hand of man, 2 Thess. ii. 8; Rev. xix. 20. We are surprised that these great truths, so clearly taught in these and other prophecies, were overlooked by Mr. Sparkes.

9. A COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SOLOMON. By George Burrowes, D.D. Second Edition, Revised. Philadelphia: William S. and Alfred Martien. 1860.

THIS work is essentially the same as in the first edition, of which we gave a notice soon after its appearance in 1853. Dr. Burrowes regards the Song as representative of Christ and the sanctified church; unfolds it as such with ingenuity and learning, and points out the exceptionableness of those constructions that assign it a lower, and mere literal meaning. The loftier the reader's views are of Christ, the deeper his insight into the work of redemption, the more exalted, full, and joy-inspiring his apprehension of the beauty and bliss of that conformity to Christ and enjoyment of his favor to which the ransomed are to be advanced at their resurrection and admission to his eternal kingdom, the greater will be the ease with which he will enter into the teachings and spirit of this volume, and the higher the satisfaction he will derive from it.

10. THE BRITISH PERIODICALS. Republished by L. Scott and Co., New York.

THE Westminster for July opens with a most venomous attack on the Bible, in an article on Mr. Rawlinson's Lectures on the Truth of the Scripture Records. The writer seems exacerbated with spleen and resentment that any one should attempt to verify the truth of the Old and New Testament History. He disproves nothing, however. He establishes no facts that contravene the testimony of the sacred writers. He only aims by bold assertions, assumptions, and innuendoes, to detract, excite doubt, and exhibit faith as uncritical, weak, and the work of prejudice. The article on the strength and weakness of Germany presents a sad picture of the barriers that prevent the states from coalescing under a common head for their defence. The false theories that prevail, and the rivalries of the two principal kingdoms, seem more likely to lead to disruption and antagonism than union. The View of Contemporary Literature is of unusual ability and interest.

The London opens with a highly attractive history of the measures lately adopted to carry the Bible to the poor of London, and win them from vice, misery, and despair, to knowledge, virtue, and the hopes and enjoyments Christianity imparts. Next follows an able portraiture of the life and character of Joseph Scaliger. An article on the Cape and South Africa gives the history and present condition of that colony. The Review of Darwin on the Origin of Species, presents a far fuller view of the source whence he drew his theory, and exposure of its errors, than has appeared in the other British Periodicals. Rejected and confuted in all quarters, it seems likely to sink, after a short career, to the oblivion which it merits.

The Edinburgh renders a similar service to truth and virtue in a review of Humboldt's correspondence. The reprobation which the exposure of his meanness and malevolence has drawn on him, will, we trust, in a measure intercept his Cosmos from the pernicious influence it was exerting.

There are highly entertaining and instructive articles also on Rose's Correspondence, Murchison's late Geological Discoveries, The Patrimony of St. Peter, Vaughan's Revolutions in English History, Thiers's last volume, and Cardinal Mai's Edition of the Vatican Codex.

The North British on Recent Discoveries in Astronomy, gives the speculations of M. Leverrier on the existence of a planet between Mercury and the Sun, the history of the supposed discovery of such a planet by M. Lescarbault, and the denial of its existence by M. Liais. The question of its reality is in debate, and may remain undetermined for a considerable period.

It has articles of interest on the Rev. Dr. Brown's Life and Works, and on Recent Rationalism in the Church of England, as displayed in the Volume of Essays and Reviews lately issued by Powell, Jowett, Williams, Goodwin, and others. We are surprised that in the article on Recent Theories in Meteorology, the unscientific and preposterous fancy that the light of the sun is caused by the conflagration of meteors precipitated from the interplanetary spaces on to its surface, should be dignified with a respectful notice, and passed without animadversion.

A NEW SOLUTION OF THE CONTEMPORANEOUS SYMBOLS OF THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN, showing that the first series describes the Apostasy, the second the true Church; and that the Constantinian Church of the Fourth Century was the former; the rupture of the Seals its development under the Man of Sin, or Antichrist; and the blast of the Seventh Trumpet, or the discharge of the Vials, its destruction. By Rev. A. GASCOYNE, M.A., Mickleton, Gloncestershire. Second Edition. London Wertheim & Macintosh. 1855.

THOUGH a continual current of publications on the subject of the prophetic Scriptures has proceeded from the British press during the last ten or fifteen years, very little has been done, so far as we are aware, towards the settlement of the great questions that are in debate respecting the principles of interpretation, and the results to which they lead. The attempts of Brown (Glasgow), Waldegrave, Fairbairn, and others, who reject Christ's premillennial advent and reign, to expunge that doctrine from the sacred

word, and substitute a counter system in its place, were signal failures. Proceeding on arbitrary grounds, openly rejecting the grammatical sense of the divine word, and endeavoring to fasten on it a factitious meaning, to bring it into harmony with their preconceived theories, the baselessness of their views was made apparent by the unjustifiableness of the means they employed to sustain them. The volumes, on the other side, exhibit much the same character as their predecessors twenty years ago. Some are scholarly and cautious, and present able views of the themes of which they treat; others are crude, rash, and fanatical; and they fail universally, so far as we have had the means of ascertaining, to try the questions they debate by the proper laws, either of language or symbols. Some, while insisting generally on a strict adherence to the grammatical sense of language predictions, admit in a measure the principle of spiritualization. Others, while acknowledging that representative agents, acts, and events are the medium through which the symbolical prophecies are conveyed, interpret a share of them very much as though-instead of the symbols -the language in which they are described were the vehicle of their meaning. And a third class, disregarding alike the laws of symbols and of language, interpret all, whatever may be its nature, by some arbitrary, preconceived theory. Among those of this class that have lately reached us, is Mr. Gascoyne's volume, which we propose to notice, partly to apprise our readers of the mistaken views into which some who discuss the subject have been led, and partly to vindicate the prophecies from misrepresentation, and enforce the necessity of an undeviating adherence in their interpretation to the laws of the medium—whether language or symbols-through which they are conveyed. Mr. Gascoyne's theory is, that heaven, the scene of the visions-Rev. iv., v., and vi., and onward-is the symbol of the visible church on earth; that the living creatures are representatives of civil rulers; the elders, of priests in the church; and the angels who surrounded the throne, of the Christian laity; that the Lamb was a symbol or representative of the cross; and thence that the worship of the Lamb by the living creatures, elders, and angels, was a superstitious and apostate worship; and finally, that the symbols

under the seals are all emblems of the apostasy of the church to the errors and idolatries of the papacy. This is not merely a mistake; it is a misrepresentation and caricature so extreme and revolting, that it strikes us with astonishment that a writer of Mr. Gascoyne's sense and seriousness could have conceived it, and thought it a just solution of the prophecy. Thus, he is wholly mistaken in the assumption that heaven, the scene in which God revealed himself to the apostle, and made the revelation, was the symbol of the visible church on the earth. He

says:

"The locality where St. John saw these things is called heaven. If, however, it be compared with the tabernacle or temple, the correspondence will be found in all essential points complete. The deviations, so far from nullifying my theory, were necessary to describe the apostasy, of which these deviations are the features. Now, the tabernacle or temple, under Moses and of old, was God's earthly residence; and in the New Testament the Christian church is described by the same symbol of a temple or tabernacle. As, then, the temple service and its worshippers composed the visible church among the Jews, with God residing in the midst, and the Christian church in the New Testament is brought before us under the same symbol, so here also we have the visible Christian church at the period of its history when it began to lay the foundation of the apostasy...... As, then, the temple into which St. John was introduced could not have been heaven proper, and it is unnecessary to prove that it was not heaven political, since the prophecy was sent expressly to God's servants, it follows that he was admitted into heaven ecclesiastical-i. e. into the militant church."-Pp. 18, 19.

This betrays a singular inacquaintance with the principle on which symbols are employed, and involves a total perversion of the prophecy.

1. If heaven, the scene of the vision of the fourth and fifth chapters, the opening of the seals, the sounding of the trumpets, and the effusion of the vials, were a symbol, it would be the symbol of a place, of an analogous nature or use, not of human beings, and an organization of human beings as a church. If heaven, that is, the atmosphere or