historian," which were so evident, and did so plainly foretel their future desolation." 1

We were enabled to show that two kings of the Jewish earth, with their chief captains and mighty men," a great number of others,"-hid themselves in fear and terror in the subterranean caverns with which Jerusalem abounded; and that two of these leaders, John and Simon, were taken out of these dens, where they had concealed themselves, the one to grace the Roman triumph, and then to be slain, the other to be condemned to perpetual imprisonment.

"And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"

Our subject in this Lecture is the sealing of God's elect previous to the coming destruction; and before entering upon the explanation, I shall endeavour to point out the identity between the seal and the predictions of our Lord. We have already compared the identity between a part of the Sixth Seal and the prophecies of Christ in the Gospels. It will be satisfactory to find that the remainder corresponds with the same predictions. With a view of presenting the whole in a connected form, I shall proceed, at the risk of seeming to be fond of repetitions, to exhibit the whole of the Sixth Seal as strictly identical with the predictions of our Lord.

1 Is it because these signs are not of a sufficiently majestic character, according to our own preconceived notions, that we think the language of our Lord must be interpreted of scenes yet future ? One thing is certain, that the power and glory of that terrible coming made the kings of the earth, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, hide themselves in the dens and caves of the earth - that heavenly and human agency combined struck terror into the hearts of the princes of Judæa. If Tacitus, a heathen historian, should have been beguiled into anything like an imitation of the miracles recorded by Livy, or other heathen writers, this accusation cannot be brought against Josephus; for he assigns these miracles to the agency of God, and declares that they were witnessed by many.

The identity is complete, and the vision of the Apocalypse is only the echo of the predictions in the Gospels :

The sun black.

The sun darkened.

The moon as blood.

The moon not giving her light.

The stars falling to the earth.

The heaven departing as a scroll.
The powers of the heavens shaken.
Mountains and islands moved.
The sea and the waves roaring.

The cry to the mountains and rocks.
The cry to the mouniains and hills.1
The great day of his wrath.

The wrath upon this people.

The Angels sealing the servants of God.
The Angels gathering the elect.

Holding the four winds.

Gathering the elect from the four winds.

Standing on the four corners of the earth.

From the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

Here, to say the least, there is a parallelism of the most marked character between the Sixth Seal and the predictions of our Lord. The resemblance is too close to be accidental, too complete to be fortuitous. Not only is there a perfect identity of language and figure, but what serves to bind the analogy still closer, they both relate to the same people, and to the same period.

Nothing can be more evident than that the Sixth Seal refers to the woes about to come upon the Jewish people.

The angels stand on "the four corners of the earth❞— Judæa; they hold "the winds of the earth, that the winds shall not blow on the earth "-Judæa; the "servants of God" are sealed "from the earth "Judæa; and this is made matter of certainty, not only because the twelve tribes are enumerated by name, but because the 144,000, said to be "redeemed from the earth" (Rev. xiv. 3.), are put into contrast with "the great multitude which no man could number of all nations, and

1 If this remarkable identity should be thought demonstrative proof that the predictions of the Apocalypse and of our Lord relate to the same events, much light will be thrown upon the expression, "The kings of the earth." There can be no reasonable doubt what people are alluded to. - Luke, xxiii. 30. In the Apocalypse "the kings of the earth" (Judæa) utter the same cry.

kindreds, and people, and tongues." Making it morally certain that no other people could be meant but those who always held themselves distinct from the Gentiles.

I need scarcely observe, that the predictions of our Lord with which the Sixth Seal has been compared relate likewise to that peculiar people. As in the Old Testament the Gentiles are only introduced when their history is interwoven with that of the Jewish people, so under the New. The Jew, under both dispensations, is ever the principal theme of the warnings and promises of Holy Writ, and nothing can be more certain than that the predictions of our Lord to which I have alluded relate solely to them.

Dr. Cumming1 explains the sealing of the 144,000 of the gathering of the true Church out of the visible Church, which had become corrupt in the days of Constantine; he says, "Immediately after this exaltation of Christianity (the exaltation which he supposes to be described in the former part of the Sixth Seal), there follows the sealing of 144,000. That, as I explained to you, signifies that Christianity, in the hours. of its prosperity, suffered more than it did in the days of its depression; that the Gospel was a purer and a nobler thing when crushed by the persecutions of men, than when it nestled beneath the shadow of the imperial throne of Constantine; and whether it was right or whether it was wrong thus to elevate the Gospel, it is matter of fact, that in the catacombs and caves of the earth the Church retained her garments unsullied, her communion with her Lord unbroken; but the moment the heads that were exposed to the tempests were crowned with mitres, and the catacombs exchanged for cathedrals, she laid aside her robes of beauty and glory, put on the gorgeous dress of Cæsar, became shorn of her real strength and her attributes of grandeur, and ground, a miserable drudge, at Cæsar's mill and at Cæsar's bidding."

What this has to do with the seal in question is a point I cannot solve,--there is not even the semblance of a coincidence. How could the Christian Church be sealed out of the twelve tribes of Israel in the days of Constantine? What part was taken by the angelic host in this gathering of the real Israel

out of the nominal Israel? and what injury fell upon that nominal Church after the elect were gathered? It may possibly be true that mitres and cathedrals are less favourable to the growth of religion than catacombs and caves, and that even a prebendal stall is apt to induce the ease, learned or otherwise, which is said to be inseparable from dignity; but I have yet to learn, how an apostate Jewish church could have fallen into this ecclesiastical eccentricity in the days of Constantine, or what flour, save flowers of rhetoric, so miserable a drudge could have been made to grind "at Cæsar's mill, and at Cæsar's bidding." Or what again in the name of common sense has this seal to do with the Puseyism1 of the fourth century ? Can any one see in it any allusion, however remote, to the efficacy of the sacrament of baptism?

And, as usual, the period over which this seal extends is accurately defined-from A.D. 324 to A.D. 395. What is the authority for this date? By what argument is it supported? It stands upon the authority of idle assumption. It is based on an argument of sand: and I trust that a time is coming when all such unsupported and imaginary hypotheses shall leave behind them no clearer trace than the same sand affords of the Arab's path across the wilderness, to-day perhaps impressed by the faint vestiges of his horse's track, and to-morrow those marks effaced and obliterated by the sweeping simoom of the desert.

It is time to offer a different explanation. It is probable that this sealing of God's servants on their foreheads refers to the miraculous preservation of the Christian Church from the wrath about to fall on the Jewish people. There seems to be an allusion to Ezekiel ix. 4., where an angel is commissioned to go through the city of Jerusalem, and mark upon the forehead of all who should be exempted from the impending slaughter.

"And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: and let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary."

but come not near

"What we call Puseyism in the nineteenth century was the predominating religion of the fourth; and this explains the reason of Tractarian sympathy with the fourth century."-Cumming.