of the two circles, all the four beasts are joined together under him, and the Lord is the head of all, the top-stone of the summit. Now, as in the description of the beasts we have found a correspondence with the four dispensations of the church, so must we believe that in the eternal form of all things each of these four divisions inhabited by the church will, in its outward form and order of government, speak to the eye, as well as convey to the mind the wondrous things which we have seen belong to each; and in their relations one to the other will bear the eternal impress of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in one God. The immensity of the being of God can only be groped after, for reach it or see it we cannot, by remembering that every variety of creation, from the grain of sand to the grandeur of the cloud-capp'd mountain, from the atomic moss to the cedar of Lebanon, from the microscopic insect to the great Leviathan, and from the senseless sloth to the angels and archangels of heaven itself, with all the endless and infinite varieties of each, filling, pervading, and giving form and expression to the whole; that all and each of these, and every part and modification of each, are necessary to manifest the infinite, immeasurable, and incomprehensible being of God. On the fourfold division of the earth there is a fact worthy of remembrance recorded concerning the garden of Eden, which is a type of the earth in its blessedness, "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads (Gen. ii. 10); the separation and direction of the rivers is there laid down; and as far as the learned have been able to fix their locality, their direction was east, west, north, and south. In the vision of Ezekiel, it will be remembered, in connexion with the Eden river that there was a river of holy water; and in the vision of the New Jerusalem given to St. John (Rev. xxii. 1), is the "river of the water of life." None who read the descriptions of this latter river doubt that it is symbolical; and although there may be in the time of Ezekiel's temple, or even in the time of the New Jerusalem, (but my judgment of the latter is, that it is wholly symbolical,) a literal fulfilment; yet the complete and glorious fulfilment will be when the Spirit of Christ goes forth from his presence as the Spirit of glory, filling the earth as the waters cover the sea; and then will the form of the glory given to the habitation of the church, and to the church itself, mark out the distinctions symbolized in the four beasts; and the glory of God emerging from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the unity of the Godhead change all things, and converge again "to the same image from glory to glory."

The new earth, therefore, encircled by the visible display of God's love in the rainbow, and having for its zone the thrones of the elders, speaking forth God's righteousness and sovereignty,

filled with all the fruits of love in holiness, throughout the whole length and breadth and compass, in the divisional witness of the fulness of the church, this is the throne of God, prepared from everlasting.

Before the throne were the seven lamps of fire, burning. The seven lamps are "the seven Spirits of God." By their appearing as "fire, burning," we understand the Holy Ghost was in appearance as fire before the throne. We are reminded of a prophecy of Isaiah, which though applying directly to the restoration of the Jews, yet as that restoration is a figure of the resurrection state, it applies to this also: "The light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." The seven lamps of fire are put into a relative position to the throne, or new earth, strictly analogous to the position of the natural sun towards the present earth. The number reminds us of the seven ages of the world, which we have before seen to be the revelation of the Spirit of God: and being now, in the eternal state, set forth as the light and giver forth of glory to the new earth, we are by it taught not only that the natural sun is given as a symbol of the Spirit, but that the dispensations of the fulness of times in the ages of the world are the rays of this Spirit shed forth upon the earth, causing the earth and the inhabitants thereof to bud forth and bear fruit unto holiness unto everlasting life.

"And before the throne there was a sea of glass, like unto crystal." Upon this I have hesitated much, from finding the interpretation presented to my mind so materially differing from all other interpretations. Yet the pause and consequent reexamination has only led to greater confidence in the view that the sea of glass like unto crystal is the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It is to be observed that the substance of the symbol is "sea:" its qualities are set forth as glassy and like crystal: but in searching for the meaning, we must apply ourselves to the figurative meaning of the sea. Now throughout the Scriptures it is not possible to find the sea used to describe any thing blessed. It is universally descriptive of destruction and an overwhelming. "The wicked are like the troubled sea;" "I will bring my people from the depths of the sea;" "Thou wilt cast their sins into the depths of the sea;" Raging waves of the sea foaming out of their own shame." In the revelation of the new heavens and new earth, given in Rev. xxi. 1, it is said, "There was no more sea;" so that the sea cannot belong to the new heavens and new earth; but it is of so much inferior worth, and its purpose so little allied to righteousness, that when the new creation perfects the heavens and the earth, the sea is blotted out and put away. In the

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outer court of the Jewish tabernacle was the brazen sea, which was not included in the covered part of the tabernacle, as were the seven-branched candlestick and other vessels of the sanctuary. This brazen sea was, as we have seen, the baptismal font and a memorial of the destruction by water. Now baptism was a putting under death, and the manner was the putting under water; water being thus the recognised symbol of death. St. Paul to the Corinthians, referring to the passage of the Red Sea, says (chap. x.) that all the Jews were baptized in the sea; and truly the Red Sea was as much an instrument of death to Pharaoh, the great type of Satan, as were the waters of the Flood for the death of the first world. The primary figurative meaning of water is certainly "overflowing;" there is a secondary in " washing;" but the very washing is by overflowing. Thus baptism cleanseth us from sin, because "we are buried with him (Christ) by baptism into death," and "we become dead unto sin." The rain, the dew, and the fountains of water, are all emblems of the Holy Ghost; they being drawn up from the waters of the sea by the operation of the sun, the Spirit's type, and being used for the fructification of the earth; even as the Lord's people are redeemed from the depth of the sea of wickedness, and made the joy of the whole earth. But the sea itself is a symbol of Satan, raging, foaming, barren, restless, and like an infuriate monster struggling ever to pass the appointed bounds, that it may overwhelm the whole earth. Therefore, when the new heavens and new earth are perfected, the symbol of death and of Satan will be no more, either in the heavens or in the earth, but cast out; and an abiding monument of the Lord's wrath overruled for purposes of mercy.

In the vision of Ezekiel, the firmament over the heads of the living creatures was represented to be of the colour of the terrible crystal. Now if it was terrible, it must be something more than beautiful, placid, clear, white crystal: to make it terrible, something must have mingled with the colour. In the Revelation there is another sea of glass spoken of (ch. xv. 2), upon which God's redeemed are seen standing; and this is said to be "a sea of glass mingled with fire." There are several kinds of crystal, some of them having a colour which, although presenting a clear glassy surface, is yet not without a deeper internal shade; and there is nothing in the vision of St. John to indicate a spotless whiteness.

Upon the conjoined consideration of the figurative meaning of the sea, interwoven as it is with the destruction of the old world by water through the brazen sea in the tabernacle, and therefore interwoven with the rainbow; and also considering the expression of the terrible crystal of Ezekiel, which interweaves the glassy and crystal surface with a dark and angry shade peering forth from beneath this surface; we seem to be led to

this conclusion: the sea of glass is the lake of fire, the place of the second death; and that its relative position towards the new earth is answerable to the cloud, which was the source of destruction, and in which, according to his covenant, God has set his bow.

The cloud having been found the place of death, and the instrument of death in pouring forth the floods of destruction, when this was presented to the eye of Noah he might well tremble at the sight. But the Lord's mercy was powerful to overrule even this to his comfort, by causing that when the waters began to fall from the cloud the token of his covenanted mercy should be written on it. So now in the sea of glass the Lord presents a smooth crystal surface upon the great deep of the lake of fire, and causes the crystal to reflect back the rays of the Spiritthe seven lamps forming by the crystal surface what was formed by the falling rain, the bow of his covenant. So that, as on the one side of the new earth there is the new heavens in the seven-day-sun, the seven lamps; so, on the other, is the cloud of wrath so paved and faced by the crystal of untroubled surface, that, instead of presenting to the earth the fearfulness of the wrath of God in unmingled terribleness, it presents the covenant of mercy upon the face of wrath, and is become a means of shewing forth the love and mercy of God.

A few considerations are necessary with reference to the other appearances like the sea of glass given us in Scripture. The paved work of sapphire stone" under the feet of the Lord, clear as the body of heaven, which was shewn to Moses, Nadab, and Abihu, and "the sea of glass mingled with fire," upon which the Lord's redeemed were standing, are both figures of the same thing, and are manifestations of the overruling of wrath to purposes of mercy. The depth of hell so paved, so faced, so shut up, and so guarded against, that it is made a ground for support of God's people, and a manifestation of the perfectness of their salvation: "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder." The firmament of Ezekiel, which is also the same figure, was over the heads of the living creatures; although it was under the feet of the Lord, and even under the throne of the Lord. But the living creatures are thus put under the firmament, to signify that the Church was, for the period to which this vision related, under death; not raised conqueror over death and hell, but in subjection and under the form of death.

Gathering, then, the scattered heads of the vision as they are now opened to us, we have a picture of the eternal state of God's perfected work of manifestation. The Father, God over all, sitting upon the circle of the new earth, shewing forth the fulness of his majesty and glory in the person of the Son-(for it should be remarked, there is no other visible appearance of the Father than the glorified God-man: the cloud and pillar of fire, in

which his glory appeared over the tabernacle, being now also perfected: the latter in the seven lamps of fire; the other in the sea of glass); and whilst the glory of the Father thus shines forth in the person of the God-man, there is seen, as the throne of the Father's glory, the mystical body, the church on the new earth: as the light of the church, and the revealer of the glory of the Father, is the Holy Ghost, under the visible form of the seven lamps of fire. Beginning from the lower parts, we see the new earth as the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," the habitation of the church. The church itself, as the fulness of Him who filleth all in all," the seat or habitation of God the Father, in the person of the Son, and all this through the Holy Ghost, as the new heavens speaking forth the glory of God in the eternal hallelujahs of the church, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to

come.

Here then is the eternal purpose in the perfected subject, through the fulness of the dispensations of time, become the glorious work of God, the manifestation of Trinity in Unity.

Many persons have great difficulty in conceiving any thing, either visible or material, in the eternal state. Having their eye fixed on the spiritual, as the predominating quality of all things, they fill their minds with the notion of an all-pervading spiritual glory, and think this necessarily excludes both visibility and materiality, more particularly the latter. But surely there is no necessary confliction between visible and spiritual, nor between spiritual and material: a spirit may assume form, and a spirit may dwell in a material body. We certainly may well be warranted in our dislike to that system of earth-ing heavenly things, by setting out the eternal state of the world as strictly accordant with the paradisaic state; and as much may we doubt concerning the animalizing of the resurrection bodies, by supposing them to eat and drink. Concerning the state of the world, the words of St. Peter are plain; "The earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up; ;" "The elements shall melt with fervent heat." If, therefore, the earth and all vegetable and animal life must pass through the fire, and be as literally overwhelmed in fire as the first world was in water, there is surely an end to the paradisaic state of green trees, and shady groves, and cooling fountains, and fertile earth: as we see in the sea of glass, the rain is changed into crystal, so shall all mutable substances be changed into an immutable form, which may abide the trial by fire. And if all vegetable life will be so changed, where is the meat and drink to be found which some would furnish to the resurrection body? If there shall be meat and drink, then vegetable life in its mutable state of bud, blossom, and fruit, must continue; the seasons in their changing form of winter, spring, summer, and autumn, must continue;