תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

THIS REVIEW

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO

TIMOTHY GILBERT, PEREZ GILL, AND NATHANIEL HILL,

6

WHO SAY, IN THEIR LETTER TO MR. COLVER: "Regarding your argument as conclusive, that the numbers in Daniel, which others have interpreted to prove the second coming of Christ in 1843,' have had their literal accomplishment, and, therefore, have now no reference to this event, and having the mystery, which has hung over this subject, entirely removed from our minds, by your plain, simple, and common sense expositions in these Lectures,- —we desire their publication, that others, who had not the privilege of hearing, may, by reading them, be enabled to share in our increased pleasure in reading the Scriptures."

THE following Review would have been accompanied by the entire work of Mr. Colver, were it not that、 they have secured the copy-right. But such quotations have been made from the work as fairly present the points under review.

It will be seen that occasionally allusions have been made to some of the expressions made use of by Mr. Colver in the delivery of his lectures, which do not appear in the printed copy, they having passed through a thorough and very "grave" review.

J. V. HIMES,

S. BLISS.

Boston, Jan., 1843.

1

EXAMINATION OF

The Inconsistencies of Colver's Literal Ful filment of Daniel's Prophecy.

THE Lectures of Rev. N. Colver, the substance of which were first preached in his own pulpit, and again in the Marlboro' Chapel, are now published in a small 24mo. tract, entitled, "The Prophecy of Daniel literally fulfilled; considered in three lectures." We listened to their delivery on both of those occasions, and intended to have reviewed them; but we are now satisfied that the tract carries within itself its own antidote. Our object at this time will be only to point out some of its many inconsistencies.

It is prefaced by a request for its publication from J. Gilbert, P. Gill, and N. Hill, that others may share in their "increased pleasure in reading the Scriptures." Doubtless it would add to the pleasure of many to have it proved that the Scriptures contain no intimation of Christ's coming.

The first lecture consists mostly in an attempt to show that if the days of Daniel are to be understood as years, that there are many instances in the Bible where days are used, which to under

stand as years, would lead to an absurdity. As no one claims that in any of those instances, days are to be so understood, we shall have no occasion to dwell on that argument.

Because days are to be understood as days, where all admit they are to be so understood, and because there it would be absurd to understand them differently, it does not follow, that where prophetic time can only be understood a day for a year, that it would be also absurd.

[ocr errors]

With regard to "prophetic time," we fully adopt the rule laid down by Prof. Stuart, in his Hints," p. 68, that "every passage of Scripture, or of any other book, is to be interpreted as bearing its plain, primary, and literal sense, unless good reasons can be given why it should be tropically understood." By this rule, a day, in Scripture, always denotes a day, and a year a year, unless such good reason can be given. If therefore we find that a series of events were not, and could not have been fulfilled in the literal days specified, we have good reason to prove that they are to be tropically understood. The question then arises, What is a day ever used in the Bible as a type of? On turning to Num. xiv. 34, and Ezek. iv. 5, 6, we find that a day is used as a type of a year. Therefore, when we are, from the necessity of the case, obliged to understand the days tropically, we know that if they are a type, they are a type of years.

When any prophecy is given in plain and obvious language, we generally find that the time is literal time. But when all the events of the vision are foretold, under types and symbols, like the visions of Daniel, and it can be shown that

« הקודםהמשך »