der of place in the prophecy is not necessarily the order of events in time. If this throne be the same with the throne of the Ancient of Days in Daniel's prophecy, then, on our author's own showing, it must precede the millennium, and in that case the resurrection, the judgment, and the other events connected with it, must be held to extend over a period extending from the commencement of the millennium to its close. But even were we to adopt Mr White's view, that this resurrection is at the close of the millennial period, it will not help his argument, for he can never prove that it is the same resurrection which takes place at Christ's coming. The one is the resurrection of Christ's people

of the just; the other is the resurrection and judgment of the dead, that is of those who may be in their graves after Christ's people have risen. Mr White says that it cannot refer to the resurrection of the wicked, because some are judged out of the book of life. But this may be also true; for as death will not be utterly abolished during the millennium, many born into the world after its commencement may have died, and yet been in Christ, and shall be raised at its close.

4. His fourth argument is, that the coming of Christ is to be accompanied with the destruction of the ungodly, but this shall not be till after the millennium. Our reply shall be very short. We believe that the ungodly shall be destroyed before the millennium. And if we are asked whence then come those who are found in rebellion at its close, we reply again, that it does not follow that the race that shall arise during the millennium shall be all godly. From them must come the rebellious host that shall be destroyed by fire.

5. But then the coming of the Lord is connected with certain changes upon the material structure of our globe. The heavens shall pass away, the elements melt, and the earth be burnt up. These changes, it is argued, must take place after the millennium. Our author does not employ, in support of this proposition, the argument commonly resorted to, namely, that it is impossible to conceive how the inhabitants of the world could be preserved during this catastrophe. Assuredly God can as easily preserve his saints during the interval between the present and the millennial dispensation, as he could during the interval between the ante and post diluvian dispensations. He guarded his church during the deluge of water, he will also do so during the deluge of fire. But the language of Scripture seems to us conclusively to show that this conflagration must take place before the millennium; for the new heavens and the new earth, for which the Apostle Peter tells us to look forward, seem clearly to be identified with millennial times. Of such times, the 21st

VOL. XIX. NO. II.

chapter of Revelation tells us; and there we read of a new heavens and a new earth. It is of millennial times that Isaiah sings, 'there shall no more be an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old, but the sinner, being an hundred years old, shall be accursed. And they shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat.' And these glowing descriptions are ushered in with the words, 'Behold I create new heavens and a new earth.'

Our space will not suffer us to enlarge farther upon this subject; but what has been said will serve to show that the doctrine of Christ's advent, before the millennium, is one which may be defended with great appearance of reason from Scripture. For our own part, and speaking our individual opinion, we would say that we think there are few questions of evidence which rest upon a surer ground thau this; and the more closely it is sifted, the more will it appear that there is no other theory which will serve us in the interpretation of what prophecy remains as yet unfulfilled.

ART. V.-The History of the Church of Scotland from the Refor mation to the present Time. By THOMAS STEPHEN, Med. Lib. King's College, London. 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1844.

PAST experience led us to expect much misrepresentation, many errors, and no small amount of abuse in a history of the Church of Scotland, proceeding from the pen of an Episcopalian. We have not been disappointed in the present instance; on the contrary, this voluminous work greatly surpasses our anticipations. It were difficult to conceive of a publication professing to be a history, presenting a greater amount of error, and a smaller proportion of truth. Facts are distorted and suppressed, characters are maligned and blackened, statements are advanced, and startling assertions, without a shadow of evidence, are made, quotations from other writers are treated with the least possible ceremony, and are altered or curtailed apparently without scruple, and lamentable ignorance, or something still worse, is displayed in almost every page. These are strong charges; we shall substantiate them all, and more of a like nature. The only indulgence we ask from our readers is, that they will pardon the apparent

abruptness with which we may pass from topic to topic, and which is caused by the author's many errors, and the small space that we can devote to his work.

The term Church is restricted by the author to those who are able, in his opinion, to trace their lineal descent by regular succession from the apostles, and, consequently, in his pages, the Church of Scotland means the prelatic party. We deem it unnecessary to give a lengthened account of his theological sentiments; as these are to be found scattered throughout his work, it is sufficient to say, that they are after the straitest sect of the exclusives. He tells us, vol. i. p. 454,

"That from the days of Knox, the ministers who had taken the places of the papal clergy, were as Korah, and as strangers, not of the seed of Aaron, who came near to offer incense before the Lord; and therefore the blood of the people was upon their heads. They were usurpers of the sacred office; hence the word of God which they preached, was without power and authority, and the sacraments which they administered were without validity, and conveyed no Divine grace. They could not make their people members of Christ by baptism, and so the adopted sons of God, nor convey the grace of justification, or the remission of sin by that mystery, because they had no right to make a covenant in the name of Christ, hence the alienation of the people from God, and their own continual complaints of murders, adulteries, and incests. They could not administer the body and blood of Christ to the people, because they had no commission from Christ to consecrate bread and wine as the representatives of his body which was broken, and of his blood which was shed for the remission of sins."

Baptism is called, once and again, the laver of regeneration, and spoken of as essential to salvation; still the want of it may be supplied, we learn, for, in writing of the first Charles, our author tells us, vol. i. p. 421,

"No mention is made of the name of the person who baptised this Prince, but whoever did it must have been without canonical orders; and it was somewhat ominous, that if he was baptised in infancy by a Presbyterian, he fell a sacrifice to their rebellious principles, and so was in his manhood baptised by them in his own blood. So the defects of hi water baptism were supplied by his bloody martyrdom, which, in the opinion of the primitive church, supplied the want of that second birth which is the concomitant of water baptism by a duly commissioned mi

nister."

To deny the Scriptural authority of the apostle's creed is to strike at the root of Christianity itself (p. 245). If the Lord's prayer be not used in the public worship of God, the prayers will not be acceptable it is to be feared, (pp. 136, 297.) But his reasoning in defence of the Articles of Perth, is such an admirable specimen, at once of logic and divinity, that we give it, and

then leave the subject. The five Articles of Perth, as many of our readers must remember, were, kneeling at the Lord's table -the observance of certain holidays-Episcopal confirmation private baptism-and private communicating.

"If the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is allowed to be necessary for salvation, it is more particularly desirable on the bed of sickness, and in the hour of death. And as it is declared, that without 'being born again of water and of the Spirit, we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven,' it was unfeeling to refuse the laver of regeneration to a sickly infant at the point of death, which, rather than baptise at any other time than during sermon, they suffered to die without being made a new creature.' The Jewish festivals were appointed by God himself, to be observed so long as the Aaronical priesthood should endure, and our Saviour, who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,' invariably honoured all the Jewish festivals with his sacred presence. He was born at the feast of tabernacles, he suffered the cruel and ignominious death of the cross at the passover, and he sent the Comforter to guide his Church into all truth at the feast of weeks or Pentecost, now commonly called Whitsunday. This striking coincidence showed their relation and connexion, and pointed out the correspondence of the type with the antitype, the shadow with the substance, the prediction with its accomplishment, and demonstrated to the faithful, that the Jewish and Christian religions are not two separate and unconnected dispensations, but were parts of one stupendous plan of redemption." Vol. i. 497.

There is a laboured attempt to show that the first Scottish reformers were not opposed to Episcopacy, and that the Reformed Church, at the beginning, was Episcopal. The assertions advanced in support of this opinion are not new, neither do our author's reasonings present any novelty, and we allude to this portion of the work principally, because of the illustration which it affords of the difficulty in which they find themselves, who seek to maintain the position which he has assumed. Prelatic writers must condemn Knox-that is an axiomatic truth, but if he be condemned, the church which he founded must be condemned too, and that church, they say, was Episcopal; again, if the church be Episcopal, it must be defended, and, consequently, its founder's conduct cannot be indefensible. Our author's logic is somewhat of this complexion,-every church having superintendents is a right church, the Church of Scotland, at the beginning, had superintendents, therefore the Church of Scotland is a right church. But, again, no church that discards prelatic ordination can be a right church, the Knoxite church discarded such ordination, therefore, the Knoxite church is no church. When the Episcopacy of the Reformed Church is to be established, the Episcopal functions of the superintendents are dwelt on; when the Knoxism of that Church is to be condemned, the want of regular ordina

tion on the part of these self-same superintendents is brought forward. It is apparent, on the author's own grounds, that if their functions avail to prove the Episcopacy of the infant church, they must have had ordination; and, on the other hand, if they were not ordained, these functions can make nothing for the side which he advocates.

Another example of the same kind of logic is afforded by what he says on the subject of witchcraft. The works of the flesh are enumerated (vol. i. p. 294)—these are, idolatry, witchcraft, &c. Their prevalence is affirmed in order to prove that the Holy Spirit, grieved by the folly of the ministers of those days, had withdrawn; but immediately thereafter, and elsewhere, (p. 294, n., p. 312, and p. 213,) we read of the so-called witch,' and of Alison Pearson, suspected of this crime, and of 'that imaginary crime.' Witchcraft is a reality when its existence helps to fix a stigma on the character of the Presbyterians; it is only a figment when, by assuming it to be so, a sneer against Presbyterian supremacy may be pointed.

6

Again, the whole succession of the Papal Church in Scotland is vitiated, we are told (vol. i. p. 453), and it is evident that the Scottish papal hierarchy was not pure, and therefore a succession flowing through such a channel would have tainted the whole stream (p. 456). Still, according to our author (same page), there is so much of the true virtue in the Popish priesthood, that had they kept up the succession in Scotland, the Episcopal Church would have been guilty of schism when they obtained real bishops from England; but that guilt is now thrown incontestibly on the heads of the Papists themselves, by their having, at a great distance of time, introduced missionary bishops from the churches of Italy and Spain, and who are not at all connected with the catholic Church of the United Kingdom,' p. 456. We have little space and less inclination to reason on this subject with Mr Stephen; but it may be asked, if the impurity of the Scoto-Papal stream is to be assumed, why is the purity of the English current taken for granted? Similar effects flow from similar causes in like circumstances. It is all but demonstrable, on the author's own grounds, that both streams are vitiated, or both are pure.

We are told again and again (pp. 11, 35, 41, 59, &c. &c.) that the crimes of the Romish Church were such, that the laity were entirely corrupted, and that certain vices, such as violations of the seventh commandment, have prevailed more in Scotland than in any other country; and this is accounted for by saying, that the example of the Popish priesthood had spread far and sunk deep. But soon a' change comes o'er the spirit of his dream,' and