prophetic pages, and by the highest authorities of the religious world. In all the points that are disputed, we have the sure word of prophecy to guide us, and the best of human authority to sustain us. This fact will put to blush the accuser, who charges us with holding novel, fanatical, and heretical views. Let him thus charge the high authorities quoted above—men of the most distinguished talent and extensive learning, the brightest ornaments of the church, and the best standard expositors. With them, in the path of truth, we feel we shall not suffer.

In the light of what has been shown, to what conclusion are we necessarily brought? If we are right in the points considered, the conclusion is not to be resisted that the end is at hand. If we are not mistaken as to the extent of the prophetic field, the length of prophetic time, and the dates from which to reckon such time, all must concede that the present period is that which is to witness the grand termination of all earthly things. And the Christian world assure us, that, in the main points, we cannot be mistaken. As to particular dates, we have such high authority, such light from the prophetic pages, such confirmation from the events of Providence and the characteristics of the present times, as to give foundation and strength to our faith. We must, in all honesty, believe, in view of the accumulating evidences around us, and the prophetic dec

larations before us, that the reign of Christ, long looked for and desired, is near at hand. May it be hastened!

Now this prophecy has been fulfilled, or is to be, or it has failed. To say it has failed, is to be infidel; to say it has been fulfilled in events and circumstances far inferior to those the language would warrant us to expect, is to be scarcely less so; and to say that it is to be fulfilled, without being able to show, from the book itself, that there is yet ground to expect it after so long a delay, is hardly to rescue the prophecy from the hands of infidels. And it might with equal justice be added, that so to interpret the prophecy as to turn away its force from the prominent systems of error now prevalent, is to favor and countenance those systems. In the light of these facts, where does the learned Stuart stand? A few references to his book will show. A review of that book, will not, in this discourse, be expected; a mere glance at its general character, is all that time will allow. It is not his to do small things—his is the work of a Hercules! It is not his to meddle with the flaws and foibles of systems, but to show how readily he can demolish the works of generations! Intoxicated by German literature, driven on by mingled ambition and a desire to check the prevalence of a hated system, he dashes on through his book, regardless of the work of ruin and havoc he effects! That we may

understand the vastness of his undertaking, he is careful to assure us, at the beginning, that his leading principle of interpretation is in opposition to the expositors of the English and American world—in fact, to those of nearly the whole Protestant world. But there is another world on which the Professor had his eye, and the exception of which, explains volumes—the German world! Deriving his leading principles from thence, he girds himself for his work. He stops not to prove, or even to argue positions assumed in opposition to the host of Protestant interpreters he is not giving a "Thesaurus, but hints!" Points entirely settled in the Protestant church, he decides, without any proof or argument to the contrary, to be undoubtedly otherwise. The little horn of the seventh of Daniel, declared, by the almost unanimous voice of Protestants, to be the symbol of Papacy, he thinks to be "undoubtedly" Antiochus! p. 83. With as much propriety, and no more in opposition to the opinions of that portion of the religious world, I might say that Josephus undoubtedly was Cyrus! He unites with the expositors of the Romish Church in saying, that there is no Papacy in Daniel. He proceeds, and pares, and fritters, and cuts down the whole book, and attempts to make it fit the inch-measure of his day for a day principle. And thus the most valuable portion of this book is attempted to be crowded into the narrow limits

of six years and a fourth! Its importance is to be measured by the acts of a single Syrian prince! The destruction of the little horn, the burning of the fourth beast, the coming of the Son of man with the clouds of heaven, the judgment, the time for the saints to possess the kingdom, the cleansing of the sanctuary, the end of indignation, the standing up of Michael to reign, the time of trouble, the deliverance of those written in the book, the resurrection, the standing of Daniel in his lot, and the shining of the wise as the brightness of the firmament, and those who turned many to righteousness as the stars, all took place at the death of that prince, in 164 B. C.!! This is the result to which the work conducts us. But how poor his success in making the stubborn prophecy conform to his principle! In applying the prominent symbols of Daniel to that prince, with the periods given, he presumes the application is nearly just—statistical exactness not being expected. (See pp. 88, 89, 122.) But how plain it must be to all, that this method of interpreting, or rather misinterpreting, this book, so long the Christian's Calendar, makes it the sport of infidels, and gives it over to Romanism, and other kindred systems of error and iniquity.

And, then he comes to the Apocalypse. And what havoc there! Consistency required that he should carry out his principle with respect to that book, though the task was

more difficult. After diligent search, he finds a hero for the Apocalypse—it is Nero! He then has space sufficiently narrow to admit of the use of his measure. But he does not stop to inquire, or even to notice, the date of the book; which, of itself, would have been enough to have arrested him in his progress. The weight of authority, he well knows, is in favor of fixing the date of that book as it is in our large Bibles, viz., 96. The testimony of nearly all the early writers favors this date. If this is the correct date, the hero of the Apocalypse had been dead nearly thirty years before it was written! It cannot be that this book foretold things that had passed! But this point is not noticed by the Professor. He assumes that it was written before Nero's time, and applies the larger portion of the book to him and his successors, who finally destroyed Jerusalem. All that has, by Protestants, been applied to papacy, he makes symbolical of Nero! The coming of Christ, so often mentioned in the book, he construes to be his coming for the destruction of Jerusalem !—And thus does he aid, most effectually, the three great errors specified: Infidelity, by adopting Neological principles of exposition, and, consequently, making very little of the prophecies: Papacy, by uniting with the Romish interpreters, and attempting to take from Protestants their most effectual weapon against

*See Croly on Apocalypse.