'sat on the throne. He went as a lamb: He came as ' a lion. He went as a lamb from life: He came as a

lion from death. He went by dying for the dead:

He came by rising for the dead. Moreover, the lamb that was slain was by the glory of his resurrec'tion changed into a lion. He came and took the 'book out of the right hand of Him that sat on the 'throne, when He declared that those things, which were written in the Law and the Prophets, had been and were to be accomplished in Himself. And beginning, he says, at Moses and the Prophets, He expounded unto them the Scriptures. (Luke xxiv. 27.) • From that time therefore the opening of the book, 'from that time the loosening of the seals, began: on 'that day, I say, on which He arose from the dead, ' and opened the understanding of the disciples that they might understand the Scriptures. (Luke xxiv. '45.)'

SECTION II.

WRITERS WHO ADOPT SECONDARY INTERPRETATIONS OF THE

SEALED BOOK.

WHEN the opinion had once established itself, that the unsealing of the book relates to the first advent of Christ, and means either the accomplishment by Himself of the predictions of the Old Testa

venit leo. Ivit agnus a vitâ: venit leo a morte. Ivit moriendo pro mortuis: venit resurgendo pro mortuis. Porro agnus, qui occisus est, per resurrectionis suae gloriam mutatus in leonem. Venit et accepit librum de dexterâ sedentis, cum ea, quae scripta erant in Lege et Prophetis, in se esse consummata atque

consummanda disseruit. Et incipiens, inquit, a Moyse et Prophetis interpretabatur illis scripturas. Extunc igitur apertio libri, extunc signaculorum solutio inchoata est: in die inquam illo, quo resurrexit à mortuis et aperuit discipulis suis sensum ut intelligerent scripturas. p. 109, 111.

ment, or the clear revelation of that accomplishment to the Apostles and the Christian world; it was natural that this general view of the whole subject should have the effect of expanding, and generalising, and rendering more vague and indefinite the idea, which was attached to the symbol of the sealed book itself. The references, also, which were constantly made by the earlier writers to the sealed book of Isaiah, and the key of David, as immédiately connected with the sealed book seen by St John in the Apocalypse, though they at first tended to confine the application of the Apocalyptic symbol to the books of the Old Testament,-would unintentionally lead to an opposite result. For some persons, as Jerome informs us, having maintained that the sealing up of the visions, foretold by Isaiah, referred only to his own prophecies or those of Jeremiah ;-and that, having the key of David, to open what no man can shut, and to shut what no man can open, relates to nothing but the book of Psalms, or even to some one detached Psalm, which predicts the coming of the Messiah ;-he and other writers strongly insisted upon the opposite interpretation, which applied these texts to the whole of the Old Testament. For though this Testament consists of several distinct volumes, composed at different times and by different writers, it must yet be regarded as but one book ;one Revelation to man given by one and the same Divine Spirit. Hence they express the subject of the Apocalyptic sealed book by the term 'Universal Scripture' understanding by this expression the whole of the Old Testament, in opposition to the erroneous opinion just stated. But nothing could be more natural than that this phrase should be understood

in a more extended sense, as including both Testaments, in opposition to the views of those, who restricted it to the Old only. Again, this idea, that the sealed book means both the Old and New Testaments, having been once suggested, the further circumstance of that book being described by St John as written within and without, would immediately tend to confirm and perpetuate it: for it would be a natural and almost unavoidable inference, that the Old Testament was written on one side of the roll, and the New on the other. A further step in the process of generalization would be to lay aside the strict and literal interpretation of the word 'Book,' and to apply this term in a more enlarged and metaphorical sense. It being assumed that the opening of the seals means the full exposition of all the mysteries of redemption, which has been made by the advent of Christ, it would be inferred that the sealed book is not to be understood literally as either the Old Testament, or the Old and New jointly, but as the Divine revelation contained in those books,-the dispensation of the gospel, or the Divine scheme of human redemption. And according to this view of the subject, the roll would be supposed to contain the letter of Scripture on the one side; and on the other, its spiritual or mystical interpretation. Passing on to a still wider deviation from the original exposition, it would be conceived that as our Lord Jesus Christ, and the salvation accomplished by Him, were the great subjects of Divine revelation in every age of the world, therefore the sealed book was to be regarded as a symbol of Christ himself:'-the various steps of His mediatorial office being therein described, but sealed up until the event had opened

and revealed them. Thus, the true exposition of the symbol was gradually supplanted by more general and undefined notions, and succeeded by a variety of secondary interpretations: some one of which, or some combination of them, is to be found in almost every commentator of the Latin Church till the end of the thirteenth century. As it would be tedious and unnecessary to cite these writers at length, the author will concisely class their different interpretations: referring such of his readers, as may wish to examine them more minutely, to the chronological list of Commentators contained in the Introduction to this Essay.

That the sealed book means all Scripture;-is the opinion of Gregory', Rupertus, and Richard of St Victor.

That it means the Old and New Testaments;is the interpretation of Tychonius, Pseudo-Ambrose, Bede, Haymo, and Bruno.

That it means either the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, or rather the dispensation of man's redemption as contained in them;-is the notion of Primasius, Ansbertus, the authors of the Glosses, Hugo, Albertus, and Aquinas.

That it means Christ himself;-seems to have been the opinion of Etherius and Pascasius.3

The last three opinions are cited, as the most probable interpretations, by Hugo and Albertus.

Now that these expositions of the sealed book are not original, but secondary interpretations, derived from the one primitive notion, that the symbol means

1 In Ezechiel. Lib. 1. Hom. ix. Tom. I. p. 1260.

2 Bibliotheca Patrum. Tom. XIII. p. 379. H.

3 Ib. Tom. XIV. p. 359. C.

literally and exclusively the Old Testament; is not only evident from the gradual progress of the expositions themselves, but may be yet more clearly proved from the explanations of all the accompanying parts of the vision. For the proclamation of the Angel,the Apostle weeping, the elder comforting him,— the Lamb taking the book,-the hymns of the four beasts and elders; are all explained by these writers upon one general principle:-a principle consistent with the primary idea entertained of the sealed book, and obviously borrowed from it, but inconsistent with any other exposition of the symbol. The source of all these interpretations, therefore, is evident: the unsealing of the book is still in fact, though not in words, the opening and unfolding of the mysteries of the Old Testament.

SECTION III.

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FIFTH CHAPTER.

THE subject of the present Section is connected with the observation made at the close of the preceding for, though the later writers of the Latin Church gradually deserted the primary interpretation of the sealed book, they yet retained that exposition of the fifth chapter, which obviously grew out of it. Consequently their remarks on the several particulars of this chapter, the circumstances attendant upon the first introduction of the sealed book, will throw a strong light on the interpretation of that fundamental symbol. As the observations on this portion of the Apocalypse, made by these several writers, resemble each other very much in their general fea