would be imperfect, if the animals were subjected to famine, without migratory powers to correct it. So in the sea, if the fry of the cod, for instance, were not consumed by the destined fishes, they would be equally destroyed from want of food; consequently, those myriads would be wasted. It would also be a bad balance, if the carnivorous animals increased sufficiently to destroy the herbivorous; because the final result would be their own destruction: the latter may "eat the plant of which the bird consumes the seed, while the insect feeds on its honey; but the lion cannot feed with the swallow."

We perceive likewise that in cases of partial extinction, a balance is preserved. The elephant, rhinoceros, crocodile, bear, and many more, once occupied our own island; the wild hog, the beaver, the elk, and the urus, here also had a place, and more recently the wolf: therefore, it has undergone a succession of balances, under the loss of species; for it is assuredly fuller of large animals than ever, and we experience that it is a good balance. Thus it is not improbable, that certain animals are withdrawn, when their duty under a certain condition of the globe has been performed: an excess of mastodons would have prevented the increase of many by the destruction of forests, and the elephant, hyena, and bear, in Britain, would have had a possession which man alone could have disputed with them but they are withdrawn hence, even as the mastodon is dismissed from the entire world.

Chapters on the revolutions of the earth,-on the production of animal and vegetable lives,-and a general view of some preceding facts, close the work. Into these we shall not enter. We indeed flatter ourselves that we have made the book speak so much for itself, as to render any series of observations on our parts unnecessary. The very great perspicuity of the reasoning, and the simple and convincing manner in which abstruse questions are discussed, are not among the least of its merits: its moral deductions are excellent; and its piety is sublime and unaffected. The advocate of mere natural religion will find in it that which will correct his imperfect system; and the Christian, the strongest and soundest reasons for the hope that is within him. Here and there too much speculation may seem to have been indulged; but speculation is not its general character: here and there occasional repetitions and recurrences to subjects already discussed in some degree will occur; but it is to be remembered, in extenuation of these defects, that the author did not live to see his work pass through the press. As it is, it is fitted to impart information to every one.

ART.IV.-An Extract from the Preface of the "New Interpretation of the Apocalypse." By the Rev. G. CROLY, LL.D., Rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook. Published for the Protestant Association. 1837.

IT requires but a passing view of the history of the world, to recognise, how closely to the letter the first decree which fell from the lips of the Almighty hath been fulfilled. It was the will of Jehovah, under the old dispensation, that the idolatry of his people should be followed by punishment; and when the new dispensation discovered to a benighted world the one true Mediator, that same will emphatically announced that the introduction of the antichristian church should necessitate national misfortune. Paganism was the corruption of the first revelation, and Popery of the second. By divine decree a heavy calamity was entailed upon those who opposed the true worship-a visitation which was intended to fall alike upon individuals and nations. In no one instance, as we shall presently show, was the Divine wrath withheld from the rebellious; and it invariably came to pass, that the punishment incurred by the father was remarkably visited upon the children, and the sin of the king, or head of a people, drew down in its consequences desolation on the land. This alone presents ample subject-matter to occupy us for the present; and if we succeed in establishing the fact, we shall have arrived at a result pregnant with reflection: and when we contemplate our present national difficulties, we shall be compelled to acknowledge the source, and may be induced to apply the remedy.

The conduct of Adam in the days of Paradise, would seem sufficient to exemplify our argument. Though the sin of our progenitor was not, accurately speaking, idolatry, still it indicated a desire to gratify his senses, which led him to disobey the express command of his Maker. Upon the act, however, in all its mysteriousness, alighted vengeance from above, which was not confined to the first great perpetrator, but handed down to his posterity, with the divine image of the Eternal defaced. The sins of the father were visited upon the children, and a cloud was spread over the prospect of the kingdom of heaven till the great Mediator interposed, and that interposition was made known to the creature. But the extent of Adam's sin is too keenly felt for us here to dwell upon; and, indeed, the largeness of the sacrifice required to cancel it, or rather to mitigate the chastisement of Heaven, is a sufficient demonstration of the immensity of the original iniquity. The remaining evil nature, even in the regenerate, doth continually break out, which can only be softened down by the grace which falls from on high. The earth would present to the contemplation of the natural philosopher but a dreary and melancholy appearance, were not the great

luminary to outshine those lesser constellations, and disclose to his anxious and penetrating eye the gorgeous and beautiful works of the hitherto unseen Jehovah; the mighty ocean would continually, with its boisterous billows, overstretch its shores, and make awful inundations upon the surrounding country, had not power accompanied the command, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." So the natural man, ungoverned by the grace and Spirit of God, must have become a prey to the fury and passion within him. And had not mercy taken the place of divine wrath, the threatening held out to us, because we are children of Adam, would long since have been put into execution; and destruction, the gain and purchase of the apostate, been the final doom of us all. But the earth hath got its SUN, and the moral world owns its REDEEMER: the Maker can point to his own GLORY, and the creature bask in His MERCY. We must not, however, rest longer upon this delightful theme; we have a work before us to bring about-a work which cannot be broken down by the enemy, because it shall savour of the inspired page. It shall be founded on revelation. It shall disclose truths which no sophistry shall gainsay, and establish facts which it is not in the power of popery to controvert; and it shall build up in the minds of a Protestant people a machinery, which, when put into motion, shall overthrow the tables of the money-changers, and those who pollute the temple of the Lord.

That facts are stubborn things, is universally allowed; and the facts which we are desirous to comment upon are those of which our very enemies have been the guardians and keepers through successive ages. Out of their own archives will we convict them of error: the Jew first, and afterwards the Gentile.

The instance of Adam suffering for his sin, and that sin becoming hereditary, we will follow up; we will not lose sight of our object until we arrive at the present point of time; taking particular care to show how it must have been ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that the visitation of wrath should be the natural and inevitable consequence of disobedience.

"The Jewish history," observes Dr. Croly, "reveals to us the conduct of Providence with a people appointed to the express preservation of the faith of God. Every attempt to receive the surrounding idolatries into a participation of the honours of the true worship, even every idolatrous touch, was visited with punishment; and that punishment not left to the remote working of the corruption, but immediate, and, by its directness, evidently designed to make the nation feel the high importance of the trust, and the final ruin that must follow its betrayal."

The Jewish history, indeed, is everywhere big with the important verities to which Dr. Croly alludes. Let us ruminate upon Israel when she became a monarchy; or rather, let us date our observation from that epoch when her children were in the

wilderness, under the most enviable of all governments—a Theocracy; the constitution of which would seem as favourable to the maintenance of absolute freedom and equality as any that has ever been invented. But they constantly departed from the true worship, and the punishment of Jehovah immediately followed! When the son of Kish stood forth as their anointed king, and after a little while disobeyed the word of God, how soon did that God reject him, and, as the penalty of his violation of the Hebrew constitution, in taking upon himself the priestly function in an improper frame of mind, and offering sacrifice, and subsequently for not being able to resist the allurements of vanity and avarice, by the voice of Samuel proclaim that the kingdom should not be hereditary in his line, but pass into that of a man more obedient to the divine institutions-"a man after his own heart," one who took the stronghold of Zion from the Jebusites, and established the true worship. In the government of David, God's judgments and political justice were awarded among the people; but the son of Jesse was human, and there were blemishes in his life, which threw a deep shade over its lustre. Because he "had given the enemies of God occasion to blaspheme," it was decreed by that inscrutable Being that he should suffer accordingly. His three sons were the instruments that the Almighty employed to trouble David. And when in the pride of his heart he essayed to number the military population of the empire, that he might indulge his vain-glory, and know how great a king he was, three punishments of a grievous nature were offered to his choice for him to endure, either seven years' famine, or three months of war, or three days of pestilence. David preferred that his kingdom should suffer from pestilence. In the brief space appointed, seventy thousand of his people fell a sacrifice to the wrath of Heaven. Here we have an instance of the king's sin being visited on the people. But as far as his inherited taint of iniquity permitted, David was a good king, and prosperity, upon the whole, attended his reign. He made a preparation for the building of the temple; he collected the gold, and the silver, and jewels, and other materials, and gave the pattern of every thing to his son Solomon, as he himself received them of God; and Solomon completed this most glorious work.

The reign of this monarch is calculated in a still greater degree to exemplify the point we propose to establish. While he continued faithful to Jehovah, blessings from on high were poured down upon him. God gave him treasures and a magnificent state, and the fame of his greatness and wisdom was spread over all nations. The princes around him coveted his friendship, and were eager to obtain the credit of his alliance. He could count upon their assistance, and reckon their gifts, and tribute, and largesses. Among others the queen of Sheba

was attracted to his court; and though she had heard much of the magnificence by which he was surrounded, she confessed, that the reality more than came up to her highest expectations. She presented liberal donations, and did honour unto his house. But now mark the issue: in process of time Solomon came to forget his great obligations to God; he tarnished by his ill deeds his former fame; and the wisdom which he had received from on high, when his moral sense became degraded, shrank and dwindled away. He fell into the most glaring sins; he took wives and concubines out of the idolatrous nations. His heart then gradually inclined unto their gods, for whom he built places of worship, and he offered sacrifices unto them. Solomon's apostasy, in his latter years, from the worship of the true God, presents one of the most melancholy pictures of the inconsistency of human nature that has ever been drawn. Retributive justice, however, waited upon his impious defection. He had been hitherto shielded from dangers; but now several daring enemies were raised up to disturb his tranquillity. By far the most formidable of the whole was Jeroboam, his own servant, who became the disturber of the government; and the posterity of Solomon was deprived of the tribes of Israel, save one, for the idolatry of their father. When Rehoboam came to the throne the decree of God was answered,-ten of the tribes of Israel supporting the standard of Jeroboam, and acknowledging him for their king. Thus the separation of Israel into two states (the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel), which Ahijah the prophet had predicted, was immediately effected. Two tribes only, those of Judah and Benjamin, adhered to the descendant of David. These were afterwards united into one, under the name of Jews.

Jeroboam was the first king after the division. His talents were of the highest order, but his ambition knew no bounds. He struck at the root of that great bond of union which had hitherto held the children of Israel together, by prohibiting his subjects from going up to the temple to worship, and substituting new symbols of the Divine presence within his own territories. These were two golden calves, fabricated probably in imitation of the idol which Aaron had constructed in the Wilderness. He issued orders, that before these impious models should those acts of adoration be performed which were only due, and had been hitherto confined, to that God who dwelt between the cherubs in the temple of Jerusalem. In the same flagrant disregard of the nature of that theocracy, of which the kings of Israel were the vicegerents, where idolatry was synonymous with rebellion, Jeroboam introduced a variety of deviations, and substituted new forms for those which Moses had commanded. He expelled the priests and Levites who refused to obey his edicts; and having thrown open the priesthood to persons of all tribes, he