under divine protection "the Enemy can do Him no violence nor the son of wickedness approach to hurt Him." Under His guidance GOD "calls His SON" Israel "out of Egypt." The flight from corrupt, Egyptianized, apostate Judaism, from "bondage to the weak and beggarly elements" of the Law, and from direr bondage to Satan, commenced during our LORD's Personal Ministry, and that of His Apostles. But still, victory was not achieved. The Gospel was not as yet revealed "the as power of GOD to salvation." The thraldom of the spiritual Pharaoh was nearly at an end the kingdom of heaven at hand. He was losing Israel. The flight (puy) had commenced. All the powers of hell are summoned to arrest the escape and prevent the "deliverance of the captive." For a while the issue seems doubtful. The awful crisis ensues the dread "hour, and the Power of darkness." At last the glorious Conquest is achieved. Through Death the Victor destroys him who had the power of Death, and "opens the kingdom to all believers." He hurls down for ever the relentless "Accuser of the brethren" from the shining abodes, endowing His Church with "Power from on high," even the HOLY GHOST "whom He shed on her abundantly."

The trembling flight from a dreaded foe is exchanged for glad and conscious liberty. The dragon cast down from the heavenly sphere, "persecutes" on earth the mystical Woman. But the Church expands her joyous pinions, and rises after her ascended LORD, to sit with Him secure, in the heavenly places, where, even while journeying through the wilderness world, she has the "secret place of her tabernacle." The more she is persecuted the more "blessed" does she become. (S. Matt. v. 10.) She " overcomes through the Blood of the LAMB." The sacred "fellowship in her LORD's sufferings" but draws her closer to Himself, causing her to soar higher and still higher above the earth and the sphere of the dragon's influence and rule.

Here we have the beginning of Church history.

The Church miraculously delivered from apostate Jerusalem is transplanted into the wilderness of heathendom. Satan's power is overthrown in the Heavenly Regions to which, in spirit, she has been exalted. Her LORD "has given her the victory." Redemption has been achieved. She is saved. But yet her time of trial has now to commence. For even as "the LORD, having saved" of old "the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not;" so she, although freed from the Dragon's spiritual thraldom, and at last even from outward persecutions, and endowed with supernatural powers wherewith she may ever tread underfoot her ghostly foes, is yet liable to his seductions. By

cally a twofold reference; describing at once, the Church at the time of the Birth of the Redeemer and during the period of her early Christian martyrs; and also the

these must he try to effect her ruin. If he attack her as the Dragon-her avowed and acknowledged foe-she will necessarily take wing, throw herself upon Divine protection and escape harmless. He must approach her in more friendly guise. He will call in the aid of the crooked, cunning, serpent, and see if he cannot even yet, once again contrive to "beguile Eve through his subtilty." Thus, "she is tempted and proved in the wilderness."

Enabled, "in spirit," to soar above the world and its concerns; yet "in the flesh," she still has her home in the world. She has two homes-Heaven and the Wilderness. In the former Satan cannot touch her; in the latter he can; for, though excluded from Heaven, the dominion of "the earth and the sea," is committed to him. (Cf. Rev. xii. 12; S. Luke iv. 5, 6.) To drag her down to the earthly level, to stimulate her lower life to the detriment of her higher life, to allure her heart and affections from her heavenly to her earthly home, and so to keep her within the bounds of his permitted influence and sway-this is the tempter's aim, and in this he fearfully succeeds.

Now here we must stop to notice the variety of the figurative terms employed by S. John. In this vision we are met with three most dissimilar expressions-Beast, Sea, Wilderness—yet all manifestly descriptive of one thing only (of course viewed in different aspects), viz., the godless world. We find the Church, as having her home in the world, represented, now as seated on the Beast, now in the Wilderness, and now 66 upon many waters," or on the "Sea." The last figure, the Sea, represents the world as the agitated, fluctuating mass of the nations, "which cannot rest; whose waters cast up mire and dirt." The Wilderness, is the world regarded as bringing forth no fruit to GOD, barren and unprofitable, feeding its inhabitants with "stones," not "bread.”1 The Beast is the world personified, represented as possessed of a substantive existence, instinct with life, capable of volition and action, and able either to befriend, persecute, or tempt, by reason of the evil Spirit which animates it. It is the xóopos of S. John's Gospel and Epistles,2 the visible representative and vicegerent of Satan.

With regard to the cognate expression the earth: as contrasted

1 The symbolic reference of the word 'sea' to the heathen or Gentile world, we have expressed in the two parallel clauses in the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah. "The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee; the forces of the Gentiles shall come to thee." And the virtual identity subsisting between 'sea' and ' wilderness,' we find expressed in the language of the Prophet, who describes ancient Babylon, the then centre of the world-Power, as "the desert of the sea.' Thus S. John when taken in spirit into the 'wilderness' to see the Harlot, beholds a Woman seated on' many waters.'

E.g. "If ye were of the world the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world-therefore the world hateth you." "I have overcome the world." "Love not the world." "The world knoweth us not." "Marvel not if the world hate you." "All that is not of the FATHER is of the world."

is he that overcometh the world?" &c. &c.

"Who

with the sea, it represents the reclaimed dry land; as contrasted with the wilderness, the cultivated ground. Hence it frequently symbolizes Christendom, i. e. the civilized Christianized world-Christianity, in this sense, being regarded chiefly in its outward aspect as the great instrument of civilization. Personified as the second Beast, and contrasted with the first, the "earth" signifies the culture, refinement, civilization, and wisdom of the world, as distinguished from its majesty and power. Hence the word will have a good or bad meaning, according to the connection in which it occurs. Distinguished from "sea," it will have generally a good "it sense; distinguished from "heaven," it will always have a suspicious and ill omened significance. It is the earth (we have seen) that generates the False Prophet, or second Beast-that seductive, self-asserting "wisdom of the world," which, whether it appear in Heathen, Christian, or Antichristian guise, (the three successive forms which it actually does assume, correspondently with the three successive changes in the religion of the civilized world,) is always and equally "foolishness in the sight of GOD."

At the present time, for instance, the first Beast being wounded to death and Christianized, his spiritual ally, the False Prophet, has necessarily assumed the Christian garb. But is he the less, secretly, insidiously, dangerously at work? No: the robe of the 'Angel of Light," the horns and semblance of the Lamb, impede not, nor alter the essential character of, his hidden operations. It is the very self-same, natural, earthly, demoniacal wisdom which of old manifested itself in the various forms of Pagan philosophy, and which shall hereafter exhibit itself in the diabolic creed of Antichrist, which now, working upon different subject matter, is exercising its malignant influence in the Church-abstracting from the Divine Deposit on one side; adding to, and developing, it on the other. Here, disparaging the efficacy of the Blessed Sacraments; there, sacrilegiously mutilating them. Now, questioning, or refining upon, the mystery of the adorable TRINITY; now, admitting the creature to a participation of the love and reverence and devotion incommunicably due to the Blessed TRINITY alone. On one side obscuring or perverting the doctrine of the Holy Incarnation; on the other dishonouring the Incarnate SoN, by presumptuously extending his peculiar attribute of Sinless humanity ("For Thou ONLY art Holy") to His Virgin Mother; "ever intruding into things it hath not seen, vainly puffed up in its fleshly mind." Here we have adulterated Christianity preparing the way for Anti-Christianity; CHRIST's "familiar friend " hastening the coming of His "open Foe."

There is still another symbolical expression which we must not omit, viz. the word "river." It is important, as determining the interpretation of the very difficult and much discussed passage which closes the twelfth chapter; in which we read that "the

away

Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a river, (ws Toтaμov,) that he might cause the Woman to be carried of the river." "Now inasmuch as we are told by the Angel, that the " many waters whereon the Whore sitteth are peoples and nations and tongues," it is a common and obvious supposition, that this river represents the "streams of the migrations of nations;" and that allusion is here made to the wild barbaric hordes wherewith the Dragon flooded the Old Empire after it had deserted his cause and turned Christian, by means of which he hoped to engulf the Empire, and destroy Christianity, but which the "earth" absorbed ; i. e. which the cultured Roman world assimilated and incorporated into itself, subdued and reconciled to Christianity. Dr. Auberlen advocates this view (P. 261 ;) and in noticing his very valuable work recently, we did not see sufficient grounds for questioning it.

Mr. Groves adopts quite a different interpretation; and without presuming to speak positively, we yet confess that this latter commends itself to us on many grounds.

or

the

And first, it is evident that the word "river" in the Apocalypse peculiar signification, distinguished from the "sea,' general mass of waters. Its interpretation is based on its relation to the "earth" and to "man." In relation to the "earth," (or civilized, Christianized world,) we see the symbolic allusion of rivers," or streams, in their fertilizing, life-giving properties; emblem carrying us back to the four streams of Paradise sending their salutary waters into all lands. In relation to man, the symbol points to that which is his natural drink. The Prophet brings out both these allusions: "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour My SPIRIT upon thy seed, and My Blessing upon thine offspring." The "living water which our LORD promised, "He spake of the SPIRIT, which they that believe on Him should receive." Thus the streams which fertilize the earth, and are a source of health and refreshment to man, are the several communications of God's good SPIRIT, whether the Holy Scriptures, the Blessed Sacraments and Ordinances of the Church, the salutary doctrines of Christianity. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters "-" For in the wilderness shall waters spring up, and streams in the desert."

Now all Gon's gifts are counterfeited by the Devil. Hence as GOD is the "Fountain of living water," so is Satan the source of the bitter poisonous streams which breed pestilence and death.2 And here we see such a stream "proceeding out of his mouth." Nor is this word mouth unimportant. In it we unquestionably see

1 Пoτaμds, (πivw) fresh, living, drinkable water.

"So essential is water to the sustentation of natural life, that throughout Sacred Writ it is employed as a type of spiritual life and grace. . S. Paul marks the analogy, where he says of the Israelites in the Wilderness, They did all drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was CHRIST.'" -Groves, Pp. 341-42.

2 Cf. Rev. viii. 10, 11.

a reference to utterance, doctrine, teaching. Nor again is a third word which here meets us without its significancy. We saw that the Dragon was overcome: that, hurled down from Heaven, he persecuted the Woman: that she was miraculously preserved. His persecutions hurt her not. Here then we are arrested by a change of expression: we read that the "Serpent" sent the river out of his mouth to engulf her.

There is then, we conceive, abundant reason for agreeing with our author that in this figure of a stream of water issuing from the Serpent's mouth and following the mystic Woman through her wilderness journey, we see a representation of the heresies, superstitions, and pseudo-Christian doctrines wherewith the Old Serhas ever been striving to secretly to encircle, allure, poison, and ultimately engulf her whom he was unable openly to destroy. Our Author sees the type of this stream, in the varied and successive temptations wherewith Satan assailed Israel in the wilderness, with a view to recovering, if possible, his lost prey.

But it appears to us that we may proceed still farther and ask: What is the particular river here alluded to? Have we any further notice of it in the Revelation ?

We read in the Apocalypse of two rivers, and two only; as we do of two women, and two cities. There is 'the great river Euphrates,' the river of the mystical Babylon, and the river of the water of Life,' or river of the mystical Jerusalem. The latter 'proceedeth from the Throne of GOD,' the former, as we here learn, 'proceedeth out of the mouth of the Dragon and the Serpent.' Now that this river is really identical with that which, to indicate its connection with Babylon, is introduced under the name of the Euphrates, appears more than probable from this fact, that in both instances the stream (being but "of the earth, earthy," and not springing up into everlasting life") is absorbed into the earth: it is sucked up by the ground. Here we read that the "earth swallows up the river:" there, that it is "dried up." (xvi. 12.) So that, as the drying up of Euphrates plainly synchronizes with the destruction of Babylon (the same event, expressed under different imagery-Cf. Jer. 1. 38; li. 36, 37), in like manner, does this absorption by the earth of the Dragon's river seem to refer to the same judicial catastrophe. Mr. Groves notices that the words descriptive of this judgment are the very same as those in which the destruction of Korah and his company are recounted ("The earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up"), thus conveying an obviously intentional allusion to that fearful event; indicating that as the sin of Korah and his company will be repeated in the Church, so shall their doom. "Woe to them. they have perished in the gainsaying of Korah." (S. Jude 11.)1

1 This reference to the destruction of Korah and his company is noticed by Cornelius à Lapide. A question, however, may here present itself. If this swallowing