1,260 years, while not identical with the literal desolation announced by our Saviour, will bear to it the closest analogy, and range over an interval of time nearly as extensive in its continuance.

3. The allusion to the type of Elias, in the account of the witnesses, is a further presumption that the period is 1,260 years. The time of famine when he prophesied is twice mentioned in the New Testament under the same phrase, three years and six months. The reference to his testimony against Israel is very plain. If the time here were three natural years and a half, the same term as before would naturally be used-three years and six months.

But there is a further argument to be drawn from this reference to Elias. The whole of his history was full of types denoting spiritual truths. The famine was typical of spiritual drought; and the abundant rain at its close, of the outpouring of God's Spirit in the latter days. The seven thousand who bowed not the knee to Baal typified the remnant of faithful Christians according to the election of grace. Now since the antitype is nearly always on a larger scale than the type, we might infer that the time of the witnesses is not literall three years and six months, but some longer and analogous period.

4. The three days and a half, during which the witnesses are to lie unburied, seems not obscurely to indicate the same truth. Too much stress, perhaps, has been laid on this point by Mede and others; as if the events predicted were impossible to be fulfilled in so short a time as three literal days. The reply of Mr. Maitland on this topic to the statements of Mede is, in several respects, just and convincing. Reasonings of this nature, drawn from the impossibility of events, ought to be circumscribed within the narrowest bounds.

Yet there is one clause of Mede's argument on this head which seems to me a just and forcible remark, though Mr. Maitland condemns it as revolting or absurd. "How should the half day (Mede inquires) be a competent time to distinguish or limit any of the actions there mentioned? If the Holy Ghost had meant nothing but days, would He have been so precise for half a day?" The reasoning here, when explained, is of that kind which the example of the holy apostles themselves warrants us to employ. In the case of our Lord's own resurrection, certainly the fraction of a day was not considered in the reckoning; else it would rather have been a day and a half than three days. Now if the witnesses were individuals, is it natural to suppose that the Holy Spirit would describe their resurrection by a minuter scale of time than that of our Lord himself? The case of Lazarus is exactly in point. There we have mention that he had been four days in the grave, but no fraction of a day is recorded. So, too, in the recovery of Hezekiah, a type of the Saviour's resurrection. In short, we have about thirty passages in Scripture where three days are mentioned to define an interval, and four where four days occur; but nowhere else is the fraction of a day introduced in such a measurement of time. The question of Mede is therefore pertinent, and may be repeated without either irreverence or folly. “If

the Holy Spirit had intended natural days only, would He have used a preciseness in the statement of time, which is nowhere else employed, in nearly forty examples, not even in that most important of all facts, the resurrection of our Lord ?”

V. THE WILDERNESS ABODE OF THE CHURCH is another topic of argument, equally striking and important, and suggests many distinct presumptions for the year-day, some of them of the strongest kind.

1. The woman here is clearly symbolical, and denotes the Church at some season of its history. Now the times occur in close and immediate connexion with this symbol, and we may naturally infer that they are symbolical also.

2. The woman is a miniature symbol of the Church. And hence Mr. Faber's maxim fully applies, as in the time of the first woe. The congruity of the parts in the hieroglyphic seems to require that the time (should be presented also in a miniature form.

3. The two distinct phrases employed are another token of the same truth. We have the time, times, and a half, and 1,260 days, both used evidently to denote the same period; each being, as before, an unusual phrase.

4. The two distinct stages of the flight are a further proof that the period is far larger than the bare letter would imply. The 1,260 days, the time, times, and a half, and the forty-two months in the next chapter, are three different expressions for one and the same general period of time. The previous mention of it is in connexion with other events, which form the immediate preparation for the main era.

Now there are two distinct stages mentioned of the woman's flight into the wilderness. In the first, she flees simply; in the second, the two wings of the eagle

are given her that she may fly into her prepared place. There is no real ground for the prolepsis which some authors have assumed. On the contrary, the narrative is more consistent and natural without any such license. The woman begins to flee into the wilderness after the birth of the male child, and before the celestial victory. After the battle is won, and the dragon is cast down and persecutes afresh, wings are given to her for her escape, and she flies into the desert with increased rapidity.

The preparation, then, for her sojourn in the wilderness, alone involves nine or ten distinct and successive events recorded in the prophecy. If the period of that sojourn be only three years and six months, the preparation must be either quite disproportionate to the event, or the steps of the preparation will be crowded into the narrowest compass. The spiritual deliverance, the dejection of Satan, the renewed persecution, the protection given to the Church and her increased rapidity of flight, the flood cast out by the serpent, its absorption by the friendly earth, and the persevering rage of the dragon, will all be crushed into the space of two or three years. This might perhaps be barely possible; but surely nothing but the most distinct revelation could make us receive such an exposition of the true reference of so glorious a prophecy.

In fact, when we read these successive allusions to the time of her sojourn, and compare them with the opening benediction on the readers of this book, we cannot but conclude that this sojourn is not a transitory event of three years just at the very end, but conveys some great truth of standing and permanent benefit to the Church through successive generations. Such it has been, on the mystical exposition—a main

stay of the witnesses for truth in times of darkness and oppression; while, on the other view, it would teach us nothing that had not been already taught us, more simply and plainly, by the prophets of the Old Testament,

5. But there is one further argument to be drawn from this topic, which is peculiarly striking and important. These mysterious times are used here to define the season of the woman's stay in the wilderness. They refer us, therefore, at once, to the history of the Jews in the wilderness, as the type to which they correspond. The resemblance is further confirmed by two remarkable passages in St. Paul's writings, where the same analogy is unfolded. (1 Cor. x.; Heb. iv.)

Now, since the events strictly corresponds it is natural to look for the same analogy in the period which defines them. What light, then, is thrown upon this in the typical history? How was the period of its duration determined at the first? The answer is found in that remarkable text which has been quoted before : "After the number of the days that ye searched the land, even forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, forty years; and ye shall know my breach of promise."

Thus, in the typical history, the length of the Church's sojourn in the wilderness was determined, expressly and openly, by the year-day principle. It was defined and its limit determined by the divine rule, a day for a year, a day for a year. The event here predicted is the same —a wilderness sojourn of the Church. And hence the Spirit of God seems, as it were, to lead us by the hand, and to point out to us the true key to decipher these sacred numbers, by this parallel event of Jewish history.

This proof becomes yet stronger by the addition of one further remark. There are three main passages