they had been received by the French Government, is likely to work some change in their administration, if not in their policy, in the Pacific.

SPAIN continues to sink beneath the weight of its military despotism. On the 10th of October, the late Regent, Espartero, addressed his countrymen on the Queen coming of age, "not surrounded by the splendour of a royal and solemn ceremonial, but from his place of exile;" and no Spaniard, who loves his country, one would think, can read that address without shame, for the ingratitude and folly that drove that patriot soldier from the post of honour a free nation had assigned to him, and placed their new-born liberties at the mercy of the partizans of an abandoned Queen, and the intrigues of the agents of France and Rome. But, alas! the blood of Jews and Moors, of Peruvians and Protestants, who have been persecuted, expelled, and butchered, by Spanish priests and princes, is not yet expiated!

BELGIUM, whose independence was guaranteed, and whose throne was established by Great Britain, has joined in the commercial league against us, and has published a tariff, which will drive our silk and cotton manufactures out of the Belgic market, and substitute those of France and Prussia in their place.

There has been an important conference of evangelical ministers at St. Gall, in SWITZERLAND, when it was resolved, "That it is highly desirable for all evangelical Christians, Reformed and Lutheran, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, and generally all who believes in the fundamental truths of the Gospel, to unite for the purpose of making an open confession of their common faith, in opposition to the unity purely material of the Roman church, and thus proclaim their own true and spiritual unity." This is a measure which has also been suggested in this country again and again, and which the meeting at Exeter Hall, in June, 1843, contem. plated as an ultimate object. We rejoice to know, that some influential persons of sound opinions, in this country, are proposed to help forward such a movement, so that we do not despair of witnessing a convention of Christian pastors and elders, that shall represent the evangelical Protestantism of Europe and America, and that shall speak to the nations in favour of the Word of God, in tones far more impressive than those which have recently issued from the Vatican against it.

At HOME the movements of the Court have supplied the multitude with many topics for agreeable chit-chat. Her Majesty's visit to Scotland-her attendance at Presbyterian worship at Blair Athol church-the visit of Louis Philippe, King of the French, to her Majesty at Windsor-and the splendid ceremonial of her Majesty proclaiming the new Royal Exchange, London, have supplied repeated opportunities for a loyal and generous people to demonstrate their attachment to the Queen and her family, and their hearty good-will toward our French neighbours. These events are important, not simply as they test the feelings of the people, but as they embody principles, and are favourable to the peace, liberty, and happiness of mankind.

Some events connected with ecclesiastical affairs have occurred, which deserve a passing remark. Lord Wharncliffe, President of the Council, has delivered in Yorkshire a demi-official speech on the subjects of church extension and popular education, in which his lordship most distinctly repudiates high church and exclusive systems. This is another approximation by the present ministers to the policy of their predecessors in office, and which, with a similar course on other questions, leads many to expect that the country will yet witness a coalition ministry. Let all true-hearted Protestants be awake, or before they are aware Popery will be restored to the rank and emoluments of an Established Church in Ireland.

The opposition of the Puseyite party at Oxford to the election of Dr. Symons as Vice-Chancellor, appeared on the poll less formidable than was anticipated, because Dr. Hook and his followers declined to vote. But enough was manifested to show that the men of that university are fearfully tainted with the virus of Popery.

A WORK has lately appeared* which has done more to elucidate the Apocalypse than any which had gone before it; and which, whoever of different views may wish otherwise, seems destined to rescue from neglect, and to fix on a permanent basis, the structure and the true principles of interpretation of that mysterious book. It will be of no use to affect to overlook it; and no student of divinity will find that he can long dispense with reading it. It is therefore the more important to sift such a work, and to detach from it whatever of demonstrable error may have crept into it.

There are two novel positions, novel at least as discovered in the Apocalypse, which the author has advanced, and which I hope to show are, in their new aspect, not less erroneous than novel. The first of these is contained in the startling announcement of the discovery of a "divinely pronounced sentence" in favour of "the line of apostolic succession;" not, indeed, in its more exclusive sense, but as embracing all the ministers of the Reformation, who have, in the fact of St. John's being made their representative, a direct intimation of their being all in the line." But then this line or stream, as we shall see, is the one flowing out of the old cesspool, Rome, and carrying back the first commission of those included within it to their Romish ordination.

* Horæ Apocalyptica; or, A Commentary on the Apocalypse, Critical and Historical including also an Examination of the chief Prophecies of Daniel. Illustrated by an Apocalyptic Chart, and sundry Engravings from medals and other extant monuments of antiquity. By the Rev. G. B. Elliott, A.M., late Vicar of Tuxford, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Three volumes 8vo. 1844. London Seeley and Co.

The author has, however, conceded so much, has shown so excellent a spirit, and has advanced so near the point of an entire rejection of the "great fiction of the times," that it is truly an ungracious task to have to find any fault with him. On the other hand, the very fact of his having brought it to that point, and there having left it, denuded indeed of its excrescences, but with its seminal principle uneradicated; wounded, but with life still remaining and potent for ill, is the very condition which calls the more earnestly for a stroke which shall destroy its vitality. To have fearlessly stripped the doctrine of apostolical succession of its extravagant pretensions and exclusive claims, is no common merit in a minister of the Anglican church in these days. But to leave it where Mr. Elliott has left it, as dependent on and issuing out of Romish ordination, is just to surrender it to those who, having it, though but in bare existence, conceded to them, will be well satisfied with the grant, knowing that in their hands it can speedily be restored to vigour. In fact, while this tie is retained in any shape, nothing is done towards the removal of the obnoxious doctrine; and the Puseyite, with this principle conceded to him, will laugh at the triumphs of those who fancy that they have crippled him. It is this tie, then, half untied, but still fast enough to hold the fatal principle within its folds, which I wish fairly to give as exhibited by Mr. Elliott, and to dissever from its supposed apocalyptic connexion.

It is first necessary to observe, that throughout the apocalyptic figurations St. John is supposed by Mr. Elliott to fill a symbolic character as the representative of the church or its ministers; and that, arrived at that point in the prophecy which he considers to be the chronological position of the Reformation (Apoc. x. 8—11) he is to be considered as the "representative of the ministers of the Reformation." It is further supposed, that at this particular point Luther, as the leading minister of the Reformation, is personally symbolised, with special reference to some prominent incidents in his life. Whether this particular interpretation be correct or not, is a question which I do not feel myself called upon to raise. It is the inference extracted from this interpretation, rather than the interpretation itself, with which we have to do; and, to state this fairly, I shall give it, as far as is consistent with brevity, in Mr. Elliott's own words.

"And now," says Mr. E. "having to show the fulfilment of the apocalyptic symbolisation contained in the passage that heads the present section (The angel said, Thou must prophesy again before many nations,' &c.) a symbolisation agreeing with the epoch and stage of progress next notable in the history of the Reformation, it may be, perhaps, best introduced by observing on that first prophesying or Gospel preaching by Luther, just alluded to, and also the commission authorising him in it, which the words and form of his apocalyptic re-commissioning may deem to allude to. Now, this

primary charge and commission Luther received at his ordination." Mr. Elliott then, adverting to that portion of the ritual which gave him authority to preach the Gospel, adds, "All this, I say, was consonant with Christ's own appointment; and his subsequent ordination as priest not invalidating the obligation, and the order of his vicargeneral having confirmed, the more he was enlightened from above, the more the deep sense of the obligation laid on him by that solemn commission pressed upon his mind; for he looked through the ordaining bishop to Him in whose name the bishop acted, even the Lord Jesus. 'It was not from the hands of man,' he said, 'that I received the Gospel, but of Christ.' And well indeed did he fulfil the function of evangelist thus committed to him. The church of Wittemberg heard a strange sound in the revived preaching of the Lord Jesus. Nor this alone: by his preaching, by his lectures in the university, by the circulation of evangelical writings, by the influence of personal communication, and that too which he had occasion officially to exercise in a visitation, as the vicar-general's substitute, of the Augustine convents in Electoral Saxony, he was already, before his rupture with the Papacy, the means of preparing for evangelical preachers not a few of the monks and clergy."

"Such," continues Mr. E., "was Luther's first Gospel preaching, such the original commission that authorised him in it. And with it we begin our illustration of the prophecy before us." Mr. E. then goes on to state that the function of evangelist thus committed to him, was broken off by his deportation and confinement in the castle of Wartburg; during which both his friends and his enemies thought his labours were ended: both he and his fellow-labourers were excommunicated and silenced, and the progress of the Reformation seemed brought to a stand. But his work was not finished; he was to prophesy again; and his brethren, the reforming ministers, were to prophesy with him, in the face of the papal and imperial fulminations. "Now it was to be expected," observes Mr. Elliott, "that on account of the departure in some (of the reforming churches) from direct episcopal ordination, and on account of the bishops in the others being excommunicated and degraded by Rome, there would be raised cavillings against ministers ordained in them, as if uncommissioned and unordained. Hence the desirableness of some divinely-pronounced sentence in the matter. And here we seem to have the very thing we might desire. Supposing that the sense I have attached to the passage is the right one, (and I think, considering the context in which it occurs, it will be hard indeed to disprove it,) we have in the fact of St. John's being made representative of the ministers of the Reformation, a direct intimation of their being all in the line of apostolic succession; and in the angel's words, Thou must prophesy again,' of

their being commissioned by Him who commissioned the apostlesthe ANGEL of the covenant, CHRIST JESUS."*

To this interpretation of the apocalyptic charge, "Thou must prophesy again," &c., in the renewed commission of the reforming ministers, we need make no objection. The question in dispute refers not to the second commission, but to the first; not to the one from God, but to the one from men, and the theory of apostolical succession assumed to be contained in it. The parallel drawn by Mr. Elliott between John in his symbolic character, and Luther in his ecclesiastical one, is so contrary to the entire scope of the book which is supposed to furnish it, that we cannot hesitate to pronounce it forced. The order to prophesy again cannot refer back, as Mr. E. contends, to the first commission given to Luther at his ordination, but to the call by the Spirit to come out of that den of darkness, on which, but for the real call, this spurious one had for ever set the seal; and the commission then given him to prophesy, or to declare the truth in the face of antichrist and his myrmidons, the bishops and priests of Rome, who had succeeded in filling its place with a counterfeit. In what impassioned and indignant language would Luther exclaim at his being brought forward as the defender of Romish orders, and an apostolical succession through them! His call was not at his ordination by the Romish hierarchy; not in or by that ordination, as Mr. Elliott would contend; he was dead then: but at the summons to come out, by which he was first called into spiritual life; when the word of God first met his astonished eyes, and the Spirit (the true ordainer) breathed life and light into his soul, and gave him the commission which he so repeatedly declares he never dared to lay down. Mr. Elliott shows that Luther himself looked upon his second call, his re-ordination or re-commission, as Mr. E. terms it, after his solitude at Wartburg, as no act of man, or through man, but as "a voice from heaven." Why not then his first call from his cell at Erfurth of the same kind? It is plain that Luther considered it so. "It was not," says he, "from the hand of man that I received the Gospel, but of Christ." As to his leaning to ecclesiastical authority, or his reverence for ecclesiastical orders, we know that it was long, and not till after many a conflict, before he could shake off the trammels of the church, or persuade himself that he was released from his allegiance to the pope himself. It was indeed by slow degrees, as might have been expected, that truth triumphed over error in the mind of Luther. Nor was the triumph destined ever to be complete. To the last he could not entirely divest himself of his Romish ideas of the eucharist. It honours not either the accuracy or the discrimination of Mr. Elliott, to introduce Luther as speaking in terms of reverence

* Hora Apocalypticæ, Part III. ch. vi.