To render the force of many authorities hereafter to be cited the more conspicuous, some passages, of much greater length, shall be extracted from the ingenious discourses of the bishop of Worcester. • The prophetic style' was constructed on the symbolic principles of the hieroglyphics"; which were not vague uncertain things, but fixed and constant analogies, determinable in their own nature, or from the steady use that was made of them; and a language, formed on such principles, may be reasonably interpreted upon them 22. Now what are the means of interpreting it?

I. Some light may be expected to arise from the study of the prophecies themselves. For the same symbols, or figures, occur frequently in those writings and by comparing one passage with another; the darker prophecies with the more perspicuous: the unfulfilled, with such as have been completed; and those which have their explanation annexed to them, with those that have not; by this course of inquiry, I say, there is no doubt but some considerable progress may be made in fixing the true and proper meaning of this mysterious language.'

21 That it should have been so constructed, may to us, with our local prejudices, appear strange. But it is to be remembered (I now cite from bp. Hurd, vol. II. p. 85.) that the Egyptians cultivated the hieroglyphic species of writing with peculiar diligence; while the antiquity, the splendor, the fame, of that mighty kingdom excited a veneration for it in the rest of the world:' and that the Israelites, especially, who had their breeding in that country, at the time when the hieroglyphic learning was at its height, carried this treasure with them, among their other spoils, into the land of Canaan.' Neither let it be forgotten, that hieroglyphics are founded on nature, and have prevailed in parts of the world, the most distant from each other. Not only the Chinese of the East,' says Dr. Warburton, the Mexicans of the West, and the Egyptians of the South, but the Scythians likewise of the North (not to speak of those in termediate inhabitants of the earth, the Indians, Phenicians, Ethiopians, Etruscans, &c.) ALL used the same way of writing by picture and hiero glyphic.' Divine Legation of Moses, vol. II. p. 80. Of this volume the bishop of Gloucester has devoted about 140 pages to the subject of hieroglyphics.

II. Very much of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, on which, as we have seen, the prophetic style was fashioned2, may be learned from many ancient records and monuments still subsisting; and from innumerable hints and passages, scattered through the Greek antiquaries and historians, which have been carefully collected and compared by learned men.'

III. The pagan superstitions of every form and species, which were either derived from Egypt, or conducted on hieroglyphic notions, have been of singular use in commenting on the Jewish prophets.But, of all the pagan superstitions, that which is known by the name of oneirocritics, or the art of interpreting dreams, is most directly to our purpose. There is a curious treatise on this subject, which bears the name of Achmet, an Arabian writer; and another by Artemidorus, an Ephesian, who lived about the end of the first century. In the former of these collections (for both works are compiled out of preceding and very ancient writers) the manner of interpreting dreams, according to the use of the oriental nations, is delivered; as the rules, which the Grecian diviners followed, are deduced in the other. For, light and frivolous as this art was, it is not to be supposed that it was taken up at hazard, or could be conducted without rule25.-But the rûles, by which both

23 The prophetic style seems to be a speaking hieroglyphic War burton, p. 142.

24 That principal part of Achmet, relating to the Egyptian oneirocritics, appears, says Mede, to have been collected from an author, who lived when Egypt possessed its own kings, under the name of Pharaoh, p. 560. Now Egypt was reduced into a province of Persia by the son of Cyrus above 500 years before the Christian æra.

25 The frivolity of this art will now scarcely be disputed. Yet, from many of the wisest heathens, did it receive countenance; and we are informed by Cicero (de Divin. I. 25) that Socrates and Xenophon and Aristotle all entertained a firm belief, that in dreams the events of futurity were sometimes disclosed. We are not therefore to wonder, that, on the art of interpreting them, books were written, with great care, and on fixed principles. But I am rather surprised, that one of the most judicious of modern writers should have given it as his opinion (Jortin's Rem. on Eccl. Hist. vol. I. p. 123) that the predictions by dreams, recorded by pagan writers, should not be totally rejected.

the Greek and Oriental diviners justified their intérpretations, appear to have been formed on symbolic principles, that is, on the very same ideas of analogy by which the Egyptian hieroglyphics (now grown venerable and even sacred) were explained. So that the prophetic style, which is all over painted with hieroglyphic imagery, receives an evident illustration from these two works.'

'Nor is any sanction, in the mean time, given to the pagan practice of divining by dreams. For, though the same symbols be interpreted in the same manner, yet the prophecy doth not depend on the interpretation, but the inspiration of the dream.' The learned prelate afterwards adds it follows, that the rules, which the ancient diviners observed in explaining symbolic dreams, may be safely and justly applied to the interpretation of symbolic prophecies.'

'And now from these several sources;-such a vocabulary of the prophetic terms and symbols may be, nay, hath been, drawn up, as serves to determine the sense of them in the same manner, as any common art or language is explained by its own proper key or dictionary; and there is, in truth, no more difficulty in fixing the import of the prophetic style, than of any other language or technical phraseology whatsoever. The vocabulary, which the bishop of Worcester has spoken of in terms thus high, and in the accuracy of which he places so strong a confidence, is, he informs us, Dr. Lancaster's Symbolical and Alphabetical Dictionary; which is prefixed to his abridgment of Daubuz's Commentary; and is corroborated by abundance of authorities, sacred and profane. Its date is 1730. Its value to the student of prophecy it would be difficult to estimate too highly.

A recurrence to the oneirocritics, says Dr. More, is alike approved by expositors of the most different sentiments, by Grotius and by Mede27. The utility of applying

26 Hurd. Ser. IX.

27 Myst. of Iniq. p. 227.

them to the illustration of scriptural prophecy, no writer has indeed presumed to deny.

On the propriety of symbolic language being employed, I add a few observations from Dr. Johnston, of Holywood. 'Alphabetical characters and words are not natural but only arbitrary signs, and therefore may and do change with the changes of time and of men; but hieroglyphics and symbols are either pictures of things actually existing, or of ideas which these things naturally excite, and therefore not arbitrary but natural signs, fixed and permanent as the things themselves. For the same reason the symbolical is an universal language. Every alphabetical language is local and changeable. For instance the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, the Spanish, the French, and the English languages, were or are each the language of a particular district of territory, and are altogether unintelligible to the illiterate inhabitants of any other district; and they have all undergone such changes, that the language of one period is scarcely intelligible to the inhabitants of the same country in another period of time. Since then, says he, prophecies are intended for all countries and ages, the symbolical language, being universal and unchangeable, must for such a purpose be the best adapted * 27.

The prophecies of this book are,' says Dr. Johnston, ' of that species which is called vision. This is the clearest kind of prophecy. It is like the testimony of the sense of sight. The impressions were made upon the mind of John by the spirit of God, in the same way, and of the same nature with those which would have been made, if he had actually seen with his bodily eyes the very objects themselves, which are represented by the various visions which are narrated in this book.' And in whatever manner God communicates his will by inspiration to any man, at any time, we may be certain, that that person distinctly perceives what is communicated, and from whom it comes 28.'

27 Intr. p. 5.

28 Intr. P.

8. and Com. p. 32.

Though Christians well informed on other subjects are to be found, who view the book of Revelation with a very suspicious eye; yet even they, as well as others, are often led to form this ill opinion of it, very unreasonably, and on the slightest grounds. They take up the Apocalypse without the auxiliary knowlege which is necessary; read it over either in whole or in part; and finding that they do not understand it, pronounce it to be useless and incapable of being understood. They act just as rationally, as if a man were to take into his hands Horace or Cicero; as if he should gravely read over a number of pages, though ignorant of the meaning of the far greater part of the words, and omitting to make the slightest use of a dictionary; and from his inability in any degree to develope the meaning or the connection, should rise from his task with disgust, and then peremptorily decide, that what he had perused of the great Roman poet or Roman orator was a piece of senseless jargon, destitute of worth, and bidding defiance to every attempt at explication. The works of Cicero and Horace are written in the language of the age and country in which they lived; the Apocalypse is composed in the language appropriate to prophecy, the language of symbols: and before we can penetrate the meaning either of the classical or the prophetic writer, the diction they employ must be studied, and we must apply for assistance to their proper dictionaries, or to somewhat substituted in their place. Instead of having recourse to a dictionary, which is the most laborious method, a Latin author we may interpret by means of an approved translation; a prophetic writer we may decypher through the medium of a correct commentary.

From these observations it will appear indispensable, that, in a work like the present, if conducted upon sure grounds and in the fairest manner, appeal should frequently be made to the established import of the prophetic symbols, as explained by those writers, who are most judicious, and have been most conversant with the subject. But this is a task, toilsome to the writer, and, when