of any of these names, titles, or epithets, is affirmed of one and the same individual, though in different relations, answerable to the different characters and offices in which he has been graciously pleased to exhibit or describe himself in the Vision, and in the record thereof, delivered to the Christian Church in the Apocalypse.

The reader will observe that, on this point, only such passages have been quoted as were necessary to identify the person to whom they are applied. A few others must necessarily be examined hereafter, and only a few ;-for to notice all the things predicated of the same individual would be, in some measure, to enter on an explanation of the prophecy, which, however, is not the object of the present volume. The reader will also notice that some of the terms of personal description which have been adduced belong to Common, and some to Hieroglyphical, language. This is absolutely necessary to be attended to; for the strict proprieties of each are preserved in each respectively, and the diversity of style, which this occasions, is one of the causes which have led Commentators to assume a diversity of persons in passages which we shall find refer to the same individual.

§4. Of the Throne,-the Kathemenos or Sitting One, and the Book concerning the Right Hand of the Kathemenos.

HAVING identified JESUS CHRIST, the SON OF GOD, with THE LAMB in the midst of the throne, it is necessary that we should now make some enquiry respecting this Throne. It is obvious that it is the same póvos that John saw set ẻ Tự oupava, in the heaven, as he states in Ch. iv. 12.; for every thing that follows, down to Ch. v. 6., where the Lamb is mentioned as in the midst ro Opóvou, of the throne, is only a description of that throne and of things connected with it. Where this throne is described, it is introduced without the Article; but wherever the same throne or stat is in other places alluded to, it always appears with the Article; and wherever other thrones are mentioned, they may always, without difficulty, be distinguished from this, by their adjuncts. Observe then, this throne is always in the singular number: is a single seat for a single person; nor does the term admit of the idea that we attach to a bench or form, on which more than one can be accommodated. Accordingly the inspired Writer informs us, v. 2., that he beheld, upon the throne, a xabnuevos,—“ a sitting one," or "one sitting;" introducing this participle without the Article: but whenever he speaks

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afterwards of this personage, he always calls him ỏ xαlýμevos“ The sitting one;" invariably emκαθήμενος ploying the Article, to show that this and no other Kathimenos, is the one in his mind. In fact this term, in reference to this throne, is so used that it may be considered as a kind of title, appropriated to the individual who is the occupier of this Seat (See ch. iv. 9, 10.—v. 13.— vi. 16.—vii. 15., &c). The plural is never used in reference to the occupation of this throne. There is, then, but one Kathēmenos; nor does the fact, that this very Kathēmenos himself [for it will be proved hereafter that he is the same] speaks of granting to others to sit with him IN his throne, even as he is set down with his Father IN his throne (Ch. iii. 21.), at all prove that more than one are sitting on the throne; for here we have the throne governed by the Preposition av (IN), but in all the other places the governing Preposition is T (UPON);-the former expression is employed metaphorically, and means that the individuals shall participate in the power of the throne (for they are constituted Kings, and are to reign upon the earth, Ch. v. 10., xx. 6.)—but the latter is used in its more obvious sense, and applied to the individual who is represented as filling, occupying, or SITTING UPON the throne, as being in the midst of the throne; and this one is The Lamb (Ch. vii. 17). From this it follows

that whatever other names are given, in this book, to the Kathemenos (the sitting one), they are names, or Attributives, applied to him who has the Hieroglyphical Proper Name, "The Lamb;" but the passages in which they occur, combined with this hieroglyphical name, having, as already noticed, been generally translated in such a manner as to make them refer to another person, precisely as if a plurality had been mentioned as sitting on this throne, (an idea completely excluded by the text throughout the whole of the Apocalypse), it may be necessary to show, by other arguments, that the Lamb, only and exclusively, is the individual who, in another character, is called the Kathemenos, by whatever other titles or names he may be designated. Before entering, however, on these, let us ascertain, if possible, the cause or causes which have principally contributed to produce the idea of two persons being spoken of, where there cannot possibly be more than one in the mind of the Writer-though, indeed, he may contemplate that individual in more than one character.

It is obvious that the opinion, taken up very early, that the writer of the Apocalypse frequently disregarded the rules of the Greek language, was calculated to beget, in the minds of Critics and Commentators, a notion that they might impute to him any license whatever; even

a total violation of grammar, in the most common expressions; especially when by so doing they were enabled to make out a sense to their liking, in passages of which they could not discover the meaning, when interpreted according to the sense put by them on the terms employed. The first verse of Ch. v., on which I'have before had occasion to animadvert (see Dissert. iii. § 1.), respecting the Book ἐπὶ τὴν δεξιὰν, on (or concerning) the right hand, (that is, concerning the Power) τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου, of the one sitting on the throne, is a passage precisely of this description. Not perceiving the meaning of the strong Hebraism here employed for Power, they took the expression literally, though at the expense of the Writer's grammar; for had the writer meant to express a book in the right hand, he would not, along with the Preposition iì, have used the accusative case Thy değiàv, but the genitive, Ts dias. This violence put upon the grammar of the writer, (namely, construing his words as if he had been speaking in the genitive, when, on the contrary, they should have been interpreted agreeably to the case in which he has put them, whether the Critic could discover the meaning or not ') would contribute not a little to

This remark is not intended to apply to the translators of the Common Version or of any of the more early modern versions, though all of them exhibit the same inaccuracy; for the first modern scholar who throw any light on the na