upon which she stands, typifies the ecclesiastical authority of her priesthood: the crown of twelve stars shadows out the twelve Apostles, the antitypes of the twelve patriarchs, the founders and representatives of the episcopal college, and those twelve bases on which is built the wall of the holy city of God and she herself represents the general collective body of the faithful, the whole assemblage of spiritual Christian worshippers. Thus we see, that the hieroglyphical decorations of the woman are so managed, as to make her a complete symbol of the entire mystic Israel, and therefore to make her exactly correspond with the measured worshippers in the temple and at the altar.

(3.) In the preceding vision, the outer court of the temple is occupied by the unmeasured Gentiles, who likewise tread under foot the various figurative streets of the holy city: in the present vision, a particular region of heaven, contradistinguished from that where the woman is placed, is occupied by the dragon acting through the medium of his borrowed members. Now the dragon, acting through his ten borrowed horns and his coëxisting western imperial head, shews the same hostility to the woman, that the unmeasured Gentiles shew to the measured worshippers. Hence, as the measured worshippers under their high-priest answer to the woman clothed with the sun, so the unmeasured Gentiles under the influence of a satanical hatred to

'See Rev. xxi. 12, 14.

the faithful correspond with the ten horns and the coëxisting western imperial head of the dragon under the invisible control of the evil spirit.

The arrangement, thus brought out, exactly agrees with the manifest tenor of the preceding vision.

As we have already seen, the Gentiles of the outer court are eminently the apostate members of the ten western Gothic kingdoms, over which the eleventh little horn spiritually presides as the acknowledged head of the great demonolatrous Apostasy: and, when the two witnesses are slain, their murderer is declared to be the wild-beast from the abyss or the sea; that is to say, the wild-beast with those identical seven heads and ten horns, which in the present vision are ascribed to the dragon as his secular and visible tools or members 1.

'The seven heads of the dragon bear seven crowns: while, in the succeeding hieroglyphic of the wild-beast, the crowns are placed upon the ten horns. Rev. xii. 3. xiii. 1.

From this circumstance some have argued, that the dragon means the Pagan Roman Empire prior to its disruption into ten independent kingdoms: and they have interpreted the first part of the vision accordingly. But the construction of the symbol affords no warrant for such an opinion: for the seventh head, which sprang up long posterior to the paganism of the Roman Empire, is said to be crowned just as much as the six other heads; so that, if the crowns upon six of its heads determine the opening of the prophecy to relate to the persecuting times of pagan Rome anterior to the reign of Constantine, the crown upon the seventh head will equally determine it to relate to the times of that seventh head. The simple truth of the matter is, that the two prophecies conjoined merely tell us, that all the seven heads and all the ten horns should, at one time or another, wear crowns.

(4.) In the preceding vision, the same temple with its inner courts, which is occupied by the collective body of the measured worshippers, is also occupied by the two witnesses; and these two witnesses or two faithful Churches constitute a distinct portion by themselves, which portion, at the commencement of the latter 1260 years, is described as being set apart from or taken out of the general collective body of measured worshippers throughout the Western Empire: in the present vision, the same part of heaven, which is occupied by the woman, is also occupied by the manchild; and this man-child constitutes a distinct symbol by himself, which symbol, at the commencement of the 1260 years, is described as being born or taken out of the greater symbol of the woman. Now the measured worshippers, in the preceding vision, answer to the woman in the present vision: and the two witnesses, in every respect, bear exactly the same relation to the measured worshippers, that the man-child does to the woman. I conclude, therefore, that the two distinct Churches, which are severally intended by the two witnesses, are jointly and collectively intended by the single hieroglyphic of the man-child.

Hence it appears, that the man-child symbolises the two Churches of the Vallenses and the Albigenses or the Vallensico-Albigensic Church of faithful witnesses to the truth. This variety of sion I use designedly, as best exhibiting the condition of the communities in question, and as best

expres

according with the remarkable numerical difference between the two allied symbols. Originally, the Vallenses and the Albigenses constituted only a single Church: but, at a very remote era, apparently anterior to the commencement of the latter 1260 years, the Albigenses branched out from the Vallenses; and thus two distinct Churches, though holding and professing the same Gospel, were formed in France and Piedmont. In this separate condition they remained, each on their own geographical platform, for the space of many centuries: but, reverting at length to their first condition anterior to the commencement of the 1260 years, ever since the destructive crusade against the Albigenses in the thirteenth century, they have again jointly constituted only a single Church; for the remnant of the Albigenses, chased by their persecutors out of Languedoc, took refuge in the valleys of Savoy, and henceforth became inseparably united with the Vallenses in one community. With reference to this circumstance, the numerically varying symbols appear to have been contrived. For a season, the Vallenses and the Albigenses formed two distinct Churches: hence, in the preceding vision, they are distinctively called two witnesses, and are severally typified by two olive-trees and two candlesticks. But, ever since the crusade in the thirteenth century, they have jointly, as in their original condition, formed only a single Church: hence, in the present vision, they are collectively symbolised by a single man-child. Thus

do the two hieroglyphics accurately represent these faithful servants of God in each of their successive conditions for we may say, that the two witnesses are the two Churches of the Vallenses and the Albigenses, while the single man-child typifies the single Vallensico-Albigensic Church. The Churches, in short, as their history testifies, are two and yet one. Hence the symbols, by which they are represented, are two and yet one also.

3. Let us now, in the third place, apply the hieroglyphical picture to corresponding events in history.

Much of this task will have been anticipated by the previous comparison of the machinery of the present vision with the machinery of the last vision: for, if that comparison has been rightly conducted, the interpretation of the one vision will in a great measure be the interpretation of the other. Yet an applicatory exposition of the present hieroglyphical picture may be neither useless nor uninter esting, even if we are compelled in some measure to travel again over the same ground.

We have seen, that the fall of the Latin stars, the birth of the man-child, his abreption to the throne of God, and the flight of the woman into the wilderness, all take place synchronically: and we have further seen, that the occurrence of these various events is fixed, chronologically to the commencement of the latter 1260 years, geographically to the third part of the Roman world or to the platform of the Western Empire. Hence it will fol