The Two Babylons. By the Rev. Alexander Hislop. (Edinburgh :
Wood.)—Mr. Hislop appears to belong to that exegetical school of which Dr. Cumming is, perhaps, the best-known example. Ho re- sembles that divine in exhibiting a frantic horror of Roman Catholicism, and an astounding faculty for finding analogies between that form of Christianity and everything bad that can be found either in or under the earth. Mr. Hislop's own particular discovery is that the Roman Catholic religion is not of Christian, but of Babylonian origin ; and ha proceeds to support his position by a number of proofs, chiefly of an antiquarian and philological character, which tend to show that his zeal is considerably greater than his erudition. But putting entirely on one side the question of the validity of his arguments, surely, if they prove anything they prove far too much. So long as he confines him- self to showing that the worship of the mass, the doctrine of purgatory, and other peculiar items of Popish belief are of Babylonian origin, it is all very well ; but when he proceeds to extend the same conclusion to the doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Incarnation, Roman Catholicism ceases to be the only religion which his discoveries will affect. Mr. Hislop is like the man in the Latin grammar, whose throat was cut with his own sword.
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