contribute to our spiritual comfort, and to the glory and honour and praise of God. Why did the Jews, we may ask, reject the Messiah as the sufferer? Just because they neglected the study of unfulfilled prophecy. And may not we also be found neglecting privileges, if not despising duties, when we make the Book of Revelation that book which we rarely read in our families, or study in our closets, or patiently listen to, when expounded and explained from the pulpit by the ministers of Christ?

It was not so in olden days: for this book was a favourite study with the early Christians. The martyrs of the first three centuries found springs of comfort in the addresses to the seven churches, which refreshed their souls as with the dews of heaven amid the flames. The Reformers derived from the Apocalypse the most condemning verdicts on the great Western apostasy, and from its description, as from a full and exhaustless arsenal, they drew forth the weapons with which they smote and overthrew the great Dagon of the West with the most complete success. This holy book seems to me to be a lamp, which sheds light on the history of the last nineteen hundred years, casting illuminating rays into all their perplexing and perplexed events. It shows us Christ in the world as well as in the church-ordering and restraining the will of kings and the acts of empire, and educing glory to his name and prosperity to his church from the wrath of his bitterest

enemies.

In the next place, the Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation, is stated, at the beginning of the first chapter, to have been written under the inspiration of the Spirit by John, who testified of the Word of God. There can be no doubt that this was John the evangelist; his testimony was emphatically that of "the Word;" his Gospel is peculiarly the Gospel of "the Word made flesh." The very commencement of his Gospel is-"In the beginning was the Word;" and the close of his Gospel is-"These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name." That holy name gives music to every sentence, weight to every word, and fragrance to every sentiment in that wonderful production, the Gospel according to John. And Wetstein and Lardner, two distinguished critics upon the original, as well as on the contents

of the Scriptures, have selected about thirty or forty texts from the Apocalypse, which contain words and phrases and forms of expression that are almost identical with those used in the Gospel, thus proving that the same John who wrote the Gospel was the writer of the Apocalypse; and such differences of style, as unquestionably do occur, are to be explained and accounted for by the difference of the subjects, and perhaps also of the time. The Gospel was written by John sixty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and was, if I may so speak, a cool and dispassionate retrospect and record of that sublime biography; the Apocalypse, on the other hand, was written the very moment its truths were taught and its visions made known-the instancy and splendour of the scene making the deeper impression on the heart of the seer, and originating more expressive words. Hence the Apocalypse contains an eloquence of language, a grandeur of thought, and a magnificence of style, which certainly are not approached by the more prosaic and historical narrative of the Gospel. This difference, however, is, as we have said, easily accounted for; the subject and date will explain the simplicity of the narrative of the one, and the sublime and poetic ecstasy of the other.

The time at which the Apocalypse was written, was about the year 97. John was banished to Patmos by the emperor Domitian; and if we had no other evidence that it was during the reign of Domitian, we have it in the fact that he was the first Roman emperor who adopted that mode of punishment. But John's banishment from his earthly home lifted him nearer a heavenly one. He was condemned and banished by a king that died, that he might be favoured and comforted by "the King of kings," that liveth and reigneth for ever. An inner radiance was

poured into his spirit, that more than compensated for his external night. God thus gives his people in all their trying circumstances compensatory elements. In the history of his church, he often makes afflictions beautiful, by weaving through them the rainbow. of his mercy and love. He thus made barren Patmos a scene of manifestation of far richer glories than Tabor. He can make the tents of Mesech and the tabernacles of Kedar repose in a sunshine more glorious than ever fell on the towers of Salem. God's She

chinah often illuminates the desert. Daniel beheld in Babylon bright visions he saw not elsewhere; John, in Patmos, saw a glory he never witnessed in Jerusalem; John Bunyan, in his lonely prison, had dreams and visions, approaching in their purity and splendour to apocalyptic scenes; and Martin Luther, during his confinement in Wartburg, translated the Scriptures, and had the enjoyment of a freedom and repose to which thousands outside were strangers. It is the heart, not the house, that makes home. And thus, while the afflictions of God's people abound, their joys abound also. The cloud that is darkest, is fringed to their eyes with beams of celestial lustre, and crushing calamities unbosom by degrees their latent mercies; and those who have been in the deepest affliction, have been the first to exclaim, each as he emerged from its depths-"It is good for me that I was afflicted."

This book has been recognised as canonical in every age of the Christian church. I will quote only one or two references, but these will sufficiently vindicate it. Perhaps you are aware that the Church of Rome has made the frequent objection, that we Protestants are indebted to her decision for the possession of the Apocalypse at all. They say, the Apocalypse was not admitted by that church by any public act, or by any synodical decision, till the fifth, if not the sixth century. But if this be true, instead of proving that the Church of Rome has great credit, it rather reflects upon her the greatest discredit-for it shows how sleepy that church must have been, how blind her vision, how forgetful of her duties, seeing that, by her own confession, she failed to recognise as canonical a divine book during six centuries in succession. Does it not also show how much more trustworthy is private judgment than ecclesiastical decisions, seeing fathers and writers and doctors saw the inspiration of the Apocalypse, and pronounced it to be divine, while the Church of Rome did not know that it was part of the sacred canon at all? For instance: Ignatius, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers, who lived in the year 107—that is, just ten years after John wrote the Apocalypse-quotes several passages from this book, thus proving it was in existence in his day. Polycarp, a father and martyr, who lived in the year 108, when he was brought to the fagot to

be consumed in the flames, offered up the prayer used in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation, at the seventeenth verse-" We give thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." After him, Irenæus, whose name is associated in its import with peace, and whose writings contain some beautiful appeals on its behalf, quotes portions of the Apocalypse, and adds the interesting statement, preserved in the writings of Eusebius, that John wrote it at the latter end of the reign of Domitian, when in exile at Patmos. Justin Martyr, who lived in the year 140—that is, forty-three years after the Apocalypse was written, not only read it, but wrote an explanation of it. And Eusebius, in the fourth century, and Jerome, the most learned of all the Latin fathers, likewise quote it as a portion of the inspired record, and record their reflections upon it. It is, however, only just to add, that some divines of the fourth century rejected the Apocalypse, on the ground that it contained, as they alleged, prophecies of what they erroneonsly believed to be a carnal millennium; just in the same way as some Christians still argue, that the Bible cannot be God's word, because it contains truths that cross their prejudices, or lay on them duties which they decline to fulfil, or unfold the mere outward drapery of stupendous mysteries, which angels cannot soar to, and which the human imagination cannot of course comprehend. But to argue in this way is to argue most illogically. The divinity of the book rests upon its own basis; the explanation of the book is to be decided on just and proper principles.

I must notice here, that there is a special benediction pronounced upon those who read it. Many people say "Oh! the Revelation is full of dark things we ought not to meddle with." But what does the Spirit of God say? "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein." Shall we say it is wrong to read what the Spirit of God has thought it right to record? Shall we say that the difficulty of interpreting the book is a reason why we should not even read, still less try to understand, what the Spirit of God has inspired? Shall we hold it perilous to study what the Holy Spirit has pronounced it blessed to read, and, by fair inference, possible to understand? We may read it in a

presumptuous spirit—that is sinful; but to attempt to understand it, in a reverent and prayerful spirit-that is blessed. Lay aside the presumption that dictates as eternal truths its own hasty conclusions; but do not give up the prayerful study and perusal of the book, on the very vestibule of which the Spirit of God has written-" Blessed are they that read and hear the words of this prophecy." Far be it from me to couceal, that there is an awful and a solemn anathema pronounced upon all who shall attempt to subtract from or add to "the things that are written in this book." At the close of it, it is said-"If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." This is an awful announcement, which ought to solemnize the mind of every student of it but if it be perilous to misinterpret it, can it be safe not to read it at all? Would not the legitimate conclusion be, not to lay it aside, because there is an anathema on him who perverts it, but to open the book, and diligently study it, and pray for the Spirit of God to enlighten our minds, and lead them to a sober and true exposition? and then we shall be lifted from the anathema that descends upon the wilful misinterpreter, and shall be placed under the blessing that lights on him who reads and understands it.

I regard this book, not as a dark and inexplicable hieroglyphic, which it is humility and duty to leave unopened, but as a light that shines on the dark and troubled waters of time-those waters over which the church of the redeemed is ploughing her arduous and perilous way; not like a light upon the stern, leaving useless brilliancy in her wake, but a light upon the prow, showing before the beacons it is our safety to avoid, and the course it becomes our duty to pursue, till that day break upon the waste of waters, when the great Pilot himself shall enter into the vessel, and say to the stormy waves around it, "Be still," and guide her to a haven of perpetual peace.

Now, while I feel that there is much, in the past history of the interpretation of this book, to make us cautious and prayerful, I