stance seems to be evinced by actual matter of fact 1

When the first seal is opened, the cherubic winged lion invites the prophet to behold the Babylonian war-horse. Here, I think, we may note an appearance of design and selection. The winged lion was at once the form of the Assyrian solar divinity and the symbol of the Babylonian Empire itself. As such, the winged lion is employed by Daniel to represent the first great Empire : and, as such, if I mistake not, the winged lion rampant, or the winged lion in the precise attitude ascribed by Daniel to the symbol, receiving, as he is sculptured on the walls of the Persepolitan palace, the sword of the Persian king in his entrails, exhibits to the beholders the Empire of Babylon mortally wounded by the sword of the victorious Cyrus ®.

At the opening of the second seal, the cherubic bull invites the prophet to behold the Medo-Persian war-horse. Here again we may observe the decorum of studied design. The bull-man is the

That there is no abstract impossibility or improbability in the supposition that the peculiarity of the cherubic forms may have been employed allusively to the Empires of the Gentiles, we may learn from the actual application of the name and machinery of the Cherub to the pagan king of Tyre. See Ezek. xxviii. 1-19.

* This very curious sculpture cannot be deemed a mere accidental hunting-piece, in which a Persian king or noble slays a lion : because the lion in question is an imaginary animal decorated or disguised with wings.

human form; the Greeks, under the influence of a better taste if not of a purer theology, rejecting the misshapen idols of their Asiatic and Coptic ancestors, directed their classical worship to the figures of men and women : and, as I need scarcely to remark, some of the finest specimens of statuary now extant are the representations of the strictly anthropomorphic gods and goddesses of ancient Greece.

When the fourth seal is opened, the cherubic eagle invites the prophet to behold the Roman warhorse. Still we may observe a studied propriety in the selection of the herald. Under the eagle the Romans marched to victory and conquest : and so highly was this far-famed and long-preserved military ensign venerated by them, that Tacitus calls the legionary eagles the proper deities of the soldiery.

(5.) I have only to add, before I proceed to a separate consideration of each one of the four first seals, that the dates of their respective openings chronologically correspond with the dates of the four metals as they successively completed the form of the vast colossal image. For St. John, like the Babylonian prince in the vision first recorded by Daniel, did not behold the actual rise of the four Empires, but only their successive appearance on the sacred calendar of prophecy'. Hence

"The difference, between the actual rise and the calendarian appearance of the four Empires, is exemplified in the two visions of the four great beasts and the metallic image. Daniel beholds

see.

And I saw; and, behold, a white horse: and he, that sat on him, had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth, conquering and to conquer1.

As the opening of the first seal, like the nativity of the golden head, synchronises with the birth of Nebuchadnezzar at the commencement of the sacred calendar of prophecy; the conquests of the white horse, under the guidance of the crowned warrior who bestrides him, will be the conquests achieved, between the years before Christ 626 and 570, partly by Nebuchadnezzar himself and partly by his father Nabopollassar.

The conquests of Nabopollassar and Nebuchadnezzar, or, as these two princes are sometimes denominated, the two Nebuchadnezzars, comprehended the whole of central Asia, with the more distant regions of Palestine, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya. Sufficient, therefore, was accomplished by them, to warrant the description, that the martial rider of the white horse went forth, conquering and to conquer.

Agreeably to my arrangement of the metallic image, I place the opening of the first seal in the year before Christ 657 and I suppose its period to extend to the year before Christ 538, when the silver was politically joined to the gold.

2. The opening of the second seal describes the calendarian appearance of the Medo-Persian Empire.

Rev. vi. 1, 2.