as a memorial to us of the first æra, and, as Gibbon would say, of the first symptom and cause, (here allusively preintimated to St. John) of the antichristian APOSTACY.'

Oh! how was it, we may well say with Neander, that men so soon confused the divine thing with the sign. which presented it! And how was it that they did not even then perceive the real nature and portentous evil of the doctrine! Surely, had they profited by the light of scripture and its holy prophecies, as by a light shining in a dark place, they would have recognised, through the obscure mistiness of the moral atmosphere, the awful features of the instealing phantom, and the enemy of man animating and guiding it.

Apparent diræ facies, inimicaque Troja

Numina.

But the word of God (though not as yet forbidden) was still not studied or explained with the same simplicity and singleness of mind as once. Silently and slowly an advance had been already made to that which was essential to the successful establishment of the Apostacy, the supercession of the written word. In the undue reference to supposed apostolical unwritten tradition 2 an almost

Let me further observe that Ambrose, in noting Constantine's baptism, tells how "Baptismatis gratiâ, in ultimis constitutus, omnia peccata dimiserit;" without any remark on the error of thus delaying it. De Obit. Theodus. vii. 37.

In the two former editions a medal was given with the Legend Constantinus Bap. round the Emperor's bust, as illustrative of the event and occasion. But Mr. Lewis has convinced me that Baronius' and Ducange's reading of the Legend BAP is incorrect, and that it is in reality BRP. I have therefore now withdrawn the engraving.

2 Even in some of the earlier fathers, unguarded statements will be found on this point. Thus Irenæus,—although in i. 1. 15 noting the preference of unwritten traditions to Holy Scripture as a characteristic of heretics, and in iii. 2. saying of them, Cùm ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum, quasi non rectè habeant, et quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas qui nesciant traditionem, non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem," does yet soon after himself make appeal to the tradition kept by the Bishops of the Church. And Tertullian, De Cor. Mil. iii. 3, thus asserts its authority. "In traditionis obtentu exigenda est, inquis, auctoritas scripta. Ergo quæramus an et traditio non scripta non debeat recipi." And then, having limited the cases in which unwritten tradition was of authority to such as Scripture had not determined, ("Si nulla Scriptura determinavit, certè consuetudo corroboravit, quæ sine dubio de traditione manavit,") he exemplifies in the baptismal rite; in which sundry things then done that had not been enjoined in

coequal standard of authority had been set up. In the philosophy of the Alexandrian Platonics, an engine had begun to work, which, through allegorizing, did away with much of its true and simple meaning.' In the discipline of the secret it was made a part of the religious system to hold reserve, except to the baptized or initiated,2 on certain of the gospel verities; especially on one the most glorious of all, and against which, as the great object of justifying and saving faith, the Apostacy was to direct its bitterest enmity,-I mean the vicarious and propitiatory atonement of the Son of God.3 Once more, by the falsitas dispensativa it was deemed permissible, and even meritorious, for approved ends to pervert truth and Scripture.+-Thus no wonder that the true and only source of life, light, and justification to the soul should have been more and more forgotten. No wonder that the doctrinal error should have crept in of mistaking the form for the spirit, the outward for the inward, the instrument for the original and effectual agent, the means for the object and end. No wonder that the priesthood too, as well as the ritual, should have begun to interpose between the people and Christ.-Indeed it must never be overlooked, in our view of the first germinating of the Apostacy, that it was very much to the neglect of the spirit of the written word, even while it was outwardly had in honour,5 that all this was owing. Scripture, as three dippings, tasting milk and honey, and abstaining for a week from the usual ablutions, &c, were, he thought, thereby sufficiently sanctioned. -Yet the very limitation shows that Tertullian was mainly sound on this point. See Riddle's Christian Antiq. p. 71.

1 See Burton's Church History, ch. xvi.

2 μεμνημενοι.

3 This too originated in the Alexandrian School. See Bishop Kaye's Tertullian, pp. 35, 250, 251. He concludes; Having already given our opinion respecting the mischievous consequences which have arisen to the church from the countenance lent by the writings of Clemens Alexandrinus to the notion of a disciplina arcani, we shall now only express our regret that Protestant divines, in their eagerness to establish a favourite point, should sometimes have been induced to resort to it."

The disciplina arcani," says Lardner, iv. 231, "was unknown to Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, and other primitive Christian writers."

See Gilly's Vigilantius, p. 269.-Augustine's strong reprobation of this as advocated by Jerome, both appears in his letters xxviii. 3, lxxxii. 21, addrest to Jerome himself, and abundantly elsewhere. Mosheim is unjustifiable in classing him with others his cotemporaries, iv. 2, 3, 16.

5 So more early Origen, and a little later Jerome and Chrysostom.

Hence the superstitious exaltation of the ceremonial. Hence the misapprehension of the character and functions of the clergy that ministered in it; the forgetting that in the christian Israel Levi mingles with the other eleven tribes and changing of the communion table into the altar; and of the commemorative supper into something like the sacrifice of the mass.2 So did instealing

1 Basnage ad ann. 100, quoted by Lardner, iv. 231, says that this Judaizing language about the christian clergy and sacrament had not come into vogue in the earlier half of the second century: "Germana virorum apostolicorum scripta,-Clementis scilicet, Polycarpi, Justini,-vocabula pontificis, sacerdotum, Levitarum, Christiano clero significando nunquam usurparunt: neque magis Clementinæ ætatis est vocabulum OvσiasTηpiov, altare, ad eucharistiæ mensam indicandam."-These earlier fathers applied the Judaic sacerdotal figure, like St. Paul,* rather to the whole Christian body. But the innovations had begun even before the third centnry: (see Mosheim ii. 2. 4. 4 : ( and Cyprian continually applies the term sacerdos to the Christian Minister; e. g. Epist. i. "Singuli divino sacerdotio honorati, et in clerico ministerio constituti, non nisi altari et sacrificiis deservire debeant," &c. Again in the Canons 24, 29 of the Council of Carthage, held under his presidency, the Lord's Supper is called sacramentum altaris, and the words used, ut panis et vinum offeratur."

2 Mosheim (iv. 2. 4. 8.) says that in the fourth century the elevation of the sacramental elements prepared the way for their adoration soon afterwards.

* Hebr. xiii. 10; "We (i. e. all Christians,) have an altar, whereof they (viz. the Jews) have no right to eat that serve the sanctuary.”

+ E. g. for Ignatius' view on this point see the quotations given p. 17 suprà. He uses the figure of being within the altar (of the antitypical altar-court) as a figure not of the local ministering position of the Christian clergy, but of churchmembership generally. So too Justin Martyr.

Again, Irenæus speaks of all believers as priests, in the Levitical or sacerdotal sense of the word. So iv. 20, "Omnes justi sacerdotalem habent ordinem." And again v. 34, "Ostendimus in superiore loco quoniam Levitæ et sacerdotes sunt discipuli omnes Domini." The offerings that he speaks of were the offerings given by the whole early Church at the Lord's supper; as the whole Jewish Church offered their first-fruits: "Novi testamenti oblationem, quam ecclesia ab apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert Deo, ei qui alimenta nobis præstat, primitias suorum munerum in novo testamento:" citing Malachi's prophecy, "From the rising of the sun to the setting, incense shall be offered, and a pure offering." Compare iv. 34, where he says that God "dedit populo præceptum faciendarum oblationum, ut disceret Deo servire; sicut et ideo nos quoque offerre vult munus ad altare frequenter sine intermissione;" explaining the altar meant by him thus; "Ergo altare in cælis; illuc enim preces nostræ et oblationes diriguntur : et templum; quemadmodum in Apocalypsi Joannes ait, Et templum Dei in cœlo apertum est.' &c. (Apoc. xi. 19).

4

We need not, I think, except on this head Clemens Romanus because his reference, ch. 36, to Christ as the Christian's High Priest, and chs. 42, 44, 47, 54, 57 to presbyters and deacons, (for the contexts show, that by the ETOKоTо of ch. 42 were meant presbyters,) as if the only ecclesiastical rulers in the Corinthian Church, seems to show that the three Levitical orders mentioned by him, ch. 40, just as the Jerusalem and the altar mentioned ch. 41, were meant literally of the old Jewish system.-Tertullian, too, though he sometimes speaks Levitically of the Christian ministry, does yet in a well-known passage (De Exhort. Castit. ch. 7) apply the sacerdotal figure to all Christians; "Nonne et laici sacerdotes sumus? Scriptum est, Reges nos et sacerdotes fecit." &c.

Judaism, by the infusion of its spirit into the religion which had subverted it, furnish one primary principle of the Apostacy; and Heathenism, too, (of which much more hereafter,1) find occasion, even thus early, to enter in and assist. And together they helped forward,—and with singular union of effect,-that which was the grand object of the Apostacy with him who devised it, viz. the obscuration and supercession of Christ Jesus. 2

II. ANTIDOTE TO THE APOSTACY, IN THE REVELATION OF THE DOCTRINES OF ELECTING GRACE.

In the preceding Section I considered the Sealing Vision chiefly in regard of what we might judge it to have implied, as to certain tendencies to an antichristian apostacy, and the germinancy of certain errors of a ritualistic religion, which would unfold themselves in the christianized Roman Empire, (an intimation fully verified in the ecclesiastical history of the times referred to) shortly after the great Constantinian revolution. I must now call attention to the more direct prophetic import of this sealing vision, and of its intimately related sequel of the palm-bearing vision; an import signified by the circumstance of its having been seen by St. John, not as a mere individual, but as one sustaining a representative character on the apocalyptic scene :—that is, as impersonating Christ's true Church of the æra prefigured, or rather its more eminent and influential ministers; such ministers as were the apostles' successors not lineally alone, but also in doctrine and in spirit.-Here will appear the Lord's own antidote against the instealing apostacy.

That the Evangelist saw, heard, and acted too as a representative man on the scene of vision, I have already hinted in the Introduction;3 and in the vision of the souls under the altar, have applied and exemplified the idea.

It is here first, however, that its exceeding importance will appear, as a principle of apocalyptic interpretation. Which being so, I think it may be well before proceeding to pause a moment; and to illustrate the nature and truth of the principle by examples from the older prophecy. It is to be observed then, as remarked long since by Irenæus, that the ancient prophets fulfilled their office of predicting, not merely in the verbal delivery of predictions, but by themselves seeing, hearing, and acting the things in type, which were afterwards to be seen, heard, or done by others in reality. In every such case they were to be considered, as they are called in Isaiah 2 and Zechariah,3 pin mophthim, that is figurative or representative persons.—They might thus symbolize, it is evident, any of the different parties to whom the prophecy might relate. Thus when Isaiah went barefoot, and without his sackcloth upper garment, for three days. or years, it was for a sign of the men of Egypt and Ethiopia soon walking similarly unclothed, as captives to the king of Assyria. When Jeremiah made yokes, and wore them on his neck in public, he typified, as he declared, the kings and people of Moab, Edom, Tyre, Sidon, that were soon about to come under the yoke of the king of Babylon.5 When Ezekiel, having pourtrayed on a tile the city Jerusalem, laid siege thereto by casting up a mound, setting a camp, and planting battering rams against it, he figured, as was evident, Nebuchadnezzar and his besieging army.6 Again when, as described elsewhere, he publicly prepared his stuff by day

4

'Lib. iv. ch. 37. "Non enim solo sermone prophetabant Prophetæ, sed et visione, et conversatione, et actibus quos faciebant, secundùm id quod suggerebat Spiritus : quæ quidem videnda erant videntes, quæ vero audienda erant sermone præconantes, quæ vero agenda erant operatione perficientes; universa vero propheticè annuntiantes."

2 Is. viii. 18; "Behold I and my children are for signs and for wonders in Israel, from the Lord of Hosts." On which Patrick observes, "The word mophthim, translated wonders, signifies here moré properly types or figures."

3 iii. 8; where the word is rendered in our version, men wondered at.Compare also Ezek. xii. 11; Say I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done to them."

4 Is. xx. 2. See Vitringa or Bp. Lowth in loc. 6 Ezek. iv. 1, &c.

5 Jer. xxvii. 2, &c.