coming to any final conclusion."—With such a mode of investigation I really think Mr. Arnold himself can scarcely quarrel; and scarcely more, I should conceive, with the principle on which I have proceeded to my conclusions. For it appears from the Hora that the grounds of there concluding in each case on an interpretation, has been uniformly the coincidence, or supposed coincidence, in all its several requirements, of historic fact with the prophetic statement or symbol. And supposing the coincidence that I speak of proved in respect of a prophecy of many particulars, and not of one such prophecy only, but of a conti nuous series of prophecies, he would surely not be prepared to assert that such coincidence was but the result of chance.-It seems clear to me that the strength of Mr. Arnold's objections must be considered to be rather against my use and application of the interpretatory plan and principle, than against the principle itself. For, no doubt, an Expositor may have laid down a good plan and principle for his investigations and his conclusions, and yet may so carry prejudice, unlicensed fancy, carelessness, or a want of the necessary learning and discrimination into them, as to arrive at results quite erroneous, and such as to merit Mr. Arnold's censure of "not standing the tests either of grammatical construction, common sense, or the ordinary works of historians." Whether such be the case in the Horæ is a question only to be decided by an examination of the cases on which Mr. Arnold grounds his inculpatory charges against it. These are my expositions of the three first seals, the two first woes, the witnesses' testimony, resurrection, and ascension, the image of the Beast, Antichrist, and the Millennium :-expositions very fairly selected for examination, as among the most characteristic ; and which, had Mr. Arnold only added what relates to the Reformation, would have formed as complete a list for the testing as could have been desired. On each one I shall proceed to meet him. And I am mistaken if in every one save the second Seal,-on which Seal I neither did full justice in my first edition to my own principle, or to the subject, I say I am mistaken if in every case save this, which in my new Edition is completely rectified, Mr. Arnold's inculpatory charge will not be found utterly to break down.-It is well that we meet on the common ground of viewing the Apocalypse as a

noble and blessed work of inspiration." 99 1 It is well too that we agree in making appeal to "grammatical construction, common sense, and the ordinary (I would rather say, the best and most authentic) works of historians." Thus the decision of the ques

tion, as between us, will be the easier.

Before however commencing my reply to Mr. Arnold's specific charges and objections, let me premise a word to the Reader on the exceeding importance of the question pending between us. For it involves nothing less than this,-whether the Papal succession and Popedom be, or be not, that which was prefigured by the Spirit of God under the awful symbols and titles of the Apocalyptic Beast, the Man of sin, Antichrist. A question at all times momentous; and now perhaps almost more so than ever. The expression of sentiment in our Houses of Parliament in the late debates on the Maynooth Bill has strikingly shown this. A nobleman eminent for his piety and zeal in the great missionary cause, distinctly grounded his vote for the Bill on the (assumed) fact of Popery being not antichristian. A prelate of high attainments and learning quoted with strong approval the saying of the late Dr. Arnold, that "good Protestants and good Christians had talked nonsense, and worse than nonsense, about Popery, the Beast, and Antichrist." If the exposition proposed in my Horæ be unimpeachable,-nay if but its commencement be proved, the inference is inevitable that the old Protestant Church of England opinion of the Popedom being the thing prefigured as Antichrist and the Beast, instead of being absurd, is simply true.Proceed we then without further delay to the important inquiry before us.

then

SECTION 1.-The First Seal.

My exposition of the four primary Seals, and more especially of the first, claims not only the earliest, but the most particular attention of the inquirer after truth: it being that, as just before intimated, (and Mr. Arnold's observations do not incline me in the least to qualify the statement,) on which, if proved, all the rest will follow. The sacred text on which the discussion arises stands thus.

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And when He had opened the first seal I beheld, and lo! a white horse, and he that sate on it having a bow and a crown was given unto him; and he went forth conquering, and that he might conquer."

On which let me first state the view of the figuration presented in the Horæ, and grounds of the conclusion formed respecting it: then state and consider Mr. Arnold's objections.

1. The problem then in this opening Apocalyptic symbolization was viewed in the Hora as presenting five several primary points for explanation, in order to the satisfactory solution of the enigma; (for the singular particularity of the emblems in all the four first connected visions seemed to forbid the construing them each one of any mere abstract idea :) viz. the horse, its colour white, the rider designated by a bow, the presentation to him of a crown, (not, as elsewhere, a diadem,) and his then going forth conquering, with the added words (on which more presently) "and that he should conquer."-Besides which five points there appeared to be yet two other very important ones of a chronological nature, characterizing its commencing and its ending epochs. Its commencing epoch, as not long after St. John's visions in Patmos for, after a full descriptive sketch of the then state of those seven Asiatic Churches to which the apostle addrest his Apocalypse, the revealing Angel declared, "Come up, and I will show thee what is to happen after these things; a declaration (according to all commonsense view of the words) fixing the chronology of the first vision of the future to an æra quickly following after the time of St. John's seeing the visions, i. e. A. D. 95 or 96 :-its ending epoch, as one bounded by a quite different æra and order of things; such an æra as to answer to the symbol of the red horse and rider with the great sword, the introducer of civil wars, figured in the second Seal. Further, in order to a complete solution, this also seemed requisite, that the horse, its colour, and its rider in the first Seal should be explained on a principle applicable to the homogeneous figurations of the red horse, the black horse, and the pale horse, with their respective riders, in the three next Seals.

And to all this, my solution in the Hora professed to have answered its explanation of symbols being tested alike by

:

Scriptural analogy and classical usage, its asserted facts by authentic history.-The examples of the ram and the goat, the lion, and bear, and leopard, confessedly used to symbolize the Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian powers in Daniel, suggested the probability, it was considered, even à priori, of the Apocalyptic horse signifying some empire or nation, politically connected with Christ's New Testament Church and people, as those earlier empires were with the Jews;-an idea confirmed by the circumstance of the Christian Church (the only alternative solution for the horse) being never depicted under any such animal symbol in the Bible. Which admitted, the empire could scarce be any other than Daniel's fourth great empire, the Roman :—a view that seemed confirmed by considerations of the fitness of the warhorse to designate that nation in its character of the world's great martial people; this being moreover the animal sacred to Mars, their reputed Father, and both pictured on some of their ancient standards, and the device on certain of their coins. And then, whereas the white (it was considered) ought to be taken to signify, agreeably with its well known classical meaning, a state of happiness and prosperity, and the bow-bearing rider presented with a crown some individual, or rather line and succession, 1 advanced to the imperial crown, of whom the bow previously in hand might be the previous badge, and under whom the white was to begin and continue, and "the going forth conquering and to conquer" also to have fulfilment,-it was concluded in the Horæ, that the history of the Imperial line from Nerva to Antoninus Aurelius, both inclusive, fulfilled all the conditions of the prophecy. For the bow appeared to be a Cretan badge, and Nerva to have been of Cretan extraction, and all the four next Emperors to have been grafted by continuous adoptions into his family, according to the well-known custom of the Roman law, so as together to constitute the whole a Cretico-Imperial line. And the imperial crown or sepavos (not diadem, which was the badge of later Emperors, and as such noted exactly in its order of time in other Apocalyptic visions) was given to Nerva its head (first of all foreigners by

1 For so the analogy of the horns and heads on the symbolic beasts in Daniel's visions seemed to suggest; the horse being here construed, so as those beasts, of a people and empire.

lineage) on Domitian's assassination, ere the end of the self-same year in which St. John saw the Revelation in Patmos. And forthwith from that well-defined epoch, there began a period of happiness and prosperity to the Roman People, as unexampled as unexpected, prolonged through the whole eighty years of the five Emperors; and to which historians the most eminent, it was averred, alike ancient and modern, from Tacitus,' the cotemporary of Nerva and Trajan, down to our own Gibbon,2 have borne similarly strong testimony. Moreover, (according to the Hora) it was a period marked at its commencement, by the Emperor Trajan going forth conquering, to an extent, and with a splendour, comparable only to Alexander's course of triumph and one during the rest of which, whenever wars broke out afterwards, even to the very end of the octagenarian period spoken of, success and victory the most decisive resulted. Once more this happy period was terminated by the outbreak of civil wars, caused by them that had the power of the sword, i. e., the Prætorians and military power: just according to the vision of the second seal, where the horse of the symbol was figured red, with a rider to whom a great sword was given; and with the explanatory declaration, that this rider was "to take peace from the earth, and that they (the inhabitants) should kill one another: "-of which figuration more in the next Section.

2. Such, in brief, was the solution of the first seal, and asserted evidence for it, as propounded in the Hora. And now against all this, what has Mr. Arnold to object? Does he overthrow, or even controvert the statements there made, either about the date of the visions in Patmos, and the almost necessity, from force of the revealing angel's language, of the figuration of the first seal signifying events that would happen soon after that date,—or about the horse and its fitness to symbolize the Roman martial people,3

"Nunc demum redit animus: et quanquam primo statim beatissimi seculi ortu Nerva Cæsar res etiam dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque quotidie felicitatem imperii Nerva Trajanus, &c." Agric. ii. 1.

2 "If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." Gib. i. 126.

I am indebted to the kindness of B. Lewis, Esq. of Cornwall Terrace, for an