It is obvious that the comparison instituted between the two copies of the document, necessarily possesses a signal effect in explicating the meaning. The other principle, that of the quaternal structure of the allegory, has the virtue of arranging and simplifying the materials of it and reducing these to order, symmetry and system. In a long allegory, such as the Revelation, it is evident that it is a principle in the highest degree efficacious to this end and to the explication of the sense.

These four grand principles of explication, which the prophetic allegory as developed in Scripture contains within itself, may justly be held sufficient to solve its enigma, however obstinate this may be, and to invest the meaning which the solution gives with demonstrative power. The very obstinacy and difficulty of interpretation become thus the guarantee of the true meaning. Literal prophecy is easily understood, when the words in which it is expressed are understood, for this possesses no demonstrative power. Symbolic prophecy is difficult of interpretation for the very reason that it possesses a demonstrative power which approaches the mathematical. Its sense is enclosed and fortified by a fourfold wall, which requires to be stormed ere the town which they enclose can be taken. But the town which these walls fortify is a valuable stronghold of the truth which is at present in the hands of the enemy, and which must be taken.

Prophecy delivered in literal language is extremely precise. Prophecy delivered in figurative

language is also precise in its announcements, provided the line of demarcation be truly drawn between what is really figurative and what is literal. Prophecy delivered in symbol, while it is much more general in its announcements than that which is expressed in literal language, has a sense more fixed and definite. A prophetic allegory is a scientific structure; the parallelisms between the imagery and the events it predicts, especially if it be long and complex, may be reduced to a species of mathematical demonstration. While it is incapable of yielding the minuteness and precision, it may thus be justly held to render a sense more fixed, definite, than even literal language. This is incapable of any kind of demonstrative proof. It rests on the mere usus loquendi, which is always liable to change; and thus its sense may undergo a revolution by the corruption of a word or by the faulty transcription of a single letter. Prophetic allegory on the other hand, is independent of any such contingencies; and when once written it may be regarded as imperishable. The mutation of a letter, or even of a word, cannot seriously affect it; because it is written not in mere words, but in the living characters of idea and of thought, which are eternal. It lives then equally through the fall of empires and of tongues, and it is after the lapse of thousands of ages, as long indeed as the objects which are its signs and the intellect itself endure, capable of the same mathematical demonstration as on the day when its sense was proved by its fulfilment. Its sense is inherent in it, although

it may have been unknown to the prophet himself who penned it, and although the ages that immediately followed him may not have discovered it. It is destined one day to spring forth like the morning light from the night of darkness, in which it has enveloped itself, and to shine with the lustre of the fullorbed day--at a time when no suspicion can be cast on the purity of its testimony. It waits with patience till this moment has arrived; it appears in its robe of light, when the events which it foretold have rolled away into the past, and it proclaims with a living voice, "I predicted these; read the revelation which I made, it is clear and intelligible." Every sound understanding must admit that it is this; while the tongue of the infidel is forever sealed in silence, who would reply, "these predictions produced themselves, and they wrought out their own accomplishment." This they could not have done, for they have not been understood. Its disguise is thus as wise as its revelations are miraculous. It is in virtue of its concealed definiteness alone that symbolic prophecy becomes, when it ceases to be a prophet, an everlasting and unimpeachable witness, the truth of whose testimony the metaphysical power of no Hume may impugn, nor the wit of any Voltaire strike, and which time cannot sensibly impair. And this testimony, which enshrines a miracle within it-a miracle that is endowed with a youngness liable neither to taint nor to age, is delivered in a universal language, which is elevated above the strife and the vicissitudes of human tongues, for its signs are not words but ideas,

adapted to all times and suitable for all nations, whether these be garnished with the spoils of intellect and civilization, or whether they be merely scraping a scant existence on the outskirts of the world. These features of allegorical composition fill the mind with high cnnceptions at once of the intrinsic worth and the sublimity of it. At the same time they attest the wisdom of that divine mind that selected this imperishable vehicle to convey to humanity at once the undying lessons of a pure and holy morality, calculated to guide it for ever on the way of truth, and the roll of prophecy, which supplies these with the unimpeachable warrant of inspiration.

While the demonstrative power which symbolic composition possesses, yields definiteness and fixity to the sense, the organized language which it possesses gives it, to a great extent, precision. The formation of its hieroglyphic signs into a regularly organized language, supplies it to a great extent with that quality of precision which the signs of literal language possess. The signs which it has, form, in truth, nothing less than a literal language in cipher. At the same time the signs being in their nature ideographic, and in consequence germane to the allegory itself, are capable of combining and assimilating with it to an extent that gives it a surprising pliancy and flexibility. An allegory, the signs of which derive their whole significance from itself, is capable of delivering moral and spiritual lessons with sufficient exactitude of expression. But such an allegory, it is plain, could only convey an impression of facts, general in the highest

degree. An allegory, however, which is composed in signs regularly organized and disciplined into a language, possesses a tenfold precision and definiteness. The hieroglyphical material is by this expedient rendered soft and pliant, and capable of affording an impression of bare facts. It can make revelations of future events with comparative distinctness. An element of literality is superadded to it, for each of these signs has a sense absolutely definite as much as a word in language literally taken. The basis on which their signification rests is not analogy, but identity. They do not represent certain things because they are like these, (although the analogy may be held as the foundation of the sense,) but because it is arbitrarily fixed that they should represent them. Thus a "beast," a "mountain," "a wind," the "sun," just as much stand for a dominion as the words in literal language "kingdom," "dominion," "state," or "empire." If any one doubts this let him consult the interpretations of the prophets which constitute a lexicon of these hieroglyphics. He will find the value of every principal sign recorded there with precision, while from the principal signs the sense of the subordinate is naturally and necessarily to be deduced. The main object accomplished by this organization of the hieroglyphics into a language is, that the prophecy which is couched in them has increased definiteness as well as increased precision. It still wants the concise and close exactitude of literal language, its laconic brevity and searching precision. In place of these, however, it has in a higher degree