prophetic days is specified : which period commences indeed with the chronological commencement of the vision, but which is said to terminate with the incipient cleansing of the sanctuary.

Then I heard one saint speaking : and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake ; How long is the vision, respecting the daily sacrifice and the Apostasy that maketh desolate, in its giving both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot ? And he said unto me; Until two thousand and three hundred days: then shall the sanctuary be cleansed".

(1.) The question here asked relates to the vision, respecting the daily sacrifice and the Apostasy that maketh desolate : but it relates not to the entire length of the vision ; for, by the introduction of a special chronological limitation, it only asks, How long, from the time of its commencement, is the vision, in its giving both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?

1 Dan. viii. 13, 14.

* The question itself is verbally ambiguous : for it might be doubted, whether the 'clause, in its giving both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot, refers to the Apostasy that maketh desolate or to the vision. But the answer removes all ground of uncertainty: for it shews, that the clause must relate to the vision ; because, on any other interpretation, it is no reply to the question. Indeed the original Hebrew, according to its strictly literal translation, will scarcely bear any other sense. Until how long is the vision of the daily sacrifice and the Apostasy that maketh desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? To this question the answer is :

ram and the he-goat occupy, from its chronological commencement, to the incipient cleansing of the sanctuary?

From the premises, thus laid down respecting the question, I argue in manner following.

The whole length of the vision, as we have already seen, is the period, which extends, from its chronological commencement with the rise of the Persian Monarchy, down to what Daniel styles the time of the end or down to the close of the latter three times and a half: that is to say, it is the period, which extends, from some point between the year A.C. 811 and the year A. C. 771, down to the supposed termination of the latter three times and a half in the year after Christ 1864.

But, subordinately to this grand period, we have a minor period of 2300 years distinctly specified : and this number is declared to be the chronological measure of the period, which extends from the commencement of the vision to the incipient cleansing of the sanctuary.

Such being the case, since the 2300 years are to be computed from the chronological commencement of the vision, and since the vision chronologically commenced at some point between the year A.C. 811 and the year A. C. 771; they will of course terminate at the corresponding point between the year after Christ 1490 and the year after Christ 1530.

Now the sanctuary, we are told, is polluted by that great desolating or persecuting Apostasy; on account of which the allegorical stars are given into

the hand of the Mohammedan little horn, and on the completion of which (or when the apostates are come to the full) the spiritual Power symbolised by that little horn first stands up. But the sanctuary, thus polluted by the demonolatrous Apostasy, is the Christian Church viewed as mainly settled within the limits of the Roman Empire. Consequently, it is the Christian Church of the Roman Empire, which must begin to be cleansed at the end of the 2300 years: and, since that Church is polluted by adopting the demonolatrous superstition of the Apostasy, its cleansing must obviously consist in a rejection of that demonolatrous superstition. The prophecy, therefore, involved in the number 2300, teaches us, that, at the end of the 2300 years, the Christian Church of the Roman Empire, which had been long polluted by a base demonolatrous superstition, would begin to reject that superstition and would begin to reform itself from the gross errors of the prevailing Apostasy. But the 2300 years expire at some point between the year after Christ 1490 and the year after Christ 1530. Therefore, at some point between those two years, the long-polluted Church of the Roman Empire must begin to renounce the demonolatrous superstition of the great Apostasy.

(2.) Accordingly, this numerical prophecy has been most accurately accomplished.

If we ask, at what time the Christian Church of the Roman Empire began to renounce the apostatic worship of demons or of canonised saints: the voice

of history will reply, that this great moral revolution commenced at the era of the Reformation in the year after Christ 1517. The cleansing of the sanctuary then began in the once apostatic national Churches of England, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, and northern Germany: and this cleansing, thus happily begun, will be completed, as we learn from the Apocalypse, at the end of the latter 1260 years or in the period which Daniel calls the time of the end'. Hence the gradual cleansing of the sanctuary, which begins at the close of the 2300 years, will be completed at the chronological termination of the vision of the ram and the he-goat.

Thus, even had the prophecy never been delivered, the voice of history alone would have determined the naked fact, that the Christian Church began to cleanse or reform itself from the

apostatic worship of dead men in the year after Christ 1517: and, however we may interpret the prophecy since it has been delivered, the naked fact in question will still remain incontrovertible. Now the prophecy declares, that, at the end of 2300 years to be reckoned from the chronological commencement of the present vision or from the rise of the independent Persian monarchy, the mystic sanctuary, which had long been polluted by a desolating Apostasy, should begin to be cleansed: and the voice of history has determined, that this predicted