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and the salary of the deputy-constable. The concluding chapter contains a useful memoir of illustrious individuals who have been born, bred, and buried there. Dalton and Peel, Bradford and his martyrdom, Bridgewater and his dukedom, are all handed down to immortal fame in the chronicles of "Wheeler's Manchester."

The Life and Character of John Howe, M.A.; with an Analysis of his Writings. By HENRY ROGERS. 8vo. London: Ball. THE amiable piety, the vigorous intellect, and the eventful "times" of John Howe, are well known. The chaplain to the haughty Protector, the bosom friend of the controversial Baxter, the anonymous consoler of the Lady Russell, the associate of Burnet, Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Sherlock, was a man of no common order. He lived to serve the Usurper, to suffer under the policy of the Second Charles and the Second James, and to present a congratulatory address to our Third William. As he was never episcopally ordained, we cannot sympathize with him in his persecutions as an authorized teacher of the faith. His life is chiefly valuable as giving us a sketch of the practical working of the "Act of Uniformity," the Act of Toleration," and other measures which affected the Dissenters; and as Howe's catholic and charitable spirit allowed of " occasional conformity," we are only surprised that his good sense did not see the necessity of overcoming the scruples of a morbid conscience, and of rendering his talents infinitely more useful to the church of Christ, by complete and constant conformity. Mr. Rogers has published some original letters; but his book is very hastily composed it does not display the slightest talent or erudition, although Howe's life affords ample scope for both. The last chapter, containing the "Analysis of his Writings," is interesting and instructive.

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Calmet's Dictionary of the Holy Bible; with the Fragments of the late Charles Taylor. By ISAAC TAYLOR. London: Holdsworth.

A SPECIMEN of this edition has been sent to us. Calmet and his Dictionary, Taylor and his Fragments, have long been identified. Isaac Taylor has added a Memoir of his respected relative, Charles. He also is not unknown to literary fame; and we trust that this edition, so splendidly illustrated by copperplate engravings, will become as popular as it deserves to be.

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OF

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AFFLICTIONS of Life, with their Antidotes, by Mrs. H. Cruso, 24mo. 4s. 6d.

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Carpenter's (Lant) on the Duration of our Saviour's Ministry, 8vo. 5s. Christian (The) Keepsake, 1837, post 8vo. 15s.

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Martin's (Montgomery) Analysis of the Bible, royal 32mo. 2s. 6d.

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Webb's (Mrs. J. B.) Child's Commentary on St. Luke, 18mo. 3s. 6d. Wood's (T.) Lectures on the Evidences, &c. of the Christian Religion, 8vo. 3s.

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THE

CHURCH OF
OF ENGLAND

Quarterly Review.

APRIL, MDCCCXXXVIL

ART. I.-An Exposition of the Parables and of other parts of the Gospels. By EDWARD GRESWELL, B. D. Fellow of C. C. C. Oxon. 5 vols. with an Appendix. Oxford: Parker. 1834, 1835.

GREAT as is the learning with which this work abounds, we observe, with regret, that the Author's very powerful talents are perverted by fanciful speculations from the plain investigation of truth, and so far biassed by a preconceived system, as to force irrelevant matter into an undue bearing upon it. He distinguishes the parables into those which our Lord applied and explained at the time; and those which he left unapplied and unexplained. The latter he denominates "allegories," which, "when deciphered and interpreted by the help of their proper key, will be found to consist of prophecies." Pursuant

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to this principle of hermeneutics, he argues from certain terms in the New Testament to the existence of exoteric and esoteric (or acroamatic) doctrines in Christianity; but neither in the sacred books, nor in the writings of the early Fathers, can any valid basis for this notion be discerned, because these terms are applied in a totally different sense, and in an evident contradistinction to their use in Paganism.

These remarks are, however, merely preliminary to the establishment of the doctrine of the Millennium, to which he has devoted the principal part of his introductory volume. Although vast erudition is expended on the proof, we are neither satisfied with his demonstration, nor with the authorities on which it rests. We fear, that the particularity with which he minutely describes the Millennial era, brings him under Dr. Clarke's charge of becoming himself a prophet in his enucleation of prophecy; and, unless we err, the passages which he has cited are capable of another interpretation. The great question is, whether the Millennium mentioned in the Revelations

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is to be figuratively or literally accepted; whether the general figurative character of the book should not lead us to suppose the same of each particular part; or whether this one part requires a literal interpretation distinct from all the rest? If so, he should have produced a reason and an authority which as yet have not been given.

In the early christian times, the belief of an almost immediate reappearance of Christ was vivid, and the primitive church looked forwards to a Millennial period; but the signs which they marked for its manifestation disappointed them, and the epoch which they fixed and anticipated did not arrive. But whence did they draw their expectations? Even Papius admits, rather from oral tradition, than from Scripture. Since, then, oral tradition, which in this instance Greswell would refer to the acroamatic doctrines, was the stream from which they derived it, we may fairly conjecture the source to have been Rabbinical; for the harmony is so close between the Millennial system, and the occurrences expected by the Jews in the days of Messiah Ben David, that in that age, and among persons fraught with Jewish opinions, these might easily have been accommodated to Christianity, especially when passages in the sacred books were found to which they could be appended. It is also to be observed, that the numeral which denotes the Millennial duration, like μvpérns xpóvos, in Greek, was continually used by the Jews and orientals in an indefinite sense, so much so as to be often interchangeable with forty: thus, in Deut. vii. 9,

-and the pillars at Perse עולם ,8 .is rendered in Ps. cv אלף דור

هزار ستون or چهل ستون

polis are indifferently called the forty, or the thousand pillars.

The only real evidence of this doctrine lies in Rev. xx. 4, sqq. from which we cannot collect data to substantiate the idea of an earthly reign, to which indeed our Saviour's emphatic declaration, that his kingdom is not of this world, may justly be deemed inimical. It has the disadvantage of involving the necessity of three advents of the Son of God: the first, when he came in great humility; the second, when he is supposed about to come in his glory to reign with his saints on earth for a thousand years; the third, when he shall come to judge mankind: but in the Scriptures, two advents only are distinctly mentioned. And it must appear a vast anomaly, that at the expiration of a thousand years spent in righteousness, evil should reassume its sway before the consummation of all things, and the commencement of Christ's heavenly reign-that such an economy of perfect holiness should, as an oasis in a desert, intervene between past and succeeding ages of sin-only to take place and to fade away. But the purposes of God are directed to lasting objects; and whatever may be designed by this passage, as yet inscrutable,

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