independently or as a primary symbol; that is to say, it is sometimes employed without any subordinate relation to the allegorical world. In this case, it denotes the spiritual Church of true believers as contradistinguished from an outward and visible Church, which ever comprehends a mixed multitude of holy and unholy.

Hence the fall of a star from heaven is the apostasy of a bishop or priest: and hence the descent of soft dew and rain from heaven represents the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit 3.

2. Another very extensive class of symbols is constituted by a wild-beast and his members*. cm(1.) In a temporal sense, a wild-beast is used to represent a great secular Empire which professes and acts upon principles adverse to true religion 5.

Hence the head or heads of such a beast must be viewed as denoting the form or forms of supreme government under which the typical Empire has subsisted or may subsist. His horns, if horns be ascribed to him, are kingdoms: and they represent,

4 It may not be improper to observe, that St. John uses two entirely different words to express the four cherubic animals and the two persecuting beasts of the sea and the earth. The former are termed (wa or living creatures; the latter, Onpía or wild-beasts of prey.

5 Dan. vii. 4, 17.

6 Dan. vii. 6. Rev. xiii, 1. xvii. 3, 9—11.

sometimes coalescing kingdoms out of which the Empire in question has been formed, and sometimes separated kingdoms into which the Empire has been broken or divided'. His wings, when he is furnished with wings, also denote kingdoms, modified in the same manner as when such kingdoms are typified by horns. His tusks are governing dynasties. His teeth and claws are the soldiery. His two sides are sometimes employed to represent two component kingdoms 5. And his tail is the antichristian superstition of the typical Empire.

Such being the case, the plucking of his wings will import a diminution of strength in the kingdoms represented by the wings: the rise or breaking of a horn will signify the rise or dissolution of the kingdom typified by the horn: the falling of one head and the germination of another will denote the abolition of one supreme political form and the inauguration of another such form: the life of a beast, viewed as under the government of some one living head, will denote the political existence of an Empire under the government of some one active form of civil authority: the death of a beast, produced by the successive falling or destruction of all his heads, will signify the poli

1 Dan. vii. 7, 24. viii. 3, 8, 20-22. Rev. xvii. 12, Isaiah viii. 8. Jerem. xlviii. 40.

* Dan. vii. 4, 6.

3 Dan. vii. 5.

* Dan. vii. 5, 7, 19.

5 Dan. vii. 5.

Isaiah ix. 14, 15. Rev. ix. 9, 19. xii. 4.

tical dissolution of the Empire typified and the revival of a defunct beast, by the healing of a mortal wound inflicted upon his head, will import the political restoration of the Empire which had been thus dissolved1.

(2.) In a spiritual or ecclesiastical sense, a wildbeast is a spiritual or ecclesiastical Empire which professes and acts upon principles adverse to true religion.

A horn of such a beast is a spiritual or ecclesiastical kingdom: and it may, nevertheless, be properly represented as springing, either out of a secular beast, or out of an ecclesiastical beast; for, in the former case, its political or geographical, and, in the latter case, its spiritual or ecclesiastical, origin will be denoted3. The head of an ecclesiastical beast is the governing polity under which he subsists. And the body of such a beast represents the persons who constitute the body politic of such an Empire.

On these hieroglyphics it is to be observed, that an ecclesiastical kingdom may increase into an

' Dan. vii. 4, 8, 24. viii. 8, 9, 21-23. Rev. xvii. 9-11, xiii. 3, 12, 14.

2 Rev. xiii. 11-17. The ecclesiastical character of the wildbeast, described in this passage, is determined by his being styled a false prophet: for such an appellation is plainly inapplicable to a secular Empire. Compare Rev. xvi. 13. xix. 20. with xiii. 11-14.

3 Dan. vii. 8, 24, 25. viii. 9-12, 23-25. Rev. xiii. 11. 4 Rev. xiii. 11.

5 Rev. xiii, 11.

ecclesiastical Empire, and that it may then have ecclesiastical kingdoms subservient to it. Hence, what is symbolised in one prophecy, by the horn of a secular beast, or rather by an ecclesiastical horn springing politically or geographically from the head of a secular beast; may hereafter, in another prophecy, be symbolised by a distinct spiritual beast, having a proper head or supreme governor and proper horns or ecclesiastical kingdoms of its own1

3. As a beast of prey denotes an Empire, with reference to its idolatrous and persecuting spirit: so an animal of any other. description equally denotes an Empire, but with a similar reference to such specific qualities as characterise the symbolic animal in question.

Thus, from their pugnacity, a ram, a he-goat, and a war-horse, alike typify a military Empire: and, when the last hieroglyphic is employed, the character of the governing rider expresses, whether the martial bravery of the Empire is directed to a good or to a bad purpose.

In the mechanical arrangement of the war-horse, a variety will sometimes be found to occur: for, occasionally, the typical steed is yoked to a chariot'; and, in that case, the governing warrior is borne along in the vehicle, instead of being mounted upon the animal. But I need scarcely to remark, that,

1

Compare Dan. vii. 8, 11, 20, 21, 24, 25, with Rev. xiii, 1, 11, 12, 16.

in either modification, the leading idea is still the same. Under each form, a military Empire, with its governing polity, is alike symbolised 1.

4. Another very considerable class of symbols may be arranged under the leading hieroglyphic of a city. Here, however, we do not find that perfect distinction into secular and ecclesiastical, which marked two of the classes that have recently been considered. By a city we are to understand a body politic: but, in the Apocalypse, this body politic is chiefly an ecclesiastical one; though, when used in a bad sense, the idea of secular power or rather perhaps of a geographical secular platform seems manifestly to be included.

(1.) Thus, in the book of Revelation, the great city, which is the city of the dragon and which bears the mystic name of Babylon, is the whole Roman Empire, viewed as subject to its sevenhilled metropolis, under the two-fold aspect of a secular and an ecclesiastical body politic, though the predominating idea is the ecclesiastical. Ac

Rev. vi. 18. xix. 11-14. Zechar. i. 8—11. vi. 1-8. Dan. viii. 3, 5.

2

Rev. xviii. It might seem, from Rev. xvii, 9, 18. that the great city means Rome exclusively, and not Rome viewed as presiding over the Roman Empire. To such an opinion, however, there are insuperable objections.

I. The harlot, who is said to be Babylon or the great city is evidently the Roman Church after the period when the Empire. had been divided into ten kingdoms. That Church, however, although its peculiar seat was the literal seven-hilled city, extended its sway over the whole Western or proper Roman