our subject we have to treat of the condition of the Church left on the earth after the translation, to account for this command given to the beast, that they should not hurt the servants of God, but only those who should be the followers of Antichrist; but we must reserve this exposition for that occasion, simply now observing, that, though the action of these symbolic locusts is to produce torment upon the men of the earth whom it was given them to hurt, so that they should eagerly seek death yet not find it, it is still an act of preparation to an end hereafter to be consummated-indicated by the sustentation of human life, which they had not any power to destroy.

These locusts are likened to scorpions, and they had stings in their tails, and we learn from the enlarged description of the symbol that they had power in their tails. We can be at no loss for the true meaning of this figure, if we refer to Isaiah ix. 15, where it is declared that "the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail." It conveys an announcement that the beings symbolized by the locusts are spiritual persons, and that the means employed by them, whereby they inflict injury upon mankind, is the exercise of that lying spirit under whose power and influence all men shall come who have not received the truth in the love of it. This exposition of their supernatural

spiritual character is confirmed by a careful study of the enlarged symbolic description subsequently given of them, which conveys an intelligible signification of their true character; and which consists, not only in the propagation of lies in the way of doctrine, but in the exercise also of active supernatural powers for the accomplishment of their ends. They are the false Melchizedics of the earth, putting forth claims to kingly as well as spiritual power, and displaying their strength also as men of war; for they are like unto horses prepared unto battle, and they have on their heads, as it were, crowns of gold, and their faces are as the faces of men--that is, they are men having the semblance though not the reality of kingly rule, and prepared to do battle for the same. They have hair as women, though they have teeth like the teeth of lions-just as the false prophet has a lamb-like aspect, though he speaks as a dragon; and the combined symbols point out with sufficient plainness that it is within the borders of the visible Church (the proper symbol of which is a woman), that their power shall be exercised. Their breastplates of iron denote their invulnerability to mere human assaults by an endowment with supernatural life; and the sound of their wings, being as the sound of chariots and of many horses running to battle,

signify the supernatural power which they shall be able to command when engaged in open conflict.

As the scene which is described in the remaining portion of this ninth chapter is distinct and separate from that we have been considering, and, moreover, forms no part of our present subject, we shall now close our remarks upon this part of the prophecy, and proceed with an examination into the signification of the mark and the name of the beast.

In order to arrive at the true signification of the mark of the beast, let us contemplate its opposite, as recorded in the first verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Revelation :-"And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads."

The spiritual creation presents a great antithesis to our contemplation, exhibiting to our view two parallel yet opposite principles, which at one and the same time are directly contrary to, yet, in a certain sense, apparently resemble each otherGod and Satan-Christ and Antichrist-Heaven and Hell. Nor does the proposition that the one

is a direct contradiction to the other, afford a correct or adequate signification of these two opposite mysteries, inasmuch as every spiritual truth contained in the former is represented in the latter— not in the way of negation only, but in the possession of an active and positive principle of evil which bears a resemblance, whilst at the same time it is in direct opposition to its counterpart.

If this be an axiom of truth, it will be readily conceded that the development of either one of these principles must cast light upon the other; so that what is not plain or intelligible in the one is capable of elucidation by that which is in the other-remembering, that in deducing conclusions from the comparison, we are drawing them from two opposite extremes-not between things that agree, but between things that differ-closely assimilating, yet, at the same time, eternally opposite and apart from each other.

An interpreter cannot arrive at the spiritual meaning of a prophecy, if he allows himself to be fettered too strictly by the letter of a rule, which is generally found fatal to the attainment of the full mind of the Spirit of God. He must keep in constant remembrance that all God's revelations to man have for their object the development of principles; and it is acting in the light of this truth that we reject the literal meaning of the

words used in reference to the mark of the beast; and, for precisely the same reason that we adopted it in our interpretation of that speaking image which the false prophet had power to endow with vitality—namely, because in that case the literal is the open manifestation of a principle of evil which has been long at work; and, in the present case, the mark of the beast rather points to the existence of a principle than its consequences. In adopting the literal signification of the words in the former instance, no propriety is violated: on the contrary, the prophecy points to the open manifestation of that image worship which has ever, more or less, existed in the world since its creation: whereas, in the latter, if the strict letter of the words be insisted on, the fact exhibited would not only be without any precedent or parallel, but would be void and incompetent, even as a mark of designation, inasmuch as the character of the prophecy requires a token of identification in the spirit of a man, and not upon his outward flesh, which latter would rather be a contingent than an essential sign. Indeed, to suppose that the mark of the beast is a literal stamp upon the forehead or in the hand is to substitute the sign for the thing signified, and is quite beneath the spiritual character of the prophecy itself; which deals with outward symbols only as they are made subser