A

SYMBOLICAL DICTIONARY,

&c. &c.

ABYSS. See WATER.

A.

ADULTERY. See WOMAN.

AIR may be considered as the mansion of the devilsthe powers, enemies to God and his Church ;-Satan in Eph. ii. 2, being by St. Paul called the prince of the power of the air. In this view, the air denotes the jurisdiction of those invisible powers and they symbolically signify, and imply, their visible agents and instruments on earth.

[According to Vitringa, the air denotes the political and ecclesiastical constitutions of the states or kingdoms of the world. As it is through the medium of the natural air or atmosphere that the natural sun, moon, and stars, communicate to us their light, their heat, and influences; so also, through the symbolical air or atmosphere, (i. e. through the political and ecclesiastical constitutions of states or kingdoms) do the symbolical sun, moon, and stars communicate to men their light and heat. The princes and governors of the nations, inasmuch as they cherish their subjects, and abound towards them in care and good management, are, as it were, the breath of the people, like the air which they imbibe and inhale, as they are called in Jeremiah, Lament. iv. 20. Moreover, as the air is the principle of vitality to man, so these institutions

are also the principle of vitality to the body politic. Hence it is, perhaps, that Satan, in Eph. ii. 2, is called, the Prince of the power of the air; because he ruled, and was seated, and enthroned in the political constitutions of the world, which were all framed on principles friendly to the interests of his kingdom.]

Other significations of AIR will be given under HEAVEN. ALTAR. See under HORNS.

ANGELS are the ministers and officers of the Divine Court and Providence in the invisible government of the world; and being now become subject to Christ,* they serve in the invisible government, and that of the Church and of the world, that it may be brought to the purpose of God in behalf of his Church; of which both together, the secular princes with the clergy, are the visible ministers. So that these invisible agents denote and imply the visible; which also for this reason are called Angels in the Revelation, in the same manner as in other Books of Holy Writ, the secular princes or magistrates have the same attributes given to them as the angels,† and the very name too; ‡ even though heathens,§ they might be so called.

The foundation of this is built upon the principle, that the intellectual world is an original copy and idea of the visible and that there is such an union and affinity between these two, that nothing is done in the visible but what is decreed before, and exemplified in the intellectual.

Now the Revelation is a prophecy in which is declared the decree of God, both positive and permissive; that is, what he is resolved shall be performed in his kingdom, both intellectual and visible, and what he will permit to be done in that of Satan to obstruct his designs, but in reality to magnify his glory the more; and therefore, in such a prophecy, wherein the prophet is caught up in the spirit to

* Heb. i. 6.

2 Sam. xiv. 17, 20.

† Compare Rom. xiii. 6, with Heb. i. 14.

Esther xv. 13.

see the first springs of events, it is sufficient, and much more lively to set down what is done in the intellectual world: for the symbols that describe those events must by consequence describe those of the visible.

The Angel of a Nation denotes the prince or king thereof. The Angel of a Church, its bishop, or chief pastor.

An Angel, an inferior ruling power, or a visible agent made use of by God in bringing about the designs of his Providence.

An Angel from the Altar, an ecclesiastical minister.

[ARM. The arm denotes power, as in Psalm lxxxix. 13, "Thou hast a mighty arm." See also Ezek. xxx. 21; Jer. xlviii. 25. An outstretched arm signifies the exertion of power, as in Exod. vi. 6.]

[ ARROW.

The symbol of God's judgments on his enemies, Ps. vii. 13, “He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. Psalm xlv. 5, "Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies." Zech. ix. 14.]

[THE ASSYRIAN. Symbolical of the whole series and succession of Israel and Judah's oppressors, until the expiration of the wrath of God, when he returneth unto his people in the multitude of his mercies. See Isa. xiv. 25, xxx., 31, xxxi. 8; Mic. v. 5, and compare with Ezek. xxxviii. 17, where Gog is expressly said to be spoken of by the Prophets: "Thus saith the Lord God, Art thou he?" or verily thou art he, " of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years, that I would bring thee against them?" Dr. Lowth, on Isa. xiv. 25, observes, "I am apt to think, that by the Assyrian may be meant some remarkable enemies of God's Church, and particularly those which are expressed by Gog and Magog, Ezek. xxxviii., who, as the prophet there tells us, ver. 17, were, under several names, spoken of by the prophets

of Israel; and it is particularly said of them, that they shall fall on the mountains of Israel, Ezek. xxxix. 4; the same expression that is used here.]

B.

BABYLON in the Revelation is ROME, not only upon account of Rome's being guilty of usurpation, tyranny, and idolatry, and of persecuting the Church of God in the same manner as the old literal Babylon was, but also upon the account of her being, by a successive devolution of power, the possessor of the pretended rights of Babylon. The literal Babylon was the beginner and supporter of tyranny and idolatry, first by Nimrod or Ninus, and afterwards by Nebuchadnezzar; and therefore, in Isa. xlvii. 12, she is accused of magical enchantments from her youth or infancy; viz. from the very first origin of her being a city or nation.

This city and the whole empire thereof was taken by the Persians under Cyrus. The Persians were subdued by the Macedonians, and the Macedonians by the Romans: so that Rome succeeded to the power of the old Babylon. And it was her way to adopt the worship of the false deities she had conquered:* so that by her own acts she became the heiress and successor of all the Babylonian idolatry, and of all that was introduced into it, by the immediate successors of Babylon, and by consequence of all the idolatry of the earth.

Rome Christian, corrupted by dressing up the idolatry of Rome Pagan in another form, and forcing it upon the world, became the successor of the old literal Babylon in

*Plin. Nat. Hist. L. xxviii. c. 2. Vid. Fest. Voc. Peregrina Sacra. Macrob. Saturnal. L. iii. c. 9. Serv. in Virgil. Æn. L. ii. ver. 351.

tyranny and idolatry, and may therefore be properly represented and called by the name of Babylon; it being the usual style of the Prophets to give the name of the head, or first institutor, to the successors, however different they may be in some circumstances; even as in Ezekiel

xxxvii. the Messiah is called David, as being successor to David; and as the Christian Church, though chiefly composed of Gentiles, is called, Gal. vi. 16, by the name of Israel, as successively inheriting, in a spiritual sense, the promises made to the literal Israel. So Rachel, in Jer. xxxi. 15, Matt. ii. 18, is put for the town, or women inhabiting the town of Bethlehem, wherein was the sepulchre of the literal Rachel,* of which, consequently, those inhabitants were still in possession. And so the Persians † and Moguls, called the Ottoman Turks, by the name of Roumi, Romans, because in possession of the country and capital enjoyed by the ancient Romans.

Lastly, that Babylon is Rome is evident from the explanation given by the angel in Rev. xvii. 18, where it is expressly said to be that great city which ruleth over the kings of the earth: no other city but Rome being in the exercise of such power at the time when the vision was

seen.

BALANCE. The known symbol of a strict observation of justice and fair dealing. It is thus used in several places of the Scriptures; as Job xxxi. 6; Psa. lxii. 9; Prov. xi. 1, xvi. 11. And so explained by the Indian Interpreter, ch. 15, and by all the Interpreters in chap. 242. But Balance joined with symbols, denoting the sale of corn and fruits by weight, becomes the symbol of scarcity: bread by weight being a curse in Lev. xxvi. 26, and in Ezek. iv. 16, where it is said, "I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they shall eat bread by weight,

* Gen. xxxv. 19, 20; 1 Sam. x. 2.

† Herbelot, tit. Roum.