only where the principle of a year for a day is clearly and demonstrably affirmed, twice in words, and once by the evidence of actual fulfilment—the texts in Numbers and Ezekiel, and the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. Now to each of these there is a direct and pointed reference in the passages now in dispute. The times of the woman measure her abode in the wilderness, and refer us directly to the only complete type, that of Israel in the desert, and to the text which marks out the time of their wanderings, a year for a day, forty years. The time of the second woe occurs in no other passage of all Scripture, except where Ezekiel lies on his side three hundred and ninety days, and bears, by Divine appointment, the iniquity of the house of Israel, a day for a year, a day for a year, three hundred and ninety years. The three days and a half of the witnesses' exposure is a broken and fractional time; and though forty passages and more occur where periods of three or four days are mentioned, this exact interval occurs nowhere else in the word of God, except in the half week last mentioned in Daniel's prophecy (ix. 27), and where it certainly denotes three and a half years. This last correspondence, and the interpretation of the three days and a half to which it leads, was seen and adopted more than twelve centuries ago. Let us only combine together these three distinct marks of designed coincidence; and it is scarcely possible to imagine how constructive proofs can rise to a higher degree of evidence than is here afforded for the year-day interpretation.

Besides, however, the direct evidence which this comparison lends us for the truth of that theory, it also contains a deep spiritual lesson. The delay of the promised blessing, though foreseen in the Divine counsels, is yet owing, like the sojourn of Israel in the wilderness, to

the unbelief and worldliness of the Church of God. It was unbelief which turned the forty days of search into forty years of wandering. And the similar unbelief and corruption of the visible Church has turned the 1,260 days, expressed on the surface of the prophecy, into those 1,260 years of actual delay and desolation which lay couched beneath the expression, and have been slowly fulfilling inthe course of Divine Providence.

VI. THE CLOSE OF THE MYSTERY OF GOD, and the oath which announces it, supply another proof, less evident perhaps at first sight, but which, on examination, is of the strongest kind. The passage occurs in Rev. x. 5-7, and should be compared, first of all, with the parallel text, Dan xii. 5-8, as the following argument depends mainly on this comparison.

1. The oath in Revelation, on the most general view of its meaning, denotes the shortness of the delay, and the approaching close of the mystery of God"There shall be delay no longer." Now this implies that the six first trumpets have been really a time of long suffering. The natural impression which it leaves is, that the previous delay, in the course of those trumpets, has been of long continuance, and is drawing to its termination. This, of itself, can accord only with the larger interpretation of the times.

2. But the oath in the Apocalypse resembles closely the former oath in the book of Daniel. There is an evident correspondence between them in every part. The speaker is the same; for in each case the context proves decisively that it is no other than the Son of God. The subject is the same; and there are only two passages where the solemnity of an oath is connected with the sacred times. The form of the appeal is the same; only that in Revelation it becomes still more august and full than in the former prophecy. Finally,

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the substance of the oath corresponds also. In the former it is" That it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished." In the latter the words are "That there shall be time (or, a time), no longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to the servants, the prophets." The mystery of God is the rejection of the Jews and calling of the Gentiles (Rom. xi.; Eph. iii.) ; and hence the closing words of the oath, in each intsance, have just the same meaning. The inference is clear that the statement in Revelation is chronological and specific, on less than that which occurs in the former prophecy.

3. This conclusion results also from the words themselves. The rendering, "that there shall be time no longer," does not harmonize in the least with the context, if expounded in the popular sense, that time shall be swallowed up' in eternity. Another version has been proposed "That there shall be delay no longer." This agrees better with the general drift and purpose of the announcement; but it evidently does not convey the full meaning of the oath, as appears from two reasons. First, the declaration would not then be strictly true, for the narrative of the following chapter implies some measure of delay, even after this announcement; and next, the analogy with the oath in Daniel is almost entirely destroyed. Both these causes require us to seek for a more correct and consistent version.

4. From these remarks we are led at once to the true rendering, and the only one which satisfies all the conditions of the text. "He sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever...that there should be A TIME no longer; but in the days of the seventh angel the mystery of

God shall be finished." This version restores the full harmony of the text, both with its own immediate context and with the oath in Daniel, and does not, like the previous version, involve any license whatever on the idiom of the Greek language.

5. The use of the word xpovos, to denote specific or defined intervals of time, is too frequent to require justification. For scriptural examples it is enough to refer to Luke i. 57; Acts i. 7, iii. 21, vii. 17; Gal. iv. 4; 1 Thess. v. 1. The term, however, being different from that employed in Daniel, and in chap. xii., there seems an objection at first against applying to it the same interpretation. But this difficulty will be removed entirely by the following remarks.

First, the strict correspondence, in other respects, of the two oaths, requires us, if the word xpóvos be taken definitely, to render it by the same word, a time, which is used in the other passage. In the one, the Angel swears that it shall be for a season, and seasons, and the dividing of a season; in the other, that there shall no longer be a time. Surely this correspondence alone must teach us that the same definite period is intended by either term.

Again, these words are so nearly allied in their meaning, that the difference entirely vanishes in our authorized version. Thus xpóvos is translated in thirty-two places by the word time, and in four others by the word season; and kaipos, in sixty and fifteen places respectively, by the same terms. A distinction so evanescent can be no sufficient ground for rejecting the proposed exposition.

But, finally, the interpretation here offered really maintains the distinction between these terms. For the Greek words do not differ by denoting a longer and a shorter interval, but only in the aspect under which

the same interval may be viewed. The one denotes the time in which, and the other after which, certain events are imagined to occur. Thus the former is constantly used to signify an occasion, fit season, or opportunity; as in Mark xii. 2; Luke xii. 42; Acts xxiv. 25; Gal. vi. 9, 10; Heb. xi. 15. And the latter (xpóvos) is used itself, and especially in its derivatives, with a secondary notion of delay. The verb derived from it is employed constantly in this sense, both in Scripture and in classic writers (Matt. xxiv. 48, xxv. 5; Luke i. 21, xii. 45; Heb. x. 37). The same period, it is plain, may be viewed either with reference to events fulfilled in its course, or the delay it interposes to other events which will follow on its close. In the former view it is a kaupòs, or season; and in the latter, a xpóvos, or time.

Now in Daniel the direct object of the oath is to affirm the continued duration and certain fulfilment of the desolation, and the power of the wilful king. The emphasis rests immediately on the times themselves, and the fulfilment of the predicted events in their season. The word kaîpòs is therefore employed. But in the Apocalypse the purpose of the oath is to limit the delay, or the space still to run out before the expiration of the whole period. And hence the word xpóvos is used with equal propriety and distinctness in its application.

6. The way is now clear for a just apprehension of the argument which this passage supplies. The oath in Daniel announces solemnly that events there predicted in the close of his prophecy shall last three times and a half, and that afterwards the restoration of Israel will follow. The present oath, at a later period, resumes the same subject. After the six trumpets have been blown, and the remnant continue stubborn and impenitent, the mighty Angel descends, and announces, with a solemn eath, that not one single time remains to run out before