Thus the prophet Elijah from his pre-eminent zeal and holy integrity, embodying, as it were, in himself, the strength of the church, in his own time is called "the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof."* Our Lord also, when he comes forth to tread the wine-press in the day of Armageddon, is followed by the armies in heaven on white horses, that is his church triumphant.

The horse and rider of the first seal (and consequently those of the three seals which follow), do therefore indisputably signify a host, or army. A close attention to the prophetic description enables us also to discern that no earthly host is here designated. The white colour of the horse indicates that the conquests of his rider are holy and pure, and are therefore such as cannot be attributed to any earthly warrior. White is every where used as the symbol of holiness. Thus in Dan. xi. 35, "to purge "and make white," and in Rev. iii. 4, "they shall "walk with me in white for they are worthy." The rider on the white horse has a bow, the well known instrument for discharging arrows; and from Ps. xlv. 5, we learn that wounds inflicted by arrows are emblematical of the conquests of Messiah. The crown, στεpavos, with which this rider is invested, is nowhere also in this book used as the hieroglyphical mark of kingly authority upon earth, but uniformly the diadem, diadna. Thus the dragon in imperial Rome appears having on his heads, chap. xii, διαδήματα ἑπτα, seven diadems. The beast, the symbol of decemregal Rome, or the empire divided

* 2 Kings ii. 12. The seventy have 'Imus, horseman, in the singular.

into ten kingdoms appears having on his horns, chap. xiii, deza diadnuara, ten diadems. Christ himself when he appears as King of kings, to possess all the kingdoms of the earth, has on his head, chap. xix. 12, diadпpara oλλα, many diadems; although when seen at a previous point of time in prophetic chronology, chap. xiv. 14, as the prophet and high priest of his church, reaping the earth, or gathering the elect, he appears wearing not the diadna, diadem, but only the orεpavos, or crown.

On the other hand, the crown, σrapavos, is uniformly the symbol of the spiritual victory and glory of the saints in heaven. The woman, the church, is adorned with it, chap. xii. 1. St. Paul promises it to himself, 2 Tim. iv. 8. Christ promises it to the victor, Rev. ii. 10. The elders are invested with it, Rev. iv. 4. Even the Mahomedan locusts, Rev. ix. 7, to signify their assumption and usurpation of the character of the soldiers of true religion, wear not indeed σravo, real crowns, but ws σTepavol, as it were (mock or counterfeit) crowns.

The rider on the white horse being therefore without the diadem, is certainly not what many have supposed him to be, an emperor of Rome; and being invested with the crown is no less certainly the symbol of a spiritual or heavenly warrior, and the whole complex hieroglyphic denotes the host of the Lord, i. e. his church militant, going forth shining with its primitive purity in a career of victory, and it marks the triumphant progress of the gospel during the first three centuries. The rider on the horse may be understood to signify the

rulers or ministers, and the horse the body of the church.

Those interpreters who have adopted a similar explanation of the first seal, have generally supposed that the rider on the white horse is our Lord himself. This opinion, however, seems to me to be inaccurate; for, if we suppose the rider in the first seal to be a real personage, we must, according to the principles of homogeneity and analogy, understand the horsemen in the three following seals, to denote likewise real personages. But we shall not find it easy to fix upon any real characters in history answering to the description of the riders in the second, third, or fourth seals. We seem, therefore, to be irresistibly driven to the conclusion, that these riders are hieroglyphical representations of things future; and, in order to preserve that consistency of interpretation which is necessary to lead us to the successful elucidation of this mysterious book, we must also, I think, conclude, that the character, exhibited to us in the first seal, is, like those of the subsequent visions, wholly hieroglyphical; and we are thus obliged to reject the idea that the rider on the white horse is the Messiah in person.

* Archdeacon Woodhouse seems to be sensible that the rider on the white horse cannot, with certainty, be pronounced to be the Son of God." We are not yet warranted," says the learned writer, "to say that this horseman is the Son of God." Again, "The progress of the white horse seems to be rather that of the Christian religion in its primitive purity, from the time that its divine founder left it on earth under the conduct of the apostles." On the Apocalypse, page 131.

There is, indeed, a rider upon a white horse in a subsequent part of this book, who is not a symbolical, but a real personage.* But it is observable, that it is there expressly declared who the horseman is, in order that we may fall into no mistakes respecting it; and I see no sufficient reason for the conclusion which has been drawn by many writers, from some circumstances of similarity between the two riders, that they are one and the same.

THE SECOND SEAL.

On the opening of the second seal, an hieroglyphical representation of a most significant nature offered itself to the eyes of the apostle : "There went out another horse, red, (or firecoloured,) and it was given to him that sat "thereon to take peace from the earth, and that 'they should kill one another; and there was 'given unto him a great sword." +

Fire and sword are both emblems of discord or dissension, as we may learn from our Lord's expressions in Luke xii. 49, and Matthew x. 34, 36. In the former of these passages our Saviour says, "I am come to send fire on the earth, and what "will I if it be already kindled." In the passage last-mentioned his words are, "Think not that "I am come to send peace on earth; I came "not to send peace, but a sword. For I am "come to set a man at variance against his

"father, and the daughter against her mother, "and the daughter-in-law, against her mother-in"law; and a man's foes shall be they of his own "household."

From the whole of this passage of Matthew, and also by comparing the quotation from Luke with the context, it will be sufficiently evident to the attentive reader, that the fire and sword, which our Lord came to send on the earth, signify those fierce animosities and disputes, which his gospel, peaceable and heavenly as it is in itself, should, through the wickedness of mankind, and their opposition to the truth, be instrumental in kindling. The fiery colour of the second horse, (the symbol of the body of the visible church,) when joined to the description of the office of his rider, (denoting the rulers of the church,) and of the dreadful weapon with which he was armed, indicate to us, that, after the first and purest age of Christianity, the spirit of love and peace should recede from the visible church, and be succeeded by a spirit of discord, of dissension and controversy, a fierce and fiery zeal, instigating Christians to destroy one another.

The ecclesiastical history of the fourth and fifth centuries, sufficiently evinces, that such a change did take place, in the general features of character, which distinguished the Christian church. The schism of the Donatists and the Arian controversy filled the Roman empire, with the most dreadful and destructive animosities. So much had the Christians of that age imbibed this spirit, that even the disputes occasioned by the election of a bishop in the See of Rome, became, in the latter part of.