And, meekly bending to his fate,
New chains and tenfold anguish wait.
Not so ;-reposing on their Lord,
They know the power of his Word,
And boldly for the fight prepare
Against the leagued millions there.

Now fiercely doth the conflict rage;
Its horrors no kind tears assuage;
Curses and dying groans arise
Through smoke and thunder to the skies.
In darkness warriors aim the stroke,
By frequent deadly flashes broke,
And furious o'er the extended plain
Battalions meet,-
-nor meet again.
Now long had hung the equal day,
More dreadful grew the deadly fray;
Myriads, in ranks, by nations fell,
The trenches with their life blood swell.
No strife had Esdraelon seen
Like Armageddon's dreadful scene.j
Pontiffs, their vestments stained with gore,
Fanatic, furious, rush before,
Crosses of gold uplifting high-
Adoring myriads raise the cry,
And, swelling with unholy zeal,
Against the chosen whet the steel.
Through darkness, sable as the night,
Gleam the green turban's colors bright;
The "Prophet's" priests with furious look,
Denounce" the people of the Book ;"
The Moslems with new fury rave
And haste their swords in blood to lave.

On darkened thrones of clouds he rides,
The forked lightnings tend,
And trumpet blasts, by angels rung,
The trembling mountains rend.
Archangels in unnumbered ranks
And Seraphs countless fly,
Behind him thunder wide and far
The chariots of the sky.1

Why shrink ye, nations, from the Lord-m
Ye, who so lately spurned his word?
Why, pale and breathless, drop the spear,"
Which only now ye brandished here?
Why rolls the tide of warriors back
In the dead-strewed and blood-stained
[track?
Where are the countless hosts that gleamed?
And banners that uplifted streamed?
The God hath sent his arrows forth,
And smote the Gentiles in his wrath ;
The surges of his vengeance rose
And overwhelmed his stubborn foes;
His hailstones and consuming fire°
Dashed down and scorched them in his ire;
The hosts, that 'gainst his people sped,
Are numbered now amongst the dead ;
And Christendom's proud chivalry
With Asia's swarthy warriors lie.
Corpses, in ghastly heaps, are lain P
Along Judæa's holy plain;
Its channels, swelling with the flood
Its trenches bridle deep in blood:9
The earth, polluted, heaves in pain,
Nor bears a foe to God again.

;

j Rev. xvi, 16. k Zech. xiv, 5.

• Ezek. xxxviii, 22; Rev. xvi, 21. Isa L, 18; ii, 4; Mic. iv. 3.

p

APOSTOLIC CONSOLATION: a few considerations affectionately offered to the attention of the sorrowing Christian, by the REV. H. T. BURNE, M. A. Curate of Grittleton and Littleton Drew. London, Nisbet, 12mo. Pp. 48. Sd.

STRICTURES ON THE REV. S. R. MAITLAND'S FOUR PAMPHLETS ON PROPHECY; and in Vindication of the Protestant principles of Interpretation. By WILLIAM CUNNINGHAME, ESQ. of Lainshaw, in the county of Ayr. London, Nisbet, 8vo. Pp. 64. 2s.

An Abstract of the Events of the SEVENTH TRUMPET, as in great part fulfilled and coming shortly to an end. By the REV. W. WARD, A. M. London, Higham; Ipswich, Cowell, 8vo. Pp. 62. 8d.

THE KINGSHIP OF JESUS, by JOHN E. SABIN, A. B. Rector of Preston Bissett, and Curate of Aston Sandford. London, Nisbet, 6s. 6d.

An Amicable CONTROVERSY WITH A JEWISH RABBI on the Messiah's coming; unfolding new views of Prophecy, and the nature of the Millennium with an entire new Exposition of Zechariah on the Messiah's Kingdom. By J. R. PARK, M. D. &c. London, Smith, Elder, & Co. 8vo. 7s.

;

A SHORT TREATISE ON THE MILLENNIUM: in which the reign of Christ during that period is shewn from Scripture to be spiritual; and the signs and miracles, urged as proofs of the near personal advent,

to be fallacious. By A CLERGYMAN OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. London, Hatchard & Son, 12mo. 3s.

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES as denoted by the fulfilment of historical predictions, traced down from the Babylonish Captivity to the present time; with Military Maps by Marshal St. Cyr, illustrative of Buonaparte's and Suwarrow's Campaigns in Italy. By the REV. ALEXANDER KEITH. Whyte & Co. Edinburgh; Longman & Co. London. 12mo. (In the press.)

We have received three Numbers of a weekly penny paper called "THE ISLINGTON POPULAR LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE." It dabbles a little with prophecy. In an article headed The present state and future prospects of the World," the writer says, that the tide of intellect is hastening on the renovation of the world; that in the political world every country and village seems electrified into motion ; -the reign of despotism is hurrying to a close; &c. Yet with this advancing knowledge he admits that immorality and crime still increase, which is a sign that something is still wanting to complete this grand renovation." And what (he adds) is the defect? It is neglect in the religious education of the young !" We lament that such views as these should be put into a popular form for circulation.-It is any thing but religious knowledge.

We have just seen the first Number of another penny paper, to be published weekly at the Leeds Intelligencer Office, called THE WITNESS. From the glance we have given at its contents, it seems ably conducted, and likely to prove a most useful work. It may be procured through any Bookseller or Newsman.

and coming out unhurt, was banished by him into Patmos. Though this story be no more than a fiction, yet was it founded on a tradition of the first churches, that John was banished into Patmos in the days of Nero. Epiphanius represents the Gospel of John as written in the time of Domitian, and the Apocalypse even before that of Nero. Arethas, in the beginning of his Commentary, quotes the opinion of Irenæus from Eusebius, but follows it not; for he afterwards affirms, that the Apocalypse was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and that former commentators had expounded the sixth seal of that destruction.

a story told by Eusebius out of Clemens Alexandrinus,d and other ancient authors, concerning a youth, whom John, some time after his return from Patmos, committed to the care of the bishop of a certain city. The bishop educated, instructed, and, at length, baptized him: but then, remitting his care, the young man thereupon got into ill company, and began by degrees first to revel and grow vicious, then to abuse and spoil those he met in the night; and at last he grew so desperate, that his companions, on becoming a band of robbers, made him their captain; and, saith Chrysostom,e he continued their captain a long time. At length John returning to that city and hearing what was done, rode to the thief; and when he fled, out of reverence to his old master, John rode after him, recalled him, and restored him to the church. This is a story of many years, and requires that John should have returned from Patmos rather at the death of Nero, than at that of Domitian; because, between the death of Domitian and that of John, there were but two years and a half; and John in his old age was so infirm, f as to be carried to church, (being above 90 238 years old,) and therefore could not be then supposed able to ride after the thief.

This opinion is further supported by the allusions in the Apocalypse to the temple and altar and holy city, as then standing; and to the gentiles, who were soon after to tread underfoot the holy city and outward court. It is confirmed also by the style of the Apocalypse itself, which is fuller of Hebraisms than John's Gospel; for hence it may be gathered, that it was written when

John was newly come out of Judea, where he had been used to the Syriac tongue; and that he did not write his Gospel, till, by long converse with the Asiatic Greeks he had left off most of the Hebraisms. It is confirmed also by the many false Apocalypses, (as those of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Stephen, Elias, and Cerinthus, written in imitation of the true one ;) for as the many false Gospels, Acts, and Epistles were occasioned by true ones; and the writing many false Apocalypses, and ascribing them to apostles and prophets, argues that there was a true apostolic one, in great request with the first christians: so this true one may well be supposed to have been written early, that there may be room in the apostolic age for the writing of so many false ones afterwards, and fathering them upon Peter, Paul, Thomas, and others, who were dead before John. Caius, who was contemporary with Tertullian, 239 tells us, that Cerinthus wrote his Revelations as a great apostle,g and pretended the visions were shewn him by the angels; asserting a millennium of carnal pleasures at Jerusalem after the resurrection: so that his Apocalypse was plainly written in imitation of John's: and yet he lived so early, that he resisted the Apostles at Jerusalem in or before the first year of Claudius,h (that is, 26 years before the death of Nero,) and died before John. i

These reasons may suffice for determining the time; and yet there is one more, which to considering men may seem a good reason, to others not. I will propound it, and leave it to every man's judgement. The Apocalypse seems to be alluded to in the Epistles of Peter and that

h Epi

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the churches in Asia, to whom John was commanded to send this prophecy, he tells them, "that they have a more sure word of prophecy, to be heeded by them, as a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in their hearts,"—that is, until they begin to understand it: “ for no prophecy, (saith he,) of the Scriptutes is of any private inter- 241 pretation; the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Daniel himself professes, n that he understood not his own prophecies ; and therefore the churches were not to expect the interpretation from their prophet John, but to study the prophecies themselves. This is the substance of what Peter says in the first chapter; and then in the second he proceeds to describe, out of this sure word of prophecy," how there should arise in the church false prophets, or false teachers, (expressed collectively in the Apocalypse by the name of the false prophet,) who should bring in dam ́nable heresies, denying even the · Lord that bought them, (which is the character of Antichrist;) and many (saith he) shall follow their lusts;" they that dwell on the earth shall be deceived by the false prophet, P and be made drunk with the wine of the whore's fornication, "by reason of whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed;" for the beast is full of blasphemy. 9" And 'through covetousness shall they 'with feigned words make merchan'dize of you;" for these are the merchants of the earth, who trade with the great whore, and their

to the Hebrews, and therefore to have been written before them. Such allusions in the Epistle to the Hebrews, I take to be the discourses concerning the High Priest in the heavenly tabernacle, who is both priest and king, as was Melchisedec;j and those concerning the Word of God, with the sharp two-edged sword; the raßßariopos, or millennial rest; the earth, whose end is to be burned, (perhaps by the lake of fire ;) the judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries; the heavenly city, which hath foundations, whose builder and 240 maker is God; the cloud of witnesses, mount Zion, heavenly Jeruralem, general assembly; spirits of just men made perfect, (viz. by the resurrection ;) and the shaking of heaven and earth, and removing of them, that the new heaven, new earth, and new kingdom, which cannot be shaken, may remain. k In the first of Peter occur these: The Revelation of Jesus Christ," twice twice or thrice repeated; 1 "The blood of Christ, as of a lamb, fore-ordained before the foundation of the world ;' “The spiritual building in heaven;" An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept unto the salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time;" The royal priesthood;" "The holy priesthood;" The 'judgement beginning at the house ' of God;" and "The church at Babylon." m These are indeed obscurer allusions; but the second Epistle, from the 19th verse of the first chapter to the end, seems to be a continued commentary upon the Apocalypse. There, in writing to

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11 Pet. i, 7, 13; iv, 13; and v,

1.