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III. In the account which St. John gives of the New Jerusalem government, we plainly discern marks of the perpetual truth of our Lord's declaration, "my kingdom is not of this world,"—and that the kingdom of the saints in the millennium will not be a temporal, but a spiritual kingdom, and Jerusalem "the first dominion,” will be at the head of it, For "the kings of the nations which are saved, and walk in her light," seem at that time to enjoy their usual state, and separate regalities; and are as unanimous now, in bringing their honors and riches into the New Jerusalem, that is, in honoring and supporting the true faith and church of Christ, (under the supreme superintendance of the converted Jews, God's own peo ple again, and his saints, spiritually made unto God kings and priests,) as the kings of the earth, or Roman empire, formerly were zealous for the worship and honor of the beast.-Rev. xxi. 24, 26.

There is nothing in all this, to contradict the application of the above prophecy to the instrument of providence employed in effecting the downfall of the popish thrones, preparatory to the kingdom of the saints. How far it may be consistent with the explication of the prophetical periods, is matter for further

consideration.

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The prophetical periods.-Various meaning of " THE TIME OF THE END."—The prophecies to be unsealed each by its own accomplishment.— And all of them at the Millennium-The wisdom and uti lity observable in the sealing of the prophecies of time.-The three grand prophetical periods, all derived from one source.-Explanation of them.Two objections against it.-The period of 2300 days, the first of them,-Not natural days, but years. Not applicable to ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.-This prophecy not yet fulfilled.

THE periods of time which Daniel has assigned to the fulfilment of several of his prophecies, stretch out to ages very remote from his own days, and some of them to the millennium, if not to the very end of the world itself; when "many of them that sleep in the

dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (26) This seems also to be intimated in verse 12, where he delivers the prophetical period that coincides with the millennium." Blessed is be that waiteth, and cometh to the 1335 days." It is immediately subjoined by the holy Spirit :—" But go thou thy way, till the end be. For thou shalt rest, and stand in the lot (which the righteous Judge will award to thee, (27)) at the end of the days." That is, at the end of the world.

"The time of the end," which recurs several times in Daniel's prophecies, is an expression of somewhat doubtful meaning.-It seems sometimes to refer to the end of the world, but at other times it cannot well be so under

(26) Dan. xii, 2.

(27) St. Paul having made use of a similar expression, concerning his own just expectation of a reward of his labours at the day of judgment, not at the imagined first resurrection of the saints, wholly exempts this text from being employed as a proof of that doctrine. 2 Tim. iv. 8" A crown of righteous. ness" is laid up for him, and for all other good christians.-But the martyrs only are crowned at the first resurrection.

stood; as, for instance, in all those places which refer us to the time of the end, for a full explication of the meaning of some of these prophecies, which are limited to a measured period of prophetical days, that is, com mon years. Then (at the time of the end) the seal impressed upon them by the hand of the divine Artificer himself, who adjusted their proportional limits, and all the great events with which they are pregnant, will by the same hand, be broken; and they cannot prematurely be unsealed by any other.

Some commentators are, however, of a dif ferent opinion, and maintain that the time of the end, or time of opening the seals of the prophetic periods, is already come. But the But the peremptory tone of denial given to Daniel himself, and the frequent repetition of it, do not give us much ground to think so. "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book," -not any single prophecy only, but the whole," even to the time of the end." (28) And thus again :-" And I heard, but I un

VOL. III.

(28) Daniel xii. 4, 8,

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derstood not. Then said I, O my Lord! what shall be the end of these things? And he said, go thy way, Daniel; for the words are closed up, and sealed until the time of the end." (29)

Between the two extremes in opinion, on this difficulty, I think the middle way is pre

ferable. I would neither assent to those who boldly and peremptorily (but not always with the most happy success) resolve these prophetical ænigmas, as decisively as if no seal or interdiction (for it amounts to the same,) had been placed upon them at all: nor, on the other hand, agree with the too timid dissen

(29) The "time of the end" seems to be used in Daniel in a sense somewhat like the "end of the world," by St. Paul,* who meant thereby the end of the Mosaic world, or divine œco、 nomy of the law; and Daniel means frequently the end of his prophetical periods, or the time 1355, with which the time 2300 coincides; and they both expire together with the sixth chiliad of the world, according to tradition, (of which, notwithstanding, there is some uncertainty, see note at the end of Sec. 43,) and usher in the seventh chiliad, or millennium, eminently so called. But sometimes Daniel seems, by that phrase, to meas the end of the world itself.

*See the 1st vol. p. 38, note.

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