V. 3,4.--The opening of the "second seal" furnishes occasion for the "second animal" to cry, "Come and see." It is the customary business of faithful ministers to invite the disciples of Christ to a contemplation of his providential procedure. "Come, behold the works of the Lord." (Ps. xlvi. 8.) This is the call of the ministry represented by the symbol of a "calf or young ox." "Patient continuance in well doing" is the special duty of Christ's servants in times of suffering. And such seems to be the import of the emblem, the "red horse." By the horse, singly considered, we are to understand a _dispensation_ of _providence_. So we are to view it as a symbol in Zech. i. 8; vi. 1-8. The prophet said, "O, my Lord, what are these?... And the man answered,--These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth." We speak familiarly of a "dispensation of the gospel,"--the "white horse." Our attention is now called to a "red horse,"--_fiery_, as the word imports. The character of the dispensation is thus indicated as bloody. Wars should prevail so as to "take peace from the earth." "They should kill one another." The instrument of slaughter is seen,--"a great sword." _Mutual_ slaughter does not seem to harmonize with the idea of persecution, by which the saints only "are killed all the day long." History records that insurrections, battles, massacres and devastations of an extraordinary kind took place in the first half of the second century, by which more than half a million of the Jews perished by the hand of the pagans; and a still greater number on the opposite side were slain by the Jews. Thus the two parties who rivalled each other in opposing the gospel and the progress of Christ's kingdom, were made by him the instruments of their mutual destruction. For he it is who directs the movements and course of providence, the "red horse." "Behold what desolations he hath made in the earth!" "In this text," says an eminent expositor, "earth signifies the Roman empire." ... "Daniel, ... whose sealed prophecy is explained by the opening of the Apocalyptical seals, denominates the Roman empire, 'the fourth kingdom upon earth.'" We humbly suggest, that this does not render the Roman empire _synonymous_ with _earth_, any more than the Chaldean, Persian, or Grecian. And indeed the monarchs of those empires put forth as extensive claims to universal empire as ever the Cesars did. The word _earth_ is to be interpreted always by the context. Like the term _world_, it may sometimes signify the Roman empire, as Luke ii. 1. But in other cases even within the compass of the Apocalypse, it is not to be so understood without manifest confusion, as in ch. xvi. 1, 2. The contents of _all_ the vials are there said to be poured out upon the earth; but _earth_ is afterwards the special _object_ of the _first only_. It follows that this term cannot be uniformly and safely in this book interpreted as identical with and limited by the Roman empire. The