the composition of the panacea prescribed by this eccentric gentleman, who speaks thus respectfully of the Church :-"The soi-disant Protestant religion (says he) has succeeded in presenting, as holding the pre-eminent position in the house called of God, nothing but a box, with a man in it, turning his back upon the altar, with his flock all round him in pens like the cattle and sheep in Smithfield market."

But we must cease both from considering the speculations of others and also from offering our own. And we do so with one concluding observation. In nothing has the Jesuitical tact of the Romanist hierarchy in Ireland been more strikingly demou strated than in the plan dictated by them to Sir Robert Peel, as illustrated in the Maynooth arrangements. The advance from 9,000l. to 30,000l. per annum is a boon to the Irish priesthood. The virtual disfranchisement of Parliament in changing the annual grant for a permanent one; and the deeply laid scheme of royal incorporation, are boons to “his holiness” and the ultramontane party in ultramontane regions. To the latter will fall the exercise and enjoyment of all advantages therefrom derivable, for the advancement and furtherance of propaganda doctrines and encroachments all over the world. And this will be effected through an agency, which will shortly be made to appear in every region of the earth, as the conjoined movement of the Tiara of Rome and the Crown and State of Great Britain, Most heartily is every Jesuit in Europe laughing in his sleeve at British Protestant simplicity lashing itself into madness at the proposed increase of grant, which is, after all, only the tub thrown to the whale. They know full well that the incorporation will work more mischief than the mere money; and they. rejoice to see many remain wilfully and more ignorantly blind to the real source of impending injury to Protestantism, and of high triumph and advantage, at home and abroad, to Popery.

The grant of money, as we observed in our last number, had its points that might justly claim support; but the developed ministerial measure has robbed it of them, and the scheme of incorporation has even made what had become bad, infinitely worse. The concession is incalculably great; and they who profit by it are incalculably grateful-after a fashion of their own. As England gives more, so does their gratitude grow less. In respect of the latter sentiment, they resemble, in some sort, the old condition of the land in the county of Armagh, the which, as Peter Heylin tells us, was of such a character that "the laying any soil or compost on it doth abate its fruitfulness, and proves the worst husbandry that can be."

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Commentary on the Apocalypse. By MOSES STUART, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover. Two Vols. London: Wiley and Putnam. 1845.

EVERYTHING that comes from the pen of Professor Stuart is entitled to the most respectful attention and the most grave consideration, on account of his great learning, which is unaccompanied with rashness or dogmatism: he never makes a wrong use of his learning to spare himself the trouble of examination, nor does he abuse the confidence of others, by requiring them to receive assertions in the place of proof.

Professor Stuart has supplied us with a very valuable additional help to the critical study of the Apocalypse-a more valuable help perhaps than we have ever been provided with before and that not merely in the limited sense of treatises of the same extent as these volumes, but probably in the absolute sense. For within the compass of these volumes there is scarcely a point left untouched, and whatever is taken in hand is appa rently exhausted; and if we obtain not satisfaction here, we shall most probably find it nowhere else. We are speaking now of all that learning, and critical sagacity, and careful comparison with the language, style, and manner of the other books of Scripture can do; and of the knowledge derivable from history, or the secondary helps derivable from the writings of the fathers and commentators. But all these relate only to the authenticity, style, and circumstantials of the book, rather than to the book itself, and the import of its contents: the meaning of the book itself we are inclined to think more a matter of the heart than the head-more of spiritual discernment than of critical sagacity-more like the whole of Gospel truth-hidden from the wise and prudent (as our Lord says) and revealed unto babes.

It is instructive to make a reference to the history of Professor Stuart's commentary, both to observe the calm way in which he speaks of other schemes of interpretation, and to learn the value of his own by marking the long continued and careful steps by which he proceeded in its elaboration:

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"I am aware that such as have become attached to the methods of interpreting the Apocalypse that are most current in the English and American Churches, will probably, at least at first view, disagree with some of my results. I will not find fault with them for this; but they will allow me to entreat them to havé patience with me, and not to decide at once on difficult points, but to make the book of the Reve

lation a subject of thorough and often repeated study. My own views -I mean such as I once had-have been changed by such a course. When I began my official duties in my present station, I had no other knowledge of the book than what the reading of Bishop Newton on the prophecies, and of others who were of the like cast, had imparted to me. The classes of pupils under my instruction soon began to importune me to give them some information respecting the Apocalypse. I commenced the study of it, with a design to comply with their request. I soon found myself, however, in pur suing the way of regular interpretation, as applied to other books of Scripture, completely hedged in; and I felt, at the same time, that to pursue my former method of interpreting the book, would cast me inevitably upon the boundless ocean of mere conjectural exposition. I frankly told my pupils, therefore, that I knew nothing respecting the book which could profit them, and that I could not attempt to lecture upon it. After still further examination, I came to a resolution not to attempt the exegesis of the Apocalypse, until a period of ten years had elapsed, which should be devoted, so far as my other duties would permit, to the study of the Hebrew prophets. I kept my resolution. After this period had passed, I begun, with much caution, to say a few. things, in the lecture-room, respecting the book in question. Every three years these lectures, such as they were, I repeated, with some additions and alterations. In process of time I begun to go through the whole book. This I have done several times; and the present work is the result of these often-repeated and long-continued labours.

"I do not give this history of my undertaking, with a view to recommend my work to the confidence of the Christian public. It must stand or fall by its own merits. What I have now said, has been said rather in the way of apology, for having engaged in an undertaking so hazardous as that of writing and publishing a commentary on the Revelation. I have been led along step by step to my present position, without having originally designed to publish anything at all concerning the Apocalypse."-(Preface).

This careful study, this long meditation, of one so well quali fied in learning and talent as Professor Stuart, must carry with it the conviction that whatever can be accomplished in this way has been done, and that this commentary embodies all that is at present known concerning the Apocalypse, so far as its history, its genuine text, its critical meaning, and its correspondence with, or difference from, the other books of Scripture, in the language or the idiom, are concerned: and, these points being cleared, lay a solid foundation for the student, and carry him a long way towards a correct interpretation of the whole scope and significance of the book. Many may be inclined to think that they must needs carry us the whole way; for what can we want more than to know the meaning of the words to know the mean ng of the writer? In ordinary books we need nothing more,

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because ordinary men have written them, to be understood by all mankind. Yet even in secular literature, some of its writings require congeniality of taste or acquirement in the reader, in order that the meaning may be fully understood poetry is rightly understood by the poetic, mathematics by the mathematical, &c. And in all sacred books, which deal with spiritual things, a spiritual apprehension is necessary, and above all other books of Scripture in the Apocalypse-the last and most mysterious of our sacred books, written by the most spiritual of the disciples of our Lord.

The whole of the Old Testament has a poetic cast, which persons of a poetic cast of temperament feel far more than others; and this has been sometimes a hindrance in pressing on to a spiritual understanding of it, which higher sense is often apprehended by others who have no poetic feeling. And a third class of persons may misunderstand both these, and misrepresent Scripture as though it had the exaggeration of orien tal metaphor, or were inexact as the visions of a morbidly active. imagination. The spiritual sense of Scripture is rigidly exact, and is when rightly-that is spiritually-understood, the only true interpretation, the only reality.

What we mean is this: Christ was the reality which the Old Testament had in view-Christ personal-Christ in the things he did and suffered-his birth, his acts, his death, his resurrection. It is of these realities that the Old Testament is full; every figure points to him; he is the theme of every song; yet, up to the time of the giving of the Holy Ghost, none understood these things concerning him, nor even the plainest words spoken by himself concerning his death and resurrection. The two disciples going to Emmaus understood quite well the literal meaning of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms; but they knew not their application to Christ until he opened their understandings, to understand the Scriptures. And we see the same thing instanced in St. Peter and the other apostles after the day of pentecost, and St. Paul before and after his conversion.

And still further, we find that the most important parts of Scripture are purposely couched in enigmatical language, in order that men, by their natural understandings and ordinary sagacity, may not be able to find out the meaning. Our Lord declares expressly that he spake in parables that the multitude might not understand him; yet the things he spake of were the grand, the final realities-the end of the world-the kingdom of heaven the separation of the righteous from the wicked, and the entrance of the just into the everlasting kingdom of our heavenly Father. And St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, not

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only asserts the fact but reasons it out, and shows that it is not by intellectual sagacity or learning, but by spiritual discernment alone, that we can comprehend the things of Christ contained in Scripture.

The Church is called the body of Christ, and is a mystery second only to that concerning Christ, and scarcely second almost identical: for it is the end he has in view-the purpose for which he came; it is the body of which he is the head. And throughout the whole Scripture, the Church and the Gospel dispensation are bound up with the mystery concerning Christ himself, and the winding up of the Gospel dispensation synchronizes with the manifestation of the glory of Christ, and, next to himself, forms thereof the most prominent part. But it is of the Church, and its trials and its triumphs, that the Apocalypse treats. And in doing so, it has incorporated or referred to almost every prophecy of the Old Testament which applies to the triumphs of Christ; and may almost be regarded as an index to the Old Testament for passages which bear on this point. In as much, therefore, as we know that the prophecies concerning Christ are mysterious, and need spiritual as well as intellectual discernment-so should we conclude that the closely connected, the almost identical prophecies concerning the Church of Christ, will be found to be in like manner mysterious, and in the same measure to require spiritual, as well as intellectual, discernment.

Moreover, it is not only in the parables of our Lord that we are led on to the future realities of Christ and the Church, and the trials which prepare for, and the triumphs which usher in, the kingdom of heaven; but he has given a specific discourse to warn and encourage the Church-a discourse, in plain simple language, with nothing mysterious about it, in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, enumerating all the main occurrences of the Church's history, and covering all the time between his death and the coming kingdom of heaven for which we daily pray. This discourse gives in plain language the same history of the Church which is represented in vision to St. John in Patmos or rather in many visions, to represent the various aspects and many details of that one and self-same history. Christ makes Jerusalem and the temple, which they were then looking upon, both the starting point and the type; but the history of the Church was the reality, and the thing which he meant to impress on the minds of his disciples. They thought chiefly of the present thing-the temple and Jerusalem: he takes up their thought, and leads it on to the Church, and to the end of the world.