the earth shall worship him, | the book of life of the Lamb slain whose names are not written in from the foundation of the world. : membrance. See Psa. Ivi. 8: "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" or remembrance. See also Mal. iii. 16: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened, and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name." The figure occurs also in Daniel, from which the revelator borrows so frequently: "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;" xii. 1. From Phil. iv. 3, (and this is the only place in which the phrase "book of life" occurs, except in the Apocalypse,) we should conclude it meant the roll of Christian believers. To blot one's name out of the book of life, was to consider him no longer as a faithful disciple, but to set him apart from the true and the good. The names of the faithful are written in the book of life, the roll of those who enjoy eternal life; the names of the unfaithful are not there. If a Christian fall away, his name having been there, is said to be blotted out. Such is the general tenor of the language used about the book of life; the whole is metaphorical. ¶ Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. By the Lamb is unquestionably meant Jesus, who is so often mentioned in the Apocalypse under that figure; and he is said to have been slain "from the foundation of the world," either because his death took place at the very beginning of the gospel dispensation, — or, what is more probable, because that sacrifice was determined in the mind of God from the beginning of the world, (kosmos,) Rev. xiii. 8, or, in the ages of old, (chronois aioniois,) Rom. xvi. 25. A comparison of all the passages in which this phrase occurs would seem to show, that it signifies past time indefinitely, as if we should say, "before all time," or, "from all past time," or from the ages of old, as in Rom. xvi. 25, referred to above. The truths of the gospel had remained a mystery, or been kept secret from the foundation of the world, or all past time; Matt. xiii. 35: the kingdom had been prepared for the believers from the foundation of the world, or all past time; Matt. xxv. 34: the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world was to be required of that generation of the Jews which slew Christ; Luke xi. 50; i. e:, the blood of all that had been slain; for Matthew has it, "all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar;" Matt. xxiii. 35: Jesus was loved of the Father before the foundation of the world; John xvii. 24: and believers were chosen in him before the foundation of the world; Eph. i. 4; that is, before time begun, in the eternal councils of the Father. In Heb. iv. 3, the works of God, at the creation, are said to have been from the foundation of the world; and if it had been necessary for Christ, like the high priest, to have been sacrificed every year, then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, Heb. ix. 26, or from the beginning. Christ was a Lamb, without spot or blemish, preördained before the foundation of the world, i. e., before all time, in the eternal councils of the Father; 1 Pet. i. 20; and this is the precise phraseology employed in the Apocalypse, and which Peter seems almost to have quoted from it; Rev. xiii. 8. See, also, xvii. 8. These are all the passages in the New Testament in which the phrase apo or 9 If any man have an ear, | Here is the patience and the let him hear. faith of the saints. 10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword. pro kataboles kosmou occurs. The word katabole (foundation) occurs in one other connection only, Heb. xi. 11. 9. If any man have an ear. This denotes the importance of the communication to all. It is of similar import with the words of the poet : "Let every mortal ear attend." As the art of printing was not then known, and few persons could obtain the manuscript books in existence, the greater part were obliged to listen to the reading of others. The words will bear the construction, "If any man have an inclination to listen, let him hear." A "heart to perceive" is a heart able and willing to perceive; "eyes to see" are eyes ready and willing to see; and "ears to hear" are ears open and inclined to hear; Deut. xxix. 4. In some the heart is fat and the ears heavy; Isa. vi. 10; and they "turn away their ears from the truth;" 2 Tim. iv. 4; Acts vii. 57. See the notes on Rev. ii. 7, 11. The words in the case before us may refer to what precedes, or what follows, or both. 10. Must be killed with the sword. Suffering as the Christians did under the cruelty of the Romans, it became necessary to give them the assurance, that however powerful their enemies then were, a change was near. The conquerors of all the world should themselves at last be conquered. The successful warriors should be overcome. Jesus had said, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword;" Matt. xxvi. 52; they incur the great risk of perishing in that manner. But some writers think that something more definite than this is intended in the passage before us. Professor Stuart, for instance, says: 11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. "There is, in this whole passage, a most palpable allusion to Nero ;" and it has more life and energy when we suppose him to have been still living. The writer foretells what must inevitably be the doom of such a tyrant. In fact, Nero exiled himself from Rome, and intended to make his escape into distant countries, but he was arrested in his retreat, and fell by his own sword, or by that of his assailants. Here is the patience and faith of the saints-i. e., the ground or cause of their patience and faith. Had it not been for this assurance, they would have sunk under their sufferings perhaps ; but knowing that their tribulations were not always to continue, their patience and their faith were preserved. See Heb. vi. 12. 11. Another beast. This is therion, a spiteful, cruel animal, like the first beast, and not like the zoa, the four beasts, or living creatures, round about the throne. And here follows another distinction. This is not a beast with seven heads and ten horns; but he has "two horns like a lamb." He has a very mild and amiable aspect; but there is murder in his heart. He has some affinity to the firecolored dragon. He spake as a dragon. And he had also some affinity to the beast, and is truly called another beast. But we shall learn more of him as we proceed. It is particularly to be observed, notwithstanding his outward lamb-like appearance, that his communications were manifestly dragon-like. He spoke for the dragon, to aid his cause, as well as that of the seven-headed beast. He came up out of the earth. The dragon was first seen in heaven, xii. 3; i. e., in the firmament; but he was out of his place; he had no business there; and 12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and was cast down to the earth, xii. 9; i. e., he was thrown down from his high place of power. The seven-headed beast rose up out of the sea, xiii. 1, but the two-horned beast rose up out of the earth. They all had an earthly origin; they all belonged beneath; but for the sake of variety in the scenery, one is said to rise from the sea, the other from the land. them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone ;" xix. 20. He is here called a false prophet, a deceiver, a foreteller of future events, a diviner, an oracle, &c. Does not this have reference to the heathen priests? And again: "And the devil [or dragon, for in this connection they mean the same power] that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever;" xx. 10. These quotations let us somewhat into the history of this second beast, who was so much like the lamb in appearance, so much like the dragon in nature. But we will proceed: we shall become better acquainted with him. 12. Exerciseth all the power of the first beast. He was a very successful auxiliary to the first beast, and made use of his power; i. e., the power of the empire was prostituted to aid him. These two powers were mutual friends. They aided each other. They had similar, if not identical, interests. The two-horned beast held a kind of half-way relation between the dragon and the seven-headed beast. They 13. He doeth great wonders.-That is, were all three joined in this one enter- he affected to perform miracles; and prise, opposition to Christianity. The among other things, he appeared to dragon strove to uphold the seven- make fire come down from heaven to headed beast, i. e., the heathen in-earth in the sight of men. False fluence exerted itself to sustain the imperial power. The dragon and the last named beast represented the heathen and the secular power of Rome; and the two-horned beast, so like a lamb in appearance, and like a dragon in his soul, may well represent those apparently lamb-like priests and false prophets, who, by their influence over the people, sustained both the heathen and secular power. ¶ To worship the first beast. He shared with the first beast all the unsubstantial glory of his prosperity, and went down with him to destruction, as we shall have occasion to show. He was the same that was called "the false prophet," xvi. 13, of whom it was said: "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were prophets have often professed to have the power to perform miracles; and have been able, at times, to do their works with so much adroitness as to deceive mankind, and even very intelligent men. That God may perform a real miracle, no man in his senses can doubt. He who framed all the laws of nature, can, if necessary, suspend them. He might also empower any chosen servant of his to do the same thing; but no man of himself can perform a miracle. There is no law of God by which any man can perform a miracle; nor can any man have that power, except by the special communication of it to him by God. Miracles are departures from the course of nature, and are of course beyond the power of man. When men, therefore, actually perform miracles, it is a proof that God is with them; that they are his servants; that he wishes them accredited as such; 13 And he doeth great won-ders, so that he maketh fire by them; and if it be necessary for a man, in an age of great bigotry and unbelief, to be received as a divinely appointed messenger, is it not perfectly reasonable to believe that God would clothe him with power by which he could attest his claims in the presence of all unbelievers? It is also reasonable to suppose that impostors would seek to keep themselves in countenance by attempting the performance of miracles themselves. True, they cannot perform miracles, because no man ever did perform them except he had received power of God for that special purpose; and it is not to be believed that God would bestow such power upon an impostor. But why should an impostor desire to perform miracles? or to lead mankind to believe that he performed them? The only answer that can be given to this question is this: he wishes not to be regarded as an impostor, but as a true servant of God. Have not the true servants of God, then, in different ages, had the power to perform actual miracles? If they have, we can see plainly why false prophets should desire to be thought able to perform miracles; but if they have not, then there is no reason for such a desire on the part of false prophets, since even the real performance of a miracle, if they had power to do it, would add nothing to their claims. The existence of false, or pretended miracles, therefore, is a proof of genuine miracles, as the existence of false coin is a proof of the existence of genuine coin. Would there ever have been any counterfeit money, if there never had been any that was genuine? It was not long after Moses was empowered of God to perform miracles in attestation of his appointment as the servant of God, that the Egyptian sorcerers and magicians attempted the performance of the same things. They had the appearance of turning ther rods into serpents like Now, unless Moses was him and for that purpose he bestows a come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, some ages after his day, and were put forth in his name? If so, there must have been a time when they were invented and first put forth. But this supposition is incredible, as they profess to have been put forth by Moses. "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the covenant of the Lord, saying: Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee;" Deut. xxxi. 24-26. A copy of this work was also to be given to the king, that he might study it and live by it. self a deceiver, he wrought a real miracle; but this the magicians of Pharaoh could not have done; though they might have thrown serpents from beneath the folds of their garments in such a manner, as to give the appearance of having changed their rods into those animals. Not only the Egyptians, but also the children of Israel were commanded to believe on Moses, not on account of his private char-Levites which bare the ark of the acter, but on account of the miracles which he performed; Num. xiv. 22; Deut. xi. 1-8; Judges vi. 13. These miracles were not only such as we have already described, but various other wonderful works, such as leading the children of Israel through the Red Sea, feeding them forty years in the wilderness with miraculous man-"And it shall be when he sitteth upon na; smiting the barren rock, and bringing out water for their drink, &c. &c. Now these facts were such as men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, were judges of. They were done publicly in the face of the world. Public monuments have been kept up, and outward actions have been performed in commemoration of them. These monuments and actions have existed from the time the acts were done. Imposition, in these cases, therefore, is impossible.-(Leslie.) Could Moses have persuaded hundreds of thousands of men that he had done these things, led them across the bed of the Red Sea, on dry land, and fed them with manna, &c. &c., if he had done no such thing? Could he have thus imposed upon their senses? The thing was impossible. Could he have made them receive his five books as true, which told of these things, if they had known that such things had not been done? See how positively he speaks to them, Deut. xi, 2-8. Could Moses have persuaded the Jews to believe that they themselves had seen these things, if they never had seen them? Shall we say then that the books purporting to be the books of Moses were written the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;" Deut. xvii. 18, 19. Now, in whatever after age the book may be supposed to have been forged, it would have been impossible to have made the people receive it as truth; because, on that supposition, it would not have been found in the ark, or with the king, or anywhere else. For, when first invented, it must have been known by all, that it never had been heard of before. Leslie asks, (and we have copied this argument from him,) "Could any man now, at this day, invent a book of statutes or acts of parliament for England, and make it pass upon the nation as the only book of statutes that ever they had known? As impossible was it for the books of Moses (if they were invented in any age after Moses) to have been received for what they declared themselves to be, viz., the statutes and municipal law of the nation of the Jews; and to have persuaded |