done for you, but to what you are yourself, and to what you may have been enabled to do yourself, for your hopes of eternal life. It must be easy to perceive that, under such a construction, the pretended horns of the lamb become the horns of a destructive animal. They confine the disciple to a position of dependence upon his own merits, and place him as much under the operation of the law as if this law had never been fulfilled in his behalf. They cause the means of salvation to appear to be partly human and partly divine; an amalgamation, and as such they are the horns of an animal levitically unclean: as doctrinal powers of the false prophet, they are instruments of interpretation tending altogether to establish the kingdom of self; to cause every man to erect in his own heart an image of his own supposed righteousness—the object thenceforth of his idolatrous worship; to act from the motive only of serving and glorifying himself; contemplating his own self as the efficient author of his eternal happiness, and consequently as the proper object of his gratitude, love, and adoration.

§ 323. Here the false prophet may be supposed to urge the plausible argument that, if no intrinsic holiness or goodness be required as a condition of salvation, there remains no motive to induce the disciple's obedience to the moral law, or to incite him to the devotion of himself to the service of his God.

It is just at this point that the elements of the kingdom of Christ, and those of the kingdom of the Beast, may be said to join issue. The false prophet pre-supposes the insufficiency of any motive not of a selfish character. He contends for the predominant principle of the love of self as the best and most powerful motive of conduct. The doctrine of the gospel, on the contrary, in this particular is, as defined by an apostle, that "the end of the commandment is charity," that is, love, (aránn), the love of God: a sentiment of gratitude excited and forever stimulated by the knowledge and recollection of his great goodness and loving-kindness; and a sentiment depending essentially upon the fact, that this goodness or loving-kindness has been entirely undeserved; a sentiment growing out of the inference, from the gospel exhibition of salvation by grace alone, that the disciple's entire devotion of himself to the service of his God and Redeemer is his reasonable service, (Rom. xii. 1.)

The law presents the standard of right and wrong-the rule of conduct. It exhibits the criterion of what is, and of what must ever be, pleasing or displeasing to God; but in its own nature, it provides no stimulus for obedience except the servile motive of the fear of punishment, or the mercenary motive of the hope of reward,—both motives of a purely selfish character. The gospel dispensation in the nature of the case disavows a stimulus of

this kind-it sets these motives entirely aside-it adopts the same rule of moral conduct as the law, the same standard of good and evil; but it furnishes a new motive of action, the pure motive of gratitude-gratitude for the benefit of eternal life; a benefit, the infinite value of which is rendered the more obvious in proportion as it is most rigidly contrasted with the infinite worthlessness of the recipient. The obedience and self-devotion of the disciple to the God of his salvation, are thus a grateful return for the benefit of his new creation or regeneration in Christ, and not a part of the process: a grateful return for his sanctification, his being set apart in Christ, (the holiness of his position,) and not a part of this sanctification or holiness.

The change of motive above described, we apprehend to be that spoken of by Paul, Eph. iv. 23, as a renewal of the spirit of the mind, a change in the moving principle of action, from one of self-love to one of love to God -from one of a selfish and mercenary character to a sentiment of thankfulness or gratitude-a change of mental principle, not prior to conversion, or to the intellectual operations of repentance and faith in Christ, but a change of views which established disciples, such as the Ephesians are described to have been, (Eph. i. 3-15,) may be called to undergo a mental change, which, however imperfect in this life, cannot be otherwise than perfect with all the redeemed in their future state of being.

The motives furnished by the law must necessarily cease to operate with our present state of existence. The barrier of death once passed, hope and fear can no longer find room for action; the joyful or the solemn realities of eternity once commenced, remain forever unchanged. The motive for serving God, furnished by the gospel, pn the contrary, must be as lasting as endless duration, and as boundless as the infinite enjoyment for which the gratitude of the beneficiary is due. When millions of years of bliss have rolled away, and millions of millions yet remain in anticipation, the language of every individual redeemed must be still the same: "I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies; how much less of this great love wherewith thou hast loved me." Surely there is here a motive of service, which may freely dispense with any element of a selfish or mercenary character! And is it too much to require that the conduct of the disciple of Jesus should be regulated, even in this life, by the same principle which is to direct and stimulate all his actions in a state of endless bliss?

$324. The legal dispensation demanded the love of God in the heart as its first and chiefest requisition; the gospel dispensation creates this love, by furnishing that display of sovereign mercy so strongly appealing to all the best feelings of the human heart for a grateful return. In the blest fruition of a future state, the whole extent of the benefits set forth by the gospel will be realized; but in this life the disciple's gratitude must depend upon

his faith and hope-his belief and trust, that the blessings thus set forth are his, accompanied with the conviction that on his part they are wholly undeserved.

It will be perceived, that in contemplating the spiritual operations of regeneration and sanctification as figures of position, we consider them entirely distinct from repentance, and conversion to a belief of the gospel; these last being indisputably operations of the mind. We do not enlarge upon them here, because the subject does not seem to call for it, but it must be evident that the gratitude or love, which constitutes the only pure and lasting motive of conduct, necessarily involves the mental exercise of all that is understood by repentance and faith. The gratitude of the disciple in this life for the inestimable benefit of redemption must depend not only upon his belief of the freeness of the salvation wrought for him, but also upon his conviction of the reality of the danger from which he has escaped. If sin be really a matter of no moment, or if the disciple himself be not really a sinner; if there be nothing hereafter to dread equivalent to a judgment to come, -nothing like a future state of punishment-no coming wrath to apprehend; then there can be really no room for salvation-no call for a Saviour; and, consequently, no occasion for that plan of redemption illustrated by the various figures we have supposed; and if so, all that we have said, and all that the Scriptures imply, of the reasonableness of the disciple's grateful devotion of himself to the service of his God, must be without foundation. On the other hand, if there be a reality in these things, just in proportion to the

*The Apocalypse, it is to be remembered, is represented as designed for the use of certain churches. These assemblies are not supposed to be of the character of the unconverted heathen, or even of unbelieving Jews; they are supposed to have passed through the external processes of conversion; they are already of the household of faith; their errors are errors of doctrine. They do not require, like the Roman governor, a reasoning of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come; neither are they neophytes or novices, requiring to be taught, or retaught the first principles of the oracles of God; τὰ στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ Θεοῦ, (Heb. iv. 12.) We are not therefore to look to this vision for a revelation of elementary doctrines specifically, as of a laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God. With the doctrines of baptism, and of laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment, these churches are presumed to be already familiar: what they require is a finishing or perfecting of their faith, and an admonishing of the tendency of erroneous principles in undermining this faith, and in counteracting the operation of those sentiments of gratitude by which the love of God is to be generated. To effect this enlightening of the mind, by developing the divine plan of substitution, identifying the follower with his master, Jesus here unveils himself in accordance with his promise, (John xiv. 20, 21,) "At that day ye shall know that I (am) in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you;" * ***“He that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."

disciple's sense and conviction of this reality will be his gratitude towards the GOD of his salvation.

It is for this reason we apprehend, that is, to bring home to the mind of the believer a realizing sense of the benefits demanding his thankfulness and love, that the two systems of truth and falsehood are contrasted in this revelation that the disciple may be not only convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, as he is already supposed to be, but that he may be taught also his own entire insufficiency in accomplishing the work of salvation for himself, and his consequent entire dependence upon the Lord his righteousness.

THE END OF PART I.

PART II.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LAMB STANDING ON MOUNT ZION. THE SIX HERALDS.

V. 1. And I looked, and lo, a [the] Lamb stood on the mount Sion, [ZION,] and with him a hundred forty (and) four thousand, having his Father's name writ

ten in their foreheads.

Καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ τὸ ἀρνίον ἑστηκός ἐπὶ τὸ ὄρος Σιών, καὶ μετ ̓ αὐτοῦ ἑκατὸν τεσσαρακοντατέσσαρες χιλιάδες, ἔχουσαι τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐ τοῦ γεγραμμένον ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπων αὑτῶν.

§ 325. AND I looked, and lo.'-This is a continuation of the seventh trumpet's sound; or rather, what is here seen is something existing simultaneously with what is related in the preceding chapter. While the two beasts are exercising their authority on the earth, the Lamb is standing on the Mount Sion; the succession is only in the spectator's perception. The apostle had been contemplating the ten-horned beast and his coadjutor in the plenitude of their power; he had seen, as the Psalmist expresses it, "the wicked spreading himself like a green bay tree.” We may suppose his mind to have been almost overwhelmed by a feeling of despondency as well as of astonishment; when suddenly his attention is called to behold the remedial provision intended to counteract the evil influence so justly the subject of lamentation: as, when the eyes of the servant of the prophet in a moment of danger were opened, he saw "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha," 2 Kings vi. 14–17.

We have, in the scene presented by the opening of this chapter, an exhibition of a totally different character from that immediately preceding it; the prominent features of the spectacle being opposites of that just now contemplated: a Lamb, or rather the Lamb, according to our Greek edition, in place of the ten-horned beast; a mountain instead of the sea, and a multitude with the name of the Father of the Lamb in their foreheads, instead of those bearing the mark of the beast;-the six angels or heralds with the voice from heaven, subsequently described as interpreters of the divine will, being opposites of the false prophet or two-horned beast ;—as the heavenly region, in the midst of which their annunciations seem to have been made, is an opposite of the earthly element or system from which the false interpretation emanates. The mystery, the development of which is