them? in a literal, or in a symbolical sense? For on the answer given to this question everything deThe whole case alters its character according as the one or other view of it is adopted.

pends.

If the expressions are to be regarded as merely symbolical or allegorical, they do not bear upon the subject which it is the design of this Essay to discuss, viz. the physical character of the future condition of the earth. If symbolic, they are symbolic of some moral qualities, or shadow forth some moral conditions, which do not come within the scope of our present inquiries, and which conditions, I may add, are most uncertain, seeing that we have nothing whatever, save our own imaginations, to guide us in determining what they will really be. One consequence of this must necessarily be, that no two interpreters, if kept apart, would give us the same result. As an

immediate sequence. Who would think, therefore, of interposing two children where the sacred text, apparently so consecutive, passes over all notice of such a circumstance, and clearly speaks of Moses as the firstborn? Yet we know that he had a brother and a sister older than himself. This fact, however, only comes out incidentally in other parts of the history, and is not so much as alluded to here, because foreign to the matter in hand. The same rule is followed in numerous other cases; I am persuaded it is so in St. Peter's description of the final conflagration, as given in the third chapter of his second Epistle.

• See The Christian Observer for 1834, p. 386.

illustration, however, of what may be said upon the subject, we may take Scott's interpretation of the words, which is as good as any I know, according to the symbolic or figurative mode of rendering them. He remarks in his commentary on this passage :"In this new world there was no sea;' which aptly represents an entire freedom from polluting and conflicting passions, distressing temptations, tempestuous troubles, changes, and alarms, and from whatever can divide or interrupt the 'communion of saints' with each other. Some think it implies also that there is abundance of room in that blessed world, as a very large proportion of the earth is now covered with the sea." But why these things are "aptly represented" by there being "no sea," I confess I am at a loss to perceive, or to understand what con nection there is between them. The imagination of one man may trace such a connection, but that of another may see nothing of the kind. And it is of course quite certain that there cannot possibly be any necessary or certain connection in the way, e. g. between the absence of sea and "freedom from polluting and conflicting passions;" and the whole subject, therefore, upon this view of it, must remain

in doubt and uncertainty, and the question as to what is the true meaning of the expression must continue unanswered.

is

But if the words are to be taken literally the case

very different. Then they not only bear upon our present subject, but we have certainty as to their meaning. And that they are to be construed literally follows, I conceive, as a necessary consequence from the fact that the former expressions in the verse, those, namely, which speak of "the new heavens and the new earth," are to be so understood. This we have already seen. The remarks made (Essay i. pp. 19-23) upon the words of St. Peter (2 Epist. iii. 13) respecting "the new heavens and the new earth" were abundantly sufficient to prove it. But whatever the new heavens and the new earth mean in that passage they also mean in this from the Apocalypse; and as they there undoubtedly mean literal heavens and a literal earth, so must they do here; and this being the case, then we are bound in all consistency to understand the next announcement in the verse as also intended to reveal to us a literal fact, namely, that on the new earth there will be no more sea." I see not how it is possible to avoid

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this conclusion, and must proceed to reason accord

ingly.

The fact, assuming it to be a fact, seems at first sight a very startling one. It does violence to our feelings. We are not prepared for such a change in the condition of our globe. There are many of us who so love the sea, that we hear with pain the probability that it will be done away. What so glorious what so profoundly interesting — what so calculated to enlarge the mind's conception of the vast -as the mighty ocean, with its blue and boundless waters? But, after all, the question is not what is pleasing, but what is true? It is not for us to attempt to determine what shall be hereafter by consulting our present feelings', but by looking to evidence, and following the only sure guide upon the subject, the inspired Record. We must embrace whatever that teaches; and who can doubt but that whatever will be true hereafter, will also be most

Though spoken in reference to a very different subject to that which is here treated of, the following remark of Oersted may well be quoted as confirmatory of what is expressed in the text :—“Should we not feel inwardly ashamed if we caught ourselves in the endeavour to desire a different truth than that which actually exists? And what folly it would be if we allowed ourselves to be determined in our opinions by our desires! Our wishes and desires could not make it true."- -The Soul in Nature, p. 172.

gratifying to the mind, as well as best in itself? We are not in a condition now to judge aright of what we shall think and feel then. "A change will have come o'er the spirit of our dream." We shall doubtless find that the glories of the new creation will be such as abundantly to compensate even for the absence of the glorious sea.

A matter of much more importance, however, than what is likely to be pleasing hereafter, is the fact that this announcement that there will be " no sea in the "new earth" is in harmony with the teaching of the inspired Record in another respect, and also with what our knowledge of physical agencies should lead us to expect. It is a highly important consideration that it would seem to be a necessary consequence of the final conflagration foretold by St. Peter (2 Epist. iii. 13) that, for a time at least, there could be "no more sea on the earth. The effect of such "the

an amount of igneous action as is implied by elements melting with fervent heat," and "the earth, with the works that are therein, being burned up," would be, that the waters of the sea would be entirely evaporated, if not converted into their constituent gases. Whether, if left to themselves, they would be