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power in urging the condemnation of the sinner; and a fiery-red dragon, on account of the peculiarly vindictive character of his office-an office precisely the opposite of the Redeemer, Mediator, and Justifier. His design or aim must be of course to counteract the justification purposed in the plan of redemption. He may be also termed fiery-red in allusion to his trying action upon the elements of redemption, with the view of proving their insufficiency.

It may be asked how such a character can be supposed to have found his way into heaven. Here we must bear in mind that the apocalyptic heaven is not a locality. It is not the abode of the blessed, in a literal sense. It is an exhibition, as we apprehend, of the principles and operation of divine government. In this exhibition (heaven) we must look, therefore, for all the principles or doctrinal elements belonging to the work of redemption; and accordingly we shall here find displayed the covenant or dispensation of mercy on the one side, and that of works, or of the law, on the other. The first carried into effect by the element of propitiation; the last essayed to its utmost by the principle of accusation.

The scene of this passage is somewhat parallel to that of which we have an account in the first chapter of Job: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord; and Satan (the accuser) came also among them;" these sons of God (adopted principles) being probably equivalents of the sealed ones of the Apocalypse; the whole representing principles of divine government, in the midst of which that of accusation is necessarily introduced, and remains until expelled by the superior power of the element of propitiation; as we might say of a monarchical government, where the law is to be enforced, there must be an officer of the crown to act the part of an accuser, in carrying out its requisitions.

§ 270. Having seven heads.'-The head of a serpent is the seat of his sting, or power to destroy, (§ 209.) The seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head. As it was said by the Creator to the serpent, Gen. iii. 15, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; for sin is the transgression of the law. If the law be taken away, or so fulfilled that it can exact nothing more, there will be then no room for transgression of the law; the sting of death will be taken away. The power of the legal adversary consists in his ability to bring home the charge of sin upon the sinThis is his sting; and this sting we suppose to be represented by the head in which it is located. The vicarious work of Christ having fulfilled the law in behalf of the disciple, the power of the adversary to urge the sinner's condemnation, and consequent punishment, is taken away-the ser

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pent's head is bruised. These seven heads of the serpent may be put therefore, according to our view of the use of the number seven, as representing totality, for all of his heads of accusation; or they may be put for seven such elements or stings, the tendency of which severally is to bring the sinner under the power of the law, and so by urging his condemnation to subject him to the sting of death. Christ, by fulfilling the law, has crushed the head or the seven heads of the serpent, destroying all the power of the accuser as it is said, (Ps. lxxii. 13,) breaking the heads of the dragons in the waters; and Rom. xvi. 20, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet."

There may be some correspondence between these seven heads and the seven abominations spoken of Prov. vi. 16:-pride, deceit, cruelty, envy, malice, dissension, false accusation, or something nearly equivalent to them; the rendering of our common version giving probably but a feeble expression of the original. The sinner in the sight of God is not the subject of false accusation. Christ himself was falsely accused, but man in divine judgment must be a transgressor, justly meriting punishment. Spiritually, however, the disciple, as adopted and justified in Christ, may be falsely accused; and where the action of principles is represented, those of salvation by grace may be testified against falsely. Pride and self-dependence may be arrayed against humility and self-abasement; deceit against candour-as in the confession of sin the principles of envy may be viewed as acting against the love of God, and zeal for his glory; the principles of malice against those of brotherly love; and the elements of dissension against the principle of unity in Christ. Thus the seven heads of the dragon may be contemplated as sending forth a progeny of anti-evangelical principles, perpetually in collision with those of a free salvation, corresponding with the enmity predicted between the seed of the woman, and that of the serpent, Gen. iii. 15.

§ 271. And ten horns.'-A horn, as we have already noticed, is the symbol of power, ($137.) The horns of this great dragon or accuser must represent the power or powers with which he is invested, for carrying into effect the peculiar functions of a public prosecutor. These ten horns are probably opposites in character and operation to the seven horns of the Lamb, (Rev. v. 6.) We are not obliged to suppose each horn to represent a separate and distinct power. The ten collectively may be designed to direct our attention to some power designated also by ten elements representing a certain power in the aggregate. If we ask by what power the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them day and night before God, is enabled to accuse, or upon what principle the force of his accusations rests, we must perceive that the power is that of the law-the principle, that the law is not fulfilled in behalf of the brethren; and therefore that they may be ac

cused and prosecuted for every transgression, and every short-coming. The spirit or power of accusation is sustained by the law, and this law we suppose to be represented by the ten horns; the decalogue, or ten commandments, as a summary, being put for the whole law. Each horn as well as each commandment indeed has its power; for, as the apostle says, (James ii. 10,) if we offend in one point, we are guilty of all. But even this principle depends upon that of the continuance of the legal dispensation as a whole.

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The Son of God came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it, Matt. v. 17. If he did fulfil it, and if his followers are justified in him by this fulfilment, then who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? or how can the legal prosecutor of the brethren sustain his accusations? It is God that justifieth-who is he that condemneth? (Rom. viii. 33, Is. l. 8.) Hence the power of the accuser's horns depends not only upon the existence of the law, but also upon the position that the law remains still unfulfilled. 272. And seven crowns,' or rather seven diadems, upon his heads.'The diadem was a white band, or fillet, worn by kings around their usual headdress-a token of royal authority, or of a participation in that authorityapparently of Persian origin, although in the times of the apostles generally recognized amongst the Greeks and the Romans as a similar token, (§ 55.) The term in the Greek occurs but three times in the New Testament; in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament it is found, according to Trommius, only in the Book of Esther, as the rendering of the Hebrew term for a royal crown, ; there it is applied to the crown upon the head of Vashti, afterwards transferred to that of Esther-designating, we may say, the identity of the queen elect with her royal husband and lord. The crown said to be given to Mordecai should be rendered by the term robe, (stola,) Hebrew, a token of representation rather than of identity. The royal crown, or diadem, mentioned Is.l xii. 3, 7, cidaris, is still something differing from the other two-something to be borne in the hand-said to be a sash worn about the cap amongst the Persians; a token of sovereign favour, according to the prophet, not given to Zion or Jerusalem, but which both or either of these is constituted, "Thou shalt be," &c. The first of these diadems is strictly the head ornament, and consequently the kind of diadem worn by these seven heads. Not, as it is very evident, that they are rightfully entitled to the sign of royal power, but that they assume it: as, in the times of the Emperors to assume the diadem was an expression equivalent to that of claiming imperial power.

These seven crowned heads each of them assume in a spiritual sense a supreme authority, or they pretend to it collectively, as in the aggregate constituting the one head of the accuser. We have only further to notice at present, that these crowns are not tokens of victory, (oriparoi,)

neither the dragon nor his heads being supposed to have overcome, or to be eventually successful; although, so long as he is permitted to wield his horns, the heads may appear to be clothed with sovereign power.

§ 273. And his tail drew the third (part) of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.'-"The prophet that speaketh lies, he is the tail," Is ix. 15. The stings of the scorpion-locusts were in their tails, (§ 215,) and the power of the Euphratean horse was in their mouth and in their tails, (§ 223.) Corresponding with the construction we have put upon these tails, we consider that of the accuser to represent a false interpretation of the written Word of God; the tail of this dragon being a figure nearly equivalent to that of the false prophet spoken of in a subsequent part of the book. The meaning of the word rendered drew would be better expressed by our term dragged, as it is a forcible drawing. The third part, or the third, zò zoízor, we have already supposed (§ 191) to be put for the spiritual sense of the thing described. The stars of heaven we consider the lights of revelation-the elements of revelation, as we have them in the Scriptures-the light to the feet and the lamp to the path of the disciple. In heaven these elements appear in their proper spiritual sense ;-on earth they appear in a literal sense, being contemplated through the medium of deductions from earthly or literal misconstruction. The action of the dragon with his tail corresponds with that of a literal construction, applied to the Word of God-dragging it down from a spiritual to a literal meaning; as we have supposed heaven to be put for the exhibition of divine government, with all the wonders of redeeming love, in its pure spiritual sense; and the earth an exhibition of the same government, and plan of redemption, as deduced from a literal construction of Scripture. To bring the elements of truth from heaven to earth, is to take them out of their spiritual sense, and to cause them to be contemplated only in a literal This is done by the accuser for the reason elsewhere given, that the letter killeth. The literal interpretation bringing the sinner under the full power of the law, and thus subjecting him to all the elements of a legal accusation.*

sense.

§ 274. And the dragon stood before the woman,' &c.-This position of the dragon may be indicative not only of his readiness and eagerness to accomplish his purposes, but also of a certain permanency in the nature of the persecution; this action of the accuser, or vindictive element, being. as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice, an opposite of that of the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, Rev. xiv. 1. There is also a correspondence between this design of Satan and the typical effort of Pharaoh to

*It may be especially in allusion to this perversion of the revealed word of God, favouring the views of self-justification, although really tending to condemnation, that the devil is said to be a liar, and the father of a lie, John viii. 44.

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destroy all the male offspring of the enslaved Hebrews; the the name Pharaoh signifying an avenger, or revenger, Syriacè, Vindicans, (Onom. Sac. L.,) in allusion to which apparently he is styled, Ezek. xxix. 3, "The great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers."

The woman we have supposed to represent the covenant of redemption; and the child to be brought forth, the righteousness provided by this covenant; that is, the destined means of counteracting the power of the legal accuser, or avenger-the means of delivering the sinner from a yoke even worse than that of Egyptian bondage. The vindictive spirit of inflexible justice stands ready to absorb, and more than absorb, if practicable, the gracious provision of the merits of a Saviour-to swallow it up, as it were, showing its insufficiency. The whole picture representing the perpetuity necessarily existing in the nature of the case, in the contest between the effort of divine mercy on the one side to spare, and that of strict justice to require its victim. The woman in heaven crowned, with her child, represents the economy of grace with its offspring, destined to be triumphant, which is also equivalent to the heavenly Jerusalem, or to the gospel exhibition of the same mystery, spiritually understood; while Jerusalem in captivity appears to be the figure of an exhibition of the same mystery, under a perverted construction, according to which the merciful purpose proposed would appear to be insufficient and fruitless, as seems to be shadowed forth in the lamentations of the prophet, (Jer. li. 34,) "Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon." So we may say, the economy of grace spiritually and properly understood, as it exists in the divine mind, will manifest itself able to withstand the power of all the judicial and legal elements arrayed against it, and thus to bid defiance to the elements of accusation : literally understood, shackled in its exhibition by a self-righteous interpretation, it will appear as it were swallowed up by the overwhelming power of legal condemnation; that is, its provision, its offspring, its child, so swallowed up, or devoured as soon as it is born, ast it is figuratively expressed in our text. We hence perceive the necessity the dragon is under of employing his tail in dragging down the elements of revelation from their spiritual sense to a literal sense, as we shall see also hereafter the necessity of the aid afforded by the false prophet to the beast.

V. 5. And she brought forth a manchild, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

Καὶ ἔτεκεν υἱὸν ἄῤῥενα, ὃς μέλλει ποιμαίνειν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐν ῥάβδω σιδηρά καὶ ἁρπάσθη τὸ τέκνον αὐτῆς πρὸς τὸν θεὸν καὶ πρὸς τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ.

$275. And she brought forth a man-child,' viòr onera.-A son, that is, a male; this double designation of the gender giving intensity to the ex

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