of ordinary means, chap. xxii. 10.

In chap. i. 3. all men are called upon, by a regard for their own happiness, to read, hear, study, and obey the words of this prophecy.

In the years 1785 and 1786, I delivered a courfe of lectures on the whole of this book. These were not committed to writing, I afterwards examined all the writers on the Revelation, who had come to my knowledge; many of whom were men of great abilities, learning, worth, and reputation. But I never met with one who explained that book upon fixed and established principles, or who unfolded its true and connected meaning. For want of fuch principles of interpretation, their writings were rather conjectures than explanations. Many of them, indeed, were, like the perfons who made them, very fagacious; and hence in many parts they hit upon the truth. If I had found a juft and complete explanation of that book, on fixed and rational principles, in the writings of a Vitringa, a Sir Ifaac Newton, a Lord Napier, a Lowman, or any other commentator, I fhould never have troubled the public with my opinion on this important fubject, though

though it, is one in which we are all deeply interested. Having never met with fuch a commentary, I refolved, in the year 1789, to write out one on that book, the fame in fubftance with the course of lectures which I had delivered upon it three years before. With great attention, and, if I know my own heart, with great candour, and with prayer to God for his direction and bleffing, I examined all the prophetic writings in the Old and the New Testament, in order to discover whether or not there is any one peculiar idiom or fixed character of prophetic writings, any characteristic features in which they all agree. I foon found that two peculiar features marked all prophecies. The first, that they are written in the symbolical language; and the fecond, that all prophetic writings, of any confiderable length are interspersed with keys or explanatory parts, written in alphabetical language. These keys are always introduced by an angel, or by a particular expreffion directing the attention of the reader to them; fuch as, "here is "wifdom," Rev. xiii. 18. xvii. 9.

Though the language of China, and of some few other parts of the world, is a kind of fymbolical language, yet that language in its perfection is now to be found only in the prophetic writings. From them a grammar and a dictionary of that language may easily be formed. No language is first formed from a grammar and a dictionary, but these are made from the pre-exifting language.

There are two characters in this language. The one is uniformly called an hieroglyphic, and the other a fymbol, in the commentary. An hieroglyphic is a complete figure made up of the affemblage of two or more parts into one picture. An example of a hieroglyphic may be seen in chap. i. from the middle of verfe 12 to the end of verse 16. And a symbol is a single detached member, fuch for inftance as a candlestick, a ftar, or a two-edged fword. Every prophet, in whatever country or age he wrote, always used the fame hieroglyphic, or the fame fymbol, to fignify the fame thing, without a fingle exception.

From this ufage may be seen in fact, what reafon teaches us to expect, that the meaning

of

of fymbols is much more fixed and uniform than that of words is in any alphabetical language. Alphabetical characters and words are not natural but only arbitrary figns, and therefore may and do change with the changes of times and of men; but hieroglyphics and fymbols are either pictures of things actually existing or of ideas which these things naturally excite, and therefore not arbitrary but natural figns, fixed and permanent as the things themselves. For the fame reason, the fymbolical is an univerfal language. Every alphabetical language is local and changeable. For inftance the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, the Spanish, the French, and the English languages, were or are each the language of a particular diftrict of territory, and are altogether unintelligible to the illiterate inhabitants of any other district; and they have all undergone fuch changes, that the language of one period is fcarcely intelligible to the inhabitants of the fame country in another period of time. But fhew the pictare of a star, of a candlestick, of a fword, or of a horfe and his rider, to any man of any country or age, and he will be at no loss to

tell

tell you what it reprefents.

Shew thefe to an intelligent and thinking man, of whatever country or period he is an inhabitant, and he will readily tell you what ideas they excite in his mind. He will read these fymbols with the fame eafe and certainty with which he reads historical painting, though it had been drawn by a person who had lived in a country or age far distant from his, and had spoken a language which he does not underftand.

As an univerfal and unchangeable language, the fymbolical must be the most fit language for prophecies intended for all countries and ages: And who can fo well form the keys for opening up the intricacies of prophecies as that God who knows all their parts? They, like the intricate wards of the lock which they are to open, must be fixed and permanent, and must not change with the fancies of man. In the commentary, I have explained the meaning of every hieroglyphic or fymbol the first time it occured in the book of Revelation, and whenever it appeared again I have used it in the fame fenfe; taking it for granted that the reader