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great rivers, valleys, and European fountains of waters; ending, finally, in the extinction of the Emperorship itself, and subordinate imperial authorities of the Western Empire."

Dean Alford, however, objects to this :

"All special interpretations seem to me utterly to have failed; and of these, none so signally as that of Mr. Elliott, who would understand it of a tripartite division of the Roman empire at the time to which he assigns this judgment."

The Dean thinks that, in the prefigurations of the four first Trumpets, "the third part" is used indefinitely (just as "the fourth part," and the "tenth part" elsewhere) as indicating the limited amount of the injury; it being thus implied that "God, even in these sweeping judgments, spares more than he smites; two-thirds in each case escaping, while one-third only is smitten."

The fifth Trumpet-vision is expounded by Mr. Elliott, "after Mede, and the great majority of English Protestant expositors,' as a prefiguration of the irruption into Roman Christendom of Mahometanism, and the Mahometan Saracens. To Dean

Alford's cavil, "There is an endless babel of allegorical and historical interpretation of these locusts from the pit," Mr. Elliott replies

"Do you, then, deny the fact of the literal and allegorical being intermixed in Scripture prophecy? Not so. On the contrary, you elsewhere expressly assert and apply it. Again: do you dispute the interpretative principle enforced by me, that from the local or national appropriateness of symbols in Scripture prophecy we may rightly argue as to the locality or nation intended? You will not surely attempt this. Or, finally, do you dispute the justness of my application of the principle to the multifold correspondence that I assert between the Mahometan Saracens and the scorpion locusts of the Apocalyptic figuration, both in regard of the literal and the allegorical interpretation of the symbols ?"

Mr. Elliott adds:

"It was against the apostate saint-worshipping men of Roman Christendom as a community that the Saracen scourge was commissioned. And, as regarded non-idolatrous Christian churches, or communities, such as those of the Nestorians and Paulikians, the Saracens, instead of persecuting, were a refuge to them from their pseudo-Christian persecutors."

Mr. Elliott agrees with those Protestant expositors who interpret the complex figuration of the lion-headed horses and horsemen from the Euphrates, of the sixth Trumpet, whose appointed destiny it was " to slay the third part of the men," "of the irruption of the Turks from the Euphrates in the eleventh century; and their destruction of the Constantinopolitan, or

Eastern third, of the old Roman Empire. In reference to one of the particulars of this "Turkish application," Mr. Elliott quotes the following strong remark from the Dean of Canterbury:

"We have here the culminating instance of incongruous interpretation in Mr. Elliott's historical interpretation of these prophecies; an interpretation so wild, that, if it refutes not itself, it seems scarcely capable of refutation."

Our space compels us to refer the reader to the Apocalypsis Alfordiana for Mr. Elliott's reply to this condemnatory cri

ticism.

A view of Mr. Elliott's scheme of interpretation may be in the main gathered from what has been advanced. Mr. Elliott thus sketches the view of his opponent :

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"The first four Seals, notwithstanding their markedly successive openings in the heavenly vision, are expressly declared by you to be not consecutive in point of time, but only co-ordinate and correlative," i.e., I presume, that the gospel-preaching, wars, famines, and pestilences, which you suppose them respectively to symbolize, were prefigured as what could all run on synchronically and intermixed, (with some mutual relationship perhaps, such as of cause and effect,) from St. John's time to the consummation. .. But then, as regards the sixth Seal (which surely ought, in all consistency, to come under the same law of 'co-ordinate and correlative' arrangement as the Seals preceding) you assign to the elemental convulsions therein figured, whether to be construed literally or figuratively, a chronological place distinctly and only at the period of the Lord's coming: that is, as you elsewhere somewhat inconsistently explain your meaning, not that of Christ's coming itself,' but that of the very eve and threshold of the day of the Lord.' . . . . Thence, turning to the Trumpets, the judgments figured on them, you tell us, 'were in answer to the whole (six) prayers of God's Church;' i.e., to the saints' and martyrs' cry for their avenging, after their number should have been completed. Consequently, the chronological place of all the Trumpet judgments, whether successional or (like your Seals) co-ordinate and correlative,' is fixed by you as subsequent not only to the fifth Seal, but to the sixth Seal; in other words, 'to the very eve of the great day of Christ's second coming.' And this involves the chronology of what the fourth column in your Tabular Scheme presents to us; viz., the episodical figurations of the rainbowcrowned Angel's descent, St. John's measuring of the Apocalyptic temple,and the Angel's narrative of Christ's sackcloth-robed Witnesses' 1260 days of witnessing, their murder in Rome's great city, and subsequent resurrection and ascension. For instead of this being an episode between the sixth and seventh Trumpets,' as you state at the head of that fourth column, in really flagrant contradiction to the Apocalyptic representation, it is most markedly placed in the Apocalypse itself under the latter half of the sixth Trumpet; the judgments of that trumpet being expressly noted as ending not until

after certain notable results and consequences of the Witnesses' ascent to heaven, subsequently to their death and resurrection."

The importance of this quotation must be an apology for its length. Rightly does Mr. Elliott say, that it is in really flagrant contradiction to the Apocalyptic representation, to describe the rainbow-crowned Angel's descent, and the subsequent events, including the resurrection anda scension of the Witnesses, as an episode between the sixth and seventh Trumpets. The Dean says of the Apocalyptic Witnesses :—“ I have no solution of my own of the two Witnesses; I recognize the characters, but cannot appropriate them."

The symbol of the Travaling Sun-clothed Woman is explained by the Dean as meant of the Jewish Church's travailing in hope of the Messiah, of the birth of the man-child Jesus Christ, of His persecution by Satan through Roman agencies, and of His ascension to the throne of God. The Woman's flight, in the latter part of the vision, is referred to the early Christian Church's flight to Pella from the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem.

On the contrary, Mr. Elliott believes that by the Woman is meant the Christian faithful Church, as she is afterwards called "the mother of them that observe the commandments of God, and keep the testimony of Jesus Christ." The seven-headed Dragon he holds to be Satan, as inspiring and acting in the heathen Roman empire, "its seven heads and ten horns being the Roman designative in the symbol of the beast next following." Mr. Elliott is confident that the whole struggle during which the man-child is taken up to the throne of God, "is fixed to Constantinian times, and to the last struggles in those times of Roman heathenism headed by Maximin, and then Licinius, against Christianity and the Christian Church.

We add Mr. Elliott's explanation of two specific periods of time in the Apocalypse.

1. The hour, day, month and year (Rev. ix. 15). This period would, on the year day scale, be equal to 396 years and 118 days. Now, just 396 years and 118 days elapsed from the loosing of the Turcoman hordes on the mission of the Caliph, from Bagdad on the Euphrates, to the fortieth day of the siege of Constantinople, when the fate of the city could no longer be averted, and the Eastern Emperor in despair offered to accept the Ottoman Sultan as his Suzerain.

2. The three and a half days during which the dead bodies of the two Witnesses were exposed. This period on the year day theory would be equal to three and a half years. In 1514, the fifth Lateran General Council, composed of deputies from all the kings and kingdoms of the West, met at Rome. The chosen Papal orator mounted the pulpit, and said triumphantly, "Jam nemo reclamat, nullus obsistit "- "There is an end of resistance

to the Papal rule; opposers there exist no more." This was on the 4th of May, 1514. On the 31st of October, 1517, just three and a half years after the triumphal pæan of the Lateran orator and Council over the dead witnesses, Luther put up his Theses on the church of Wittenberg; and the Reformation began again with greater power than ever before.

There is an apparent slight inconsistency in this view, which takes the three years as each of 365 days, while the half year is 360 instead of 365. Dean Alford avails himself of this, and writes :

Elliott's calculation of this period, as three and a half years, labours under this fatal defect: that whereas his three years, from 5th of May, 1514, are years of 365 days, his half year from May 5, 1517, to October 31 of the same year, is 180, or half 360 days; i. e. wanting two and a half days of the time required according to that reckoning."

It was the opinion of the late Thomas Scott, that he had read nothing in history which could claim to be accepted as a fulfilment of that which St. John has predicted concerning the death, resurrection, and ascension of the two Apocalyptic Witnesses. Some may smile at the idea of appealing to what they may be disposed to regard as the old fashioned authority of Mr. Scott. For our own part, however, on a plain question such as this, Are certain recorded events too unimportant in themselves to be received as the true and proper fulfilment of certain very marvellous New Testament predictions? we should be disposed to defer much to his sound sense, and Scripturally formed and practised judgment.

On the whole, students of the Apocalypse feel that the present is a time of deep interest. The late Mr. Faber began his career of prophetical interpretation by dating the commencement of the 1260 prophetic year days in A.D. 606, on which view they would expire A.D. 1866, within about three years from the present time. The short space of four years from the time that these pages shall have met the eye of the reader, will have conducted us through the earlier portion of the year 1867; when actually occurring events will tell their own tale, whatever that tale may be. Afterwards, Mr. Faber made a slight change in his view; and in his Preface (dated June 14, 1853) to his brief work on the Downfall of Turkey, and the Return of the Ten Tribes, he thus expresses his opinion (the italics are his own) :—

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'In general, we know from Prophecy, that the Dissolution of the Ottoman Power must occur before the Close of the 1260 years, and before the Commencement of the Time of the End.

"This knowledge, in the abstract, we possess: and we should also possess it in the concrete, if we knew with certainty the exact time when the 1260 years will expire. There is great reason to believe that

they will expire in the year 1864. Whence, if this opinion be correct, the Ottoman Power must fall some time before the arrival of that year (1864). But we cannot be absolutely certain that it is correct."

Thus, then, if the conjecture of Mr. Faber be correct, the Dissolution and Downfall of the Ottoman Power must occur during the present year, 1863.

In the same Preface it is also said :

"The Downfall of the Ottoman Power, let it occur when it may, is a matter of vast Scriptural importance. It will prepare the way for the return of the Ten Tribes; and their return will synchronise with the return of the Two Tribes. We have no right, however, to conclude, that the Restoration of Israel will immediately follow the Downfall of Turkey. A way will be prepared by the removal of an obstacle; but it does not therefore follow that Israel will instantaneously avail itself of the preparation. How long a time will intervene between the two events, we are not enabled to determine. This only we know, that the Downfall of Turkey will occur at the Pouring out of the sixth Apocalyptic Vial, but that the Restoration of Israel will not take place until the Pouring out of the seventh Vial. Here, again, we may be certain in the abstract, without being certain in the concrete."

If, upon the flight of the Bavarian Otho, a bold, able, and ambitious Russian Prince could have at once taken possession of the vacant throne of Greece, the expulsion of the Ottoman Power during this year, 1863, from its European territory and metropolis, would perhaps have been not only possible, but not altogether improbable. At present, however, the delay, and the arrangements connected with the appointment of a successor to Otho, may seem to be a Providential prolongation, even if for a very short period, of the doomed Ottoman Power.

The concluding part of Mr. Elliott's volume contains a notice of Dean Alford's Critical Commentary on St. Mark's Gospel, marked by learning and acuteness, which, as we can testify, will well repay a careful perusal.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

The Story of Martin Luther. Edited by Miss Whately. J. F. Shaw & Co. 1862.

The Story of Ulrich Zwingle, and the Swiss Reformation. By the Author of The Story of Luther. J. F. Shaw & Co.

Illustrations of The Life of Martin Luther. Engraved in Line, after Original Paintings. Day & Son.

"AMONG the English prelates with whom I became acquainted, the archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately, a correspondent of our Institute,

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