admits of no temple, and no light of sun and moon, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its light and its temple (Rev. xxi, 22, 23). Moreover, no cherubim appear within this Holy of Holies, for these former symbols of redeemed humanity are now supplanted by the innumerable company of Adam's race, from whom the curse (kaтávɛμa, Rev. xxii, 3) has been removed, and who take their places about the throne of God and of the Lamb, act as his servants there, behold his face, and have his name upon their foreheads (Rev. xxii, 3, 4). The New Jerusalem, then, is the apocalyptic portraiture of the New Testament Church and Kingdom of God. Its symbolism exhibits the heavenly nature of the communion and fellowship of God and his people, which is entered here by faith, but which opens into unspeakable fulness of glory through ages of ages. There is room for differences of opinion in the interpretation of particular passages and symbols in all the apocalyptic Scriptures. But attention to their general harmonies, and a careful study of the scope and outline of each prophecy as a whole, will go far to save us from the hopeless confusion and contradiction into which many by neglecting this method have fallen. From the foregoing study of biblical apocalyptics we may legitimately derive the following conclusions: Conclusions. 1. It is of the first importance that this class of prophecies should be studied as a whole, and be seen to constitute a well-connected and inter-dependent series of divine revelations, running through the entire Scriptures. 2. The formal elements of apocalyptics are not of a nature to allow a literal interpretation of all the language employed. In great part the various revelations are set forth in the highly wrought language of metaphor and symbolism. The task of the faithful interpreter is to grasp the great essential thought, and distinguish it from the mere drapery in which it has been clothed. One can afford to miss some incidental parts, and frankly acknowledge inability to determine the exact meaning of such a passage as that touching the "first resurrection" in Rev. xx, 6, if he but truly apprehend the great scope, plan, and import of the prophecy taken as a whole. 3. Too much stress cannot well be laid upon the habit of repeti tion so conspicuous in all the great apocalypses of the Bible. We believe that the failure in most of the current expositions of the apocalypse of John to note that the second half (xii-xxii) is in the main a repetition of the first (i-xi) under other symbols and from other points of view, has been a fatal hinderance to the true interpretation of this most wonderful book. CHAPTER XVIII. NO DOUBLE SENSE IN PROPHECY. unsettles all sound inter THE hermeneutical principles which we have now set forth necessarily exclude the doctrine that the prophecies of Scripture contain an occult or double sense. It has been alleged by some that as these oracles are heavenly and divine we should expect to find in them manifold meanings. They must needs differ from other books. Hence has arisen not only the doctrine of a double sense, but of a threefold and fourfold sense, and the rabbis Theory of a went so far as to insist that there are "mountains of double sense sense in every word of Scripture." We may readily admit that the Scriptures are capable of manifold prac- pretation. tical applications; otherwise they would not be so useful for doctrine, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. iii, 16). But the moment we admit the principle that portions of Scripture contain an occult or double sense we introduce an element of uncertainty in the sacred volume, and unsettle all scientific interpretation.' "If the Scripture has more than one meaning," says Dr. Owen, "it has no meaning at all." "I hold," says Ryle, "that the words of Scripture were intended to have one definite sense, and that our first object should be to discover that sense, and adhere rigidly to it. . . . To say that words do mean a thing merely because they can be tortured into meaning it is a most dishonourable and dangerous way of handling Scripture." "This scheme of interpretation," says Stuart, "forsakes and sets aside the common 1 We count it no gentleness or fair dealing, in a man of power, to require strict and punctual obedience, and yet give out his commands ambiguously. We should think he had a plot upon us. Certainly such commands were no commands, but snares. The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness and ignorance are our own. The wisdom of God created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glisterings, what is that to truth? If we will but purge with sovereign eye-salve that intellectual ray which God hath planted in us, then we would believe the Scriptures protesting their own plainness and perspicuity, calling to them to be instructed, not only the wise and the learned, but the simple, the poor, the babes.-Milton, Reformation in England, Book i. 'Expository Thoughts on St. Luke, vol. i, p. 383. Typology and double sense of laws of language. The Bible excepted, in no book, treatise, epis tle, discourse, or conversation, ever written, published, or addressed by any one man to his fellow beings (unless in the way of sport, or with an intention to deceive), can a double sense be found. There are, indeed, charades, enigmas, phrases with a double entente, and the like, perhaps, in all languages; there have been abundance of heathen oracles which were susceptible of two interpretations; but even among all these there never has been, and there never was a design that there should be, but one sense or meaning in reality. Ambiguity of language may be, and has been, designedly resorted to in order to mislead the reader or hearer, or in order to conceal the ignorance of soothsayers, or to provide for their credit amid future exigencies; but this is quite foreign to the matter of a serious and bona fide double meaning of words. Nor can we for a moment, without violating the dignity and sacredness of the Scriptures, suppose that the inspired writers are to be compared to the authors of riddles, conundrums, enigmas, and ambiguous heathen oracles."1 Some writers have confused this subject by connecting it with the doctrine of type and antitype. As many persons and events of the Old Testament were types of greater ones to come, so the language respecting them is supfounded. posed to be capable of a double sense. The second Psalm has been supposed to refer both to David and Christ, and Isa. vii, 14-16, to a child born of a virgin who lived in the time of the prophet, and also to the Messiah. Psalms xlv and lxxii have been supposed to have a double reference to Solomon and Christ, and the prophecy against Edom in Isa. xxxiv, 5–10, to comprehend also the general judgment of the last day. But it should be seen that in the case of types the language of the Scripture has no double sense. The types themselves are such because they prefigure things to come, and this fact must be kept distinct from the question of the sense of language used in any particular passage. We reject as unsound and misleading the theory that such Messianic psalms as the second, forty-fifth and seventy-second have a double sense, and refer first to David, Solomon, or some other ruler, and secondly to Christ. If an historical reference to some great typical character can be shown, the whole case may be relegated to biblical typology, the language naturally explained of the person celebrated in the psalm, and then the person himself may be shown to be a type and illustration of a greater one to come. After this manner the language not to be con 1 Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy, p. 14. Andover, 1842. ? See Davidson's Hermeneutics, pp. 49, 50. Woodhouse on the Apocalypse, pp. 172–174. Horne, Introduction, vol. ii, pp. 404–408. great events referred to in the Immanuel prophecy of Isa. vii, 14, and the calling of Israel out of Egypt in Hos. xi, 1, were typically fulfiled in Jesus. The oracle against Edom (Isa. xxxiv, 5-10), like that against Babylon (Isa. xiii, 6-13) is simply a specimen of the highly wrought style of apocalyptic prophecy, and gives no warrant to the theory of a double sense in the word of God. The twentyfourth of Matthew, often appealed to in support of this theory, is explicable by a much simpler method. The suggestive fulness of Scripture no proof of a double sense. the serpent Some plausibility is given to the theory by adducing the suggestive fulness of some parts of the prophetic Scriptures. Such fulness is readily admitted, and ever to be extolled. The first prophecy is a good example. The enmity between the seed of the woman and that of (Gen. iii, 15) has been exhibited in a thousand forms. The precious words of promise to God's people find more or less fulfilment in every individual experience. But these facts do not sustain the theory of a double sense. The sense in every case is direct and simple; the applications and illustrations are many. Such facts give no authority for us to go into apocalyptic prophecies with the expectation of finding two or more meanings in each specific statement, and then to declare: This verse refers to an event long past, this to something yet future; this had a partial fulfilment in the ruin of Babylon, or Edom, but it awaits a grander fulfilment in the future. The judgment of Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem, may, indeed, be a type of every other similar judgment, and is a warning to all nations and ages; but this is very different from saying that the language in which that judgment was predicted was fulfilled only partially when Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem fell, and is yet awaiting its complete fulfilment. We have already seen that the Bible has its riddles, enigmas, and dark sayings, but whenever they are given the context clearly advises us of the fact. To assume, in the absence of any hint, that we have an enigma, and in the face of explicit statements to the contrary, that any specific prophecy has a double sense, a primary and a secondary meaning, a near and a remote fulfilment, must necessarily introduce an element of uncertainty and confusion into biblical interpretation. designations of The same may be said about explicit designations of time. When a writer says that an event will shortly and speedily come No misleading or is about to take place, it is contrary to all pro- time in prophto pass, priety to declare that his statements allow us to believe ecy. the event is in the far future. It is a reprehensible abuse of language to say that the words immediately, or near at hand, mean ages hence, or after a long time. Such a treatment of the language of Scripture is even worse than the theory of a double sense. And yet interpreters have appealed to 2 Peter iii, 8 as furnishing inspired authority to disregard designations of time in prophecy. "Let not this one thing be hid from you, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This statement, it is urged, is made with direct reference to the time of the Lord's coming, and illustrates the arithmetic of God, in which soon, quickly, and similar terms may denote ages. A careful attention to this passage, however, will show that it teaches no such strange doctrine as this. A thousand The language in question is a poetical citation from Psa. xc, 4, and is adduced to show that the lapse of time does not one invalidate the promises of God. Whatever he has pledged will come to pass, however men may think or talk about his tardiness. Days and years and ages do not affect him. From everlasting to everlasting he is God (Psa. xc, 2). But this is very different from saying that when the everlasting God promises something shortly, and declares that it is close at hand, he may mean that it is a thousand years in the future. Whatever he has promised indefinitely he may take a thousand years or more to fulfil; but what he affirms to be at the door let no man declare to be far away. "It is surely unnecessary," says a recent writer, "to repudiate in the strongest manner such a nonnatural method of interpreting the language of Scripture. It is worse than ungrammatical and unreasonable, it is immoral. It is to suggest that God has two weights and two measures in his dealings with men, and that in his mode of reckoning there is an ambiguity and variableness which makes it impossible to tell what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in the prophets may signify. It seems to imply that a day may not mean a day, nor a thousand years a thousand years, but that either may mean the other. If this were so, there could be no interpretation of prophecy possible; it would be deprived of all precision, and even of all credibility; for it is manifest that if there could be such ambiguity and uncertainty in respect to time, there might be no less ambiguity and uncertainty in respect to every thing else. . . . Faithfulness is one of the attributes most frequently ascribed to the covenant-keeping God, and the divine faithfulness is that which the apostle in this very passage affirms. To the taunt of the scoffers who impugn the faithfulness of God, and ask, 'Where is the promise of his coming?' he answers, 'the Lord is not slack concerning his promises as some men count slackness.' Long or short, a day or an age, does |