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The last verse of the chapter (xii. 17) alludes to times subsequent to the destruction of Babylon. It hints at the great falling away' which has taken place, of the great mass of the Woman's seed having become the "Seed of the Adulterer, and the Whore," and having been involved in her ruin, and of there being but a small remnant left who have escaped the judgment, and who still "keep the commandments of GOD, and have the testimony of JESUS CHRIST."

Now it is quite evident that this poor persecuted remnant which incurs the fury of the Dragon by still daring faithfully to "witness for JESUS CHRIST," Corresponds, in some particular manner, with the two sackcloth-clad witnesses' in chapter xi. The Serpent's wiles have failed to allure them. They have not drunk of the poisoned stream from the Dragon's mouth, nor been engulfed in its waters. They have escaped the seductions and persecutions of the Harlot. "If the LORD Himself had not been on our side" is their Hymn of deliverance, " If the LORD Himself had not been on our side. . . they had swallowed us up quick. Yea can it be said that "the earth helped the Woman ?" For does it not appear that the Woman herself eventually becomes Babylon. How then can the earth help her by swallowing her up?

It is most true in one sense that the Woman becomes Babylon; but not in another. As representing the visible Church, the outward community of Christendom, she does so. But this is not the light in which she is regarded in this 12th chapter. Here the Woman is not, primarily, the outward, visible, but the ideal and invisible Church of GOD, the Spiritual Zion-she who, when the whole visible Church had of old become Sodom and Egypt, yet gave birth to the Divine Man-child; and who, when the whole visible Church has hereafter become Babylon, shall yet laboriously give birth to the Faithful Remnant, the stern, noble, martyr souls of the latter days who shall re-enact in some signal and mysterious way their suffering LORD's mira, culous life, death, and resurrection.

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This deadly stream of false doctrines, errors, heresies vomited forth by corrupt teachers (the mouth-pieces of the Serpent, "whose mouth reacheth up to Heaven, and their tongue goeth through the world," and through whom "the people fall away" from the faith)—this tide of evil men and seducers, "deceiving and being deceived",-though externally belonging to her, is not really "of her." They are like the "tares in the Field"-the children of the "Wicked One"-i. e., at once, the false doctrines themselves, and the teachers and practisers of those false doctrines. They compass her about,' they flow round her and keep her in on every side.' "The overflowings of ungodliness make her afraid." In the great City Babylon, and at the great River Euphrates, all this 'Mystery of iniquity' comes to a head. Here the "sons of GOD have gone in to the daughters of men." Here the broad river originally flowing out of Paradise (Gen. ii. 14) has become the great ornament, and source of wealth and luxury to the World-City. Here the citizens of Heaven have lusted after earth and become "earthly, sensual, devilish." Hence, in righteous retribution, the very earth to which they have sold themselves is made the terrible instrument of their punishment. The earth relieves the Heaven-born Woman of the heavy earthly incubus under which she has been so long groaning. "The earth opens her mouth and swallows them up," "They go down alive into the pit." But the Woman soars aloft uninjured. The "Water-flood has not drowned her, neither has the pit shut its mouth upon her." She is again free. Her "soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and she is delivered." Having ever" overcome the earth" she is now not overcome by the earth. And hence the burning wrath of the Dragon: hence his infuriated choler against the faithful surviving remnant against whom all his arts, allurements, persecutions are unavailing.

the water had drowned us, and the stream had gone over our soul." They have been hitherto preserved for the signal honour of witnessing for GoD during the times of Antichrist, and ending their martyr life by a glorious martyr death. The Dragon finds he cannot hurt them. He can only kill their body: hence he proceeds to "make war with them”— -a war of rabid extermination.

Through whom does he carry on this war? Through Antichrist. The next chapter tells us that the Dragon gave to the Beast his seat and authority, and gave to him "to make war with the Saints and to overcome them." (xiii. 2, 7.) And this, in turn, is clearly parallel to the account given of the two witnesses' of whom we read that "when they have finished their testimony, the Beast from the abyss (i. e. Antichrist, or the resuscitated Beast) shall make war with them and shall overcome them." (xi. 7.)

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Hence the 13th chapter is not, as Mr. Groves suggests, a fresh beginning, but strictly continuous to chapter xii.: only, while dealing primarily with the last phase of the Beast, it summarily recapitulates its previous history; glancing at its original heathen state, its Christianization and death, and its hideous Antichristian resurrection.

We have barely left ourselves space to notice-what, after all, is the great feature and novelty of this book-our Author's proposed solution of the enigma of the name and number of the Beast. He discovers the number 666, as is known, in the word 'Auévoq, the title assumed by many of the Egyptian Monarchs, and, in particular, adopted by the haughty tyrant who perished in the Red Sea. He thus writes respecting it.

"If the mystic number be capable of typical treatment, and be the number of the name of a man, I would fearlessly challenge the Christian world to seek through the whole range of biography, sacred and profane, and fix upon the man . . . who, by his notorious characteristics, would be deemed best qualified for selection as the type of Antichrist and all, I am confident, would, on reflection, name THE PHARAOH OF THE EXODE. . . . The mystic number as explained in the present volume directly sanctions this long-suspected analogy.”—P. 386—7.

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This name Amenoph, we should add, signifying the "Hamitic, Solar Serpent," comes down to us on the authority of the Egyptian Priest-historian Manetho.1

It is remarkable also that the False Prophet who "worked miracles" before the Beast, Pharaoh's great counsellor, of whom Manetho relates that, "as a Sage and Prophet" he "seemed to partake of a Divine nature;"-it is remarkable that he bore the same title as the monarch himself, and was thus, in like manner, secretly impressed with the mystic cipher of God's enemy. Nor

1 It is to be observed that the numerical result is the same, whether the word be expressed in Greek or Coptic characters; a great proportion of the letters in the two alphabets being substantially identical, and their numerical value the same.

is this all. Besides the "Beast" and the " False Prophet," we read also of the "Image of the Beast." Now we learn that when Pharaoh and his host overtook Israel in their flight out of Egypt, the latter were encamping, by express command of GOD, "by the sea," "over against Baalzephon." This Baalzephon is almost universally supposed to be some great idol, an image of the tutelar deity of the region, which gave its name to the locality. Here, probably, was some celebrated representation of that Serpentine Divinity of whom the King of Egypt was the supposed superhuman incarnation, and in the presence of which, by Divine appointment, his terrible humiliation and destruction were to take place. Strange that in this word again, Baaλepov, lies concealed the mystic number. Our Author discovers the same number in certain of the ancient titles of the land of Egypt; but as their orthography appears not free from reasonable doubt, we think the result cannot be insisted on.

Now we do not profess to be of the number of those who regard these and the like discoveries merely in the light of barren coincidences. That in the name of him who has been so universally and justly recognized as one of the most striking Scripture types of the last dread foe of the Church, the cipher of his great antitype should be discovered-we cannot bring ourselves to regard as mere accident; or refuse to recognize in the fact the trace of the finger of God.

We have seen it asserted that Mr. Groves' suggestion is not worthy of consideration, inasmuch as Amenoph is not a Scripture name. But who ever supposes that Antichrist's real name, when he appears, will be a Scripture name? No, this mystic number is vouchsafed as a clue to guide God's people to the recognition of the Enemy when he is revealed. How the number will attach to him it is impossible now to guess. It may be that it will be found to hover about his person, his dynasty, his Image, his Prophet, his city, in some such a way as Mr. Groves has singularly shown it to hover about ancient Egypt. We can only ignorantly, reverently, and cautiously conjecture.

We have but to add that we think our Author fairly entitled to the congratulations of prophetic students for his discovery; as also to their thanks for the many suggestive hints scattered throughout his volume. We wish it had been written in a more systematic and readable manner, that it had been less rambling, fragmentary, and disjointed; that certain portions had been more carefully considered; many of the very uncertain etymologies, which are continually distracting the reader, consigned (if retained) to notes or appendices; and that the whole had been more compressed. Still, such as it is, it gives us a very favourable opinion of the candour, industry, and ingenuity of the writer, and will cause us to look with interest to the prospect of meeting him again in a similar field of thought and research.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVANGELICISM.

The Philosophy of Evangelicism evolved from the relations between Conscience and the Atonement. London: Bell and Daldy. 1857.

We do not think that the so-called Evangelical divines of the Church of England would thank the author of the volume before us for his representation of what ought to be their esoteric teaching. Writers of that school generally repudiate the idea of philosophy as inconsistent with the simple earnestness of the love of the Gospel. So far from believing a priori reasoning to be a true ground of religious conviction, its best members-acting in the spirit of the old saying, Credo quia impossibile—would rather look for contradictions between the anticipations of nature and the gifts of grace than for harmony between the ways and thoughts of fallen man and the way of life and the revelation of GOD. No doubt their abhorrence of philosophy ran somewhat into the extreme, until the great fact was ignored, that man's nature even in its present fallen and disorganized condition is pregnant with lingering germs of what should have been matured in nobler blossoms.

If we can look into the elements of man's constitution we shall perceive the traces of that Divine Image which should have been made perfect by the harmonious development of the glorifying Spirit. Such considerations however of what GOD might have intended for man, seemed to lead the mind astray from the other and more humiliating aspect of man's condition, his individual corruption. It was felt by earnest men that in this state of corruption mankind was incapable of appreciating the means of salvation; all that could be done was to accept them. Whether the scheme of regeneration did or did not fall in with certain deeper and yet ascertainable laws of man's abstract nature was a question that seemed of no practical consequence to men whose whole hearts were occupied with a conviction of sin, and the desire for the salvation of individual souls. There was no room left for philosophy in the minds of those whose childlike faith in the fulness of its first love drove them forth into a perishing world with the simple message-Believe and thou shalt be saved.

While this state of things continued, two things were nevertheless quite true. First: there was a philosophic system underlying all their positive teaching of Gospel truth. Secondly: the want of giving due consideration to this led the Evangelical party unconsciously away from its own original principles into serious errors of doctrine. The Evangelical name however was never attached to such false philosophy as is here made to claim the sanction of its traditional piety.

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No writers have ever striven more earnestly than the early Evangelical divines to oppose the notion, that "whatever is natural is divine," yet this is the foundation of our author's system. They on the other hand, firmly held to the great truth, that "the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of GOD." They even perhaps stretched this doctrine so far as to deny the reality of our moral intuitions. We must be careful to avoid this extreme, for if we yield to it we destroy conscience as the basis of moral responsibility. Although conscience has been dethroned from her supre macy by the fall, yet there is a "law of our minds" remaining, and by its witness, however unheeded, causing us "to condemn ourselves." This faculty of conscience is a remains of our original constitution. Now inasmuch as this faculty was intended for our guidance when we were at peace with God, it is manifestly out of the question to suppose that it can be pregnant with any anticipations as to the remedy of our condition now that we have become at enmity with GOD. No! the gift of grace is God's "free gift," undeserved by man, and beyond man's possible anticipations. This great doctrine of the freeness of the Gospel, as a gift of GOD to the race of man, without any desert or anticipation on their part is the great strength of the Evangelical system. It became warped to a certain extent through combination with a warped doctrine of justification by faith. Its remaining strength however, gave stability to the weak doctrine which was attached to it. Earnest minds are not always logical in their distinctions. Many who never practically denied the responsibility of Christians as members of the New Covenant, yet would in their language represent the regenerate as continuing "unprofitable servants" to the very end, because of their strong conviction that the natural man can do nothing to deserve justification at GoD's hands. The atonement they well knew to be a work of GOD seeking out that which was lost, and they would have shrunk with horror from the idea that man when he was without GOD in the world," could form to himself any vision of a ladder whose top should rest upon GOD's throne, whereby he might ascend thither. They would at once have seen that such anticipations of God's revelation meet their expressions not in the self-sacrifice of Abraham, but in the pride of Babel. We protest, therefore, on their behalf, against the antiscriptural supposition of this writer:

"That the ideas symbolized in the sacrificial rite-and which, when accurately developed, constitute the moral theory of the Christian atonement are called up into the mind, from its innermost depths intuitively by the struggles of the earnest conscience to be at peace with God."-P. 8.

The strength of their teaching lay, 1. in their strong denunciation of "all that is in the world" as being "not of the FATHER, but

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