teacher; but as that is not done, we cannot consent to lower Divine Revelation to a mere utterer of puzzles, the mystery of which any profane hand may try its skill in endeavouring to. solve.f

What, then, is the sum of our previous arguments, the scope and design of our observations? Do we intend to discourage the study of the Apocalypse? By no means, for then we should be as presumptuous as those whose morbid exegesis we are condemning. But we would have the study pursued in due proportion, and with some regard to the rules of interpretative evidence. Assailed on all sides by an intrusive, and often an insolent school of expositors, we are either called upon to take all their dicta for granted, or are charged with being indifferent to the claims of truth, and contemners of the true sayings of God. We deny these charges, and think we can justify ourselves to others, as we certainly can to our own consciences, by adopting a method entirely different from that claimed by our opponents as the

ƒ That other methods of explaining the number of the beast are possible, might be shewn by quotations from learned and sensible writers; but we will give one only, from Durham on the Apocalypse, the work of a Scotch divine of the seventeenth century. We may mention that we are indebted for the extract to Mr. Clissold's voluminous edition of Swedenborg's Spiritual Exposition of the Apocalypse, London: 1851; a work of great erudition and which may be profitably consulted for facts by those who have little or no sympathy with its doctrines.

"To count here is not then by arithmetic to number out of a name, and to cast up a sum by so many figures, but doctrinally and judiciously to weigh the matter of that heresy or the nature of that beast; so the Lord is said to have numbered Belshazzar, Dan. v., and to have found him light. Because by this way of putting particulars together, the judicious searchers will find him exactly out, whether he be agreeable or disagreeable to the rule or character given, as arithmeticians will do by their reckonings. Of this sort of reckoning there are diverse examples in Scripture, but of reckoning from the letters or figures of a name there is none. The first implyeth a particular exact search, as if everything in him were considered by itself particularly, and put together again in whole, as arithmeticians do in their countings. This is confirmed by considering the qualification of him who is invited to number, 'Let him that hath understanding,' that is, not understanding in reckoning and arithmetic, but in the discerning of the spiritual truths of God, especially of the characters of Antichrist formerly given, and prudence to apply them where he shall discern them to be. This saith, not that none other should count: the duty is common: but it saith few will take it to them and find it out, and that no other will come speed but they that take the same balance of the sanctuary and spiritual wisdom to discern with; yet it is put to men's doors to essay this, but with much deniednesse and humility.... Or, by the number of a man may be understood a number not having God but a man for its author, and not being approven of God, but invented of man, whatever there be pretended; thus, there are in Scripture such phrases, the wisdom of a man, the law of a man, the will of a man, in opposition to the wisdom, will, and law, of God. Thus, the reason runneth: let spiritual wise men consider her and reckon well; for it will be found that this beast's number or doctrine is not of God but of man, whatever be pretended; even as that statue, Dan. iii., might be called the image of a man or of the king; not because it represented him, but because it was instituted by him. Neither of these will be disagreeable to the scope and truth."

only true one. They affirm that the Revelation must be a prophecy of things to transpire in all ages of the Church, and that the finger can be placed upon events of past ages and the present time which are evidently intended to be pointed out by its descriptions and denunciations. We reply that this is a mere gratis dictum, and that all the requirements of the case may be met by supposing that this sublime book was designed to instruct and support the Church in an earlier age, and that its details may have to us, not a direct but an inferential interest. This view, we maintain, allows the Apocalypse to be a source of devout contemplation and religious profit, without entailing the necessity of curious prying into mysteries, or a waste of energy in matters unrevealed and of doubtful import. Some stop should at all events be put to the crude and licentious speculation of which this book is the subject, and we think the course we have marked out will tend, in some degree, to such a result.

It may be necessary to state that we are far from involving all expositors of the Revelation in the charges we have been preferring, although they may think that the historical interpretation may be legitimately pursued. There is a learned, and devout, and tasteful method of pursuing what may prove a false exegesis, as well as one which is ignorant, irreverent, and rude, and it is the advocates and exhibitors of the latter alone that we wish to condemn. But it is worthy of serious inquiry whether the entire method of exposition we are speaking of is not in itself vicious, and whether it does not necessarily lead to the abuses we desire to condemn. If one man may feel justified in finding the name of the Beast in LATEINOS, what reason can be alleged why another should not discover it in LUTHER, as has been attempted by a writer of the Romish Church; or in any other name which he can torture to utter the requisite number, and which may seem to him to designate the error or the vice of the passing age? In other departments of sacred criticism and interpretation there is a scientific method of procedure which lays a restraint on false doctrine, and compels all Christendom to something like unanimity, when a character for scholarship has to be maintained. How signally, for instance, has Socinian doctrine been repressed and confuted by the application of rules which are acknowledged to be true, and which to question would be a mere return to barbarism? But can we predicate any of this moral certainty of the principles of those who swell the stock of Apocalyptic literature? So far from this being the case, every man is his own lawgiver, and adopts critical rules of his own, pro re nata, without the power of claiming the assent of any but his own disciples. This is a great evil, and its bitter

fruits are being reaped in almost every section of the visible Church.

We shall now endeavour briefly to state some of the causes which have led to the morbid activity in this department of biblical interpretation: to the one-sided and disproportioned mental labour bestowed upon the Apocalypse. We do so in the earnest hope that, as far as our opinions are correct, they may induce more carefulness in writers on matters relating to Holy Scripture, and lead to a less fruitful production of scandals both to believers ard infidels.

First, we are compelled to place a love of popularity as one cause of undue speculation on the Apocalypse. As no man would confess to this, we may be thought uncharitable in attributing such a motive, but as there are means of attaining to some moral convictions respecting the principles which animate our fellow-creatures in their overt acts, we think we may justly arrive at such a conclusion. This courting the aura popularis is perhaps more evident in preachers than in writers of treatises, because reason and argument are less necessary in the pulpit than in the study, and also because it is so easy to move a mixed multitude by an affectation of depth, an assumption of skill in the elucidation of mysteries. When a popular preacher took some trouble to prove to his audience, during the late war, that Sebastopol was Armageddon, contrary to all philology and all common sense, we are obliged to attribute his doing so either to mental imbecility or to a pandering to the populace; and as we have evidence that it could not be the former, we are compelled to adopt the latter supposition. It is a sad feature of our times

g While we are writing we see advertised a course of lectures in a Scotch place of worship in London, of which the following is the synopsis :

HE Rev.

-will in the

:

CHURCH,

"Talkin street West, Belgrave, square, & COURSE of SIX LECTURES,

the Prophecy on the Mount of Olives, on TUESDAY AFTERNOONS at Three o'Clock. The First Lecture will be given to-morrow (Tuesday), the 23rd. The following is the Course of Lectures :

"I. (June 23.) The Fall of Jerusalem. Matt. xxiv. 1.

"II. (June 30.) Warning Signs. Matt. xxiv. 12.

"III. (July 7.) The Witness to all Nations. Matt. xxiv. 14.

"IV. (July 14.) False Prophets and Signs. Matt. xxiv. 24.

"V. (July 21.) The Great Conflagration.

"VI. (July 28.) The Last Separation.

"To prevent any crowding or inconvenience, admission will only be by tickets, to be had of Mr. Inglis, 22 Motcomb-street, Belgrave-square.

"June 22, 1857."

Notice here the expectation of a "rush" for seats-the conviction that the theologico-political exhibition will suit the popular taste! No doubt, from the neighbourhood chosen, it is calculated pretty surely that some aristocratic dabblers in unfulfilled predictions will grace the building and encourage the lecturer.

NO. X.-VOL. V.

T

that a dignified regard to what God teaches, to be set before men whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear," is too often postponed to the more pressing question, "What will the people like ?"

Secondly, novelty has charms in the region of theology as well as in more worldly associations, and a desire to find something new in the Holy Scriptures has a great influence on exegesis. This is quite in accordance with the spirit of an age which probably approximates closer to that of Athens in apostolic times than any which has preceded it in this country: "For all the Athenians spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." Most unfortunate is it that this tendency should shew itself in connexion with revealed truth, which, of all other departments of human knowledge, must have fewer new aspects and combinations; yet so it is, and he is often thought the best and most useful preacher or writer who leaves the paths of catholic consent for untried ways of his own devising. An impatience of what has been said by those who have gone before us, as not sufficiently deep and attractive, has led to a thousand heresies, and to a perversion of a thousand texts of Holy Scripture. To acknowledge that the Apocalypse is partly incomprehensible, as the fathers did, is too great a stretch of humility for modern scholasticism; to eat the "bread corn" of divine truth is but poor entertainment for those whose palate longs for the taste of exotic delicacies. Indeed, it is customary now even to find a divine warrant for this search after novelties in our Saviour's declaration that a scribe, well instructed in relation to the kingdom of God, "will bring out of his treasury things new and old." A preacher must declaim in a novel style, and treat his texts with new interpretations; a commentator must eschew the old and coin fresh explications from his own brain; a student of prophecy must be ashamed to confess, as the ancients did, that the event alone can make a prediction plain, and is rather to prefer to point with his finger to the age and circumstances which Apocalyptic imagery shadows forth.

Thirdly, it is easy for shallow minds to dabble in what cannot be proved, and they therefore confine themselves to those branches of literature, sacred and profane, which admit of being presided over by imagination and fancy. Now no department of thought is so airy, so intangible, so discursive, as that of unfulfilled prophecies, for this evident reason, that whatever nonsense men may think or utter upon them cannot be contradicted or disproved, although we may feel as certain that it is nonsense as that two and three cannot make four. In the fair field of

legitimate exegesis, where a comment can be decided by grammar or lexicography, by the analogy of divine truth, or by an extensive consent of authorities, the dunce or the sciolist is easily defeated, and therefore is wise enough, within such lists, to decline the combat. But when the position taken up is in nubibus, and the structures of defence erected are castles in the air, what can be done with such unsubstantial and slippery combatants? Without allowing such things as common principles, or any data or axioms, how are men to be refuted though their errors are too palpable to admit of any valid defence or justification? The locusts of the Revelation are Saracens, who can deny it? We venture to question the assertion, and for proof are told that the allusion to their tails settles the matter, for did not an early leader of that people cut off his horse's tail for a standard? Unavoidable inference! logical conclusion! what else can be said upon a matter so learnedly discussed and conducted? But however stupid all this may be to persons of a modicum of sense, your shallow preacher and writer gets the better of you, in his own esteem, because you cannot confute him, and though he is evidently a fool, thinks himself wiser than seven men who can render a reason.

Fourthly, inattention to the rules of evidence is another source of Apocalyptic speculation. Let any one take the more respectable works of this class, such as Elliott's Hore Apocalyptice for example, and after he has seen the map of the Church and of Divine Providence marked out by the pencil of the writer, from the early persecutions and heresies to Constantine's patronage, and down to the end of all things,-let him ask himself what proof can be given for all this well-defined speculation, and he will find that it is subjective altogether, and that no evidence but the ipse dixit of the writer, or those who think with him, is either to be given or expected. We could pardon these dreamers of dreams and seers of visions if they were amiable as well as weak, and were contented to please themselves with the syllogisms of the fancy; but, unfortunately, in proportion as their premises are baseless, their dogmatism is intolerable. No men find so little favour or mercy at the hands of others, in literary warfare, as those who venture to require evidence when told that the Jews are to reign over Christians (which may God in his mercy forbid), that Jerusalem is again to be the glory of all lands, that the present state of the world is to come to an end before the year A.D. 2000, and that Christ is to reign upon earth for a thousand years. It is lawful to ask for proof before a thief is convicted; for evidence that a comet is to be expected, and for all predicted phenomena besides; but in the region of