in the Mofaical service, denotes prayer, or mental adoration [b] to tread a wine-prefs, from their custom of preffing grapes, fignifies deftruction, attended with great flaughter [c]-to give water in the wilderness, in allufion to the miraculous fupply of that element, during the paffage of the Ifraelites through the wilderness to the holy land, is the emblem of unexpected relief in dif trefs [d]; and, to mention no more, a foreft, fuch as Lebanon, abounding in lofty cedars, represents a great city, with its flourishing ranks of inhabitants [e]; just as, a mountain, from the fituation of the Jewish temple on mount Moria, is made to stand for the Chriftian Church [f]. Now, though the fymbols of this clafs be occafionally difperfed through the old prophets, yet they are more frequent, and much thicker fown, in the Revelations : so that to a reader, not well versed in the [6] Mal. i. 11. [c] Lament. i. 15. 'Jewish Jewish story and customs, this difference. may add fomething to the obfcurity of the book. If you ask the reafon of this difference, it is plainly this. The scene of the apocalyptic vifions is laid, not only in Judæa, but in the temple at Jerufalem; whence the imagery is, of course, taken. It was natural for the writer to draw his allufions From Jewish, objects, and especially from the ceremonial of the temple-fervice. Befides, the declared scope of the prophecy being to predict the fortunes of the Chriftian church, what fo proper as to do this under the cover of Jewish ideas; the law itself, as we have before seen, and as St. Paul exprefsly tells us, having been fo contrived, as to present the shadow of that future difpenfation? This then (and for the reafon affigned) is ONE diftinguishing character of the Apocalyptic ftyle. But the difficulty of interpretation, arifing from it, cannot be confiderable; or, if it be, may be overcome by an obvious method, by a careful study of the Jewish history and law. 2. The OTHER mark of diftinction, which I obferved in the ftyle of this book, is the continuity of the fymbolic manner. Parables are frequent, indeed, in the old prophets, but interfperfed with many paffages of history, and have very often their explanation annexed. This great parable of St. John is, throughout, carried on in its own proper form, without any such interruption, and, except in one inftance [g], without any express interpretation of the parabolic terms. Now, the prophecy, no doubt, must be confiderably obscured by this circumstance. But then let it be confidered, that we have proportionable means of understanding it. For, if the fymbols be continued, they are ftill but the fame [b], as had been before in [g] Chap. xvii. [b] The learned Bishop Andrews fays exprefsly"You fhall scarce find a phrase in the Revelations of St. John that is not taken out of Daniel, or fome other prophet." Vix reperias apud Johannem phrafin aliquam, ufe use with the elder prophets; whose writings, therefore, are the proper and the certain key of the Revelations. From these diftinctive characters, then, of the Apocalyptic style [i], nothing more can be inferred, than the neceffity of studying the Law, and the Prophets, in order to understand the language of this last and most mysterious revelation. And what is more natural, nay what can be thought more divine, than that, in a system, compofed of two dependent difpenfations, the study of the former should be made neceffary to the comprehenfion of the latter; and nifi vel ex Daniele, vel ex aliquo prophetâ defumptam. Refp. ad Bellarm. Apol. p. 234. [i] An eminent writer gives an exact idea of it, in thefe words" The style [of the Revelations] is very "prophetical, as to the things fpoken: And very he braizing, as to the fpeaking of them. Exceeding "much of the old prophets language and matter ad❝duced to intimate new stories: And exceeding much "of the Jews language and allusion to their customs "and opinions, thereby to speak the things more fa"miliarly to be understood." Dr. LIGHTFOOT, Harm. of the N. T. p. 154, London, 1655. I 3 that that the very uniformity of style and colouring, in the two fets of prophecies, fhould admonifh us of the intimate connection, which each has with the other, to the end that we might the better conceive the meaning, and fathom the depth, of the divine councils in both? But, without fpeculating further on the final purposes of this Judaical and Symbolical character, fo ftrongly impreffed on the Apocalypfe, it must evidently appear that the difficulties of interpretation, occasioned by it, are not invincible; nay, that, to an attentive and rightly prepared interpreter, they will scarce be any difficulties at all [k]. [k] I have heared it affirmed, on good grounds, that the late Dr. Samuel Clarke, being asked in conversation by a friend, whether, as he had taken much pains to interpret the other books of Scripture, he had never attempted any thing on the Revelations, replied, He bad not; but that, notwithstanding, he thought he underfood every word of it: Not meaning, we may be fure, that he knew how to apply every part of that prophecy, but that he understood the phrafeology, in which it was written which a man, fo converfant as he was in the ftyle of fcripture, might very well do.-Calvin, |