of such discrepancies. If we are living under the iron rule of Antichrist, is it credible that the Church should not know it beyond the possibility of a doubt? If the Man of sin be even now "sitting in the Temple of GOD, showing himself that he is GOD," is it possible to believe that the fact should admit of any doubt or dispute? to suppose a fulfilled prophecy open to such a question is inconsistent with the very design of all prophecy. In this hypothesis the Apocalypse was useless as a warning to those who lived before its fulfilment, since it is notorious they never dreamt of any such interpretations of it; and it is equally useless to those who live during or since its fulfilment, inasmuch as we cannot agree in what events it is or was fulfilled. This is not the case with other fulfilled prophecies. We see no discrepancy among commentators, however widely they may differ on other theological opinions, when they are pointing out the fulfilment of the prophecies which foretold the flood to Noah, the separation of Israel, the coming of a SAVIOUR, the incarnation of our LORD, the rejection, sufferings, and death of MESSIAH. What then is the inference? Certainly that we are wrong in supposing the Apocalypse to be fulfilled. We have ransacked history for its fulfilment, and we have failed to discover a satisfactory fulfilment : therefore it is highly probable that the fulfilment is future.

This is the argument of the " Futurists ;" and it will be seen that Mr. Hoare's mistake was occasioned by his assuming that the discrepancies they had in view were only or chiefly, the discrepancies of Protestant commentators; forgetting that while Protestants have made Antichrist to be the Pope, Roman Catholic expositors have applied the same prophecies to the Reformers. It is clear that our author did not understand this when he says that the admitted diversity of interpretation "has been shown to affect chiefly some inferior matters of detail." Futurists, on the contrary, had in view, not only the expositions current in this country, but also those which prevail on the Continent of Europe and in America; nor merely those of the present day, or those received amongst Protestants or in England, but also the expositions that were popular in the middle ages, and now in other countries among Roman Catholic interpreters. Mr. Hoare will find it no easy matter to show that "this diversity affects chiefly some inferior matters of detail, and by no means exists to the amount supposed."

But there is also another argument of the Futurists of which Mr. Hoare has taken no notice; it is this. For many ages the Church was agreed on the interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel and S. John, which were unanimously regarded as having relation to the last age of the world; and certain doctrines respecting Antichrist and the state of the Church in the latter times were universally received without dispute. But when men began to use the prophecies as weapons of controversy,-when the odious names of Antichrist and Man of Sin were employed to blacken an

adversary-when it became fashionable to apply the mysterious prophecies of the Apocalypse, by the help of mystical and figurative interpretations, to passing events-then all was uncertainty and confusion; exposition after exposition was invented, and passed away to be mended by other expositions which vanished and were forgotten in their turn. The question then recurs, why was the ancient literal interpretation abandoned? Is it not after all the most likely to be true? Does it not give a consistent and most practically important view of these prophecies, and a view which if true it must be most dangerous to overlook?

But to return to the former argument. It is curious to observe how the prejudice of confining his views to the Protestant expositions affects our author throughout; thus he says, (Introd. p. vii.) :-

"With regard to that part of the prophecy (a smaller one it may be than is commonly supposed) which is referred by most interpreters to the Church of Rome, it can only be with pain that any one of a truly Catholic spirit is led to fasten upon any who profess and call themselves Christians the imputation of fulfilling in their polity, if not in their persons, predictions of such tremendous and awful import; and whoever does so, ought to be well assured of the grounds on which he does it."

Here our author seems to speak as if a portion of the Apocalypse was by most expositors referred to the Church of Rome. Of course he means most Protestant expositors; for otherwise the majority would clearly lie the other way.

:

But we would direct attention to the foregoing words for another reason. They are an indication of a better spirit, which we trust is growing up in the school to which our author belongs; a feeling that the Church of Rome, notwithstanding its errors, is not after all to be regarded as altogether unworthy of the name of Christian that amongst its members there may be some who love the LORD JESUS CHRIST in sincerity; and that we ought not lightly to brand any such with the odious imputations of apostacy and blasphemy, remembering the words of our Blessed LORD, "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the sea."

This sentiment our author has distinctly expressed in the foregoing words, and we rejoice to find that he has done so, although we confess we do not exactly understand how it is possible for the same individuals to be at the same time members of CHRIST and of Antichrist, nor do we very clearly take in the distinction between polity and persons to which our author alludes. The predictions in question appear to us to be of a far too "tremendous and awful import" to admit of any such nice distinctions; for how can

he in his person belong to CHRIST, who adheres to the polity of Antichrist?

But waiving this for the present, the important and gratifying admission made by Mr. Hoare in the above-cited passage is, that we ought not to fasten such odious imputations upon any professing Christian, without being well assured of our grounds.

Let us consider then upon what grounds he ventures to fasten these imputations upon the communion of the Church of Rome. He says:—

"The author feels that he is speaking the mind of multitudes in our own pure and reformed branch of CHRIST's holy Catholic Church, when he says, that no grounds have satisfied us short of a conviction, that the principles and tenets of the Church of Rome are, in the first place, fundamentally and essentially unsound, and that in all that constitutes them peculiarly Romish they are Anticatholic, as well as Antiscriptural; that hence, in the next place, there is a probability, a priori, that against such principles there should be found lifted up the voice of prophecy, no less than that of the Church ;—and that this hypothesis receives the fullest confirmation in fact, when we come to examine the tenor of the prophecies themselves."

Here we have three reasons given as the grounds, the only grounds that will satisfy multitudes in our own pure and reformed branch of the Church, and yet of these three there is but one that has any real force or conclusiveness.

The

1. Let the principles and tenets of the Church of Rome be ever so unsound, and we admit that many of them are unsound, it does not at all follow that the Apocalypse has foretold them. principles and tenets of the Presbyterian Kirk are unsound, yea "Anticatholic," as well as "Antiscriptural;" the principles and tenets of Socinianism are unsound, Anticatholic and Antiscriptural, yet it does not follow that either Presbyterianism or Socinianism are the antitypes of the beast of the Apocalypse, or the fulfilment of the prophecies respecting Antichrist.

2. Again, there can be nothing more dangerous than to assume that because a theological system is unsound or erroneous there is a probability a priori that it must be foretold in some particular prophecy, or even in the whole scheme and body of prophecy. Is every theological error foretold in the Apocalypse? Is it necessary to suppose, is it even probable a priori, that against every system of doctrines which are fundamentally and essentially unsound, the voice of prophecy must be lifted up? Socinianism is at least, even in the judgment of Mr. Hoare, as essentially unsound as Romanism; is it therefore the beast of the Apocalypse? Or rather, is it not much more reasonable to look for the grosser heresies, such as undermine the very essentials of the Christian faith, if we are to reason a priori on such subjects,-is it not much

more probable that against Arian, Socinian, Sabellian, or Manichæan errors would "be found lifted up the voice of prophecy," than against the comparatively milder errors of the Church of Rome; especially in the minds of members" of our own pure and reformed branch of CHRIST's holy Catholic Church;" for, to use the words of Mede," the notion is almost proper to our English Church, to maintain that the Roman Church, much more the Greek, erreth not in primariis et fundamentalibus fidei articulis, because explicitly they profess them," and that the Roman errors "consist only in the assumenta they have added to the foundation, not in the foundation itself, which they profess notwithstanding."*

If this view of the Roman errors be correct, as we believe it is, we may hope Mr. Hoare is mistaken when he says that multitudes, except among the uninstructed and very ignorant members of our Church, are satisfied a priori that against such errors the voice of prophecy must be lifted up, whilst Socinianism, Arianism, Neologianism, and the various forms of modern latitudinarianism, to say nothing of the grosser ancient heresies, are confessedly passed over without notice.

We should have thought that with all well informed members of our Church the writings of Bishop Butler would have proved a sufficient antidote against a priori reasonings on such subjects.

3. There is therefore, as we have said, no weight whatsoever in any of our author's arguments, logically considered, except the last, namely that when we come to consider the tenor of the prophecies themselves we find the Church of Rome plainly described. If this be so, we are justified in denouncing Romanism as condemned in prophecy, but not otherwise. This however, is the whole question, and this, it is important to remark, is the first question, not as our author strangely represents it, a secondary point, to be brought in as a confirmation of our previous a priori views of the unsoundness of the Church of Rome. If the unsound principles and tenets of Rome be indeed the fulfilment of prophecies, which Mr. Hoare himself describes as of the most "tremendous and awful import," this fact, if it could be proved, would be of itself a sufficient condemnation.

And so it was felt to be by all those who first employed this weapon, first against the Court, but afterwards as time went on and causes of passion arose, against the Church of Rome. The conviction which was so widely spread and so eagerly adopted among the reformed, that the Pope, either personally or considered as the personification of a system, was the Antichrist of prophecy, stood in the stead of many arguments, and was in fact a summary decision of the whole controversy.

Mr. Hoare says, "whether we have a right on such grounds

* Works. Book IV. Ep. 77.

to raise a popular cry against Popery is another and a very different question." In this however we confess we entirely differ with him. If the grounds upon which he believes Popery to be Antichrist are valid grounds, we not only have a right, but it is our duty as servants of CHRIST, to raise a cry popular or unpopular against it. Surely we are bound as Christians to raise our voices against Antichrist, to resist and oppose him in every way. The question, therefore, of the validity of the grounds on which we believe these prophecies to be fulfilled in the Church of Rome and its tenets, appears to us to be the very same question in another form whether we have a right to raise a cry, (by all legitimate and Christian means, of course,) against Popery; for who can doubt that it is the duty of the Church, to use all such means against the Antichrist, who " opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called GOD and is worshipped,-who sitteth in the temple of GoD, showing himself that he is GOD?"

Mr. Hoare therefore clearly inverts the natural order of things, and departs widely from the language of those who first preached the Pope-Antichrist doctrine, when he says, (Introd. p. viii.) that "the prophecies may well come in" to afford "additional and very valuable support" to our previous conclusions of " the unsoundness of the principles of Popery." This is taking very low ground indeed; and we hail such language as an evidence that the modern advocates of the controversial expositions of prophecy are beginning to feel ashamed of the bolder, and, we cannot but think, more honest and consistent tone, which was assumed by their predecessors. If our author, is indeed, speaking in this, "the mind of multitudes" in our Church, we may look forward at no very distant time, to the entire abandonment of the whole of that system of interpretation for which he is contending.

We have not space to enter more at length into this question. Suffice it to say in conclusion, that Mr. Hoare's book throws no additional light on the exposition of the Apocalypse. It is a mere reproduction of the systems of Mede, Bishop Newton, Faber, Woodhouse, and their followers, without any attempt to reconcile their discrepancies, or to meet the real difficulties of their several theories; for it is not enough to tell us (Introd. p. viii.) that "however interpreters may differ in detail, they all agree as to the main object of the book, as representing the progressive triumph of CHRIST, Over all the enemies of His Gospel." This may be true of some, but it is not true of all interpreters: and we cannot make it true by shutting our eyes to the fact, and excluding from our contemplation, as our author has done, one half at least of the Christian world.

Moreover our author's learning is plainly inadequate to the task he has undertaken. He follows the exploded notion of days in prophetic language signifying years: he talks of the Abbot Joachim,