other, "Take thou authority to preach the word," with an additional authorization for administering the Sacraments. Yet again, in the consecration of Bishops, it was judged fit that the same significant symbol should not be omitted. The Archbishop delivers the Bible in this case into the hand of him that has been consecrated; with the injunction, "Take heed to the doctrine and exhortation! Think on the things contained in this Book!"-Thus, in each of the three cases, considering that the ordaining or consecrating Bishop acts in the ceremony as Christ's deputy, there remains in our English ritual (and the same for the most part in other reformed rituals) the perpetuation, substantially, of the Apocalyptic prefiguration of the commissioning of the ministers of the Reformation. -Surely the fact is most remarkable. Nor I think, will it be either uninteresting or profitless to the ministers ordained, even now, on each such solemn occasion to remember this prototype of their ordination, pre-enacted in the visions of Patmos. Besides the strength and comfort derivable (especially in seasons of tasting the bitterness of the ministerial work) from the view that it presents of the COVENANT-ANGEL as having commissioned them, it will serve to remind them also of his intention that they should make the GOSPEL the grand subject both of their personal study and their public preaching and further that, in the latter, they should witness for Him against all superstition, sin, and error;—very specially, wherever and whenever Romish errors may again raise the head, against those of the apostate Church of ROME.

1 This appears from the ancient rituals to have been anciently a customary form in Episcopal ordination, in some churches. The circumstance of the Bishop being then distinctively the Preacher, will sufficiently account for this distinction. 2 "When those that are in the office of teaching have not joy or comfort from thence, it is that they have not regard to Him that called and sent them. I would not take the wealth of the world, that I should now begin to work against the Pope, when regarding the exceeding heavy care and anguish wherewith I have been burthened. But when I look on Him that called me thereto, I would not for the world's wealth but that I had begun it." Luther's Table Talk; ii. 353.

2. THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION AND
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES,
AND THEIR SEPARATION FROM THE
CHURCH OF ROME.

"And there was given me a reed like unto a rod. And the Angel said, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and those that worship at it. And the court that is without the temple cast out, and measure it not; for it has been given to the Gentiles." Арос. xi. 1, 2.

The division made between this and the preceding Chapter of the Apocalypse seems to me peculiarly unfortunate. For the connection between what concludes the one and what begins the other is as close as it well could be seeing that the Angel which before addressed St. John still continues here to address him; and the new injunction that he gives, "Rise and measure the temple," is but, as we shall see, a sequel to his previous injunction, "Thou must prophecy again." Yet this arbitrary division, this artificial break, has exercised, I am persuaded, no little influence on many modern commentators; and,-together with the misapprehension respecting the Little Book, as if it were a part of the seven-sealed Apocalyptic Book, and that respecting the prophesying, as if it meant the enunciation of that supposed new Part of the Apocalyptic prophecy,-concurred to make them construe the whole vision of the xth Chapter, as if it were an interruption to the previous continuity of prefiguration of things future, and a mere parenthesis of introduction to quite a new subject beginning in Chap. xi.'—I mention this because, where a mistake

1 See the observations at pp. 44-47 suprà.—In a Paper in the Investigator, signed T. C. C. Vol. iii, p. 145, the continuity of these two Chapters, the xth and xith, is strongly insisted on. This is the earliest notice of it that I remember to have seen and, as it happened, was inserted just about the same time as a Paper of my own on the Witnesses, (printed p. 185 of the same Volume of the Investigator,) at the conclusion of which the same view was expressed incidentally.

of importance has been frequent and general, it can scarce fail of being instructive to an enquirer to mark its various causes and its origin.

2

"And the Angel said, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar (or altar-court)1 and them that worship therein."-In my introductory Chapter on the Apocalyptic scenery it was observed that the Temple (the same that continued ever present before St. John, with its triple divisions, as the standing foreground of the scenery) was, agreeably with the Apostle's own application of the figure, to be considered symbolic of the Christian Church Universal: the Holy of Holies and its company representing that part of it, and their blessed state and worship, that might have been already gathered into Paradise ;-the remainder of the temple, and those worshipping therein, the church on earth and its worship. It was further observed respecting this its remainder, including the Holy Place and the altar-court, that the Holy Place, being that which was concealed with its candlestick and incense-altar from general view in the Jewish Temple, and that wherewith in the Apocalyptic Temple the great High Priest (the same that walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks) alone appeared conversant, might be regarded as figuring the Church in respect of its secret spiritual worship and character, unseen by men, but marked by Jesus: on the other hand the altarcourt and they that worshipped in it, (for the worshippers' court is viewed Apocalyptically as an appendage and part of the altar-court,)3 as figuring the church in

The preposition in, "them that worship in it," seems to make it proper to translate the word Ovσiasnpiov altar-court. So it is used by Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, c. 5, and Epistle to the Trallians, c. 7; where "without the altar," means without the altar-court." See Vol. i. pp. 17, 18. Compare Apoc. xiv. 18, xvi. 7. 2 See Vol. i. pp. 97, 101.

"

3 Frequently the altar-court and the court of the worshippers, or of Israel, are spoken of as distinct and separate; but here the inclusion of the latter in the former is implied in the words of the text, "Measure the altar, or altar-court, and them that worship in it." Nor is this inconsistent with the Jewish view of the matter. Vitringa, p. 595, quotes Grotius, showing that the altar-court and Court of Israel were not so separated as to be deemed by the Jews two, but one. The symbolization of worshippers, as well as worship, by the Jewish Temple,

respect of its visible and public worship.-Already some illustrations of this the symbolic signification of the altarcourt have occurred to our notice. This under the fifth Seal, the figuration of souls beneath the altar, slain for the testimony of Jesus, was found to correspond in history with a state of the Church in which, from the virulence of persecution, no public act of Christian devotion and worship was visible in the Roman world, but that of the saints offering themselves in martyrdom, for the name, and as it were on the altar of Christ. Again, in the temple-scene as depicted before the first sounding of the Trumpets, and the then presentation of incense by the saints to their Angel-Priest beside the great altar, in contradistinction to others who, having forsaken the altar, presented it not,-we traced allusion to a state of the professing Church in Christendom, in which but few comparatively remained true to Christ's pure faith and worship; the majority having substituted for the atoning and justifying virtue of his sacrifice other methods of justification, and for his mediatorship and intercession other mediators.2-And now that the symbolic temple is again introduced into notice, with the new feature superadded of its outer court, or court of the Gentiles, the explanation continues obvious on the same principle. The altar-court, with them that worshipped in it, is still used as the symbol of that part of the church visible which (like Israel when faithful to the Mosaic law,) adhered to the true and divinely-instituted worship that the altar indicated. On the other hand the outer or Gentile court is the symbolic scene of the adscititious members from out of heathenism; who having called themselves christians, and been thus formally enrolled into the body of the New Testament Israel, had yet ere long (like back

3

is natural and frequent. So by St. Paul, in passages referred to in my Introduc tory Chapter, Vol. i. p. 100. So by the early Fathers. So again by subsequent ecclesiastical writers, and indeed in the acts of Councils and Papal Bulls continually. In the Apocalypse, however, we see the worshippers are specified, as well as the local scene of worship; thus making the symbol more distinct. 2 Ib. p. 306 &c.

See Vol. i. pp. 182, 183.

3 From Solomon's prayer, on the dedication of the Temple, I Kings viii. 41, that the Gentiles might worship God there, we may infer that a Court for the Gentiles was then built. And thus when two Courts are mentioned afterwards, as in 2 Kings xxi. 5, xxiii. 12, &c, we may consider the same two intended as here. Compare too Jer. xxxvi. 10, where the higher court is mentioned.

sliding Israel of old) forsaken the christian altar-wor-
ship; and were now at length denounced by the Angel
(and a charge given to St. John accordingly) as having
visibly, though not professedly, apostatized to heathenism.1
Thus much on the temple-scene, and the emblematic
meaning of those two different parts of it, the altar-
court and court of the Geniles. To the which let me
add (in order to the connexion of the present with the
past) that it would be scarce possible, as I conceive, for
St. John not to view the heathenized professors of the
outer court here mentioned, as of the same line of apos-
tacy with that of the unfaithful ones described in sundry
earlier and not-to-be-forgotten notices :-the same that
having in the first instance, though under the name and
profession of God's Israel, satisfied themselves with ano-
ther life-giving and another sealing than that by the divine
life-giving Angel from the East, and at the time of the
first Trumpet-sounding been alluded to as withholding
their incense from the Angel-priest, and forsaking the
great altar of sacrifice,-had afterwards been figured as
before the blast of the sixth Trumpet rejecting the recon-
ciliation with Christ, offered them at the four horns of
the golden altar,—and again, after the slaying of the
third part of men under that same Trumpet, as still ad-
hering to their heathen idolatries and demon-worship: 2
-the same, in fine, against whose usurping Head there
had been recently figured the intervention and wrathful
cry of the Covenant-Angel; and from whose seven-hilled
metropolis, in hostile answer, there had sounded forth
the seven antichristian thunders.

This premised, the meaning of the predictive clause
before us," Rise and measure the temple of God, and
the altar-court, and those that worship in it; but the
court that is without the temple cast out, and measure
it not, for it has been given to the Gentiles,"-will rea-

1 Compare 1 Cor. v. 12, where T8s ew, them that are without," is said of the heathen also Mark iv. 11, where our Lord, using the figure, says, "to them that are without in parables."

Tichonius, in his Homily 8 ad loc. explains the symbol very similarly. "Ipsi atrium sunt qui videntur in ecclesiâ esse, et foris sunt; sive hæretici, sive malè viventes catholici."

Apoc. vii. 2, viii. 3, ix. 13, 20, &c. See Vol. i. pp. 258, 306, 459, Vol. ii. p. 8, &c.

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