patience ye believers in his reign upon the earth, who are scoffed at as delirious and doating fools, or evil entreated as deep and designing men, look to him and do not make haste. Thou Holy Spirit, which he giveth, teach to us the same waiting contentment which possesseth him. Great example once, of suffering patience, and now glorious example of waiting patience, teach me, O my Lord, to be meek, as thou art meek; merciful, as thou art merciful, and faithful, as thou art faithful; and help me on my way to open perfectly this revelation of thy present greatness and thy coming glory.

CONCLUSION.

The argument of the whole vision is therefore briefly as follows: The eternal God, willing to magnify his Son who had glorified him as "the Man of Sorrows," and to shew what prowess, and valliancy, and power was hidden in that lowly form of a Lamb, what excellence of love in that Lamb's submitting to be slain, doth convene the estates of creation; and, having received their homage as Creator, doth take into his hand the book of controversy, the direful book of the controversy between good and evil, whereof the redemption of the earth by overcoming and subjecting sin for ever, is the noble prize. And all creation, being invoked to enter the lists of controversy, is paralyzed and nonplussed, and proved unequal to the task of redeeming ; whereupon the Lamb slain, as his natural right, in virtue of the work which he had achieved, advanceth to the throne, and receives the book, the seal of a complete redemption, and straightway enters upon the active work of possessing himself and his bride of that inheritance which he had purchased with his blood. Whereby he is proved to be more than creature; for what no creature can do surpasseth creature's power; and he is proved to be the only Redeemer of God's elect, and likewise the Redeemer of the lost inheritance. Of the former office of the Redeemer much is written in our theological books, especially in our Confession of Faith and Catechisms; of the latter, nothing at all: the more, for the well-being and recovery of the church, and the composing of many commotions which arise out of ignorance of this great

point of doctrine, do I feel it my duty to dwell upon this celestial action, which, by the blessing of God, I will conclude in my next.

Before closing this lecture, we have an observation to make upon the Apocalypse, as giving Christian form, in time and place, to those prophecies written to the Jews, in their proper typical language. For this is one great service which the Apocalypse doth unto the canon of Scripture, that it weaves a regular tissue of Christian prophecy out of the various threads of Jewish prophecy scattered over the Old Testament; which it doth not by the destruction of this, nor to the supplanting of it, nay nor to the adding to it of a jot, or taking from it of a tittle, least of all to the spiriting of it all away from earth to heaven, as they talk, or the conjuring of it from plain, literal sense into spiritual speculation of every licentious interpreter. Nay, verily, but to the construction therewith of a regular symbolical history of the events of the Christian church, until the time that the election according to grace, the antitype of the elect nation of Israel, is taken up to meet the Lord in the clouds; and the tares, the reprobate and apostate parts of Christendom, are burned with the fire of Jehovah's wrath. Moreover, this web of Christian prophecy, woven out of the words and facts of the Jewish story, both past, present, and to come, is not the Jewish story, and hath nothing to do with the Jews at all, save when special and distinct mention is made thereof, but is the Christian story,—is the history of the elect people of God, written with the words and facts which God had already prepared, in the typical testimony for that very end: in one word, the Apocalypse given to John the Divine is that same use made of Jewish types historical, for setting forth the history of the church, the body of Christ, which Paul maketh of the Jewish types ceremonial, for stating out the doctrine of the church, or body of Christ. And if our divines delight to follow Paul's method of expounding Christian doctrine by atonement, sacrifice, passover, high priest, priests, &c.; by what right do they dare to repel God's method of setting forth ecclesiastical history in this book, by the method of Jewish historical events, such as the seasons of the year, the feasts and festivals of the nation, the captivity of

Babylon, &c.? or why dare they, when one of their brethren gravely undertakes, in the way of story, what Luther, and Calvin, and others accomplished in the way of doctrine, to say he speculates wildly, he dreams, he raves incoherently. Yea, though they have ceased themselves to interpret the Scriptures, though they will put forth whole volumes of Sermons without one interpretation, let me tell them that it never was so done in the Christian church, and cannot stand: and let me speak to the young theologians, the sons of the prophets in the schools of the prophets occupied, that if they would see peace upon our Israel, and plenty in our Zion, they must work for it digging in the mine of the Scriptures, and labouring in the work of interpretation, instead of giving themselves to the abstractions and argumentations of a thread-bare and worn-out system of theology; or depend upon the powerful efforts of natural reason, to plead the cause of God, without the word of God in their mouths to plead withal, or the knowledge of God in the minds of the people, to answer to their powerful pleadings. I am no vain pretender, nor impertinent fool, when I say that in these and other interpretations, I am shewing to the rising generation of Divines the only way in which the cause of religion and righteousness will rise and flourish again; which, if they had a preacher in every pulpit with the power of a Demosthenes, and the flow of a Cicero, cannot in the way of eloquence and argument come to pass. I say it again, and I conclude this lecture with earnestly impressing it upon all, and especially upon the teachers of the people, that interpretation of the Scriptures, not to teach a system contained in articles or confessions, but to justify God the Creator, and Christ the Redeemer, against man the sinner, and the apostatising church; yea, to make God known in being and in act, in word and in deed; to discover to man the original purpose of his creation, his present condition. and his future glory;-interpretation for this end, is the only hope of the church, which I verily believe to be at a lower ebb in respect, both of knowledge and of faith, and I fear of temper also, than it ever hath been since the Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost.

VISION II.

OF CHRIST THE REDEEMER OF THE EARTH.

SONNET I.

The Rapture of the Seer.-Rev. iv. 1.

THIS vision ended, and these things reveal'd,

I, John, look'd up; when, lo! the vault of heaven

Was open'd wide, its veil asunder riven:

As once to Jesus, when the Spirit seal'd

Him Son of God in mortal flesh conceal'd;

As in the grandeurs to Ezekiel given,

And Stephen's welcome from on high, when driven

To cruel death by men 'gainst justice steel'd;

(Mark v. 10.)

(Ezek. i. 1.)

(Acts vii.)

So open'd unto me in heaven a door,

And with a trumpet voice an angel spake :
"Up hither come, and learn celestial lore:
Thee future things to understand I'll make."
Me, wistful, straightway to the heavenly floor,
Wrapt in His mood, the Spirit did up take.

SONNET II.

The Enthroned One.-Rev. iv. 2.

And there set up in heaven I saw a throne,
Whereon was seated, in eternal might,
He who the world doth rule in single right :
Flesh red he was, as is the sardine stone;
And like the jasper bright his body shone;

(Lam. iv. 7.)

As crystal clear, all radiant as the light Wherein God dwells apart from creature sight : God-man, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone;

The Father in the glorious mantle seen

Of risen manhood, predetermin'd shrine

(Rev. xxi.)

Where Godhead chose to dwell. A rainbow, green

As purest emerald, round the throne Divine

Its mercy threw, and to my heart spake keen : Of God in covenant for this earth the sign.

(Gen. ix. 16.)

SONNET III.

The Throne.-Rev. iv. 5, 6.

The throne itself was wond'rous to behold:
The like was never seen by mortal eye,
Nor heard of by the ear; nor doth it lie
Within the artist's scope to cast its mould;
Forth from its womb came voices manifold;
It was instinct with life and reason high;
Thence thunders roll'd, and forth did lightnings fly,
Which lay this world in desolation cold;
Before it ever burn seven lamps of fire,

Sign of the Holy Ghost, that Spirit pure,

Whose baptism maketh meet t' approach Heaven's Sire ;

In peaceful grandeur for its base secure

(Ezek. i. 22.) Stretch'd out a crystal sea, earth's bright attire When purg'd of sin: thus ever to endure.

SONNET IV.

The four Living Ones.-Rev. iv. 6, 7, 8.

But chief of all, within that mystic seat,
There was, to see, a thing beyond compare :
Four living creatures, who dwell every where
Within its sacred bound, and ever greet
Your eye with Omnipresence, like the sheet

Of light'ning: All full of eyes they were,
Within, before, behind; which doth declare
That they are spiritu'l: with wings most fleet

To execute God's will: their fourfold face, Man, eagle, ox, and lion, doth pourtray

A fourfold lordship-reason, heavenly space, Earth, clean and unclean; all creation's sway:

(Ezek. i.)

God's life, power, strength they wield; and from their place Give forth that voice which all things else obey.