throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created1.

It was my endeavour, on a former occasion, to show that the APOCALYPSE, or Revelation, is rightly received as a divinely inspired work of the APOSTLE and EVANGELIST ST. JOHN, and I would now propose to offer some remarks on the peculiar relation in which this Book stands to the rest of the Sacred Volume of the Old and New Testament.

1. Here, first, let us observe one of its most important characteristics, which we may be allowed to call its finality.

The Apocalypse reveals the future. It discloses the History of the Church, even to the Day of Doom. It places us not only before the Tribunal of Christ, but in the Heavenly City. It displays to us not only the armies of Satan leagued against the sacred camp, but it opens the doors of his dark prison-house. Not only does it teach us, that all things which we now see will have an end; but it shows what that end will be.

In this respect the Apocalypse is invaluable.

Some, you are aware, there are, in these our days, who venture to affirm that Christianity was destined only to be a provisional and temporary dispensation; that it is but one link in the chain of truth; that

1 The Reader is referred for a revised English Version of this Fourth Chapter, to the "Harmony of the APOCALYPSE," Lond. 1852, § 12, with the Notes.

it is only a transitory stage, a moving scene in God's Revelations and that as it has superseded Judaism, so, in its turn, it may be expected to give place to some other Religion.

Others, again, imagine that Christianity, like human science, admits of discoveries: that the Faith originally taught by Christ and His Apostles, and, as St. Jude says, once for all delivered to the Saints, is pliant and elastic, and may be developed in greater fulness, and expounded in wider amplitude; and that it is the privilege, nay and even the duty, of Reason and Philosophy, as some pretend, or of a self-styled infallible Church, as others no less confidently assert, to give due expansion and adequate perfection to the unchangeable Word of God and to the everlasting Gospel of Christ!

But all these proud imaginations are put to flight by the APOCALYPSE.

This Divine Book teaches us that we are not to look for any new Religion; nor for any new form of Christianity. It opens to us a view, as in an unbroken avenue, of the whole interval between Christ's First Advent as a Saviour, and His Second Advent as our Judge; and it declares, that the GOSPEL, first preached by Him eighteen centuries ago, is the Code of Faith and Duty by which He will judge us at the last day.

To those, then, who present us with new Religions,

1 ἅπαξ, Jude 3.

D

or with new forms of Christianity, we reply, Look at the Apocalypse. Its counsel to the world, in the great concern of Religion, is, not to expect any thing new, but to maintain what is old. Its exhortations are, Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life'. Do thy first works. Remember thy first love2. Strengthen the things which remain. Hold fast that which thou hast3. Behold, I come quickly. I will put upon you none other burden, but that which ye have already, hold fast till I come; and he that overcometh and keepeth My words unto the end, to him will I give power; and I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches. And when it speaks of the Gospel it calls it ETERNAL 6.

4

Thus we are taught by St. John, in the Book of Revelation, that Christianity is the consummation of Religion; and that the Religion of the Apocalypse is the consummation of Christianity.

2. Again in another important sense the Apocalypse has a final character. It is the work of St. John. He, the last surviving Apostle, was specially

3 Rev. iii. 2, 3. 11. Berengaudus ad Apoc. Non mittam super vos

4 "Nisi quod ab Apostolis præceptum est." ii. 25.-Bede, Explan. Apocalyps. in cap. ii. aliud pondus, &c.] Non patiar vos tentari supra id quod potestis sustinere. Attendite, inquit, a falsis prophetis. Non enim ego vobis novam mitto doctrinam ; sed quam accepistis, servate in finem.

5 Rev. ii. 25-28.

6 Rev. xiv. 6.

employed by Christ to complete and canonize the Sacred Volume of Holy Writ.

This fact is carefully to be borne in mind. It is one of the principal clues to the right Exposition of the Apocalypse.

The New Testament, like the Old, consists of two parts. The Old is divided into the Law and the Prophets; the term Prophet being used in its general sense, to describe one who is commissioned by God to declare His Will, whether it concern the future or the present. In the same manner the New Testament may be regarded as composed of two portions, one Historical, and the other Prophetical. The Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles form the Christian Pentateuch: the Epistles and the Apocalypse constitute our Prophetical Pandect.

The former may be called the Evangelical, and the latter, the Apostolical, Canon. And it is to be remembered, that the same Evangelist and Apostle, the Beloved Disciple St. John, was employed by our Blessed Lord to complete and authenticate both: the first, by His Gospel, and the second, by the Apocalypse.

And since the New Testament is the consummation of the Old; therefore, in the concluding words of St. John's Gospel', and in those final sentences of his Apocalypse, If any man shall add unto these

1 Chap. xx. 3. xxi. 25.

things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book',-both alike expressive of completeness and finality, Our Blessed Lord, acting by the ministry of St. John, closes the Canon of Scripture. He subscribes it with His own Almighty hand, and sets upon it His Divine Seal, and delivers it to the Church, as the perfect WORD of GOD.

Let us now proceed to observe, that the Apocalypse of St. John-though prior in composition to his Gospel, yet by a prophetic anticipation suited to its peculiar character-does, in fact, appear to suppose the existence of that Gospel; and that, as the Prophet Malachi is called the Seal of the Prophets, so the Prophet St. John, in the Apocalypse, is the Seal of the Bible.

3

3. This opinion is confirmed by the prophetical symbols in the portion of the Apocalypse chosen for

our text.

It would indeed be presumptuous to obtrude upon you any interpretation of these mysterious emblems, as absolutely certain. Nothing has tended more to bring discredit on the Apocalypse than the rashness of those Interpreters who have reversed the order of things, and, forgetting their office as Expositors, have

3 Hence the Apocalypse is called σφραγὶς τῆς βίβλου. See authorities above quoted, Lect. I. p. 1.