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any longer of seeing the main purport of his explanation in print in the Observer-is but a very insufficient excuse for me to plead.

Since receiving his communication, I have received also from another valued friend, well skilled in Hebrew, one or two further critical notices on the Paper, which I shall be obliged by your inserting.

1. My friend demurs to the propriety of Vitringa's explanation of the word Armageddon as the mountain of destruction, noted by me near the bottom of your page 635. He says that 77, whence the derivative mageddon or megiddo, must properly be explained as meaning to collect together in crowds; or, metaphorically, to de. termine or decide; and that the use of the verb in the sense of to wound oneself, in one of its conjugations, does not seem to him to justify the alternative meaning to destroy, assigned in my Paper to it, whence Vitringa's above-mentioned explanation of Armageddon as the mountain of destruction.

On which point, however, let me here observe, that not Vitringa alone thus explains the word, but also that eminent Hebraist, Dr. Lightfoot, as cited by Wordsworth on the Apocalypse, p. 450 : “The word Armageddon signifies a mountain of men cut to pieces. (Lightfoot, Harmony N.T. on Rev. xvi. Works, vol. iii. p. 357.)” To the same effect, further observes Dr. Wordsworth, are the more ancient explanations of the Greek expositors, Andreas, Arethas, and Ecumenius.

2. For the following, at p. 636, l. 26, “This word is used in 1 Kings i. 35, and Dan. ix. 25, to signify a prince," read, “A deri. vative from this word, viz., Tan." So too, instead of Tad, at p. 637, 1. 8.

My friend further adds that Fuerst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, regards 172? (Megiddo) as a development of 729 from 772. So that it is unnecessary to reject the second d, as suggested in my former letter.

Whether in a compound word like Armageddon, on Mr. Biley's hypothesis of its verbal constituents, coupled with the recognized fact of the frequent interchange of Q and ), a reference to ti, a prince, is precluded, remains a question for Hebraists.

In such case, my friend's suggestion that the word Armageddon may be meant to signify the prince's city, (Compare Ps. xlviii. 2, “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, the city of the great King;” or if referred to ny and 7a2, the city of glorious things, i.e., “ of which glorious things are spoken,” Ps. 1xxxvii.,) viz. Jerusalem, remains as a solution admissible, I conceive, and interesting.*-Yours, dear Sir, faithfully,

E. B. ELLIOTT. * The misprints in your August Number, of 7 for 7, at p. 635, 1. 38, and p. 636, 1. 19, of for the final , will be obvious.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

Perranzabuloe. The Lost Church Found; or, The Church of Eng. land not a New Church, but ancient, apostolical, and independent, and a protesting Church nine hundred years before the Reformation. By the Rev. Č. T. Collins Trelawny, M.A., late Rector of Timsbury, Somerset ; and formerly Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Rivingtons. 1868.-We heartily welcome the appearance of the sixth edi. tion of this very valuable and interesting work. The object of Mr. Trelawny may be briefly described as being to supply an answer to the empty taunt of the Romanist, “Where was your religion before Luther?” Mr. Trelawny has replied to this enquiry, as regards the English Church, by tracing its antiquity up to apostolical times, and by showing that the Reformation did not create a new Church, but reformed a corrupt one. It is true, indeed, tbat, so far from deeming the manifold corruptions of the ages which preceded the Reformation an argument against the claims of the English Church to be a branch of the true Church of Christ, we trace, on the contrary, in those corruptions, the fulfilment of the predictions of our Lord and His Apostles; we recognize in the wilderness-state of the true Church the antitype of the true Israel in the days of Elijah, and in the cries which are even now ascending from the blood of those who resisted Rome's sorceries and idolatries to the death, we trace, as was predicted, the continued utterances of the voices of those who were yet to be “slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held,” saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, doest Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ?”

These considerations, however, do not, in any degree, render us insensible to the value of such evidence as that which was afforded by the uncovering, after seven centuries of concealment, of the sand-immured Church of Perranzabuloe, and of the discovery made on entering the interior, that it "contained none of the modern accompaniments of a Roman Catholic place of worship."'* “Strange,” Mr. Trelawny observes, “that this ancient church should so belie the Papist's constant appeal to antiquityto the faith of their forefathers -to the old religion! Strange that it should, on the contrary, so closely harmonize with that novelty which Cranmer and the Reformers introduced into the doctrine and ritual of the Church of England.” (p. 24.)

Amongst the many points to which Mr. Trelawny refers in this volume, as affording indications that the creed and ritual of the Romish Church were not those which existed “from the beginning,”

* It is an interesting fact, as bearing South angles of the West end, thus upon the position of the minister reducing the original breadth of 2 ft. whilst celebrating the Holy Com- 3 in. 80 greatly, that the supposition munion, that the old altar-tomb of that the minister stood with his back the church stands East and West, not to the people during the celebration North and South; and that square of the service, becomes altogether uns pieces are cut out from the North and tenable.

we would refer our readers more particularly to his remarks on the alleged supremacy of St. Peter—to the argument fairly deducible from the silence of St. Paul against the groundless figment of the Romanists, that that apostle was the first Bishop of Rome,-and to the very interesting sketch, which is drawn in this volume, of the early history of the British Church, and its entire independence of the Roman yoke.

We venture to suggest to Mr. Trelawny that a reference to the chronological Pauline Chart of Canon Cook, or the Rev. E. B. Elliott, would save him from the repetition, in his next edition, of some trifling inaccuracies which we have observed in his allusions to the probably apostolical origin of the British Church; and further, that a reference to Dean Hook's Church Dictionary, or any similar manual, would suffice to guard him from some trifling inaccuracies on a subject, (with which, alas, many of the clergy of the English Church have, in late years, become too experimentally familiar,) the arrangements of Romish Churches, and the meaning and use of the various adjuncts of their corrupt worship.

The Early Years of Christianity. By E. de Pressensé, D.D. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1869. - This volume forms the second of a series which, commencing with the “Life, Work, and Times of Jesus Christ,” is to conclude with two more, one to be entitled “The Martyrs and Confessors,” the last to contain " the entire history of Christian thought and doctrine" during that period of the great conflict of the Church with Paganism. We cannot unreservedly commend it, although there is much which is important and ably stated. Indeed, our impression is, that it is not calculated to edify or to inform the believing Christian who is familiar with, and rests upon, the Word of God. It deals with the history of the period comprised in it, much as Cony beare and Howson have detailed it, but with more attempt at philosophical explanation and reference to hostile criticism. The principal use of the book is, we think, to be found in the insight which it gives into how theological questions are viewed "extra Ecclesiam Anglicanam," by an able and intelligent writer who is familiar with different schools of modern thought, who glories in not having "laid fetters on his freedom of examination," and has, nevertheless come to the conclusion that “his faith in the divinity of Christianity is deep and absolute." We cannot say that “the smell of fire has not passed upon him " from the furnace in which he has been toiling, for we think it is clearly perceptible in many ill-advised statements and erroneous conclusions; but he has uniformly written in a reverent and becoming spirit, and contrasts very favourably with many of the “free handlers” of God's word and doctrine, of whom M. de Pressensé most truly says that “all that does not coincide with their system is prejudged and rejected,” while "the most speculative theories are readily admitted as axioms by which other hypotheses may be established.” He means his book to be an antidote against such writers as Strauss and Renan ; and where such poison has been imbibed, and Christianity is treated as a "cunningly devised fable," we think his statements will be found serviceable, and calculated to resolve perplexities.

(1) Parochial and Plain Sermons. By John Henry Newman, B.D. New Edition. London, Oxford, and Cambridge: Rivingtons. 1868.(2) Female Characters of Holy Scripture. Sermons by Isaac Williams, B.D. New Edition. London, Oxford, and Cambridge: Rivingtons. 1869.—Specimen volumes have reached us of what appears to be a continuous reprint of the works of the authors above named. We do not marvel that there should be a demand for them in the school of which, in their day, they were the foremost leaders. It would not be easy for an intellectual and devout mind to content itself with the husks now provided by the doctors from Spanish and American Universities, who have succeeded to the places which they have left vacant by secession and death. The early writers in the Tractarian movement wrote on topics which might reasonably occupy the intelligence of thoughtful men; they wrote, too, as scholars, and So gained a hearing for the questionable statements which they advanced. We cannot commend writings which, notwithstanding the ability displayed in them, contain the germ of deadly error, but regret that we must refrain when we would gladly call attention to what is true and beautiful in them. One passage, however, we extract from a Sermon by Isaac Williams on “ The Shunamite,” because some might be disposed to listen to an utterance from him, which they would disregard if it proceeded from any other quarter. It is a remarkable and valuable testimony to some of the dangers attending auricular confession, and we are glad to give it circulation.

“After all, there must be numberless cases in which God alone can be the Guide and Comforter, the Confessor and Absolver, by the conscience within; under very many circumstances it must be so, and to a great degree in all. He has not only laid up such great gifts in the ministry of His Church, bat He has likewise made us all priests unto His Father; He has poured upon all the spirit of grace and supplication ; He has fulfilled the desire of Moses, and made all His people prophets; He has set within the heart His own witness; He has placed His own Judge on His throne within, that must second every sentence, and sanction every appeal. For who can be to any one a guide altogether like his own soul, or a substitute for it? Who, after all, can tell him what is right and wrong so correctly as that Divine Monitor within, if his voice be attended to in the fear of God? Who can know all his own inmost workings, his obliquities, and fostered temptations, and the like, to the same degree as the spirit within him? Who can be to a man as his own self? To seek a spiritual guide is sometimes-alas for our frail nature ! must it be said p—is sometimes to seek a tempter, one that will palliate and excuse, not willingly, but from partiality and want of sufficient knowledge, that on which the mind secretly misgives, and will sanction and embolden a wish that had better have been suppressed.

“Great are the assistances in the way of holiness which God has provided for us in His Church; yet, after all, as the Apostle says, “Let every man prove his own work; ... for every man shall bear his own burden.' So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.'” (pp. 188, 189.)

The Romish Index, and its late Proceedings. A Second Letter to Archbishop Manning. By E. S. Ffoulkes, Author of " The Church's Creed, or the Crown's Creed.London: J. T. Hayes. New York : Pott and Amery. 1869.-We would most earnestly entreat all our readers to make themselves acquainted with the contents of this pamphlet. We have our own share of difficulties and anxieties in the Church of England, but a man must have a head which the produce of three Anticyras would not heal, if he were, after the perusal of Mr. Ffoulkes' statements, to care to exchange them for those which he will meet with in the Church of Rome. The subject matter of the controversy between Mr. Ffoulkes on the one side, and Dr.Manning and the Romish Court on the other, is in itself trivial and ephemeral; but the principles at stake are of eternal interest, and the course of conduct which has been pursued towards him, discloses an amount of tortuous obliquity and arbitrary action from which the soul recoils. Nor does he seem to be the only sufferer. We quote a passage, the significance of which will be patent to all.

" Whether Your Grace knows anything of the remaining intrigue to which I shall allude, it is not competent for me to say: the intrigue, or series of intrigues, namely, that has for so long doomed to comparative retirement and inaction one of the master-minds of his age; when for the genius with which God has blessed him, and the influence which he wields over countless multitudes in all communions-above all, for the crisis through which we are passing-he ought to have been raised aloft on a pedestal as the S. Bernard of Europe. Characters that it takes ages to produce, we should make the most of while we can : therefore, when they are condemned to unmerited obloquy year after year of their mature prime, it becomes a national, if not a world-wide calamity. Now I have seen and read a pamphlet written by one scarcely his inferior in ability, and full his equal in honesty, detailing this intrigue from beginning to end, and disclosing such conduct in some cases-in one case comparable with the behaviour of Lady Nottingham to Lord Essex-as would have made all concerned in it, however exalted their positions, colour crimson had it been made public. The noble nature that had been assailed stepped in between this pamphlet and the world, just as it was ready for circulation : a presentation copy gave him the first tidings of what was contemplated, and he replied by telegraph begging that it might be suppressed. Should your Grace desire that its contents should be made public after my pointed allusions, its author may possibly be induced to defer to your wishes."

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

The topic of most interest during the last month in public affairs at home, is the appointment of Bishops to the sees vacant by resignation or death. To some of these appointments objections have been raised, that they are not men of sufficient power or influence for the exigencies of the Church of England in its present critical circumstances. But against the appointment of Dr. Temple to the See of Exeter a far more weighty and tangible ground of objection has been raised. A few years ago, he, with six other writers of the notorious “ Essays and Reviews,” was condemned by the almost unanimous voice of

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