1260 days, of one month or 30 days, and of one month and an half or 45 days, each day representing a complete solar year, which periods are mentioned in the prophecies themselves; while the civil periods consist of sacred or perfect numbers, and being those of the duration of the several prophetic visions above enumerated, are not (excepting in one instance out of the three) verbally stated therein.

The first of these civil periods is of 2401 years, with the additional period of 49, constituting, together, the 2450 years of Gentile domination, or the duration of the vision of the great Image of Dan. ii. The second is of 1225 years, the duration of Mahometanism, or of the vision of the three woe-trumpets of St. John, (Rev. viii. 13,) being the half, or the dividing of the preceding period of 2450 years, and ending in the same year. The third is of 2400 years, or the duration of the Vision of the Ram and He-goat of Daniel viii., relating also to Mahometanism, and ending in the same year as both the preceding visions. The 2401, the 49, and the 1225 are square numbers, the 2400 is also a sacred number*, and as such employed in the institutions appointed for the service of the temple, and of Solomon's throne. 1 Chron. xxiii. 4, xxvii. 1—15.

As the testimony of Jesus Christ is the spirit and great object of prophecy, so it will be found that the prophecies containing the ecclesiastical and civil periods have reference, respectively, to the distinct offices of Christ; the former to his priestly office, as the Head and Redeemer of his church; the latter to his regal office, as King and Creator of the world: and farther, that these periods do not coincide with, but intersect each other like the Jewish civil and ecclesiastical years, where the distinction had * See Theory of Sacred Numbers, Combined View, Edit. 1826, p. 260-265.

doubtless a corresponding typical import, and of which the one began about the autumnal, the other near the vernal equinox. Esth. iii. 7. Deut. xvi. 1. Exod. xii. 2.

:

The Jubilee, one of the most remarkable of the institutions of the Levitical law, indicates the same period, and refers to the same final event, as does the vision of the great Image of Daniel. It is thus described, Levit. xxv. 8-16: 66 Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years, and the space of seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a Jubilee unto you and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." And in the subsequent verses, where they are prohibited from selling their land for a longer period than till the next Jubilee, it is said, "I am the Lord your God,-the land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine." That this type had a prophetic import cannot be doubted, since the Passover and all the other ancient feasts and typical ordinances of the ceremonial law may be justly considered as having been prophetic of events future at the time of their institution; and several of these, which related to events still future when the Apocalypse was written, are referred to and have their typical meaning greatly illustrated therein. The jubilee then being viewed in connection with the many direct promises which are to be found in the Scriptures to the same effect, cannot but be considered as containing a most striking and impressive prediction that the Jews should be again, in the latter days, put in possession

of that land of which God had sworn to Abraham, that he would give it to him, and to his seed for ever.

The jubilee was connected with that day on which, once in every year, atonement was made for the holy sanctuary, and for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation; when all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins were confessed over the head of the Scape-goat, and borne away into a land of forgetfulness (Levit. xvi.), for it was on the eve of this day that the Jubilee trumpet was first to sound, (Levit. xxv. 9.); and this as a typical promise, that God would hereafter put away the sins of his ancient people, through the atoning blood of Christ, is naturally united with the similar promise contained in the institution of the Jubilee, that they should be restored in the latter days to their own land, and to their former national privileges.

Another circumstance particularly worthy of remark is, that in the only three places of the Apocalypse of St. John, where the pouring out of the vials of wrath upon the apostate Gentile church and nations is mentioned, there is a direct reference made to this day of atonement. As, first, in Rev. viii. 3-5, where the representation of the incense ascending up before God out of the angel's hand, who here personifies the high priest making atonement for the people (see Levit. xvi. 12, 13.), is prefatory to the earthquake of the seventh vial.-And in Rev. xi. 19, previously to a second introduction of the events of this vial, it is said, that "the temple of God in heaven,” or the holy of holies "was opened, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament," a circumstance which only occurred in the whole course of the Jewish year, on the day of atonement.-And thirdly, in Rev. xv. 5, in the preface to the detailed account of all the seven vials, it is

again said, that "the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened;" and it is from the holy of holies, so opened as on the day of atonement, that the 'seven angels go forth to pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And where it is farther said (Rev. xv. 8) that "no man was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven vials were fulfilled;" the period of these vials is again identified with the day of atonement, an allusion being evidently here made to the Levitical law (Lev. xvi. 17), that no man should be in the tabernacle of the congregation while the priest went into the holy of holies to make atonement. And as the Gentile Church, upon which the vials of wrath are poured out, cannot at one and the same time be the object of rejection. and wrath, and of reconciliation and forgiveness, it is evident that the Jewish nation also is here referred to, as in chap. i. 7*; and that the important and interesting truth, conveyed by this constant union in the apocalypse, of the ceremonies of the day of atonement, and the pouring out of these vials; and in Isaiah lxi. 2, lxiii. 4, by the union of "the acceptable year of the Lord," (or the year of Jubilee,) with "the day of vengeance of God," is this; that as the rejection of the Jews was formerly the bringing in of the Gentiles; so the period of the pouring out of the vials of wrath, or of God's casting off the apostate Gentile church, and those nations who have so long held his ancient people in bondage, shall also be the period of their reconciliation, and of their restoration to their own land; by whose instrumentality, as we know from other prophecies, the whole world shall eventually be brought into the faith of the gospel. Ezek. xlvii. 1—9.

Thus it will appear, that whether we refer to the first promises of Scripture, and there read, that to Abraham *Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him."

and to his seed the land of Judea, the appointed scene of the sufferings and of the subsequent glory of the Messiah, was given as an unalienable inheritance; or to the book of the apocalypse, which teaches us through its allusion to the day of atonement that the last great act of judgment upon the Gentiles introduces the fulfilment of this ancient promise, with all the important blessings to the world at large which are connected with it; or whether we refer to any of the prophecies and typical institutions of the intervening period; we find one eternal purpose of mercy gradually revealed as time advances; and are led, from the partial light thus obtained, to adopt the language used by the apostle of the Gentiles, in like reference to the mysteries of the Jewish and Gentile dispensations, "O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! "

I must defer, till my next letter, the explanation of the manner in which the Jubilee beginning on the day of atonement, and connected with the vision of the Great Image, also the vision of the Ram and He-Goat, and that of the three Woe-trumpets of the sealed Book of St. John, unitedly point to one epoch, when all these promises of Scripture to the Jews, and in them to the Church universal, will receive their full accomplishment.