that he felt his curiosity disappointed? This is no sufficient reason for the passionate sorrow which these words express. Was it that he understood the weighty issues unto the church and world, which were involved in the taking and opening of the book?. I say not but that he had an impression of the issues which rested thereon, while yet I doubt whether, at this stage of the revelation, he could, from natural understanding, have such a sentiment or feeling thereof, as is represented in the passage before us. But the true resolution of the difficulty, is in remembering that John was in the Spirit, and, being in the Spirit, was used by the Spirit, not only for witnessing unto the church, but likewise for expressing the feeling which is proper to the church. This passion of sorrow, this much weeping, I regard to be as much, the inward work of the Spirit within the seer as his transportation into heaven, and his beholding these scenes was the work of the Spirit upon him from without. By which impression of deep grief made upon his mind, it is indicated how deeply concerning to the church was the opening of this sealed book. John doth, in this respect, personate, as it were, the church on earth; not the church which then was, but the embodied church of all times and ages. And because this person is represented as the chief mourner over the unopened books, we do well conclude that the opening thereof doth chiefly concern this earth and the oppressions which the church endureth thereon. The seer weeping, with many tears, doth represent to me, that long and sore afflicted widow, the church, weeping before the indulgent long suffering Judge, over the spoliation of her inheritance ;-the sons of the bridechamber weeping and fasting because the Bridegroom is taken from them, and his house hath been oppressed by the sons of the alien. This seems to me to give a worthy and delightful account both of the affection which the Spirit impressed upon the seer, and likewise of its cause and its particular mention in this place; for, as I have often said, there are no mere shews and appearances in the word of God. Every thing hath under it a reality, and is the most appropriate method of bodying forth the reality which it containeth. The Spirit impressed it upon John's heart that the opening of it mightily.con

cerned him, and that embodied church of which he stood the only representative in the celestial assembly. And, forasmuch as he alone was thus distressed, it is well and distinctly signified, that though the action in progress, and for a while sisted in its progress, did mightily concern every form of being here represented; it concerned, in the way of pain and deliverance from pain, of sorrow, and of consolation, that portion of the creatures which are on the earth. It is a book whose sealedness is our distress, whose openness is our joy. This consideration, added to the hope of reigning on the earth, which the taking of it at once. begets in the glorified church, doth put it beyond a doubt. that our interpretation given above is the true one; to wit, that this book is the book of the inheritance, which, so long as it remains sealed in the hands of God, doth bespeak the inheritance unredeemed, which, so soon as it is possessed by another, doth signify the inheritance of the earth redeemed.

While John was thus affected, he received prompt consolation from one of the elders, who said unto him, "Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof." In order to interpret this verse completely, it ought first to be explained, why the office of comforting John with this information is given to one of the elders, and not to one of the living creatures, or one of the angels. Now, by taking this instance along with the only other instance which occurreth in the book, of an elder acting a part which is likewise to instruct and inform the seer (chap. vii. 13), and setting these two instances into contrast with the action of the several living creatures, one by one, recorded in chap. vi. and in chap. xv., it appeareth to me, that the characteristic difference between the two is this, that the living creatures do act as the immediate and personal attendants upon the Lamb, between him and his church, calling their attention perpetually to his glorious acts; while the elders, without such near and immediate contact, do the office of instructors, and interpreters, and comforters to the church. I think any one reflecting upon the action of the four living creatures, at the opening of each seal, and the action of that one who carries forth the seven vials of the

seventh seal, must be convinced, as well by the importance of those actions, as by the voice of thunder with which they are accompanied, that they fulfil a more important ministry, both in respect to its higher origin from Christ himself, and its effects upon the earth, than do the elders, who merely fulfil the subsidiary part of explaining, by natural speech, those things which need to be explained. And this also concurreth with the opinion which we have given, upon the radical difference between these two symbols, to wit, that the one is the action of the church, subsisting in that spiritual glory in which Christ. appeared to Saul; the other the action of the church, in that risen, but not yet glorified, body in which he abode with his disciples for forty days, previous to his ascension: and next as to the reason why the Comforter is not an angel, we observe, that every act, without exception, in this book, which proceedeth between Christ and His church, is carried on by the intervention, not of an angel, but of a saint, a member of the disembodied church. Angels are, indeed, the Creator's servants, for ministering to Christ and his church, but it were utterly incongruous that they should communicate between Christ and his members, seeing they have no standing under Christ as Redeemer and are not, therefore, fitted nor able to bring a message from the Redeemer to the redeemed. For this fitness is obtained by being begotten of the Spirit by Christ Jesus; and if to obtain the knowledge and fellowfeeling of man's condition, God himself had to become man, then we may well believe, that to convey that sympathy, from Him to us, belongeth to no creature who is not renewed in the same image. No foreign body can interpose itself between the members and the Head, without destroying the ease and operations of the body: so assuredly may no creature, of however lofty a name, interpose between the Head of the church and the body which is "his fulness, the fulness of Him which filleth all in all.” Angels are not of that body, but are ministers to its comfort and necessity. Angels, indeed, did minister to Christ, in the days of his flesh, sent by the Father, to his consolation, and legions of such he had ever at his command; but this is a ministry between God and the Head of the church, the like of which we affirm to be continually pre

sent with us; but it is not a ministry within the church itself, between the Head and the members, which is the point now under consideration; and this ministry I say, upon the authority of this book, is carried on, not by angels, but by the glorified saints. We have already seen that the elders, and the four living creatures, are glorified saints; and the same thing we shall prove, in its place, both of the trumpet-bearing and the vial-bearing angels, of whom the former receive their commission to blow for Christ, and the latter their vials to pour out from one of the living creatures. All the machinery whereby the intercommunion between the church on earth and Christ in glory is carried on; all the angels by whom Christ executeth his wrath upon the spoilers of his purchased inheritance, are purely ecclesiastical. And thence we gather the comfortable doctrine, that the saints departed are still active in the service of Christ in the invisible world; being employed by Him in continual ministerings to his church on earth. If it were not so, to die would be no promotion of our blessedness, and the spirits of the departed must be in a state of unconsciousness, or of inactive consciousness, something akin to sleep; both of which views are to be resisted. How a disembodied spirit should be able to fulfil ministries to the church, is no more difficult than how an angel should, which we all believe. This, however, is not a point of argument, but a point of interpretation ; one of these elders doth communicate with, and comfort John; and if in the latter we see the church embodied represented in one person, so in the other do we see the disembodied church represented. And the kind of intercourse which proceedeth is most comfortable to reflect upon. I fear that many, in thinking of the church or body of Christ, think only of the living saints, or of the general congregation of the dead and the living at his coming: but this is not sufficient; for whosoever is united to him by the Holy Ghost, cannot be separated again, but hath everlasting life ever subsisting in him: and having this, then, in the separate estate, he must still be as closely connected with, and as much subservient to, the Head, and surely not less employed by him in the great ends of his office, than those who now abide on earth. I do not find the Apostles at any pains even to divide between the

church embodied and disembodied, but always preserving the unity of the church in defiance of death and hell, and every other enemy. And when he makes mention of the body of Christ, or of the church, it is always in the full feeling of its unity. Whenever we pray for the coming of Christ, and his saints, and their kingdom, whenever we pray for the whole church, we pray for those in the heavens as well as those on the earth for all allow that by the resurrection there is a great change made in their conditions, a great addition to their power. And he that omitteth praying for this consummation, omitteth by far the most spiritual and comprehensive part of prayer; which no church that offereth the Lord's Prayer suffereth to be omitted. Out of the abuse of this great truth of the oneness of the church whenever that word is used in our prayers, discourses, or otherwise, the Romanists brought their accursed dogma of prayers for the dead, that their condition might be changed; which to substantiate, they added the abomination of purgatory. Likewise, their doctrine that souls ought to be prayed to as intercessors; whence also came the pretensions of the pope to take Christ's office of judgment, and give forth by name who they are that be entitled to the homage. These, like every other false doctrine of the Apostasy, are the corruptions of great truths; some of which already appear, and others will appear as we proceed. Only thus much we have seen it good to say, in order to explain, and defend against abuse, the great principle which we have laid down above, concerning the occupation of the saints in the separate estate, and their blessed ministries to the church.

What have we then in the dialogue before us, but the church disembodied, represented in the person of the elder, comforting the church embodied, represented in the person of the seer, concerning the inheritance of the earth, out of which she hath been so long kept by wicked oppressors, and directing her attention to the only Redeemer, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. A very sublime and touching incident it is, in this grand representation, to see the greater knowledge into which our brethren are advanced by death, and the gracious end of comforting us to which they apply their new-born faculties. It is sweet to see the unity of the church, and to hear the