give them full confidence in a final period to the calamities of their church and nation. At the time of St. John's apocalyptic visions, the church of Christ was in great distress; Christians saw themselves beset on every side by bitter enemies without, by false brethren within; their last and great apostle himself in banishment, sinking under the weight of years: but he also gave assurance to their hopes, and strengthened their confidence, that the gates of hell should not prevail against them, and that though they should be for a certain time a church militant, they should in the end become a church triumphant.

The two prophets thus consoling their respective churches, and keeping close the union of the two dispensations, have produced one grand display, which exhibits in the perfect conformity of its parts the entire history of God's church from the Babylonian captivity to the end of time. This seems to be a correct outline for expositors to fill up; they ought to keep the full view before their eyes, and work in conformity

with the whole, and not, as has been too much the practice, to select particular passages which will apply to some striking events just past or passing in the church militant, and upon such groundwork to press the remainder of the prophecies, so as to bear upon that particular point; thus forming a system, and supporting that system by forced interpretations. And it would be well if this were confined to the state of the church; but political events, having little or nothing to do with ecclesiastical matters, have been also seized upon for the accomplishment of prophecy ; and even heathen history has been ransacked for a supply to the Christian church. Thus, for instance, the different forms of government in republican Pagan Rome have been considered as the heads of a beast representing Christian Rome, which were in being and were passed away centuries before Christianity was promulgated; and the late troubles in Europe have been represented as producing an apocalyptic beast in the late usurping emperor of the

west, who at most can be considered only as a head, and not the beast himself. I must protest against this sort of explanation; for it seems to me that the prophecies concerning the state of the Christian church can have nothing to do with Pagan Rome before she was connected with that church; nor can the overthrow of kingdoms be brought forward as a fulfilment of a prophecy concerning the church, any further than as they are connected with the state of the church.

I am not prepared to deny, that the late emperor of the west, or the troubles in Europe, may have some connection with the state of the church; on the contrary, I believe that they are much connected with it but this is slippery ground, and we ought to be cautious, very cautious, how we place our steps; for we see these things as yet but through a mist of prejudice and error..

Another point upon which I shall much insist, and upon which I have constantly fixed my attention, arises from those two events, the most remarkable and most in

teresting which have happened to the church since the first propagation of the Gospel; I mean, the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity under Constantine, and the Reformation brought about by Luther. These extraordinary events have been much overlooked or misapplied, but I consider them of the utmost importance, and the two grand hinges upon which many of the prophecies turn. I am aware, that in this idea I have not one preceding commentator to support me: I feel a reverential awe in opposing myself to such a phalanx of abilities and learning, but I also feel myself encouraged by what seems to me important truth.

Again, there is another point for which I must contend, which is the mode of considering the Apocalypse of St. John. This is a grand and highly poetical book, rendered mysterious and difficult by its symbols and arrangement. But the symbols

a

In regard to symbols, I have taken much care to consider those things only as symbols which seem to be so used in Scripture, and I have constantly gone to Scripture for their solution.

may

be so explained, I think, and its arrangement may be so stated, as to become intelligible to a common understanding. From not paying a due attention to the proper arrangement, much confusion has arisen: the great mistake appears to me to have been, the endeavour to give one regular series of unbroken historical events arising in the Christian church, corresponding to a supposed regular series of prophecy; by following which plan, the commentator was often obliged to introduce political and civil affairs, and other extraneous matter; to omit some events as unfulfilled, and to bring forward others as fulfilled; to separate those things which ought to be together, and to intermix those which ought to be separate; that he might make up a tolerable connexion, and form, if possible, a whole, to the satisfaction of the reader and of his own mind. But I am convinced that the mode of arrangement is designed to be very different. The apostle, in the first place, seems to me to have drawn one grand outline, which he after