Mr. Faber confined himself to the common English version, his mistake might have been excusable. There the sense is ambiguous. In the Greek text it is plain. The participles in the second and third verses cannot agree with us, but must be referred to Say and consequently point out the demons as the living authors, not the dead objects, of the condemned doctrine.*

I must apologise to the reader's patience for adding another observation on this uninteresting subject; but it has acquired importance from the confidence with which the words of the apostle are quoted by our apocalyptic adversaries. I have already shewn that, if by our doctrine respecting the intercession of the saints we are apostates, the whole bcdy of christians during at least eleven centuries, and the great majority of christians during the last three centuries, must be involved in the same guilt. Now I ask, whether it be possible to apply the prediction of the apostle to so numerous a body, to so many hundred millions of the professors of the christian name? Does St. Paul say that all christians, or the greater number, or even that many among them would apostatize? No: only some, TES, a word which to me appears to designate an inconsiderable sect, compared with the great society of christians. I may also add, that Mede's explanation was soon after refuted by the learned Protestant commentator Dr. Whitby, who shewed that the prophecy of the apostle regarded not the present, but the first age of the christian church.†

On the subject of indulgences, and works of penance, Mr. Faber, like his predecessors, has described indulgences as pardons, and works of penance as atone+ ments of sin. In some of the preceding pages, this

* I know an attempt has been made to translate & uongo ↓ dodoyun through the hypocrisy of false teachers; but this meaning is foreed, unnatural, and unnecessary.

† As Mr. Faber, after Mede, refers to St. Epiphanius, let him consult that father (Hæres, 48): he will find that, in his opinion, the prediction was evidently verified in the heresy of the Cataphryge, and similar seats: σαφώς πεπλήρωται.

mistake has been already noticed: nor shall I fatigue the reader by a repetition of what I have previously advanced. One line, however, has dropt from the pen of Mr. Faber, which requires some observation. The Bishop of Durham, he tells us, " does not censure the "austerities of penance, if found to be of any use."† What are we to infer from this vague and uncertain information? That the Right Rev. Prelate has not yet made up his mind on the utility of works of penance, and therefore does not choose either to sanction or condemn them? This certainly displays a more amiable modesty, and less of a dogmatising spirit, than some persons have thought they discovered in his Charge: but it should be remembered that christianity has now been preached about eighteen hundred years, and that it is certainly time that those, who are teachers of Israel, should be able to afford some information on so interesting a subject. That in the ancient church, the austerities of penance were deemed of great utility, is evident both from the penitential canons, and the writings of the fathers. In modern times it seems that they present a problem of considerable difficulty, which the prelates of the reformed churches, after three hundred years deliberation, are unable to solve. On the nature of the provocation given by the Bishop's Charge, Mr. Faber has also fallen into a mistake. The Remarker did not complain that the Right Rev. Prelate had attempted to prove the truth of the Protestant, or to disprove the truth of the Catholic creed.

* Perhaps the following passage from a Catholic divine, may convince him that we do not derogate from the efficacy of Christ's passion even by works, as they are called, of satisfaction. Nulla prorsus est satisfactio ab homine quovis peracta, quæ Deo sit grata, vel quæ sit alicujus omnino valoris, nisi per merita Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Christus est, qui solum vere et plene pro peccatis nostris satisfecit, ex quo omnis nostra sufficientia. Nostra namque satisfactio, qualis est et quo modo nostra est, potius est quædam meritorum Christi nobis applicatio, quam propria aliqua satisfactio. Sicut autem per fidem, juxta aliquorum opinionem nobis applicantur Christi merita, ita et per quæcumque opera pia et in Deo facta. Nihil enim in nobis tanquam ex nobis, sed in eo qui nos confortat, omnia possumus, &c. Holden, Analysis Fidei, c. v. § 5. + Faber's Answer, p. 101.

This is a right which he will deny to no one. The subject of his complaint was, the unfair and uncandid manner in which the Bishop had conducted his attack. It was, that he had attributed to us doctrines, which we reprobate as sincerely as himself; and on the fictitious belief of such doctrines, had held us out to the contempt and execration of the public. When apocalyptic interpreters have recourse to such artifices to eke out their respective systems concerning the wof Babylon, we may amuse ourselves with the puny efforts of their bigotry or credulity. But the personal character, and the high station of the Bishop of Durham, bestow a dignity and importance on such imputations, when he is their author. Then we owe it to ourselves, to our country, and to the truth, to vindicate our innocence. This was the provocation which originally called forth the pen of the Remarker. Nor has he any reason to regret the occasion, or the issue of the contest. He may say with Ajax, (nor will the public voice dispute the truth of my opinion),

Si quæritis hujus

Fortunam pugnæ, non sum superatus ab illo.

DURING the long lapse of more than fifteen centuries, the visions of the apostle St. John had been enveloped in the thickest obscurity. At the era of the reformation, a strong ray of apocalyptic light dissipated the clouds which popery had raised and since that period every old woman, of either gender, has been able to unravel with ease the web of mystery, and to reveal to the world the true meaning of the book of Revelations. From the days of Luther to the present, we have possessed a numerous and uninterrupted succession of translators, lecturers, expositors, and annotators, who may truly be said to have seen visions, and to have dreamed dreams: and, lest by some mishap the pious race should become extinct, Bishop Warburton has left a fund for the support or the reward of the more fiery among its members.* I may admire his

• According to his will, an annual sermon is preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, to prove the Pope to be Antichrist, &c. &c.

zeal, but not his wisdom. He probably did not see that he was thus endeavouring to diffuse and perpetuate an alarming species of intellectual disease, which, for the sake of distinction, I shall beg leave to call the apocalyptic mania. It has not, indeed, been hitherto classed in any system of nosology; but it is not on that account less real, or less general; and, I trust, I shall confer a benefit on the public by proceeding to point out the origin, and to describe the symptoms of this theological malady.

When "the magnanimous fathers of the reformation" broke from the communion of the Catholic church, they found it convenient to justify their schism, by pleading that the Pope was Antichrist, and Rome the scarlet w- of Babylon. This doctrine, while it inflamed the bigotry, flattered the spiritual pride of their disciples: with conscious superiority of birth, they sought in the apocalypse for proofs of the ignominious descent of their opponents, and their sacrilegious familiarity with the mysterious volume, quickly produced the disease, which is the subject of the present observations. Its progress was rapid. It soon pervaded every department in life; but its most distinguished victims were, and still are, chosen from among those churchmen, who, from the instructions of the nursery or the university, have imbibed a lively dread of the horrors of popery. The mania first manifests itself by a restless anxiety respecting the future fortunes of the church, and a strong attachment to prophetic hieroglyphics: the antichrist, and the man of sin; the beast with ten horns, and the beast with two horns; the armies of Gog and Magog; the fall of Babylon, and the arrival of the millennium, become the favourite, the only subjects of study; false and ridiculous perceptions amuse the imagination; the judgment is gradually enfeebled, and, at last, the most powerful minds sink into the imbecility of childhood. Of the truth of this description we have a melancholy proof in the great Sir Isaac Newton. To him Nature seemed to have unlocked her choicest secrets: as a philosopher he was and is still unrivalled: but no sooner did he direct his