and rightful possessor of the inheritance promised unto Him who should bruise the serpent's head. This second revelation of Christ, acting from the invisible, and with the invisible church, is contained between the ivth and the xith chapters; after which we are introduced to the knowledge of the church and the apostasy, as the two great opposites in the world,-the one the head of all the good, the other the head of all the evil. This occupies from chapter xi. to chapter xx. Now the difference between the first and the last of these revelations of Jesus Christ and his church on earth, is, that the first, or the vision before us, deals with the church as in peril of apostasy, to preserve her from it as God dealt with Adam before he fell. The second deals with the church fallen into apostasy, to preserve a people in the midst of it, and to embody a people who should protest against it, in whose favour and behalf God might appear, and by whose means he might work his wrath and indignation upon the harlot spouse, Babylon the Great.-We conclude therefore, from the raiment in which Jesus chooseth to appear at the head and front of this vision, as well as from the substance of the vision itself, and from the comparison of it with the other visions of this book, that it hath wholly reference to the church on earth, considered as apart from an apostasy, while the apostasy or man of sin was not revealed and wherever he is not yet revealed as a dominant power, and wherever he has been cast out from his dominion; for example, to the churches in this land, not considered as national, nor yet considered as Protestant, but as many churches, with their angels, presbyters, and deacons, and ordinances of divine appointment; for example also, to the churches in America, the churches in Germany and other parts of the world, where the apostasy hath been cast out, as a ruling power. While I thus give to this vision, its proper and peculiar application to the times of the church, anterior to the apostasy, and to those churches where the apostasy hath been ejected or suppressed, or hath never come; as, for example, the Syrian churches in India: I do not prevent its application likewise to those witnesses who are found amongst the apostate nations, because, no prophecy, though it have a proper and peculiar application, can at all

be restricted to that private interpretation, but, revealing the truth of God and of Christ, must in its bearings and its effects, be co-extensive with the rights of God and Christ, that is, co-extensive with creation. In this larger sense, the vision is intended to set forth our Lord Jesus Christ as the great Head of the church to every saint, and to every believer, for a High Priest, a Mediator, and an Intercessor, between God and every one of his people; and likewise as the universal Bishop, from whom every minister and pastor doth receive his charge and his orders in the church, counsel and consolation in fulfilling his painful yet blessed and gracious office,-from whom also every member of his church, through the pastor and minister whom he hath set over them, doth receive guidance and encouragement in every time of need, so as that we may say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies : thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for

ever.

The seer proceedeth next to describe the most remarkable features of his person, beginning with the ap"His head and his hairs were pearance of his head. white like wool, as white as snow ;"-or, being literally rendered, "white as snow-white wool;" that is to say, those parts of the head of a man which are covered with hair, were as wool for whiteness even such wool as in its whiteness rivaleth the snow. For of the other parts of his countenance they are said to be " as the sun shineth in his strength.-What now is conveyed to us by this symbol? Let us, to answer this question, betake ourselves to the Old Testament, whereof the Apocalypse is the key. In the same vision of the viith chapter of Daniel, to which we have already referred for

the origin of the name "like the Son of Man," we have the Ancient of Days thus described (verse 9): "whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool." The person here represented is doubtless the person of the Father, as distinguished from the person of the Son, who is represented like the Son of Man receiving the kingdom from his Father's hand. If so then these are symbols of the pure and absolute Godhead. Now, how whiteness should symbolise the Godhead, I have already touched upon more than once. It is the appearance of unbroken light, ere yet it hath passed through any medium, or been reflected from any terrestrial object. As light, after it hath passed through various elements, doth change its pure whiteness into the various colours, both primary and secondary, with which the earth and the heavens are diversified, so Godhead, which in itself hath no variations nor diversities, when it hath passed through the medium of humanity, in the person of the Christ, doth assume the various forms of human reason which are expressed in the Holy Scriptures, and which were seen and handled in Christ Jesus, who is the Word of Life. This, I take to be the root of the symbol. Why it should be placed in the hairs in our vision, I know not, except that every other part of the body is occupied with symbols of another kind. The robe covering his body, his feet being as fine brass. When there is no occasion for such various information, as in the transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 2), it is said that his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And when he appeared to St. Paul, on the way to Damascus, there was around him, and proceeding from him, such a glory as surpassed the brighness of the sun at noon day. And I have no doubt, that had it not been for the variety of the things to be expressed by this symbol, he would have been exhibited exactly as the Ancient of Days appeared unto Daniel, with his garment white as snow, and the hair of his head as pure wool. And why should the characteristic symbols of the Ancient of Days be here applied unto the Son of Man? In order to teach us, that Christ is the manifestation of the absolute Godhead; that he who seeth Christ, seeth the Father; and

that whatever forms, appearances, names, or attributes can by human language be given to the Father, are given to him, as seen in the Son. Moreover, by having the person of our vision thus identified with the Ancient of Days, we have also the action there assigned to the Ancient of Days claimed for the Son of Man. And what is that action? It is the destruction of the fourth beast, or Western Roman empire, in the ten Gothic kingdoms subsisting, that is, Papal Europe, with fiery judgment, because of its obedience to that usurper of Divine dignities, the Pope, symbolized by the little horn. This is the chief action attributed there to the Ancient of Days; and after a season there is a secondary action of destroying the remnants of the three former beasts, which are the Assyrian, Babylonian, or Euphrates power now subsisting in Turkey, the Persian power, and the Greek power, which hath now reappeared again. This act of judging the apostate kingdoms of Papal Christendom, and the other kingdoms of the world, is attributed to the Ancient of Days, in the Book of Daniel, in order to shew the activity of God, in human affairs, and his purpose at length to give the kingdoms unto the Son of Man. Here, however, where every thing which God doth is represented as done by Christ, as surely it ever hath been, and ever will, this act of judgment is assigned to the Son, according to Christ's declaration in the days of his flesh, that God had committed all judgment unto the Son, because he is the Son of Man. From this feature of his person, therefore, we learn, not only a new lesson of his Divinity, but likewise a new lesson of his office; that it is he by whom God will bring the judgment upon the apostate kingdoms, according as it is written in the iid Psalm : "Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." And, because this same honour is promised to all his saints, in the the iiid chapter of the Revelations, and in the very language of the iid Psalm, I cannot but believe that before the judgments fall in upon the apostate kingdoms, we shall be taken from this earth to be with the Lord, and to enact along with him that direful seventh woe, the last of this sinful world.

If we reflect upon the undertaking which God proposed to himself of bringing in his only begotten Son, as the

Redeemer and Head of a creation already in existence; we will see the wisdom, and I may say the necessity, of that method, which we are now unfolding. It is necessary, first, that God should assert unto himself the right over all creation by a series of events, proving him to be the Owner, the Governor, and the Upholder thereof. For it is necessary unto a bequest, that he who bequeaths should be proved the possessor. Then there must be, in the next place, a series of promises and prophetic actions, giving over the possession into the hand of his Son, made man. This now is what the Old Testament containeth: God's acts to prove himself rightful owner of all, and God's promised acts to transfer that ownership to his Son, when he should be brought into the world. But it needeth all along to be likewise shewn, that this Son, the receiver of all, is likewise, as to his Godhead, one with the Father, the giver of all; whereby the undertaking is rendered more difficult, and the method must be more involved. The language and acts in which God asserts his ownership, must be such as may be capable of being claimed by him to whom the ownership is transferred. Yea, all along while there is a sufficiency of distinctive language to represent the personality of the one as absolute God the Father, in his distinctness from the personality of the other, as God and man united, the infinite passing into the finite; there must be such identity of language, also, as to prove that Godhead is not the peculiar property of one, but the common property of both. And yet in such wise must this be done, as that it may not appear a fictitious but a real transaction, that the Godhead is giving up the creation into the hands of the Godman, Redeemer of it. This is very carefully guarded against in the Old Testament; for to suppose even the appearance of a fiction in any transaction of God, is to subvert all reality whatever, is to sanction all deception, is to deify a lie. This distinction then between the Father in the absolute Godhead alone subsisting, and the Son as he subsisteth acting within the bounds of manhood, being most carefully preserved, as in that very vision of Daniel is exemplified by the transaction between the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man; there ariseth a necessity for another, and as it were a supplementary revelation which