Mr. G. had already represented the myriads of myriads of angels as symbols of the Christian laity of the empire, from whose superstitious practices he here infers that the inhabitants of the celestial hemispheres on either side of it, and of the earth, here symbolize that body. But if the angels in the divine presence represented the nominally Christian population of the empire, there can have been no need that they should now be represented again by the inhabitants of all the other orbs in the universe; and that they should, at the same time, come forward in their own persons, and utter the ascriptions which had been uttered and were then being uttered in their behalf by other orders of intelligences.

This worship was not only offered in the presence of God, but was directly addressed to him as well as to the Lamb. "Blessing and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever." To maintain, then, that it was an idolatrous worship of the Lamb, is, in effect, to maintain that God who sat on the throne sanctioned it, and thereby sanctioned all the superstitious and idolatrous practices which Mr. Gascoyne holds were represented by it. It is not to be supposed that God would permit a worship in his immediate presence which was infinitely false and impious. Mr. Gascoyne thus, on the one hand, virtually exhibits God as approving and authorizing a worship which he holds to have been idolatrous; and on the other, denies to him the attributes and rights which he maintains were idolatrously ascribed to him.

And finally, his construction implies that the inhabitants of all the celestial worlds are in apostasy from God. For if they were proper symbols of fallen man offering an idolatrous worship, that act must have been suitable to their character. Like all other symbols, they must have acted according to their own peculiar mental and moral nature. The supposition, therefore, that they personated fallen men, is a supposition that they were themselves fallen. Mr. Gascoyne's theory thus again undeifies God, and exhibits all his moral creatures as having fallen from their allegiance, and mocking him in his presence by ascriptions of perfections that do

not belong to him, and utterances of adoration they do not feel!

Such is the frightful desecration of these visions into which he has been betrayed; such the horrible caricature of God, of the Lamb, of the redeemed in heaven, of the angels in the Divine presence, and of the whole unfallen universe, which he has perpetrated. We might pursue him through his volume, and point out at every stage a tissue of similar errors. But it is not necessary. We shall have accomplished our object, in this exposure of his mistakes, if we have impressed our readers with a due sense of the utter folly, presumption, and guilt of attempting to interpret the Apocalypse by mere theories which disregard at once, the laws of the prophecy, the nature of intelligent creatures, and God's perfections and rights. Mr. Gascoyne, in place of confining himself to the work of an interpreter, turns oracle, and undertakes to develope from the visions of the Apocalypse a revelation they do not contain; by making God himself, the Lamb, the throne, the attending saints and angels, and the holy, universally, who offer God and the Lamb worship, the medium of a prophecy antecedent to and independent of all revealing acts; and runs into misconceptions and errors so monstrous, as to confound and overthrow the prophecy, misrepresent and caricature God's government, and defame and deny his perfections. Were an open infidel guilty of such a violation and abuse of the Divine word, the outrage would be regarded as bespeaking an extraordinary recklessness and atrocity. Though the forms of misrepresentation to which Mr. Gascoyne's theory led him, and the lengths to which he has gone, are extraordinary, they only exemplify the certainty that false and fatal issues will result from all attempts to interpret the prophecy by theories instead of the laws of symbols. It is owing to the mistaken and arbitrary methods expositors have pursued, that they have placed such a variety of false and contradictory constructions on it, and have given birth so generally to the feeling that it is inexplicable. Of the numerous interpreters of Daniel and John in Great Britain, for example, in the last three hundred years, scarce a dozen have entered into an inquiry into the principles of interpretation; and not one has approached a

just view of the laws of symbolization. A like neglect has prevailed among the Protestants on the Continent. No other result, therefore, could justly be expected, than endless diversities, and the most grave and absurd mistakes. Nor can any essential improvement be anticipated till the interpretation of the Apocalypse, Daniel, and the other prophecies by arbitrary hypotheses and lawless conjectures is abandoned, and their meaning is sought to be determined only by the proper laws of symbols and language. And when interpreted by those laws, their general sense is obvious and certain, and is universally in harmony with the attributes of the great Revealer, in accordance with the nature of man, and consistent with the truths that are taught in other parts of the Bible.

Interpreted by those laws, the visions we have been contemplating have none of the absurd and revolting characters Mr. Gascoyne ascribes to them, but are in the highest degree suitable to God and the Lamb, who appear in them, and convey the truths and make the impressions that are requisite to prepare the reader for a just appreciation of the revelation that follows. Thus the vision, chapter i., had for its office to show the apostle that Christ was the being by whom the revelation he was about to receive was to be made; and impress him with becoming realizations of the grandeur of his glorified person, the supreme power with which he was invested, and his presence with the churches, and dominion over them. And nothing can surpass its adaptation to that end. His human form, the dazzling resplendence of his countenance, the piercing glance of his eyes, the thunder of his voice, and his annunciation of himself as the first and the last; and he that lives and was dead; and behold he is to live through the ages of ages; and has the keys of death. and hades, raised the apostle in an instant to the clearest discernment and most overpowering conviction that he was the glorified Redeemer, and filled him with the awe, astonishment, and terror, the manifested presence of Christ in the majesty with which he is clothed in heaven, must naturally excite, and he sank to the earth fainting and expiring as it were, under the impression. No possibility was left of his mistaking the spectacle he had beheld for a creation of his own fancy; nor of his doubting that the

being that stood before him and addressed him, was the Son of God. And the absolute certainty, the towering convic tions with which his whole being was filled that it was Christ whom he beheld, was essential to prepare him for the revelations that followed. And the vision as it is painted by John, is designed to fill the like office to us. We cannot comprehend the great scenes that follow, unless we gain a just view of the great Revealer as he manifested himself in this first vision, and are impressed in a measure. with the awe, the submission, the adoration, the faith with which the apostle was inspired.

In like manner the vision of the fourth chapter was designed to show the prophet that the revelation about to be communicated to him, was made by the Son in conjunction with the Father, and that they sustained those relations to each other in conducting the government of the world, which Christ had represented in his discourses to his disciples. The Almighty Father revealed himself enthroned in the heavens the heights above the earth-clad in dazzling glory, and overarched by a rainbow. His awful form, his station, the grandeur with which he was surrounded, the lightnings that flashed from his presence, and the utterances of the lofty intelligences that chanted him the eternal, the almighty, the holy, the creator of all, and cast their crowns at his feet; proclaimed him to be self-existent with a clearness and impressiveness that carried the apprehension and feeling of his deity through all the depths of the prophet's consciousness. The beings who were throned or stood in his presence and worshipped him, indicated also his relations to the redeemed in heaven, and to that order of celestial agents who fill offices in the conduct of his providence over our world. The living creatures stationed at the corners of the throne, and perhaps in a measure supporting it, as in Ezekiel, chapter i. 22, 23, .were human beings redeemed from the earth. Their external forms were designed doubtless to signify the vast sublimation of their perceptive and active powers, and their intimate relations to God, the perfection of their character, and the dignity of the offices they fill in his heavenly presence. They represent those of the redeemed in heaven, who, from their long abode there, have risen to measures of intelligence, indicated by their nume

rous eyes, and love and devotion manifested by their continual worship that fit them for such a relation to the Most High. They possibly may represent the saints who were raised from the dead at Christ's resurrection. The elders also, seated in a half circle in front of the throne of God, were human beings redeemed from the earth. Their white robes denoted their justification, and implied, therefore, that their life on earth had closed, and that they had been judged and accepted. Their crowns signified not only that they had been accepted as victors in their warfare here, but that they were exalted to stations of authority in heaven; and their stations and homage indicate that they are raised to perfect holiness; that they stand in intimate relations to God in their heavenly abode; that they are exalted to a lofty knowledge of the perfections and works of the Most High, and feel and proclaim with a rapture of awe and delight his title to the love and adoration of all his creatures. And their place in his presence, and their robes, and crowns, and thrones, and union with the living creatures in worship are as indubitable signals that they have passed from the earth, and are fully sanctified and dwell in heaven; as the dazzling majesty of God, and the lightnings that dart from his presence, and the homage he receives, are, that he is Jehovah, and has his throne in the skies.

The angels that stood exterior to the elders on the pavement, that like a glassy sea spread in a vast semicircle, were doubtless, from their great number-several hundred millions at the lowest, and not improbably thousands and even millions of millions-representatives of all the orders of angelic intelligences in the universe, and their presence indicated that they have a knowledge of God's government over this world, and that they fill offices as his messengers, that have a reference to it. The design and effect of the vision of the fourth chapter in which God revealed himself to John in the ineffable glory in which he had manifested himself to some of the prophets in earlier ages; and in the relations to the redeemed in heaven, and the angelic orders, which the ancient Scriptures exhibit him as sustaining, thus was to raise the apostle to the clearest sight and most vivid realizations that God the Father as well as the Son made the revelation he was about to receive, and inspire him with the 25

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