tion, such passages as have been quoted,-recollecting, at the same time, that they are found in an address to an Asiatic church, in fellowship with the church at Laodicea, which is also commanded to read this Epistle, and not to perceive the basis on which the Apostle rests his address, and bespeaks, as it were, the particular attention of those to whom he writes?

That the similarity observable in the contrasted passages is no way casual, depending on unwarrantable translation, will appear by comparing the texts as exhibited in the original :

τοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, ἵνα γέ

ὁ πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νε

νηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων. κρῶν, καὶ ὁ ̓ΑΡΧΩΝ τῶν βα

σιλέων τῆς γῆς.

These coincidences are too striking to require any acuteness to detect the resemblance, or argument to establish their correspondence; and too numerous to leave any reasonable doubt as to the cause. Several of the contrasted passages are nearly verbatim, or quite so; and where there is a verbal difference, as in Col. i. 17. and Rev. iv. 11. the sentiment is so precisely similar and so peculiarly marked in the copy, as to render its source not less conspicuous than if the identical words of the Apocalypse had been quoted.

That the latter is the primitive record is manifest from Paul amplifying, in verse 16, what he takes from Rev. iv. 11. and x. 6., telling the Colossians that the "ALL THINGS," created by THE SON OF GOD, include the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, &c. &c. In cases like this, Critics find so little difficulty, that å bare statement is sufficient to command their assent to enlarge on the fact would, therefore, be a waste of time.-Nor is this the only fact of the kind presented in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians. In the third chapter he makes the same use of the 21st chapter of the Apocalypse that he does when writing to the Ephesians; reminding them that when CHRIST our

life shall appear, they shall appear with him in glory, and enjoy the things that are above, where CHRIST sitteth on the Right-hand of GoD; and therefore he exhorts them, [from Rev. xxi. 8.] to mortify their members that are upon the earth; telling them that COVETOUSNESS is IDOLATRY: -that is, he performs the office of an Expositor, showing them that idolatry includes covetousness, as one of the crimes for which y ópyǹ Tou

EOU THE WRATH OF GOD cometh on the children of disobedience; evidently alluding topy TOŨ apvíou THE WRATH OF THE LAMB, Rev. vi. 16.

After what has been stated I should think it next to impossible that any one, whose judgment is not absolutely blinded by prejudice, could longer doubt that the Epistle to the Colossians was written after the Apocalypse.

§ 7. Of Evidence furnished by the Epistle to the Romans.

The Epistle to the Romans presents striking internal evidence of having been written after the Apocalypse. Several passages in this Epistle are literal quotations from that book, incorporated into the argument of the Apostle, in his address to the saints at Rome. He gives a double reason (ch. i.) for his not being ashamed of the Gospel of Christ-first "for therein is

the righteousness of GOD revealed," by which alone believers are justified and "live by faith;" glorious news, "for," secondly, for," secondly, "the wrath of "GOD is revealed from heaven"-or rather, as the passage, from its peculiar turn of expression, strikes the author,-" Apocalypsed is the wrath "of GOD from heaven"-ATоxaλÚTTETαI....... ὀργὴ Θεοῦ ἀπ ̓ οὐρανοῦ, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The Apostle having used the same word, άTоxαλúTTETα, in the 17th verse, as to what was apocalypsed in the gospel respecting the righteousness of GOD, as bringing life to those who believe, recollects, as it were, the converse of his proposition, as having been Apocalypsed in the prophecy of John, denouncing a special revelation of wrath against the ungodly. I must not be understood to employ here the term " Apocalypsed" as a proper English word: it is used only for the purpose of conveying to the reader the way in which the Greek term is used; and I am the more confirmed in this view from the words that occur in chapter ii. 5. which are thus rendered in the common version: "But, after thy hardness and impenitent "heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous "judgment of GOD." The latter part of the verse is that to which I would call particular attention,―treasurest up unto thyself opy ev

ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως [καὶ] δικαιοκρισίας TOU OSOŨ. By reference to Mill's and Griesbach's editions it will be seen that many manuscripts, antient versions and commentators insert xal before δικαιοκρισίας, consequently making ἡμέρᾳ to govern all the three nouns which follow. The words may be then rendered-" wrath against the day of WRATH, and of the APOCA

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LYPSE, and of the RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT of "GOD"-each of these three terms being employed to designate the same day or period. Though Griesbach has not admitted the second xal into his text, there is good reason for believing that it formed a part of the original autograph; for

it

may be easily seen that a transcriber, not perceiving that a book was here referred to by name, would find little difficulty in rejecting it as not only superfluous, but, according to his view, as injuring the sense: but it is impossible to assign any good reason why a transcriber should have here inserted xal, if he did not find it in his copy :-in a word nothing could (in my opinion) have induced him to retain it, but a strong sense of the duty imposed upon him to adhere strictly to his exemplar. "The day of wrath"-" the day of the righteous judgment of GOD," is the day to which every thing treated of in the Apocalypse has reference, and therefore the Apostle here calls it, emphatically as it were, "the day

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