praise and dignity they would like to secure. Say to them, the glory is yours, and they will sing for joy. But what care they whether God be disparaged or commended? The spirit of the disciple, however, is ever" The glory, O God, is thine; and assured that what is joy to us is grateful to him, let us urge this argument so often as we bow at the throne. It is something to say, O God, do it, for the plan is thine own; and with such a plea we cannot but have hope. It is something, too, to be able to say, O God, do it, for the means are wholly in thy hand; and with such a plea, assurance is rendered doubly sure. But it is more than all this, when we are able to add, Do it, O God, "for the glory" will all belong to thee; and with such a plea upon our lips, we shall be more than conquerors in the suit we are pressing.

We do not think of the glory of God as accruing from all he does, in the manner, and with the interest, it becomes us. But nothing should be dearer to us than this, and never should our "Amen" be more accented than when we see every event and individual conspiring to elicit this issue. Nothing, we know, is dearer to God than his "glory;" and nothing can exist in creation, or transpire in providence, which will not manifest it. God's "glory" is the manifestation of himself; and as everything proceeds from this as its centre, to the same centre must everything return. The world must see God as he is! Heaven must see God as he is! The universe must see God as he is! Every eye must see God, and every lip must praise him! A higher end, therefore, than this, the creature cannot subserve nor a higher end than this will the Creator ever propose. And who, then, can withhold his " Amen"?

It is a righteous thing that God should be glorified, and shall we not with all our energies strive to bring on the issue? It will be a blessed day when all darkness is swallowed up of light, and every atom beams with the radiance of God; and shall we not cry, Roll on, ye stiff and sluggish wheels of Time, and bring round the appointed hour? It is the very end for which our God reigns and lives-even to shew himself the very glorious Being that he is; and what more prevailing plea can we urge with him to do all that he has promised. And, oh! seeing that everything contributes to unfold and display "the glory" of Him whose "glory" is the end of all, shall we not learn to say "Amen " " to every judgment, and revolution, and war, and calamity, and fear, and even to sin itself?

We now understand the Pleas with which we are to fill

our mouth, and urge our suit, when we stand in sorrow amid the ruins of a fallen world, yet reach on to the triumphs which the Church so gladly hopes for, when she stands amid the scenes of a world redeemed. Earnest are the longings of the righteous for new heavens and a new earth-and these longings are of God. Bright are the prospects which await the children of the curse, in the day of the fulness of time, and they shall be realised.

Let us, then, enter with full sympathy into the mind of God concerning earth, and rejoice in the Plan he is carrying out. It is not our plan, but it is a holy, perfect, eternal plan. "The way of the Lord is perfect"" his counsel standeth to all generations," and we must be at one with God in our longings and prospects, eager for the completion of that design which will end our own captivity for ever, and roll off all clouds from the throne.

At the same time, we must exalt the arm of God, and rest assured that He who sketched the Plan will find the Means. We cannot well bear to be told that the world is not to be put in order by us, and that all our agencies will effect a much more limited result than this. But when God purges out evil from the earth, he must work alone; and as Jesus cleansed the temple unassisted, so unassisted will he again cast out from the earth itself whatever offends the Father and him.

Let us, however, rejoice that the glory of God is to be the result, and that every eye shall see it. It is true that "the will" of God shall prevail over all that is combined against it, and that his arm must achieve what his heart has devised. But it is not less true, and very blessed to think of, that "the glory of God" shall be the Result of all that is now doing, and of all that was ever witnessed in time. Of old, the light was diffused throughout the atmosphere, and it shone faintlythough to shine at all was better far than the darkness of night: but ere the fourth day was gone, the divided streams of light are gathered into one vast ocean, and henceforth the sun fills the world with the radiance of day. Even so in respect to "the glory of God." The world is not without it, even already, and let this make us glad; but, meanwhile, it is split into ten thousand rays, and its brightness is unfelt-unseen. But when the scheme devised from everlasting is perfected, this glory shall be collected into one surpassing sun, to shine from the firmament of the universe for ever!

ART. II.-DR BROWN ON CHRIST'S SECOND COMING.

THE following review appeared some time ago in an able American journal.* As very few of our readers may have seen it, we reprint it for their sakes. Nor will it be thought out of season, seeing of late we have had some vehement assaults made upon premillennialism,-two of the most recent being Waldegrave's Bampton Lectures, and a review of these in the Foreign Evangelical Review. We make no apology for the following reprint; and we give it entire. As it appeared one or two years since, it has only to do with the second edition of Dr Brown's work, and it designates him Mr Brown, instead of Dr Brown. But our readers will understand that the volume referred to is that entitled Christ's Second Coming: Will it be Premillennial? By the Rev. D. Brown, D.D., &c. With these preliminary sentences, we proceed to the article.

"Mr Brown gives a negative response to the question propounded in his title, and makes it the object of his volume to overturn the views entertained by millenarians of that and other events that are revealed in connexion with it,-the resurrection of the holy dead before the millennium, the personal reign of Christ and the risen saints on the earth during that period, the continuance of men in unglorified and natural bodies after his coming, and the resurrection and judgment of the unholy at the termination of the thousand years; and it has been received with much favour by anti-millenarians, both in Great Britain and in this country, and commended as an unanswerable confutation of premillennialism. So high is the estimate in which it is held by some here, and so strong the desire felt by them that it should become widely known, that a republication of it has been induced; efforts are made to give it a large circulation, and it is relied on in a measure, we understand, as a counteractive of the Theological and Literary Journal. Mr Brown announces indeed, in his preface, that 'the communications received from England, Ireland, and America, as well as from different parts of Scotland, leave no room to doubt that it has found its way to the parties for whom it was chiefly designed, and accomplished to a consider

* The Theological and Literary Journal; edited by David N. Lord. We regret that, through some inadvertence on our part, our exchange with this very superior periodical has not been regular. The fault, as well as the loss,

is ours.

able extent the objects for which it was undertaken;' and he indicates throughout his volume the utmost assurance of his success, and exults and triumphs in the embarrassment and defeat with which he flatters himself he has overwhelmed his adversaries. Neither his assurance, however, nor the commendations of his friends, can be safely taken as proofs of the truth of his views, or the force of his arguments. That his work is in a high degree adapted to the object for which it was undertaken,—if its design were, not so much calmly and impartially to ascertain what the teachings of the Scriptures are on the subject, as to confound and disgrace millenarianism by misrepresentation, sophistry, and ridicule, is indisputable. It is, from its lofty pretensions and positiveness, more imposing than any other we have seen that is devoted to the advocacy of the same views, more likely to mislead the unwary by deceptive statements and fallacious reasonings, and adapted in a higher measure to inspire its readers with contempt and scorn of those whom it opposes. To the praise, however, of a candid, learned, and demonstrative discussion of the subject it has no claim. It is, indeed, in some respects very much such a work as Mr Dobney's on future punishments, reviewed in the Journal of January. Like that, it omits the question on which the discussion mainly turns, proceeds on gratuitous and unauthorised assumptions, and owes its effectiveness to the false issues it creates, and the adroit appeals to prejudice and passion with which it abounds. To those who have given any attention to the subject, it must be apparent that the question respecting the meaning of the predictions of Christ's coming and reign, the resurrection and judgment of the dead, the condition of the race during the millennium, and their ultimate destiny, turns altogether on the laws by which the media through which those predictions are made are to be interpreted. The proper method accordingly of determining their meaning, is first to ascertain what those laws are, and next what the results are which they evolve when applied to those media. Of this Mr Brown himself, it would seem, is not unaware, for he represents it as a conspicuous characteristic of pre-millennialism, that it is founded on false principles of interpretation. He says, in his Introduction, Premillennialism is no barren speculation-useless though true, and innocuous though false. It is a school of Scriptural interpretation; it impinges upon, and affects some of the most commanding points of the Christian faith, and when suffered to work its unimpeded way, it stops not till it has pervaded with its own genius the entire system of one's theology, and the whole tone of his spiritual cha

racter, constructing, I had almost said, a world of its own.'P. 6. He indicates it also in the conclusion of his work; 'I have shewn, I think, under a number of heads, that the premillennial scheme is at variance with the Word of God;' and, that it proceeds on crude and arbitrary principles of interpretation, while it shrinks from carrying out even these to their legitimate results.'-P. 487. This implies that their imputed error is the result of false views of the laws of language and symbols, and that it is to be corrected by the establishment and application of their true laws. Any other mode must be altogether ineffective and inappropriate. It would be like an attempt to solve a problem in geometry by declamation, or a game at battledoor. The same views are expressed also by the author of the article in the Eclectic Review, on Mr Brown's work, in which his defamatory representations are repeated, and urged with greater vehemence. He says:

"In arguing with a modern millenarian, we are liable to constant perplexity from being at issue with him on the very first principles of interpretation, and on the application of his professed principles. To any one who does not come to the study of the Bible strongly predisposed towards a theory, it would appear a glaring absurdity to take what certainly seems the most highly figurative language as the literal expression of the ultimate form and destiny of the kingdom of Christ; and to construct such a theory as that of the millennium from a single symbolical passage in the most symbolical book in the Bible. You feel this preliminary question forced upon you—By what test can it be ascertained when the Word of God speaks as poetry, and when as plain prose? When and where are you to say ;-this is a scenical representation of a spiritual truth, or the metaphorical expression of a spiritual fact; and this is an abstract statement purely literal, to be received as an exact unadorned account of Christian doctrine? Is it all literal? and if not, by what rule can you discriminate the literal from the figurative? Are there any rules? or is every individual at liberty to choose out of the visions, prophecies, and dramatic representations of Scripture, that portion which it may suit his system to render literally?

"This implies with the utmost distinctness, that the whole question at issue is the question, What are the marks that distinguish literal from figurative expressions? What are the true laws of literal and figurative language and symbols? And how are they to be applied? And that nothing can be accomplished towards the settlement of the controversy, except by the determination and application of those laws.

"Mr Brown, however, wholly omits this first and most essential step. He enters into no inquiry whatever respecting the peculiarities of figurative language, and the laws by which it is to be interpreted; nor the principles on which symbols are employed. He gives no rules for their construction, nor does he found on them, in any measure, either his criticisms or his