Dr. Davidson's views of the Apocalypse are not stated in his present volume for the first time. They were put forth in the "Eclectic Review," seven years ago; were repeated in an article furnished for Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature; and are now reiterated with little novelty of argument. They are in substance these:-" The Book may be called a Prophetic Poem."— "Its descriptions are of a general character, expressive only of the nature and magnitude of the subject."-"The attempt to identify the successive events of history with the successive descriptions of the prophecies, appears to us utterly hopeless. The supposed harmony of history with prophecy, which the Apocalypse is alleged to show, is wholly futile." As a poem, it is "invested with the garniture and drapery of poetry." "The times are symbolic, not chronological periods. Certain numbers occur very often: all these are employed poetically, not chronologically and definitely." "Having doubts whether John himself had a comprehensive view of the things he wrote, or that he meant to arrange them after a definite plan, we incline to distribute the whole into such parts as are indicated by the favourite numbers, seven and three." "We do not believe that the Papacy is prefigured by the apocalyptic beasts, or by any part of those beasts. As Hengstenberg justly says, The Holy Spirit would be a very bad painter, if he portrayed the Papacy in such a way. As little do we believe that the Papacy is to be found in the Little Horn of Daniel's Beast, in the Man of Sin predicted by Paul, or in the Antichrist of John."

Of the principal Protestant Commentators who have treated of this book, Dr. Davidson pronounces, ex cathedrá, the following opinon: "Lowman's Commentary has been highly esteemed, though his scheme is wrong." "Faber's Calendar of Prophecy is able and ingenious, but radically wrong." "Sir Isaac Newton's Observations on the Apocalypse, and Bishop Newton's Remarks, are generally incorrect." Woodhouse has "greatly deviated from the right mode of interpretation." Elliott's Hora Apocalyptica is "characterized by great research and minute investigation, but proceeding on principles essentially and fundamentally erroneous."

The writers which, in Kitto's Cyclopædia, are specially commended as having "per

The confidence with which Dr. Davidson asserts, that the principle of interpretation which treats the Apocalypse as a series of prophecies is radically wrong, fundamentally erroneous, and that his principle is undeniably right, would seen almost to preclude any attempt to re-open the inquiry. The question is settled. Judgment has been already pronounced. Hengstenberg's work is "the only one which approaches the true scope and sense of the Apocalypse;" and a writer can scarcely be less than infallible, who dares pronounce that " the Holy Spirit would be a bad painter," if the Papacy were intended by the emblem of the Two-horned Lamb.

We must confess that we do not like this way of settling the matter, any more than by an appeal to authority, which Dr. Davidson so carnestly deprecates. He is very angry with Bush for telling Moses Stuart, that he "is taking ground against the whole current of Protestant commentary on the Apocalypse, and giving to the Romanists every advantage which they could desire." "What is this," says Dr. Davidson," but mere appeal to the feelings and prejudices, instead of fair, manly, honest argument?" Nay, it is nothing less than Popery in principle, to call up the names of illustrious dead as the infallible expounders of the Bible." But they are not called up as infallible expounders of the Bible. We recognize, with Dr. Davidson," no standard but the Bible." We too believe the Reformers to be "fallible.” But with what consistency does our learned friend deprecate our calling up the names of Luther and Bullinger, of Jewel and Foxe, as expounders of the Scriptures, while he invokes those of Grotius and Tinius, Hammond and Bossuet? And with what fairness does he send his readers to Grotius, without noticing the confutation of his scheme by the not less learned Henry More and Cressener; or commend Hammond, without referring to the sagacious exposure of his comments by Whitby?

It is not, however, as authorities, that the Protestant Commentators are cited, much less as infallible expounders; and therefore, their differing in various particulars from each other, supplies no reason for contemptuously rejecting their views. Even supposing that all writers, from Bullinger and Mede to Elliott, who have adopted the " continuous or historical scheme of interpretation, have failed to place the specific application of the

In what way does the determination of it affect the antecedent series of symbolic prophecies up to chapter xi.? If the predictions of the first Six Seals and the first Six Trumpets are susceptible of historical interpretation, this is sufficient to establish the true character of the Book, even if no satisfactory explanation can be given of the remainder. If they are not, we need not trouble ourselves about the year-day enigma. It is incorrect, therefore, to represent the historical scheme as hanging upon the year-day theory. What does very much depend upon it is, the appliIcation of the Vision of the xith chapter to the era of the Reformation, and of the xiiith to the revived Empire and the Papacy. To ward off this too obvious application, after the solution of the numerical enigma had been discovered, was the object of the Jesuit Expositors who first proposed the Preterist theory.

Great pains have accordingly been taken to involve in uncertainty the import of the earlier predictions; while their plain and obvious application has also been mystified by expositors of the spiritualizing school. Thus, while Grotius, Hammond, and Eichhorn interpret the locusts of the Fifth Seal of the Jewish zealots, and make the Euphratean horsemen to be Roman legions, and Ewald supposes them to be Parthians, Dean Woodhouse applies the symbol of the locusts to the Gnostics. This strange notion may be paralleled by the discovery made by a worthy Quaker, with which he was greatly elated, that they symbolize the hireling priests and ministers of the Established Church. Dismissing these perverse theories and learned or vulgar blunders, we rest our conviction of the truth of the historical interpretation of these earlier visions, not upon any disputable explanation of the emblematic details, but upon the demonstrable harmony of history with the general tenor of the predictions.

It is not an assumption, but incontrovertible fact, that, immediately succeeding to the Apostolic age, the Roman State enjoyed a period of unequalled prosperity; which was followed by three marked stages of rapid decline, distinctly traced by Gibbon in terms corresponding to the symbols of the Seals, and characterized by civil wars and massacres, fiscal oppression and scarcity, famine and pestilence, and consequent depopulation. It is a fact, that two of the severest persecutions-the Decian and that of Diocletianoccurred during this period of declension, and that the era of Diocletian is otherwise known as "the era of martyrs." It is a fact, that the subsequent overthrow of the Pagan power of Rome is described by contemporaneous writers in language which at once explains and justifies the emblems of the Sixth Seal; as "a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness, and restored

It

the ancient dominion of chaos and of night." It is a fact, that the death of Theodosius was followed by those successive inroads of the barbarous nations which eventually extinguished the Western Empire; and that, not only do the contemporaneous historians - - Socrates, Sozomen, Zosimus, Orosius, Claudian, Sigonius, Jornandez, Evagrius, &c.-give accounts of these calamitous events closely and sometimes verbally corresponding to the symbolic predictions, but the events themselves were regarded as the fulfilment of the predicted overthrow of Rome. It is a fact, that the next great event in history is, the sudden appearance of the Saracens, followed by their rapid conquests, and their equally sudden disappearance from Europe on the removal eastward of the seat of the Khalifate. is a fact, that, "this woe past," another heavier calamity ensued, in the more permanent conquests of the Turks and Ottomans, which finally extinguished the Eastern Empire. Here, then, we have a series of events extending through fourteen centuries; and we have a series of symbolical descriptions apparently referring to precisely a corresponding series of events in the same chronological succession. We put aside altogether the year-day theory, and simply ask, Upon what rational principle is Daniel's Vision of the Four Great Empires believed to have been a true prediction historically fulfilled, while these Visions of the Beloved Apostle are dogmatically affirmed to be without historical meaning, the attempt to identify them with the great facts of history being pronounced utterly futile?

But, if the symbolical descriptions, thus far, are found to relate to a succession of historical events, occupying the broad page of history through so many centuries, it is a reasonable presumption, that the subsequent visions are equally susceptible of historical application to the great events which stand out as the very landmarks of modern history. Among these, the most prominent and remarkable in all respects, are, the revival of the Western Empire in the person of Charlemagne, and the coincident establishment of the Papal power; (in the words of Gibbon, "the mutual obligations of the Pope and the Carlovingian family form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and ecclesiastical history;") the glorious revival of Christianity in the sixteenth century; the desolating religious wars of a century and a-half that ensued; and the political convulsions and military conquests which were ushered in by the French revolution of 1789. To any one who believes that all events form part of the scheme of Divine providence, and are subservient to the purposes of God's moral government, these events will appear most worthy of occupying, in

prophetic anticipations, the prominence which they assume in historical records.

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Now it is, as we think, a significant fact, that, at the Reformation, the application of the symbolic prediction of the two-horned beast to the Papacy, was generally recognized and openly proclaimed by the founders of the several Protestant churches, especially by Luther, and Bullinger, and Jewel. They did not stop to determine the year-day theory; they differed widely from each other in their expositions of peculiar features of the predictions; but there was entire harmony in their convictions as to the identity of the Papacy with the Man of Sin and the twohorned beast. "One must be blinder than Tiresias," says Bullinger, "not to see the predicted Antichrist in the popes." "On this principle," says Warburton, was the Reformation begun and carried on; on this, the great separation from the Church of Rome was conceived and perfected." The Reformers were far enough from being infallible expounders of the Scriptures, but they were neither weak, fanatical, nor unlearned men; and their assumptions, if assumptions they were, must have been grounded upon reasonings which carried conviction to their own minds. Dr. Davidson does not believe what they firmly believed, and he has a right to his own opinion; but we claim for the concurrent belief of the Reformers of the sixteenth century, the respect due to the opinions of holy, devout, and acute men, who were neither credulous dreamers nor idle theorists. Dr. Davidson asserts, that the Reformers "had a very low opinion of the Apocalypse;" an assertion which, to adopt his own language, surprises us by its boldness. A few rash, unguarded expressions of Luther's are surely not to be cited in opposition to his mature and deliberate opinions. But, "not one of the reformers understood a day in prophecy to mean a year. Neither Luther, nor Melanchthon, nor Zwingle thought of such a theory." We desire no better proof that this theory is not the basis of the "Protestant" scheme of interpretation, and that it forms no part of the evidence upon which they came to the conclusion, that the Papacy is prefigured by the apocalyptic wild beast. With what propriety, then, does Dr. Davidson urge as a leading "difficulty," inherent in the scheme, that "it is a principle of interpretation" with expositors of this class, "that a day in symbolical prophecies stands for a year?"

The truth is, that the year-day theory, far from being a principle assumed in the interpretation of prophecy, has been arrived at by pure induction; and an induction, we need not remind Dr. Davidson, is the contrary of an assumption. Dr. Maitland's confident assertion, that the theory was unknown to the

early age of the church, and that "the spiritual common-sense of the church of God in every age, from the days of Wickliffe, is set in array against it," we do not care to controvert, since, as an argument, it has not the weight of a feather. If, as we believe, it was the design of God, that the interpretation of the mysterious predictions should not anticipate, but simply keep pace with their historical fulfilment, we cease to wonder that this principle of interpretation should not have been discovered by those who lived long before the prefigured events; or, that the true import of the allegory of the Two Witnesses, which perplexed and baffled the patristic commentators, should first have been revealed by the light of the reformation. Up to the sixteenth century, the notion prevailed, founded upon rabbinical legends, that the Two Witnesses were Enoch and Elijah, or Elijah and Jeremiah, or Moses and Elijah. Luther correctly speaks of them as a succession of faithful witnesses kept up for Christ; and this only rational interpretation, which was adopted by most of the Reformers, English and Continental, has been admitted by Stuart, who, though contending for an absurd application of the allegory to Jewish times, interprets the Two Witnesses as denoting "a competent number of divinely commissioned faithful Christian witnesses, who should proclaim the truths of the Gospel." But this interpretation naturally leads to the inquiry, whether, the agents being allegorically described, the duration of the action is to be understood according to the literal meaning of the terms employed, or analogically. Three years and a-half, or 1260 days, is generally supposed to have been the term of our Lord's personal ministry; and this might, therefore, be a sufficiently long period for the ministry of two persons, if such were intended by the Two Witnesses. But, when an order or succession of persons, a body of men, a political power, or an ecclesiastical system, is personified, it is not unreasonable to conclude, that the figurative lifetime, or duration of the allegorical action, would denote something beyond the ordinary period of an individual's life or action. "Because one part of a paragraph should be tropically interpreted," Dr. Davidson says, "it does not follow that the whole should be so taken. In like manner, it is not agreeable to the analogy of Scripture language, that every part and portion of a passage should be symbolical, because the entire prophecy has that character." To the accuracy of this dictum, we cannot subscribe; but, whether it is necessary or not, that the whole should be taken in a symbolical sense, nothing forbids our so construing any part or feature of the symbolical description. Again, a day, the learned Author says, cannot be the proper symbol or hieroglyphic of a year.

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