These examples illustrate the laws of symbolic representation with reference to one class of symbols; and with respect to those symbols of which there is no inspired explanation, the expositor, under the control and guidance of those laws, is liable to no mistake, unless it be in his inadequate discernment of analogies and erroneous selection of agents, events, or other phenomena, instead of those intended to be foreshown, and in which congruity with the characteristics and adjuncts of the symbol, harmony with other Scriptures and predictions, and correspondence with historical events and testimonies are confidently to be expected. If the reader can imagine any thing of the awe and wonder which overwhelmed the apostle in his visions, when, in his station on the apocalyptic earth or in the heavenly sanctuary, he beheld the glorified Person of his Lord in the effulgence of his Deity, seated on a throne, from which, as at Sinai, proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices, and around which were exhibited the representative and triumphant witnesses and trophies of his redemptive work; and beheld that Person symbolizing himself in his aspect and relations as incarnate, "a Lamb, standing as slain;" and saw, as on the revolving canvas of a panorama, when the seals were opened, the symbolic forms emerging into view one after another, each by its representative character revealing, as in cipher, the agents and events of its future appropriate and peculiar department; and witnessed the phenomena of revolutions, tempests, earthquakes, darkness, fire and blood, foreshown under the sounding of the trumpets; and successively the slaughter and resurrection of the witnesses, the war of Michael and the Dragon, the emergence of the ten-horned wild beast, the rise and career of the two-horned wild beast and false prophet, the harvest and vintage of the earth, the pouring out upon the earth of the plagues of the seven vials of the wrath of God, the fall and destruction of great Babylon, and the ensuing scenes of wonder and glory, retribution and judgment, thanksgiving and triumph, he may in some degree conceive the effect of converting the enigmatical portraitures of this panorama into intelligible literal language, assigning each to its relative and historical position, and reflecting on the version the light of earlier revelations, that of ecclesiastical and secular history, and in a large degree, in respect to the past, that of unmistakable events. It is in respect to the result, as compared with that of preceding efforts, like Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, compared with the fruitless endeavors of the magicians, astrologers, and Chaldeans of Babylon; or like the finally successful effort to read the hieroglyphics of Egypt, compared with the fruitless attempts, bewildering theories, and abortive labors of preceding ages.