same language, explain what the apostle meant; then how could any subsequent generation expect rightly to interpret what had hitherto been beyond the reach of human effort to explain, even when made under the most favourable circumstances? The expectation would be unreasonable and illusive.

But it will probably be said here, that events themselves explain predictions; and consequently, when things predicted take place, then, and not till then, the prophecy will be understood. This suggestion is the common, I might almost say, the general one, whenever a difficulty occurs in the prophetic writings which an interpreter does not know how to overcome.

It would be inconsistent with my present design, to discuss this topic at length. I have done it in another place; and what I should have to say, is already before the public.* It is enough for the present merely to suggest, that the assumption before us manifestly involves a ὕστερον πρότερον. What are the things predicted? According to the statement of those who advocate the views in question, the prophecy when uttered was unintelligible; and it remained so until its fulfilment. But now, when it is fulfilled, it becomes intelligible. But what, I ask, is its fulfilment? When we so speak, we mean of course that certain events tally with certain predictions. But how do we, or can we, know this fact? This cannot possibly be known in any way, unless we first assign some definite meaning to a prophecy, and then compare certain events with that meaning, in order to know whether there is a correspondence between the two. In doing this, however, we have done what we had no right to do, according to the statement before us; for if we are to credit this, the laws of interpretation will not enable us to give any definite meaning to the prophecy, and yet we do after all make out some kind of meaning for the prophetic words, before we can compare events with them. This then involves a real ὕστερον πρότερον, on the ground assumed by the objector; for we do first, in such a case, what we were forbidden to do first if he is in the right. Yet after all, we do no more than we always must do, before we can tell whether any writing is good or bad, consistent or inconsistent, prophetic or hortatory; for how can this be told before some meaning is given to it?

To say that the objects or events to which any prophecy re

* See Biblical Repos. Vol. II. p. 217.

lates, may be and usually are better understood when they make their appearance or take place than before, is beyond all doubt true. He who has visited Jerusalem in person, understands it better than he did while his knowledge was derived only from maps and the reports of travellers. So the humblest Christian who lives in the light of gospel-day, may know more in some respects of his Saviour and of the gospel dispensation, than any priest or prophet of old did. But this affords no evidence that what the prophets have actually uttered, means any more than what according to the usual principles of language it purports to mean. How far the prophets themselves were enlightened, and how much they were instructed to communicate, must be judged of by us not by reasoning and argument dependent on principles a priori, but from what they have actually communicated by their words.

If any one should still urge, that the prophets often declare themselves to be at a loss respecting certain things which are proffered to their view or are said to them, and therefore they could not have understood those things; the obvious answer is, that this applies only to certain symbols, when first proffered to view, the particular significance of which would of course need some explanation; or else to some declarations of a peculiar and apparently dubious nature, the application of which, for the like reason, needed to be pointed out. But let it never be forgotten, that when the prophets complain of obscurity, an angel-interpreter is always at hand in order to remove it. In the books of Daniel, Zechariah, and John, for example, we every where find the holy seer in company with a heavenly interpreter; elsewhere the prophets do not allege any obscurity.

Nothing can be more instructive than the views of Paul, in relation to this important subject, viz., the intelligibility of prophetic revelations; 1 Cor. XIV. When the gift of tongues enabled some members of the Corinthian church to speak in a language unknown to the brethren in general, Paul reprehends in a severe manner those, who displayed such a talent without at the same time causing what they said to be interpreted. The church, says he, receives no edification from such gifts thus employed. In the church, he goes on to say, I had rather speak five words in the exercise of my faculty of intelligence, [diá Tou voos μov, i. e. in such a way as my understanding dictates in order to be understood by others], to the end that I may instruct others, than ten thousand words in a foreign language;

1 Cor. 14: 19. Who can help most heartily uniting with him! Yet if the prophets have spoken in a way which after all they themselves did not understand, nor their angel-interpreters explain, and which the men of their age and nation could not understand nor any after-ages interpret, then is Paul greatly at variance with them. In such a case, they uttered what was just as dark as a foreign language; and what has, without the possibility of edification, continued to occupy the pages of the Bible, and served to cast darkness rather than light apon its readers. Is this the manner in which God deals with the men, to whom he designs to make known his counsels respecting future events that are deeply interesting to his church? Paul directs him who speaks in an unknown tongue, to pray that he may interpret; 1 Cor 14: 13. If then what he said in that unknown tongue (unknown to the body of the Corinthian church), was capable of being interpreted, it was of course capable of being understood by him who had a knowledge of the particular language in which it was uttered. In like manner, what the prophets of old uttered, either in Hebrew or Greek, was intelligible to a man of cultivated understanding, whose vernacular language was Hebrew or Greek. Otherwise the book of God contains many a passage which has been useless ever since it was written, and will yet continue to be so. Respecting all such positions we may surely say, with Paul: "If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle?" Believe in the unintelligible nature of prophecy whoever may, I cannot refrain from the belief, that when God reveals any thing to men, he speaks intelligibly; and that he has not filled the book of light and consolation with dark, and double-meaning, and dubious sayings, like those of the shrine at Delphos and other heathen temples. Many a saying may be dark to our age and nation, because it is clothed in words that are foreign, and because the manners and customs and peculiar modes of thinking and speaking among the ancients are not familiar to us. But subjective darkness or obscurity, i. e. darkness or ignorance in us, is one thing; objective darkness, i. e. obscurity in prophecy itself as originally uttered, is a very different one. Let us not, through mistaken views of our own knowledge, or prejudice, or hasty reasoning, put to the account of the prophets the darkness that is within ourselves.

I have said thus much on this subject, because I wished to vindicate the Apocalypse and other prophetic writings, from charges which are often made against them of impenetrable

mystery and obscurity. Mystery, in the sense of containing that which was before hidden from ages and generations," I freely acknowledge that they contain; for their very object is to reveal such mysteries. But as to obscurity; that is principally in us. The men who wrote prophecy (I repeat it once more) designed it to be read and understood; and if they did, they wrote of course in an intelligible manner.

I do not aver, that the most ignorant of the multitude, in the days of John, could comprehend his meaning throughout the apocalyptic visions. But this is like that which happens at the present time. It is not every individual who can comprehend a good sermon; I mean, as to every word in all its parts; much less can he fully comprehend a thorough and deep discussion of a difficult point in theology. But intelligent and enlightened men can comprehend such discourses. and discussions. And thus it was in the days of the prophets. The wise could understand, although the wicked did not. Prophecy is most of it clothed in the garb of poetry. Even the books of Daniel, Zechariah, and the Apocalypse, although not composed in the rhythm of poetry, or according to its usual laws of parallelism, still breathe every where the spirit of poetry, and exhibit the disjecta membra poetae. Some education, some mental illumination, we may well concede, is needed in order to read and understand books, which are poetic in their diction, and whose style is elevated, impassioned, abounding in metaphor, brevity, energy, and imagery. What abounds in symbol, too, needs some illumination of the understanding, and some chastening of the reasoning powers, in order to be comprehended so that mistakes may be avoided. But these difficulties are not peculiar to the Hebrew poets and prophets. They are common to poetry of an elevated order, at all times and among all nations.

The particular drift of all these remarks remains yet to be pointed out. If the principles laid down are correct, it would seem to be a plain conclusion, that prophecy, and therefore the Apocalypse, was originally intelligible; with such modifications and restrictions as have just been intimated. Conceding this now to be a fact, can it be probable that the designation of times specified in the Revelation, was as dark and mysterious to John and his cotemporaries, as some interpreters of modern times have supposed it to be? I cannot persuade myself that such was the fact. What object could be answered by John, in the annunciation

of times in respect to certain events, when such annunciation was unintelligible and altogether inexplicable as to any good sense? To suppose that such was the case, would be to suppose that John trifled with the churches, to whom his book was addressed, and affected the mysterious and profound air of the Egyptian and Grecian hierophants; a supposition which nothing but absolute necessity should compel us to make.

But if the notations of time in the Apocalypse were intelligible to John and his cotemporaries, are they also to us? The former may have been true, as is the case in regard to most or all of the Scriptures; but there may still be many texts of whose true meaning we are, and must for the present be, ignorant, because we do not possess those means of coming at the right understanding of them which were once enjoyed.

We have already seen, how the great body of English and American interpreters have answered the question, Whether the designations of time in the Apocalypse are intelligible to us? They have generally agreed, that one day in the Apocalypse stands for a year. Yet even in this, they have not all been consistent with themselves. The 1000 years of latter glory; the ten days during which the church at Smyrna was to be afflicted (Rev. 2: 10); the silence of half an hour in heaven (8: 1); the five months during which the locusts that came from the great abyss, are commissioned to devour (9: 5, 10); the hour and day and month and year, in which the destroying angels by the great river Euphrates are to do their work (9: 15); are all variously construed by different persons, who still unite in the supposition, that three years and a half, a time and times and half a time, and 1260 days, (periods severally mentioned in the Apocalypse, but designating the same length of time), are to be interpreted as meaning 1260 years, i. e. so that each day designates one year. The propriety and consistency of thus departing from their own principle, and at one time construing numbers respecting time literally in the Apocalypse, at another in an unlimited or indefinite way, and at a third in the peculiar manner just mentioned, deserve to be examined and fairly discussed.

That John has a manner which is his own, in his book of Revelation, need not be denied. There is no necessary obscurity in this; and we may safely admit, that in some respects. this manner may be different from that of other prophetic writers. He may have conformed to idioms that had arisen in