must persevere in our ungrateful task, even under the charge of making Holy Scripture a butt for scoff and ribaldry, or of a want of due seriousness in the handling of holy things. Neither, again, let me be suspected of a want of becoming consideration to the theological opinions of many good and excellent men, whose greatest fault appears to be that "their hearts are so much better than their heads." We are dealing with principles, not with individuals, and we need not love the men the less because their religious views happen to differ from our own. Surely to refuse to probe the wound for fear of giving pain, or to hesitate to administer the drug because it is nauseous to the taste, is but a mock charity after all. 1. And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: 2. And he had in his hand a little book open and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth. 3. And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. 4. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. 5. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, 6. And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer. 7. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. DAN. xii. 1. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. 4. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. 5. Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. 6. And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? 7. And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his 8. And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. 9. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 10. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. 11. And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. REV. xi. 1, 2. 1. And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. 2. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. right hand and his left hand unto hea- 8. And I heard, but I understood 9. And he said, Go thy way, Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. 11. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. 13. But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. THE subject before us of the Open Book is, perhaps, one of the most mysterious and difficult in the Apocalypse. It appears to be rather a Codicil to the Sixth Trumpet than an integral part of the Trumpet itself; consequently we must not expect to find any great identity between it and the Sixth Vial; and yet, as is common in the duplicate form in which these symbols are presented, there is an allusion to the subject in the one which is carried out more fully in the other. I need only mention the parallel case of the locust armies of Rome and their Euphratean allies, detailed at great length under the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets, but only briefly introduced in the Vials, the destruction of Babylon graphically de 1 picted under the Seventh Vial, but only incidentally referred to under the Seventh Trumpet, -to show that the principle is common to the Apocalypse. It is quite certain that it forms a part of the Sixth Trumpet; for that Trumpet does not end till the 14th verse of Chap. xi., the limit of the Trumpet being settled by the words of verse 14. "The second woe is past, and behold the third woe cometh quickly." I attempt the solution of it with doubt and misgiving: I look at the host of conflicting opinions, and seem to feel that mine will be only one more added to the heap. Hitherto, I have had that conviction of truth which always accompanies interpretations grounded on reason and Scripture; I have seemed to myself to be right, and that without straining a single allegory, or forcing a single symbol. Now I appear cast adrift on the wide ocean of conjecture. I cannot fly to Jewish or heathen contemporaneous testimony, and the opinions of the Christian Church from the earliest ages down to our own times are as diversified as they are unsatisfactory. But of one thing I feel sure, that whatever interpretation is offered must be one suited to the date and age of the Apocalypse; it must be found then, or not at all. The Apocalypse must be one grand and perfect whole, or it is nothing; no ingenuity can separate its compact and consentaneous uniformity, no sophistry disannul the unequivocal declaration that it is a revelation of "things which must shortly come to pass.' Better to endeavour to explain its mysteries, than deny its positive asser tions-better to receive its wonders than contravene its statements. True, we may resolve them all into futurity1, and this is the course generally adopted by commentators when any difficulty arises, and a most convenient course it is; for, as no one can refute that which has not yet taken place, so no one, from the necessary ignorance of things future, can positively say that such things shall not be. But here, again, we are met with the difficulty that the prophecy is of immediate fulfilment; and how can we explain its symbols of the distant 1 "It is a very natural, and indeed constant result with the interpreters of prophecy to push into futurity everything that cannot be readily made out. It was this, as we shall presently see, which induced many of the Fathers to place the Antichrist not far from the dissolution of all things."- Professor Lee, Preface, 1849. for " وو future, without impeaching the veracity of the author? Added to this, the Apocalypse, equally with those sayings of our Lord in the Gospels which inseparably connect his coming with the close of the Mosaic economy, reveals certain positive data of time, place, and object, which confine its predictions within a given limit, and associated with these, it also unfolds contemporaneous mysteries of a spiritual nature for which the same data must be conceded. For instance, in the Gospels, the time of our Lord's coming is defined to be within the lifetime of those who heard his words, the place, Judæa,—and the object, the punishment of that "evil and adulterous generation; and this is contemporaneous with "The sign of the Son of man in heaven," equivalent to his "coming with clouds,' -the mission of the angels, and the gathering of the elect. So in the Apocalypse, He is to come "quickly;" while the temple is yet standing, and before the Gentiles have "trodden down the Holy City,' the place to which He comes is Judæa; they also which pierced Him" (the Jews) are to look upon Him, and the object of his coming is to tread " the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God," "without the city," Jerusalem; and this is to take place simultaneously with the armies of heaven following him, and the gathering of the 144,000. It will be seen that, in each of these, there is a part capable of proof, and a part which is not. There can be no doubt about the question of time, place, and object; this can be proved to demonstration, because of its implication with known historical facts; the other, from the very nature of the case, cannot be proved to the same extent. Now, if it is the part of reason to argue from what we do know up to what we do not know, it does not become us to decide that such predictions of the Apocalypse as are capable of proof may have been fulfilled, but that contemporaneous predictions which are not capable of such kind of proof must be resolved into an indefinite future. Surely, to say the least, it is taking a great liberty with Scripture to admit some of its sayings, the truth of which we are unable to deny, and to contravene or postpone others, because they do not equally fall within the reach of our comprehension. If we are to believe only what we can reduce to Q. E. D., perhaps no doctrine of Christianity will abide the test; and it is questionable whether the objection may not be |