the fourth century, the source of a dangerous schism, and a civil war in the city of Rome, which was carried on with the utmost barbarity and fury, and produced the most cruel massacres and desolations.* The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in summing up the history of the ecclesiastical divisions between the years 312 and 361, uses the following words: "The simple narrative of the intestine divisions which distracted the peace and dishonoured the triumph of the church, will confirm the remark of a pagan historian, and justify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; and Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments that the kingdom of heaven was converted by discord into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself."+ In how striking a manner does the foregoing description mark the fulfilment of the vision of the second seal! and what a strong proof is here afforded of the depravity and wickedness of human nature, that the pure and heavenly doctrine of the gospel, should be so perverted, within the short space of three centuries, as to become the occasion of such enormities! * Mosheim, Cent. IV., part ii. chap. 2. + Gibbon, chap. xxi. THE THIRD SEAL. On the opening of the third seal the beloved apostle beheld "a black horse, and he that sat on "him having a yoke (vyov) in his hand: And I "heard a voice in the midst of the four living "creatures say, a chænix of wheat for a penny, and "three chænices of barley for a penny, and see "thou injure not the wine and the oil."* To Archdeacon Woodhouse belongs the merit of having pointed out, the erroneousness of the translation of the word uyos, in our authorized version. The proper and primary meaning of this word is, as the Archdeacon justly remarks, "a yoke," and it is only in a borrowed or secondary sense that it can be taken to signify "a balance."+ The black colour of the horse under this seal is emblematical of darkness and ignorance overspreading the church of God. The yoke in the hand of his rider, i. e. the rulers of the church, is a symbol denoting the imposition of an oppressive burthen of rites, ceremonies, and human ordinances on the disciples of Christ, and the teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. The word uyos is frequently used in this sense in the New Testament. In reference to the attempt made to impose the observance of the law of Moses on the Gentile converts, we find the Apostle Peter, in Acts xv. 10, thus expressing himself: "Why tempt ye God to * Rev. vi. 5, 6. + Woodhouse on the Apocalypse, pp. 143-4. See also Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, on the word Zʊyos. put a yoke on the necks of the disciples, which "neither our fathers nor we were able to bear ?" St. Paul also exhorts the Galatians, v. 1: "Stand "fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ "hath made us free, and be not entangled again "with the yoke of bondage:" meaning by this yoke, as is plain from the context, the imposition of the right of circumcision and observance of the Mosaical law. The chanix of wheat was a measure containing as much as to supply a slender allowance for the daily food of a man; and the denarius, or penny, was the daily pay of a labouring man.* But, as the labouring man has to provide himself with many other things besides bread, it must be accounted a period of great scarcity when his whole daily wages are required to purchase a slender portion of food. Sixteen or twenty chænices of wheat were sold for the denarius, or penny, in plentiful times: and when only one chanix could be had for that price, there must have been a great scarcity, or rather a famine. The voice from the midst of the living creatures in this seal, that a chanix of wheat should be had for a penny, and three chænices of barley for a penny, is therefore indicative of severe scarcity or famine; and as the prophecies of the seals relate not to temporal, but to spiritual things, the famine which is here predicted is doubtless a famine or scarcity of the word of God, such as is mentioned in the book of Samuel: "And the * See Archdeacon Woodhouse in loco, from whom the whole of this exposition is adopted. "word of the Lord was precious (or rare) in those 66 days; there was no open vision:"* and by the prophet Amos, "Behold the days come, saith the "Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land; "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but "of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall "wander from sea to sea, and from the north even "to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the "word of the Lord, and shall not find it."+ But the voice adds these remarkable words: "See thou hurt not the wine and the oil." By wine and oil, we are probably to understand, those comforting and sanctifying influences of the Spirit of God, which are imparted only to true believers, while the word and ordinances, are dispensed to all, within the pale of the visible church, whether they be nominal professors or real disciples. The prohibition to injure the wine and oil, signifies, therefore, that even in the midst of the spiritual famine of the word and ordinances of God, which should peculiarly distinguish the period of this seal, those who truly feared God, should still have an abundant share of the comforting, and sanctifying, and illuminating influences of the Holy Ghost, to support them under every discouraging and trying circumstance. The above prohibition is analogous to the triumphant declaration of the apostle Paul, that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any "other creature, shall be able to separate us from 66 * 1 Sam. iii. 1. + Amos viii. 11, 12. "the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our "Lord."* To recapitulate the contents of this seal: The black colour of the horse, the yoke with which his rider was armed, the proclamation from the midst of the living creatures, that a chænix of wheat should be sold for a penny, and three chænices of barley for a penny, and the prohibition to hurt the oil and wine, unite in pointing out to us a period, when the grossest darkness and ignorance should overspread the visible church; when a burthensome yoke of rites and ceremonies, and likewise of unscriptural articles of faith, should be imposed upon the necks and consciences of men; when there should be a great want and a famine of the preaching and ordinances of the true gospel in the church: but, when, notwithstanding this complicated train of evils, the consolations of the Spirit, his enlightening influences compared to oil,† and his gladdening and comforting influences likened to wine,‡ should not be withheld from those, who, in the midst of surrounding darkness and superstition, truly set their hearts to seek God. This prophecy was accomplished in the rise and prevalence of the papal power. Even as early as the fifth century, ignorance and superstition had made much progress in obscuring the pure light of the gospel ; and these evils gradually increased till they ended in almost banishing that light from the Christian world. The period during which Rom. viii. 38, 39. § Mosheim, Cent. V., part ii. chap. 4. |