be no doubt what sort of authority this apostle means. It is plainly spiritual, not civil authority. The magistrate does not watch for souls. But, though we can collect from Scripture, no less than from reason, the existence, or, if you like it better, the necessity of Church-authority; yet the nature of this authority, and the manner in which it is to be exercised, like those of civil authority, are very much left to be ascertained and determined by HUMAN REASON, judging what is, or is not, expedient in different cases and situations. One matter, however, is common to the establishment of every society, and without which, no society can obtain its great and only end, the general benefit of every individual in it; viz. that every member of it engages, not, as is often said, to give up his own opinions, but to forbear acting from such opinions. Men cau no more give up the convictions of their reason, be they what they may, than they can give up the convictions of their senses. A man can as little agree, that he will not be convinced by a demonstration in Euclid, as he can agree, that he will see a cock to be a camel, or a rat a rhinoceros, or feel ice to be hot, and fire to be cold; or as he can agree, that he will not be frightened in an engagement. He may indeed agree, that he will not run away, and he may keep his word, though he should exhibit as strong symptoms of fear, as Sancho did at the noise of the fulling-mills. Now, the convictions of reason may regard either our civil interest, or our religious duties. A man may give up the first, i.e. he may engage not to act from his own private judgment, not only without injury, but with benefit to his private interest. He may innocently permit others to judge for him. But he cannot give up, in the same way, the convictions of reason respecting his "Whatsoever is not of faith," to speak with the apostle, "is SIN." In this very material difference between the grounds of civil and religious society, the reasonableness and the rectitude of TOLERATION is founded. For, however mistaken men's opinions may be, or however erroneous the judgment upon which they are built; yet, if they are unquestionably of faith, that is, if the maintainers of them are so sincere, that an attachment to them predominates over every other consideration, or, in the language of St. John, overcometh the world, the holders of such opinions are not amenable to, nor is the holding of such opinions cognizable by, much less subject to punishment from, any human jurisdiction; unless these DUTY. opinions opinions are productive of practices injurious to, or des tructive of, the civil government; and then, the subjects of the magistrate's animadversion are, not erroneous opinions, but criminal actions. All that can be done is, to oppose clear and unquestionable truth to such mistaken opinions, endeavouring in meekness to inform such as are out of the way, so that they may attain, if God peradventure should give them the necessary power and grace, precise and exact knowledge. To their own master they stand or fall, (To be concluded in our next.) ON THE DOUBLE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE. I GENTLEMEN, HOPE that I have sufficiently vindicated myself already from the charge of rashness, brought against me by INSPECTOR, on account of my adherence to the typical sense of prophecy. I shall, however, submit a few more observations on this head to your consideration, and then proceed to defend my other opinions called in question. In Romans v. 14. Adam is expressly called the figure of Christ. In Matthew xii. 39. Jonah is made the type of Christ, (no) and a more striking type was never delivered. Jonah has been called the Prophet and Apostle of the Gentiles (Roberts's Key to the Bible.) Joppa, the place where Jonah embarked, was the habitation of St. Peter when he preached to the first Gentile convert, Cornelius. The Ship is the emblem of the Church, the Ark of God (comp. Matt. viii. 23. and Rev. xviii. 17.) The Sea is the emblem of the Abyss of Death, and the fish of the dead. The casting out of Jonah to save the ship, represents the great corner-stone of Christianity, the atonement made by Christ; and the prayer of Jonah seems more suitable to Christ, while the Dragon hoped to, devour him in the bottomless pit, than to the prophet. The remainder of the allegory is explained by our Lord himself himself, and it only remains to observe, that as Jonah after his restoration and delivery from the Leviathan converted the Ninevites, so did our Lord convert the Gentiles. But if Adam and Jonah were types of Christ, why. might not Solomon be a type of him also? It is true, that our Lord had no sin; but he was made sin. David is undoubtedly the type of Christ (Jer. xxx. 9. and Hos. iii. 5.) nor is it any objection to these types, that some parts of the description may be (which remains to be proved) solely applicable to the object sampled; as in Acts ii. 34. and viii. 34. It is sufficient that the type gave occasion for the prediction, and corresponded in a great measure with the anti-type. The fact, however, in my opinion, is that the Old Testament was a sealed or veiled book altogether and always; and that it was contrary to its genius to express any Christian truth without a parable. It is described literally and allusively, I apprehend, in Revelation v. 1. as a book having an external or literal sense as well as a recondite and spiritual meaning, inaccessible to men and angels (see Isaiah xxiv. 11. and Mede's Works, p. 541.) The first seal is opened with a concomitant voice resembling thunder (Rev. vi. 1.) The Old Testament fully opened produces the seven thunders (Rev. x. 4.) as though the Jews were first to be called; and after them the Gentiles by the New Testament (Rev. x. 8. and Acts x. 15.) And here let me be permitted to recommend the excellent commentary on Rev. chap. iv. and v. by Daubuz. I shall take a future opportunity in commenting on Rev. xi. to prove that the sealed book of the Apocalypse is the counterpart of the Old Testament, the Mystery of God, in confirmation of my hypothesis, and, for the present, shall only request my reader, if he is not satisfied by my references, to examine Hebrews viii. 5. and ix. 23.-Rev. xi. 8.-1 John ii. 18.-and to consult Lowth's Preface to his Commentary on the Prophets-Wintle's Daniel, p. 130.-Lancaster's edition of Daubuz, p. 6.---and Bishop Hurd's Lectures on the Prophecies. I shall now proceed to the point next in importance, which is, Whether the prophets designed Chaldean or Julian years by their figurative days? The following passage in Bishop Lloyd's works seems to me absolutely to prove that Chaldean years were designed, The an gel meant such sort of years as Daniel knew, viz. such as were used in that age, and in the country where Daniel lived. But at that time it is certain that the Eastern na tions reckoned just 30 days to a month, and of 12 such months consisted their year, which was just 360 days. It' does not appear that in Daniel's time there was any other sort of years in common use since the creation. In Noah's time that a month was then just of 30 days, it appears in the History of the Deluge, where first it is said, that the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days, and that after the end of 150 days the waters abated. According to our reckoning these 150 days should be five months of 30 days each. And that they were so appears by the history which saith, that the flood began in the second month, the 17th day of the month, and that the ark rested the 7th month, the 17th day of the month. Manetho says, that the Egyptian year was anciently of 360 days, and that so it continued till Asith, their 32d king. Though this is as great a proof as can be given of this matter to an unbeliever, yet there is a greater behind, which is indeed as great as can be given to any Christian. This it is, that whereas the same angel speaks elsewhere to Daniel of a number of years in his prophetical way, the Holy Spirit in the Revelation not only resumes the Angel's words, but explains them, by turning so many years into so many times 360 days [Dan. xii. 7. Rev. xii. 6,14.] A time in Daniel's sense is a year: so the 7 times that' passed over Nebuchadnezzar's head in his bestial state, are called 7 years by Josephus. Bellarmine saith, that all men understand it; but yet lest any one should doubt, Daniel explains it himself at xi. 1Sand 1."-(General Dic-“ ` tionary Hist. and Crit. art. Lloyd.) I am obliged to INSPECTOR for substituting 2267 for 2268 years (p. 80.) I should have been more exact in my calculation had my system depended upon the exact termination of the term of years in 1715, as will be shewn in the proper place. The third question is, Whether the Prophets date the time of events and things from their commencement, or from their acme and fulness. Here is the Jugulum causa, and the Gordian knot. The old commentators are of the former opinion, the modern (since Whiston) are of the latter sentiment. Mede seems to me to have proved that the times of the Empire's ruin, and so likewise of the apostacy attending it, [are to be reckoned] from the commencement, and not from the acme (Mede's Works, p. 658.) His latest epoch of 1242 years of the Papal apostacy is the year 455. "I waved not the question (says he) of the Vol. VI. Churchm. Mag. April, 1803. Нь ending ending of the 42 months more than that of their beginning; for as I designed their beginning in latitude, so by consequent, I do their ending. If they begin between the years 365 and 455 they must end between the years 1625 and 1715. The Holy Ghost reckoneth the epocha, or beginning of Antichrist and his apostatical times, from the taking of that which hindred out of the way, that is, the then reigning imperial Sovereignty of Rome, 2 Thess. ii. 6-8, or, as St. John expresses it, from the deadly wounding of the head, or sovereignty of the Roman beast, which in his time ruled; or the shivering of the empire into a plurality of kingdom's upon that deadly wounding, Apoc. xiii. 3. with ch. xvii. 12. When the great city should cease to be the lap of that sovereignty which the Cæsars once held over the mations, and many new upstart kings should appear in the place and territory of that once one empire; then should the times of apostacy, with that wicked one, make their entrance." p. 600. When therefore INSPECTOR treats the opinion of Mede with so little respect, I hope I shall not be thought 'severe, if I request him to apply the following passage, extracted from the Lectures of the venerable Bishop of Worcester to himself:-" It seems, therefore, to be going too far to pass an indiscriminate censure on all those who have proposed their thoughts on the single prophecies not yet completed, though it be ever so clear that a wrong construction has been made of them. Nay, it is worth considering, whether they may not even have conjectured right, when they have been thought to mistake the most widely? I say this chiefly with regard to the time which some writers have before-hand assigned for the accomplishment of certain prophecies, and that on principles apparently contained in these prophecies, but so unhappily as to draw much scorn and ridicule upon themselves. I explain myself by a famous instance. Nothing has been more censured in Protestant divines, than their temerity in fixing the fall of Antichrist; though there are certain data in the prophecies from which very probable conclusions on that subject may be drawn. Experience, it is said, contradicts their calculation; but it is not considered that the fall of Antichrist is not a single event to happen all at once, but á state of things to continue through a long tract of time, and to be gradually accomplished. Hence the interpre |