accession of Edward the Sixth to the throne of England!” and “the defeat of the Duke of Mecklenburgh in the October of that year!!” Of course, these witnesses, according to Mr. Faber’s interpretation, resumed their function of prophesying so soon as they were restored to political life:  but we look in vain for the prophesying of the mystic witnesses after their ascension to the symbolic heaven, (Rev. xi. 12.) As we have shown to the readers of these Notes, their lives and their testimony, or prophesying, terminate together, (ch. xi. 7; xii. 11.)

THE MARK OF THE BEAST.

“With regard to the mark of the beast,” Mr. Faber “thinks, with Sir Isaac Newton, that it is the cross,” (p. 176.) This thought has indeed been almost universal in the minds of protestants.  So deep-seated is this conviction in the popular belief, that one is deemed chargeable with temerity, if not something worse, who would call its grounds in question.  Popular opinion, or belief in matters of this spiritual and mystical nature, is, however, of very little weight in the estimation of such as are accustomed to “try the spirits.”  Although the mark was to be received at the instance and by the authority of the two horned beast of the earth, it was not enjoined as a mark of devotion to himself.  It was manifestly commanded by him as a tessera of loyalty to the ten-horned beast of the sea, the obvious symbol of corrupt and tyrannical civil power.  Instead therefore of the cross as a sign of devotion to Popery,—­of membership in the church of Rome, as identifying with the beast’s mark, this mark is evidently and demonstrably the tessera of loyalty to the Roman empire,—­immoral civil power; and this, too, in any of the dependencies of that iron empire, (Dan. ii. 40; vii. 7.)

From the errors and vagaries of this learned and acute expositor, some of which have been pointed out, it is apparent that no amount of intellectual culture, no natural powers of discrimination, no logical or metaphysical acumen, will compensate for the want of early and accurate training in the knowledge of supernatural revelation.  On the prophetical and priestly offices of our Redeemer, some of the English prelates have written with a force, perspicuity and zeal against the heresies of the Romish apostacy, not excelled by the writings of those who have dissented from the semi-papal hierarchy of the Anglican Church.  But on the royal office of Immanuel, their prelatic training and associations seem to have blinded their minds.  “No bishop, no king,” is a maxim which seems to lie at the foundation of all their political disquisitions and speculations, and which gives a tincture to all their expositions of prophecy.  Nevertheless, even in this field of labor, the diligent student may consult with much advantage the learned works of such writers as the two Newtons, Kett, Galloway, Whitaker, Zouch, with their predecessors, Lowman, Mede and others.