as hearing a voice which said to him; Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. At this point, then, the Apostle, quitting matters unprophetically present, enters upon matters prophetically future: and the second grand division of the entire Apocalypse, thus commencing with the fourth chapter, comprehends all the remainder of the volume.

I. The prophetic series opens with the septenary of the seals but, although the seals themselves are seven in number, the four first of them stand apart from the rest, and constitute a distinct and strongly marked quaternion.

These four seals, unlike in character to the three last seals, exhibit to us a succession of four warhorses with their four military riders. Hence they are strictly homogeneous and hence, as they contain four manifestly parallel descriptions or hieroglyphical paintings, we are bound to interpret them all homogeneously.

1. So far as I can judge, no part of the Apocalypse has been so completely and so universally misunderstood as the quaternion of the equestrian seals.

Some have applied these four seals to certain vicissitudes of the secular Roman Empire, arranged under certain imaginary classifications of the Roman Emperors while others have supposed them to announce certain phases or conditions of the Christian Church, through which it gradually passed,

from a state of primitive holiness and purity, to a state of active persecution in practice and of deathlike corruption in morals and doctrine.

On the general abstract principle of symbolisation, to which all applicatory exposition must be made subservient, each of these schemes of interpretation, though sanctioned by some names of eminence, must assuredly be pronounced untenable and inadmissible.

2. However the quaternion of the equestrian seals ought to be understood in point of applicatory exposition, nothing, so far as the abstract principle of symbolisation is concerned, can be more easy than to determine its general import.

In the language of hieroglyphics, a beast is an Empire. Whence, as a wild-beast is an Empire viewed under the aspect of irreligious and persecuting ferocity, so a war-horse will obviously be an Empire viewed under the aspect of preeminent military pugnacity'. For, since a beast simply represents an Empire simply: a beast complexly, according to the characteristic nature of its complexity, will represent an Empire complexly. A military Empire may indeed be a persecuting Empire also, if there be any particulars attached to the symbol of a war-horse which indicate such a spirit: but, nakedly and abstractedly, a war-horse denotes a military Empire with a specific reference to its military character.

1

See above book i.. chap. i. § II. 2, 3.

Such being the case abstractedly, the four warhorses of the four first seals, whatever may be their proper application, can only denote four military Empires: and, since these four war-horses succeed each other through the chronologically successive opening of four seals, they must additionally denote four military Empires successive to each other in widely extended rule and domination.

I give this abstract interpretation of the four apocalyptic war-horses upon what I deem a sound and irrefragable principle of exposition: and its propriety, according to the opinion both of our oldest and of our best commentators, is amply established by the well ascertained and actual employment in prophecy of the symbol in question.

Zechariah, in one of the most remarkable of his predictions, describes himself as beholding four suceessive chariots severally drawn by bay horses and black horses and white horses and strong spotted horses' and this quaternion, with the general consent of Jerome and Capellus and Houbigant and Lowth and Blayney and Newcome, represents the four successive Empires of Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome. Respecting the propriety of such an application, I entertain no doubt: for, as the necessity of the symbol compels us, in the abstract, to understand four successive military Empires: so, in the concrete, no four successive military Empires, save those which are commonly

Zechar. vi. 1-8.

called the four great Empires and which are the acknowledged subject of Daniel's vision of the four great beasts, can be discovered for any reasonable purpose of prophetic application'.

3. The four successive apocalyptic war-horses, then, must inevitably, so far as I can judge, be four successive military Empires: for, in truth, the symbol of a war-horse admits not of any other interpretation. Hence, as we have now ascertained the abstract meaning of the four hieroglyphical paintings, we have only, from faithful history, to search for their proper application.

It is quite clear, that, immediately subsequent to the time of St. John, we shall vainly seek for any four successive military Empires, which may be reasonably thought to correspond with the figures of the four hieroglyphical paintings. We are compelled, therefore, to carry our inquiries retrospectively, in order that we may so discover one or more of the four Empires anterior to the time of the Apostle.

There can be no doubt, that the symbolical imagery of the four first seals has been borrowed from the Hebrew prophet Zechariah; agreeably to a

Dr. Stonard, who has lately presented us with a valuable and interesting Commentary on Zechariah, differing from the interpretation of his predecessors, wishes to apply the vision of the four chariots to four classes of events which began to occur within the Roman Empire soon after the decease of Constantine. Comment. on Zechar. p. 356-438. Such an exposition is ir reconcileable with the abstract import of the symbols employed.

remark which has often been made, that there is scarcely a symbol employed in the Apocalypse but we may discover its prototype in the ancient Scriptures. St. John has, indeed, varied the machinery: but he has not varied it so as in any wise to affect the general import of the leading hieroglyphic itself. According to the delineation of Zechariah, more horses than one draw each chariot: while the chariot contains the warrior who drives and manages the horses. But, according to the delineation of St. John, a single war-horse is, in each seal, bestridden and guided by a single rider. Yet this variation affects not the general idea, which is meant to be conveyed. In Zechariah, each great Empire is described as composed of several united and subjugated Empires, jointly represented by the several horses which draw each chariot: but the whole collectively, that is to say, the one great Empire composed of several subordinate Empires, is impelled and directed by the presiding charioteer. In the Apocalypse, some four great military Empires are respectively symbolised by four war-horses, each single Empire by a single war-horse but each single Empire is similarly impelled and directed by the governing rider. The general idea, we see, is, in either case, the same. A war-horse, or a collection of united war-horses, represents a great military Empire: and a charioteer or a rider, according to the modification of the symbol, represents the political form of government under which that Empire is placed. So far as the meaning of the whole picture