Ib. p. 254.

The entire text of the Apostle is as follows:—­’Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind’, &c. (2 Thess. ii. 1-10.)

O Edward Irving!  Edward Irving! by what fascination could your spirit be drawn away from passages like this, to guess and dream over the rhapsodies of the Apocalypse?  For rhapsody, according to your interpretation, the Poem undeniably is;—­though, rightly expounded, it is a well knit and highly poetical evolution of a part of this and our Lord’s more comprehensive prediction, ‘Luke’ xvii.

Ib. p. 297.

On the ordinary ideas of the coming of Christ in glory and majesty, it will doubtless appear an extravagance to name the Jews, or to take them into consideration; for, according to those ideas, they should hardly have the least particle of our attention.

In comparing this with the preceding chapter I could not help exclaiming; What an excellent book would this Jesuit have written, if Daniel and the Apocalypse had not existed, or had been unknown to, or rejected by, him!

You may divide Lacunza’s points of belief into two parallel columns;—­the first would be found to contain much that is demanded by, much that is consonant to, and nothing that is not compatible with, reason, the harmony of Holy Writ, and the idea of Christian faith.  The second would consist of puerilities and anilities, some impossible, most incredible; and all so silly, so sensual, as to befit a dreaming Talmudist, not a Scriptural Christian.  And this latter column would be found grounded on Daniel and the Apocalypse!

[Footnote 1:  The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty.  By Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, a converted Jew.  Translated from the Spanish, with a preliminary Discourse.  By the Rev. Edward Irving, A.M.  London, 1827.]

[Footnote 2:  See ‘supra’, vol. iii. p. 93.—­Ed.]

[Footnote 3:  P. 157, 4th edit.—­Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON NOBLE’S APPEAL. 1827. [1]

How natural it is to mistake the weakness of an adversary’s arguments for the strength of our own cause!  This is especially applicable to Mr. Noble’s Appeal.  Assuredly as far as Mr. Beaumont’s Notes are concerned, his victory is complete.

Sect.  IV. p. 210.

The intellectual spirit is moving upon the chaos of minds, which ignorance and necessity have thrown into collision and confusion; and the result will be a new creation.  “Nature” (to use the nervous language of an-old writer,) “will be melted down and recoined; and all will be bright and beautiful.”

Alas! if this be possible now, or at any time henceforward, whence came the dross?  If nature be bullion that can be melted and thus purified by the conjoint action of heat and elective attraction, I pray Mr. Noble to tell me to what name or ‘genus’ he refers the dross?  Will he tell me, to the Devil?  Whence came the Devil?  And how was the pure bullion so thoughtlessly made as to have an elective affinity for this Devil?