deceiveth the whole world: he his angels were cast out with was cast out into the earth, and him. which mention is made of the dragon of his rivers. We have thus noticed a different rule of interpretation when we come to the book of Revelation ? We do not wonder that men have been unable to understand this book, if they have made an entirely different application of scriptural metaphors, in interpreting it, from that which they have adopted in interpreting all other parts of the Bible. We hold that it is sound and just, in interpreting the Apocalypse, to follow the general drift of the sacred writers in the application of metaphors. If we will not do this, but submit ourselves to the direction of mere prejudice or fancy, we must expect to go astray. But in respect to the dragon, we claim not only the general, but the universal authority and use of the sacred writers, to show that it signifies human enemies and oppressors. We have named every passage where the word occurs; and we cannot, we ought not, to depart, in applying the metaphor in the Apocalypse, from the universal scriptural use. His 10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the angels were cast out with him. — If anything more than mere imagery is meant here, then by the angels of the dragon may very naturally be intended his forces, his ministers, - his supporters. The dragon signified the leading, persecuting, ecclesiastical power of Rome; and his angels were the leading men and emissaries who abetted that power. - power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night. ser, and is so translated; 2 Tim. iii. 3; Titus ii. 3. How agreeable, therefore, to the enemy, diabolos, to bring false accusations against the followers of Christ. The Jews continually brought false accusations against the apostles, and so did the Gentile opponents, when the gospel came to be preached among them. Jesus forewarned his disciples of this feature 10. Now is come salvation and of the opposition they would be obliged strength. The dragon and his angels to meet;" Matt. v. 11, 12: "Blessed having been cast out, we now come are ye when men shall revile you, to the hymn of the triumph of Chris- and persecute you, and shall say all tianity, -the hymn of triumph for manner of evil against you falsely, the prevalence of Christianity over for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedPaganism. "Now is come salva- ing glad; for great is your reward in tion, and strength, and the kingdom heaven; for so persecuted they the of our God, and the power of his prophets which were before you.” Christ." This is the common lan-The accusation was said to be made guage in the New Testament to sig- before God, because it was observed nify the prevalence and triumph of by him; not that the accusation was gospel principles. Wherever the gos- made to him, for the heathen would pel prevailed, salvation was said to scarcely have gone to the true God, come. When Simeon saw the babe whom they knew not, and much less Christ, he said: "Mine eyes have with an accusation against his serseen thy salvation;" Luke ii. 30. vants. When it was said, "The earth When Jesus entered the house of was corrupt before God," Gen. vi. 11, Zaccheus, it was said: "This day is the meaning was, that it was corrupt salvation come to this house;" xix. 9. in his sight, and that he took special "The kingdom of God is come unto notice of it. Paul spake of the world you;" Matt. xii. 28. "Salvation is becoming guilty before God; Rom. come unto the Gentiles;" Rom. xi. iii. 19; meaning guilty in his sight. So the accuser, who was cast down, accused the Christians falsely in the sight of God. The enemies were diaboloi, false accusers, and are called by that name in the preceding verse. Let us turn now to behold the means by which the conquest was obtained. 11. When the kingdom of God was fully established, Jesus was said to come with power; Matt. xxiv. 30; for "all power was given unto him in heaven and on earth;" xxviii. 18; he had "power over all flesh;" John xvii. 2. The power of Christ is acknowledged in this song, as the power of God was acknowledged, chap. iv. 11; and of Christ, ch. v. 12, 13; xix. 1-6. The accuser is cast down.- - One of the most common manifestations of a hostile spirit is to bring false accusations. The word diabolos, devil, signifies a false accu 11. Blood of the Lamb-word of their testimony. Thus we see by what means the gospel prevailed, viz., by the "blood of the Lamb," which is explained to be "the word of their testimony." "The blood of Jesus Christ" is said to "cleanse from all sin;" 1 John i. 7; but blood surely 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; is not to be taken here in the literal sense. In that sense what effect could the blood of Christ exert to save men from sin? Under the Jewish law, without the shedding of the blood of animals, there was no remission of sin; Heb. ix. 32; and from this circumstance the New Testament writers were led to use the blood of Christ as a metaphor. Jesus did not offer the blood of goats and calves, but his own blood, which is said to "purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God;" verses 12-14. He himself shall explain the metaphor of his blood. See John vi. 55, 56: "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." When the Jews heard this, they thought it was a hard saying. Jesus then asked them, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" That is, if you find it difficult to understand what is meant by eating my flesh and drinking my blood now, when my body is present with you, what will you do when my body is removed by my ascension into glory? He then showed them that he did not use the words in the literal sense, for he added: "It is the spirit that quicken eth; the flesh profiteth nothing; THE WORDS that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life;" vi. 63. It was not blood in the literal sense that gave them life, but blood standing as an emblem of the word of God. And thus it is said in the verse before us, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by THE WORD of their testimony." See the notes on i. 5; v. 9; vii. 14. ¶ And they loved not their lives. This was true of the early Christians. It was one of the conditions of discipleship, that a man should love Christ's cause more than his own life; Luke xiv. 26. The early Christians were not required to throw their lives away; they were to live as long as they could do good, and to die when the cause of truth required it. The word psuche, here translated life or lives, is sometimes, in the common version, translated soul, as in Matt. xvi. 25, 26: "For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Who would suppose that the same Greek word occurred in both these last quoted verses? And yet it is so; and it is rendered life in the former and soul in the latter. Does it not mean life in both verses, as it does in the passage now before us? We have shown, that the Christians were required to love their lives less than they loved Christ's truth. If a man loved father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, wife, children, or even his own life, more than he loved Christ, he was not worthy of him. The early Christians, therefore, loved not their lives unto the death; i. e., they ceased to love life when the alternative was presented them of apostacy or death. Christ was more precious to them than the preservation of their lives. 12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens.· That is, rejoice at the triumph of Christianity. At the establishment of the kingdom of God, the heavens were called on by the prophets to rejoice. "Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved; he shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice," &c.; Psa, xcvi. 10, 11. Again: "Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted heavens, and ye that dwell in | 13 And when the dragon them. Woe to the inhabiters saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the manchild. of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. He his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted;" Isa. xlix. 13. This address to the heavens is one of the accustomed apostrophes of the inspired writers. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth. - This was a prediction, not a desire. The inhabitants of the earth [or land] and sea, meant people of different classes. They were called to mourning, for the devil had come down unto them, having great wrath. The devil. And who is meant here by the devil? Ans. The dragon who had been cast out of heaven into the earth. was "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan." In the verse before us, we find him under the name ho diabolos, the devil. John having represented the imaginary field of contest in the firmament, the discomfiture of the devil is represented as his falling from his high place. He is ejected; he loses his place; he falls like a lost star, to the earth, the earth being opposite, in the view of the revelator, to the firmament. He had great wrath. This he had shown by seeking to devour the man-child, and also by fighting with Michael and his angels, in which contest, as we have stated, he was beaten. Short time. He had but a short time to oppose the church; the time of his overthrow was near, as described verse 9, which proves that the overthrow of the power described by "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan," was not far off. The final destruction of the dragon is treated of in chap. xx. 1-3, 7-10. The reader must examine the notes on those places; also what has been said on the 9th 14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great verse of this chapter. All that oppose the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ may be sure to be overthrown. The truth will prevail; and all opposition, however strong at first, will be thrown down. 13. He persecuted the woman. - He raged the more fiercely, when he saw that he had begun to lose power, and that his entire overthrow was near. What more enrages an enemy, what makes him more desperate, than to begin to lose power? When, therefore, the heathen power began to see its decline, when it saw Christianity working itself into the hearts of the people, it sought to vent its rage upon the church. The Son of God it could not persecute; he had been caught up to God and to his throne, ver. 5; but the religion of Jesus and his followers were persecuted still. The heathen powers of Rome, as we all know, persecuted the Christian church after, the ascension of Jesus; and continued to persecute it, until their · influence was broken in the empire, and Rome pagan was transformed to Rome Christian. 2d. 14. Two wings of a great eagle.. The facts here are a repetition of those stated in the 6th verse. 1st. The woman fled into the wilderness. To the place prepared for her. 3d. To be succored there twelve hundred and sixty days, or a time, times, and half a time, which we have showed mean the same thing. Compare verses 6 and 14. The church was faithful; she waited upon the Lord; and those "that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; and they shall run and not be weary, and eagle, that she might fly into | time, from the face of the serthe wilderness, into her place, pent. where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a 15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood, iar with Jewish sacred history. For further illustrations of this verse, see the note on verse 6th. 15. Serpent cast out of his mouth. The metaphor is very unnatural here, for no serpent has power to cast a flood of water from his mouth. Some serpents (says Prof. Stuart) are said to eject from their mouths a poisonous bile when they are enraged, in order to annoy their enemy. Or is the metaphor taken for the spouting forth of large quantities of water by some of the sea monsters? By the serpent, the dragon is doubtless intended, for he was "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan ;" all these terms signifying the same thing. Compare verses 15 and 16 The Hebrew word translated dragon in the Old Testament is used with much latitude, and sometimes seems to denote a crocodile, a whale, or other large sea animal. The dragon, in John's vision, had, in the first they shall walk and not faint;" Isa. xl. 31. This figure of the woman flying away into the wilderness on eagles' wings, is taken from the account of the escape of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. We have already shown that Pharaoh had been described under the figure of a dragon by the prophets. The revelator drew a large number of his metaphors from the early history of his own nation. See Exod. xix. 1-4: "In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mount. And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; ye have seen what I did unto the Egyp-place, been seen in the firmament, tians, and how I bare you on eagles' seeking to devour the child. Here he wings, and brought you unto myself." makes war with Michael, the imagThus was represented the escape of inary guardian angel of the ChrisIsrael from Egyptian bondage; and tians; is beaten, and thrown down how natural, therefore, for the reve- from heaven to the earth. His wrath lator to describe the church when still continues, and rather increases, fleeing from persecution, as flying on because, from his fall, he sees that the wings of eagles into the wilder- his time is short. He persecutes the ness. Nothing is more common in woman, and she is provided with our day than to describe deliverance remarkable means of escape, and flies from darkness, danger and unbelief, away into the wilderness from the by being brought out of Egypt. The face, or presence, of the serpent. It state of unbelief is represented by is not said the serpent followed her Egyptian darkness, in the language into the wilderness; the contrary of Christians, to this time. The state seems to be implied. He could not of faith and joy is represented by the go there; and the woman, by going land of Canaan. We see, then, that there, got away from his presence. the revelator employed, in some cases, He seems to have used his best means metaphors which are now in familiar of attack, to prevent her escape, — he use; but which were more striking "cast out of his mouth water as a in his case, as he was a Jew, and flood, after the woman, that he might addressed those who were very famil-cause her to be carried away of the |