life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil' in the garden of Eden; also the rainbow designated as the visible sign of God's covenant that the world should never again be destroyed by a flood. Hence, when He would touch to the quick the heart of man, He so often appeared in visible form, as 'the Angel of the covenant,' to Abraham and the other patriarchs, to Moses in the burning bush, to the prophets in their visions, and finally as 'the Man Christ Jesus.' In like manner, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Lord at His baptism was symbolized by a dove descending from heaven and resting upon Him; and the same gift to His disciples at Pentecost was represented by tongues of fire upon their heads. Subsequently also He showed himself visibly to Saul of Tarsus, when He called that persecutor of the church to be one of His apostles, and to His beloved disciple in the visions of this book. Indeed, His true church has continued ever since to be His visible body, a perpetual incarnation of Himself and of the truths of His gospel; for these truths, wheresoever the church ceases to be a body for their visible manifestation, are as powerless to save the world as the ideas of Plato, or any other philosophy. In truth, the great object of her existence is, that she may be a perpetual incarnation of the invisible and personal Word and of all that He has taught, through which He may manifest himself as life to the world.

In fine, the importance which He himself attaches to such 'sensible signs' is evinced by the pains He has taken to symbolize the most fundamental truths of His gospel in the sacraments of the church. For Baptism addresses itself to the three most important of our senses, sight, hearing, and feeling; and the washing with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost signifies the cleansing of our souls from the defilement of sin by the blood of Christ, and our resurrection from death in sin unto the new life of holiness by the power of the Triune God in whose name we are baptised. In the Eucharist, which addresses itself to all our five senses, the bread broken and the wine poured, being given and received as food and drink, signify that the Lord gave His body to be

broken and His blood to be shed for us; that, as thus crucified for us, He gives himself unto us; that we by faith receive Him into our souls; that, so received, He becomes our life; and our eating and drinking together at the same table signifies that we partake of this life in common, that we belong to one family, and are brothers and sisters to each other. Now these truths are the very heart of His gospel; and for this reason obviously He took such pains to symbolize them in these holy ordinances, in order that they might be kept ever fresh and living in our minds and hearts, and might be in and for us a perpetual life-renewing power.

The preceding views, in which this interesting subject is only glanced at, may enable us to understand, in part at least, why our blessed Lord saw fit to embody in symbolical forms, and present to the eye of His servant John, to be communicated to His church in these wonderful word-pictures, the truths of this book. And the symbols themselves offer us one of the strongest reasons we could have to study them with prayerful diligence. For unless we perceive something of their meaning, they are altogether profitless; but, being understood, they, like the sacraments, have a quickening power above all other forms in which the truths of the spiritual world can be expressed. Moreover, for the interest of this study, we have here a wealth of symbolism which, it is safe to say, is unrivaled in the literature of the world, which far surpasses all the other Scriptures, although the apocalyptic visions of some of the Old Testament prophets may fitly be compared with it. Indeed, it seems as if there was hardly anything known to man which is not levied upon to enrich the symbolism of this wonderful book. Heaven, earth, and hell freely contribute to it. Sun, moon, stars, sky, air, clouds, storms, rain, snow, hail, winds, the rainbow, thunder and lightning; mountains, wildernesses, earthquakes, the sea and the creatures in it, islands, rivers, streams, fountains; gold, silver, iron, stones, marble, precious stones, ivory, pearls; trees, leaves, grass, vines, wheat, barley, flour, wine, oil, cinnamon, frankincense and other spices; horses, oxen, sheep, lambs, lions, leopards, bears, serpents, locusts, eagles and

other birds of prey; creatures not found in nature, but represented for symbolical purposes; shepherds, artizans, merchants, merchandise, ships, sailors, chariots, garments, linen, beds, books, girdles, swords, bows, crowns, measuring reeds, weighing scales; cities, foundations, walls, gates, streets, temples, pillars, altars, lamps, torches; geometrical figures, measurements, numbers; colors, white, black, scarlet, purple, blue, green, yellow, pale; the human organism, head, hair, eyes, mouth, breast, hands and feet; day and night, light and darkness, cold and heat, sacrifice, blood, fire, smoke, life and death; man and woman, bridegroom and bride, husband and wife, parents and children; nations, tribes, languages, kings, subjects, citizens: and even this is a very incomplete enumeration of the symbols by which the Lord signified to His beloved disciple the manifold and sublime truths of this wonderful book.

Moreover, the special knowledge which is manifested in this vast range of symbolism would seem to be nothing less than miraculous, for no one has ever pretended to detect an error in any of the allusions made to these or other objects in nature, art, or life. With the sole exception of 'the parting asunder of the heaven and the falling of the stars,' which, as we shall see, may be consistently understood, all things are spoken of just as we speak of them now and who but a skilful lapidary could have given such an orderly enumeration of the twelve jewels in the foundation of the New Jerusalem? In this respect, no human production, which has anything like such a vast range, can be compared with the Apocalypse. For Shakespeare himself often errs in his allusions and statements for want of special knowledge, as, e. g. where he makes a gross fat man, who has been thrown into the water, say, "You may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking "; whereas the fatter a man is, the easier it is for him to float or swim. Now whatever view we take of the Scriptures in general, whether they speak of natural objects with scientific rigor, or in loose popular language, this unerring conformity of the Apocalypse to nature in its allusions to such an infinite number and variety of objects must surely be taken as one of the many evidences of

that plenary inspiration, even in its words, which it alone, of all the books in the Bible, claims for itself. This, then, is another reason why it should be carefully studied.

2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatsoever things he saw.

The meaning of these somewhat obscure expressions seems to be: I John have here and throughout this book borne faithful and true witness that it is the word of God, and given my testimony unto Jesus Christ, that He did manifest himself unto me as here represented, and that I did see what I have here recorded as seen by me: in all which we have a strong confirmation of the plenary inspiration of the book, and of that reason for studying it.

3 Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things written therein, for the time is near.

This blessing gives the crowning reason. It refers to the office of reader in the primitive church, and to the people assembled to hear the word, when so few could read for themselves, and fewer still could afford to own the costly sacred manuscripts. It is pronounced upon the reader and hearer alike, provided they should keep the things written in the book; i. e. should receive them as the word of God, lay them to heart, and live accordingly for all which a special motive is given in the words, 'for the time is near'; but these, along with the preceding 'things which must shortly come to pass,' are not to be strictly taken, for it is quite certain that these unveilings refer in part to what was then present, in part to past events, and for the most part only to the future; and, with respect to the nearness of the time in which these last should take place, since many of them are yet to come, it must be understood in that large prophetic sense in which 'one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day' (2 Pet. iii. 8).

It is evident, moreover, from this blessing upon the readers and hearers of the book, that it must be intelligible to all earnest seekers after the truth of God; and such, I am per

suaded, we shall find it. For notwithstanding its symbolical character, whence that obscurity of which so many complain, it is by no means so difficult of interpretation as has been commonly supposed. For its leading symbols, upon which everything depends, are clearly interpreted for us, either by the Lord in person, or by angels, or by the Apocalyptist himself; and each symbol is used throughout in one and the same fundamental sense, with such variations only as are intended to reflect different shades of the same idea, so that their meaning, when obscure, may almost always be elicited by comparison with their use in different connections. Also, the allusions to well understood symbols and prophecies in the other Scriptures are so frequent and explanatory that, where other means of interpretation fail, the sense may commonly be drawn from them with reasonable certainty. Hence I venture to maintain that the book, in its general import, its spiritual aims, its grand moral ideas, and its outlines of the providential history of the church and the world, is intelligible; and I shall try to show that it can be made exceedingly interesting and edifying to the plainest readers. The disappointment which so many experience arises in great part from their unreasonable curiosity. They would know for certain who is antichrist, when he is to appear, when and where the great battle of Harmageddon shall be fought, why Satan, after having been chained and locked up in prison for a thousand years, must be set at liberty again to deceive the nations, and when the final consummation will take place. But, with respect to all such things, we ought to be deeply imbued with the spirit of our Lord's admonitions: "Of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only (Mark xiii. 32). It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority" (Acts i. 7). Nor, indeed, would it have been possible for us to comprehend the forms and particulars of the future if they had been ever so clearly revealed, for our minds are a growth, and are nourished by the experience of events as they occur. We can never bridge the ocean which lies between us, at any