ing us, if correct, that we are to transport ourselves forward in the reading to the final development of truth-the day of the Lord-when error, having prevailed for a season, is overthrown; corresponding with what is said of the mystery of iniquity, 2 Thess. ii. 7: And she will not change, or she has not changed, not merely in the time of the apostle, but up to the time contemplated in the revelation. The term repent, we have before noticed (44) as signifying a change of mind or views. This error has had space to operate its own change, but it is not in the nature of error to change itself. Such a result must be brought about by some external action upon it. 'Behold I will cast her into a bed,' ɛis xλívyv, or upon a bed. This is supposed to be a bed of sickness, (Rob. Lex. 379.) But we find by the Septuagint that the word translated bed, sometimes signifies a bier; as 2 Sam. iii. 31, " And King David followed after the bier, (òníow zns xhívys,) and they buried Abner in Hebron." The menace is therefore equal to the threatening of death:-I will cast her upon a bier-I will bring her to the grave;—she has had space to repent; she has not repented, or will not repent; I will now finally destroy her. 'And them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation.'-This figure of illicit intercourse we have already supposed to represent the opposite of a simple reliance upon the merits of Christ; as adulteration, or mixture, is the opposite of that which is pure, or unmixed, (§ 62.) The false construction represented by Jezebel, is to be entirely destroyed; but the principles influenced by this construction are capable of being reclaimed, and restored to their original and legitimate use, a change spoken of under the figure of repentance: meantime, till this change takes place, these principles will be brought into a state of extreme compression (927xis), so as to incapacitate them from doing further injury by their perverted action. The false construction, or interpretation, being arrested-Jezebel being destroyed-the elements of truth (my servants) are no more perverted -no more made to participate in the promulgation of idolatrous doctrines. They must now be employed in the cause of truth, in which cause only they are capable of action; or they must be like persons in prison, and even in chains but they are not cast upon a bier, or brought to entire destruction. 'Except they repent of their deeds.'-Principles being personified as persons, the operations of principles in the promulgation of false views are spoken of as deeds, or works: being in fact the works of principles in matters of doctrine. In their perverted state, they have been operating as persons deprived of their reason, and their restoration to their proper use is accordingly spoken of as a change of mind, μɛzávora, or as the change taking place in the intellect of one who, having been deranged, is subsequently restored to his right mind, (§ 44.) This construction of the terms deeds and doctrines, is confirmed by comparing together the 6th and 15th verses of this chapter, as also the 22d and 24th. The deeds and doctrine of the Nicolaitans, and the deeds and doctrine of Jezebel, evidently signifying in both cases elements of doctrine, or doctrinal views. So by comparing verse 20 with verse 22, we perceive that what is called adultery in one, is termed fornication in the other; the terms, for the purpose of illustration, being used as equivalents. V. 23. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know Καὶ τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς ἀποκτενῶ ἐν θανάτῳ· καὶ γνώσονται πᾶσαι αἱ ἐκκλησίαι, ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἐρευνῶν νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας, καὶ δώσω ὑμῖν ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα ὑμῶν. § 71. 'I will destroy her children with death," would be, perhaps, a better rendering. These children we may presume to be, figuratively speaking, illegitimate children, the offspring of the illicit connexion between Jezebel and those denominated "my servants." In other words, they are the issue of the false construction put upon true principles, or something equivalent thereto erroneous deductions from these perverted elements of truth, and consequently, like the false construction itself, to be destroyed. 'Children are an heritage of the Lord."-So are righteousnesses or merits; those of Christ being the inheritance left by him to his followers. Children are thus figures of merits, or supposed merits; legitimate children being one of the figures of the righteousness, or merits, resulting from a union with Christ. "Happy (Ps. cxxvii. 5) is he who hath his quiver full of them he shall meet his adversary in the gate." Illegitimate children represent supposed righteousness, pretended merits, causes of shame and reproach. The children of Jezebel we may suppose, accordingly, to be the pretended merits or righteousnesses of human invention, resulting from the erroneous interpretation given to certain doctrines, or elements of revelation. These are said to be destroyed by death; death being, in a spiritual sense, the result of the action of the law upon every work, or principle, subjected to its action, and incapable of meeting all its requirements. The pretensions to merit, or grounds of justification, drawn from the Jezebellian construction, are of this character. They will be manifested to be incapable of meeting the requisitions of the divine command; and consequently, as soon as subjected to this test, they are destroyed with death :—children, in a spiritual sense, destroyed by death in the same sense-pretensions to merits destroyed by legal condemnation. § 72. And all the churches shall know that I am he which searches the reins and the heart.'-Here is a manifestation resulting from the operation just described. The Jezebellian construction supposes the production of certain merits, or righteousnesses, equal to a fulfillment of the requisitions of the law. The law, spiritually discerned, is therefore brought to act with all its power upon them-they are tried and condemned. They are tried by examining into the secret springs of action. The motives whence these works or merits, as they are supposed to be, emanate, are sifted, and are all found to originate from an impure source. There is no love of God in them—not one of them has proceeded from love to him,-they are all selfish, and mercenary, and vain-glorious; or they are amalgamated with principles of this character, contaminating the whole mass. This trial is supposed to be public. The Churches are spoken of as spectators. They discern the process; they notice the nature of the investigation; and hence they perceive that he who has conducted the whole, or rather who presides as judge over the whole, is He who searcheth the reins and the heart" The searching,"-the operation continually going on. The idea is thus suggested that this revelation itself may be an instrument of exhibiting the fallacy of all human claims to righteousness, by showing the connection between the works upon which these claims are founded, and the motives whence they originate. The words, I am he, at the same time remind us that the speaker,-the Son of God, in form like the Son of man, -the Spirit speaking to the churches, is also the Righteous God spoken of, Ps. vii. 9, "Who trieth the reins and the heart." I, Jesus, who am addressing the angels of the churches, preparatory to unveiling myself, am he who looketh upon the heart, as it is said, John ii. 25, "He needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man." I also am He who, in this unveiling of myself, am about to show the real character and motives of the human mind, and to exhibit the fallacy of all human pretensions to merit. 73. The reins and the heart.'-The heart is usually taken for the seat of affection, passion, or desire, both in a good and bad sense, in contradistinction to the mind; as if the latter were something which decided coolly and dispassionately, while the former was governed only by a sort of animal impulse. This, however, does not appear to be the use of the figure designed in the Scriptures. The heart and mind are there, perhaps without exception, almost interchangeable terms; at least the former is frequently put for the latter, as a tree may be put for the fruit of the tree-the thoughts of the heart must constitute the mind. The heart seems to be spoken of rather as the fountain of thought, however, and the mind as the reservoir formed from the fountain. The difference appears to be principally this that the mind is entirely an immaterial term; while the heart is a material term, employed as the figure of something immaterial-the heart represents the mind. A physical organ, the functions of which are known, is employed to represent an intellectual organ, whose functions are not so well known. In order to understand the illustrations, therefore, we must attend to the peculiarities of the symbol employed. 74. The origin of all figurative language appears to be analogy. Things were in existence, and in use, before words were invented. Ideas were abundant, when words were scarce. Hence, to express many of these ideas, resort was had to things supposed to have some analogy, either in themselves or in their uses, with the notions to be conveyed. This was not an invention of art, but an effort of nature; and accordingly we find the practice prevailing most amongst the most uncultivated classes of mankind. In every class, the use of figurative language is influenced by the particular objects with which the speaker, or writer, is most familiar. The savage, the seaman, the mechanic, the farmer, the merchant, the member of either of the learned professions, have each their peculiar set of analogies; while the rhetorician makes it his business, not to invent, but to borrow from each of these classes, the figures best adapted to his own purposes of illustration. In order to understand the language of either of these classes, we must contemplate the figure employed precisely as the individual making use of it considers it. If there be, for example, an implement applied by the seaman to one use, and by the mechanic to another, the latter, to understand a trope of the former borrowed from this instrument, must take into consideration the seaman's use of it, and not his own. So, in comprehending the figurative language of the ancients, we must take into view their notions of things, and their uses, and not ours. In human compositions there are, no doubt, frequent mistakes as to the nature and use of certain physical objects; to understand an author's meaning, in the use of a certain figure, we must know, not what the character of the figure really is, but what the author supposed it to have been: but, in the language of holy writ, it is reasonable to expect more exactness. The author here is perfectly acquainted with the nature and use of things, for they are all of his own creation. To ascertain the meaning of his language, we must inquire into our own mistakes, not his. The question will then be, not what is our notion, or what is or has been the notion of other men, respecting the nature or use of the material object employed as a trope, or figure, but what is and has been strictly its real nature and use. It is true this rule has its exceptions. There are cases in which we must take it for granted, that the language of divine inspiration is adapted to the universal impressions of mankind, however mistaken these impressions may be. It would have been unintelligible to the great mass of readers without it. Hence the use of what are termed anthropopathic expressions, so admitted by Jewish as well as Christian writers, (vide De Sola and others, new edition of the Sacred Scriptures, Hebrew and English, London, 1842.) Of this kind is the language in which the sun is spoken of as rising or setting; a matter too self-evident to require explanation. But what we conceive to be the mistaken apprehension of the use of the trope, heart, is not of this universal character; on the contrary, there never have been any definite ideas respecting it generally established. The ordinary notion of supposing the heart to be the repository of one set of ideas, and the mind that of another set, has no foundation whatever in analogy, and certainly none in Scripture. We speak of love as an affair of the heart, and of a pecuniary calculation as something of the mind; as if mind had nothing to do with the first, and the heart nothing in common with the last; whereas the thoughts of the heart, that is of the mind, are alike engaged in both. If such are the loose views of this trope, prevailing even in these enlightened times, how much more must this have been the case amongst men, when it was first recorded by the inspired penman, that God saw every imagination of the thought of man's heart to be only evil, and that continually, (Gen. vi. 5.) In the time of Moses, and still more, previous to his time, no specific idea of the nature and use of the heart could have been so universal amongst men, as to make it necessary to adapt the expression to an erroneous opinion, by way of accommodation; as was the case in respect to the apparent motion of the heavenly bodies. Here then we are to inquire into the actual nature and use of the material heart, as these particulars are contemplated by Him who created it, who has always understood its physiological character and operations as well as we do now, and who must have employed this figure in reference to that real character. § 75. The heart, in the physical system, is no more the seat of passion than the brain, or of appetite than the stomach; but it is the fountain whence the principle of animal life (the blood) is propelled, diffused, and circulated through the whole body. No sooner do the operations of the heart cease, than every limb is incapable of acting, and the extremity of every nerve is paralyzed. It is true there is, even in a physical sense, a prior cause behind this. The action of the lungs is necessary to the functions of the heart, and the atmospheric air around us is indispensable to the activity of the pulmonary organs. The body of man, when first brought into being, was but an inert mass, however curiously and beautifully formed, till the Creator breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the human mind is incapable of action, without the unseen power of him who works within us both to will and to do of his good pleasure, (Phil. ii. 13.) The heart receives its power to act from the air of heaven, and man, in all his performances, mental as well as bodily, is able to achieve nothing except of the ability which God giveth, (1 Pet. iv. 11.) But this is going back further than an understanding of the figure in |