PART I.

SIX FIRST SEALS :

THE TEMPORARY PROSPERITY, AND THEN THE DECLINE AND FALL, OF THE EMPIRE OF PAGAN ROME.

A.D. 96 TO 313.

APOC. CHAPTER VI.

"And when the Lamb had opened one of the seals, I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four living creatures saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse! And he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.-And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another and there was given him a great sword.-And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come and see. And I beheld, and

lo a black horse! And he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A choenix of wheat for a denarius, and three choenixes of barley for a denarius; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.-And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse! And his name that sat on him

And power

was Death, and Hades followed with him. was given him to kill on the fourth part of the earth with the sword, and with hunger, and with pestilence, and with the wild beasts of the earth.—And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo! there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair: and the moon became as blood: and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth; even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together: and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us, from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

2

;

The passage above quoted constitutes the first Act in the heavenly drama ;-that represented under the six first Seals.

Its general subject I have presumed to be the decline and fall, after a previous prosperous æra, of the empire

1 So Griesbach, auTq.

2 I have deviated from the received version in translating (wa living creatures, instead of beasts; ådŋs Hades, instead of hell; erɩ on, instead of over, the fourth part; xowig chanix, instead of measure; dnvapis denarius, instead of penny; Oavary pestilence, instead of death; Onpwr wild beasts, instead of beasts.

of Pagan Rome. And it may be well to observe by anticipation that there was that in the details of the emblem of the very first Seal which, if I mistake not, instead of leaving its meaning doubtful or indistinct, must at once have suggested the Roman Empire and Emperors, as its intended subject of symbolization ;—i. e. to any one unprepossessed by other expectations as to the intent of the prophecy, and conversant, like the Evangelist, with the manners and customs of the age. The evidence I trust soon to bring fully not only before the mind, but even the eye of the reader.-Before doing so, however, it may be useful to make a few preliminary remarks, bearing on the right interpretation alike of the symbols of this Seal and those of the three following; symbols constituting the quaternion of horses and horsemen, with the succession of which the revelations of the future given to St. John opened. The principles suggested will be found very simple; and such, I trust, as will almost at once approve themselves to the common sense of the intelligent and candid reader.

And 1st, the chronology of each vision, as fixed by the prophecy itself, is evidently a point most necessary to attend to that of the first Seal determining its symbol to signify what was to happen soon after the epoch of St. John's seeing the visions in Patmos; that of the second, third, and fourth limiting them to events, or changes, that were to have commencing epochs each in chronological sequence to the events (or at least the main part of them) 1 signified in the vision of the Seal preceding. Hence there will be set aside as inadmissible, not merely such extraordinarily unchronological explanations as those which interpret the four horses and horsemen to mean the four great empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome,2 the first three of which, had ages before past away; but also such as, while expounding the first Seal's symbol of Christianity in its

1

1 Of course there may be a certain overrunning of the commencement of the new vision's subject, by the termination of that of the vision preceding. 2 So Fore the martyrologist, as well as Mr. Faber.