chapters; the 1st, detailing the vision of the metallic image; the 2d, explaining the vision of the four great wild-beasts; the 3d, unfolding the vision of the ram and the he-goat; and the 4th, illustrating the vision of the things noted in the Scripture of truth. Mr. Faber has directed his attention more particularly to the chronology and the geography of the metallic image, which represents the four great successive empires from the birth of Nebuchadnezzar, about the year 657 before Christ, to the dissolution of the Roman Empire at the close of the latter three times and a half, A. D. 1864. When geographically complete, the image is said to represent the Roman Empire alone, viewed as comprehending the dominions of its three predecessors. What is the chronology of the ascent of the four wildbeasts, the Babylonian lion, the Medo-Persian bear, the Grecian leopard, the anonymous Roman beast ;--what were the two wings of the lion; what their deplumation;-what were the two sides of the bear;—what his three tusks;-what the four wings of the leopard ;how the little horn of the Roman beast typifies the spiritual kingdom of the papacy;-how by the eradication of three of the ten horns of the Roman beast the little horn acquired a temporal principality ;—what shall be the synchronical judgment of the Roman beast and his little horn;-how the two horns of the ram typify the kingdoms of Media and Persia; how the pushings of the ram denote the conquests of Cyrus;-how the standing up of the ram denotes the rise of the Persian monarchy, (which was founded some time between the year A. C. 811, and the year A. C. 771);—how the he-goat symbolises the Grecian Empire, and how its little horn typifies the spiritual kingdom of Mohammedism, rather than the individual king Antiochus Epiphanes, as the older commentators held, and rather than the Roman Empire, viewed chronologically from its first acquiring the kingdom of Macedon, as the two Newtons maintained;-how the 2,300 days reach from the year B. C. 784, to the year after Christ 1517;-how the vision of the ram and the he-goat will terminate ;-and the Mohammedan little horn be broken, and the Roman little horn, with its lawless usurpation be destroyed, and the sanctuary be cleansed at the close of the time of the end, in the year of the Christian era 1865;-how all these things are proved, he, who wishes to see the topics skilfully and minutely illustrated, will read the second and third chapters of Mr. Faber's Third Book of the Dissertation before us, and particularly the admirable and convincing note touching the interpretation of the little horn of the he-goat, which occurs at page 136. The fourth chapter of the Third Book introduces us to the vision of the things noted in the Scripture of truth, whose object it is to conduct us, by the great Calendar of Prophecy, to the era of the infidel Antichrist, or, in Daniel's phraseology, to the era of the wilful king. We are told

that this remarkable prophecy, having detailed the history of the empires of Persia and Greece, as it respects the Roman empire, treats of five successive periods, through which it descends, in chronological order, to the destruction of the antichristian faction and the restoration of the Jews.

The first period describes the Pagan persecutions of the Church under the Roman Empire, Dan. xi. 32, 33, and extends from A. P. C. 70, to A. P. C. 313.

The second period comprehends the help afforded by Constantine, &c. and extends from A. P. C. 313, to A. P. C. 604. (Dan. xi. 34) when the three and a half times of popery begin.

The third period, (Dan. xi. 35,) comprehends the persecutions which the Church suffered from popery, in its attempts to suppress the Reformation, and extends from A. P. C. 604, to A. P. C. 1697.

The fourth period, comprehending the diffusion of the spirit of Antichrist, and the exploits of the wilful king, extends from A. P. C. 1697, to A. P. C. 1864. (Dan. xi. 36-39.)

The fifth period, (Dan. xi. 40—45,) extending from A. P. C. 1864, to A. P. C. 1865, comprehends the final and ruinous expedition of the wilful king, and his overthrow by the kings of the north and the south in the field of Armageddon, "between the seas in the glorious holy mountain,❞—the kings of the south and the north being the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, as administered by their then existing governors, whosoever they may be. Mr. Faber retracts the opinion which he once held, as to the empire of Russia being the kingdom of the north, and wisely refuses even to conjecture what Power, at the time of the end, may be the sovereign of Egypt, and therefore the prophetic king of the south. (See the Note, Vol. II. p. 276.)

The Fourth Book contains an exposition of the sealed or larger Book of the Apocalypse, and is divided into seven chapters, which treat respectively, Chap. 1. of the general arrangement of the Apocalyptic Prophecies;-c. 2. of the four first Apocalyptic Seals ;-c. 3. of the fifth and sixth Apocalyptic Seals;-c. 4. of the Seventh Seal;—c. 5. of the Apocalyptic third part;-c. 6. of the four first Apocalyptic Trumpets; and c. 7. of the fifth and sixth Trumpets, or the first and second Woe-trumpets.

We feel persuaded with Bishop Newton, that "to explain the Apocalypse perfectly is not the work of one man, or of one age;" and that "probably it will never all be clearly understood, till it is all fulfilled."* It is still, however," (the Bishop adds,) "the sure word of prophecy ;" and men of learning and leisure cannot better employ their time and abilities than in studying and explaining this Book,

* Dissertation on the Prophecies, Diss. 24.

provided they do it, as Lord Bacon adviseth, with great wisdom, sobriety, and reverence." Whilst, therefore, we give our author credit for these qualities, though we cannot forbear saying, that in some of his lucubrations we recognise more of the power of imagination than the force of truth; we would rather be considered, in this brief analysis of his learned labours, the faithful reporters, than the warm advocates of his opinions. Where our author has adopted the sentiments of his predecessors, he has the merit of enforcing their tenets with emphatic perspicuity; and where he has ventured to frame an hypothesis of his own, we are at a loss which most to admire, his talent for refuting anticipated objections, or the earnestness and the force of argument with which he endeavours to establish his individual creed.

So far as I can judge, (we quote from the second chapter, Book IV.) no part of the Apocalypse has been so completely and so universally misunderstood as the quaternion of the equestrian seals.

Some have applied these four seals to certain vicissitudes of the secular Roman Empire, arranged under certain imaginary classifications of the Roman emperors; while others have supposed them to announce certain phases or conditions of the Christian church, through which it gradually passed, from a primitive state of holiness and purity, to a state of active persecution in practice, and of death-like corruption in morals and doctrine.. ... Each of these schemes of interpretation, though sanctioned by some names of eminence, must assuredly be pronounced untenable and inadmissible.

However, the quaternion of the equestrian seals ought to be understood in point of applicatory exposition, nothing, so far as the abstract principle of symbolisation is concerned, can be more easy than to determine its general import. -(Book IV. c. 2. pp. 289, 290.),

Now, we have some misgivings of mind relative to this "must assuredly;" and we are tempted to doubt the facility, under the general principle of symbolisation, of interpreting this quaternion of seals, ("though nothing can be more easy,") when we read the manifold and widely vayring discrepancies of the most illustrious commentators upon this dark and perplexing topic. Mr. Faber tell us, that a war-horse is the symbol of a military empire;

And since these four war-horses succeed each other through the chronologically successive opening of four seals, they must additionally denote four military empires successive to each other in widely extended rule and denomination.-Book IV. c. 2.

Our interpreter contends that the four war-horses of the four first seals can denote only the four great military empires of Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, the colours of the four horses being nothing more than arbitrary marks of distinction, and the dates of the four first seals corresponding with the dates of the four metals in the great compound image. For the curious detail of particulars, we are obliged to refer our readers to the work itself: nor will our limits permit us to enter at all upon the subjects of the remaining chapters

of this book of the Sacred Calendar, abounding as they do with marks of diligent research, great sagacity, and much historical investigation. And we hasten at once to the third volume: it opens with the fifth book, which teaches us (chap. 1) what is the proper division of the little open book; then passes (chap. 2) to the vision of the two witnesses; (chap. 3) the vision of the dragon and the woman; (chap. 4) the vision of the ten-horned beast of the sea; (chap 5) the vision of the two-horned beast of the earth; and (chap. 6) the vision of the Lamb with the 144,000 saints.

We would not invidiously compare Mr. Faber in 1828, with Mr. Faber in 1806,-his "Sacred Calendar" with his "Dissertation on the Prophecies ;"-though in parallel columns, "in manner following,” (to use our author's phraseology,) the vision of the two witnesses affords us a tempting opportunity:

FABER, 1806.

The two witnesses are the spiritual children of the twofold Church of Christ, the Pre-Christian and the PostChristian Church, forming jointly the Church general. Vol. II. c. 10. § 1.

The unfortunate and much injured Waldenses, cooped up in the mountainous regions of France and Italy, existed indeed like leaven in a mass of breadcorn, but are little known except by their patient suffering, &c. &c.-Dissertation, Vol. I. c. 6. p. 298.

When they shall draw near to the close of their testimony;-such certainly is the proper translation of the aorist reλeowo: the subjunctive mood of the first aorist generally bears a kind of future signification; and the context amply shows that such must be its meaning in the present instance ;-the witnesses could not have finished their testimony, as our translation erroneously represents them to have done.-Dissert. Vol. I. c. 6.

FABER, 1828.

We may consider it as an established point, that the two witnesses are the two Churches of the Vallenses and the Albigenses; if these be not the two witnesses, I see not where, consistently with the terms of the prophecy, we can find them.-Sacred Calendar, Book V.

c. 2.

We are led to expect that their prophesying would be conducted upon a scale of great extensiveness :-the whole of the present characteristic, even in its largest interpretation, eminently belongs to the Vallenses and the Albigenses. Not content with faithfully setting forth the pure doctrines of Christianity to those who were situated within their own immediate geographical limits, they acted the part of zealous missionaries throughout the whole of Europe: their disciples abounded in Calabria, Spain, Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and England;—and, as Reinerius complained in the thirteenth century, there was scarcely any country in which they had not obtained a footing.-Sacr. Cal. Book V. c. 2.

When they shall be about to finish, &c. Such a version is most certainly untenable; clearly the proper and obvious rendering of οταν τελεσωσι is, when they shall have finished. Except in order to serve a turn, I will venture to say, that no person would ever have thought of rendering the Greek-oTAV τελεσωσι την μαρτυρίαν αυτων—by the English, when they shall be about to finish their testimony.-Sacr. Cal. Book V. c. 2.

FABER, 1806. Political death is the only death to which a community is liable.-Dissertation, Vol. II. c. 10. § 1.

The two prophets were slain by the beast in the battle of Mulbury, on the 24th of April, 1547.-Dissert. Vol. II. c. 10. § 1.

The prophets resumed the functions of political life in the autumn of 1550, exactly three years and a half from the spring of 1547, when they were slain; they ascended into the ecclesiastical heaven in the year 1552.-Dissert. Vol. II. c. 10. § 1.

Speaking of the great earthquake, the city, Mr. Faber says,

I scruple not to conclude that that Revolution (meaning the French Revolution) is here foretold.-Dissert. Vol. II. c. 10.

On this memorable day (viz. 12th of August, 1792), I conceive the third woe-trumpet to have begun its tremendous blast.-Dissert. Vol. II. c. 10.

FABER, 1828.

The death, to which a Church is subject, may be either moral or political.-Sacr. Cal. Vol. III. Book. V. c. 2.

An edict was issued on the 31st of January, in the year 1686, by the operation of which,-the two witnesses were, on that day, slain by the wild beast, &c.-Sacr. Cal. Book V. c. 2.

Exactly three years and a half after this marked epoch (viz. 1686)-—or on the 16th day of August, in the year 1689-the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet.

On the fourth day of June, 1690, the edict for their full and legal establishment as independent Churches was signed, &c.-Sacr. Cal. Vol. III. Book V. § 2.

and the fall of the tenth part of

At this precise point of time (viz. 1688) took place the great earthquake, or revolution, described by the prophets as synchronising with the period during which the two witnesses lie dead, and revive, and ascend to heaven.-Sacr. Cal. Book V. c. 2.

If I mistake not, the adoption of the year 1789, as the commencement of the third woe, is absolutely and imperiously demanded by the very chronological notation of the prophecy itself. -Sacr. Cal. Book V. c. 2.

We repeat, and beg leave to assure our learned and very respectable author, that we have not made this comparison of himself with himself from any invidious or sinister motive, and we trust that we fully prize the ingenuous magnanimity with which he has confessed the erroneousness of some articles of his pristine creed: but we would caution our readers against being misled by the confident, and, perhaps, dogmatical tone of our author, who seems never to permit himself to doubt the truth of his premises, or the infallible accuracy of his conclusions; and we conjecture that the purchasers of Mr. Faber's Dissertation, which is now altogether superseded by his Sacred Calendar, much as they may admire the candour of its author, and little as they may grudge the cost of that now useless and mischievous work, would be better pleased if they had been furnished with something like an expurgating appendix, by which they might with facility unlearn what Mr. Faber has injuriously taught them, and readily acquire a distinct knowledge of the new points in his prophetical faith. The oracle which has once