s direction to spread the truth everywhere among the nations--in
short, that it is the triumph of gospel truth over error under the
_providential_ government of Christ. That such a meaning can be derived
from the vision by taking it in a _figurative_ sense there can be no
doubt, and this is what commentators generally do. They make the whole a
figurative description of the triumph of the gospel, Christ being
present only by his superintending providence. It is made simply a
highly poetic description of the victory of truth and righteousness. In
this case, however, the principles of symbolic language are clearly
abandoned and a mere ordinary figurative meaning given. If we follow
strictly the laws of symbolic language, as we manifestly ought, we shall
be compelled to take another view of it.

In the first place, if this does not describe the actual coming of
Christ, then his second coming is nowhere described in the Revelation.
That so great an event should merely be alluded to in a few places and
nowhere symbolically described seems incredible. At the judgment scene
brought to view in the following chapter the presence of Christ is
_assumed_, but it is not stated. Again, there are no victories of love
and mercy described at all in the vision before us; but, on the
contrary, it is a scene of fearful judgment--a terrible treading of "the
winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God," the complete
overthrow of every opposing power; while the beast and the false prophet
are represented as taken and cast alive into a lake of fire burning with
brimstone. Surely, this is not the work of the church of God. But let it
be remembered especially that this last event takes place under the
_seventh_ plague, which is the "filling up" of the wrath of God, and
that Christ previously announced under the sixth vial, "Behold, _I come_
as a thief." Christ comes in reality when this seventh plague occurs. To
represent the glorious triumphs of Christianity by the mission of the
church, the gospel and the Holy Spirit, under the symbol of Christ,
going forth to judge, to make war, and to tread the winepress of God's
wrath, is at war with every principle of symbolic language.

But can this vision of Christ upon a white horse denote a mere
providential superintendence, such as Christ constantly exercises over
the church and its spiritual affairs on earth? Certainly not by any
principle of symbolic language. Throughout the whole prophecy