To trace these marks of parallelism, as they occur, will be an object with me in what follows: the correspondences, I mean, between the prophecies of chapters vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, on the one hand, and those of chapters xii, xiii, xiv, on the other. So far as they have been fulfilled, in other words up to the times now present, to trace them will not be difficult: the subject-matter of the one series being chiefly but not wholly secular, of the other chiefly but not wholly ecclesiastical; and the intermingling of subject in either case just sufficient to mark the parallelism and correspondecy.-But of this enough. A sketch of the Scroll itself, thus divided, given near the beginning of my first Volume, best exhibits the whole to the reader's eye. It is time to proceed onward to the first vision of the new series itself.-Let me only, ere doing so, premise one observation. It is probable that the subject may prove one not admitting of so much dramatic interest in the development, as much of what has gone before: the chronological ground having been already once gone over, and the work now required that chiefly of decyphering the particulars of certain complicated hieroglyphics or enigmas. But, even admitting this, I pray the reader to believe that its importance is second to none, in the whole compass of the Apocalyptic prophecy. Especially at the present time there can be no over-estimating of it. Herein will be found wisdom, to understand the Beast's mystery. Blessed is he that readeth, and he that both with mind and heart comprehendeth, this part of the prophecy. lelism might, as I conceive, be expected in that which contained, as did the Apocalypse, a continuous connected chain of prophecy. which Dr. A. Clarke thus comments. "It seems that the Roll was written on the front and back. Stealing and swearing are supposed to be two general heads of crimes; the former being sins against man; the latter against God." CHAPTER I. THE SUN-CLOTHED WOMAN TRAVAILING, AND SEVENHEADED DRAGON CAST DOWN. a "AND there appeared a great sign' in heaven; woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she, being with child, cried travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.-And there appeared another sign in heaven and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns; and on his heads seven diadems. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the ground. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all the nations (en, gentiles or pagans,) with a rod of iron. And the child was caught up to God, and to his throne. (And the woman fled towards the wilderness; 2 where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.)—And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels; and prevailed not, neither was their place any more found in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out; that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast down upon the ground, and his angels were 1 Enμelov. The authorized version wonder would rather answer to the Greek Tepas. The two words are used together in Heb. ii. 4, "signs, and wonders, and miracles." A onμelov, or sign, is properly some visible representation, bearing resemblance to what the sign is to predict. So Ezekiel laying siege against a picture of Jerusalem; (Ezek. iv. 1—3;) “This shall be a sign to the house of Israel:" Matt. xii. 39, "An evil generation seeketh after a sign; and no sign shall be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas," &c. And again Luke ii. 12, &c.-So Bryce Johnston. 2 εις την ερημον, observed on afterwards. cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven; Now hath come the salvation, and strength, and kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ : for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives. unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them!" Apoc. xii. 1-12. Thus, as the best and necessary introduction to the history of the WILD BEAST FROM THE ABYSS, the Witnesses' persecutor and murderer, there was first sketched to St. John in vision something of that of an earlier and cognate enemy of the Church, the SEVEN HEADED DRAGON. In order to the decyphering of the whole hieroglyphic, we have to consider in the above, 1. the persons and state of things indicated by the two associated symbols of the woman travailing, and the seven-headed dragon watching to devour her child at birth; 2. the historical solution both of the crisis itself, and of what is said of the result of the crisis, in the woman's parturition and the dragon's dejection from heaven; 3. the song of triumph celebrating it. COTEMPORARY STATE OF I. THE PERSONS, AND THINGS, INDICATED BY THE TWO ASSOCIATED SYMBOLS OF THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON. 1. The meaning of the travailing woman, first exhibited in vision, can scarce be mistaken. She is spoken of in the last verse of this chapter as the mother of "those that keep the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ."1 She was evidently there 1 Compare Gal. iv. 26; "The Jerusalem that is above, and is the mother of us all." On which expression see my Note 2, Vol. i. p. 101.-The difference between this ideal mother-church of St. Paul, and the woman or church in the text, is I conceive that the former includes all the Lord's saints, those departed as well as those alive on earth,-the latter those only that are alive on earth, with reference of course to their corporate or church character: also that the fore Christ's true Church on earth: the Church of the 144,000, or first born, whose names were written in heaven: one ever faithful in heart and all essential doctrine; though not without the tarnish, more or less, of some earthly admixture. In respect of profest faith and worship, the temple and its inner court had been before used to represent it; in respect of polity, the figure of the Holy City. But there was yet another character in which the Lord would exhibit its relation to Him; a relation the closest and most endeared, and which was mysteriously shadowed forth in the marriage-union, instituted for the children of men in Paradise ;-I mean that of the Bride, the Lamb's wife.-The investiture of the woman with the sun as her robe of light, the moon (the crescent-moon, I conceive) as the sandal to her feet, and the twelve stars as her coronal or diadem, must needs have appeared on the scene of vision very beautiful and it might perhaps recal to St. John that description of the Church in the Song of Songs; "Fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and terrible as an host (the starry host, surely) with its banners." -But what 3 former is pure from all admixture of evil; while the latter has that admixture, both from the remaining sin of the regenerate, and from the apparent adhesion to it of certain of the orthodox unregenerate. See Vol. i. p. 100, and Apoc. viii. 3, xi. 1, 2, &c. 2 In Apoc. xix. 7, the whole true Church, perfected, is again brought forward in this character; "The marriage of the Lamb hath come, and his wife hath made herself ready :" also Apoc. xxi. 2: “I saw the new Jerusalem prepared as a bride for her husband." The 144,000, its earthly living part, are so hinted at Apoc. xiv. 4. 3 In the Canticles vii. 1, the bride's shoes are mentioned as among her ornaments of dress; "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes." And any one who may have seen the gold or silver-embroidered, and at one end crescent-shaped shoes of the rich Asiatics, will recognize the appropriateness of this representation of the crescent-moon in the vision.-This form of it however is not necessary to my explanation." In Isa. iii. 18, "round tires like the moon," are mentioned among the ornaments of the daughters of Zion: and Diodati says on the verse that they wore those often on their shoes." So somewhat similarly the noble Romans of St. John's time as Statius expresses it Silv. v. 2. 29; Sic te clara puer genitum sibi curia sensit; On which Cruseus: "Lunatis calceis, id est habentibus speciem mediæ lunæ, utebantur nobiles." 4 Cant. vi. 10. In the authorized version it is "terrible as an army" (the word army, or host, is supplied) "with banners:" and it is suggested by learned Commentators that the allusion in the word banners is to the distinctive lights of 4 the things prefigured hereby? This is the question. And first there can scarce be meant by the solar emblem, I think, what so many commentators have suggested in explanation,'-the church's investiture with Christ as the sun of righteousness. The sun is no where in the Apocalyptic imagery made the representative of Christ. His countenance with its own intrinsic light is described as like the sun,2 not as borrowing the sun to enlighten it: and, when fully revealed in the heavenly City, as altogether superseding it to the favoured inhabitants.3 Nor, again, by her having the moon subjacent can there be meant a trampling on things sublunary. Can the moon signify things under the moon ? Consistency requires that we explain these greater luminaries to signify the chief rulers of the state, according to the general prophetic use of the symbols; and in the same way the stars noted to signify lesser rulers in it. As to the precisely defined number of twelve stars,-considering that the professing Church on the Apocalyptic scene, including the true, was in an earlier vision numerically symbolized as the twelve tribes of Israel, we cannot well err, I think, in explaining them to signify the heads, or ecclesiastical rulers, of those twelve tribes. Especially since this interpretation agrees with that which is given by inspiration itself of almost precisely the same symbol, in the earliest of all emblematic visions, the dream of the Pa 5 different companies of a caravan travelling by night, high raised on a pole before each company. See Dr. A. Clarke's note ad loc. But why not rather the distinctive lights, or constellations, of the heavenly host ;-associated as the figure is with the sun and moon? The word host (if that be the one to be supplied) is applied, alike in the Hebrew and English, to the starry hosts; as well as to earthly hosts or armies. 1 For example among modern expositors Mede, Bishop Newton, Sir I. Newton, Vitringa, &c.-And so too one of the most ancient, Hippolytus; whose explanation of the whole symbol I here add. "Mulierim amictam sole clarissimè Ecclesiam significavit, paterno indutam Verbo, quod sole micantius splendet. Dicendo Lunam sub pedibus ejus, cœlesti claritate lunæ in morem ornatam ostendit. Quòd autem ait, In capite ejus corona stellarum duodecim, duodecim apostolos designat, per quos fundata est ecclesia." Compare Apoc. i. 16, x. 1: also Matt. xvii. 2, &c. 3 Apoc. xxi. 23; The city hath no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it; for the Lamb was the light thereof: " and so again xxii. 5. 4 A sandal too is worn not to be trampled, but to protect the foot. |