the God of revelations is no other than the God of creation, the preserver and ruler of the world."

The proper data for a solution of the questions connected with the termination of the seventy weeks are thus laid down

"A clear light is thus thrown on the analysis of the last week into two parts. That last time of salvation for many in Israel, during which the old sacrifices and the Old Testament economy in general, is to cease, was brought about, as we know, through Jesus Christ and His apostles. By the division of the week into two halves, Daniel is reminded of the period of three and a half years already known to him (vii. 25.) He knows from this source, that this is the time in which the power that opposeth itself to God arrives at its culmination, during which the saints of the Most High are given into the hands of the enemy.' But this number does not, like ten, designate the power of the world in its fulness, but a power opposed indeed to the divine (which unfolds itself in the number seven), yet broken in itself, powerless, and whose highest triumph is at the same time its defeat. For, immediately after the three and a half times, judgment falls on the victorious powers of the world (vii. 25, 26.) This is the wonderful character of the last week, that, though God reveals Himself in the fulness of His covenant mercy, yet the world is in power. The Holy One of God is in the world, not in glory, but as one given into the hands of the world-power; He is there as Maschiach, but not yet as Nagid. As long as He is on earth, He is tormented by the sin and enmity of the world, and, in the end, He is delivered into the hands of sinners, who put Him to death. But while the world thinks it has triumphed, judgment has passed on it, its power is broken.-(John xii. 31.) The death of Jesus falls in the middle of the last week; His prophetic life, including the time of His precursor John, who ushered in the Messianic period, lasted about three years and a half. If, as is just, the work of the Baptist be taken into account, we shall not make the fulfilment of prophecy depend, as Hengstenberg makes it, on uncertain chronological data. That the Old Testament sacrifices and economy were abolished by the offering up of the New Testament sacrifice on the altar of the cross, was tangibly shewn by the rending asunder of the veil of the temple, for it stood in most intimate connexion with the sacrifices; as the door leading into the Holy of holies-the dwelling of Jehovah-the blood of the sacrifices of atonement was sprinkled against it, and on the great day of atonement had to be carried through it. (Lev. iv. 6, 17, xvi. 2, 15.) We regard this event as a fulfilment of our prophecy, just as earlier we claimed in that sense the superscription over the cross. Sacrifices and oblations ceased in fact and essence from that day; though they were outwardly brought for a few decennia after the death of Christ. The heavenly eye which we see throughout that the angels possess, and which sees into the heart of things and men, regarded the service of the hardened, stiff-necked, and self-righteous people, as becoming more and more an idolatrous abomination. Here we find that law of a supernatural estimate, an estimate of events according to their essence, which we have met already, and shall presently meet again. That this law does not interfere with the accuracy of our earthly chronology has already been proved." The historical events which constituted the terminating points of the period are then adduced :

"We must seek the second half of the last week, and thus the final point of the seventy weeks, in the apostolic age, between three and four years after the death of Christ. This point appears at first sight still more vague and obscure than the terminus a quo. And here we observe again the neces

sarily enigmatical character of prophecy, which we have already shewn the dignity of revelation demands, and without which prophecy would be degraded to the level of prediction and soothsaying. As we found the beginning of the seventy weeks connected with an important event which the Word of God itself points out to the careful investigator, so, in like manner, shall we find the end. A period of about from three to four years-we have no chronological data of great accuracy-must have elapsed after the death of Christ, during which the gospel was preached exclusively to Jews, and during which the congregation of Christians stood in favour with all the people (Acts ii. 47, v. 13, 14). But then persecution broke out on the side of Israel against the apostolic church; Stephen fell as the first martyr (Acts vii.) The respite given to the people after the three years' active ministry of Christ, was now at an end (Luke xiii. 6-9), and the Jews made the measure of their sins, which they had already filled by the murder of the Messiah, flowing and running over (Matt. xxiii. 32-38). The last and highest revelations of mercy were to be vouchsafed to Israel before judgment could overwhelm them; not merely the Son of God, but the Holy Spirit was to visit them (comp. Matt. xxi. 33-41, with xxiii. 34). But when the people rejected Him also, it was inwardly dead; from that day, as it was with our first parents from the day of the fall, it was already an accursed fig-tree, a branch cast away and waiting only for the fire of judgment, a carcase round which the eagles must of necessity soon gather (Mark xi. 12, &c.; John xv. 6; Matt. xxiv. 28). Thus the Acts of the Apostles, and it is worthy of all notice, turns away from the Jews after the chapter which records the death of Stephen (viii.), and describes how the gospel passed over gradually to the Gentiles. This remarkable book is thus, by its entire historic view, which Michael Baumgarten has so beautifully developed in its holy and deep symmetry, an eloquent witness for the fulfilment of our prophecy, and serves the same purpose in regard to the terminus ad quem, as Ezra and Nehemiah serve for the terminus a quo. The angel mentions also the execution of the decree of the divine judgment in Israel by the Roman world-power under Titus, but this does not strictly belong to the seventy weeks, and is also not narrated in the New Testament. The absence of this narrative in both places is to be explained by the same reason. Israel, after having rejected salvation, ceased to be the subject of sacred history, and became that of profane history alone. "The ninth chapter-such is our result-reaches, with its prophecy of both salvation and judgment, till the close of the first Messianic period, till the rejection of Christ by Israel and the consequent rejection of Israel by Christ, 'till the temporary interruption of the history which began in Abraham, by that judgment on the people of the covenant which Titus was called to execute.' From this time the kingdom of God is taken from Israel and given to the Gentiles (Matt. xxi. 43), until the second coming of the Messiah, when the covenant people will be converted, and take its place at the head of humanity (Matt. xxiii. 39; Acts i. 6, 7, vii. 3, 19-21; Rom. xi. 25–31, 15). This second coming of the Messiah in glory, and the restoration of the king. dom of Israel connected with it, Daniel beheld in the seventh chapter. The intervening period between the two Messianic epochs, or between the destruction of Jerusalem and the conversion of all Israel, which forms for the people of the covenant a great parenthesis, filled up by the fourth monarchy, is veiled from Daniel in considerable obscurity, on account of his Old Testament and Israelitish standpoint. And it is this very parenthesis which we shall see filled up by the Apocalypse of St John."

We meant to have gone over the section on the millennium in a similar way, and given our readers the substance of the author's views. But we find that this would overstretch our limits; so, at

present at least, we must content ourselves with one extract in which the author gives his general statement on the doctrine in question :

"Daniel and St John both describe the millennial kingdom, but from different points of view. The prophet of the Old Testament, quite in harmony with the stand-point of the Old Covenant, describes chiefly the earthly; the New Testament Apocalypse, chiefly the spiritual aspect of the coming of the kingdom of God. And, as we have noticed before, that both apocalyptic books are consummations of the entire prophecy of their respective Testaments, so it is here. Dan. ii. 35, 44, vii. 13, 27, contain a short summary of all Old Testament; Rev. xx. 1-6, a summary of all New Testament prophecy, concerning the kingdom of glory upon earth. A great number of prophetic passages, and many beautiful and deep passages in gospels and epistles, serve to fill up these grand general outlines. Nor are there passages wanting in the New Testament, which form connecting links between the earthly and spiritual mode of viewing the kingdom.

"It will be useful to consider all these points carefully, since the doctrine of the millennial kingdom is sadly misrepresented and neglected. And very unjustly. For this doctrine does not rest, as is often thought, upon an isolated passage in the Apocalyse, but the whole prophecy of the Old Covenant cannot be rightly understood without it. And, with regard to the New Testament, the fundamental idea of the doctrine of Christ, in which is concentrated the sum and substance of Messianic prophecy, the idea of the kingdom of God indicates, by its very name, its close relation to the doctrine now under consideration. The general view on this subject is, that the Lord Jesus preached an exclusively internal, moral, spiritual kingdom of God, in opposition to the external and carnal Messianic expectations of the Jewish people. But as the Jews, at the time of our Saviour, had fallen into a materialistic extreme, so the current view of our days runs into the opposite spiritualistic extreme. It is true that it was necessary for our Lord to oppose the carnal expectations of the nation, and to insist, with double emphasis, on the spiritual internal conditions of partaking in the kingdom, namely, repentance and faith. But He by no means dissolves the kingdom into mere inwardness; but it is to Him, as Schmidt expresses it, the divine order of things, which is realised by Him, the Messiah, and which develops itself from within outwardly. Thus, the kingdom of God has different periods; it is come in Christ (Matt. xii. 28); it spreads in the world by internal, spiritual, hidden processes (Matt. xiii. 33); but as a kingdom, in the strict sense of the word, in royal glory, it shall only come with the Parousia of Christ (Luke xix. 11, 12, 15), even as we are, according to Christ's command, to pray even now, day after day, Thy kingdom come.-(Matt. vi. 10.) And hereby is not meant the eternal blessedness after final judgment, which, is, indeed, the last and perfect consummation of the kingdom (Matt. xxv. 34); but, anterior to that event, it shall come as an earthly, Jewish, although not carnal, kingdom of glory. Thus the prophets described it, and Jesus does in no way contradict them, but, on the contrary, presupposing their prophecies, his own prophecies start from them.-(Matt. xix. 28; Acts i. 6-8.) Jesus was, consequently, as all prophets and apostles were, a Chiliast.

"Lechler, whose sobriety of judgment is well known, makes the following remark on St Paul: A number of expressions in the Epistles of St Paul point to an earthly kingdom of glory, as is clear to every unprejudiced reader; and of all eschatological points, this is the one on which his epistles are most unanimous.' Two extremes must be carefully avoided. The details of the future kingdom must not be described, or painted more distinctly and circumstantially than ne statements of the divine word warrant; but, on the

other hand, we are as little justified in spiritualising and etherealising the numerous sayings of the Lord, and His prophets and apostles, or in explaining them away by a tortuous interpretation. And the latter is the predominant mistake, even with orthodox commentators. Not only Rationalism, but even before the appearance of Rationalism, the Church had lost the understanding of the grand divine development of the kingdom. That very thing happened to us Gentile-Christians, against which the apostle Paul gave us such emphatic warning (Rom. xi. 17); we have forgotten that we are wild branches grafted into the noble olive tree of Israel; we have become fixed in the unbiblical idea, that Christianity is only for ourselves and for worldrelations like the present; we do not think much about the people of the election and the future of Israel, and hence also little about Chiliasm; our eschatological ideas are confined to the blessedness in heaven, and it is only in a very external and unconnected way that we think of the final judgment as a consummation in the distant background. And yet only Roman Catholicism ought consistently to oppose such a view of the relationship subsisting between world and kingdom of God, as we have derived in the preceding pages from the statements of Scripture. For the Papacy is, in its inmost essence, a false anticipation of the millennial kingdom during the Church historical period-a confusion of Church and kingdom; the rights, Roos remarks (p. 121, 125), which Rome as a harlot usurped, shall then be exercised in holiness by the bride of the Lamb. The Reformation, which was sent to direct us again to rest on faith alone, ought to have cured us of similar strong errors current among Protestants now-a-days, according to which, instead of believing, people wish to see and to do works. The evangelical principle of faith cannot be thoroughly and perfectly comprehended, except by the biblical fundamental view of the divine kingdom and its development. And to enter into this view by a deep study of the prophetic word is the task of modern theology. The reason why the Lord offers this understanding to His Church at this present time, in ways so manifold and different, is because she requires it for the struggles that await her. Otinger already says-' Of the conversion of the Jews, theologians speak only exegetically, nay even problematically, and this is much more the case with reference to the millennial kingdom. Why? Because the measure of knowledge vouchsafed to former times could not contain these doctrines. But, in our days, a clearer knowledge is developing. And even now, we can see more clearly the connexion of the Articles of Faith and Eschatology.""

We most earnestly commend this able and interesting volume to our readers. It will be found worthy of more than one perusal. And we thank the publisher for having given us, in this German work, such a thorough and effectual antidote to the anti-millenarian volumes which he has lately been issuing. In Auberlen we have the "unanswerable answer" to them all. What a weakness and poverty appear about them when set side by side with this rich, fresh, vigorous effusion of sanctified German genius.

ART. III.—THE APOCALYPSE, DANIEL, AND ZECHARIAH.

SOME Commentators think that St John was banished to Patmos by Nero, that the apocalyptic visions were vouchsafed to him in the reign of this emperor, and, therefore, that the second verse of the eleventh chapter contains a prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus, the son of Vespasian. We hope to have an early opportunity of advocating the Domitianic* date of the apostle's exile to Patmos, and we here take for granted that the verse in question alludes to events which were to occur long after the times of Vespasian.

If we pay attention to the language of the mighty angel (Rev. ix. 1–7), we shall probably be inclined to conclude that, with reference to the chronology of the vision, he appears not long before the seventh trumpet begins to sound :-" And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that are therein, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be delay (xpovos) no longer but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery † of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets."

It was not until after the apostle had witnessed the occurrence of the leading events under the sixth trumpet that the mighty angel appears in the vision, "and sets his right foot

*In the Correspondence of the last No. of this Journal will be found part of a defence of the Domitianic date of the Apocalypse; the concluding part will, with the Editor's permission, speedily appear.

Hence the appearance of the mighty angel would seem to be for the very purpose of introducing and ushering in the speedily-approaching (in the chronology of the vision) voice of the seventh trumpet, and of the momentous events which are, after an apparently long delay, immediately to precede the full accomplishment of the mystery of God. And, in the very fitness of things, and according to the analogy of Scripture, we should rather, much rather, expect that the promise of no further delay should be graciously confirmed by an oath to the anxious, often disappointed, and longing church, than that the disheartening declaration that a long and wearisome period of many centuries was yet to pass before the sounding of the seventh trumpet should be ratified by an oath. We shall speak hereafter of "the man clothed in linen (Dan. xii. 7) who, with uplifted hands, sware that (it shall be) for a time, times, and a half, and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished." There is doubtless an intimate chronological connexion between the accomplishing of the scattering of the holy people and "the finishing of the mystery of God."