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sentation is which these words make. It might, at first, be conceived that the full understanding of the sense of the words of necessity involves the understanding of the subject which these words present. In most cases, such a comprehension of the meaning would infallibly follow. It is to be borne in mind, however, that allegories are endowed with a second sense, which is moreover the main one, which always exerts an important influence on the tenor of the first representation. The weaker that the allegoric or enigmatical element is, the less this influence is felt. In most of the parables delivered by Christ himself, the first representation is easily understood, and is distinguished by great congruity, smoothness, and easiness of apprehension. It consists, for the most part, of a simple narrative, one or two of the salient points alone of which contain an allegoric sense. The same may be said of all those allegories of Scripture, of which the second sense is a moral or spiritual truth. But with the prophetic it is very different. The enigmatical element is here developed in a state of excess which tends greatly to obscure and cloud the first representation. To predict the intractable events of history the allegory is strained, and, even to a certain extent, distorted, and to attain increased definiteness, a hieroglyphic language is employed, which is more devoted to the second than to the first sense. The consequence is that the first representation of a prophetic allegory suffers in point of naturalness and obviousness of meaning. It is no matter which of the prophetic allegories we take up, we find it pervaded

by a certain unnaturalness and incongruity in the first representation. Is it the short allegory in Zech. ch. i. Here four horns are represented as scattering Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem, while four carpenters are represented to come and fray them. How can four horns, apart from living animals as they are represented, be conceived to exist as agents, which they are here said to be? The idea is an unnatural and fantastic one. But the first sense is here entirely subjected to, and is sacrificed for, the second. The prophet uses four horns as a symbol of dominion, and he has much more in view the second sense of dominion than the first of horns. In like manner, the reflection naturally arises in regard to the prediction delivered to Pharaoh: how is it conceivable that seven lean kine should eat up seven fat kine, or, more monstrous still, that seven thin ears of corn should eat up seven good ears. This distortion and meagreness of sense in the first representation is apt to dispose the mind to the supposition, that that which is so devoid of meaning in the first representation is destitute of it in the second representation likewise. Here, however, the mind would draw a very erroneous conclusion. It is just in the proportion that the first sense is weak, poor and frivolous, that the second is a strong, rich, and solid one. It is in virtue of the poorness and meagreness of the first representation that the second is charged with meaning.

But here also, Scripture herself comes to our help, as she does in the hieroglyphic language, with which she clothes the allegory, giving it thereby increased pre

cision and definiteness. While it is impossible to save the first sense, for this is sacrificed to the second, she constructs for the prophetic allegory certain laws, which, in a great degree, redeem the first representation from unnaturalness and irrationality, by infusing into it the principles of order and congruity of arrangement, and make it entirely useful, in a practical respect, for conveying the second sense, which is its object. These, at the same time render it, however long, perplexed and involved, as is the case in the Revelation, sufficiently intelligible. These laws are: 1st. The law of unity of design;

2d. The law of reduplication;

3d. And the law of the quaternal structure.

According to the first of these laws, perfect unity of design prevails throughout the allegorical composition, and gives it at once symmetry and coherence. This feature, which characterizes the composition, is only a natural result of that unity of conception, which, as we have shown, is a fundamental principle of the allegory itself. The high importance of this law towards the following out and the unravelling of the thread of the first representation, as well as of the second, is sufficiently apparent.

According to the second law, the allegory appears a second time in a new dress of imagery. This du plication affords a powerful instrument for the apprehension of its true relations. It has this effect, not only in virtue of the repetition by fresh imagery, but by reason of the comparison which may be instituted between the two allegories, and the consequent check

thereby afforded to erroneous conceptions of meaning, which might, and would very naturally, result, had there been but one, with a weak first sense. This law is found to prevail in almost every instance of regularly constructed symbolic composition in Scripture. The existence of two allegories, with one second sense, affords most effectual aid to the interpreter. It has evidently a similar effect in the elucidation of the allegorical text, only greater in degree, as the existence of a double copy of a document composed in two different languages has in clearing up the difficulty in the sense of it.

The third of the laws we have mentioned, the law of the quaternal structure, or the law in virtue of which the principal agents or actors in the allegory, are four in number, has a very powerful influence in reducing its complexity. However long and complex the allegory may be, it introduces into it an effective principle of order and system. It affords, even in a greater degree than the two other laws, a key by which to discover and a touchstone by which to test the plan of the allegory.

The three laws in combination may be regarded as thoroughly essential at once to the discovery and to the confirmation of the PLAN of the allegory. It is here that their chief value lies. But without the plan the interpreter can only survey a few outside stones of the building; he can render no explanation of the interior parts of the edifice. No real advancement whatever can be made in the interpretation of an allegory, until its plan be discovered, tested, and ap

plied. It is this which unfolds the relations of its parts in the first representation. It is this also which irrevocably fixes their destiny in the second and real representation.

Now these laws are very plainly developed in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and they form, as will be shown, striking features of its symbolical representation. Yet it cannot be said that their bearing upon the Old Testament prophecies is of much value. These are for the most part interpreted, and where they are not, the allegory is in itself short, and the imagery necessarily void of complexity, so that, whatever necessity there may be for the interpretation of its sense, there is little need for any methodical arrangement of its constituents. On what account, then, have these laws been developed so systematically as they have been; for they have been systematically developed? The answer is obvious-for the sake of the Revelation for which they are imperatively demanded. This prophecy is of such extreme length, and so excessively complex in comparison with all the others, that it stands pre-eminently in need of precisely such principles as those above referred to, for the arrangement of its multifarious visions, and for the reduction of its complexity into that state of simplicity, which is unquestionably, in a long array of ideographic signs, as here, the first and indispensable step to comprehension.

These principles of interpretation, so far as we are aware, have not yet been brought to bear on the Revelation.

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