the Christian faith, but return to their former idolatry again, as soon as the hope of their gain is gone. For this is a very old practice, and may be traced through all the ages of Christianity.. Our Blessed Redeemer himself complained, that some would seek him only for the sake of the loaves they did cat; and the Apostle of the Gentiles taketh notice of some who professed god. liness for the sake of gain and preferments; and yet did neither the Lord himself, nor the apostle sent by him, give over the preaching of the Gospel for that reason."

In the next number I propose to resume the thread of the narrative respecting the progress of the Indian missions; without stopping to remark how complete is the reply which the above extracts furnish to some pretended advocates for theSociety for promoting Christian Knowledge who have lately appeared be fore the public.

(To be continued.)

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

DURING the controversy between Mr. Faber and myself, which lately occupied a portion of your pages, the respectable author complained, that I continued to quote the first edition of his work on the 1260 years, and to attack positions which he had long since abandoned.

Having lately obtained the fourth edition of his Dissertation, I am desirous of offering to the consideration of the students of Prophecy some remarks upon what Mr. Faber therein states respecting the chronology of Daniel's Vision of the Ram and He-goat, Dan. viii.

Mr. Faber observes (vol i. page 287) that the large period mentioned by the Angel in Dan. viii. 14, is the period of the duration of the whole vision. Any hypothesis, therefore, which computes the period from such an era as to exclude a part of the vision, must necessarily, on that very account, be erroneous. In

the justice of this position I completely concur.

Mr. Faber next says, "The vision itself opens with Daniel's beholding the Medo-Persian Ram standing still on the bank of his river, and having two horns. The manner in which the two horns arose is next briefly, and as it were parenthetically, mentioned: but it does not appear that the prophet himself saw them arise, though he gives us the history of their rise; because the Ram is said to have already had two horns, when be first beheld it. Afterwards he sees the Ram successfully pushing westward, northward and southward."

I agree with Mr. Faber, that the manner in which the two horns of the Ram arose, is mentioned by the Prophet parenthetically: and sbat Daniel himself did not see them arise.-The commencement of the vision belongs, therefore, to a period when the Medo-Persian empire was already established, and the two kingdoms of Media and Persia were already united under one imperial government. Now this did not happen till the year A. C. 536, when Cyrus, upon the death of his uncle Cyaxares, became sole monarch of the kingdoms of Media and Persia. Therefore the date of the vision caunot be prior to the above year. In this conclusion I have the decided support of Mr. Faber (vol. i. page 299), and thus far we are agreed.

But Mr. Faber thinks that the vision opens "with Daniel's beholding the Medo-Persian Ram standing still,” and that he afterwards saw the Ram pushing westward, northward and southward. I am sorry to be obliged to differ from the learned author upon both these points. First I deny that when Daniel first saw the Ram he was standing still, or in a state of quiescence. Secondly I deny that the pushing of the Ram was posterior to his standing.

The Hebrew word y which is used for the standing of the Ram, in Dan. viii. 3. sometimes indeed signifies to stand still, in opposition motion; but it much more frequent

denotes standing as opposed to absence or non-existence. It occurs no less than ten times in the viiith of Daniel; viz. in ver. 3, 4, 6, 7, 15, 18, 22, 23, and 25; and in by far the greater number of these passages it would be absurd to understand it as denoting a state of quiescence: that Mr. Faber should choose to render it in this sense in the 3d verse, is, therefore, an assumption of the point in dispute. It is quite arbitrary to assign to the word a meaning in the 3d verse, which it will not bear in the other verses of the same chapter.

The idiom of the Hebrew, in this passage, seems to me likewise to contradict Mr. Faber's interpretation. I believe it to be the invariable practice of the sacred writers, to mark the succession of time, or the successive order of events, by the insertion of the conjunctive particle 1, between the different verbs in the same sentence, or period, which express successive events. On referring to Dan. viii. 3, 4, it will be found that there is no to mark any succession of time, between the standing and pushing of the Ram: and if we leave out the parenthesis relating to the horns, the following seems to be the literal rendering of the whole passage, ver. 2, 4. "And I saw in vision, and it came to pass when I saw, that I was at Shushan, the palace which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in vision, and I was by the river of Ulai; and I lifted up mine eyes and beheld; and lo, a Ram (was) standing before the river, and he had (two) horns: I saw the Ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward, and no beasts could stand before him." Now even an English reader must see that Mr. Faber is not warranted by the words of the Prophet in saying, that Daniel first saw the Ram standing still, and afterwards saw him pushing; and as the verb rendered "standing" seems to be in the participle present (Benoni); and the word for pushing in is also in the participle present, I

am, from the idiom of the Hebrew, led to form a conclusion precisely the reverse of Mr. Faber's; for it appears to me, that when the prophet first saw the Ram, he was in the very act of butting with his horns westward, &c.

And from what is said in verse 7, it is quite evident that the pushing of the Ram was not subsequent to his standing, but contemporaneous therewith: for it is there mentioned, that, upon the attack of the He-goat, "there was no power in the Ram to stand by before him." Till the attack of the He-goat, therefore, the Ram continued to stand; and then he stood no longer. Consequently, the standing of the Ram continued till the year A. C. 330, when he was overthrown by the He-goat, Alexander the Great, which is decidedly contrary to Mr. Faber's present scheme, though it be quite agreeable to the interpretation of the standing of the Ram, which Mr. Faber himself adopted in the first edition of his Dissertation.

Having thus, as I hope, shewn, that when Daniel first saw the Ram he was in the act of pushing westward, northward and southward; the next inquiry is, to what period of the Persian History this pushing of the Ram corresponds.-And here I am happy again to be able to express my concurrence with Mr. Faber, who applies the pushing of the Ram to the conquests of the Persian Empire in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, by which, in the north and west, Thrace and Macedon and the Ionian Isles were added to the Empire, and India in the south.-These conquests took place, according to the chronology of Prideaux, between the years A. Č. 513 and 497, and it was about the year A. C. 508 (according to Rollin) that Darius first invaded India, which answers to the pushing of the Ram southward. I therefore concur with Mr. Faber, in thinking that the date of the commencement of the vision cannot be posterior to the year A. C. 508.

There is, indeed, no period of the

Persian History, excepting the reign of Darius, which corresponds with the pushing of the Ram, as seen by Daniel for it is mentioned, in verse 4, as the result of these pushings, that the Ram did according to his will, and became great." Accordingly it is said of Darius, by Rollin, vol iii., p. 110: "There have been few princes more expert than he in the art of governing, and more experienced in the business of war. Nor was the glory of being a conqueror, if that may be called a glory, wanting to his character, for he not only restored and entirely confirmed the Empire of Cyrus, which had been very much shaken by the ill conduct of Cambyses and the Ma gian Impostor; but he likewise added to it many great and rich provinces, and particularly India, Thrace, Macedonia, and the isles contiguous to the coasts of Ionia."

Soon after the death of Darius, the unfortunate expedition of Xerxes against Greece was undertaken; and from that expedition the decline of the Persian Empire may be dated. Consequently nothing took place after the reign of Darius Hystaspes, answering to the actions of the Ram when first seen by Daniel.---Neither did any thing take place from the accession of Cyrus, in the year A. C. 536, till the reign of Darius Hystaspes, which corresponds with the actions of the symbolical Ram, at the opening of the vision; for the last years of Cyrus seem not to have been distinguished by any conquests; and in the reigns of Camby ses and the Magian Impostor, the empire did not become great, as is said in verse 4, but, on, the contrary was much shaken.

The result of the whole is, that the beginning of the vision of the Ram, when Daniel saw him standing before the river, and pushing, must be placed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, and that it answers to no other period of the Persian History: and, consequently, that the large period mentioned in Dan. viii.

, is to be dated from the same era.

The next object of inquiry, in determining the chronology of this vision, is to ascertain at what prophetical period the number mentioned in verse 14 terminates---And, for the reasons assigned by Mr. Faber (vol. i. page 266), I think it quite manifest, that, it terminates exactly at the same time with the 1260 years. This, indeed, may be proved without difficulty. At the end of the large period mentioned in Dan. viii. 14, the Sanctuary, i. e. the visible church, is to be cleansed or justified. At the conclusion of the 1260 years, the judgment sits to take away and destroy the dominion of the Papacy: (Dan. viii, 26). the witnesses cease to prophesy in sackcloth (Rev. xi. 3), and the Church of Christ begins to emerge from the wilderness (Rev. xii. 6.) At the end of the same period, as I think (though Mr. Faber disputes it), the vials of wrath begin to be poured out upon the enemies of the church, (Rev. xv. and xvi.) Now these different events, which are to happen at the end of the 1260 years, seem to be precisely the same with what is intended by the cleansing of the sanctuary, which is to take place at the end of the large period in Dan. viii. 14. Therefore we must conclude, that the two periods, viz. the 1200 years and the large number in Dan. viii. 14, both terminate together.

Having ascertained this point, I shall now endeavour to establish which is the genuine reading of the number in Dan. viii. 14. The Hebrew Bibles read 2500 days in this passage, and our English Bibles, of course, follow the Hebrew text.--The LXX. read 2400 days: and certain copies mentioned by Jerome read 2200 days; but these copies are not now in existence. Before I enter upon the inquiry which of these is the genuine reading, it is proper that I should take some notice of what Mr. Faber has advanced on this subject.

The argument of the learned au thor upon this point is founded up

mine this, all that is necessary is, to submit to the reader the different readings in Greek and Hebrew.--As the thousands in all the readings correspond, I shall only insert the Hebrew and Greek for the hundreds of the different readings, viz. 2400, 2300, and 2200. The Hebrew for the hundreds of these numbers is as follows, the first, ND vs the second, MD wow and the third,

This appears to me to be a very unusual mode of settling a doubtful reading.---Instead of first establishing the genuine reading by the ordinary rules of criticism, and then calculating the beginning and end of the period; it first takes for granted that the period is to end at a particular time, and thence deduces what is the true reading of the number. But surely the respectable author ought to have considered, that to build an argument for altering the text of our Hebrew Bibles, on premises which are at least doubtful, and which Mr. Faber himself nov allows to be only conjectural, is not only illegitimate, but that it establishes a principle, of which a very dangerous use might be made by those who deny the deity and atonement of Christ. It seems enough for me, in answer to Mr. Faber's reasoning, to say that I deny his premises, as the events of the present time seem to me to shew that the 1260 years are already past.

I next proceed to inquire which is the genuine reading of the number in Dan. viii. 14.---It will not be denied, that the two erroneous readings must have originated in the carelessness and consequent mistakes of the transcribers, either of the Hebrew text, or the Greek versions.---We ought, therefore, to ascertain, whether the Hebrew text, or the Greek copies most easily admitted of such errors from the carelessness of copyists; and to deter

σial, and pianoriai, and Saxo

σιαί.

Let it be allowed, for the sake of argument, that the attention and care of the Greek and Hebrew copyists were equal, which, however, admits of much doubt, as the extraordinary care of the Jews to maintain the purity of the Hebrew text is well known and generally acknowledged; yet it is obvious, even upon that supposition, that the mistakes can scarcely have happened in the Hebrew text, while their occurrence in the Greek versions is quite probable. For if the original reading accorded with that in our present Bibles, then, in the Greek version, it must have been тpianoriai. Now how easy was it for a transcriber, even if not remarkable for carelessness, to convert the rpa inte reps, or even dia. In either case the mistake is only one of two or three letters.---But, on the other hand, the three readings in Hebrew are so dissimilar, that it is impossible to conceive that the most careless copyist, should have substituted the one for the other.---When also we consider the great care taken by Ezra, in bequeathing to the Church a correct edition of the Hebrew Scriptures; and that Ezra was inspired, and that his parents must have been contemporaries of the Prophet Daniel, and that he might even be in possession of the original copy of Daniel's Prophecies: when we also reflect upon the scrupulous care taken by the Jews, after his time, in preserving the purity of the sacred text, and that even our Lord himself did never charge them with

carelessness in this respect, it seems entirely improbable, not impossible, that the errors in the reading of the number in Dan. viii. 14 should have occurred in the Hebrew text; and we must, according to every rule of legitimate criticism, infer, that two thousand three hundred is the genuine reading, and that 2400, read by the LXX. and 2200, by Jerome's copies, were errors originally arising from the carelessness of the Greek transcribers.

I am happy to be able to confirm this conclusion, by the authority of the manuscripts brought from the East by the Revd. Dr. Buchanan. I am enabled to state, that the texts of Dan. viii. 14, in the Syriac Bible, and in two other copies of his collection, have been minutely examined, and that the reading exactly conforms to the printed text in the three Syriac copies, and does not countenance the Greek variation.

Since, therefore, the reading of our present English Bibles is established, and since, as has already been seen, we must compute the two thousand three hundred years from the conquests of Darius Hystaspes, and that Mr. Faber himself allows that they cannot be reckoned from a later period than the year A. C. 508, when Darius invaded India, (the Ram then first pushing south) it follows undeniably that they are already expired, and also that the 1260 years which conterminate therewith, are elapsed.---And if we compute the large number from the year A. C. 508, when the Persian Ram first pushed south, and when he was also, most probably, occupied in consolidating his conquests in Thrace and Macedonia, and was thus pushing westward, northward and southward at one and the same time, we are led down to the me

*

morable year 1792, when, according to Mr. Faber, the seventh trumpet sounded; which is also precisely 1260 current years from the date of Justinian's Decree, and Epistle to the Pope.

These acts of Justinian have already been fully considered by me in a former paper, but there is one point of view in which I did not then consider them. As the Emperor, in his Decree, not only declared the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God, but denounced an anathema against all deniers of this doctrine; and as the Pope, in his answer to the Imperial Epistle, did solemnly sanction the Imperial Decree by his authority; we may, from these acts, date not only the recog nition of the papal supremacy, but also the establishment of idolatry in the visible church; for no Christian will deny, that to give to the creature any portion of that honour or worship which is due to God and to Christ only, is idolatry; and when the Virgin Mary was declared to be the Mother of God, her worship followed as a necessary conse quence. And when idolatry is thus established by supreme civil and ecclesiastical authority, and all who oppose it are treated as heretics, and exposed both to ecclesiastical and civil penalties, it amounts to what (in Dan.viii. 12, 13, xi. 31, and xii. 11) is called a setting up of the abomination that maketh desolate.

Now all this took place, at the promulgation of the Edict of Justi nian, in March, A. D. 533. From this date, therefore, the visible Church was trampled under foot of the Gentiles, the witnesses began to prophesy in sackcloth, and the abomination of desolation was set up. At the same date, by the Imperial Epistle acknowledging the Pope to be the head of the Church, the Saints were delivered into the hands of the little horn, Dan. viii. 25. I am, Sir, &c.

18th Sept. 1810.

TALIB.