First, then, it must be allowed that the concurrent testimony of the great mass of Protestant interpreters, the nearly unanimous voice of the Protestant church, furnishes a _prestige_ in favour of the Year-day principle. If it do not supply an argument it creates a favourable feeling, which is worthy of a better name than “prejudice.” It is a prepossession, but a prepossession founded on perfectly just ground, namely, that wherever men of learning and research, as well as Christian people at large, have long and tenaciously held any particular view, there must be something in that view that has a better foundation than its assailants are willing to allow. This is certainly very different from “calling up the names of illustrious dead, as the infallible expounders of the Bible;” and from “giving our language the semblance of {xv} assuming that, to differ from current opinions, is to disown Protestantism and favour Romanism.” That there is something in this presumptive argument, which we seek to build on Protestant opinion, is obvious from the anxiety that is manifested to make out that the principle or theory in question has, in reality, no connection with the reformers and the Protestant cause. “The statement,” it is said, “that certain applications of the Apocalypse caused or promoted the Reformation is wholly incorrect. It is absolutely false. _A spiritual apprehension of the simple gospel_, accompanied with the power of the Spirit, led these illustrious men to separate from the Romish church. And then it should be remembered, by those who write like Bush of the reformers and the ‘Protestant’ interpretation, that not one of the reformers understood a _day_ in prophecy to mean a _year_. To talk of the reformers, therefore, in connection with this so-called ‘Protestant’ notion, is worse than trifling. It conveys a false impression.”[11] Two questions are involved here:――How far the reformers made use of the Apocalypse in their controversy with Papists? and whether the Year-day principle may be regarded as a “Protestant” notion? The fact is, in regard to the first question, that the Waldenses and Wickliffites, previous to the Reformation, drew their weapons from the Apocalypse; and if we do not present references or quotations to prove it, it is just because the matter seems too plain to admit of any doubt. One testimony shall suffice, namely, that of Walter Brute, A.D. 1391. According to Foxe, the martyrologist, he was “a layman, and learned and brought up in the University of Oxford, being there a graduate.” He was accused of saying, among sundry other things, that the _Pope_ is Antichrist, and a seducer of the people. Being called to answer, he put in, first, certain more brief “exhibits;” then another declaration, more ample, explaining and setting forth the grounds of his opinion. _His defence was grounded very mainly on the Apocalyptic prophecy._ For he at once bases his justification on the fact, as demonstrable, of the _pope_ answering