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