the binding of Satan for the thousand years is passed long ago. It is well written, and contains good remarks. We notice one thing specially. He shews that the Zwa cannot be angels. "In all this song, and tenor of it, are diverse infallible arguments that these four beasts be no angels, but saints redeemed," (p. 18). He holds also the literal restoration of Israel, which was not common in his day, though Samuel Rutherford and one or two others held it.-(See pp. 227, 228). The New World Discovered in the Prospect-Glass of Holy Scripture : being a Brief Essay to the Opening Scripture Prophecies concerning the Latter Days. Also, Proving the Personal Reign of Christ with His Saints on Earth a Thousand Years. By R. P.; and recommended by BENJAMIN KEACH. 1705. Or this work we know merely the above title, not having been able to lay hands on it. Should any of our readers possess it, we should be glad to receive extracts from it. And we may add here, that we should much like that any of our readers who may have rare old books on prophetic subjects, would forward to us the titles, along with some extracts as specimens; or if they will trust us with the works themselves for a short time, all care shall be taken of them, and they safely returned. Extracts. Verbal Precision of the Apocalypse. "The more I read this wonderful book, the more I am convinced that the precision of the phraseology is little short of mathematical accuracy. The language seems highly adorned; but the ornaments are not redundancies; they are not of that sort that the proposition would remain the same, if the epithets were expunged. And in passages which may seem similar, there never is the smallest variation of style, but it points to something of diversity either in the subject or the predicate."-Horsley. Literal Interpretation. "I cannot be persuaded to forsake the proper and usual import of Scripture language, where neither the insinuation of the text itself, nor manifest tokens of allegory, nor the necessity and the nature of the things spoken of (which will bear no other sense), do warrant it. For to do so were to lose all footing of divine testimony, and instead of Scripture, to believe mine own imagination."-Mede Works, p. 770. 66 Perilous Times-Our Own Days. 'Only open your ears, and you will hear from the camp of the world the infernal war-cry-Away with Jesus and the doctrine of his cross!' Phenomena, such as those which meet us in the present day, were never before seen in the world in such antichristian atrocity and massiveness. The traitor Judas is again visible on the stage, full of deadly hatred to God, in a thousand colossal antitypes; and if there is one doctrine of the Holy Scriptures which finds in the present day its tangible confirmation, it is that of the existence of a ruler of darkness, and of a kingdom of infernal powers. It is now that the prophetic expression in the Revelation is fulfilled, 'The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.' The penticost of hell is being accomplished, and it pours out its spirit over mankind like a shower of fire and brimstone and its shield-bearers and apostles shoot up from the earth, like the fungus, in a night."— Krummacher's Suffering Saviour, chap. viii. The Church in its Perfection in the Kingdom. For "And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it,' &c. (Rev. xxi. 24-27).-These words seem to declare the full accomplishment of this promise ['Kings and queens shall be nursing fathers and mothers'], and of all the Old Testament promises of this kind. they contain a description of the Church in its perfection at the restitution of all things; and a further declaration of the same thing that is declared Rev. xi. 15, where it is said, 'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of his Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.' This is a part of the short sum which that context gives of the issue of the voice of the Seventh Angel; of which voice it was said, ch. x. 7: In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.' Now, the voice of the seventh angel issues in the kingdoms of this world now becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, where he is to reign for ever and ever, the coming of God's wrath, the raising of the dead, the rewarding of the prophets, saints, and them that fear the Lord, both smalland great, and the destruction of them that destroy the earth."—Glass's Testimony of the King of Martyrs. 1727. God our Refuge in Evil Days. "Amidst all disorders, God is ordering all wisely and justly, and, to them that love him, graciously; therefore we ought not to be dismayed. Let us calm our thoughts with this, remember who it is that rules all, and disposes of peace and war, and all affairs, and we cannot wish them in better hands. I am persuaded, that in all the commotions of the world, when a believer thinks on this, it cannot but calm and compose his spirit exceedingly- My Father rules all.' Let this so quiet our fears, as that withal it quicken our prayers, and stir us up to the work of this day-repentant, humble seeking unto God; seeing all is in his hands-our peace, our liberties, and our enemies that threaten to bereave us of both. Oh that the effect of all our troubles and dangers were to drive us more to God-to make us throng more about the throne of grace, to draw forth our King for our help! Oh our impenitence and unreformedness, that turns him to be our enemy, and that only! Men are nothing. And now in so great straits, yet so little calling on him! Oh my brethren, what are we doing? Oh pray, pray! It is our God that commands all, and, we may say it upon his own warrant, it is prayer that commands him."-Leighton. Macaulay and Romanism. "We frequently see inquisitive and restless spirits take refuge from their own scepticism in the bosom of a Church which pretends to infallibility, and, after questioning the existence of a Deity, bring themselves to worship a wafer."-History of England. Correspondence. To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy. DEAR SIR,-Can any of your readers give the authority for the following statement which has appeared recently in several newspapers ? “The Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem, has been purchased by a Madame Polack, the widow of a wealthy banker of the Hebrew persuasion, at Konigsberg, in Prussia. This lady intends to beautify the place, and to improve the whole neighbourhood, at her sole expense. The first thing she has done was to plant the whole area with a grove of olive trees, and thus restore it to the original state to which it owes its name. The olive tree thrives well in that locality, and though it takes many years before arriving at a state of maturity, and sixteen years before bearing any fruit at all, it requires but little or no tending, and lasts for several hundred years."—Yours, &c., WE continue our extracts from the letters of a friend :- A TRAVELLER. Lam. i. 12-" Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me."-When last in Newcastle, I saw a man beating a child. Just let me figure myself (said I) transmigrated into that man, and conceive of the hell which it would be to me to retain all the tenderness which I now possess, whilst doing such acts of unkindness! Suppose now, in such a case, that by an act of volition I could cause all such tenderness to vanish away, with all the blessed reminiscences of my former self, and could thus be freed from the tormenting consciousness of inhabiting a loathsome carcase, by being the animating spirit of a brutal man! Would I purchase such quietude by the loss of sympathies so costly? Ah, no. I should prefer the condition of Jonah entombed in the bowels of a sea-monster, as exhibited in his prayer-of Paul, as seen in his agonising struggles to escape from his sinful body (Rom. vii. 15-25)—to the lethargy of a soul drunk with sin, and satisfied with such a dwelling. And thus was I idly ruminating, when, like a flash from heaven, the appalling truth burst upon me, that such is the Spirit's condition, the Spirit's sorrow in this Augean stable, this body of Christ, this Christendom, this belly of hell wherein he has been dwellingimprisoned shall I call it—since the day of Pentecost! Truly this expounds in characters of flame such words of wailing as Isa. i. 24—“ Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries;" Amos ii. 13-"I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." Does this give you a glimpse into what is meant by "the day of the patience of Jesus Christ?" Such a thought is overwhelming. I do not pursue it further. As Bacon says, "the contemplation of such things is apt to make us giddy." May it make us sober, and watch unto prayer. The day of Armageddon will be the exponent of the day of Pentecost,-the issues of life and death belonging to the Lord. Christianity, the crowning tragedy of this globe, with Christendom as its theatre, the universe its spectator-opening with the blood of the Lamb of God on Calvary, ending with the blood of all nations in the wine-press of Armageddon. Ecclesiastics x. 8-"Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him." Never was there a period in the Church's history when this awful warning was more needed to be sounded daily in our ears! Goëthe warns us, somewhere, to keep within "the fortification-lines of our existence, holding communication with none but the angels that float around, spite of the demons who seek to lure us out of it." He here alludes to the belief in the ancient Church, that every man has his prescribed circles of action, within which his guardian angels have power over the devil; but out of which, the ill angels have the mastery. "How many do we see," he adds, "spoiling, or imperfectly carrying out the work of life, because unable to distinguish that which suits them from that which does not: fallaciously thinking to be useful to others, by becoming unfaithful to their own proper being!" Eve was wandering from her own proper bounds when the serpent bit her. Jonah was found out of his bounds; and, though "hid in the bottom of the sea," there did the Lord command the serpent," and it bit him," (Amos ix. 3).* O children of the kingdom! if ever there was a danger of "wandering from your nest," it is now! Beware of going to glean in any other field, than that of thy bounteous Master; and even should he hedge up thy way with thorns, venture not to break through. Paul evidently had not patience to remain hedged up, but would be off before God sent him; and the serpent which God sent (Acts xxviii. 3) was a gentle rebuke, shewing the fulfilment of the judgment in a mitigated form, as judgments often come when we repent beforehand, (see 1 Kings xxi. 9-29, and xxii. 22-38)—as an alarum-clock will give a feeble tinkle at the moment when it would have run down, had the weight been affixed. But if this be true of the case of an individual, how much more with the Church at large ! We are in the midst of hedge-breaking. All land-marks are being removed; all bonds violently dissolved; nearly every man is restlessly doing the enemy's work of rooting up those hedges which God planted to protect his Church. And what is God's judgment? Read it in Jeremiah : -Because they had burst there the Lord's bonds, therefore, every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces,” (Jer. v. 6); "because they refused to walk in the good way, in the old paths," (Jer. vi. 16); "because they loved to wander," (Jer. xiv. 10), "like a wild ass used to the wilderness," (Jer. ii. 24); "therefore the Lord sent serpents among them,” (Jer. *One of the early Fathers tells of a Christian lady having become devil-possessed while attending one of the theatres. On being exorcised, the evil spirit was asked, "How dared you enter into a member of Christ's body?" The answer, "How dared a member of Christ's body be found in my precincts?" viii. 17). Yes; while God is now seeking a man to make up the hedge, (Ezek. xxii. 30), all men are busied in breaking it down, (Ps. lxxx. 12). And what must be the result? The Word of the Lord cannot be broken! In short, we must not shrink from the conclusion, appalling though it be—all men are serpent-bitten! And what is included in that? Think for a moment of the terror which thrills through a whole neighbourhood when it is whispered that a man has been bitten by a mad dog; think what it is to have the poison of the old Serpent coursing through, not one man only, but a whole population, and the scenes acted by the hedge-breakers of Paris in 1792 will no longer be inexplicable to you. You now see a deeper meaning in the Word, "The Devil (the Old Serpent) coming down with great wrath at the close of this dispensation, knowing he hath but a short time." He comes as the fulfilment of God's threatening against those who have broken down the Church's hedges. "The boars out of the wood have wasted her, the wild beasts of the field have devoured her," the Lord's beautiful flock! And as the Lord's way is ever to suffer an evil to blossom, that in its palmy time he may strike it down,—so when the Old Serpent, in his crested pride, shall have done the Lord's strange work of judgment, shall he be suddenly thrust down to the pit, to deceive the sons of men no more. Poetry. THE FLESH RESTING IN HOPE, "The grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness; valley shall be sweet unto him."-JOB xvii. 13; xxi. 33. LIE down, frail body! here, Lie down, "vile body!"* here, This mould is smoothly strewn ; No couch of flowers more softly spread,- Lie down with all thy aches, There is no aching here; How soon shall all thy life-long ills Through these well-guarded gates No foe can entrance gain; No sickness wastes, nor once intrudes The tossings of the night, The frettings of the day, All end; and, like a cloud of dawn, Melt from thy skies away. Footsore and worn thou art, Breathless with toil and fight, How welcome now the long-sought sleep *Phil. iii. 21. the clods of the |