authority and argument, and possibly some readers may have fancied them a decisive refutation of the exposition which applies those prophecies to the Papacy and the Roman church.

The present work of Dr. O'Sullivan is an exposition of the lastnamed prophecies. In substance, if not in form, it is a reply to the two Lectures of Dr. Todd, but at the same time possesses some distinct and peculiar features, and diverges considerably from the common view of Protestant writers. In the first place, the author insists on the need of a wider distinction than is usual between the translation of a prophecy and its exposition. Accordingly, the first part is occupied with grammatical observations on both the prophecies; the second is employed in the exposition of the latterday apostasy; and the third is, we presume, to fulfil the same task for the earlier prophecy of the Man of Sin. Secondly, he advocates a view of the apostasy which deviates materially from that of Mede and his followers; and in which the creed of Pius the Fourth has the same prominence which they assign to the idolatrous corruptions of the fifth and following centuries.

Our task, then, as reviewers, is unusually difficult. Our limits are narrow, and the subject itself wide and of the highest importance. Did we agree mainly with either of the two writers, we might content ourselves with a few extracts and commendations, and refer the reader for full information to the work itself. But while we dissent totally from the views of Dr. Todd, and regard his Lectures as at once critically unsound and unusually mischievous, we must honestly express our judgment that Dr. O'Sullivan's work, notwithstanding some useful and original remarks, is on the whole a failure. The distinction between translation and exposition is over-stated in theory, and yet often neglected in practice; the praiseworthy minuteness of verbal inquiry is frustrated by an imperfect acquaintance with the Greek idiom; and his peculiar view of the date and character of the apostasy is, in our opinion, without any solid ground in the text, and inconsistent with the general scope of the Scripture prophecies. In short, the author is far more successful in exposing the false glosses of his rival than in establishing his own theory; and the acumen and diligence which avail him against Dr. Todd, fail him when he enters the lists against the superior research and judgment of" the pious and profoundly-learned" Mede.

Let us first of all hear Dr. O'Sullivan's statement of that defect of method in previous commentators, which he desires to remedy :

"In publishing views which in some instances have no recommendation except (what he believes to be) their truth, and which are, occasionally, at variance with commentaries of acknowledged merit, the author desires to

express his unfeigned respect for the learned and eminent persons with whom he has felt constrained to differ. He cheerfully recognises their title to the reputation they have achieved, and avows, most thankfully, his own obligations to them. But he believes that their labours have been distinguished rather by the earnestness with which they have endeavoured to apply the language of prophecy, than the patience with which they have studied to understand it; and that thus their abilities have been misdirected, and their good intentions frustrated; characteristics of prophetical language evading them, or being overlooked as trivial, in which, had their scrutiny been more severe, they would have detected an important significancy.

"If the author's obscure diligence' shall have the effect of in any degree directing the attention of superior minds to a subject, which, he believes, has hitherto been too much neglected, he shall be consoled under any rebukes which his temerity may provoke, and will feel that his labours have had an ample recompense.”—(Pref. p. iv.)

"It may, indeed, be said with truth, that, in the endeavour to elucidate prophecy, learning has been misdirected. Elsewhere the text of Scripture has constituted the one subject on which the commentator has been employed; his office is to explain it, and learning, faithfully devoted to the execution of this task, has had an ample reward. The study of prophecy has not been pursued with a like discretion. Distracted between the requirements of his twofold duty, that of ascertaining the sense of words, that of seeking out events or objects in which a prediction was to have its fulfilment, the interpreter has too often found the latter part of his task the more attractive, and has devoted himself to it with a disproportionate assiduity. No occupation was more calculated to awaken the enthusiasm which seems conviction to him whom it possesses. Engaging all the faculties which man feels most interest in exerting, promising the recompense which flatters man's most abiding passion, it has hurried many a student over his humbler but plainly indispensable duty; words and phrases have vanished from him in his eagerness to penetrate the mysteries they cover; and when they have reappeared again, he has seen them 'darkly,' by an image reflected, it may be, untruly, in the glass of an assumed interpretation.

"Until this evil be corrected, no secure advance can be made in the investigation of prophecy. The words of the prophet must be seen and studied in their own light before they are compared with other prophecies, or with events in which they are thought to have their fulfilment. It is not, perhaps, too much to affirm, that, with respect to the predictions of St. Paul, this preliminary study is yet to be begun. The reader, who believes that it is, or who even partially assents to the justice of the observations here submitted to him, will not censure, as trivial and unpardonably tedious, the minute accuracy with which, in the following pages, it is sought to ascertain the literal meaning of the apostle's language."-(pp. 9, 10)

These remarks involve two assumptions; that there is a broad line of separation between the office of the translator and the expositor, and that the defects of previous writers arise mainly from their neglect of verbal criticism. From both these views we dissent entirely.

First, the line of distinction between translation and exposition, when tested in practice, will be found almost to elude the closest search. We may perhaps distinguish three stages of inquiry, what is grammatically possible, historically probable, and prophetically true. The first merely excludes open and manifest solecisms, inconsistent with the laws of grammar. The second, from the

phraseology and style of the writer, and the usage of the times, infers the sense in which it is likely that particular expressions are used. The third, from a view of the whole subject and a full comparison of the word of prophecy, fixes and determines the sense really designed by the Spirit of God.

Now it is clear that these inquiries melt into each other by degrees almost insensible. Questions of grammar soon land us in those of usage and style; and these again can scarcely be solved without the collation of kindred prophecies. Of this our author himself is a proof. His first part is professedly confined to a grammatical analysis of the two prophecies. Yet from the obvious grammatical meaning of "the temple of God," he passes on to the question of usage, and then further to a decision on the scope of other prophecies, and the testimony of Scripture at large on the rebuilding of the material temple. For thirty pages the distinction on which he so much insists is, in practice, entirely set aside.

Again, we cannot agree that neglect of verbal criticism is the principal cause of the mistakes which interpreters have committed. Such oversights do occur, and wherever they exist are without doubt very injurious. But want of critical skill, a neglect of the needful comparison of Scripture with Scripture, and failure in the comprehensive survey of Divine Providence, are causes of error far more extensive and pernicious, without mentioning the bias of party, and the want of spiritual discernment and experience. Here too Dr. O'Sullivan's work is a striking proof. Close and diligent as he has been in minute verbal inquiry, he has based his main interpretation on a Greek construction which, we suspect, no accurate scholar would tolerate for a moment, and which no one that we are aware of has even ventured to suggest; and on a view of Church history, which Mr. Faber, Mr. Hallam, and Dr. Wiseman, three witnesses free from all common bias, unite in condemning as both unnatural and distorted.

While, therefore, we highly approve of Dr. O'Sullivan's "obscure diligence," and feel that the modesty of his preface disarms censure, we are far from his opinion, that "this preliminary study is yet to be begun." All that is true in his verbal criticisms, with a few exceptions, has been anticipated by older authors; and he has offered, as we think, some very faulty suggestions, and fallen into several important mistakes, from which the superior accuracy of their scholarship has preserved them. On this account we are sorry that he has ventured on this general condemnation of his predecessors, however modest the terms in which his censure is conveyed. But we must pass on to the work itself. For the present we will confine ourselves to the later prophecy, which of itself will

almost exceed our limits. The other we may possibly resume when the third part is published, which is to contain the author's exposition of the prophecy in Thessalonians. Instead of following his remarks from page to page, we shall best consult the profit of our readers, by arranging our observations under distinct heads.

I. The first point to be settled is that difficult question of construction which meets us at the beginning of the second verse. The words in that verse and the following are genitives in the original; and must either be referred to the apostates in the first, by à harsh and unusual licence of attraction; or to the "devils," or "demons," which is not less harsh in point of sense; or be governed by the words "in hypocrisy" (ev vokρies feudohoyar), at the opening of the verse. Castalio, Hyperius, and especially Mede, adopt this last construction; in which they are followed by Bengelius, and most later critics. Dr. Todd, while entirely rejecting Mede's interpretation, fully agrees in this construction. The passage will thus receive the following translation:

"Howbeit the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall revolt from the faith, attending to erroneous spirits and doctrines of demons; through the hypocrisy of liars, of those who have their consciences seared with a hot iron," &c.

Instead of this version, offered by Mede, Dr. O'Sullivan adopts the following:

"But the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the last days there shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, some-of speakers of lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron," &c.

Now we object to this translation on two decisive grounds, one drawn from the laws of grammar, and the other from doctrinal propriety. Nothing, it is true, is more common than genitives in a partitive sense; and it is strange enough that Dr. O'Sullivan should suspect Mede of overlooking so plain a truth, and refer to the Eton grammar and other class-books for authority. The bare fact that no critic of eminence ever proposed such a construction, might of itself have taught him that Mede had some better reason for passing it in silence. Nor is the reason hard to discover. In the first place, partitive genitives are never separated by a long clause from the words on which they depend; and, in the second place, partitive nouns invariably receive the article after Ives. Nearly fifty examples of the rule may be found in the New Testament, and they are numerous in all classic authors. On both these grounds, the construction which Dr. O'Sullivan adopts cannot be admitted, and no critic that we remember has ever ventured to propose it.

But the objection from its theological impropriety is, in our opinion, not less fatal. According to our author, St. Paul announces that some of those who are speakers of lies, and seared in their conscience, shall depart from the faith. But could the inspired writer possibly intend that any whose crimes were so aggravated that their very conscience was become seared and insensible, were still abiding in the faith of Christ? This we cannot believe: his own statements (Eph. iv. 17-20. 1 Tim. i. 19.) clearly imply the reverse. Such parties as the Apostle describes (ver. 2, 3,) must already have been apostates of the most dangerous kind. The version of our author thus appears quite untenable, in whatever point of view we regard it.

Let us next examine the objections brought against Mede's version, and we shall find them all to arise simply from misconception.

Mede's first argument is, that on the other constructions the second and third verses are merely an explanation of the "giving heed to seducing spirits," &c., and thus idolatry, the main feature of the apostasy, is omitted, while secondary errors are named. Dr. O'Sullivan says, "A moment's reflection will show this to be not correct; the second verse, &c., may describe the character of the apostates, and the first what they are to do." This remark is doubly groundless. Even with our author's construction-forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain, are actions of the apostates, no less than giving heed to seducing spirits. But the construction against which Mede argues is that of our translation, where the genitive is supposed by a licence to be put for the nominative. Mede's remark upon this is perfectly just, and only becomes obscure when made to apply to another construction, which no one, before our author, seems to have seriously proposed.

Mede observes next, that errors about marriage and meats were not peculiar to the last times, and would therefore hardly be given as the main features of that apostasy. To this Dr. O'Sullivan replies, as a distinction important to notice, that the first verse alone is strictly prophetic, and the others have no such character. This is quite untrue, either on the view which Mede opposes, or that which he adopts. And even with Dr. O'Sullivan's construction, it is a distinction without a difference. Surely when the acts of certain characters are predicted, the future existence of such characters, at the time, is one part of the prophecy.

The third argument of Mede is, however, the most important. We shall adjoin it at length, with Dr. O'Sullivan's observations:"But my last reason, whereunto I think I may trust, is, that the syntax of the words in the Greek is incapable of such an intransitive construction,