Ver. 19.-Write the thfngt. The true sticks are the seven Chmel1es.' This con reading and mO!lt English Versions give, tre.at between the heavenly and the earth!' " write fhere/- the things; " i.e. because fi1'811-the star shining steadily by its owi:.. thou hut aeen me and received thy com- inherent eternal light, and the lamp flicker- miseion from me. The omieeion of "there- ing and uncertain, requiring to be fed with fore" eomee from the Genevan Version. The fuel end tended with care-cannot be devoid threefold division of things probably refen of meaning. The star iii the euprasensual to past, present. and fntUJe 'lluiom, not to counterpart, the heavenly representative; the peat, present.and future in history, Btd the lamp. the earthly realization, the out• it ill possible that "the things which thou ward embodiment. .. Whether the angel is saweet" refen to the visions, and " the here conceived as an actnal person, the things which are." etc., to the realities ll)'lll• celestial gnardian, or only as a personifica- bolized in the vieiona. tion, the idea or 11pirit of the Church, itis Ver. 20.-The mystmy. In oonstrnotion unn61l6ssary for my present purpose to oon• this is the accusative after "write." A sider. But whatever may be the exact oon. mystery is the opposite of a revealed truth: ception, he is identified with and made it is a sacred truth kept secret. the inner responsible for the Church to -a degree meaning of something which is perceived, wholly unsuited to any human officer. but .not genere.lly understood, The angels Nothing is predicated of him which may of the aeven Churches. The meaning of not be predicated of it. To him are imputed these •angels" has been very much dis- all its hopes, its fears, its graoes, its short- puted. The common explanation that they oomings. He ia punished with it, and he ia are the bishops of the Churches is attractive rewarded with it. ..• Nor is this mode on account of its simplicity. Bnt it bas very of representation new. The 'princes' in grave difficulties, especially for those who Daniel (x. 13, 20, 21) present a very near 11B11ign the Apocalypse to the earlier date of if not an exoot parallel to the angels of ..t..n. 68. It ill highly improbable that at the Revelation " (Bishop Lightfoot. • Phi- that very early time the seven Churches lippians,' p. 198). The identification of the were already so fully organized· as each to angel of each Church with the Ch1ll'llh it- possess its own bishop, And granting that self is shown in a marked way by the fad they were, and that the bishops might fitly that, although each epistle is.addressed to be called "angels" or "111888engers,'' would the angel, yet the consumtly recurring re- they not be called messengers of God or frain is,." Hear what .the Spirit saith to tlui of Christ, rather than messengers of the Church,,,3," not " lo the angela of the Chnrches" 1' And would not the primitive Chun·hes." The augel and the Church are Church have p:reserved this title as a .BY• the same under different aspects: the one nonym for "bishop"? "S~ John's own is its spiritual character personified; the langtUP,ge gives the true key to the symbol- other is the congregation of believers who ism. • Tlie seven stars are 1he· angels of collecUvely JlOlll!llBa this oharacter. ihe 1even Churches, and the seven candle-
HOMILETICS. Ven. 1-8.-In.trotluctlon: the purport of th~ book. In commencing a series of •ketches which shall furnish in outline a homiletic exposition of such a book as this, the writer may well feel borne down with a sense of the responsibility of the task he bas undertaken. And yet such responsibility, great as it is, is prevented from being overwhelming through the infini~ joy and comfort he has himself derived from a repeated atudy of it-a atudy extending over some fifteen or twenty years, and now renewed for the special purpose of giving utterance to convictions of ita value and glory, which deepen with each succeeding examination of its contents. Into the detailed opinions of the varied expositors aa to whether the preterist, futurist, or hi~tori~ interpretations are the most correct, it will neither be in his province nor to his. taste to enter. There.is another order of exposition-the !!piritual-which, accepting what- ever can be verified in the other three, sees rather throughout the Ap<>C&lypse an llllfolding of the principles on which the great Head of the Church will carry forward his own work, and a parabolic setting of the fortunes of his Church as she moves forward to the final oonsummation of all things. As Dr, Lee remarks,1 "the h.istorical qstem 811S1lllle8 that single events, ~ they come to pass b;1 succession, exhibit the full' ~liahulent of the different predictions of the Apocalypse," while" the •sp~tual • 1 hvoduotion to the &,elation, 'Speaker'a Commentary,' New ~et1tament, vol. lv. p, 49:l oiL i. 1-20.] THE REVELATION OF. ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. 9