the Gothic tribes called Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepidæ, Lombards, Burgundians, Alans, &c.; all of whom had the same manners and customs, and spoke the same language, and who, about the year 416 A. C. were all quietly settled in several kingdoms within the empire, not only by conquest, but by grants of emperor.

In the sixth chapter he treats of the ten kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth beast, into which the western empire became divided about the time when Rome was besieged and taken by the Goths. These kingdoms were,

1. The kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa.

2. The kingdom of Suevians in Spain. 3. The kingdom of the Visigoths.

4. The kingdom of the Alans in Gaul.

5. The kingdom of the Burgundians.

6. The kingdom of the Franks. 7. The kingdom of the Britains. 8. The kingdom of the Huns. 9. The kingdom of the Lombards. 10. The kingdom of Ravenna.

Some of these kingdoms at length fell, and new ones sprung up; but whatever was their subsequent number, they still retain the name of the ten kings from their first number.

The eleventh horn of Daniel's fourth beast is shown in chapter vii. to be the Church of Rome in its triple character of a seer, a prophet, and a king; and its power to change times and laws is copiously illustrated in chapter viii.

In the ninth chapter our author treats of the kingdom represented in Daniel by the ram and he-goat, the ram indicating the kingdom of the Medes and Persians from the beginning of the four empires, and the he-goat the kingdom of the Greeks to the end of them.

The prophecy of the seventy weeks, which had

hitherto been restricted to the first coming of our Saviour, is shown to be a prediction of all the main periods relating to the coming of the Messiah, the times of his birth and death, the time of his rejection by the Jews, the duration of the Jewish war by which he caused the city and sanctuary to be destroyed, and the time of his second coming.

In the eleventh chapter Sir Isaac treats with great sagacity and acuteness of the time of our Saviour's birth and passion,-a subject which had perplexed all preceding commentators.

After explaining in the twelfth chapter the last prophecy of Daniel, namely, that of the scripture of truth, which he considers as a commentary on the vision of the ram and he-goat, he proceeds in the thirteenth chapter to the prophecy of the king who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every god, and honoured Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women. He shows that the Greek empire, after the division of the Roman empire into the Greek and Latin empires, became the king who in matters of religion did according to his will, and in legislation exalted and magnified himself above every god.

In the second part of his work on the Apocalypse of St. John, Sir Isaac treats, 1st, Of the time when the prophecy was written, which he conceives to have been during John's exile in Patmos, and before the epistle to the Hebrews and the epistles of Peter were written, which in his opinion have a reference to the Apocalypse; 2dly, Of the scene of the vision, and the relation which the Apocalypse has to the book of the law of Moses, and to the worship of God in the temple; and, 3dly, Of the relation which the Apocalypse has to the prophecies of Daniel, and of the subject of the prophecy itself.

Sir Isaac regards the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, not as given to gratify men's curiosities, by enabling them to foreknow things, but that

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after they were fulfilled, they might be interpreted by the event, and afford convincing arguments that the world is governed by Providence. He considers that there is so much of this prophecy already fulfilled as to afford to the diligent student sufficient instances of God's providence; and he adds, that among the interpreters of the last age, there is scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing, and thence it seems one may gather that God is about opening these mysteries. The success of others," he continues, "put me upon considering it, and if I have done any thing which may be useful to following writers, I have my design."

Such is a brief abstract of this ingenious work, which is characterized by great learning, and marked with the sagacity of its distinguished author. The same qualities of his mind are equally conspicuous in his Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture.

This celebrated treatise relates to two texts in the Epistles of St. John and St. Paul. The first of these is in 1 John v. 7. "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." This text he considers as a gross corruption of Scripture, which had its origin among the Latins, who interpreted the Spirit, Water, and Blood to be the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in order to prove them one. With the same view Jerome inserted the Trinity in express words in his version. The Latins marked his variations in the margins of their books; and in the twelfth and following centuries, when the disputations of the schoolmen were at their height, the variation began to creep into the text in transcribing. After the invention of printing, it crept out of the Latin into the printed Greek, contrary to the authority of all the Greek manuscripts and ancient versions; and from the Venetian press it went soon after into Greece. After proving these positions,

Sir Isaac gives the following paraphrase of this remarkable passage, which is given in italics.

"Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God, that Son spoken of in the Psalms, where he saith, thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.' This is he that, after the Jews had long expected him, came, first in a mortal body, by baptism of water, and then in an immortal one, by shedding his blood upon the cross and rising again from the dead; not by water only, but by water and blood; being the Son of God, as well by his resurrection from the dead (Acts xiii. 33), as by his supernatural birth of the virgin (Luke i. 35). And it is the Spirit also that, together with the water and blood, beareth witness of the truth of his coming; because the Spirit is truth; and so a fit and unexceptionable witness. For there are three that bear record of his coming; the Spirit, which he promised to send, and which was since shed forth upon us in the form of cloven tongues, and in various gifts; the baptism of water, wherein God testified this is my beloved Son; and the shedding of his blood, accompanied with his resurrection, whereby he became the most faithful martyr, or witness, of this truth. And these three, the spirit, the baptism, and passion of Christ, agree in witnessing one and the same thing (namely, that the Son of God is come); and, therefore, their evidence is strong: for the law requires but two consenting witnesses, and here we have three: and if we receive the witness of men, the threefold witness of God, which he bare of his Son, by declaring at his baptism this is my beloved Son,' by raising him from the dead, and by pouring out his Spirit on us, is greater; and, therefore, ought to be more readily received."

While the Latin Church was corrupting the preceding text, the Greek Church was doing the same to St. Paul's 1st Epistle to Timothy iii. 16. Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.

Y

According to Sir Isaac, this reading was effected by changing into ec, the abbreviation of ecos, and after proving this by a learned and ingenious examination of ancient manuscripts, he concludes that the reading should be Great is the mystery of Godliness who (viz. our Saviour) was manifest in the flesh.

As this learned dissertation had the effect of depriving the defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity of the aid of two leading texts, Sir Isaac Newton has been regarded as an Antitrinitarian; but such a conclusion is not warranted by any thing which he has published and he distinctly warns us, that his object was solely to "purge the truth of things spurious." We are disposed, on the contrary, to think that he declares his belief in the doctrine of the Trinity when he says, "In the eastern nations, and for a long time in the western, the faith subsisted without this text; and it is rather a danger to religion than an advantage, to make it now lean upon a bruised reed. There cannot be better service done to the truth than to purge it of things spurious; and therefore, knowing your prudence and calmness of temper, I am confident I shall not offend you by telling you my mind plainly; especially since it is no article of faith, no point of discipline, nothing but a criticism concerning a text of Scripture which I am going to write about." The word faith in the preceding passage cannot mean faith in the Scriptures in general, but faith in the particular doctrine of the Trinity; for it is this article of faith only to which the author refers when he deprecates its leaning on a bruised reed. But, whatever be the meaning of this passage, we know that Sir Isaac was greatly

* M. Biot has well remarked that there is absolutely nothing in the writings of Newton to justify, or even to authorize, the idea that he was an Antitrinitarian. This passage is strangely omitted in the English translation of Biot's Life of Newton. We do not know upon what authority Dr. Thomson states, in his History of the Royal Society, that Newton" did not believe in the Trinity," and that Dr. Horsley considered Newton's papers unfit for publication, because they contained proofs of his hostility to that doctrine.