Christianity is not more opposed to vice than it is to vassalage; to moral corruption than to political degra dation.

2. Shall not a more favorable impression be begotten in behalf of Christianity from the fact, that it contemplates man not merely in his individual, but in his social capacities and interests?—that in the amplitude of its beneficence it takes cognizance of those great and massive calamities which weigh upon the welfare of society; which have encumbered and retarded the march of the human mind; which have hung their ponderous weights upon the wheels of its progress ;-in a word, that it abounds with predictions and promises, not only of the removal of those evils which encompass and annoy the individual believer, but of those also which have been the most signal curses to the communities of the earth? We repeat it then, that we are authorized to regard in the light of the accomplishment of the divine counsels the existing commotions which are causing the dynasties of Europe to totter on their rotten bases, and which are prompting the monarchs to clap their hands to their heads to hold on their crowns. Potentates are perplexed by the signs in heaven and the signs on earth. But why? Simply because God has illustriously arisen, and begun to show to the world that the Gospel is the Genius of Universal Emancipation. The human race is awakening to the conviction, that there is not a throne on earth but is built upon the prostrate liberties of mankind; and kings have cause to tremble at the results of the discovery. It is for this reason that they dread to refer themselves to the coming on of time."

"Coming events cast their shadows before," and they are filled with secret apprehensions of an impending stroke which shall fall with resistless weight upon the coronets of despots, and scatter their diamonds in the dust. It is then to the pages of this precious revelation that we are to look for a key to the signs of the times; for a solution of all the marvels connected with that magnus ordo rerum, that stupendous moral and political revolution, which is so rapidly changing the face of human affairs, and introducing the indestructible empire of righteousness. It is on this account only that we deem the explication of the hieroglyphics of the Apocalypse as at all important. Viewed in any other light than as affording an index to the true character of the period in which we live, and its connected duties, we might as well bestow our labour in laying before our readers, for the purpose of comment, the imagery of the Shield of Achilles, or of the Zodiac of Dendera, or the architectural details of Solomon's Temple. But when rightly construed, the mystic shadows of the Seer of Patmos resolve themselves, like the hand-writing on the walls of Belshazzar's palace, into the death-doom of despotism, and the Magna Charta of the liberties of the world.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM STATED AND CONFIRMED.

The Connection of the twentieth Chapter of the Revelation with the preceding portions of the Book stated-The Identity of the Dragon throughout the Apocalypse maintained-The Binding of the Dragon explained-Its date determinedConfirmed by History--Particulars of the symbolic Imagery further elucidated-Symbol of the Bottomless Pit or Abyss explained-Opinions of Lightfoot, Turretin, Mastricht, and Marck quoted-Satan's deceiving the Nations explainedWhether the Millennium to consist of a thousand literal years-Explication of the Thrones, and of the Souls of the Martyrs seen in the Vision, and of their Living and Reigning with Christ a thousand years.

REVELATION CH. XX.

1. AND I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. 4. And I saw thrones, and

they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them : and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark in their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. 7. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10. And the Devil 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 for ever and ever.

A fresh vision of the Dragon here opens upon us. We are now called to contemplate him in an ulterior stage of degradation. In the allegorical narrative already considered we have seen him discomfited in the contest with the celestial legions of Michael, and violently precipitated from heaven to earth. But, as if de

termined to avenge the ignominy of his defeat, we left him still plotting against the mystical Woman, aiming to compass her destruction by disemboguing a flood of waters from his mouth; and, when baffled in this attempt, instituting a stupendous scheme of persecution against her seed through the instrumentality of the Beast, to whom he delivered up his seat and his power.

From that time, it will be observed by the careful reader of the Apocalypse, the Dragon himself retires from the stage; the scope of the prophetical visions being henceforth occupied mainly with the pernicious doings and the retributive destiny of his septemcephalous successor through the space of the seven ensuing chapters. In the close of the nineteenth, immediately preceding the portion which we have quoted, the final catastrophe of the secular imperial Beast and of the ecclesiastical False Prophet is expressly detailed. "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth (rather, ' even the kings of the earth'), and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. 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 cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." Having thus portrayed by these significant emblems the remediless doom of the Beast, and having consequently no more to say of him, the order of the visions is now reversed, and the prophet is carried back in the train of supernatural disclosure to the point where the history of the Dragon had been in