is this apparently sudden transition to be accounted for?

In reply to this inquiry, we are reminded by the ancient Interpreters that the word here rendered Candlestick is the same as that employed in the Greek Version of the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus, where God gives to Moses directions for the making of the Golden Candlestick, according to the pattern shown to him in the Mount, with seven branches and seven lights, or lamps, to be fed with oil, and to stand in the Holy Place, which was the figure of the Church on Earth, and to illuminate it with its rays.

The same word is used also by the Prophet Zechariah, in the fourth chapter, in his Vision of the seven-branched golden Candlestick, fed by seven pipes, with oil flowing down from two Olive Trees, the one on the right hand of the Candlestick, and the other on the left'.

Thus the Law and the Prophets prepared imagery for the Apocalypse.

From the Apocalypse itself we learn that the Candlestick, as dispensing light, represents the Church, which diffuses the beams of Divine Truth 5.

1

Avxvía. The English reader will remember that it is a lamp, fed with oil.

2 Exod. xxv. 31-37. xxxvii. 17. See Hebr. ix. 2.

3 Zech. iv. 3. δύο ἐλαῖαι ἐπάνω αὐτῆς.

4 Zech. iv. 1-4. See Hengstenberg's Christologie, § 522.

5 Hence St. Irenæus borrows his own language concerning the Church Universal, v. c. 20: Ubique Ecclesia prædicat veritatem ; et

The seven Candlesticks (says St. John) are the seven Churches'. And, in the same passage, our Blessed Lord, the great Head of the Church, is displayed to us, arrayed in a long vesture, that is, in His sacerdotal attire, walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks, that is, observing the state of the Churches, whether they burn brightly with the pure and luminous flame of true doctrine, or are dimmed with errors and corruptions. A Candlestick, therefore, represents a Church in the discharge of its office of shedding forth divine light. And how and whence is this light received? Let St. John in

form us.

I will give power to My Two Witnesses, says Almighty God, and they shall prophesy (or preach). These are the Olive Trees, and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth: an expression which again connects this Vision with that of Zechariah, where we read,-What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? Then said the Angel, These are the two anointed ones that stand before the Lord of the whole earth 3.

And St. John says,-The testimony of Jesus is

hæc est éπτáμνέos Lucerna, Christi bajulans lumen. See also S. Gregor. Mag. lib. i. Hom. vi. in Ezekiel. That éπráμvέos, and not éπráμVKOS, is the true reading in Irenæus, is clear from other considerations, and from Zech. iv. 12, tŵv μvέwτýpwv τŵv xpvσŵv, said of the sevenbranched λυχνία.

1 Rev. i. 20.

2 Rev. i. 13. ii. 1.

3 Zech. iv. 14.

the spirit of prophecy'; intimating thereby that the word prophecy is used in the sense of Evangelical Preaching.

What, now, are the two Witnesses, and two Olive Trees?

Some Interpreters, you are aware, suppose them to be two Persons. Enoch and Elias are specified by some. Others adduce other names.

But the Prophecy aims higher, and reaches further than the person and existence of any child of man'. It is in dignity, divine; and in duration and extent, universal.

The ancient Church, expounding the Apocalypse, remembered the words of God to Moses concerning the seven-branched Golden Candlestick of the Tabernacle; she recollected the vision of Zechariah; she had before her eyes that prophet's seven-branched Candlestick, fed with oil by pipes from the two Olive Trees; she recollected, also, that St. John himself has given a key to the meaning of the symbolical Candlesticks; and she knew full well that, in the words of Isaiah, she, herself, being the Church of God, must look for light to the Law and to the Testimony; and that, if she speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in her3; she knew, also, in the language of St. Paul, that she hath received this ministry not to preach herself, but Christ Jesus the

1 Rev. xix. 10.

2 See the notes in the HARMONY, chap. xi. 8, 9.

3 Isaiah viii. 20.

Lord, and that God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into her heart, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, so that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the Image of God, should shine throughout the world1.

The Church, we say, considering these things, as she looked on the two Golden Candlesticks fed by the two Olive Trees, saw herself illumined by the Two TESTAMENTS2. The Scriptures of the Two Testaments are her Olive Trees, planted in the House of the Lord, ever flourishing with fresh leaves for the healing of the nations, ever bearing the emblems of peace, ever pouring forth the oil of gladness, and ministering the food of light. And in the form and office of the Two Candlesticks she saw her own character and ministry, under the Two dispensations, -the Law and the Gospel,-as being therein the divinely-constituted Guardian, Keeper, and Interpreter of the Word of God.

Like them, the Church is to be of pure gold; like them, she is to be firmly set on a solid basis in the presence of God; like them, she is to be visible to all; like them, to extend her branches far and wide, and to diffuse her light, and irradiate the world. Her

1 2 Cor. iv. 1-6.

2 Similarly Vitringa Anacr. p. 468. Oleæ figurant Spiritum Sanctum (ut liquet ex v. 6) dona et gratiam suam communicantem per medium Verbi Dei divisi in Libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti.

3 Psalm lii. 9.

4 Rev. xxii. 2.

thoughts must all be upward. Her light must aspire to heaven. Her feet are on the rock; her heart is among the stars.

Let us also observe that, like the seven-branched Golden Candlestick, the Church has no light in herself. She can do nothing without the Olive Trees. If the golden channels', which connect her bowls with their branches, are choked, then she will burn dimly; if they are broken, she is eclipsed, and the Tabernacle of the World is dark.

We now perceive that the transition in the Apocalypse, from the measuring Reed to the Two Witnesses and Two Olive Trees, far from being abrupt, is very natural and easy.

The Two Testaments contain all things necessary for salvation; they constitute the Rule or Canon of Scripture; they are the measuring Reed of the Church2. That measuring Reed is put by the Angel of the Covenant, Christ Himself, into the hand of St. John; for St. John, the last-surviving Apostle, was specially appointed by Christ to authenticate and consummate the Canon of Holy Scripture, and thus to fix the faith of the Church. The reed mea

1 This word Channel-Canalis is to be added to the derivatives (mentioned above, p. 49,) of the Hebrew Kaneh, a reed, which word is used to decribe the branches or channels of the Holy Candlestick, Exod. xxv. 31-36. xxxvii. 22, which is a type of the Church illumined by the Word of God.

2 The connexion of "the Seven Thunders" (Rev. x. 3. 5) with all these Scriptural Symbols will be considered in a subsequent Lecture, Lect. VI.