Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/52

 Jerusalem, if we understand it literally, shall be freed from his pollutions, and if we take it mystically, when the Holy Catholic Church shall be delivered from the defiling contact of his impious conflict. By the term two thousand three hundred days, we understand symbolical or prophetic days, that is, according to the interpretation given to the word day, in the prophecy of the seventy weeks of days. (Dan. ix. 24). Days, which signify and symbolize years. That in the prophecy of the seventy weeks a day symbolized a year, no one, who compares the event with the prediction, will for a moment deny. Seventy weeks would amount to four hundred and ninety days, and it was precisely at the close of four hundred and ninety years from the time specified to the Prophet, that our Lord's advent took place; the conclusion, therefore, of all Christian interpreters has been that the term week in that prophecy must signify a period of seven prophetic days, each day symbolizing a year. And if in one prophecy the event has proved the necessity of this interpretation, there is every reason from analogy to conclude that the same method of interpretation is to be observed in regard to the meaning of other prophetic periods also. And what tends still further to corroborate this are the words of God Himself to Moses, recorded in the Book of Numbers (Numb. xiv. 34); "according to