for which he who by grace possesses them, will here find abundant exercise. If I have made any progress in the knowledge of divine things, which might be supposed from my long study and labour, and from the office, publicly conferred upon me; I still dare not presume so far upon my ability and knowledge, as to arrogate that highest rank of intelligence and sagacity, (supremum illum intelligentiæ et perspicacitatis gradum,) which the Holy Spirit seems to demand in those who are destined to explain the 'number.' For nothing can be more evident, than that an intellect of a higher and more divinely awakened kind, (divinioris et præstantioris mentis acumen,) is here demanded, than in interpreting any other part of this book of prophecy.'

'He proceeds to say, that he might "modestè declinare," give up the attempt from a justified feeling of humility; but that the reader naturally expects some elucidation. He then goes through a crowd of the conjectures of his predecessors, names, Hebrew, Greck, Latin; numbers squared and cubed; disproves them all, and finally rests upon the extraordinary guess op, for the equally extraordinary reason that Adonikam is said in Ezra,' to have had a family of six hundred and sixty-six.'

My 1st Objection to the NAME, ADONIKAM, is, that although it is the Name of a MAN, nevertheless it ought to have been written in GREEK LETTERS, as Advaμ, and not in HEBREW, as Dp, according to the ORIGINAL TEXT of St. JOHN... x§5',

1 Ezra ii. 13.

χξς',

and the example of IRENEUS, whose THREE Names are all of them written in Greek Characters, as Τειταν, Λατεινος, Ευανθας.

My 2nd Objection is, That although ADONIKAM is the name of a MAN, it cannot be applied in an APPELLATIVE or DESCRIPTIVE SENSE to any TEMPORAL or ECCLESIASTICAL POWER, or KINGDOM whatsoever, either in St. John's time or since; and that the individual Hebrew Letters of the Name of this Man are very far from producing the Number 666. The hypothesis of VITRINGA seems rather to set us upon finding the Number of a Hebrew Family consisting of 666, than the Greek Number of a Man's Name; for the Family of Adonikam, after their return from Babylon, were registered by Ezra at 1666, but by Nehemiah, at 2667, therefore, it will be necessary to decide which of the two Prophets was the best Registrar. But the individual Letters of the Hebrew Name Adonikam produce the Number 765, consequently there is an end to the Name at once, in reference to the words of St. John which is to count the Number" contained in the Name, and that Number is 666.

Mr. CROLY may anticipate my objection to his hypothesis from my answers to FABER.. LEE. . and CLARKE and may I not add Mr. Croly's own observations, viz. that 3" The FIRST ERROR of the COMMENTATORS" has arisen from their DISREGARD of the PLAIN MEANING of the ORIGINAL.' This Mr. Croly tells us in the year 1827; and it had been 1 Ezra ii. 13. 2 Neh. vii. 18. 3 Croly on the Apocalypse. Page 226.

well had he only attended to "THE PLAIN MEANING of THE ORIGINAL" as IRENEUS has done, whose Testimony is subversive of Mr. Croly's " INQUISITION," although Mr. Croly informs us, that, 2" The words LATEINOS and ROMIITH are USELESS; and belong to THE HEAP of MERELY CURIOUS COINCIDENCES. If the two latter Names "belong to the HEAP of MERELY CURIOUS COINCIDENCES, where shall we class Mr. Croly's story of "THE INQUISITION?" Shall we venture to affirm that IT IS a "FAILURE?" It is plain enough that the word "INQUISITION" is not a GREEK but ENGLISH word: nor is it the NAME of A MAN: nor does it contain the No. 666, according to "the plain meaning of the Original" Text, and, therefore, it cannot subserve the purpose intended by St. John, which is, by the means of "wisdom" and "understanding" to discover the name of a MAN the individual Greek Letters of whose Name must (when counted) exhibit the exact Number x§5' or 666, and, withal, it must be a Name descriptive of the mysterious character of the MAN, otherwise there can be no "coincidence" between the Name of the Man and the "Number of his Name." I may now add

The confession of the Rev. G. S. Faber, in the year 1828, in his 3" Sacred Calendar of Prophecy."

66

Many have been the speculations, relative to the Name thus darkly propounded; some very plausible, and others very absurd: but we shall vainly hope

1 Croly on the Apocalypse. Page 228.

2 Ibid. Page 227.

3 Faber's Sacred Calendar of Prophecy. Vol. iii. b. v. p. 226.

for success in explaining the sacred enigma, UNLESS we ATTEND MOST STRICTLY to THE TERMS in which it is conveyed."

Notwithstanding this confession of Mr. Faber, he has bewildered both himself and others, by endeavouring to reconcile contradictions: whereas, if he had only contented himself with his own RULE, as above, (which he had followed pretty closely in his first work, entitled "A Dissertation on the Prophecies relative to the Great Period of 1260 years, " wherein he confirms the name Aarêivos with all his might,) he would have done well; because, it was consistent with the "terms" of St. John, and "most strictly" corroborated by the early testimony of the Christian Father.. IRENEUS, who lived in the second century, and who evidently believed "the NUMBER of a Man” to imply the name of a MAN, which latter cannot be said in any respect concerning Mr. Faber's hypothesis of APOSTATÈS, because it has not the least semblance to the Name of any MAN.

The confession of Dr. Burton in his Notes on the Greek Testament [Rev. xiii. 18,] concerning the very numerous speculations relative to the mystic Number 666, is as follows:

[ Τον αριθμον.] Irenæus mentions the word Aarêivos, the Letters of which make up the No. 666: but the same number has been extracted from so many other words, that it is USELESS to ATTEMPT the SOLUTION.'

The Confession of Calmet in his Dictionary under

1 Faber's Dissertation on the Prophecies, &c. Vol. ii. p. 328, 335.

the head ANTICHRIST, (after mentioning a variety of Names, Epithets, Words, and Sentences, in which the Number 666 is supposed to have been discovered,) is to the following Effect:

"Almost all Commentators have tried their skill, without being able to say POSITIVELY, that any ONE has SUCCEEDED, in ascertaining the TRUE MARK, or the NUMBER of HIS NAME."

The Confession of Dean Woodhouse in his 1" Annotations on the Apocalypse" in the Year 1828, concerning the Number of the Beast, is as follows, "The Number of the Beast."

"The consideration of this article has been kept back, and assigned to this its present place, because I felt it out of my power to pursue it with the same hope of success as those that have gone before. For I MUST STILL CONFESS, as I did in my former work, MY INABILITY TO SOLVE THIS ENIGMA."

The Dean then observes,

"With respect to the methods of interpretation hitherto employed, the first instance that occurs is that of Irenæus, who by the assortment of the Letters, of the Greek Alphabet, used numerically, obtained the names of Λατινος, Ευανθας, and Τειταν. He preferred the first of these, but had little or no reliance upon it. His object must have been the idolatrous ROMAN or LATIN EMPIRE. Bishop Newton, and many others among the commentators, have adopted this word" (Aarêtvos) "as involving the

1 WOODHOUSE'S Annotations on the Apocalypse, p. 304, 306, 307.