Wamsley, Chas. “Pastorini's History of Church, fitted into the Apocalypse." 1770 and 1812. Waple, E. "Book of Revelation Paraphrased." London, 1705. Weigemeyer. "Eine ganze neue Entrathselung der Offenbarung Joannis." Tubingen, 1827. Wells, Edwd. "Help for More Easy Understanding of," &c. 1717. Wesel, H. 1688. 4to. "An Exposition of the Revelations." (Dutch.) Wette. See De Wette. Wetstein. See his "Notes on New Test." Weyers, H. E. mento," &c. 1828. "Initium Disputat. de Apocalypseos Argu 66 Wheeler, J. T. Analysis of the Book of Revelation” (in "New Testament History "). Whiston, W. "Essay on Revelation." Cambridge, 1706. Whitaker, Edwd. W. "Comment. on Revelation, with Historical Testimony." 1802. Whyte, Rev. T. "On the Arrangement of the Apocalypse." (London Soc. for Investig. of Proph.) 1826. Williams, Isaac. "The Apocalypse, with Notes and Reflections." London, 1852. Winchester. El. "Three Woe Trumpets." 1793. Winckingham, Henry, an Englishman. Winslow, G. E. "Israel in the Apoc." &c. London, 1857. Wood, Lieut. G. H. "The Believer Guided to the Study of Unfulfilled Prophecy." 1831. Woodhouse, J. C., D.D., don, 1805. Woodhouse, J. C., D.D. "Apocalypse Translated." Lon “Annotations upon Apoc." 1828. Wordsworth, Canon. "Lectures on the Apoc." London, 1848, 1849. Ylleya, Thomas de, an Englishman. Zierald. "Key to the Whole Apocalypse." (German.) Zullig, F. J. "Die Offenbarung Johannes Erklärt," 1840; and "Johannes die Gottbesprachten eschatslogische Gesichte, genannt die Apocalypse." Stuttgardt, 1834. Many more might have been set down, if we had meant to give writers on particular portions only. Thus, if one wishes to know how large is the amount of writing on the Epistles to the Seven Churches, see the list of writers in "Darling's Cyclopedia;" and the same might be said on the Two Wit nesses, the First Resurrection, and, not least, the Number of the Beast. Of those we have named above a few are very erroneous; many of little use; but in most some one germ of thought, at least, may be found worth being sought out, and in others the materials are rich throughout. Want of space, however, compels us to be content with having named them. Some of the preceding titles are brief and meagre. It could not be otherwise, as many of them are now quite unknown; references to them by old writers have preserved the bare names, but that is all. Bishop Bale, in his "Image of both Churches," has thus preserved to us eighty-three names. Notes on Scripture. MATT. XIV. 1–21. WHEN John was cast into prison Jesus went into Galilee; but when John was beheaded He went into the wilderness. The world had nothing to minister to Him; but He in Divine power ministered to all the necessities of poor sinners in these destitute circumstances; and here He shewed, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." The poor sinner found the place destitute, but Him full of all blessing in this destitute place. He healed the sick and abundantly fed the hungry, and made the wilderness the place of blessing, because the place where He was. Rejected righteousness in John was the occasion for drawing out more grace from Him. MATT. IV. 8. "All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." On the one hand was set before Christ a path of difficulty, privation, dishonour, abandonment, mental torture, scourging, condemnation, universal rejection, crucifixion; on the other, if he chose to become such a Messiah as the Jews were expecting, and set up a temporal kingdom, there was presented to him the prospect of universal dominion, unbounded influence over men's minds, and the opportunity to do them good to his heart's content. God sought to see if He could be bought off from His peculiar work by the most fascinating offers. These were the views [of the Messianic kingdom] that had such fascination for His followers afterward, and hindered them from understanding what He said concerning the cross. This seems to be a rule with our God; when we are solicitous for some great blessing, He tries us to see if anything short of it will satisfy us. Mere earthly splendour would have been very little of a temptation to a holy nature such as Christ, but it was the prospect of a universal kingdom in which, as Prince of the kings of the earth, by the exercise of preternatural wisdom and power, He could reorganise society, and banish many of the miseries that now arise from bad government, that might legitimately possess attraction for the nature of Christ, had it not been His deep conviction that the highest welfare must be elaborated by the slow and strange processes of God. He saw that the Jews would hail Him with acclamation if He would but appear as a temporal deliverer, and that it would be easy for Him as their leader to reduce the nations of the earth, and reign from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. A scheme of civil polity and social blessedness far surpassing the dreams of our modern Socialists could (we doubt not) have been realised by this gloriouslyfurnished Being. But His eye was fixed on something infinitely better. Of what advantage to save society if man perished? He chose the cross and the grave. He chose to walk in the bitter and humiliating path that should bring Him and His Church at the end of days to the new Jerusalem, and the new Jerusalem to earth. He chose a king dom not of this world. 2 THESS. II. 4. "Who exalteth himself above all that is called God." No one has a right to absolve a subject from his obligation to his prince, except he has authority superior to that of the prince. Now, the Pope, by indulgences, dispensations, absolutions, arrogates to himself the power of relieving men from their obligation to obey God, and thus makes himself superior to God. He gives men liberty to do what God has forbidden them to do. Men appeal from God to the Pope. Reviews. Vetus Testamentum Græce Juxta LXX. Interpretes. Recensionem Grabianam ad fidem codicis Alexandrini aliorumque denuo Recognovit, Græca secundum ordinem Textus Hebræci Reformavit, Libros Apocryphos a Canonicis segregavit, FRIDERICUS FIELD, A. A.M., Coll. S.S. Trin. Cantab. olim Socius. Sumtibus Societatis de Promovendâ Doctrinâ Christianâ. Oxonii, Excudebat Jacobus Field, Academiæ Typographus. MDCCCLIX. Imp. 8vo. pp. 1088. . AMONGST the many prognostics which betoken the approach of a brighter reign in the Christian Church, we may surely reckon the restoration of that first version of the Old Testament, which is so often cited by the Evangelists and Apostles. Hitherto this venerable version has appeared in the utmost disorder and confusion. So many were its chasms and mislocations, that it was difficult, if not impracticable, to collate it with the Hebrew text. It was also debased with much worthless apocryphal matter. To the Book of Esther was appended the history of Susannah, whilst Bel and the Dragon was intermingled with Daniel. We rejoice to find that Mr Field, under the direction of the Christian Knowledge Society, has banished the Apocrypha to a separate appendix. When we consider that the Greek version is still esteemed of canonical authority in the Eastern Church, we cannot fail to estimate this line of demarcation as of signal and permanent importance. Though we cannot account the version of the LXX. as of the same authority as the Hebrew text, we must ever regard it as the appointed instrument for bringing the Gentiles into the fold of the Church. Amongst "the devout men, from every nation under heaven," assembled at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, the greater part had undoubtedly been instructed in their expectations of the Messiah, directly or indirectly, by means of the Greek version. Nor can we forget, that when the apostles found numerous Jewish proselytes in Macedonia and the coasts of Asia Minor, their minds had been prepared for the tidings of the gospel chiefly through the same medium. The rapid spread of Christianity in the apostolic age is also to be attributed to this providential agency. It pleased the Holy Spirit to adopt the phraseology of the Greek version generally throughout the Greek Testament, and more especially in various doctrinal expressions. The words atonement, redemption, salvation, &c., are identical in both. We have no wish to exalt the Septuagint "above measure "-it has numerous errors and defects-but it would be ungrateful to forget the many and great obligations of the Christian Church to this ancient version. We hail its restoration to the Hebrew order as a special boon to biblical literature, and we think that the Christian Knowledge Society has deserved well of universal Christendom for engaging in this arduous and expensive undertaking. It is the Alexandrian text on which Mr Field has employed his labours. But the Vatican is still more corrupt, and as this is the text which has been commonly adopted, we hope that it may soon undergo a similar recension. As the University of Oxford has recently established a Public Terminal Lecture on the LXX., it becomes incumbent on the Delegates of the Clarendon press to present a text-book worthy of that learned academy. The Evangelists and the Mishna; or, Illustrations of the Four Gospels, drawn from Jewish Traditions. By the Rev. THOMAS ROBINSON. London Nisbet & Co. WE gave a specimen of this excellent work in our last number; we return to it in order to glean some further illustrations of Scripture. "Matthew xxiii. 5- But all their works they do for to be seen of men ; they enlarge the borders of their garments.'-Jesus, as a Jew, made under the law, doubtless wore the fringes on His garment in conformity with the precept, and in token of His complete obedience. He put on righteousness as a garment, that He might have such a garment wherewith to clothe the sinner, according to His title, The Lord our Righteousness.' Too often, however, they were worn by His countrymen for religious display." “Luke xxiii. 44—And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth (marg., land) until the ninth hour.'It would seem that it was about the ninth hour, or three o'clock in the afternoon, when the Saviour of men expired. It was about the same time that the lamb of the daily sacrifice was slaughtered and offered upon the altar. The daily offering was slaughtered half an hour after the eighth hour, and sacrificed half an hour after the ninth hour.' The type and the Antitype were thus suffering and expiring together." "John vi. 7-Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.'-The Mishna, speaking of the manner of combining places by means of the 'erubh, gives it as a saying of Rabbi Jochanan ben Berokah, that for the purpose of such combination, a loaf of the value of a pundion, when the price of four saahs of flour is one selah, is sufficient;' adding, that 'Rabbi Simeon saith, Twothirds of a loaf, such as go three to the kab of flour, is enough.' As a pundion is the twelfth part of a dinar, (denarius, or Roman penny,) and the forty-eighth of a selah (one selah being four dinars); and as a saah of flour is equal to six kabs or quarts; a loaf of the first size mentioned would be equal to a pint of flour. Two hundred pennyworth of bread, at such a rate, would be twentyfour hundred loaves of a pint of flour each. Lightfoot suggests that 'two hundred pennyworth' is specially named by Philip, from the fact that the sum of two hundred pence, dinars, or zuzim, was a common one in Jewish transactions. For example, two hundred pence (dinars or zuzim) were fixed by law as a virgin's dowry. 'If,' says the Mishna, a husband says to his wife, Here is your bill of divorce, on condition that you give me two hundred pence,' &c. Again, Should a man say to a woman, Behold, thou art wedded to me on condition that I give thee two hundred pence." But our extracts may bear more distinctly upon prophetic portions of the Word; and to this effect are the following, and others which we have not space to quote: "Luke xiv. 14-And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: but thou shalt be recompensed at the Resurrection of the Just.'While the New Testament expressly teaches that 'there shall be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust,' the passage before us would seem to intimate that the resurrection of the just will, in point of time, be distinct from that of the unjust, being followed by it after some considerable interval. Hence it is frequently spoken of as 'the resurrection from,' or from among 'the dead.' That the one shall precede the other is generally acknowledged; the only question is as to the length of the interval. It may also be remarked, that the resurrection from the dead' is spoken of by the Saviour as being, along with that world,' the peculiar privilege only of some. "They that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage.' Luke xx. 35." 66 Luke xvii. 22-And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.'-The expression, the days of the Messiah,' seems not to have been unusual among the Jews. Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishna, explains the phrase as meaning the times of the monarchy that shall be restored to Israel, when the Israelites shall return to their own land, and exercise a righteous sovereignty over the nations of the world. He states it as his opinion also, that in the days of the Messiah there will be both rich and poor, powerful and weak, but that the means of life will be much more easily procured than at present, a small amount of labour yielding a plentiful return. He quotes Isaiah lxi. 5, to shew that sowing and reaping will still be carried on; and from Isaiah xlii. 4, he concludes, along with the Jews in general, that the Messiah will die, and be succeeded by His son, grandson, &c.; that His kingdom will continue for a long period, and in a glorious condition, during which righteousness shall flourish in the earth, and the days of men's life shall be greatly prolonged. |