George Coldham J. Bancroft Reade CORP. CHR. COLL. Arthur Hussey TRINITY COLL. Joseph Sturges Wm. Henry Ord Thomas S. Godfrey Edmund Beales ST. JOHN'S COLL. BACHELORS OF ARTS. William Ogilby, Trin. Coll. Salisbury Dunn G. Rochfort Clarke EMMANUEL COLL. QUEEN'S COLL. CHRIST COLL. H. Wedgwood James Forbes JESUS COLL. TRINITY HALL. SIDNEY COLL. George Henry Hine CATHARINE HALL. Edw. Hyde Cosens MAGDALENE COLL. DOWNING COLL. James Grundy Cross The following gentlemen of Oxford have been admitted ad eundem of thisUniversity: -John Sleath, D. D. Wadham Coll.; Wm. Mills, B. D. and Nassau Wm. Senior, M. A. Magd. Coll.; and John James, M. A. St. John's Coll. James Lee, B. A. of Trin. Coll. Dublin, has been incorporated ad eundem of this University. Brereton, Regin. 31. Mr. Rawson, Magd. Sept. 7. Mr. Mills, Joh. 14. Mr. Browning, Regal. 21. FEST. S. MATT. Mr. Moore, Joh. 29. FEST. S. MICH. Mr. Cunningham, Regin; Mr. Grove, Jes. Oct. 5. Mr. Carnac, Joh. 12. Mr. Lucy, Trin. 18. FEST. S. Luc. Mr. Dunn, Joh. 28. FEST. SS. SIM. ET JUD. Mr. Nov. 1. FEST. OM. SANCT. Mr. Higman, 2. Mr. Hudson, Pet. 9. Mr. Graham, Chr. 16. Mr. Sheepshanks, Trin. 23. Mr. Hare, Trin. 30. FEST. S. AND. Mr. Carver, Trin. Dec. 7. Mr. Turnbull, Cai. Resp. in Jur. Civ. Oppon. Mr. Page, sen, Mr. Dugmore, Cai. Singuli suo ordine concionabuntur, respondebunt, disputabunt, cæterasque exercitationes ipsi per se suâ in persona præstabunt, nisi justa causa inciderit secundum Statuta approbanda. Ad Conciones in Templo Beatæ MARIE nulla de causâ quisquam alterum sibi surroget, qui ad Concionem aliquam habendam omnino non sit (a principio ad finem circuli Combinationum) assignatus, sine expressâ licentiâ a Procancellario prius obtentâ, quo de ipsius gradu, sacris ordinibus, canonicâ obedientiâ, cæterisque requisitis constet Procancellario, antequam admittatur ad Concionem publicam. GULIELMUS FREDERICUS, Cancellarius. MARRIED. At Abbottsbury, Dorset, the Rev. Robert Bentley Buckle, M. A. Fellow of Sidney Sussex college, to Caroline Louisa, daughter of the Rev. Alleyn Barker, vicar of Abbottsbury, and rector of Moncton. TO CORRESPONDENTS. We were sadly grieved to have incurred the applause of the Christian Observer; and are proportionately flattered by the Editor's public recantation of his laudatory dictum. Special care shall be taken to give him no cause for inconsistency in future. He may, perhaps, remember the Laudatur ab his in Horace. "J. W. F.'s" judgment respecting the Missionary Society is erroneous, and we think we could persuade him so. On the other hand, his definition of the term evangelical is correct; but he is much mistaken in supposing that it can be so applied to the party who assume the title. The Christian Review may expect a trimming. "A. T. H." "T. B. R." "J. B." and other miscellaneous matter, must stand over for the present, as we have so many articles of interest in that department, which require more immediate attention. The concluding paper on Gen. iv. 1, and that on pooku will appear next month. CHRISTIAN SEPTEMBER, 1828. 12 REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. ART. I.-The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy; or, a Dissertation on the Prophecies which treat of the Grand Period of Seven Times, and especially of its Second Moiety, or the latter Three Times and a Half. By GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B. D. Rector of Long Newton. In three volumes, 8vo. London: Rivingtons. 1828. 17. 16s. THERE are few subjects more interesting, and none more difficult, than the interpretation of prophecy: we cannot be surprised, therefore, at the multitude of Commentators who have endeavoured to explain these mysteries, or at the diversity of constructions which they have respectively adopted. The obscurity of these prophetic visions arises, neither from the intrinsic difficulty of describing things future, for it is as easy to speak of things to come intelligibly, as it is of things past;-nor from defect of talent in the prophet,-" for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; "-nor altogether from the dark and figurative language in which they are sometimes conveyed ;--but from design. The word of prophecy, however "sure," is "a light shining in a dark place;" and the purposed ambiguity of the oracles of God is not, like the lying divination of pagan soothsayers, the subterfuge of ignorance, or the effect of craft, but the wise appointment of the omniscient Spirit, who enabled the recipients of his grace to prophesy only "in part," and gave therefore to his messengers such a a degree of information as might be sufficient to raise the expectations of the faithful, and to animate the patient hopes of those who should "wait for the Son of God from heaven." The testimony of prophecy is indeed one of the strongest proofs of the truth of Christianity, equally indicative of divine prescience, as miracles were of divine power. These respective witnesses, though establishing the veracity of our holy faith by an appeal to the character of the Deity, who cannot lie, and depending therefore for their validity upon the same foundation, are calculated for different eras. Miraculous attestation addressed itself more especially to those, who lived at the time when the miracles were wrought; whilst the sister proof of prophecy was meant to be a growing and an undecaying evidence to distant generations. It was, doubtless, the benevolent and wise purpose of the Almighty, not to impart an unclouded blaze of light to interfere with the condition of man, and to disturb the balance of his moral energies by a knowledge unsuited to his station; but to open his gracious purposes by a gradual process, and to drop the life-sustaining manna of his promises in proportion to the wants of his children; and the stream of prophecy was made to flow, consequently, in a channel, narrow and penurious at its source, yet widening perpetually, and enlarged, by the swell of tributary waters, to a majestic river, in its progress towards the ocean of eternity. "That there should be difficulties, therefore, in the interpretation of prophecy, is exactly what ought to be expected; neither will those difficulties entirely vanish, till the whole scheme is completed; for the true and accurate interpretation of all prophecy is only to be had from the accomplishment."* Hence, then, it is manifest, that the interpretation of prophecy must be progressive as the events which it predicts and the gradual unfolding of these prophetic rolls, by the successive researches of laborious and diligent commentators, seems to be foretold in the remarkable phraseology of Daniel, "MANY shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (Dan. xii. 4.) What the nature of prophecy, and the very language of the prophets teach us to expect, has actually come to pass. We have seen a host of interpreters applying their talents to the subject of the prophetic visions, to whose successive labours, exceptis excipiendis, we may apply the remark of Sir Isaac Newton, that "amongst the interpreters of the last age there is scarce one of note, who hath not made some discovery worth knowing." Amongst those, who have endeavoured to illustrate these deep mysteries of God, Mr. Faber holds a conspicuous rank. The learned volumes before us have a peculiar claim upon the attention of divines; they were written, our author tells us, "in the course of the years 1818, 1819, and 1820," and his object in not expediting their publication was, that "he might subject to the jealous severity of mature judgment every position which they undertake to establish." "The Sacred Calendar" is meant to supersede the “ Dissertation on the Prophecies relative to the Period of 1260 Years," which was published by our author in the year (we think) 1806. The present treatise rests, indeed, on the same foundation as its predecessor, but it has been greatly enlarged; for whilst the Dissertation rested on the chronological basis of the three times and a half, this Sacred Calendar is built upon "the grand master number of seven times," which comprehends what our Lord styles "the times of the Gentiles," and which Bagot's Discourses on the Prophecies, Disc. III. p. 79. is indeed" the great almanack of prophecy," being equally the chronological measure of Daniel's metallic image, and of the Apocalypse itself, down to the commencement of the predicted 1000 years of blessedness."-Pref. p. vii. : This "grand master number of seven times," is dwelt upon with singular emphasis by Mr. Faber. Lest we should misrepresent our author in this favourite portion of his work, we shall let him speak for himself, and explain in his own words how the duration of the metallic image is made to comprehend "those seven times, which are produced by the duplication of the three times and a half, and which are identical with the times of the Gentiles, mentioned by our Lord." That the term of seven times is not mentioned in direct connexion with the metallic image, I readily allow but we shall find it mentioned no less positively, though obliquely and mystically, through the intervention of that remarkable type or ruling principle of the great idolatrous image Nebuchadnezzar himself, shadowing out, in his own person, both the age and the fortune of the great compound progressively increasing empire, which the image, during its growth is employed to symbolise. And since the king of Babylon (our author continues) was a type of the great image, for it is equally said to him by the prophet, THOU art the head of gold, and the tree which thou sawest, it is THOU, O king,—his predicted destiny will shadow out the destiny of that great compound empire, to which he was the declared head, and (according to the notions of oriental mythology) the animating principle; or, in the language of hieroglyphics, as employed by the oneirocritical writers, the fate of the lofty tree is the fate of the colossal image. Hence the seven times, during which the king was to be physically deranged, are the figure of seven prophetic times, or 2520 natural years, during which the great compound empire, defined as the terms of the symbol require us to define it, should be subjected to the moral madness of Paganism, or Popery, or Mohammedism, or Infidelity: hence, as at the end of those times the king was restored to the use of his intellects, and became a faithful worshipper of the one true God; so, at the end of those corresponding prophetic times, the great compound empire is to be restored to a state of moral sanity, and, after the predicted destruction of the antichristian confederacy, is to serve the Most High with a pure adoration during the longexpected Millennium: and hence, as the king was translated to heaven, when he had piously reigned for a short season after his recovery from madness; so will the Church of God be translated to heaven, when the comparatively short season of millennian holiness shall have rolled away.—Vol. II. pp. 25, 26, 30, 31. Our author proceeds in some subsequent pages to shew us how the phraseology of the prophet, by which the madness of Nebuchadnezzar is described, "and which forms the connecting link between Nebuchadnezzar the type, and the four great empires collectively the antitype," covertly points out the fate of the empire from the commencement of the seven prophetic times in the middle of the seventh century before Christ to the present hour, when we have nearly arrived, he thinks, at the end of them, during all which period the empire has laboured under the grievous evil of moral insanity." (Vol. II. p. 31.) And he would fain persuade us that the types of the iron band and the brazen band, in the hieroglyphical picture of the tree which was stript of its branches, (Dan. iv. 10, &c.) have a |