MOUNTAIN-A great and powerful government. "The Mountain of the Lord's House," the kingdom of the people of God: “In all my holy mountain," in all the kingdom of the Messiah. Babylon is called a mountain: Jer. li. 25. "I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyeth all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks"-Zech. iv. 7. "Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt be a plain"; i. e. Babylon reduced before Cyrus. The stone cut out of the kingdoms of this world became a great mountain (kingdom) and filled the whole earth. MOUTH. The words which proceed out of it-Commands and actions. "Out of their mouth issued fire"-Destruction; commands and threats issuing in destruction. NAKEDNESS-Poverty, shame, and disgrace. "Make her naked,” shall bring upon her shame and disgrace. OLIVE TREES. Trees in the prophetic scriptures are often the symbols of men. The olive, remarkable for its verdure, soundness, and useful oil, is the symbol of the most illustrious and useful men. Mo ses and Aaron were two olive trees. So were Zerubbabel and Joshua. The good man is like a tree planted by the water courses--the axe lies at the root of the dry tree. The godly by Isaiah are called "trees of righteousness," lxi. 3. Thy children are like olive plants: the Jewish people and state, Jer xi. 16. "The Lord called thy name a green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit." PALM, branches of. Carry branches of palm trees-The symbol of joy after a victory attended with antecedent sufferings. PARADISE-Symbol of happiness and salvation. "Fruits of Paradise," signify divine and useful knowledge. PILLARS-Princes or nobles in a kingdom or state. POTION, Cup, or Philtrum-Sorcery, enchantment. "Cup of her fornication"-enchanting or magical influences. RAIN-Refreshment: peace and righteousness: pure and heavenly doctrine; Deut. xxxii. 2; Ps. lxxii. 6; Hosea x. 12. "All manner of good things." RED-Bloody cruelty. RESURRECTION, and "Rising from the dead"—A recuperation of lost rights and privileges which have been taken away; a deliverance from persecution and bondage. Ez. xxxvii. 9. "I will open their graves"-raise them into a national and elevated existence. Political and religious exaltation. RIVERS-Provincial magistrates; revenues. Consolations are also represented by rivers of living waters: the fruits of the Spirit. Drying up of rivers portends death, sorrow and affliction. SCARLET. Scarlet colored-Emblem of the most bloody cruelty. SEA-Waters signify people. The gathering together of people into one body politic, constitutes a sea. The winds strove upon the great sea-An empire in agitation. SELLING. See Buying. SHIP The symbol of profit. STARS. See Sun. SUN, Moon and Stars-Symbol of the high lights and authorities. in society, political and religious. The sun denotes the chief, the moon next in authority, and the stars the nobles. Joseph's dream, interpreted by Jacob, gives the true interpretation of those symbols: "Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren, indeed, come and bow down to thee!" The moon is the symbol of the Jewish state, the suņ of the christian, and the stars are used to represent, sometimes, the lights in general. The morning star is a symbol of the Messiah. The king of Babylon is called Lucifer, Son of the "Morning." "I am," says Jesus, "the bright and the morning star." Angels, too, are symbolized by stars. When the morning stars sang together, even all the sons of God shouted for joy. "Stars falling from heaven," denote the destruction of the nobility. "The stars are usually put for subordinate princes and great men."-Sir Isaac Newton. Political and ecclesiastical heavens have their hosts- their sun, moon, and stars, as well as the natural. SWORD-Symbol of slaughter. Sword out of the mouth-Threatenings, sharp and severe: his words are drawn swords-piercing and terrific. TAIL. "Tail of a beast"-Symbol of the train or retinue of the chief authority or state symbolized by the beast whose tail it is. TEETH-"Large iron teeth," a devouring enemy; rapacious cru elty. TEMPLE OF GOD, Christian Church. "Man of Sin sitting in the temple of God," represents Christ's pretended Vicar reigning over something called the church. "A pillar in the temple of my God:" a conspicuous member in the church of the Messiah: "a consecrated people, whose profession is christian," say Hammond, Grotius. THIRST. See Hunger. THROES. Throes of child birth-Image of great endeavors to bring to pass something attended with great difficulty. Jer. xxx. 6,7. Is. lxvi. 7. THRONE. Throne, kingdom, government, authority, dominion and power, are of like signification. "To translate the kingdom from the house of Saul and to set up the throne of David over Israel," is to translate the government from one to the other. "The throne of the beast," is his authority. THRONE OF GOD. As the trees of God are magnificent trees; the cedars of God magnificent cedars; the mountains of God very large mountains; so, figuratively, and in the Hebrew idiom, "Throne of God" is a magnificent throne. THUNDER. "There were thunders and lightnings"-The symbol of sudden and terrific dispersion and destruction of the forces of war. As the coruscations of lightning and thunder shake the natural heavens, or air, so symbolic thunders, &c. shake the political and existing governments of men. Is. xxix. 6; Job xxxix. 25; 1 Sam. ii. 10; Ps. xviii. TIME, times, and half a time. Time is one annual revolution of the earth; times two such revolutions; and the dividing, or half a time, is half a year: time, times and half a time, denote three years and a half. This is established in Daniel's prophecy. Nebuchadnezzar was to associate with the beasts till seven times passed over him; i. e. seven years. "Numbering by months or moons is appropriate to the works of darkness; because the moon is the governness of night: numbering by the course of the sun, is appropriate to the works of righteousness, and this is in correspondence with the use of these symbols in the Apocalypse. The continuance of the Beast, and the profaning of the holy city by the Gentiles, are reckoned by months; but the prophecy of the Witnesses by days: the abode of the woman in the wilderness by days, and by time, times, and half a time; three solar years and a half." TREES. See Olive. TRUMPET-Emblem of the proclamation of war or peace. VINTAGE, and Wine Press-Symbol of great oppression, affliction, and effusion of blood. See Joel iii. 12. WATERS Symbol of words, languages, and people. WHORE-The apostate church. WHOREDOM, Idolatry-Worship of man's inventions, renunciation of allegiance to Jesus Christ as the sole Lord, prophet, priest and king. WIND. See Sea-Symbol of commotion. WINE PRESS. See Vintage. WITNESSES: two witnesses, a few witnesses-The scriptural plurality. That succession of pleaders for God which have stood forth for him during the time, times, and a dividing of time, in which the man of sin sits in the temple of God, and the woman is nourished in the wilderness, according to some. The two witnesses, according to others, are the two distinct bodies of men in succession which plead for the political and religious rights of men, against the usurpations of priests and kings: resembling in their character Moses and Aaron; Zerubbabel and Joshua: or, Revelation and Nature, those witnesses for God's being and perfections; or the Old Testament and the New; the Apostles and the Prophets. Such are the various views taken of the two witnesses. We shall refer the reader to an essay on this subject, intended soon to appear. WOMAN-A body politic, whether city, state, or church. WORLD. See Heaven and Earth. The whole frame of things. WORSHIP-Subjection, homage; political and religious. ZION The christian church in her impregnable and triumphant character. EDITOR. Dear Sir:-IN my last I presented you with two objections, one on the manner in which some preachers teach the "ancient gospel," and one on the manner in which persons are received to immersion. In looking over my pocket book of memoranda and strictures on sermons and preachers, I discover a few such specimens from other preachers beside that given in my last: but my attention is now called to your mode of inducting persons into the work of Evangelists. Permit me now to speak plainly on this delicate point, I have reason to call it a delicate point; for I think that you yourself have been the cause of the errors of which I am about to complain. There are a set of men, now becoming pretty numerous, going all round the country in the capacity of Evangelists, (they call themselves by this name); some of them assuming to be planters of churches, others waterers; some of them teachers, critics upon the text, commentators, and, though not "text expositors," they are chapter expounders. They speak of the clergy as a set of blockheads, dunces, (one of them I think, in my hearing, called them asses,) impostors, not sent by God, spiritual merchants, traffickers in souls, &c. &c. One of them and myself fell in company a few months since at an inn: we lodged in the same room, and talked, rather than slept, all night. Not suspecting me to be a preacher of any sort, he felt no restraint in expressing his whole views and abhorrence of the priesthood, as he called all the preachers out of his own fraternity. In the course of a long debate, in which 1 sustained the clergy (occasionally, however, giving in to his censures) and he impugned them, 1 asked him, By what authority he preached? as I inferred that he was a preacher. He told me that he had the authority of the Apostle Peter, and received his commission from him. I wished him to explain. He proceeded by telling me that Peter said, "Let every one, according as he has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold favors of God. If any one speak, let him speak as the oracles of God require. If any one minister, let him do it as from the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory, and the power, forever and ever: Amen." This, said he, is my commission. But, said 1, have you been accredited and received as one of Peter's preachers by any society? I do not understand you, he responded. Has any community examined your credentials, and concurred in your commission? No; rejoined he, angrily: I am not sent by men. Well, you pretend not to be called and sent by God; and if neither God nor man has sent you out, I am at a loss to understand how you are to be received and regarded as one of Peter's preachers. After a long pause, he observed that the written word justified him in proceeding as he had done, and he wanted no higher authority. After numerous objections to his application of the words of Peter, in which I attempted to show that this was a spiritual gift of which Peter spake, and that the brethren in the church were the objects of VOL. III. 42* the exercises enjoined by Peter, and therefore it authorized him not in going out to the world, he introduced some passages from the Acts in illustration of his commission; such as the whole congregation in Jerusalem turning preachers on their escape from persecution, and Philip's journey to Samaria and elsewhere, &c. And here I fell asleep; much, apparently, to the relief of my friend, who in the morning evinced no very strong desire to resume the subject. Now, sir, this appears not so much as an excrescence upon your system, but as the natural fruit of some essays which I have read in the first volumes of the Christian Baptist. If I mistake not, you encourage every one to speak or preach who feels a desire to engage in such exercises. And, indeed, I know not how, otherwise, so many should be engaged in the work, unless undertaken and assumed upon their own responsibility. But how this experiment is to eventuate, I think it requires no great prescience to foresee. It might have done in the age of prophecy and of spiritual gifts, for every one impelled by the Holy Spirit to go forth, either as a preacher or teacher of christianity. But when you and I agree that the age of such gifts is past, and that men are not now illuminated by immediate revelations, I am the more surprized to see you and others yield to such an eco nomy. Amongst various sects of Baptists, Methodists, Christians and Qua kers, who believe in an immediate and supernatura: call to the work of the ministry, it may do very well for them to countenance such; for, indeed, I do not see how they dare resist the Spirit, or quench its workings in such called ones, agreeably to their acknowledged sentiments. But such an economy of things appears to me wholly irreconcilable with the position that no man can have any correct spiritual perceptions, or supernatural ideas, but from the recorded words of the Holy Spirit. Our preachers, evangelists and pastors, must be created or raised up by the study and knowledge of the holy scriptures. And I presume you will concede that they who wish to be preachers and teachers of others, I mean those who are most eager for such offices, are not generally the best qualified for them. I contend, therefore, that reformation is not more needed in any system in christendom than in your own: for if ever there was a set of preachers and prophets of whom it might be said that they were wholly unsent, either by God or men, it is that class, or at least a part of that class whom I have now in my eye. Let me add, that in some parts of my travels in the Valley of the Mississippi, your opponents have taken great advantage of this order of things; and on it they rely "for the blowing up of your system," as they call it, more than upon their own exertions: and I should not acquit my conscience if I should not add, that many who think well of many prominent features of the Reformation, or Restoration as some call it, are so disgusted with this disorder as to stand aloof from it on this account alone. You published some specimens of the called and sent textuaries; such as the Oysterman, and others, as indicative of the enthusiasm of |