Assuredly we need to be very guarded how we abandon ourselves to our author, but giving him nevertheless the full benefit of his disclaimer that the last 35 years of Augustine's life did not enter into his chronological representations, we may yet conclude very safely that he would have gladly adopted the whole "chronology of Augustine's life" as illustrating the "chronological position" of the vision, could he possibly have done so. He was hindered, as usual, by historic difficulties, the interpretation having always to shape its course, at any expense to the requisitions of the text, so as to stand clear of these.

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But we have still to enquire for the promised historic chronology, as derivable from Augustine. And here Mr. Elliott helps us no more. He has been driven to mark off his period to the exclusion of the Augustinian æra as entering into it, save as to the very initiatory appearance of Augustine's labours. earliest publication, as we have found, was issued in A. D. 395, the very year of the termination of the chronologic period which had to be provided for. To make any use then of Augustine towards furnishing ourselves with materials for this period, we have to submit to an arbitrary dismemberment of his career at this particular juncture, there cutting off, and abandoning, so far as chronologic use is concerned, the remaining and most important portion thereof, namely the 35 years which Mr. Elliott has removed from the reach of Dr. Keith's strictures. So, after all our investigation, we secure historically but this one terminating year of the period before us.

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Mr. Elliott is however still not without his resources. has a system of "allusive contrast" to which he resorts, (but this only where it suits him,) under which he can introduce the very opposite of what the text may be thought to advert to, as being indicated thus allusively. Of this system he avails himself under the vision before us, wishing to have it believed that the doctrinal rectitude conceived to be represented by the sealing, had allusion to opposing doctrinal error at that time prevailing. (I. 246.) The doctrinal rectitude we have seen is secured chronologically in the one year of Augustine's ministrations which we

are at liberty to make use of; that is, in the concluding year of the period of 83 years, from A. D. 312 to 395, for which we were to expect an historic fulfilment. For materials for the other 82 years we are to be indebted, it would appear, to the expedient of the "allusive contrast," and this Augustine's one year of doctrinal rectitude has to supply us with. But how supply us? Most strange indeed the process. The 82 years of doctrinal error have to run their course unacknowledged for the time by the text, and just at the close thereof the one year that the text is held to afford us has to come in and by a backward leap adopt the whole, and so fill in the chronologic period. Mr. Elliott does not venture explicitly to trace out the operation of this very remarkable manœuvre, but nevertheless it would seem plain that to this alone can we be indebted for the chronologic fulfilment we had to seek for. It need hardly be pointed out that the poverty of the human delineator, here so apparent, is not to be charged upon the sacred text.

But even with all these liberties, the result desiderated is by no means attained to. The prevalence of the doctrinal errors, thus introduced, will not satisfy the pending exigency. These errors will not serve to realize the "chronologic position" of the vision. One of the most prominent thereof noticed by Mr. Elliott is that entertained in regard to baptism. (I. 246.) But did this belong specifically to the given era? By no means so, as Mr. Elliott himself is the witness. "I have spoken," he tells us, "of this baptismal error as one peculiarly characteristic of the times of Constantine: not indeed overlooking the third century, as that in which it began to appear." (I. 255.) So then there is an end of supplying our chronologic requisition out of the circumstance of this error, for what arose in the third century can of course help to originate no peculiarity as descriptive of a period in the fourth. But yet Mr. Elliott would appear to wish us to shut our eyes against this very serious blemish in his solution, even while he again enunciates that which should expose it to us. He refers to the testimony he had drawn as to the existence of this error from "eminent and approved fathers of

the third and fourth centuries," and then adds, very complacently, "perhaps these might of themselves suffice as evidence of the chronological propriety * of the Apocalyptic picture.” (I. 255.) We may certainly admit the chronological propriety of the picture as laid before us in the Apocalypse, but still be very far from being satisfied with Mr. Elliott's representation thereof. Indeed at the close of our researches the only question that can arise is, where, after all, is the chronologic fulfilment for the very precise term of years he has set before us from A. D. 312 to 395 to be looked for? and echo only can answer, "Where?"

5. THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS.

Mr. Elliott observes that these trumpets are commonly held to relate to the invasions of the western empire of Rome by the Goths; and he coincides in this view, but, at the same time, has to add that "there has been as to the details, and the apportionment of its part in the Gothic ravages to each one of the four Trumpet-visions distinctively, such a remarkable difference of opinion,―scarcely two commentators," he believes, "explaining them alike,—as to have thrown discredit, in the opinion of not a few, on the Gothic application altogether." (I. 321, 322.) It is singular indeed that if right in the subject of the interpretation, the materials thereof should be of so loose and indefinite a nature as to allow each man to form his own scheme of adaptation thereof to the sacred text. It has not been so with regard to those prophecies of which all are satisfied that an accomplishment has taken place,—such, for example, as relate to our Lord at His first coming. The facts of the fulfilments, and the particulars of the prophecies, have ever been of too precise and close-fitting a nature to give room for diversity of application, the one to the other, and had the Gothic invasions been the subject of these trumpets, no doubt the like forcible and unmistakeable illustration of the prophecy by the history would have appeared. The liberties too which each interpreter must have allowed himself, where all, with the same materials to handle,

* These italics, very remarkably again, are Mr. Elliott's.

came to essentially different adaptations, affords demonstration of the lax and self-accommodating manner in which historic fittings are applied. That Mr. Elliott conducts his process of adaptation in a similar way, bending the text to the facts, or the facts to the text, as may best suit his aims, abundant evidence has been offered; and more such will appear in the present instance, and in his further interpretations.

Mr. Elliott contends for "the admissibility of literal localities, and a literal geography, into prophecies generally symbolical," and so interprets the "land, sea, and rivers," connected with the three first of these trumpets, in their natural sense. (I. 325328.) When he comes, however, to the locality connected with the fourth trumpet, which is the firmament, he resorts to a figurative interpretation, calling it "the symbolic firmament," or the Roman state. (I. 343.)

What the "third part" of the objects brought under visitation at the sounding of these trumpets might be, has, it appears, occasioned interpreters much perplexity. Mr. Elliott offers objections to each of the solutions thereof hitherto proposed, and finds none left for adoption but that a certain tripartite division of the Roman empire, which had occurred early in the reign of Constantine, was intended thereby. (I. 331, 332.) But he has to allow, on the other hand, that this no more prevailed at the season of the trumpets, and that just prior thereto a "memorable" and "permanent" bi-partition of the empire took place. (I. 333.) This difficulty Mr. Elliott has to overcome, and he attempts to do so under the consideration that the limits of this latter division varied, the central portion of the empire falling sometimes to one side, and sometimes to another; and that this central part became subject to circumstances, chiefly such as invasions and foreign occupations, which did not attach to the other parts, so as, in Mr. Elliott's view, to keep up its distinctiveness from the rest of the empire. (I. 333-336.) The text, however, as construed by Mr. Elliott, requires the recognition of some actual third part as then existing in separate posture, and he can show none but by reference to a foregone and cancelled condition of the state.

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The thunderings, lightnings, and earthquake, "introductory to the sounding of the trumpets, are taken by Mr. Elliott to imply an invasion themselves, and to be that of Alaric on the assumed "central" division of the empire. (I. 344, 345.) Here we have a "third part" of the empire brought under judgment without mention of any such limitation in the text. Can then the "third part" contemplated under the trumpets, be such an object as is thus unnoticed under the introductory storm, although distinctively affected thereby? The acknowledged prophetic value of the detail in the one instance, would surely have secured for it a like specific recognition in the other. The division supposed to have been visited under the preliminary thunderings was, we have seen, the "central one, but that to which the trumpets are held to have applied is described to have been "the Western third of the empire." (I. 338.) Here therefore the correspondence that should subsist between the main judgments, and that which is "introductory" to them, is wanting.

The seven successive trumpets evidently denote seven successive acts of judgment, there being one instance of judgment, and no more, for each trumpet. Under the first trumpet, however, no less than four distinct invasions are held to have occurred, three conducted by Alaric,-the same who is viewed as having brought in the preliminary storm,-and in the interval of two of these, another, by a different leader, Rhadagasius; (I. 347;)— the text manifestly indicating integral, and not at all any such quadruple action. And it must be asked why, if Alaric's latter instances of aggression on the Roman state required to be introduced under the solemn symbol of the sounding of one of these seven specific trumpets, his first invasion thereof should have been left without such symbol? and also why his earliest invasion should have been typified as a storm of thunder and lightning, and his latter ones, which were of the same character, as hail and fire mingled with blood? The same ground of exception extends itself also to the features of the two next trumpets, there being nothing discriminative between the acts of the one invader and the other, to account for the speciality of blood and fire