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early progress, expound those in the three next Seals of the wars, famines, and pestilences, which, it is supposed, were to follow on its promulgation, not each in marked chronological sequence one after the other, but rather coincidently in time; or perhaps, like those predicted by Christ in his prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, very much intermixed together.'

2. The particularity and finish (if I may so say) of the several minor emblems, which together make up in each case the Seal's compound symbol, seem to require a similarly particular explanation of the details of the symbol, all construed, of course, after their approved meaning; thereby rendering improbable all interpretation that may so far deal in generals as to construe the horse and horseman conjointly in each case of some great event, system, or abstraction: such, for example, as in Dr. Keith's scheme, which makes the things signified to be the four religious systems, successively developed and brought into power, of Christianity, Mahommedism, Popery,2 and Infidelity; or, again, the Christianity, War, Famine, and Pestilence, propounded in the scheme before noted.

3. The homogeneity of the common emblems of a horse and horseman in all the four Seals, seems to call for a homogeneous interpretation of them; that is to say, that if the horse in the first Seal be construed of an empire, or of the Christian Church, then it should be similarly construed of an empire, or of the Church, in the Seals following: 3 and again, that if the horseman in the first Seal be construed of an individual, (which indeed, in case of the horse meaning a thing corporate,

So of old Victorinus and others, referring expressly to Christ's prophecy of the wars, famines, and pestilences that (without any marked chronological sequence on each other) were to precede his coming, or rather the destruction of Jerusalem. (On whose view my Sketch of the History and Progress of Apocalyptic interpretation, given in the Appendix, may be consulted.) So too, I believe, among living interpreters, Mr. Digby.

Such is Dr. Keith's succession. But surely, chronologically speaking, Popery should have been placed before Mahommedism.

3 So Vitringa, p. 310. "Si fata Romani Imperii symbolicis imaginibus priorum quatuor sigillorum depinguntur, necesse fuit ut Romanum Imperium continuâ temporis serie, sub quatuor his prodiisset aspectibus qui his imaginibus exhibentur." This he says in refutation of Mede's exposition, explaining the white horse and its rider of Christ's Church, the others of the Roman Empire.

such as an empire or church, seems scarcely consistent,) then the horseman in the other three Seals should be so construed also. Thus the interpretations which make Christ, personally, to be the rider in the first Seal, but assign no such individual rider to the other horses, seem to be pro tanto inconsistent and improbable.

4. With regard to the comparative probability, antecedent to more particular investigation, of the Church, or some earthly empire or nation being meant by the emblematic horse, the impracticability just alluded to of construing the rider of the white horse as Christ Himself, personally and individually, will instantly and greatly diminish the strength of any prepossession in favour of the former view, derived from the fact of Christ's afterwards appearing personally in vision on a white horse: and the impression will suggest itself that the two visions are to be regarded (so as I have already intimated in speaking of the moral of the drama 2) in the light of a marked contrast, not an identity of subject. This impression will be strengthened by the obvious and striking difference of details in the two symbolic figurations; 3 and yet further by the corroborative circumstance that there is no example any where else in Scripture of the Christian Church being symbolized by a horse. Nor, I am persuaded, will human learning or ingenuity ever be found to carry out satisfactorily a detailed historical explanation of the four

1 Apoc. xix. 11.

2 See p. 106 suprà.

Especially in that the figuration of Apoc. xix. 11, instead of Christ's one white horse, presented many others in association; so setting aside the idea of its there at least meaning the Church. Again in Apoc. xix, Christ wore on his head many diadems, instead of a crown as in Apoc. vi: and moreover had a sword proceeding out of his mouth, instead of a bow in his hand.

The horse and his rider is an expression continually used in Scripture in designation of a heathen military power. So Exod. xv. 21, Jer. li. 21, Ezek. xxiii. 6, Hagg. ii. 21, Zech. ix. 20, &c. There is but one passage in the Old Testament, where the symbol of a horse is used of any but a military heathen power, viz. Zech. x. 3; where God says, "I will make Judah my goodly horse in battle: " and there it is borrowed, if I may so say, from the custom of Judah's enemies boasting of their horses and riders. Compare verse 5. Indeed horses were expressly forbidden to the Jews: see Deut. xvii. 16. Ps. xx. 7, &c.-Moreover Judah is not the Christian Church.

1

Seals, on this principle. So Vitringa allows; and the trials that have been made to accomplish it, have only served strikingly to illustrate the truth of Vitringa's admission.

Hence the à priori probability of the Apocalyptic horse meaning a nation or empire; and, if so, then of course that nation with which, more than any other, the Christian Church both was, and was to be, locally connected; that is, the Roman nation. The circumstance of other heathen nations or empires having been elsewhere similarly depicted in Scripture by certain of the more domestic animals, (contradistinctively, I mean, to wild beasts, their emblems in the persecuting character,) e. g. the Persian nation by a ram, and Macedonian by a goat,3 is one confirmatory of this view: and the fitness of the warhorse to signify the martial Roman nation, especially as claiming to be the Mavortia proles, with Mars, the god of war, for their father,-seems almost self-evident. Nor, if in those other cases the appropriateness of the emblems has been further evidenced from the actual self-application of them by either nation, (so as Persian and Macedonian coins still extant prove to us,4) is similar corroborative proof of fitness wanting in the present instance. A horse was one of the ancient Roman war-standards.5 At spring and at autumn, each year as it rolled round, the Romans from Romulus' time, it is said, down to the time of the Emperors, saw the horse exhibited in sacrifices and in games, as the animal sacred to their father Mars.6 Italian (I might

1 "Videbam interpretes qui per equum album hic intelligunt ecclesiam Christi, vehementer laborare in sequente emblemate rectè exponendo." p. 328. * See my General Appendix, Vol. iv. Part ii. § 4. 4 Engravings of these coins will be given in my 3rd Vol.

3 Daniel viii. 20, 21.

5 So Pliny x. 4; "Erat et antea aquila prima cum quatuor aliis. Lupi, minotauri, equi, aprique singulos ordines anteibant." i. e. up to the time of Marius.

• The sacrifice of the horse, in one annual festival to Mars, is noted by Festus in Octob. and the horse-races by the same author, in Equiria, as at another.Tertullian de Spectac. c. 5, notices these last, "Dehinc equiria Marti Romulus dixit;" just after mentioning Romulus as Mars' son. On which passage Pamelius illustrates the institution from Varro, Festus, and Ovid.

PL. 11.

THE ROMAN HORSE.

ROMA

MANO

THE ROMAN IMPERIAL HORSEMAN.

CAESARDIVIF

From Medals in the Brush Muse

P 123.

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