12 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. VOLUME TWO

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EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

CONTENTS

Preface 5

CHAPTER IV

THE THRONE COVENANTED TO THE SON OF DAVID ESTABLISHED IN THE HOUR OF JUDGMENT.

Translation 17

SECTION 1

THE DOOR OPENED IN THE HEAVEN, AND THE LOUD TRUMPET VOICE

1. The Heaven and the Door 20

2. The First Voice as of a Trumpet 23

3. "Ascend Hither" 26

4. The Throne 27

5. "Upon the Throne One sitting 33

6. The Rainbow about the Throne 36

SECTION II

THE KINGS AND PRIESTS OF ThE MOST HOLY

1. The Twenty four Elders 41

2. Of the number "Twenty four 42

SECTION III

THE LIGHTNINGS AND THUNDERS AND VOICES

1. The Lightnings 45

2. The Thunders 46

3. The Seven Lamps of Fire 47

4. When the Seven Spirits go forth 47

5. The Translucent Sea 48

SECTION IV

THE FOUR LIVING ONES

1. Seraphim identical with Cherubim 54

2. The Four Faces 54

CHAP'TER V

THE GLORY OF YAHWEH FILLS THE EARTH AS THE RESULT OF THE SCROLL BEING UNROLLED AND THE SEALS LOOSED

Translation 57

14 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

SECTION!

General Remarks 59

SECTION!!

I. The Scroll 67

2. The Writing Within and on the Outside 80

3. Sealed up with the Seven Seals 85

TABULAR ANALYSIS OF THE APOCALYPSE 110

CHAPER VI

THE OPENING OF THE FIRST SIX SEALS IN THEIR ORDER

Translation 126

1Introduction 127

2.Of the War-Horse Symbol 130

SECTION!

THE EPHESO-SMYRNEAN STATE

ACT I - SEAL-PERIOD FIRST

The Archer goes forth conqucring

I. INITIATION OF THE SEAL-PERIOD 132

1. The Voice of Thunder 134

2. The Lamb 134

3. The Four Living Ones 137

II. THE SEAL-PERIOD OCCURRENT 139

1. The Whiteness of the Horse 139

2. The Rider and the Bow 141

3. The Coronal Wreath 147

a.Epistle of Hadrian to Minutius Fundanus 152

b.Edict of Antoninus Pius to the Common Council of Asia 153

4 Of ClericalExpositions 15

SECTION!!

THE PERGAMIAN STATE

ACT II - SEAL-PERIOD SECOND

The Roman Horse Red with Civil Blood

I. Preliminary Remarks 158

2. The Opening of the Seal-Period 162

3. The Horse Fiery Red 166

4. The Rider of the Horse 167

5. The Great Dagger 168

6. The Earth 169

7. Fulfilment of the ProphecPreliminary Remarks 158

2. The Opening of the Seal-Period 162

3. The Horse Fiery Red 166

4. The Rider of the Horse 167

5. The Great Dagger 168

6. The Earth 169

7. Fulfilment y 170

SECTION!!!

THE THYATIRAN STATE

ACT III - SEAL-PERIOD THIRD

The Greco-Latin Horse Black with Woe

1. The Spirit not yet withdrawn 181

2. The Black Horse 182

3. The Balance-ll('!der 183

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 15

4. The voice 183

5. The Choinix 186

t,. Fulfilment of the Prophecy 190

SECTION IV

THE SARD IAN STATE ACT IV - SEAL-PERIOD FOURTH

The Roman Horse Pale with Death and Corruption

I. The Rider "Death" 200

2. HoHades 201

3. "The Fourth of the Earth" 205

4. Fulfilment of the Prophecy 208

a. Death and Hades kill with the sword 208

b. Death and Hades kill with the Wild Beasts of the Earth 214

C. Death and Hades kill with Famine and Pestilence 221

SECTION V

THE PHILADELPHIAN STATE

ACT V - SEAL-PERIOD FIFTH The "Ten Days Tribulation"

I. Why the Four Living Ones do not appear 224

2. The Altar 234

3. "Until When? 239

4. White Robes 242

5. Souls 246

6. "0 Despot, holy and true 255

7. Their Fellow-servants and Brethren 259

8. Historical Illustration of the Fifth Seal 264

SECTION V!

THE LAODICEAN STATE

ACT VI - SEAL-PERIOD SIXTH

The taking of the Power which hindered the revelation of the Man of Sin Out of the way.

1. Preliminaty Remarks 277

2. Earthquakes of the Apocalypse 282

3. The Sun and Moon of the Heaven 284

4. Concluding Remarks 292

CHAPTER V THE SEALING AND THE SEALED

CHAPTER VIII

THE SEVENTH SEAL OPENED AND THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS

Translation 356

I. Silence in the Heaven 357

2. "Half an Hour 359

3. Historical Testimony 362

4. The Apocalyptic Temple 362

INDUCTION OF THE JUDGMENTS OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

1. "And there were Voices 377

2. "And there were Thunders 384

3. "And there were Lightnings 386

4. "And there was an Earthquake 389

Chapters four and five provide an introduction to the balance of The Apocalypse. John's attention was first directed to a symbolic description of the Kingdom in its glory ~ and this was followed by the visions of the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven vials and so forth, that depict events leading to this consummation. It may appear strange that the final picture should be given first, but that is the Spirit's method (e.g. Ch. 11:15,18) as adopted throughout Scripture. Yahweh would have us centre our attention on the hope set before us, and by that means place all the events leading up to it in proper perspective (cp. 2 Corinthians 14:15-18). - HPM.

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EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE

Chapter 4

The chapters of this volume are numbered according to the numbers of the chapters of the Apocalypse; so that the fourth chapter of this work is an exposition of the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse, and so on to the eleventh inclusive.

SUBJECT.

THE THRONE COVENANTED TO THE SON OF DAVID ESTABLISHED IN THE HOUR OF JUDGMENT

TRANSLATION

APOC. IV.

1. After these things I looked, and behold a DOOR opened in the heaven, and that first voice which I heard as of a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Ascend hither, and I will exhibit to thee things which must come to pass after these."

2. And immediately I was in spirit: and behold a THRONE was established in the heaven, and upon the throne One sitting. 3. And the One sitting was in appearance like to a jasper and sardine stone, and a RAINIBOW circled about the throne in appearance like to an emerald.

4. And circling about the throne were TWENTY-FOUR THRONES: and upon the thrones I saw the twenty and four ELDERS sitting, having been invested with white garments; and they had upon their heads golden coronal wreaths. 5. And out of the throne burst forth lightnings and thunders and voices: and SEVEN LAMPS OF FIRE burning before the throne, which are the SEVEN SPIRI'TS of the Deity. 6. And before the throne a TRANSLUCENT SEA like to crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and in the circle of the throne, FOUR LIVING ONES, being full of eyes before and behind.

7. And the First Living One was like to a Lion; and the Second Living One like to a Calf; and the Third Living One having the face like to a Man; and the Fourth Living One like to an Eagle flying. 8. And the Four Living Ones, one by itself, had each six wings circling about it; and within they were full of EYES; and they have no intermission day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord, the Omnipotent Deity, who was and who is and who is coming.

9.And when the Living Ones shall give glory, and honour, and thanks, to the ONE sitting upon the throne, who liveth for the Aions of the Aions, the

18 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

twenty and four Elders fall before the One sitting upon the throne, and they do homage to Him who liveth for the Aions of the Aions, and they cast their coronals before the throne, saying, 11. "Worthy art thou, 0 Lord, to receive the glory and the honour and the power; thou createdst all things, and on account of thy will they exist, and were created."

SECTION 1.A DOOR OPENED IN THE HEAVEN, AND THE LOUD TRUMPET VOICE

After these things I looked, and behold a DOOR OPENED In the heaven, and that first voice which I heard as of a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Ascend hither, and I will exhibit to thee things which must come to pass after these." - Verse 1.

In the English version, the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse begins with the words "after this;" as if the Spirit referred to one particular thing noted in the previous chapter, after which the subject of the fourth was to be initiated. But the original phrase is meta tauta, and should be rendered "after these things;" the Spirit thereby intimating a plurality of things to be accomplished before the establishment of the throne.

The things to be perfected before the setting up of the kingdom were those styled in ch. 1:19, "the things which are." This sentence must be interpreted of the things existing while John was in Patmos. There are three sets of things indicated in ch. 1:9: first, "the things thou hast seen;" second, "the things which are;" and, third, "the things which shall come to pass, meta tauta, after these." The first set consisted of the Seven Lightstands, the Son of Man, and the Seven Stars; the second, of the things treated of in the epistles to the Seven Ecclesias in relation to their spiritual condition, which was developing itself into irremediable apostacy and delusion; and the third, of the things to be accomplished after the removal of the lightstands out of their place in the ecclesias - ch. 2:5; after the tribulation of the ten days - cli. 2:10; after fighting against the Balaamites with the sword of the Spirit's mouth; after the casting of Jezebel into a bed, and them

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 19

who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, and the killing of her children with death - ch. 2:22; after his coming upon the dead in trespasses and sins as a thief - ch 3~1, 3. and after the Spirit had spued them out of his mouth ch 3: 16 These things were all to come to pass before the promises affixed to each epistle could be fulfilled which promises in their development in the Hour of Judgment ch 15:7 - are symbolized in ch 4:2-.II

But as to the time that was to elapse trom the epoch of John 's abode in Patmos to the opening of a door in the heavens, or from the spuing of the sevenfold ecclesia in Laodicean manifestation out of the Spirit's mouth, to the establishment of the throne in the opened heavens, it is not stated in this chapter how long. As I have shown, the ecclesia (a remnant only excepted), transformed into "the Holy Catholic Church," had been spued out in the Constantine Era; still "the Church" continued. Jezebel and Balaam still flourish in the heavenlies, or high places of the earth; where they revel iii all the pleasures of sin, and in the enjoyment of all the rewards of unrighteousness, the Gentile Balac, the son of Bosor, or the world-rulers of "the state" can bestow. As we have shown, Jezebel is representative of what Papists and Protestants agree to call "the Church," which maintains its ascendancy until the opening of a door "in the heavens;" and Balaam is representative of the Clerical Orders of "the church" which will also prevail as "the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" (Eph. 6:12), until the throne is set. This is the order of things pertaining to the course intermediate between Constantine, A.D. 312-337, and the apocalypse of the Sons of the Deity, which is near at hand. In all this long period of over sixteen hundred and twenty years, LAODICEANISM has prevailed in the form of the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth, the Image of the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Scarlet-colored Beast bearing Jezebel, the Mother of Harlots, and of All the Abominations of the earth. The root of all these things is that Mystery of Iniquity at work in the christian community in Paul's day -2 Thess. 2:7. It was then only being sown by those wolves in sheep's clothing he predicted would arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. In this they succeeded marvelously; so that the true believers were reduced to a mere remnant, which at the present time is too inconsiderable to command the respectful attention of "the church".

But this Jezebel and Balaamite Mystery of Iniquity which continues to the adventual epoch, is to be consumed by the Spirit of the Lord's mouth, and utterly destroyed by the manifestation of his presence. Such is the testimony of Paul and Daniel, to say nothing of

Page 20 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

the rest. Now, this consuming and destroying manifestation of spirit is what John saw when he "looked and beheld a door opened in the heaven" of the apocalypse. What he saw is the epiphany, or manifestation of the Spirit's parousia, or presence. He beheld it in belligerent operation; for "out of the throne," he says, "proceed lightnings and thunders and voices," which are the symbols of war.

1. The Heaven and the Door

I need not here repeat what has already been said about "the heaven." It will be sufficient to refer the reader to the captions on pages 139 and 146 of vol.1. To the saints this aerial expanse is closed. At present they do not shine there as the sun, moon, constellations, and stars of the firmament. The luminaries of the heaven are the dignities, or glories, incarnated in the officials who figure as the civil and spiritual rulers of "the earth and habitable." Although the saints are promised "power over the nations to rule them" (ch. 2:26,27), "the heaven," in which national government is located is shut and fast closed against them. Their principles incapacitate them for sharing power with the world-rulers in Church and State. A saint, who is one in deed as well as name, cannot condescend to subject himself to the conditions necessary to obtain the favor of the political mob, whether that mob be a mob of aristocrats, or a mob of what these call "the swinish multitude" he cannot, I say, condescend, as a son of the Deity, a brother of Jesus Christ, and a king and priest elect for God, to seek the favor of "the dead in trespasses and sins" whose votes and patronage are indispensable to his exaltation to the heaven; in which he may figure by the eloquence of his speech, or the gaudy decorations of a court, as a star of the first or an inferior magnitude. No saint could by any other possibility than that based upon apostacy, consent to occupy the Papal Chair, or to fill an archiepiscopal, or other ecclesiastical or secular throne. The heaven, in which these seats of glory, honor, wealth, and power exist, is infected with such malarious and poisonous exhalations of sin's flesh, that he could not breathe them, and live and move, and have continued healthful spiritual existence in the Deity. Fortunately for the saints this heaven is shut against them, and its door bolted, locked, and barred to keep out all who will not fall down and worship the Satan, who is prince of the Aerial, and bestows its glories upon whomsoever he approves.

But this heaven is not always to be shut up and barred against the saints - against the Lord Jesus and his Brethren. The Satan that now

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 21

fills it, and monopolizes its heavenly things, is to be hurled from it with a mighty overthrow. This Satan, which is Sin in official manifestation, holds the power and glory of the world's dominions. They are delivered unto him, and to whomsoever he will, he gives them Luke 4:5,6. All the evil that afflicts humanity is "the power of the enemy," or the Satan, whether that evil be enthroned in the heaven, or be found in the poison of serpents and scorpions. But the Satan in the heavenlies is doomed; for Jesus in vision of the future, said: "I beheld the Satan as it were lightning fall out of the heaven." - Luke 10:18. He falls thence by virtue of a stronger than the Satan breaking into the heaven and casting him out. The Satan's house or kingdom is strongly fortified against all burglars and besiegers, at present upon the earth. Under existing circumstances, there is no chance of the saints being able to make a breach, or to open a door in the heaven, to effect an entrance into it, and after the example of Cromwell and his Ironsides, to expel the Satan, and eject him with all his instruments of mischief and abomination. But though this present inability exists, the expulsion is to be accomplished. The oracle before us proclaims "a door opened in the heaven," which is equivalent to saying, that a power had been apocalypsed on earth, stronger than the Satan; that this power had made a breach in the enemy's works; and that this breach had become practicable, so that the breaching power could march through it as through a door, and take possession of the heaven, or "kingdom under the whole heaven." - Dan. 7:27.

The oracle does not say that doors were opened. Our attention is restricted to a door, that is, to one door. A door is that opening in a wall through which you pass into the area or room beyond. This is the scriptural use of the word. Understanding this, and that the apocalyptic heaven is that constitution of things expanded over all peoples, and nations, and languages, as the government by which they are regulated and controlled; the reader will perceive, that the coup-d'etat by which the smiting power succeeds in placing itself in power and authority over any part of those nations or peoples, is a door of entrance to that new Power into the heaven. That coup-d'etat, which gave Louis Napoleon introduction into the heaven, and placed him there enthroned among "the Powers," was "a door opened in the heaven" for him to pass through. This is easily comprehended, and makes the oracle before us easy of comprehension, as we shall endeavour to show.

From the condensed view I have given of "the Mystery of the Deity as he hath revealed the glad tidings to his servants the prophets, under the caption of "the Apocalypse Rooted in the Prophets," page 41,vol.1, the reader will have learned that the Deity proposes to enact a

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great and mighty coup-d'etat, or stroke of policy, upon the world's government. He intends so to shape and overrule its ambitions and schemes, as to cause them to make the territory of His kingdom the seat of war between hostile confederacies, contending for dominion over the hundred and twenty seven provinces of Daniel's lion, bear, and leopard. '”I will gather," saith He, all the nations against Jerusalem to war; and I will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat." "They shall pitch the tents of their entrenched camp between the seas to the mountain of the glory of holiness"; a region which in Apoc. 16:16, is indicated by the Hebrew word "Armageddon". This concentration of the hosts of the nations in the Holy Land, is its invasion by Gog, the Prince of Rosh, in hostility to the Merchant Power of Tarshish and its allies, then in possession of Jerusalem. But 'this city shall be taken"; 'and the land of Egypt shall not escape." Advanced to this sovereignty, the Gog-dominion stands forth as "the Dragon, the Old Serpent, surnamed the Diabolos and the Satan" -Apoc. 20:2; and as the Image of the kingdom of men in its latter day manifestation, as represented to Nebuchadnezzar in his dream. In the development of these events a crisis is formed, such as the world, for magnitude and importance, has never seen before. The Satan will then have attained to the loftiest pinnacle of the temple, with the presumption that universal sovereignty is within the grasp of his omnipotence. The heaven will be filled with his glory; and no son of sin's flesh will find admission there, whose zeal runs not in the way of a ready and devout allegiance to the God-defying principles of "the spirit that works in the children of disobedience."

But things having arrived at this crisis, under the leadership of the Lawless One, the time will have also arrived for opening a door into Satan's heaven, through which the saints may enter in. This will be done by a divine coup-d'etat such as the Satan little expects. This political stroke consists in the power represented by a Stone falling upon the enemy, and crushing them with a terrible overthrow. This STONE-POWER is the power of the Eternal Spirit in Jesus and the saints; who with sword, pestilence, rain, hail, fire and brimstone, plead with the adversary, and destroy him from the Promised Land. In this way Yahweh makes Jerusalem "a cup of trembling, unto all the people round about when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem: also a burdensome stone for all people, all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." Their multitudes and power will not appal him. He will go forth and fight against them, and stand victorious upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem

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on the east. In this way, He, who the prophet styles, Yahweh my ELOHIM comes in, all the saints with him. In proof of all this, the reader is referred to Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, and Zechariah.

Thus YAHWEH Elohim, the saints, "come in." By the crashing power of the Stone a door is opened, and they march in. Their Prince, who came as a thief, obtains possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and becomes a potentate among the thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers of the heaven, in which, until He breaks in upon them, "the Devil and his Angels" only can be found.

2. The First Voice as of a Trumpet

A door being opened in the heaven when John was looking, a voice issued forth from the opening, and addressed him. He tells us that the voice was identical with "that first voice which he heard as of a trumpet speaking with him." This first voice is noted in ch. 1:10. It was a loud trumpet-like voice, and he heard it when "in spirit." In all this, John was a dramatic person; or, one through whom was represented in action certain things not narrated. When in Patmos, and about to behold something pertaining to "the Day of the Lord," he says he was in spirit." This is equivalent to saying that, when he shall behold the reality of the similitude he saw in spirit, he will also be "in spirit"; which likewise intimates by implication, that he will have previously risen from among the dead and be spirit. The first voice, then, he heard behind him as the loud sound of a trumpet, was a symbolical voice of the seventh trumpet period, which will awake him from his death-sleep; for it is under the seventh, which is also the last, that the dead are raised, the prophets and saints are rewarded, the day of the Lord is introduced, and the Satan ejected from the heaven, bound hand and foot, and shut down in the bottomless profound there to remain for the thousand years ensuing - ch. 11:18.

Now, in John having referred us in ch. 4:1, to the first voice of ch. 1:10, it was equivalent to telling us, that the first and second hearing of the same voice related to the same epoch, or point of time. They both relate to the seventh trumpet period; and as John "turned to see" in the first instance, and "looked" and ascended in the other, the vision of the Son of Man, and the vision of the thrones, the elders, and the living ones, are both representative of things destined to come to pass after the advent of Christ and the resurrection of the saints. The apocalyptic Son of Man is the Stone-Power in manifestation. He shatters Nebuchadnezzar's image to pieces; and having opened the heaven, establishes therein a throne, which becomes the centre of a

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dominion extending over all the earth. The first time John heard the voice of this trumpet, it was "loud." It awoke him from the dust of death. But the second time, he does not say it was loud; this may be inferred, because it was the same voice. He was "looking," before the words of the voice addressed him. He had risen, and was contemplating the opening of a door in the heaven; and while so looking, there was a speaking from the opening inviting him into the heaven. Hence, the beginning of the first voice awoke him to life and action; and afterwards the same voice invited him to ascend to the heaven and to inherit the kingdom established there.

The trumpet to which this "loud," "first voice" belongs, is that represented in "the memorial of the blowing of trumpets," on the first day of the seventh month - Lev. 23:24. It is that sounding by which the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel, are summoned to gather themselves together unto Christ, the King of Israel - Num. 10:4. It precedes the sounding on the tenth of the seventh month, which proclaims liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof

- Lev. 25:9. The saints are first raised and exalted to the heaven; in other words, "meet the Lord in the air," as symbolized in this fourth chapter; and then afterward "the Great Trumpet" of the Jubilee is blown by YAHWEH Elohim, who in the "lightnings and thunders which proceed out of the throne" (v.5), goes forth with the whirlwind of the south - Zech. 9:14.

The silver trumpet that sounds upon the first day of the seventh month, gathers together that "great multitude which no man can number of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues"; of which John says he beheld that "they stood before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" -chap. 7:9. "These had been dead, but when the trumpet sounded at the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that Yahweh Elohim should give reward to his Servants the prophets and to the saints, and to them that venerate his name, small and great" (ch. 11:18), when the loud trumpet-voice was heard at this time in the lower parts of the earth, all these, with John among the number, "turned" and "looked" - awake from their dusty bed, come forth from their graves, and gather together unto him (2 Thess. 2:1) who, by the energy of the Eternal Spirit, will have raised them from among the dead. This "first voice" which brings them together to stand before the throne in the heaven, plants them as the symbolical 144,000, upon MOUNT ZION, the area of the throne and Most Holy Place of the heaven; it plants them there with the Lamb, in preparation to "follow him whithersoever he goeth" - ch. 14:1,4. In preparation to go forth, not in actual progress. Another "loud voice"

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must be heard before they go forth in the lightnings and thunders of the war of "the great day of God the Almighty" - ch. 14:15;16:14.

While prepared for war, but the lightnings and thunders not yet flashed forth from the throne (ch. 4:5), the trumpet of the Jubilee is sounded for the gathering together of the congregation of Israel from the four corners of the earth. The sound of this trumpet is not an alarm for war - Num. 10:7. It is the "loud voice" of the class-angel that flies in mid-heaven, making proclamation of the good news pertaining to the Millennial Aion; announcing that the time of its introduction has arrived, and inviting mankind of all nations and tongues, to fear the Deity and give glory to him, because the hour of his judgment is come -ch. 14:7. "The Great Trumpet," says Isaiah, "shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship Yahweh in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem" - ch. 27:13. This testimony informs us that the blowing of the great jubilee trumpet on the tenth of the seventh month, will ultimate in the return of Israel to their fatherland; but this return will not result without war. The North will not give up, and the South will keep back, until both North and South are harvested, and gathered into the winepress of the wrath of God ch. 14:15,20. Assyria, or the North, and Egypt, or the South, will be the enemy oppressing them in their land. This being their condition, the ordinance appointed for their generations during the Mosaic Olahm, enjoined upon the priests to blow the two silver trumpets, with the assurance that the blasts thereof should cause them to be remembered before Yahweh their Elohim, and that consequently they should be saved from their enemies - Num. 10:9. This was a prophetic memorial, the body or substance of which is of the Christ - Col. 2:16,17. It signifies, that in "the latter end," when oppressed by the enemy, "the Devil and Satan," the loud angel-voices sentforth out of the throne (ch. 4:5), should proclaim war; and command the Son of Man in his white clouds of warriors, to thrust in the sharp sickle, and reap down their oppressors, and so save them from their enemies.

The "first voice," then, is the apocalyptic antitype of the Mosaic ordinance of the memorial of the blowing of the two silver trumpets, which were blown for the calling of the assembly, a holy convocation; and for the journeying of the camps. This "first voice" is heard by the class of which John is the apocalyptic representative, before the pouring Out of the Seventh Vial "INTO ThE AIR;" by which a breach is made, through which, as "a door," the saints, who are raised under the Sixth Vial - "the kings which are from the Sun's risings" - who hear the first voice as of a trumpet speaking to them, enter into the heaven. Raised

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under the Sixth Vial, which has been pouring out upon the symbolical Euphrates for the last forty years of the present century, they await further developments. They await the smiting of the Nebuchadnezzar Image upon the feet, which is to manifest the temple of the Deity in the open heaven; and in the midst of that temple of holy ones, the Messianic Ark of his Covenant, whose propitiatory or mercy seat, is the crucified Nazarene - ch. 11:19.

3. "Ascend Hither."

"Ascend hither, and I will exhibit to thee things which must come to pass after these." - Ch. 4..J.

After resurrection is ascension; but not necessarily instantaneously after. This is evident from the example given in the case of the Lord Jesus. He first came out of the sepulchre; and then, after a certain interval, "ascended to the Father;" an ascent which is not to be confounded with his assumption from the Mount of Olives, forty-three days after his crucifixion - John 20:17; Acts 1:11. He ascended to the Father before he was "taken up." The ascent was a necessary preparation for the taking up of the resurrected body; for a body such as he had, when he forbid Mary to touch him, was unfit for translation through the higher regions of our atmosphere, and the airless ethereal beyond. It was necessary that he should be "in spirit" and so become spirit, that he might be with the Father. So John "looked" and "heard," which are vital actions; but though living and looking he saw nothing until after the invitation to ascend, with the promise, that subsequently to the ascent he should see an exhibition of things which should come to pass when "the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom" (Dan. 7:22); which implies their resurrection and ascent after the similitude of the dramatic resurrection and ascension of John.

The invitation to John to ascend into the heaven was equivalent to inviting him to "meet the Lord in the air;" and by implication, an invitation to all whom he represented to do so likewise at the appointed time. This is the only place in the apocalypse where it is said to John anaba bode, ascend Hither! In ch. 17:1, and 21:9, it is said deuro, conic here, or "come hither;" and in doing so, he is "in spirit borne away into a wilderness;" and "upon a great and high mountain." In the wilderness he sees the Mother of Harlots, and the ensanguined Sin-Powers by which she is sustained; and from upon the mountain that overtops all other mountains, he beholds "the House of the Elohim of Jacob" (Isa. 2:3), or, the New Jerusalem Community, in the light of which the

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nations of the Millennial Aion walk in peace and goodwill. But when "a door in the heaven is opened," John is not borne, or carried away; he is called up. He is invited to "ascend" - to ascend to the kingdom and throne to be established in the heaven. There is a testimony analogous to this in ch. 11:12, where a class of persons not represented by John are addressed in the words, anabete hode, ascend ye hither! And it says "they ascended into the heaven in the cloud which ascended." This cloud of witnesses was the political element of the "Two Witnesses," which had been politically dead, but unburied, for 105 years, at the end of which, that is, in the 1789-'90, they rose again, and ascending to the heaven in the sight of their terrified enemies, became the ruling power in the state. Hence for John to ascend into the heaven dramatically was indicative of those he represents, who have been prevailed against by the Sin-Powers of the Habitable, trodden under foot for the previous forty-two months of years, and sleeping in the dust, ascending from these depths of humiliation and degradation, to the high and exalted position of kings and priests for the Deity, through whom the world shall be ruled for a thousand years.

The Throne

"I was in spirit: and behold A THRONE was established in the heaven. "-4:2

The word throne is from the Greek thronos, an elevated seat with a footstool; and derived from thrao, to sit, metonymically, it signifies imperial and regal power. In the text before us it stands for "the dominion, glory, and kingdom," which Daniel says "was given to the Son of Man, that all peoples, and nations, and languages might serve him"-ch. 7:14.

As soon as the invitation was given to ascend to the heaven, John was "in spiriL" Immediately upon this he saw a throne in the heaven, which had not been there before in such glorious manifestation. It had many ages anterior to his time, occupied a place in the heaven contemporarily with the thrones of Tyre, and Egypt, and Sheba, and Babylon; but, while he was in Patmos, and for many ages before and since, even to this day, there is no such throne in the heaven. When it existed there of old, it was occupied by David and Solomon as the kings of Yahweh over Israel. It was then styled "the throne of Yahweh," and the throne of the kingdom of Yahweh over Israel" - I Chron. 28:5; 29::23.~By the covenant of the Olahm, or Hidden Period, this throne was established in the family of David. The proof of this is found in

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numerous places of the Scripture. Thus in 2 Sam. 7:12-16, the covenant to David reads, 'YAHWEH will make for thee a house. When thy days shall be completed, and thou hast slept with thy fathers, I will cause to raise up after thee thy seed who shall proceed out of thy bowels; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom ad-olahm, during the hidden period;" that is, the Millennium. 'I will be to him for a father, and he shall be to me for a son; whom, in his being caused to bow down, I will chasten with a sceptre of men, and with stripes from the sons of Adam; but my mercy I will not take from him as that I put away from with Saul, whom I removed from before thee. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established during the Olahm before thy face; thy throne shall be set up for the Olahm," or the thousand years.

Now when David's days were about completed, he thus expressed himself in reference to this covenant of the throne and kingdom. In 2 Sam. 23:1, it is written: "Now these words of David, the last, are an oracle of David, son of Jesse; even an oracle of the mighty man enthroned, concerning an Anointed One of the Elohim of Jacob; and the pleasant theme of Israel's songs.

"Yahweh's spirit spake by me, and His word was upon my tongue; Elohim of Israel spake to me, and the Rock of Israel discoursed, saying, There shall be a Ruler over mankind, ruling in the righteous precepts of Elohim. And as brightness of morning, He shall rise the Sun of an unclouded dawn, shining forth after rain upon tender grass out of the earth.

"Though my house is not so with AlL, yet He hath appointed for me THE COVENANT OF THE OLAHM, ordered in everything and sure: truly this is all my salvation, and all my delight, though he cause it not to spring forth.

"But the wicked shall be all of them as a thorn-bush to be thrust away; yet without hand shall they be taken; nevertheless A MAN shall smite upon them. He shall be filled with iron and the shaft of a spear; but with fire to burn up while standing, they shall be consumed."

The above testimonies I have translated from the Hebrew. The reader can compare them with the English version, and adopt which he thinks the more intelligible and correct. He will find that both renderings agree in affirming this:

1. That a dynastic house was guaranteed to David;

2. That the kingdom and throne of this dynasty should be established during a future period;

3. That the commencement and duration of that period were hidden from David;\

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4. That said kingdom and throne should be established by AlL; or, as Daniel says, by "the Eloah of the heavens;"

5. That the occupant of said throne should be a resurrected seed of David and Son of the Deity;

6. That this seed should come to his death by the violence of his enemies; and be pierced with a spear:

7. That the establishment of said kingdom and throne should come to pass after David's sleep with his fathers, and before his face; so that the establishment of the throne and kingdom would be after David's resurrection from among the dead;

8. That this Covenant of the then, and yet, Hidden Period, ordered in all things and sure, contained all that constituted the salvation looked for by David; and in which was his delight;

9. That He who should be at once seed of David and Son of the Deity should be Ruler over mankind, ruling them in righteousness and in glory, when occupying the covenanted throne; and,

10. That he should utterly destroy the power of the wicked.

When these things were revealed to David, concerning his royal descendant and his kingdom and throne, they became the anchor of his soul both sure and steadfast behind the veil of a future undefined. Now, David was a great poet; we may say, the greatest poet that ever lived; for the Songs of Israel were from his pen indited under the inspiration of Yahweh's spirit which spake by him, putting divine words upon his tongue. The covenanted seed, and the glorious things to him belonging, were "the pleasant theme of Israel's songs." In these songs, that which was "all his salvation and all his delight" was always prominent; and made them, not merely David's, but Yahweh's songs, which "Israelites indeed," found difficult to sing when captives in a strange and foreign land Psalm 137:4. In the eighty-ninth of these songs, the Rock of Israel discoursed concerning the covenant, saying, "A hidden period of mercy shall be builded; thy faithfulness in them, the heavens, thou wilt establish. I have devised a covenant for my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant, saying, during a hidden period I will establish thy seed; and I will build thy throne for a generation of the race." And in verse 24, "In my name shall his horn be exalted. And I will set his hand in the sea; and his right hand in the rivers. He shall call upon me, saying, Thou art my Father, my AlL, and the Rock of my Salvation. Yea, I will appoint him the Firstborn, the Most High to the kings of the earth. For the hidden period I will keep my mercy for him; and my covenant shall be steadfast for him. And I have appointed his seed la-ad, for eternity (see diagram on p.131, Vol.1) and his throne as the days of the heavens." Once have I sworn by my holiness, verily I will not lie to David: his seed shall be for the hidden period; and his throne as the sun

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before me. As the moon it shall be established a hidden period; and as a witness steadfast in the firmament" - ver. 35. "As the sun" the throne will always be; but "as the moon," as a priestly throne, it shall continue only for the thousand years, until sin and death shall be destroyed.

Now, when we look into the heaven we behold no such throne and kingdom as those covenanted to David among the powers. We see there the Papal throne, the thrones of the Romish kingdoms, the imperial thrones of the Austrian, and Russian, and Turkish dominions, and so forth; but no kingdom and throne of David over Israel in the promised land. Is this present condition of the heaven permanent and final? Are these thrones and governments of the eastern and western hemispheres, always to rule the nations, and is there never to exist a throne and kingdom of David occupied and governed by his immortal household, as the kings and priests of the Deity? Whoever affirms these things, in so saying avers that Yahweh's spirit has "lied to David." He charges the Deity with falsehood; and in so doing proves, that he himself is like his father the devil, "a liar, and that the truth is not in him." But no. The existing order of the heaven is not final. The things which are seen there are only temporary: ta blepomena proskaira - 2 Cor. 4:18. These thrones are to be cast down when the Ancient of Days shall sit; and judgment shall be executed by the saints - Dan. 7:9,22. When "his throne as a fiery flame" shall be manifested it will be established in the heaven, and not withhold its "lightnings, and thunders, and voices," till every one of them shall be in the possession of the seed covenanted to David.

But the absence of the throne and kingdom of David from the heaven for a long series of ages anterior to his resurrection was contemplated and expressly declared by the spirit in David and the prophets. In view of their suppression the spirit says in the psalm quoted, "But thou hast cast off and rejected; thou hast been very wroth with thine anointed one. Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant; thou hast profaned his crown to the earth; thou hast broken down all his defences; thou hast reduced his strongholds to ruins. All who pass by the way spoil him; he hath been a reproach to his neighbors. Thou hast exalted the right hand of his adversaries; all his enemies thou hast made glad: yea, thou wilt turn the edge of his sword, and make him not to stand in war; thou hast made his brightness to cease, and his throne thou hast cast down to the earth. The days of his youth hast thou shortened; thou hast covered him over with shame. How long, 0 Yahweh? Wilt thou hide thyself la-netzach, perpetually?"

Such was the condition of things in relation to the throne in John's day as in our own. David, John, and all the saints from their time to ours,

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are all interested in the inquiry "How long?" Until when shall the kingdom and throne of David and David's Lord, be prostrate in the dust, and exist only as a matter of hope? This question has been long since answered by Ezekiel, who in ch. 21:27, says, the throne shall not exist "until He come whose right it is," and Yahweh Elohim will give it him. Jesus being the Christ, is He whose right it is. This is evident from Gabriel's word in Luke 1:3, saying to Mary, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and Yahweh Elohim shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob eis tous ajonas, during the Ajons, and of his kingdom there shall not be an end. The right to the throne, then, belongs to Jesus. But when he came into the world it was not in existence, nor while he remained here; and when he departed from the earth, instead of possessing a throne, "he went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom;" and having received it "to return," -Luke 19:12. He has not yet returned, which is a proof that he has not "received for himself a kingdom." But he will certainly receive it according to Daniel's vision of the night - ch. 7:13,14; and when he returns in power and glory, and all the holy angels with him, then will he build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down; and build again the ruins thereof, and set it up as in the days of old; and occupy the throne, which will then be the throne of his glory-Matt. 25:31; Amos 9:11; Acts 15:16. And this is that throne which John beheld "established in the heaven."

But it may be asked, in what terrestrial locality will this throne in the heaven be established? What is the topography of the substance, or reality, of the vision John beheld "in spirit?" The answer is MOUNT ZION IN JERUSALEM. This is where the Davidian covenant locates it, in saying to David, "THY kingdom shall be established during the Olahm before thy face; THY throne shall be set up for the Olahm," or hidden period of a thousand years duration. When these words were spoken to David he was reigning in Mount Zion in Jerusalem in the presence of ancients, the princes of Israel. Deeply impressed with this truth, as the poet of the House of Jacob, he celebrated the glory of Zion when he should behold her full of palaces tenanted by tile saints, the Elohim of Israel. Hence, the psalms, are not only styled "Yahweh's Songs," and "Israel's Songs," but "the Songs of Zion." The following is a specimen of the teaching of the spirit concerning Zion and Jerusalem.

"Yahweh's foundation is in the mountains of holiness. He loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, 0 city of the ELOHIM. Selah. This Man (the foundation-stone laid in Zion) was developed there: even to Zion it shall

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be said, the man, even THE MAN, was brought forth in her; and He tfle Most High, will establish her. In enrolling the peoples Yahweh will reckon (that) this Man was born there. Also singers as well as musicians (Apoc. 5:8,9; 14:2; 15:2,3) there: all my springs are in thee - Psa. 87.

Again. In Psalm 48 it is written, "Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised in the city of our Elohim, the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful of situation, the joy of all the earth, is the mountain of Zion, the sides of the north, the citadel of the Great King. Elohim in her palaces has been known for a defense. For behold, the kings (under Gog) were assembled, they perished together. They beheld; so were they in consternation; they were terrified, in terror they hasted away. Trembling seized upon them there, and anguish as a parturient woman. With a wind of the east thou wilt wreck the ships of Tarshish. As we have heard so have we seen in the city of YARWEH Tz'vaoth, in the city of our ELOHIM. Elohim will establish her ad-olahm, during the hidden period," or MILLENNIUM.

Again. In Psa. 50 "AlL, Elohim, YAHWER spoke and made proclamation to the earth from the rising of the sun unto its going down. Out of Zion the perfection of beauty Elohim shined forth. Our Elohim shall come, and not keep silence. A fire before him shall devour, and it shall be very tempestuous around him. He will make proclamation to the heavens from above, and to the earth for to vindicate his people: saying, Gather ye to me my saints, the separatists of my covenant by the sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness; for He, the Elohim, is judge. Selah."

In Psa. 46:4, also it says: "There is a river whose channels shall gladden the city of Elohim, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. Elohim in her midst, therefore she shall not be moved. Elohim shall help her at the opening of the dawn. The nations were enraged; the kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice and the earth shall melt. Yahweh Tz'vaoth is with us; a fortress for us the Elohim of Jacob. Selah."

In Psa. 122 it is written, "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, 0 Jerusalem - Jerusalem! that is builded as a city compactly joined together. Whither have gone up the tribes, the tribes of Yah, a testimony for Israel, to give thanks to the name of Yahweh; because there they have established thrones for judgment, the thrones of the House of David. Seek ye the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper who love thee."

Lastly, in Psa. 132:11, it is written, "Yahweh swore to David the truth; he will not turn from it, saying; Of the fruit of thy body I will set upon the throne for thee. If thy sons will keep my covenant and my

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testimony which I will teach them; their sons also shall sit in the throne for thee adai-ad, until the beyond" (see diagram on p.131, vol. 1)(note scanner could not copy). For Yahweh has chosen to be in Zion; he has desired it for a dwelling for himself. This is my rest until the beyond. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. Blessing I will bless her provision; her poor I will satisfy with bread. Also her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. There I will cause a HORN to bud for David; I have prepared a LAMP for mine anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame; but upon him shall his crown florish."

Such, then, is merely a specimen of what is testified in "the songs of Zion" of the relation she is destined to hold to Messiah's kingdom, when he shall sit and rule as a priest after the Order of Melchizedec, upon the throne to be established in the heaven, and shall bear the glory of his Father's house. The vision in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse is of the "GREAT WHITE THRONE" of David's Son, encircled by the judicial thrones of the House of David, to be occupied jointly with him by the apostles and saints in general, as his ancients, according to his promise. They are the thrones to be established in the Era of Regeneration; when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and the apostles upon twelve thrones governing the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:19), "then shall Jerusalem be called THE THRONE OF YAHWEH: and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to THE NAME OF YAHWEH, to Jerusalem (Jer. 3:17); and because of its superior glory, majesty, and power, compared with any other throne that ever was on earth, or ever shall be for a thousand years; the luminaries of the political expanse which now shed their rays upon the earth of subject nations, peoples, and tongues, shall be darkened with a total and permanent eclipse, according to the testimony of the Spirit that 'the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." - Isa. 24:23.

5 "Upon the Throne One sitting"

"And upon the throne One sitting. And the One sitting was in appearance like a jasper and a sardine stone." - Ch. 4:2

He whom John saw “in spirit" sitting upon the throne; that is, He who will occupy it when it shall have been established in the heaven, is he whom the Spirit in Zech. 6:12, styles "THE MAN, whose name is THE BRANCH,' styled also in ch. 3:8, "My Servant the Branch." This is the Son of the Deity to whom the throne belongs, and termed "His

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servant," because of his manifestation to do service for Yahweh in "planting the heavens, and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying unto Zion, "Thou art my people" (Isa. 51:16); or, as expressed in ch. 49:6, "His servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the desolations of Israel; and also to be for a light to the nations, and for his salvation to the ends of the earth." This is the 'One sitting upon the throne" seen of Isaiah as well as by John. Isaiah saw him "in spirit" upwards of seven hundred years before he was made of a woman under the law" (Gal. 4:4); John beheld him in flesh, looked upon him with his eyes, and handled him with his hands, when he dwelt among the Jews; and seventy years afterwards while an exile in Patmos, saw a similitude representative of him sitting in Millennial glory upon the throne of David and of Deity, as indicated in the chapter before us.

Isaiah being "in spirit" saw him enthroned. "I saw," saith he, "the ADONAI (plural) sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. - I SAW THE KING, Yahweh Tz'vaoth" - ch. 6:1,5. He saw the king of whom the Spirit afterwards said, "Take away the filthy garments from him" - the filthy garments of flesh, styled his "iniquity; and let them set a fair mitre upon his head" - Zech. 3:4,5. This has been accomplished in the perfecting of Jesus by spirit, as I have expounded it on p.108, vol.1. He is now prepared to rule the Father's house, and to keep His courts. He is the man, the Second Adam, to be enthroned upon that eminence, high and lifted up above all other high places of the political aerial, covenanted by the Eternal Power to his father David. Ezekiel, when "in spirit," saw him enthroned, and calls him "a Man"; that is Adam, not ish; but adam, as indicative of his original identity with the nature of the first man. John gives us to understand that he whom he saw sitting upon the throne was not only a man, ish, in the sense in which the three angel-elohim who appeared to Abraham are so styled; but that he was adam, a mortal descended from him who came out of adama, the ground. This is indicated by what he says in Apoc. 5:6: "I saw, and behold in the midst of the throne, and of the four living ones, and in the midst of the elders, A LAMB standing as if it had been slain, having seven Horns and seven Eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth into all the earth." In these words he exhibits a combination of flesh and spirit "in the midst of the throne," and therefore sitting upon it. The flesh is represented by a living lamb that had been slain, but had recovered from the death-wound. It is well known to one intelligent in the word, that "lamb" is the metaphor, and in the Apocalypse, the symbol, of the sacrificial man, Jesus, who was delivered to death for his people's offenses, and whose mission is to take away the sin of the world; in

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other words, to "destroy that having the power of death," and to destroy the works of sin - the Diabolos and all that has originated from the flesh.

The sacrificial man, Jesus, then, is the apocalyptic lamb, one suspended upon a cross and forsaken of "the Seven Spirits of the Deity"; and consequently, not having at that time "seven Horns and seven Eyes"; but now, healed of the wound in his heel by resurrection and ascent to the Father, and by which he has become consubstantial spirit-flesh with Him, and therefore possessed of "the seven Spirits of the Deity," or holy spirit in perfection, by which he is omnipotent and omniscient, seeing and knowing all things; and therefore "a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes," and prepared to take up his position "in the midst of the throne," when a door shall be breached in the heaven, and the throne shall be established there.

The Lord Jesus Anointed, then, is the Adam hereafter to sit upon the throne. Installed in the heaven, the four living ones will give glory, and honor, and thanks to him; and the twenty and four elders will fall before him, and do homage, and cast their coronets before him, saying, "Worthy art thou, 0 Lord, to receive the glory, and the honor, and the power; because thou createdst all things, and on account of thy will they exist, and were created" - ch. 4:9,11.

In speaking of the appearance of the Man enthroned, John Says, "it was like to a jasper and sardine stone." He is in this likened to a Stone most precious; not to a common stone, but to a very brilliant and inestimable living stone. He is symbolized here by a stone, because he is so designated in the prophets. In setting forth the military prowess of Joseph's posterity beacharith hayamim, "in the last one of the days," he predicts that the arms of his hands shall be made strong by the Mighty One, the Ail and the Shaddai of Jacob, out of whom is the Shepherd, whom he styles ~THE STONE OF ISRAEL" - Gen. 49:24.25.

This Shepherd-Stone is typified in the two onyx stones of the Aaronic ephod, upon which the names of the twelve tribes were engraved in the order of the birth of their fathers, and which were to be borne before Yahweh upon the two shoulders of the one man officiating as High Priest, for a memorial - Exod. 28:9.12.

The prophet Isaiah also speaks of him to Judah thus: "Sanctify," saith he, "Yahweh Tz'vaoth himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary. But also for a Stone of stumbling, and for a Rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem" - ch. 8:14. This has in part been accomplished, and we wait now for this stone to be laid in the identical place where it was stumbled over; according to the

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words of the Spirit by the same prophet, saying, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not be confounded" - ch. 28:16. This is "the stone which the builders refused" which will then have "become the chief of the corner" - Psa. 118:22, the head stone with Seven Eyes brought forth with shoutings of "Grace, grace, unto it!" -Zech. 3:9; 4:7,10.

Two precious stones are selected by the Spirit to represent the appearance of the Man enthroned. These are a Jasper and Sardius. The reason why two are indicated rather than one, is because THE KING is Spirit and Flesh in combination. Had he been mere flesh, or spirit uncombined with flesh, one stone would have answered every purpose; but being deity manifested in flesh, two precious stones were necessary:

one to symbolize the Spirit, and the other to represent the Flesh. The jasper is the spirit symbol. It is a hard stone of various hues, as purple, cerulean, green. The glory and light of the New Jerusalem community are likened to " a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal" - ch. 21:11; and in verse 23, this glory and light are styled the glory of the Deity and the Lamb. The wall of the city is also a jasper, which wall is the symbol of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb; in other words, of the Spirit, who by Zechariah has said, "I will be unto Jerusalem a wall of fire round about, and the glory in the midst of her. Sing and rejoice, 0 daughter of Zion, for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Yahweh" - ch. 2:5,10. A beautiful cerulean gem clear as crystal, is the symbol of the Deity's spirit condensed into substance; and as it is the primary principle of the city whose builder and maker the Deity is, "the first foundation is a jasper."

The other gem is named in Hebrew 'odem. These are the same letters that compose the word applied to the creature Yahweh Elohim formed from the ground to be the father of our race. By the invention of the Masorites, instead of being pronounced adam, it is pronounced odem, and on being translated into the Greek, the Seventy rendered it by sardion, because found about Sardis. It is a carnelian, and so called from its color having a resemblance to that of flesh - a gem, therefore, fitly symbolical of the Adam-element of the one sitting upon the throne.

The Rainbow about the Throne

"And a Rainbow circled about the Throne in appearance like an emerald." - Ch. 4.3

The rainbow is referred to in four places in the scriptures, and it is

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 37

from these only can be deduced the import of the symbol before us. In nature, the rainbow is evolved by the action of showery vapor upon the sun's rays, which, in passing through the aqueous globules, are refracted, and form an arch upon that part of the clouds opposite to the sun, glowing with all the colors of the prismatic, or solar, spectrum. The rainbow is never seen except when the sun is shining, and when rain is falling between the spectator and the part of the horizon where the bow is seen. These facts must not be lost sight of in considering the significancy of the rainbow when used as a symbol. Sun, light, rain, cloud, are elements necessary to the production of the natural bow; so are they also to the evolution of a symbolical arch in the heaven pertaining to the throne. In the absence of the Sun of Righteousness from the heaven, and of the light of life, glory, honor, and power, which he will irradiate the rainbow encircling the throne cannot be seen. Neither can the light irradiating from Him, be reflected to the spectator-world from the clouds of immortals about the throne, until the rain-showers of the heaven shall descend upon the mown grass to fertilize the earth. These are indispensable conditions to the evolution of the bow, which is the symbol of a clear and blessed sunshine after previous "lightnings, thunders, and voices from the throne," contemporaneously with gently descending rain.

Based upon these principles, I remark that the order of the bow's development is,

1. The opening of the heaven by the Stone-Power smiting Nebuchadnezzar's Image upon the feet;

2. The establishment of the throne in the heaven by mowing tile earth at harvest time (ch 14 15), in the storm period of the lightnings thunders, and voices proceeding from the throne (ch 4 5) by which the kingdoms of the world are taken possession of by the saints

3. The grass of the earth being thus mown, its harvest reaped, and its vintage trodden out, the rain of the heaven descends in the blessing of Abraham upon the nations, which, being subdued are blessed in Abraham and his Seed or in Jesus and the saints,

4. "As brightness of morning, THE RULER rises the Sun of an unclouded dawn, shining forth after rain upon the tender grass of the earth." The effect of this shining is that the Rainbow-Throne covenanted to David is beheld through the descending rain, which diffuses the knowledge of its glory to the utmost bounds of the habitable world.

The rainbow, then, is the token, or symbol of the Covenant. The bow in the natural heavens has been so designated by the Spirit from the days of Noah, after his salvation by water; and all who have looked upon the phenomenon with minds enlightened by the truth, from his

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day to this, have viewed it as the memorial of Yahweh's covenant. The first place in which this covenant is alluded to is in Gen. 6:18; it does not follow, however, that no covenant existed till the time therein indicated. Yahweh had a covenant which he styled, "My covenant." It was on account of this covenant that the race of Adam was perpetuated in Noah. If he had not found favor with Yahweh because of his faith in the covenanted promises, the race would have been exterminated from the earth. He became "heir of the righteousness which is by faith"; by that faith, which is "the substance of things being hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Noah died in this faith "not having received the promises." He has not received them yet; nor will he receive them "without us," for all the saints of all the generations are to be perfected together - Heb. 11:7,13,39,40. Hence, the things Noah believed were the promises of the covenant with which he had been acquainted several centuries before the Flood. They were the promises made when the lives of the animals were cut off in Paradise for Adam's transgression - Gen. 3:15,21. This covenant was renewed with Noah as its Heir, and afterwards with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. It was the covenant l'doroth olahm, "for the generations of the hidden period"; and therefore styled berith olahm, the "covenant of the hidden period." - Gen. 9:12,16.

Now, the total destruction of the Adamic race in the line of Cain did not shake Noah's faith in the covenant. He still hoped for the promises it revealed. Seeing this, the Eternal Spirit condescended to communicate with Noah, and to assure him through Angel-Elohim, that no such sweeping destruction by water should again afflict the race. Hitherto, he had seen the prismatic arch photographed upon the clouds by clear shining of the sun through the rain; but he had never beheld it as a token, or sign of any thing else than that the weather was about to fair off. The time, however, had now arrived when henceforth he would view it as the symbol of salvation. For Elohim said: "I have set my bow in the cloud; and it shall be for THE TOKEN OF THE COVENANT between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall he seen in the cloud. And I will look upon it, that I may remember the covenant of the hidden period between the Elohim and every living soul of all flesh that is upon the earth."

In his "visions of the Elohim," Ezekiel beheld the same scene as that presented to John in Patmos, respecting the Rainbow-Throne. He saw the appearance of the Man upon the sapphire throne, which he describes as of the color of amber flaming from the loins upward, and as fire from thence downwards, and brightness about the whole; which Page 39

brightness was as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain. All of which represented "the glory of Yahweh" - ch. 1:26,28. The Man and the throne, and the glory he bears, being under the bow, are thereby indicated as the subject-matter of the covenant of which the rainbow is the token, symbol, or sign. This symbol points to a certain day, styled by Ezekiel, "the Day of Rain." There can be no bow except in such a day. "The day of rain" is a phrase which implies the existence of a day in which there is no rain; or, as the saying is "of a dry time." This is truly the character of the time in which we live; and not only so, but of all the time symbolized by "the court given to the Gentiles" (Apoc. 11:2), a time during which they are treading the Holy City under foot; concurrently with which also the Two Witnesses are prophesying, and the rain consequently, cannot descend; for "they have power to shut the heaven, that it rain not in the day of their prophecy" - 11:6.

As in nature, then, so in grace, no bow can be seen but in a day of rain. At present every thing is dried up and parched. "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the spirit of Yahweh bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass; but the word (preached) of our Elohim shall stand to the hidden period" - Isa. 40:6. Such being the past, and present, and the future till the lightnings cease to flash, and the thunders to roll forth from the throne, no rainbow can or will be seen. It is now a day of perdition for want of rain. The people are withered, and shriveled up for want of moisture; for their clergies are wells without water, dry clouds driven about of winds, withered trees without fruit, from whom no spiritual sustenance can be derived. A day of rain is the opposite of all this; and that the reader may have some idea of the nature of things when the bow shall be in manifestation about the throne, I invite his attention to the following testimonies.

"Give ear, 0 ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, 0 earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass; because I will publish the Name of Yahweh; ascribe ye greatness unto our Elohim. The Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment; an AlL of truth and without iniquity; just and right is he." - Deut. 32:1. "There is none like the AlL of Yeshurun riding heavens in thy help, and clouds in his majesty. Elohim of the east a refuge, and underneath the powers of the hidden Period: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. ISRAEL THEN SHALL DWELL IN SAFETY ALONE: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heaven

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shall distill dew. Happy thou, 0 Israel; Who like unto thee, O people, saved by Yahweh, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! And thine enemies shall waste away before thee; and thou halt tread upon their high places" - 33:29. From the above we learn hat when the name of Yahweh is being published to the peoples of the leavens and earth, the rain of the heaven is showering, and its dew in distillation; a state of the aerial favoring the appearance of the bow.

Between the opening of the door in the heaven, and the going Forth of the lightnings and thunders, and voices from the heavens, here is no rain to cool off the sultriness of the aerial. For when the Ensign is lifted up upon the mountains, and the trumpet is being blown :through the earth, Yahweh saith, "I will be still (yet in my dwelling-place I will be without fear) as dry heat impending lightning, as a Cloud of Dew in the heat of harvest" - Isa. 18:3,4; but when the storm of thunder and lightning has subsided, and which is to result in presenting Israel before their King; and in bringing them to the place of the Name of Yahweh Tz'vaoth the Mount Zion; then "as the rain cometh down, and the snows from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth, and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to Yahweh for a name, for the sign of the hidden period which shall not be cut off' - Isa. 55:10. This is the rejoicing of the nations with Israel, all blessed in Abraham and his Seed "in the day of rain" - the third day in which Israelis raised up, and lives in Yahweh's sight; whose going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto them as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth - Hos. 6:2,3; see also Joel 2:21-29, in which it is foretold that the Spirit shall be rained down upon all flesh to the praise of the Name of Yahweh Elohim in the midst of Israel, dwelling in Zion, his holy mountain; "then shall Jerusalem be holiness, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more."

The symbol of all this blessedness and glory in the day of rain is the "rainbow circling about the throne in appearance like to an emerald." The light green, the predominant color, typifying the fertilizing effect of the rain that forms the bow. The grass of the earth has become tender. It is then no longer tough and withered, and

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parched. The old grass has perished; and emerald fertility obtains on very side; for the covenanted glory of Yahweh covers the earth as the waters the area of the deep.

SECTION 2

THE KINGS AND PRIESTS OF THE MOST HOLY

"And circling about the throne were twenty-four thrones; and pon the thrones I saw the twenty and four elders sitting, having been invested with white garments; and they had upon their heads olden coronal wreaths" - Ch. 4:4.

1. The Twenty-Four Elders

The symbolization presented in this verse is representative of the fulfillment of the promise contained in ch. 3:21, saying, "The victor, I will give to him to sit with me on my throne, as I also vanquished, and it with my Father on his throne." To represent this, twenty-four thrones are circled about one throne; so that in occupying representatively, that is, by a representative in the vision, one of the thrones, the individual victor sits with Jesus on his throne; in other words, shares with him in his kingly and priestly administration of human affairs in the Millennial Aion.

The twenty-four elders, then, are the victors or conquerors who live overcome, in the sense indicated in the writing to the seven ecclesias. Hence, being victors, enthroned and wreathed, and invested with white, or priestly garments, we behold them in the vision as kings rid priests for the Deity. We see them as those who have eaten of the wood of the life, and who are, consequently, in the Paradise of the Deity; who are, in fact, collectively that living arboretum. We see them also in a position not to be injured by the second death; in possession of the Morning Star; clothed in white garments; pillars in the temple of the Spirit's Deity to go out no more; with the name of Deity written upon them, the name of the New Jerusalem, even the New Name; for they are the manifestation of Deity, the New Jerusalem, and the New Fame.

As Symbolical personages, the twenty-four elders are 'representative. of the redeemed in their official capacity of kings and priests. This apparent from the song they join in singing, in which addressing Him upon the rainbowed throne, they say, "Thou wast slain, and with thy blood hast purchased us for the Deity from every people, tribe, race,

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and tongue; and hast made us kings and priests for our Deity, and we shall reign upon the earth" - ch. 5:9,10. They are representative of "the people taken out from among the nations for the name of the Deity," to Whom it was testified that "they must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God" Acts 15:14; 14:22. This is the testimony of James and Paul, who are two of the represented. Hence, in the apocalyptic drama, one of the elders declares the origin of the class invested with white garments (which is also the investment of the twenty-four), and in so doing the origin of himself and company, saying, "These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore are they before the throne of the Deity, and serve him day and night in his temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and the Deity shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" -7:14.

2. Of the Number "Twenty-Four"

The twenty-four elders in the temple are a verification in symbol of these promises. The Lamb is there in the midst of them, and all tears are dried from their eyes. They are before the throne, and in the temple ready for service continually. The white garments with which they had been invested indicate the priestly office of the elders. They are "clothed with salvation" (Psa. 132:16), having been raised from among the dead, and invested with holy spirit nature consubstantially with the High Priest sitting upon the throne. They are victor kings as well as priests, as indicated by their wreaths of gold; and they are "elders," because representatives of their class. Each elder is the symbol of an order, all the immortals being apportioned into twenty-four orders of royal priests after the type of David's divisions of the Sons of Aaron into four and twenty orders - 1 Chron. 24. Aaron was a type of Christ in his family and official relations, though not his order. He had two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar; the former name signifying "God is his helper;" and the latter, "the place of Palm Trees." In David's time, Zadok was the chief of Aaron's sons in the line of Eleazar; and Ahimelech of those of Ithamar. Zadok signifies "the just one," and Ahimelech "the brother of the king." The interpretation of these names collectively is "God is (Israel's) helper" in "the place of palm trees," by "the Just One," the "fellow of the King." There were

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more chief men of the sons of Eleazar than of the sons of Ithamar. There were sixteen of the former, and eight of the latter; which together made twenty-four elders at the head of as many orders of priests, descendants of Aaron in the kingdom of David, that they might be princes of the sanctuary, and princes of the Elohim.

Such being the priestly arrangement in David's kingdom, the symbols representative of it in the restoration of the constitution, "as in the days of old," are derived from its ancient polity. When the Lord Jesus shall sit upon David's throne, "he will sit and rule as a priest upon the throne, and bear the glory;" and as High Priest be the head of the houses of Eleazar and Ithamar, which are represented by the numbers sixteen and eight, or twenty-four. According to this, Eleazar and Ithamar constitute his priestly household. Sixteen of the Elders in John's vision are figuratively of the house of Eleazar, and eight of the house of Ithamar; or, if named by their representatives in the time of David, sixteen are of the house of Zadok, and eight of the house of Ahimelech. Not, however, fleshly descendants of these men; for in the reconstruction of the government of Israel's commonwealth, "the flesh profits nothing." All in Christ are "made priests for the Deity," by the fact of being in him; and as he takes the place of Aaron, all in him take the place of Aaron's sons, and become, by adoption, thus the sons of Zadok. This change of persons does not alter the ordering of things. The twenty-four orders of priests will still obtain in the restored kingdom of David; and are therefore foreshadowed in John's vision as encircling the throne. Collectively, they are Zadok, the just, and Ithamar, "the place of palm trees;" for they are washed from their sins in the blood of the Just One; and are represented in ch. 7:9, as "before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;" the emblems of salvation and victory. They are also Ahimelech in the presence of David's Son. They are many in one; all of them the children of a King; children given to Jesus for his brethren; and therefore collectively "the brother of the King," or Christadelphians.

These twenty-four elders, then, are the twenty-four orders of the Sons of Zadok, who shall enter into the sanctuary of Yahweh Elohim, and come near to His table to minister unto Him, and shall keep His charge - Ezek. 44:15,16. The flesh and blood descendants of Aaron, who ministered in the holy and most holy places in the Mosaic Olahm, will not be permitted in the Millennial Aion to come near unto the throne encircled by the elders. "They shall not come near unto me, saith Yahweh Elohim, to do the office of priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things in the Most Holy; but they shall bear

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their shame, and their abominations which they have committed. But 1 will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein" - verses 13,14. Thus the natural descendants of Aaron are degraded to an inferior station in the new heavens and earth. They were unfaithful to the Deity under the law. They turned their backs upon him when Israel went astray after their idols, before which they ministered, and caused them to fall into iniquity; and "therefore, saith Yahweh Elohim, I lifted up my hand against them, and they shall bear their iniquity." This they will have to do during the thousand years; in which the saints will fill up the vacancy created by their degradation from their ancient rank near the throne to that of standing before the people to minister to them -verse 11.

But besides the twenty-four orders of Aaron's sons, there were, in the ecclesiastical department of David's kingdom, twenty-four orders of Levites, sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, whom he separated for the temple service, "to prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals, to give thanks and to praise Yahweh Tz'vaoth" The number of those "who were instructed in the songs of Yahweh," were two hundred and eighty-eight, and were divided into twenty-four companies of twelve each, "as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar" being reckoned in each twelve - 1 Chron. 25:1,3,7. These were also typical of those symbolized by the twenty-four elders who were represented to John in ch. 5:8, as "having each one harps and golden censers full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints; and they sang a new song." There are twenty-four symbolical elders because the sons of the High Priest and the singers who did the service of the temple under David's reign were twenty-four orders each; and in the aggregate typified the saints, the Elohim of Israel, who shall perform the temple service of the restored kingdom of David, when David's Son, the "Greater than Solomon," shall be High Priest of the kingdom after the Order of Melchizedec. The twenty-four elders represent both the priests and singers of the Ezekiel Temple which is to be built by "the man whose name is The Branch" Zech. 6:12,15. There will be twenty-four orders "as in the days of old" - Amos 9:11; who will be "the harpers harping with their harps, and singing a new song" - Apoc. 14:2,3; even "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb" - ch. 15:2-4.

First in design, last in execution, is the order of the apocalyptic visions. The Spirit designs the priestly manifestation of the kingdom, as exhibited in the beginning of this fourth chapter; but it will be the last in execution, for the manifestation cannot obtain until the saints have

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become victorious over the potentates of the earth. "The victor shail be clothed in white garments;" and it is stated that "the twenty-four elders had been invested with white garments;" which is as much as to say that their wars were over; that they had destroyed the Fourth Beast of Daniel; and that they had taken possession of the kingdom under the whole heaven, and were now entered upon their priestly functions in the presence of the Melchizedec High Priest sitting upon the rainbowed or covenanted throne "in the day of rain."

SECTION 3

THE LIGHTNINGS AND THUNDERS AND VOICES

"And out of the throne proceed lightnings and thunders and voices; and Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the throne, which are the Seven Spirits of the Deity." - Ch. 4.5.

1. The Lightnings

The throne established in the heaven in its inauguration is a throne of judgment; so that when the throne is set, "the judgment is set and the books are opened" - Dan. 7:10. This throne is "the Great White Throne" seen of John in ch. 20:11. It is all conquering; for from before the face of him who is to sit upon it, he says, "the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them." In other words, the Fourth Beast dominion was destroyed; and the other three beasts had their dominion taken away. At this crisis Daniel describes the throne as being a fiery flame, and the wheels, or hosts that obeyed its mandates burning fire. He speaks of them as thousand thousands, and ten' thousand times ten thousand. These he says, ministered to the King and stood before him; and in their going forth compares them to "a fiery stream issuing and coming forth from before him "The Spirit in David says, "He makes his ministers a flaming fire and therefore in this scene of the apocalypse, they are symbolized by "lightnings" with their attendant "thunders and voices David also says prophetically "

Yahweh, bow thine heavens, and come down touch the mountains, and they will smoke, flash forth lightning, and scatter them send thine arrows, and discomfit them, and the Spirit in Zechariah, foretelling the dissipation of the power of the sons of Greece at the advent, says: "I will render double unto thee, when I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, 0 Zion,

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against thy sons, 0 Greece, and made thee (Zion) as the sword of a Mighty Man. And Yahweh shall be seen over them, and his arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning; and Yahweh Elohim shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south" - ch. 9:13. The teaching of this testimony is, that "in the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall," there will be war between Israel and the rest of the world. That this war will have been kindled by the Messiah after his return. That he will be seen at the head of the armies of Israel, as their Commander, surrounded by the Sons of Zion, whom he will have raised up. He and they will be the captains of Israel, of whom Judah will be the bow, and Ephraim, or the Ten Tribes, his arrow. When this military organization is put into operation, and it goes forth for conquest in "the war of the great day of the Almighty Deity" (Rev. 16:14), it will issue forth as "a fiery stream" from the throne, burning with the fire of the King's indignation; as lightnings flashing from the throne of David's Lord and echoing their thunders and voices, from one end of the earth to the other, until "the controversy of Zion" shall be settled beyond all cavil or dispute. "In that day I will make the Governors of Judah as a hearth of fire among the wood, and as a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the peoples round about on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, in Jerusalem" - Zech. 12:6. These "governors" are the saints in lightning operation against the dominions symbolized by the four beasts of Daniel.

2. The Thunders.

Lightning is what philosophy terms electricity in luminous excitation. Scripturally, it is the "free Spirit of the Deity. Thunder is the. sound produced by the electrical condensation of the constituents of the aerial. The free oxygen and hydrogen floating in the air are electrically combined, and thereby caused to occupy less space than before, and so giving out lightning, and forming a vacuum, into which the surrounding air rushes, causing a loud report, or thunder. Hence, it is an appropriate symbol for that operation by which the temporary constituents of the political aerial (and the things which are seen there are temporary) are condensed into one dominion under the glorious luminary of the New Heavens. Jesus named the sons of Zebedee "the Sons of Thunder." These were James, and his brother John, to whom this vision of thunder was revealed. The agents in this throne-scene are all sons of thunder. They are the Spirit~incarnations condensing all things into one kingdom with the thundering tumult of war in ch. 10:3,

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symbolized by "the Seven Thunders," whose utterances are "seale( up" till the storm-period which precedes "the day of rain" when the bow appears.

3. The Seven Lamps of Fire.

The whole scene is a manifestation of Spirit in preparation for the reduction of the great mountain before Zerubbabel to the level of a plain. This is to be effected, not by ordinary military prowess or force, 'but by my Spirit saith Yahweh of Hosts" - Zech. 4:6. He that sits upon the throne is spirit, those represented by the twenty-four elders will be Spirit like him, and those symbolized by the four living ones will be Spirit also; so that all that is manifested is an embodiment of spirit, and all effected by the manifested ones is done by the energy of Divine Power. This power is symbolized by the "Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the throne." These are interpreted to signify "the Seven Spirits of the Deity:" not that there are seven distinct and independent spirits. We learn from Paul that there is but "One Spirit;" which one was represented to John by the symbol of perfection, "seven lamps of fire." In ch. 5:6, these seven lamps are termed "seven horns and seven eyes." The reason why the Spirit is symbolized by stationary lamps burning before the throne, as in ch. 4, is because it is connected with the throne in Zion as its fountain or reservoir - "all my springs are in thee, Zion;" but, as "seven horns and seven eyes" upon a lamb, in locomotion (ch. 14:4) the one spirit is represented as "sent forth" from Zion, "unto all the earth."

The lightnings, and thunders, and voices, then, are those of the one spirit in seven-fold perfection sent forth into all the earth for the Subjugation of the world. The spirit, however, does not go forth as free, uncombined, or naked spirit, as seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder of the material expanse. But it goes forth incarnated in the Saints in the Lord Jesus and his brethren; who are symbolized by the One sitting upon the throne and the twenty-four elders, and the four living ones.

4. When tlie Seven Spirits go forth.

The time when they begin to go forth into all the earth is, of course, subsequently to their resurrection. The sons of Zion are to be raised up against the sons of Greece, or the Gentiles. Being resurrected, they are in readiness to "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth" ch. 14:4. "Blessed are the dead dying in the Lord, haparti, at

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this time." The epoch has then arrived for the generations of the righteous, who have previously died in the Lord, to be blessed - to take possession of the kingdom, or dominion, having been prepared for them from the foundation of the kosmos, or existing order of things; for all things are for their sakes - Matt. 25:34; 2 Cor. 4:15. At that time, they are to "take possession of the kingdom, under the whole heaven," "that they may take rest out of their labors; yea, saith the spirit, for he follows their works with them" - 14:13.

The time when the Lord's dead ones are blessed, is when they have consummated the work symbolized by the sickles, which are set to work by the voices that proceed from the spirit throne with the lightnings and thunders. There are three voices. One announces their resurrection-blessedness; the second proclaims the harvesting of the earth, and the third the gathering the clusters of the earth's vine - ch. 14:13,15,18. These voices belong to the Seventh Vial, which is the last period of the Seventh Trumpet, by which the Seventh Seal is consummated in all the events thereof. The wrath of the Deity is then exhausted, and peace reigns for the thousand years ensuing - ch. 15:1. Until these lightnings, and thunders, and voices shall cease to proceed from the throne, "no man can enter into the temple" - verse

8. Hence, the exhibition of the twenty-four priestly elders in the temple, is a scene that obtains, after "the war of the great day of the Almighty Deity" is over. The saints are then victors, and can give law and religion to the world. Hence, the Seventh Angel pours out his vial, into THE AlR; the result of which is that when it is emptied, "a great voice out of the temple of the heaven from the throne, says, "IT IS DONE. But while it is pouring out by the saints who are engaged in taking the kingdom under the whole heaven, "there are voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great" -ch. 16:17. This will be the time of trouble Daniel speaks of in ch. 12:1, to result in the abolition of all human governments, and the establishment of the kingdom of the Deity.

5. The Translucent Sea.

"Before the Throne a translucent sea, like to crystal" -Verse 6.

In prophetic writing '”Sea" is representative of nations. It is thus used in Ezek. 26:3, where Yahweh Elohim addressing Tyre, says, "I am against thee, and will cause many nations to come up against thee,

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as the sea causeth his waves to come up." Here the waves of the sea represent the military forces of the nations marching against any enemy. Also in Jer. 51:42,43, the forces of the Medes and Persians which captured Babylonia are styled the sea; as "the sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof: her cities are a desolation."

Daniel's four great beasts are represented as arising out of the Great Sea, or Mediterranean, as the result of the striving of the four winds upon it. These four beasts are systems of powers which arose out of conflicts of the nations inhabiting that portion of the earth the central sea of which is the Mediterranean. Hence, this sea became their representative in the prophecy. It is also so used in the Apocalypse into the symbols of which it has been transferred, and with them incorporated. The beast having seven heads and ten horns exhibited in ch. 13:1, is a combination of Daniel's four, and therefore represented as "rising up out out of the sea," which of course, is the same sea.

The second trumpet was prepared to "blow upon the sea; and when it sounded the great Attila mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed." - Apoc. 8:8. This was a representation of the judgments that were to fall upon the peoples of the Roman West occupying that third part of the great sea region and scourged by Attila and his Huns, as Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, myria, Lombardy, and so forth. But, until the Sealing Angel had done his work upon the servants of the Deity, the Angel of the second trumpet was commanded not to hurt the sea - ch. 7:1,3

The rainbowed angel that descends from the heaven, is represented in ch. 10:2,5, as planting his right foot upon the sea, and swearing that henceforth "there should be no delay in the finishing up of the mystery of the Deity as he had declared the good news," or gospel of the kingdom, "to his servants the prophets." This is the same sea; and the right foot of the angel resting upon it, indicates that it is to be Subjected to the judgments of the Seven Thunders from the throne as well as the earth, or interior regions.

In chap. 12:12, the sea is again introduced in the words, "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! for the Devil is come down Unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." Here the sea is regarded as an inhabited region to which

Devil would pay a visit in wrath. In this text it represents those provincial regions of the Fourth Beast habitable in which the last struggle for power between the Catholic and Pagan factions was to

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ensue, subsequently to the expulsion of the "what withholdeth," from the Roman Heaven, in the Constantinian epoch - 2 Thess. 2:6,7.

In chap. 16:3, the second angel-power is exhibited as pouring out his vial upon the sea; "and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea." Here is a sea of living souls in anything else than a translucent state like to crystal. It was opaque with human blood to excess, as symbolized by the death of all the souls it contained. The naval anti-revolutionary war, which commenced in 1793, and continued with brief intermissions till 1815, illustrates this judgment upon the sea. It is a sea of living souls noted for their wickedness; and hence it is that the Spirit speaking of them, says, "The wicked are like a troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. No peace for the wicked, saith my Elohim." - Isa.:57:20.

This is the present condition of the Apocalyptic sea, representative of the nations of the four beasts of Daniel; the people of the interior, as of Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and so forth, being represented by "the earth." The sea-nations are more especially before, or in the presence of the throne; the earth-nations being more remote. Nevertheless, the nations, or "inhabiters of the earth and sea," are all of the same character, and in the hour of judgment "equally obnoxious to the wrath of the Deity. They are both a dead and a troubled sea, and so charged with mire and dirt," that nothing can make it transparent to the light of the divine glory, but the judgments of the Deity - the bolts of the seven thunders pealing from the throne: "when his judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness;" and "all nations shall come and worship before Yahweh; because his judgments are made manifest" -Isa. 26:9; Apoc. 15:4.

This, then, is the purpose of the Deity upon the sea; to make it "like to crystal," transparent with righteousness and truth. This is the mission of Yahweh's servant when he comes in power to enlighten the earth with his glory. But this must be preceded by judgments upon the sea. The representation of this is found in Apoc. 15:2, in which John says: "I saw as it were a translucent sea that had been mingled with fire (memigmenen perf. part pass.)." But the fire had ceased to burn, and those who had gained the victory over the sea of nations, he also saw standing upon it, and with their harps celebrating their victory over the Papal and other dominions, and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. The fire with which the sea will have been mingled is the wrath of the Deity contained in the Seven Thunders, or terrors of the Seventh Vial, to be hurled from the throne by Jesus and his Brethren, who

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constitute the Rainbowed Angel, "whose face is as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire" - ch. 10:1.

When these judgments, which make the Deity "a consuming fire" (and "the Spirit follows with them," the saints) when they shall have subsided, "the Mystery of the Deity will be finished." The sea of nations will be no more lashed into fury and tempest for a thousand years. In the presence of David's throne it will be tranquil; and its waters so translucent, that those who stand upon it, having calmed its tempests and quieted its waves, will see into its utmost depths. But though at rest for a thousand years, and the power of the Satan submerged in the abyss, the sea will again become tempestuous, and cast up mire and dirt. "In the flesh dwells no good thing," and "it lusteth against the Spirit." At the end of the Millennial Period it becomes impatient of restraint, and the nations rebel against the saints who will have ruled them with a rod of iron so long in righteousness and peace. As "the sand of the sea" they again try conclusions with the saints; and as before the saints subdue them with a crushing and final overthrow. The end of flesh and blood upon the earth will have then arrived, and there will be "no more sea" - ch. 20:8; 21:1. A full end will then be made of all nations - Jer. 30:11. The nations of the earth and sea will then be superseded by "THE ISRAEL OF GOD," every individual of whom, of all orders and degrees, will be consubstantial with the Deity, and the occupant of this then glorious planet which shall never be removed.

SECTION 4

THE FOUR LIVING ONES

"In the midst of the throne and in the circle of the throne Four Living Ones being full of eyes before and behind." - Verse 6.

These four living ones being "in the midst of the throne and in the circle of the throne," must be symbolical of those represented by the twenty-four elders, that is, of the saints. The elders, as we have seen, are representative of the saints in the peaceful exercise of their sacerdotal and regal functions, "resting from their labors" performed in "the war of the great day of the almighty Deity", while the four living ones represent the saints in cooperation with the Spirit carrying on the war to its victorious consummation.

In the Common Version these four are styled "beasts." The word in the original is zoa, and signifies simply living ones. In Ezek. 1:5, they

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are styled chaiyoth, rendered in the E.V. "living creatures." They are symbols representative of what is to be, not of what is yet manifested. That which is to be manifested exists, but the form of manifestation does not. That which exists is the all-pervading spirit radiant from the Divine Substance; but the spirit-forms, which do not exist, are the dead saints. These must be raised, and then transformed into spirit-bodies, instinct with life and power omnipotent; a transformation which in all its elements is aggregately represented by these "four living ones full of eyes before and behind."

The Spirit of the Deity, then, is the great reservoir of power out of which they are born or developed. "That which hath been born out of spirit is spirit." These are the words of Jesus to Nicodemus. The glorified saints, glorified after resurrection, are therefore spirit multitudinously manifested, and isaggebi, equal to angels. In his "Visions of Elohim," Ezekiel beheld this manifestation of the saints out of spirit in symbolic representation. He tells us that he was looking in a northerly direction, and in the distance behold "a whirlwind, A GREAT CLOUD, and a fire came out of the North." This was the Spirit in tempestuous and destructive operation. But to show that it was not free spirit, but embodied spirit, he goes on to say, that out of the midst of the fire issued forth "the likeness of four living creatures." He then describes their appearance, and afterwards remarks concerning their movements, that they were identical with those of the spirit; for "they went," saith he, "every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went"; and of this going, John says, it was "into all the earth." They went with the Seven Spirits of the Deity, for they will be the seven spirits embodied. Hence the terms applied to the seven spirits by John, are applied to the four by Ezekiel, who says they were like burning coals of fire and like lamps; and that out of the fire, that is, from them went forth lightning; and that they ran and returned as a flash of lightning.

But though Ezekiel introduces them as four living ones and four wheels in ch. 1:5,16, in referring to them in ch. 10:15, he speaks of them as one, saying, "this is hachaiyah, THE LIVING ONE." In other words, the individuals of whom this Spirit manifestation is composed are, in the aggregate, what the voice issuing from their midst proclaims without intermission day and night, namely, the thrice or superlatively holy YAHWEH, the Omnipotent Deity, who was, and who is, and who is coming - Apoc. 4:8. These are the ONE BODY, nearly all the atoms of which are now in death, "sleeping in the dust." But, speaking of them as they are now in reference to its future, the Spirit styles them "MY DEAD BODY," and says "they shall arise," and, in view of the resurrec Page 53

tion, exclaims, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." When they come forth from the dust they are no longer the Spirit's Dead Body, but they become the Spirit's Living One, and can then say, "I am the First and the Last, and the Living One: and I was dead, and behold I am living for the Aions of the Aions, the Amen." Jesus is the visible Head of these. Without Him the Living One would be incomplete -Isa. 26:19; Rev. 1:18.

Ezekiel clearly indicates what was represented by the four living ones and their wheels in ch. 1:24. He says, "The noise of their wings was like the noise of great waters, as the voice of shaddai, MIGHTY ONES, the voice of speech, as the noise of a host." This was equivalent to saying that their wings represented "great waters," which represented "Mighty Ones," who gave utterance to their will and purpose, and that there was a multitude of them. These were the waters John heard responsive to the voice issuing from the throne, saying, "Praise our Deity, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, small and great." "I heard," says he, "the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, hallelu Yah, praise ye YAH; for YAHWEH Elohim the Omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give the glory to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready" ch. 19:6. This glorious multitude will be the embodiment of the power that is "to execute vengeance upon the nations and punishments upon the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written:" that is to perform all those things I have sketched under the caption of "The Apocalypse Rooted in the Prophets" - from page 41 to 85, vol.1; to set up the kingdom and to establish glory to the Deity in the highest heaven, over the earth peace and goodwill among men.

These four living ones and the four wheels are "THE CHARIOT OF THE CHERUBIM." They are the chariot in which the Deity rides forth to battle against the enemies of the house of David, and upon which he sits enthroned over Israel. This appears from 2 Sam. 22:11, and Psa. 80:1. In the former place, Yahweh is said to ride upon a cherub; and in the latter, to inhabit the cherubim. The etymology of the word is regarded as obscure. In view of this, I would suggest that we may take the root charav, as having been the same with kharav, to waste, to destroy, from which comes, kherev, a sword. This derivation is suggested by the text where kheruvim, or cherubim, first occurs in the scriptures; as, "Yahweh Elohim placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned itself to guard the way of the tree of the lives." By rendering wav, by even, instead of

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"and," it would make the flaming sword expletive of the cherubim; as, "the cherubim, even the flaming sword" - the flame containing the cherubic power, as Ezekiel's "whirlwind, great clouds, and fire," did the four living ones he saw.

But, be the true etymology what it may, it is certain that they are symbols of a wasting and destroying power. When their wings are expanded they are in lightning operation; when let down, they are standing, and either preparing for action or "resting from their labors." They are "full of eyes before and behind;" or, as Ezekiel says, "their whole basar, flesh, even their backs, and their hand, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about." An eye is the symbol of intelligence; and when a multitude of eyes are aggregated together, each eye indicates a particular or individual intelligence. Ezekiel informs us that the eyes were in flesh which was full of them. Each eye, then, was a flesh-intelligence; and, as the four had each a human face and hand, and were endowed with the faculty of speech, the intelligence was that of a man. Hence, each eye is representative of a man; and as the four sing, "Thou hast redeemed us," each eye is symbolical of a saint. The eyes are "a great multitude which no man can number;" yet they are symbolized by four, by 144,000, by a city lying four-square, and 144 cubits - that is, these numbers are symbolical of the saints; first, in relation to their encampment; second to their nationality; third, to their municipality; and fourth to their corporation limit.

1. Seraphim Identical with Cherubim

In Isa. 6:2, these cherubic symbols are styled seraphim. "I saw the Adonai," saith he, "sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. SERAPHS stood near to it. . . . And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, YARWEH TZ'VAOTH (He who shall be hosts): the whole earth (shall be) full of his glory." There is no obscurity about the etymology of seraph. It signifies burning, fiery, deadly. The fiery serpents sent among the people (Numb. 21:6) are styled by Moses seraphim. By the saints, the seraphim and cherubim of Messiah's throne, the whole earth is to be filled with his glory. Being incarnations of Spirit, they will be more than a match for all the powers of the world. They will cast down their thrones, overthrow Babylon, waste the land of Assyria, reap the harvest of the earth, tread the winepress of wrath, and as a stream of devouring fire destroy the body of Daniel's fourth polity with their burning flame.

2. The Four Faces.

In the Most Holy Place of the Temple of Solomon there were two

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cherubic figures, which stood opposite to each other, with wings outstretched over the Ark of the Covenant. Each of these had four faces, which were so ordered that four different faces of the eight should look down upon the caphporeth, coverlid, mercyseat, or propitiatory. By this arrangement, the face of the lion, of the ox, of the man, and of the eagle, all looked upon the coverlid on which was sprinkled the sacrificial blood of the great day. Though the number of the cherubim varies, the faces are always four. In the temple there was one body to four faces. Ezekiel saw four bodies with four faces each, and John saw four bodies, each body having one face. But though the number of the bodies differed, they were only the subdivisions of a general whole.

The faces are the faces of the Spirit. The show-bread placed on the golden table in the holy place is styled "the bread of the Faces taken from before the Faces of Yahweh," when it was given by the priest to David - 1 Sam. 21:6. The faces of Yahweh were the cherubim faces over against the table embroidered on the curtain of the tabernacle. They symbolized the Spirit in flesh-manifestation and were therefore the faces of the Spirit.

Now collectively the saints are an encampment, and are so represented in Rev. 20:9; where it is stated, that the rebel nations at the close of the Millennium go up against the "camp." As the saints are "the Israel of the Deity;" and though by the accident of birth multitudes of them were once Gentiles, yet by adoption through Jesus were grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel; they necessarily partake of its national organization. The camp of the saints, then, has its ensigns in conformity with those of the four camps into which the twelve tribes were distributed, whose captains or princes they become. From Numb. 2 we learn that the whole host of Israel was marshalled about four standards: the first, that of Judah; the second, of Reuben; the third, of Ephraim; and the fourth, of Dan; and in the midst of these four grand divisions was the camp of the priests and saints, and in their midst the tabernacle, in which was the throne of Yahweh over the Mercy Seat and between the Cherubim. Now, of these several camps of fighting men the following were their ensigns: first, the Lion, which symbolized the camp of Judah; second, the Man that of Reuben; third, the Ox that of Ephraim; and fourth, the Eagle for the camp of Dan. Hence it is that the Lamb in Rev. 5:5, is styled "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah." Being descended from that tribe, and the King of the nation too, the royalty of which belongs to Judah, he is symbolized by the ensign; and as the king is thus designated, so all his brethren, the saints, are apocalyptically divided into camps about the throne; each camp being represented by a living one; and the ensigns of the camps

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borrowed from the nation they are to rule. And that the reader may not erroneously suppose that the four living ones represent the fleshly descendants of Abraham, their standards are enumerated after a different order; it being first, the lion; second, the ox; third, the man; and fourth, a flying eagle.

Apocalyptically, then, we have the whole multitude of resurrected and accepted saints marshalled into four camps in the midst of, and circling about the throne; and according to the law, "every man of the children of Israel pitching by his own standard with the ensign of his father's house." There will be the east camp composed of three gates, or tribes; on the north three; on the south three; and on the west three, ch. 21:12,13; all ready to go forth following the Head to the place it may indicate (Ezek. 10:11) on the mission of the chariots and horses, of which we have treated already on page 74, vol.1. In the new song they sing they say, "We shall reign on the earth;" not "we do reign." They go forth energized by the spirit to establish their dominion, and to fill the earth with glory; so that when their victory is complete they may as royal priests of the Deity, cast the coronal wreaths they have acquired before the throne; that he who sits upon it, whom in their wars they will have followed whithersoever he led them, may receive the glory and honor and power; for the reason that he has "created all things, and for his pleasure they are and were created."

DIAGRAM OF THE PLAN OF THE TABERNACLE ON PAGE 56 WAS NOT COPIED, SEE BOOK

Portion of the symbology of The Apocalypse is based on the Tabernacle.

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Chapter 5

THE GLORY OF YAHWEH FILLS THE EARTH As THE RESULT OF

THE SCROLL BEING UNROLLED AND THE SEALS LOOSED

TRANSLATION

APOC. V

1. And I saw at the right of Him, seated upon the throne a SCROLL that had been written within and on the outside, sealed up with SEVEN SEALS.

2. And I saw a powerful messenger heralding with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to unroll the scroll, and to loose its seals?"

3. But no one was able in the heaven, nor upon the earth, nor under the earth, to unroll the scroll, nor to see it.

4. And I shed many tears, because no one was found worthy to unroll and to read the scroll, nor to see it.

5. But one of the elders saith unto me, "Weep not; behold the LION who is of the Tribe of Judah, THE ROOT OF DAVID, hath prevailed to unroll the scroll, and to loose its seven seals.

6. And I saw, and behold in midst of the throne and of the four Living Ones, and in the midst of the Elders, a LAMB having stood as having been slain, having Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, the which are the SEVEN SPIRITS of the Deity, having been sent forth into all the earth.

7. And he went and received the scroll from the right of Him seated upon the throne.

8. And when he received the scroll, the four Living Ones, and the twenty-four Elders prostrated themselves before the Lamb, having every one harps, and golden bowls full of perfumes, the which are the prayers of the SAINTS. 9. And they sing a NEW SONG, saying,

"Thou art worthy to receive the scroll,

And to undo the seals thereof

For thou wast slain, and with thy blood,

The price, hast purchased us for God

From every tribe, race, people, tongue;

And mad 'St us kings and priests t'our God,

And we upon the earth shall reign."

11. And I beheld, and heard a voice of many angels circled about the throne and of the Living Ones and of the Elders; and the number of them was ten thousand and thousands of thousands,

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12. Saying with a loud voice,

"The Lamb that hath been put to death,

The power, riches, wisdom, strength,

And honor, glory, blessing too,

Is worthy to receive."

13. And every created thing that is in the heaven, and things which are on the earth, and underneath the earth, and upon the sea, even all the things in them, I heard saying,

"To HIM that sitteth on the throne

And to the LAMB the blessing be,

The honor, glory, and the pow'r,

The Aions of the Aions for!"

And the four Living Ones said, "So LET IT BE!" And the twenty-four Elders prostrated themselves, and did homage to him that liveth for the Aions of the Aions.

NOTE PICTURE PAGE 58 NOT COPIED

A Jerusalem Yemenite scribe writing a scroll of the Law. The "book" or scroll seen by John was written within and on the outside for it symbolized events relating to the Ecclesia and to the world, But it was sealed with seven seals, and so completely hidden from human sight until opened by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. and its contents revealed for the edification of the "servants of the Deity". Page 59

SECTION 1

GENERAL REMARKS

In the previous chapter is exhibited "the manifestation of the Sons of the Deity" in the presence of the Eternal Creator, subsequently, of course, to the resurrection of the saints. "The adoption, to wit, the redemption of the Body" from the power of the grave is accomplished; and the time is come for them to execute the judgment given them, and to take the kingdom and possess it under the whole heaven. The chapter represents them as prepared for action, "according to the energy whereby" He who sitteth upon the throne, "is able to subdue all things to himself." They have joyfully acknowledged his lordship themselves, and cast their coronal wreaths before Him in recognition of the Sovereign Power whence they were derived; and they declare that He is worthy of universal glory, honor, and power, which it is their mission, as the embodiment of the Seven Spirits, to establish in all the earth. "Worthy art thou, 0 Lord, to receive the glory, and the honor, and the power; because thou createdst all things, and on account of thy will they exist, and were created."

But after what course, or successive development of things among the nations, is such an extraordinary consummation to be accomplished? "As I live," saith Yahweh, "the whole earth shall be full of my glory." "It shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." True, 0 Lord; but how shall it be effected; in what sequence of events; and by whom? In the time of the Apostle John this was a matter of great interest. In his day the saints were engaged in a severe and perilous conflict with Caesar, who had learned sufficient of their doctrine to know that the Pagan or any other human constitution of the world was incapable of contemporaneous existence with the kingdom proclaimed and longed for by the saints. But, though Caesar made war upon them they were not to avenge themselves; how, then, could the kingdom promised them be established? How could a door be opened in the heaven, and the throne of their kingdom be established there to the entire exclusion of Caesar and his representatives? Would it be consequent upon and coeval with the downfall of paganism? Or would it be many ages after that event? And, whenever the time came, by what means will the Eloah of the heavens set up the kingdom, and break in pieces the government of the nations? These were questions "the servants of the Deity" needed light upon. They had the prophets, it is true; and among these Daniel especially: but still there were mysteries "sealed up and closed" in their writings which required

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information not yet extant to make them intelligible. Daniel "heard, but understood not," neither did any of his contemporaries ch. 12:8; 8:27. Nor should we err if we were to say that this state of mind was characteristic of all the saints previous to the giving of this revelation, styled the Apocalypse, to Jesus Anointed. They "none of them understood" the development of the mystery the Deity had declared to his servants the prophets - Rev. 10:7. Nor need we be surprised at this when we consider that even after the mystery was solved by revelation, multitudes existed in and near John's time who had to confess that they could not comprehend the exposition of the enigma. They needed one to expound the exposition. Among these was Dionysius, styled by Eusebius the ecclesiastical historian contemporary with Constantine, "the great bishop of Alexandria." He flourished in the middle of the third century as an opponent of the thousand years' reign of Christ upon earth with his saints after their resurrection, which was ignorantly and maliciously ascribed to one Cerinthus, contemporary with the Apostle John, as its inventor. But Daniel taught the doctrine nearly seven hundred years before Cerinthus was heard of, as may be seen in the Apocalypse as contracted in his seventh chapter. Cerinthus may have grafted upon it some foolishness of his own; but of the doctrine itself he was no more the inventor than the Pope of Rome.

There are two works ascribed to Dionysius On the Promises. " They were written to oppose the idea that the promises given to holy men in the scriptures should be understood more as the Jews understood them, and that there would be a thousand years of delights on the earth. This position was taken up by a bishop in Egypt named Nepos, who wrote a book in defense of it, and styled it "Refutation of the Allegorists." Dionysius being an allegorist, warmly opposed Nepos in his work "On the Promises." In one of his works he thus speaks of Nepos: "They produce," says he, "a certain work of Nepos, upon which they lay great stress, as if he advanced things that are irrefragable when he asserts that there will be an earthly reign of Christ. In many other respects I accord with and greatly love Nepos, both on account of his faith and industry, and his great study in the scriptures; as also for his great attention to psalmody, by which many are still delighted. I greatly reverence the man also for the manner in which he has departed this life. But the truth is to be loved and honored before all. It is just, indeed, that we should applaud and approve whatever is said aright, but it is also a duty to examine and correct whatever may not appear to be written with sufficient soundness. If, indeed, he were present, and were advancing his sentiments orally, it would be sufficient to discuss the subject without writing, and to convince and

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confute the Opponents by question and answer. But as the work is published, and as it appears to some, is calculated to convince, and there are some teachers who say that the law and the prophets are of no value, and who give up following the gospels and who depreciate the epistles of the apostles, and who at the same time announce the doctrine of this work as a great and hidden mystery, and who also do not allow that our brethren (the Allegorists) have any sublime and great conception, either of the glorious and truly divine appearance of our Lord, nor of our own resurrection, and our being gathered and assimilated to him, but persuade them to expect what is little and perishable, and such a state of things as now exists in the kingdom of God; it becomes necessary for us, also, to reason with our brother Nepos as if he were present."

It would seem from this, that while Dionysius, the allegorist, was a specimen of a modern clergyman, or priest, affirming some good things about truth, while he was entirely mistaken concerning "the truth," there were, also, other clergymen who might be designated as "Millennarians." These rightly believed that Christ will reign upon earth a thousand years with the saints, and with Jerusalem restored for the capital of his kingdom; but with this truth they blended errors that nullified it, and which are now constituents of the clerical orthodoxy of the nineteenth century. They regarded the law and the prophets as valueless, and thought but little of the epistles of the Apostles. This is practically characteristic of the clergy and their flocks; and the consequence is, that they, like the "great Bishop of Alexandria," in Egypt, and the Millennarians and Allegorists of his time, are incapable of understanding the apocalyptic expositions of Daniel and the prophets. Practically, they ignore the scriptures of the prophets and apostles, while with their lips they bestow upon them "faint praise;" and find it profitable to maintain the machinery by which they are circulated. This may be verified by any intelligent believer acquainted with "the churches;" gross scriptural ignorance being characteristic of them all. No wonder, then, that though "the sayings of the prophecy of the Apocalypse are not sealed" - ch. 22:10 - it should be sealed, and therefore unintelligible to them. The truth of the matter they call "little and perishable;" and absurdly suppose that the Millennial reality expounded by Chiliasts is expected to be "such a state of things as now exists in" what they call "the kingdom of God," that is, in "Christendom." But the reason of this their folly is, that the things revealed by the Deity are not in conformity with "the thinking of the flesh." That which the Old Adam terms grand and sublime, is not truly so. The sublimity and greatness of his conceptions in relation to "the deep

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things of God," are mere foolishness. Dionysius and his brethren were of 'the Synagogue of the Satan," "Jezebel and her children," who held the doctrine of Balaam, and taught "the depths of the Satan;" by which they were industriously developing the Laodicean Apostasy, which, in the reign of Constantine the First, became the religion of Satan's Kingdom, and continues such until this day. The Old Adam's foolishness was, therefore, especially theirs. Hence, the charge of their Millennarian contemporaries is perfectly just, that the Allegorists 'have no sublime and great conception either of the glorious and truly divine appearance of our Lord, nor of our own resurrection, and of our being gathered, and assimilated to him."

In proof of how greatly Jezebel's children were puzzled by the Apocalypse within a hundred and fifty years after its publication -how utterly incapable they were in any sense "to see it" - I will still quote from "the great Bishop of Alexandria." "Some, indeed, before us," says he, "have set aside, and have attempted to refute the whole book, criticizing every chapter, and pronouncing it without sense, and without reason," that is, totally opposed to the thinking of the flesh, or to the sense and reason of minds destitute of the truth. "They say," continues Dionysius, "it has a false title, for it is not of John. Nay, that it is not even a revelation, as it is covered with such a dense and thick veil of ignorance, that not one of the Apostles, and not one of the holy men, or those of the Church, could be its author." It will not be difficult for one of "servants of the Deity" to discern to what class of professors these critics belonged, and the true cause of their denunciation of the Apocalypse. It condemned them as "evil," as "liars," as false apostles, as Nikolaitanes, as spurious Jews of the Satan's synagogue, as the children of Jezebel, and so forth. They had sense and reason enough to recognize themselves as of the class repudiated under these terms in the apocalyptic epistles. They were conscious that they "held the doctrine of Balaam," and "the doctrine of the Nikolaitanes," and hence, their bitter enmity and contempt for the whole book which exposed them, and all of their class in all ages and generations, to the reprobation of all truly good and Christian men. They tried to persuade their contemporaries who professed christianity, that it ought not to be recognized as canonical: that it was no revelation from the Deity; and that consequently, pious, God-fearing people should not perplex their minds in the vain endeavor to understand it. Whatever its author might mean, was inscrutable, being imbedded "in such a dense and thick veil of ignorance." No doubt, there was such a veil between its meaning and their comprehension of it; but the fog was that which beclouded their own brains, and arose from the vain

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imaginations and traditions of their evil hearts. Mankind are prone to evil, and to the reception of foolishness rather than the truth. This has been characteristic of all generations since the original transgression in Eden. It was pre-eminently so of the generations immediately succeeding the delivery of the Apocalypse to John. The Nikolaitanes and children of Jezebel, whose representatives in our generation are the "Holy Orders of the Ministry," the Spirituals of Modern Christendom, at length succeeded in persuading their dupes that they ought not to trouble themselves with the study of the Apocalypse, for that it was utterly unintelligible, or could not be seen; and calculated only to dethrone all sense and reason. The impression they made was deep and lasting. Repudiation of apocalyptic studies became a principal of "orthodoxy" in all succeeding generations, until in our own, a man's sanity is suspected if he is known earnestly to devote himself to the work of unfolding the mystery set forth, or revealed, in the symbols it contains.

But they were not content with simply denying the divine authorship of the book. They proceeded to justify the character assigned them in the Apocalypse by falsely ascribing it to one Cerinthus; who if he ever existed, is said, like many in our day, to have held some very absurd opinions in connection with the Divine truth of Christ's reign on earth. "Cerinthus," say they, "the founder of the sect of Cerinthians, so called from him, wishing to have reputable authority for his own fiction, prefixed the title. For this is the doctrine of Cerinthus, that there will be an earthly reign of Christ." In this he was perfectly correct. "And," continued they, "as he was a lover of the body; and altogether sensual in those things which he so eagerly craved, he dreamed that he would revel in the gratification of the sensual appetite, i.e. in eating, and drinking, and marrying." Whether he really held these opinions it is impossible to tell. His enemies say so; and these enemies have had the ear of the world to the exclusion of all testimony but their own. To the class denounced in the Apocalyptic epistles have belonged all the ecclesiastical historians through whom has come to us the meager and insipid accounts of what they unscripturally style "the church." All not of the Laodicean Apostasy they have proscribed and denounced as "heretics;" and where the; could not procure the suppression of these by force, they have sought to hold them up to the reprobation and contempt of their contemporaries and posterity by "saying all manner of evil of them falsely for Christ's sake," as he foretold they would - Matt. 5:11. I know experimentally that this is the policy of professors and their spiritual guides of this nineteenth century generation. They affirm certain

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ridiculous falsehoods, and say I teach them. They do not care to inform themselves of the truth of the matter, which would be inconvenient, and might not answer their purpose. So it may have been in the case of Cerinthus. He may not have held the opinions attributed to him; or he might. But, if even he did, his errors did not change the truth of the Deity. He has decreed the reign of His king on Zion, the hill of His holiness, and it will assuredly come to pass, in spite of all the errors assigned to Cerinthus and others who believe it, concerning the nature and character of that reign.Cerinthus was perfectly scriptural if he affirmed that there would be eating and drinking in the kingdom of the Deity. It is, however, difficult to believe that he taught that there would be marrying, in view of the saying of Israel's King, that they who attain to the resurrection and the kingdom "neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels of the Deity." As to eating and drinking, this is as plainly taught by Christ, who not only ate with his apostles after his own resurrection, but promised them, saying, "ye shall eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel;" and again he said, "I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of the Deity" - Luke 22:30; Mark 14:25. The enemies of Cerinthus did not believe this; but denounced it as sensuality, and in so doing, thought themselves wonderfully spiritual! They said that to give the eating and drinking "a milder aspect and expression," he taught that it would be "in festivals and sacrifices, and the slaying of victims," the sensual appetite of the redeemed would be gratified. Against this "milder aspect and expression," they exclaimed as loudly as our own clerical contemporaries and their disciples; for according to their system of superstition, they can discern no place in the kingdom, whether on earth or in heaven, for eating and drinking sacrificially or in any other way. I perceive, plainly, in these charges brought against Cerinthus the great and rapid progress the apostasy Paul predicted had made within a short time after the apocalypse was revealed. Nay, even while he wrote the prediction, the Allegorists were actively engaged in the work of superseding the real, literal, and true, by the fictitious and imaginary, which they call the "spiritual," or allegorical, until now at length, everything is resolved into feeling and impressions, and the testimony of the Deity by prophets and apostles is practically ignored. A professor "feels good," and therefore he is good; he "feels that a thing is true," and therefore it is true; he "feels that it is false," and therefore it is false! With hearts full of such enlightened feelings as this; and with heads unfurnished with the divine testimony, we have the professor of the Page 65

Laodicean Apostasy who has flourished in all the odor of sanctity, and orthodox contempt for the reign of Christ on earth, characteristic of the zealots in all "the times of the Gentiles." In their systems of fleshly pietism they have no place for the priesthood of the saints; nor for the temple, and festivals, and sacrifices of Ezekiel's testimony. All is figurative or allegorical; and nothing real remains but to save souls from eternal torment, and when the number of the elect is completed, to make a bonfire of terrestrial creation! Well might it be said of the allegorists, that "they have no sublime and great conception, either of the glorious and truly divine appearance of our Lord, nor of the resurrection, and the gathering, and assimilation to him."

But to return to Dionysius and the Apocalypse. He could not, it would seem, go as far as some of his predecessors and contemporaries in a total repudiation of the book. "For my part," says he, "I would not venture to set this book aside, as there are many brethren who value it much; but having formed a conception of its subject as exceeding my capacity, I consider it also containing a certain concealed and wonderful intimation in each particular. For though I do not understand, yet I suspect that some deeper sense is enveloped in the words, and these I do not measure and judge by my private reason; but allowing more to faith, I have regarded them as too lofty to be comprehended by me, and those things which I do not understand, I do not reject, but I wonder the more that I cannot comprehend." This was a candid admission on the part of Dionysius, that he could "not see it." He showed a better sense than many in not venturing to set it aside, because he could not see it. Inability to see it disqualifies the reader for enlightened criticism. If he were able to see the apocalyptic scroll, he would discern knowledge and wisdom pervading it, which "no one in the heaven, nor upon the earth, nor under the earth" could have originated but the Deity who gave it to Jesus Christ. The proof of the divine authorship of the book is in this. I would, therefore, advise the reader to study it that he may be "able to see it" - to understand it. "Many brethren" in the days of Dionysius "valued it much," though he could make nothing of it. They valued it, doubtless, because they understood it, not that they could have expounded all its details; but keeping in mind "the gospel of the kingdom," the nature of that kingdom, and the great mystery of godliness, in the manifestation of the sons of the Deity, they saw into the general import of this wonderful book, and secured the blessing promised to him that knows accurately, and gives heed to its words, and observes narrowly the things it contains.

Let us, then, proceed under the enlightened conviction, that

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though there is no help to be expected from "the great bishops" of the Gentiles, babes in Christ may come to see the apocalypse intellectually if they approach the subject in a teachable spirit, and from a right direction. I proceed then to remark, that while the fourth chapter introduces us to "the hour of judgment" - to the epoch when the door had been violently opened in the heaven, and a throne set up there, the fifth chapter shows that universal dominion over the earth shall be to him who unrolls the scroll and looses the seven seals. The consummation of this chapter is coeval with the end of the seventh seal, the seventh trumpet, the seventh vial, and the seven thunders. The opening of the door in the heaven never to be closed again, marks the first minute of the judgment hour; and the ascription of blessing, honor, glory, and power to the Lamb by every created thing in verse 13, marks the last moment of the same hour in which the wrath of the Deity against the nations is entirely exhausted. This "hour" is a period of thirty years, in which the process of loosing, or finishing the loosing of the seventh seal is being completed. The seven seals are to establish the kingdom of David's house "for the Aions of the Aions." The chapter does not describe what is, but prophesies what shall be hereafter. It reveals that the personage is provided to whom is assigned the honor and glory of accomplishing the work termed the unrolling the scroll and the loosing of the seven seals; and no one can mistake him. In verse 12, he is declared by the saints and angels to be "worthy to receive" whatever is decreed. At this point it is not possessed; because the power and the glory are in the hands of "the powers that be," who are hostile to his claims; and "shall make war with him," to prevent him from obtaining what the "ten thousand of ten thousands and thousands of thousands" proclaim him worthy of - Apoc. 17:14. "But he shall overcome them; for he is Lord of lords and King of kings:

and they that are with him" in his wars, that is, the saints, "are the called, and chosen, and faithful" - the 144,000, who follow him whithersoever he goeth - ch. 14:1-4. The result of this conquest is declared in verse 13, of the fifth chapter, which testifies, that every creature acquiesces in his receiving everything of which his brethren the saints and the angels of the Deity announce him to be worthy. All power, riches, strength, honor, glory, and blessing become his, and all nations find the blessedness of the gospel preached to Abraham come upon them, and established for the thousand years. A most unexpected result to them all; but one looked and longed for by those represented by the four living ones, and the twenty-four elders; who, both in their mortal state before resurrection, and as resurrected and prepared for action, exclaim, "So let it be!"

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SECTION 2

"And I saw at the right of Him seated upon the throne a Scroll that had been written within and on the outside, sealed up with Seven Seals." - Chap. 5.'1

1. The Scroll

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the occupant of the throne is the Deity, likened in chap. 4:3, to a jasper and a sardine stone, emblematic of Spirit manifested in flesh. That chapter gives no intimation of this flesh having ever tasted of death; but in the fifth this great fact is brought out in connection with the scroll, as we shall see hereafter.

On the right of the manifested Deity was a scroll. It was written within and on the outside; and was sealed up. This was, doubtless, related to the same document as that referred to in Dan. 12:4,9 where it is written, "Shut up the words, and seal the book till the time of the end;" and "the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." Daniel was not informed with how many seals, or if by one only it was sealed up; but 'simply that it was sealed. It was all the same to him whether it was sealed up with one seal or many; for a scroll closed and sealed up is unreadable till unrolled, and the sealing is opened. The catastrophe, or final series of events, revealed to Daniel belonged "to the time of the end." He was instructed to look forward to that period, to which pertains the apocalyptic "hour of judgment," for the termination of the wonders and times treated of in his book, or scroll. What had been communicated to him was principally concerning his people and his holy city. He had heard that the Saints were to be overcome by the Little Horn of the Fourth Beast that has Eyes and Mouth; and that their subjugation was to continue until the Ancient of Days came with a cloud of attendants numbered by "a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand," when the judgment would sit, and the fourth beast in body, head and horns should be destroyed by the burning flame of wrath proceeding from the cherubic throne of Deity. All this he had heard; nevertheless, there was a mystery closed up and sealed against his scrutiny that needed explication. What did that Little Horn with his Eyes like a man, and a mouth speaking great words against the Most High signify? Was the Ancient of Days by whom they were to be destroyed, Deity or angel; if the former, how manifested? If

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the latter, who was lie? Who was that Son of Man brought before the Ancient of Days, to whom universal dominion upon earth is given? How could the conquered saints take the Kingdom under the whole heaven from the four beasts? These, and many other questions would suggest themselves to Daniel, which would only put him to grief, and place him beside the apostle John, who 'shed many tears because no one was found worthy (and therefore able) to unroll and to read the scroll, nor to see it" ch 5:4. When Daniel saw the vision of his seventh chapter he said he "was grieved in spirit in the midst of the body, and the visions of his head troubled him;" and even after the meaning of what he saw was interpreted, he says his cogitations still troubled him much, and his countenance was changed. Thus if John and Daniel had been both in Patmos together studying 'the matter" they would have been companions in tribulation consequent upon their fruitless investigations, and endeavors to unclose the words, and to unseal the scroll seen by the prophet in the first and third of Belshatzar's reign, and in the third of Cyrus the Persian King. Nor would their grief have been assuaged until this day had the scroll at the right of Deity manifested in flesh, and occupying the throne, been withheld. John could have instructed Daniel concerning the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man; he could have enlarged his views concerning the Saints; and have given him skill and understanding in the mystery of the gospel preached to Abraham; but as to the relations of the saints to the then existing government; the taking out of the way that which hindered the revelation of "The King who should do according to his own will," and in his empire should honor a blaspheming god unknown to his pagan predecessors; as to the rise of the ten horns; the development of the Saracen and Turkish powers; the pouring out of that determined upon the desolator of the Holy Land and City; the coming of the Ancient of Days in power; the resurrection; the war of the great day of the Omnipotent; the co-operation of the Saints; the establishment of the Kingdom; and so forth; as to all these things John could give Daniel no connected and intelligible account. They were all written within and on the outside of that notable scroll on the right of the throne, or place of almighty power. In vision, or spirit, John looked wistfully upon that scroll, closely rolled up and exuberantly sealed. Daniel would have looked wistfully at it too; and so would all the saints, both their contemporaries and ours. And if all this company could have occupied synchronously with John his position in the vision, and their feelings could have been simultaneously expressed, on hearing the question "Who is worthy to unroll the scroll, and to loose its seals?" unreplied to by a solitary response; there would have been a

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universal lamentation and shedding of tears abundantly. In saying this, I speak of the Saints of all ages and generations who are such in reality, and not merely in pretense. The saints of the Deity, or 'his servants," who are such in deed and in truth, like John, take a deep interest in "the things of the spirit," and earnestly desire and diligently endeavor to "know the truth" of all 'matters' the Deity has condescended to reveal. They seek to know the true import, the real meaning, of them all; and if they do not succeed, it is a source of much anxiety and restlessness of mind. But saints so called who have a name like many in the ancient Sardis, "that they live, but are dead," would have seen the scroll at the right of power, and though they should have heard with John, "that no one was able in heaven, nor upon the earth, nor under the earth, to unroll the scroll, nor to see it," would have been far from joining him in "shedding many tears, because no one was found worthy to unroll and to read the scroll, nor to see it." Saints of this sort flourish in overwhelming multitudes in the present time. They might possibly so far have respected the presence of the apostle as not to have laughed at his "weakness;" but behind his back, they hesitate not to laugh to scorn those who are interested in this scroll, and seek to understand, or see it." They regard such as hairbrained and frantic fanatics, and exclaim in vast astonishment at their presumption. To them the scroll is "covered with a dense and thick veil of ignorance," which only the presumptuous and reckless would essay to lift or put aside. In holding these sentiments they condemn the weeping of the apostle. What sense in his shedding many tears because no one could interpret such a document as they esteem it - a book calculated only to addle or dement the brains of all who try to understand it? Certainly none. In effect, then, they condemn the lamentation of the apostle: and prove to a demonstration, that they are not in fellowship with him; nor, by consequence, "with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ," - 1 John 1:3. Hence, the apostle in the vision does not represent saints of their class. In the apocalyptic drama he symbolizes no such impious professors. If a multitude of weepers had been introduced into the scenic representation instead of one tear-shedding apostle, the apocalypse-despising crowd would have found no standing room among them. Such profane and scoffing pietists could have no more place there, than as cherubic eyes in the four Living Ones, when the unrolling of the scroll, and the unloosing of the seals, will be complete. No, not these, but his own class, is symbolized or represented by John in the vision of this fifth chapter. He acts for those in fellowship with the apostles and prophets as these would have acted had they heard the proclamation of the vision in the time before the

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Lion of Judah’s tribe was announced as the unroller of the scroll, and looser of the seals. His dramatic weeping argues, and indeed indicates, "the joy unspeakable and full of glory" characteristic of his class, the saints, in their "full assurance of faith and hope" that "all power has been given to him in heaven and upon earth" to unroll the scroll, and to loose the seals thereof; and that consequently, there is no throne, dominion, principality, nor power in the political firmament that can successfully contend against him; nor kindred, tongue, nation, tribe nor people, that can preserve their independence of the sovereignty of Judah and Israel's King. In the ratio of the lamentation is the intensity of the joy by implication. Sensible men do not "shed many tears" over trifles. Hence, though it is not said that John was glad with exceeding joy when he heard that one was found who was able to unroll the scroll, read and see it, it is nevertheless implied, seeing that he was so movingly affected on the contrary supposition. That scroll, symbolical of its contents, must certainly have been inestimable which could be unrolled only by one in all the Universe deemed of worthiness sufficient by the Lord of heaven and earth. Its denouement, or unraveling of its subject matter, was to put John and all in fellowship with him, in possession of the great salvation - of the kingdom promised to those who are "rich in faith;" hence, to understand this denouement and to know that the Lord Jesus will carry it through, and establish it so that "it cannot be moved," would develop the voices of this fifth chapter which are expressive of loud shouting for joy on the part of all who utter them.

These things being premised, I proceed to remark that the scroll at the right hand of power, occupying symbolically the place of Christ's present position, is all that section of the Apocalypse embraced in the seven seals. It does not contain the epistles to the seven ecclesias in Asia. In John's day, the subject matter of these letters was ha cisi, "the things which are;" but, in our time, they are the things which were; yet is the are and the were connected as the acorn and the wide-spreading oak. The reader will remember the Spirit's division of the Apocalypse, or "Revelation of Jesus Anointed which the Deity gave to him," in chap. 1:19. There John was told to write ha cides, "the things seen;" ha eisi, "the things extant;" and ha mellei ginesthai, "the things to be." The Apocalypse, in the largest sense of the word, is the writing John executed in obedience to this command, and comprehends all these three classes of things. The things he had seen at the time of the order to "write," were the things he saw when, in spirit, or vision, he was in the Lord's Day, the day when He comes in power and great glory, the account of which is in the first chapter, from the tenth verse

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to the eighteenth inclusive. The second class of things, or things which are, were those things charged upon the seven ecclesias in the epistles contained in the second and third chapters, and which, instead of being suppressed by the Spirit's reprobation of them, grew vigorously until they became a great and deadly upas, overshadowing the whole territory of Daniel's fourth beast dominion, miscalled "Christendom," as at this day. Hence John's ha cisi, or things extant, in the ecclesias named, were the "inside" seeds of things which afterwards became "THE CHURCH BY LAW ESTABLISHED" - an establishment consisting of the nauseous sputa ejected from the Spirit's mouth when the apostasy had attained its Laodicean development at the incipient loosing of the seventh seal. Its patrons, who by it had their wealth and honor, styled it "THE HOLY AP'OSTOLIC CATHOLIC CHURCH," and do symbolize it at this day by a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and angels crowning her with a crown of twelve stars. The three ecclesiastical divisions of "Christendom" - Greek, Latin, and Protestant - contend earnestly for what their champions regard as the honor of this title. Each section would appropriate it exclusively to itself, but this exclusive appropriation is still in abeyance, and likely so to be interminably; for, as they have not been able to settle the controversy in fifteen centuries and a half, they are not likely so to do in the few years remaining of "the times of the Gentiles," when the loosing of the seventh seal will be complete.

But there were also written in the seven epistles certain predictions of ha mellei ginesthai, "things which shall be," meta tauta, "after these things" - the iniquities of the second class of things shall be consummated. Jezebel would be clothed with the sun and give birth to the Man-child of Sin; and her children, the Harlots and Abominations of chapter seventeen, would become rich by her, and develop "the depths of the Satan as they teach;" but then, it was predicted in what the Spirit said to the ecclesias, that professors should have "a tribulation ten days;" that He would "fight against them with the sword of his mouth;" that He would cast them into a bed . . . "into great tribulation, and kill them with death;" that He would "come on them as a thief;" that He would "make them come and worship before the feet of those who keep his word, and have not denied his name;" and that professors of the Satan's synagogue - professors not scripturally in Christ, and those who walk after the flesh - "shall know that he has loved the true believers" whom they despise; that He would bring "the hour of trial upon the whole habitable to try them that dwell upon the

See the frontispiece of a book published by E. Dunigan and Bros., New York. styled The Glorys of Mary". See pg. 72.

PICTURE ON PAGE 72 NOT CCOPIED BY SCANNER

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The book referred to by the author in his footnote on p.71 is no longer available. However, the illustration above is from the Official Baltimore (US) Catechism of the Catholic Church. The same picture representing Mary with the twelve stars circling her head and the crescent moon under her feet is found also in innumerable Roman Catholic Churches throughout Europe. According to Kenrick's Egypt vol.1, p.425, the Egyptian goddess Isis was often represented as standing on the crescent moon with twelve stars surrounding her head. As the author of Eureka shows, the Apostasy, in the days of Constantine and afterwards, endeavored to make their beliefs palatable to pagans by superimposing their superstitions on Christianity.

HPM

earth," and that, being "lukewarm," He would "spue them out of his mouth."

But, beside these threatenings against professors of christianity pretending to be apostles, or "successors of apostles," "Jews," and spiritually "rich and increased in goods, and in need of nothing," as in all the ages and generations of the Apostasy concurrent with the seventh seal, as at this day: but who, both "divines" and people, are apocalyptically denounced as "liars," holding with the teaching and practices of the Nikolaitanes, which the Spirit hates; as "the Synagogue of the Satan;" "holding the teaching of Balaam" in mass-sacrifices to images, and the fornication of a marriage-forbidding hierarchy; as "the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, teaching and seduc'ing God's servants to practice abomination; as the Satan;" as "having the name that they live while really dead;" and as "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Besides the threatenings against these, the apocalyptic epistles abound in promises of a glorious destiny to those who "overcome." These are described as those "who cannot bear them who are evil," and who try claimants to apostolicity and inward Jewship, and in default of scriptural proof reject them as "liars." They are described as those who "have borne and had patience, and for the Spirit's name sake have labored and not fainted;" as rich in faith and faithful unto death; as Antipas, who holds fast the name and has not denied the faith of the Spirit; as those whose "last works are more than the first;" as the "few names" in the midst of a christian community in a dying state, or "ready to die," who have "not defiled their garments;" as those who have "kept the word and not denied the name of the Spirit;" and as those who are "zealous, and hear the Spirit's voice; and hearing, respond to his voice, and open the door of their mind and affections to his entering in. These are they who "overcome the wicked one," and the false prophets of the world, whom the world heareth - 1 John 4:1,4,5; 2:14. They are "born of the Deity," and therefore "overcome the world" by their faith. They all believe in His promises with an intelligent faith, and that Jesus is His first-begotten - the Chief of His many sons - through whom alone the scroll can be unrolled, and the loosing of its seven seals effected

I John 5:4,5.

To these, then, who are the heirs of victory, the epistles to the seven apocalyptic ecclesias teem with promises of abounding glory. The Spirit testifies in them that they shall "eat of the wood of life in the midst of the paradise of Deity;" that a coronal wreath of life shall crown them; that they shall receive a white pebble with a new name engraved upon it, known only to the receiver; that they shall have

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dominion over the nations, and govern them with an iron sceptre; that the imperial and regal constitution of the world shall break to pieces as the potter's clay vessels; that those who get the victory over the world shall receive the Morning Star; that they shall be clothed in white garments, and their names openly confessed by the Life-imparting Spirit in the presence of his Father and his angels; that they shall be eternal pillars in the temple of Deity; that the Quickening Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17) shall engrave them with the name of his Deity, and the name of the city of his Deity, the New Jerusalem, which descendeth out of the heaven from his Deity, even his new name; and that they shall sit with him in his throne after the example of what shall obtain in relation to himself and his Father's throne.

Here, then, are threatenings and promises - threatenings for spurious professors and apostates within, and for persecutors of the saints without; and glorious promises for those who gain the victory over their own lusts and the seductions of the world by faith. fliese were the things to be - the things of the third class which the apocalyptic epistles affirmed but did not unroll. They give no explanation concerning the how and the when the vision symbolical of the Lord's Day, or "the things seen" of John, in chap. 1, and "the things which shall be," or the threatenings and promises, shall be developed. A revelation, then, was needed to exhibit the when and the how of the threatenings and the promises, and this need was amply supplied by the scroll at the right hand of power, written within and on the outside, and sealed up with seven seals. It was placed in the vision at the right hand of power, or, as it is expressed in the text, "at the right of Him seated upon the throne," to signify that none but the Omnipotent in manifestation was "able" or powerful enough to unroll it and loose its seals. Gabriel, whose name, Gabriy'el signifies Mighiy' One of Power, 'who stands in the presence of Deity," had been employed to give Daniel skill and understanding in the vision and matter communicated to him in the third year of Belshatzar (Dan. 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19); but Gabriel was not worthy, able, or powerful enough to give John skill and understanding in the matter of the scroll; for, says John, "no one was able in the heaven, nor upon the earth, nor under the earth, to unroll the scroll, nor to see it.

The book of Daniel is to the Apocalypse as the acorn to the oak. The latter is the mystery of Daniel's prophecy symbolically revealed. This mystery of things he ministered he thought much upon, and sought to find out with great diligence, but without success; for he was informed that the mystery was hidden, and could not be penetrated until a time appointed.

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As already intimated, Daniel saw a scroll, as indicated in the phrase "the words and seal the book," as well as John. He was told that "the words were closed up and sealed till the time of the end." Hence, these were to Daniel "a scroll at the right of Him seated upon the throne written within and on the outside, sealed up with seven seals." That closed and sealed against Daniel's understanding was the mystery or secret of the words of the book.

But one might inquire, If the mystery were to be concealed "till the time of the end," in what sense can John's apocalyptic scroll and seals be a revelation of the hidden wisdom of Daniel's book, seeing that John's age was not "the time of the end"--- a time which is only just now dawning upon the world? This we consider a very pertinent inquiry. In answer, the reader may be reminded, that the revelation to John was symbolical. He did not see the actual, but only the acted or dramatized events he describes. What he saw was a pictorial representation, as it were - a speaking hieroglyphic signifying to his understanding things which in the time of the end shall all have become accomplished facts, so that, in this end "the vision shall speak, and not lie" - Hab. 2:3. The Apocalypse in its word-painting is the unrolling to the understanding of the servants of the Deity the series of events that should be successively unfolded, and which in their time of the end consummation should manifest as an accomplished result "THE END OF THE MATTER" - Dan. 7:28.

The scroll had to be unrolled and its seals loosed before the vision it contained could be read and perceived, or intelligibly comprehended, when it should "speak at the end." The speaking at the end truthfully, is what is styled in modern phrase the denouement, a word signifying the discovery of the plot, the unravelling or issue of the matter, termed in Daniel "the end of the matter." This denouement was revealed to him; but the unfolding of the particular series and succession of events thereunto leading, was not made known to him. He was informed in general terms, that the powers of the fourth beast dominion should make war upon and prevail against the saints until the Ancient of Days should come; and that then the saints should becorne a power mighty enough to destroy the fourth-beast system of powers; and to set up the kingdom of Deity. In the establishment of which as the great political fact of the age and generation, the denouement of God's dealings with the nations all the time of their ascendancy over the saints, would be manifested. He was instructed that "the end of the matter" was to be a crisis elaborated providentially from antecedents evolved in the history of the fourth-beast nationalities; but what was the particular vein to be worked out in its several lodes to conduct to

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the main and terminable results, he did not "see." In dramatical representation, the spectators behold the unrolling of the author's scroll, as the acting is in progress; but they have to wait till the end of the piece, the time of the end, for the dramatist's conception to "speak and not lie." Unless they have read the play, or seen it acted before, they have to "wait for the end of the matter," ere they can tell how the matter will come out, or what the ingenious dramatist designed should be the end of the whole, or the issue of the plot. It was thus with Daniel and John. The end of the matter had been revealed to them both. They had read the denouement of the drama to result at the end from all its shifting scenes; but they had never seen nor read the play. The acting had not been revealed to them. In Daniel's time the stage had not been prepared, nor the dramatis personae, the company of performers, collected and arranged in their several parts for the performance of the tragedy to be played. There was no fourth-beast dominion then; nor any saints who had "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" - Rev. 7:14 - to be prevailed against thereby; and without these important parties in the premises, the actual tragedy could not begin; nor could a representation or rehearsal of the performance have come with any enlightening effect upon Daniel's mind, being ignorant as he was of the mystery afterwards revealed in the apostolic ministration of "the word."

But by the time that John had come to be an exile in Patmos, all this was changed. Daniel's situation was no longer that of John and his brethren. The fourth-beast dominion was now upon the world's stage; and, as the Little Horn, not then as yet decorated with 'Eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things," had "taken away the Daily, and had cast down the place of its sanctuary," and practised and prospered. Messiah the prince, though faultless, had been "cut off' by this horn; and by the teaching concerning his kingdom and name, a people composed of Israelites and Gentiles according to the flesh, had been developed as the seed of the great father of the faithful and "friend of God," by adoption through Jesus as the prince; and stood confessed of heaven before "the inhabiters of the earth and sea"-----the whole habitable - as "THE ISRAEL OF GOD."

In these two hostile communities exist all the elements to be afterwards developed into the parties of the play. The Israel of God on the one side, and the Fourth Beast, on the other, contained the germs of the conflicting good and evil of the ages and generations from John's day to the giving of "the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, under all of the heavens to the people of the saints of the Most High Ones, whose kingdom is the kingdom of Olahm (the hidden

77 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

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period), and all dominions shall serve and obey him;" which is "the end of the matter." While the apocalyptical tragedy was being rehearsed before John in Patmos, God's Israel was already constituted of "two manner of people" - they who walked after the flesh; and they who walked after the spirit, which is the truth. Out of the former were afterwards developed the worshippers of demons and of "idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood" - Rev .9:20: also, "the Mouth speaking great things and blasphemies - 13:5; the image of the beast; the drunken woman, and all the daughters of her prostitution, and abominations of the earth" - Rev. 17:1-5. These all are the fruit of the Mystery of Iniquity that was at work in the mystical body of Christ, in the time of Paul and John. The apostolical epistles are full of protest against its insidious and corrupt working, which they clearly saw would "eat as doth a gangrene;" and therefore earnestly warned all who would be approved of God to have nothing to do with those who favored it - 2 Tim. 2:15-18; 2 John 10.

On the other hand, from the Israel of God who walked in the truth were developed in after ages and generations, "the souls under the altar slain for the word of God" - ch. 6:9; "the servants of the Deity sealed in their foreheads;" the 144,000, or "holy nation," (1 Pet. 2:9) the white-robed palm bearers - ch. 7; the temple of the Deity, the altar worshippers, and the holy city - ch. 11:1-2; the four and twenty elders, and the four living ones; the fugitive woman and the remnant of her seed - ch. 12:14,17; God's name and tabernacle, and them that dwell in the heaven - the saints - ch. 13:6,7; the redeemed from the earth, the virgins, the first-fruits unto the Deity and the Lamb, faultless before the throne - ch. 14:1-5; them who had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name, having the harps of Deity - ch. 15:2; the kings of the east, who watch and keep their garments - ch. 16:12,15; the called, and chosen and faithful with the Lamb in his wars - ch. 17:14; the prophets and saints slain -ch. 18:24; the Lamb's wife arrayed in righteousness; and the squadrons of his power - ch. 19:7,8,14; them to whom judgment is given, the beheaded souls, who worshipped not the beast, nor his image, and who reign with Christ as the priests of Deity for a thousand years; the beloved city - ch. 20:4,6,9; the holy city, New Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, the municipal aggregate of all written in the Lamb's book of life - ch. 21:2,27; whose foreheads are enstamped with the name of Deity and the Lamb - ch. 22:4. These all constitute "the Israel of the Deity" upon whom Paul invoked "peace and mercy" - Gal. 6:16; and for whose special information the apocalypse was rehearsed to John in Patmos; and who were, and are

Page 78 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

yet to enact a most conspicuous part in its public exhibition upon the platform of the habitable dominated temporarily by the fourth-beast system of powers, so dreadful and terrible to Daniel's sight Dan.7:7

As already remarked above, the Israel of God and this Fourth Beast Dominion contained of old all the germs of the good and evil which have mingled in devouring conflict for the past eighteen hundred years; and which will continue occurrent till the victory which shall culminate in the blessing of all nations in Abraham and his seed. We have traced the germinal development of the 'two manner of people" through the tragedy rehearsed to John. By examining the testimonies cited above, the reader will see how they diverged into an "enmity" that admits of no mitigation or compromise; but which apocalyptically results in the utter and final extermination of the Laodicean Apostasy from among the nations of the Fourth Beast where alone it has taken root. The reader will also see from the same testimonies that the apostasy generated in and evolved from the mystical body of Christ, or God's Israel, is found in alliance with the "dreadful, terrible, and exceedingly strong" dominion of "the whole habitable," against "the remnant who keep the commandments of the Deity and have the testimony of Jesus Anointed;" and that the fate of the one is that also of the other - the civil, military, and ecclesiastical constitution and institutions of "Christendom," which is the fourth-beast organization come to remediless perdition, as the result of the "judgment given to the saints.

In John's day, then, this Fourth Beast was in the germinal phase of its development, Daniel saw it with many horns upon it; but neither he nor John were contemporary with them. The beast had arisen out of the Great Sea countries, and John was living under the dominion of its Sixth Head - ch. 17: 10; that is, under the rule of Rome Imperial. The beast had not then acquired horns; and it had not then become acquainted with that "god whom his fathers knew not ... that strange god" who was afterwards to be "acknowledged" by the Emperors, and by them "increased with glory" - Dan. 11:38,39. This "god" had not appeared on the Roman Habitable then. John had no personal acquaintance with him; but in the apocalyptic rehearsal of what was in after ages to be publicly exhibited before the concourse of nations, he saw that he would appear and figure upon the blood-stained arena as the Image of the Beast - an image resulting from a coalition of the Laodicean Apostasy with the Roman State.

In the apocalyptic rehearsal, then, John saw this pagan dominion under which he lived developed into the Man of Sin-Power. He beheld

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its birth coeval with a great war in the heaven of the Fourth Beast -ch. 12:5,7. He saw the development of the Ten Horns as the result of the Fourth Beast Dragon being compelled to yield a portion of his power, his throne, and great authority to certain incomers upon the habitable, who divided with the imperials the sovereignty of the earth

- ch. 13:1-4. He saw these new powers of the earth in alliance with a blasphemous power, under whose inspiration they would make war upon the saints, and overcome them. He saw, also, this persecuting power acquire great consistence, and become imperial. Daniel's "Little Horn with Eyes and Mouth" rose up before him in the form of a beast coming out of the earth, having two horns as of a lamb, and speaking as a dragon. He saw the horn and mouth in this beast, and "the Eyes" in the image which the civil and military power would cause the people to worship upon pain of death - ch. 13. He saw in this the Man of Sin-Power, begotten and born in previous centuries, developing into a "dreadful and terrible" tyranny, that would make the times perilous for the saints, and for all who, from any cause, would not do it homage. He perceived, also, that it would have the ascendancy for a long time; and that it would do after its will for forty-two months of years. This long period he knew would reach to the coming of the Ancient of Days, and that the Fourth Beast dominion would then be in its full and final manifestation. The Man of Sin-Power would then be in full fruition, and in its final form. It was rehearsed to Daniel in this form with other three dominions; and was afterwards apocalyptically rehearsed to John as a scarlet colored beast with eight heads, bearing as its rider a drunken prostitute. He saw in this the Man of Sin Pdwer in full maturity; and ready to contend with the Ancient of Days and his followers, "the called, chosen, and faithful," for the indefinite perpetuation of the Fourth Beast dominion "over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations" - ch. 17 and 13:7. But "the end of the matter" divinely purposed required the victory of the Woman's Seed; and that the saints should possess "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under all of the heavens." This being the predetermination of the Deity, when the apocalyptic rehearsal had brought out the Sin-Power to the full, its judgment was forthwith represented to John as immediately consequent upon the manifestation of a great heaven descended angel power upon earth. He saw that the judgment of the saints would fall with primary and especial violence upon the ecclesiastical element of the Fourth Beast - ch. 18. Babylon the Great being thus abolished, he saw the civil power that had upheld her, and had caused all nations to bow their necks to her priestly yoke, subjected to relentless and exterminating war; the result of which was the total

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abolition of the Church and State of the Fourth Beast dominion. Consequent upon this, the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth, the Image of the Beast, and the False Prophet, the head thereof, are no longer found playing any part in the public affairs of the world. The all-conquering saints and the Dragon alone remain. John saw the Dragon chained in the bottomless profound. There were no binding of the others. They were destroyed; but not so the Dragon. This is shut up and imprisoned for a thousand years, and afterwards released preparatory to his destruction then. Identical with this was the consummation represented to Daniel in ch. 7:11,12. There the Fourth Beast body politic is totally destroyed, while the lion, bear, and leopard nationalities are deprived of sovereignty by the saints, or bound for a season and a time, during which long period there is no power on earth to dispute its absolute possession by the SON OF MAN - Jesus and his brethren. More than this was not deponed to Daniel. He was informed, indeed, that the saints should possess the kingdom ad-ahlmah, wead ahlam ahlmaiyah "during the hidden period, even for a hidden period of the hidden periods:" but what was to transpire in regard to the suppressed dominion of the lion, bear, and leopard, after the expiration of the "period of the periods," he did not see. It was reserved for the apocalyptic rehearsal to inform the servants of the Deity, that the lion, bear, and leopard dominion, should be "loosed a little season '~ after the expiry of the season and time period of their subjection to the saints; and should then renew their conflict with them, and so bring upon themselves swift and irremediable, and final destruction. "The end of the matter" with Daniel was the victorious establishment of the Millennial Kingdom of the Saints. Beyond this his vision did not penetrate. He knew nothing of the Son's delivering up the kingdom to the Father as the result of a crisis culminating in the change of its constitution, the abolition of mediatorship, and the supercession of flesh and blood nature by spirit; so that all the dwellers upon earth shall be ho Theos ta panta en pasin, the Deity the all things in all - DEITY MANIFESTED IN FLESH - of which the glorified and anointed Jesus is now the type. This is the end of the matter rehearsed before John - the apocalyptic denouement of the divine purpose conceived by the Allwise Intelligence before the foundation of the world.

2. The Writing Within and on the Outside

The scroll, then, is representative of the things rehearsed before John - the things which were to be transacted by the performers

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indicated in our previous sectional remarks in the public audience of the world, until the establishment of the kingdom promised to the poor, who may be found rich in faith, and deemed worthy to possess it. It was "written within and on the outside." This was not stated without meaning. We have seen that it has reference to two general classes of actors in the drama; to those within the temple, and to those of the court without - ch. 11:2. "We were troubled on every side," saith Paul; "without were fightings, within were fears" - 2 Cor. 7:5. The outsiders are those who make war upon and persecute the saints, such as the beasts, the image of the beast, dragon, and so forth. The things of the scroll written concerning these, were the things written on the outside; while those written on the inside, are the things written about the remnant of the woman's seed, the 144,000, the white robed palm bearers, the witnesses, the victorious harpists of the Deity, the Lamb's wife, his followers in the war of the great day of Almighty Power, and so forth. So long as the scroll was rolled up, and the seals not loosed, what was written without and within would be unreadable, and unseen. Hence the unrolling of the scroll, and the loosing the seals, were indispensable to a practical knowledge of its contents. Suffice it then to say in the absence of a present acquaintance with their details, that whatever the writing within may be, it could only be lamentation and woe on the outside; inasmuch as those who are "without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and invents a lie" ch. 22:15. Such "in no wise enter into," or within "the city;" for no one that defiles is permitted to come in there. As it is written, "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or inventeth a lie: save they who have been written in the Lamb's roll of life" - ch. 21:27. These only will be found therein; and to them only do the good things written within the scroll belong.

The things written on the outside pertain to the "dogs," against whom Paul cautioned those within, saying, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision" - Phil. 3:2. These were dogs who had got into the sheepfold unawares, and passed themselves off for sheep by a sheeplike demeanor. They were nothing but dogs, however, in the clothing of sheep. They were very pious; so much so, that in appearance they surpassed the sheep. They were righteous overmuch, and thereby destroyed themselves - Ecc. 7:16. They were "evil workers" under pious pretenses, who seduced the faithful from "the simplicity which is in Christ," teaching for doctrine the traditions which in after years intoxicated all the nations of the Fourth Beast dominion.

These "dogs" without are commonly styled "the Fathers" by those

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who are without. These, in the estimation of the Gentiles of "the court which is without the temple," are of higher authority in all ecclesiastical or spiritual questions and articles of faith" than all the prophets and apostles, or Jesus Christ himself. The Fathers of the Greek and Latin Christendom" are the foundation upon which it is built for a habitation of the Satan, through the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. The spirituals of "the court of the Gentiles without the temple," in all "the times" allotted to the Gentiles to "tread under foot the Holy City," are the living incarnations, in all the ages and generations of those times, of the soul-destroying principles and practises of "the concision" - loved and invented by the Nikolaitanes, Balaamites, children of Jezebel, and the Satan - the Fathers of the Laodicean Apostasy. The priestly and ministerial incarnations of the principles of these Fathers in our day are ":LEGION." They are blind leaders of the blind into the perdition that is yawning to engulf the Man of Sin-power and all his agents. Their admirers designate them as "reverend divines," "ambassadors of Jesus Christ," "successors of the apostles," ' "ministers of the gospel," called and sent of God, as Aaron was, to preach and administer ordinances, "holy men of God," clergy, or God's lot, "holy orders," and so forth. They are the spiritual guides of the people in all the ways, the broad ways, of the court without the temple of God." They are the learned and pious expositors of the traditions sanctioned by the innumerable 'names and denominations," styled apocalyptically 'names of blasphemy," of which the scarlet-colored beast of the 'court without" is declared to be 'full" - ch. 17:3. These "dogs without" are they who "are of the world, who therefore speak of the world, and whom the world consequently hears." By this broad fact, patent to all who understand the truth, all apocalyptic "dogs" may be discerned, and the spirit by which they are inspired perceived - I John 4:1-6. They are, as the prophet said of the watchmen of Israel, "blind; they are all ignorant (of the truth); they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreamy, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way (or sect), every one for his gain to his quarter" - Isa. 56:10,11. "They are shepherds that cannot understand," or "come to the knowledge of the truth" - 2 Tim. 3:7. They can understand, in some sort, the school divinity it is their business to grind for those who go "wondering after" them, and by whom they have their wealth; but to understand the gospel of the kingdom of Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ, is too high for them, they cannot attain to it. Let any man, intelligent in the gospel, the preaching concerning Jesus, the revelation of the mystery

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and its fellowship, as set forth by the apostles (Rom. 16:25,26; Eph. 3:9), take in hand a Greek priest, a Papist sin-pardoner, a Protestant State Church parson, or a Dissenting minister of any of the sects of "the court without the temple," and try his best to exorcise him of his Gentilism, and to substitute in his understanding "the truth as it is in Jesus," and he will find experimentally, that they are all shepherds that cannot understand. With much care the truth was communicated to their predecessors of the apostolic age, who received it, but not in the love of it that they might be saved. They held it in unrighteousness, having the form of godliness, but denying its power. For this cause, God, as Paul threatened, sent upon them strong delusion that they should believe the lie they had invented and to this day so dearly love - 2 Thess. 2:10-12. This "lie" is the matter of the pharmakeia, or poisoning by which all nations have been deceived - ch. 18:23. Its effect is to delude strongly all that swallow it, so that it is hardly possible for the truth to enter in.

Apocalyptically, "the dogs without" who administer this poison to the people are styled in the common version "sorcerers," i.e. pharmakoi, poisoners. They poison the people with their soul-medicines; and so having bewitched them, make merchandise of them from the cradle to the grave. It is evident from Acts 13:6, that a sorcerer is a false prophet or teacher. All, therefore who do not teach the truth are scripturally designated "sorcerers," poisoners, or false prophets, and are classed with the "filthy" and the "unjust," and are obnoxious to all the judgments written upon the scroll on the outside. It was for them, "those men who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads," that the scorpion-torment and the woe that followed were prepared. These judgments overwhelmed them with calamity, and reduced them to the basest servitude under which they groan until this day. Nevertheless, the rest of their class, upon which the ruin did not come, "repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts" Rev. 9. From the Chief Sorcerer in Rome to the meanest poisoner among the western nations, this unrepentant state of mind is their characteristic. They still cling tenaciously to their superstitions, and are as murderously disposed towards all that oppose them as of old. On the side of the oppressor is power; and, wherever that power is, there are the priests, clergy, and ministers of the apostasy to be found sanctifying tyranny, and dividing with the plunderer the gains of extortion and the profits accruing from popular ignorance and folly. Because as murderers, they have shed the blood of saints and prophets; blood has been given them to drink; they have been scorched with fire and have been made to gnaw their tongues with pain – Rev

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16:6,8,10. Yet "they repented not of their deeds." The judgments that have been poured out upon them, and which have ensanguined the page of history to this present, have failed to bring them to repentance. The things written on the outside of the scroll speak only of the fullness of wrath for such. As they will not repent, utter destruction is. written against them in their being made to "drink of the wine of the wrath of Deity, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation," and in being "tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb" - Rev. 14:10. When this consummation shall have been developed, the saints' war, which pertains to the great and dreadful day of Yahweh (Rev. 16:14; Joel 2:31) will have expended itself in the conquest of the Ten Horns, or "kingdoms of the world" (ch. 11:15; 17:14), the utter and fiery consumption of the ecclesiastical system of the Greco-Latin habitable (ch. 18:4-8), the extinction of the beast and false prophet power in the lake of fire, and the binding of the Dragon in the bottomless abyss. These results belong to the things written on the outside of the scroll, and were a rehearsal before John of the finishing of the mystery of the Deity as he had already declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets - ch. 10:7. All orders in the states and "churches" of the world, symbolized by the fourth beast of Daniel, will then have been judicially abolished, and the spiritual and temporal destroyers of the people will have been themselves retributively destroyed - ch. 11:18. There will then be no more any priests, parsons, or preachers, ministering to the ignorance and superstition and sensuality of the multitude and their own especial gain and glorification. The influence of these "sorcerers" over the public conscience will have been reduced to zero. The blasphemous names and denominations which fill the eight-headed scarlet-colored beast will have been dissipated, and mankind will have at length attained to that unity of faith and practice so amply foretold in the writings of the holy prophets. Then, when the clergy and ministers of the Laodicean Apostasy shall have been thrust out of the way (for they, as upheld by the civil power and ignorance of their devotees, are the Babylonian hindrance to the Millennium), the denouement of the things written on the outside of the scroll will stand out in bold relief before all nations, which will then have learned obedience to God and his saints by the things they shall have suffered; and they will say

-"To Him that sitteth on the throne,

And to the Lamb the blessing be,

The honor, glory and the pow'r,

The Aions of the Aions for!" - Apoc. 5:13

And then, in the language of Apoc. 5:14, the victorious "kings of the east," standing upon the sea of glass no longer mingled with fire (ch. 15:2), shall joyously approbate the benediction, and proclaim the loud and mighty apocalyptic AMEN! So let it be for the thousand years, "until he has put all enemies under his feet" - 1 Cor. 15:25. Then will the royal priesthood" of the heavens, being at that time in those heavenlies (1 Pet. 2:9; Matt. 5:12), rejoice with the subject nations, upon whom the blessing of Abraham will have come, with loud acclamation, saying, 'We give thee thanks, 0 Yahweh Ail-Shaddai, the Being, and the Was, and the Being Come, because thou takest to thee thy great power, and reignest" - ch. 11:17. 'Great and marvellous are thy works, Yahweh Ail-Shaddai; just and true thy ways, thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear thee, 0 Yahweh, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and do homage before thee: for thy judgments are made manifest" - ch. 15:3,4. ~Hallelu-Yah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto Yahweh our Elohim; for true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the Great Harlot, which corrupted the earth with her prostitution, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. Hallelu Yah! Amen! Hallelu-Yah! Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. Hallelu-Yah! for Yahweh Elohim omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready" - ch. 19:1-7.

Such was the end of the matter written within the scroll, and rehearsed before John as inaugurative of the reign of the Great and Holy City, New Jerusalem, over the healed nations for a thousand years - ch. 20:1-6; 21:2,10,24; 22:2 - in all which the world is possessed by the city, the saint-city, the Royal and Priestly Municipality of Deity; and all nations are blessed with faithful Abraham and his seed

I Cor. 3:21,22; Gal. 3:9.

3. Sealed up with Seven Seals

The words of the scroll rehearsed to Daniel, were closed up and sealed;" and the scroll rehearsed before John was 'sealed up with seven seals." To seal up a scroll was to "close" it; but with how many seals it was closed up, Daniel was not informed. This secret concealed from the greatly beloved" Daniel, was revealed to the "beloved disciple," the exile of Patmos.

The allusions and references to seals and sealing are very frequent in the scriptures. We need not. however, do more here than to direct

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attention to instances in which a book or scroll sealed, is a volume whose contents are hidden so long as sealed. In Isa. 29:10 is a remarkable instance of this. The prophet had a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem, but it was to the Jews as a scroll sealed, and therefore while so, unreadable so as to be understood. 'The vision of all," says the Spirit in Isaiah, "is become unto you as a scroll that is sealed, which one delivers to him that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed." The books of the ancients were not like our books in form or material. They were rolls of papyrus, parchment, or other flexible substance, of various lengths. Zechariah's roll was twenty cubits long by ten broad; and was written 'on this side" and "on that side," with the curse of consuming judgments - Ch. 5:1-4. While rolled up they were sometimes fastened by sticking the edges of certain turns of the roll together; or by tying the same, and appending a seal, or seals, to the ligature. Hence, to read such a scroll it would be necessary to unloose the seals, in their order when so much only of the scroll could be read as extended from the first to the second tying or sticking; then from the second to the third; afterwards, from the third to the fourth; then from the fourth to the fifth; after this, from the fifth to the sixth; and lastly from the sixth to the seventh: and when this was untied, the whole scroll, if there were no more stickings or tyings, could be fully extended. and read from beginning to end.

Now the written spaces, or intervals, from one hastening of the scroll to another, were called seals, or closures. To read them the closures must be loosed, otherwise the contents of the scroll would be forever concealed. They could no more be discerned, or seen, while in the sealed state, than our modern books could be read so long as locked by one, two, or more clasps. Seals, then, being closures, they become symbolical of secrecy. This appears from Apoc. 10:4, where John is commanded to "seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them noL" The not writing them, which John was about to do before the command was given, was to keep what he had heard to himself, so that no one else might know what was spoken -but the class he represented when they and he, as "sons of thunder" should execute the utterances; and this concealment of the mystery of the seven thunders was the sealing of them up. Hence, the unsealing of them will consist in their actual development without previous rehearsal to any but John.

The scroll that John saw at the right hand of Power was sealed, or closed up with seven seals or closures. This signified that there must be seven unloosings enacted before the mystery contained in and on the

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outside of the Scroll of the Divine purpose, could be all performed upon the stage of the "whole habitable" in the sight of all nations.

The apocalyptic drama in being visually rehearsed before John has been verbally rehearsed to us; for the rehearsal he witnessed, he has recorded for the information of the rest of his brethren in all after ages; or, that is to say, until judgment shall be given to them at the appearing of the Ancient of Days. The apostle's brethren may therefore see from a perusal of the written rehearsal, that the seven seals represent seven parts of the great drama, consecutively developed, and issuing in the establishment of their dominion over all the nations of the earth.

In the apocalyptic drama prefigured in the rehearsal before us, however, these parts are unequally distributed. They pertain to three grand divisions of the performance, which are defined by the nature of the situation. Thus, it is obvious, that the kingdom promised to the saints could not be established so long as the Man of Sin Power were undeveloped; and, secondly, that the Man of Sin Power could not be manifested upon the scene of the fourth beast habitable so long as the constitution of this beast-dominion continued pagan. The former necessity of the situation is thus expressed by Paul: "He that now hinders will hinder until he be taken out of the way; and then shall the Lawless One be revealed." When Paul wrote these words the Power that hindered the manifestation of the Lawless One he had described in a previous verse, and whom he styles "the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition," was the same power that exiled John to Patmos - the Pagan Roman. It was necessary that the Pagan Roman power should be "taken out of the way." This was an important element in the drama to be performed. But how was it to be accomplished? The answer is: By the culminative force of the events developing in the course of, and culminating in the full exhaustion of, the things written within and on the outside of the first six seals. This is the first division of the apocalyptic scroll; a six act tragedy, resulting in the fall of paganism, and the enthronement of the LAODICEAN APOSTASY, called by its devotees, "the Holy Catholic Church," as the religion of the Roman state.

Now, Paul teaches in 2 Thess. 2 that the Man of Sin-power to be developed after the taking out of the way of the pagan Roman, should continue till the time for its consumption and utter destruction by the glorious manifestation of the YAHWEH NAME - "whom the Lord shall consume," saith he, "with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy by the manifestation of his presence." The perdition of this son of the woman (ch. 12:5), called, therefore, "the Son of Perdition," and the appearing of the Son of Man are events of the same epoch. All the

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interval, then, between the taking away of the pagan constitution of the Roman State and the destroying of the Man of Sin-power, is occupied by the development of the latter from its birth to its perdition by the saints. This consummation is the grand issue of the finished performance of the second and third divisions of the seven sealed scroll. The seventh seal is equivalent to these divisions. It opens at the end of the sixth seal, and extends its representations to the end of the Seventh Vial when the wrath of Deity against the Laodicean Apostasy is filled up by its utter and complete destruction, and the victory of the saints over all their enemies - ch. 15:1-4.

But while this three-fold division of the scroll is that into which it is resolved by the necessity indicated by Daniel and Paul, the roll is nevertheless the subject of minor subdivisions resulting from considerations affecting the parties concerned in the development of the Man of Sin-power, their apostasy from the truth, their warfare against the saints, and their overthrow by the Ancient of Days in "the hour of judgment." These are subdivisions of the second and third general divisions, or Seventh Seal. This exhibits the whole performance from its opening, A.D. 324, until the judgment given to the saints shall have been completely executed upon their enemies. The Seventh Seal ends with the total and complete abolition of the Sin-powers represented by Nebuchadnezzar's image, Daniel's Four Beasts, and the Little Horn of the Goat, or Absolute King; and the Stone-power that smites them becoming a great mountain dominion, and filling the whole earth. Hence, although the seventh seal had been opened it has not yet been entirely unrolled so as to be read historically. When the Seventh Seal prophecy shall be all fulfilled, it will be said, "Behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest;" for then the spirit of Yahweh Elohim, apocalyptically styled, "the Seven Spirits of Deity burning before the throne," will have been quieted in all countries of the earth. The mission of the Christ personal and mystical will have been fully accomplished. The tribes of Judah will have been raised up, the desolations of Israel will have been restored; the nations will have been enlightened; and Yahweh's salvation developed to the cnds of the earth - Isa. 49:6.

But before this consummation so devoutly to be wished, there were to intervene many centuries, and generations of men "believing a lie," with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness, in which they would take great delight. History teaches us of this generation, that over fifteen hundred years have elapsed since the opening of the seventh seal. In all this time the arena of the seal has been the habitable of two belligerents - "them that perish;" and the saints; upon the

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former class, "a strong delusion" came from God, that they might believe a lie and be damned, as a just punishment for not believing the truth, and taking pleasure in unrighteousness. This class began to show itself in the days of the apostles; and, as we have seen in our exposition of the apocalyptic epistles, acquired the position of CLERGY, or, "Lords over the Heritages" - katakurieuontes ton kleron; shepherds of the flock who had become unfaithful ministers of the word, and seducers, and wholesale subverters of households for filthy lucre's sake. These had not only acquired ascendancy over the heritages of the Deity, "which he had purchased with his own blood," not sparing them, but rending them as grievous wolves; but they had become before the opening of the seventh seal, a formidable political antagonism to the Roman government. They were political christians who had the form of a godliness opposed to the paganism of the state, but not the power of that godliness originally delivered to the saints by the apostles. They were the Radicals, Democrats and Dissenters of the time, cordially hating, and being hated of the governing classes who possessed and sought to retain power and official spoil. These anti-pagan politicians assumed to be "THE HOLY APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC

CHURCH;" and were prepared, when a leader should be found ambitious and daring enough, to make war upon the government of Caesar, and to dispute with him the sovereignty of the world. In the beginning of the fourth century the crisis came, and with it the leader they required. Under the leadership of Constantine, whom they styled "The Great," they fought, and conquered the power which from the time of the apostles had been pouring out the blood of their "fellow-servants and brethren," good and bad; who all passed current as "Christians" with their pagan accuser, though differing widely among themselves.

In the beginning of the fourth century, the Roman Earth was full of "Names and Denominations of Christians," inspired with very bitter feelings against each other; but united in hatred of "THE ACCUSER," who harassed them all with continual persecution to imprisonment, confiscation and death. These constituted in the aggregate the Laodicean Apostasy - an e pluribus unum as heterogeneous and motley as this "christian" nation in congress, when, before the war, it appointed an unbelieving Jew to lead it in its prayers to God.

But apart from this Holy Apostolic Laodicean Catholic Apostasy, there was a community, comparatively small, that hated the deeds and doctrines of these Nikolaitanes and children of the woman Jezebel. It repudiated "the depths of the Satan as they taught;" and with "a little strength," kept the word of the Spirit, and did not deny his name. This community of faithful ones was preserved from the hour of temptation

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which came upon the whole habitable to try them. These who stood aloof from the Apostasy, protested alike against "Catholics," Jews and Pagans. They were zealous for "the faith once for all delivered to the saints," and contended earnestly for it, both against their own "fellow-servants" and nominal "brethren," who were fraternizing with the liberal non-professing world, and conspiring with them against the government; and against Pagan and Jewish clergies and their blasphemous and profane traditions with which they 'destroyed the earth." This Philadelphian community was in all things opposed to the Laodicean. Its members "walked after the Spirit," or the truth; and through that spirit mortified the deeds of the body; while the Laodiceans, who had an overweening conceit of their own piety and spiritual intelligence, "walked after the flesh," in the fashion universally illustrated in the practice of the pietists of all the "Names and Denominations of Christendom," and of the "christian politicians," "liberal christians," and the political wire workers and pullers, of our day. The Philadelphian party had no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but reproved them. They had escaped from the corruptions of the world through lust, and devoted their energies to the making of their calling and election sure. They came out, therefore, from among the Laodiceans, that they might not be defiled by the uncleannesses of these unfaithful "fellow-servants and brethren," and constituted what the Laodicean Catholics termed a Schism or Heresy.

Now, in the apocalyptic drama, the Philadelphian and Laodicean parties of the Antipagan Body are represented by a Woman in two several and different conditions. The woman apart from the relations of each condition, represents the Antipagan Community as a whole, and irrespective of the many sects within its pale. When the power of the Deity with the Constantinians, symbolically styled "Michael and his Angels," was casting the Pagan Sin-power out, so that place should be found for it no more in the heaven; the Woman appeared in it arrayed in all the insignia of imperial state. This was a period of revolution, in which power was passing from the pagan classes to the catholics. The former "prevailed not;" for their armies were beaten and dispersed by the catholic forces of Constantine, who became Emperor of Rome, and proclaimed the superstition of the Laodiceans, the religion of the Roman State. Thus truly, "a wonder appeared in the heaven" of Daniel's Fourth Beast, the church, professedly christian, in union with the world adulterously united to another than Christ, to the state; and therefore, in friendship with the world! Of the spiritual relation of such a church to Deity there can be no mistake on the part of one intelligent in the word. "The world's friendship," says James, "is enmity with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." The said "Holy Apostolic Catholic" party is therefore unquestionably God's enemy; and so are all such, together with all that fellowship the union in all ages and generations, until the saints possess the world and rule it in righteousness. The catholic party being a worldly party, their leading spirits, or teaching prophets, were "of the world, therefore they speak of the world, and the world heareth them." This is an infallible rule by which the world's priests, or clergies, may be known. The spirit that is in them is the spirit that is in the world - "the spirit that works in the children of disobedience." It was predicted that Anti-Christ should come - 1 John 2:18; 4:3. He was to be manifested through false teaching concerning the flesh, or nature, of Jesus. In John's day there existed "many antichrists," who denied that Jesus Anointed came in "the flesh." They affirmed that he came in another sort of flesh than that which is common to all men -in a holier nature, that was immaculate, or pure and undefiled. This dogma, of course, rendered null and void the teaching of the word which declares the condemnation of sin in the flesh, in the bearing in his own body the sins of believers to the tree, when nailed thereon by the predetermination of Deity. This, says John, was that of the Antichrist that should come. It was a dogma that had many advocates so early as apostolic times. Its teachers repudiated the fellowship of the apostles, and "went out from them, because they were not of them." In denying the true nature of Jesus, they preached "another Jesus;" and in so doing, denied that the Jesus whom Paul preached was the Christ: and in denying this, denied that the Father was manifested in common human flesh; and, therefore, denied the Father and the Son; "for whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." "He is the antichrist," saith John, "that denieth the Father and the Son;" and "this is the Deceiver and the Antichrist." "He that abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God" - of the true teachings of God-manifestation he is wholly and necessarily ignorant.

Now, in the Catholic element of the Woman, the dogma characteristic of the Antichrist was embodied. It only waited for a Head to become politically manifest. That head was the Imperial Dynasty begotten in the woman-community by the working of the Mystery of Iniquity, and born of her in the appearance of what the world designates "THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPEROR." This son was the Man of Sin in his birth, and the Head of the Holy Apostolic Laodicean Catholic Apostasy, that was to rule all nations with a rod of iron - the Antichrist, that had forced its way up to Deity, and usurped his throne.

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In the consummation of this revolution in the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of Daniel's Fourth Beast, the world had imposed upon it a despotism more dreadful and terrible" than its predecessor, and no less the enemy of God and the persecutor and destroyer of his saints. No sooner had the Laodiceans become victorious over their pagan adversaries, and had acquired political power, than they became violent oppressors of all who did not conform to the standard of what they were pleased to style orthodoxy." As the party and power of the Man-child escaped from the devouring jaws of the pagan Dragon, and were enthroned in his place, they persecuted the Philadelphian party which abode in the doctrine of Christ; and the woman became a fugitive from imperial glory, in the sunshine of whose favor the unsealed professors of the world's substitute for the one faith and hope of the gospel have basked from the consummation of the Sixth Seal to the present century of the unfinished Seventh.

After the perfecting of the revolution of the fourth century, the issue was no longer the Saints versus Imperial Paganism; but "the Remnant of the Woman's Seed" versus the Imperial Laodicean Apostasy, known in history as "The Holy Catholic Church." It assumed to itself this name after it had been 'spued out of the mouth of the Spirit" as an unholy abomination beyond all possibility of redemption. Prosperity accelerated corruption with rapid strides until the patience of Deity had reached its lirnit. Consumption and utter destruction of the antichristian apostasy were predetermined at a time duly fixed and revealed. The Lawless Power, ho Anomos, "that opposeth and exalteth itself over all called god, or reverenced; so that he in the temple of the god as a god sitteth, showing forth himself that he is a god;" this absolute power, styled in Dan. 11:36-39, "the king who does according to his will, and exalts himself and magnifies himself above every god," was to prosper till the indignation against Israel be accomplished. He is then to stand up against the Prince of princes (Dan. 8:25), who will consume him with the Spirit of his mouth, and destroy him with the manifestation of his presence" - 2 Thess. 2:4-8. This is the consummation that presents itself as the completion of the Seventh Seal prophecy; during all of which this the Antichrist is seen developing itself with intense ferocity and impiety against "the Deity, his name, his tabernacle and them that dwell in the heaven" - Apoc. 13:6. It was not intended to permit the Mystery of Iniquity to attain to instantaneous maturity as soon as the Woman gave birth to her man-child. He had been nine months of years in coming to the birth, and it was determined that he should pass through youth and middle age to the decrepitude of all things human. But though the Antichrist was to

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prosper till the time appointed for his destruction by the saints, he was not to be free from the troubles and ills of "the present evil world," in which "there is no peace for the wicked, saith Yahweh; for they are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." It is not compatible with the honor and goodness of God to allow them to rest while they are blaspheming him and Oppressing and destroying his people. In the absence, therefore, of "the Son of his handmaiden," Mary - "the Son of man at his right hand whom he hath made strong for himself" - He uses the wicked as his sword (Psa. 17:13) to torment one another for their abominations, until the time appointed for the sword of judgment to be committed to the saints, and the power of the wicked be by them destroyed.

All things are of God, and "there is no power but of him. The powers that be have been put in order under the Deity." He creates evil in punishment of sin. He makes evil powers a terror to evil doers, who all subsist by his permission, and by that only. Thus he tolerates as powers combinations of men whose principles and practices are his abomination. Evil being in the world as a present necessity, he gives shape and Organization to it, so that it may work out his own purposes to the confusion and overthrow of the agents through whom he operates. He does not leave the evil of this world to develop a chapter of accidents, and to run riot as chance may occasion. Had he done so, the Apocalypse would never have seen the light; for this remarkable instrument is a rehearsal before the performance of the prearranged and methodical development of the evil predestined to fall upon the Children of Jezebel" for their worship of demons and images, and for their murders, sorceries, fornication, and thefts - Apoc. 11:20,21. These were, and continue to be, the crimes of the "Holy Catholic Church," and its family of "Denominations" and "Names of Blasphemy," which recognize it as "the Mother Church." Its superstition became excessive and its demoralization extreme. "The christians of the seventh century," says Gibbon, "had relapsed into a semblance of Paganism; their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East; the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished on the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess."

The Seventh Seal, then, being inducted by the completion of the work of the angel ascending from the East for the sealing of the 144,000, the time had come for the loosing of the Four Wind-Trumpet judgments against the men of the Western Leg of the Imperial Catholic

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dominion. The full effect of these four trumpets was the slaying of the sixth, or imperial, head of Daniel's Fourth Beast. This "wound by a sword" appeared for a long time to be unto death. For "the third part of a day and the third part of a night," it lay prostrate as it were in death; but at the end of that period "the deadly wound was healed;" and the Imperial Head once more stood conspicuously before the nations as the sun of the Western World.

Another important result of these trumpets was the development of the Seventh Head of the Dragon-Beast in the place of its throne, that is, in Rome. This was to continue only a short space compared with its predecessor. After sixty years it was abolished; and for many years after, the sovereignty of "the Eternal City" was simply an affair of history.

Lastly, in addition to these events, the striving of the winds upon the great sea-nations caused the budding forth of the Horns upon the territory on which also the Sixth Head afterwards thrust itself into position on recovering from its deadly wound, and before which three of the ten horns fell, and were "plucked up by the roots." Thus, the judgments of the first four trumpets laid the foundation of what afterwards became the Europe of modern times.

But these scourges did not affect the Catholics of the East. Their hearths and temples were still protected from the fire and sword of the destroyer. The wrath of God upon their coreligionists of the West, however, failed to work repentance in them for their worship of "the ghosts" of dead men and women, adoration of images, murder of the saints; their sorceries, fornication, and thefts. In twenty years alone of this wind-trumpet period - that, namely, ending in the settlement of Italy by Justinian's Pragmatic Sanction, A.D. 554 - Italy and Africa lost nearly twenty millions of their inhabitants. Yet did not this cause reformation; but men went on waxing worse and worse, until the time came that they must be tormented with scorpions and killed with serpent fire.

This was the mission of the first two Woe-Trumpet angels, and constitutes the second part of the Seventh Seal. The first woe-trumpet was not to extinguish the "Holy Catholic" sovereignty of the East, but only to torment with the plagues of war "those men who had not the seal of God in their foreheads;" that is, all of the Greek Catholic superstition in contrast to the saints, who in all ages are the sealed of the Father.

The second woe-trumpet was to consummate what the first had only began. It was to extinguish the supremacy of Greek Catholicism over all the territory destined for subjugation by the powers brought

upon the arena by these woes. But, as these two woes in their operation upon the Eastern Leg of Nebuchadnezzar's Image wrought no more repentance upon the Latin Catholics of the Western than the first four trumpets did upon their coreligionists of the East, the judgments of the second woe were apportioned also to the catholics of the Horn-Kingdoms of the Sea-Beast. Hence the second woe-trumpet period, in its second part, comprehends the time of the prophesying of the Two Witnesses against the Sea-Beast, in which they exercise their power to shut up his heaven, and to smite his territory with all plagues as often as they will. It also comprehends the later period of the crusades, in which multitudes of the Sea-Beast, and Earth-Beast, and Image of the Beast, populations, all demon-and-image-worshipping devotees, fell by the operation of these woes. Other "voices" of the second woe were the killing of the witnesses as the result of a war upon them by the authorities of the Sea-Beast - a war waged against them when they were about finishing their testimony - and Papal and Protestant factions became the antagonist rivalries of the West. Another "voice" was the resurrection of the witnessing bodies, their ascent to power, and the reign of terror in which they took direful vengeance upon the civil and ecclesiastical orders of the Laodicean Apostasy, which had put them to death three days and a half of years before.

The ending of the second woe, at the ascription of glory to the God of heaven, A.D. 1794, prepares us to enter upon the Third Part or Section of the Seventh Seal. This is the Seventh Trumpet or Third Woe. This period brings us to a comparatively recent epoch in the relations of the Apostasy. The so-called "Holy Catholic Church" and its "Branches," the "Names of Blasphemy," of which the "Scarlet-Colored Beast" is "full," in other words, the Roman Mother Church and her brood of rebellious and protesting bastards were not one whit less blasphemous, or nearer the truth, or walking less after "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," after all the dreadful judgments of the first six trumpets, than were their Laodicean Fathers fourteen centuries before. They still caused to be visited with imprisonment, torture, civil disabilities, or death, "as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast," and compelled "all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." They still continued their priestly fornication, "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." Their robbery of the people in tithes and offerings, under the deceitful pretense of curing

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their souls, was as rampant as ever. Sheer infidelity, or a barren formalism, characterized the more 'liberal and enlightened" sections of the "Christendom" of the Beast and Image of the Beast. Pietism was the substitute for "sound doctrine," which could not be endured; and the Law of Faith and the obedience it required were universally ignored. The pietism was the blind superstition of sect, with unreasoning assent to the dogmas of creeds and articles ordained by the authority of Catholicism bewitched, and upheld by the force of "pike and gun." The witnesses against these things being spiritually and civilly dead, though unburied, there were none to disturb the quiet into which the established orders of the Beast in Church and State, and the "many waters," or multitudes, they controlled, had settled themselves for the tranquil and unlimited enjoyment of their estate. They rejoiced that they could be no more tormented by the prophesyings of witnesses they had slain, and that now all would be "merry" as a marriage-feast.

But "woe to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the voices of that trumpet that was yet to sound." Their political fabric was shaken by a great popular convulsion, which announced that their tormentors had come to life again, and were preparing to go forth and to renew the conflict with the kings, priests, and aristocratic orders of the Beast and his Image, which had "overcome and killed them" for a time. This conflict was renewed by the witnesses against the Beast, and is consummated by Jesus and his Brethren, the saints, after his advent and their resurrection. When the Seventh Trumpet shall have completed its soundings, "the mystery of the Deity will be finished, as He hath declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets." The Mother Church and her harlot progeny, with all that sustain the existing order of things, are woebestruck under this third and last section of the Seventh Seal. Their kingdom is filled with darkness, and they gnaw their tongues for pain; yet repent they neither to give God glory, nor of their blasphemies and deeds.

What, then, remains for such a generation but capture and "destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power?" The Laodicean Apostasy in its Greek, Latin, and Protestant forms, can only be destroyed by this judicial manifestation of the presence of the Lord Jesus. When judgment is given to him, judgment is also given to the saints, for He is one of them, being the head of their body, or Chief. To him and them is assigned the deliverance of the nations in the only way they can be delivered, by that, namely, of "destroying them who destroy the earth" - ch. 11:18. To attempt to reform the world by any agency extant is useless. Mankind is intoxicated, and therefore insane, and beyond the reach, consequently, of any

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spiritual amendment resulting from any appeal to their understanding based upon "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ." The people are brutish, and their most revered leaders in church and state maniacally hallucinated. Nothing can be done with individuals or nations until their attention is gained; and all public meetings show that the blind multitude will only listen to that which flatters them, or is spoken in accordance with their prejudices. "When the judgments of Yahweh are abroad in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" - Isa. 26. This is certain. Nothing but judgment can meet the necessities of the case; for the same authority saith, "Let favor be showed to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness." Now the decree has gone forth, that from the rising to the setting of the sun all nations shall assemble in a certain appointed way to worship the one King of the whole earth in Jerusalem - Zech. 14:9,17; Mal. 1:11; Apoc. 15:4; for the reason given, "because his judgments are made manifest." By these judgments the Eternal Spirit in corporeal manifestation will "avenge the heaven, the holy apostles, and prophets on their enemies;" visit with a just punishment the Apostasy in all its unhallowed forms, and expel from the high places of the Dragon-Beast all its spirituals of wickedness, that "the kingdoms of this world may become the Kingdoms of Yahweh and of His anointed" - Apoc. 11:15; and all their subject nations be blessed in Abraham and his seed according to "the Gospel of the Kingdom."

Now, the judgments that are to accomplish all these results are those to be displayed "in the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel when he shall sound" - ch. 10:7. This seventh trumpet is the trumpet of Isa. 18:3; 27:13; Zech. 9:14;Matt. 24:13; l Cor. 15:52 ; l Thess. 4:16. It is the conclusion of the premises laid by the sounding of the previous six. This seventh apocalyptic trumpet in the seventh period of its sounding brings out the events prefigured in the Mosaic trumpet of the Jubilee. It brings in its consummation "the Atonement," or Covering Over, of the sins of Israel, liberty from their long previous bondage to the House of Esau, and return to their possessions in the Holy Land - Lev. 25:9,10. The assembling of the tribes is proclaimed, and their camps are marshalled for their journeyings. The princes, heads of the thousands of Israel, i.e., the saints, gather together unto Christ, and Israel is saved from their enemies - Num. 10:2,4,9; 1 Thess. 4:16; 2 Thess. 2:1.

In Isa. 27:13, it is styled "the Great Trumpet," which Zech. 9:14, testifies shall be blown by ADONAI YAHWEH, rendered "Lord God," in the C.V., but literally, He who shall be Lords, that is, by the Eternal Spirit incarnate in Jesus and his Brethren. When Jericho was to be taken

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there were seven periods appointed for the sounding of trumpets. One trumpet-sounding was blown daily for six successive days; but on the seventh they sounded seven times, and at the seventh time the wall of the city fell and Jericho was taken. Thus there were thirteen circumurban soundings seven upon as many days, and six additional on the seventh; but at the thirteenth only was the city destroyed. So in relation to the capture and destruction of Babylon by the Saints. The seven trumpets all sound against her during seven successive periods; but on the seventh period, or last day of sounding, there are seven soundings, apocalyptically styled "Vials." Six are developed, but "the great city" is not fallen. At last, the seventh vial-outpouring, or blast, of the seventh day sounding is manifested by ADONAI YAHWEH; "and the people shout, for the Lord hath given them the city." The Lord Jesus and the Saints cooperate personally and visibly in the executing of "the judgment written," which especially pertains to the Seventh Vial, or last period of the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet.

This is the last and greatest of the "Woes." It is, in its seventh period, 'the time of Jacob's trouble, out of which, however, he shall be saved" - Jer. 30:7. But not of Jacob only, but also of 'the House of Esau," which shall be as stubble to the devouring flame, when "saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be Yahweh's" - Obad. 17-21; for at that time, which is "the time of the end," when 'the indignation shall be accomplished, and that determined done" - "Michael shall stand up, the great prince who standeth for the posterity of Daniel's people; and there shall be a time of trouble, apocalyptically represented by "a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great" (ch. 16:18) - or, as Dan. 12:1, expresses it, 'a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time." Then will the dead who have walked in the truth be raised to incorruptibility; and the Son of Man will send his messengers with a trumpet of great voice, and they shall gather together his elect ones from all the nations, from the end of the heavens; and they shall return -- Deut. 30:3-5; Matt. 24:31.

The sounding of the seventh trumpet results in the fall of Babylon the Great, the abolition of the powers of the world, and the establishment of the kingdom which is possessed by Jesus and his Brethren for a thousand years. These mighty results are not effected in an instant. The angels, or agents, of the vials encompass the city six times before judgment is assumed by Jesus and his Brethren. Hence, before their mission in the tragedy is evolved, the five vials are poured out upon "the earth." "the sea," 'the rivers and fountains of waters," "the Page 99

sun," and "the throne and kingdom of the Beast." The judgments of these vials of the Seventh Trumpet do not work repentance in the Laodiceans, but only anguish, because of their "pains and sores." They affect chiefly antichristendom - the Horns, Sixth Healed Head, and Image; i.e., the Horns and Eighth Head.

The Sixth Vial has primarily to do with the eastern section of the fourth beast territory. Its judgments are poured out upon the Euphratean district, where the third part of the men of the Laodicean Apostasy had been politically killed by the messenger powers confined, until loosed, by the Euphrates. Under this vial the time comes to dry up the power which keeps them in vassalage and subject. Not, however, for their sake, and for their restoration to their former position, but as a preparation for the establishment of that EASTERN KINGDOM which is to be possessed by the Theistic Kings, the Saints, and is to rule over all the earth.

This vial is divisible into four parts, each part being characterized by a notable series of events. The drying up of the Euphrates is characteristic of the first part; the political wonder-working of the frog-like spirits of demons, the second; the Eternal Spirit's advent in Jesus and the Saints, the third; and the postadventual gathering of the powers that be into Armageddon, the fourth.

The second part has to do with the whole Laodicean Habitable apportioned to the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, whose policies developed by the machinations of the Frog Power bring them into position for conflict with Jesus and his Brethren, styled "the war of the great day of Ail-shaddai," or God Almighty.

The third part has to do with the affairs of the Saints exclusively, and belongs to the things written on the inside of the scroll. It announces the appearance of "the Lord, the Spirit," and the blessing at this time of all Saints who shall not be found naked or uncovered. In this part of the sixth vial, "the King comes in to see the guests furnished for the wedding" - Matt. 22:10,11; and to scrutinize them, that it may be seen who of them are fit associates for his majesty, and who are not. At this epoch "the Great White Throne" is placed, styled by Paul in Rom. 14:10; and 2 Cor. 5:10, "the Judgment Seat of Christ," before which all constitutionally in Christ appear. They stand before it bodies, or living souls, such as Adam was when he was created from dust of the ground. Their resurrection brings them back to nature, and so restores to them identity, and enables them to "give account of themselves to God." Paul will be there to give account of himself among the rest. All called saints, who by the gospel have been invited to the Kingdom, who cannot give a good account of them-

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selves; who, in other words, have been "walking after the flesh, or "sowing to the flesh," between their immersion into Christ and their death, will be pronounced "naked," not having "watched and kept their garments." These will therefore be put to shame and contempt, and will be condemned to "receive things in body" accordant with their deeds - Matt. 16:27; Rom. 2:6. Negatively, they will not be "accepted of Christ;" they will not be "clothed upon with the house from heaven;" "immortality will" not "be swallowed up of life;" they will not be permitted to "eat of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of the Deity;" but affirmatively, they will be "injured by second death;" they will be "blotted out of the book of the living;" they will "die" and "reap corruption" - Apoc. 2:11; Psa. 69:28; Rom. 8:13; Gal. 6:8. Thus, they will receive in bodies natural "bad things" according to their previous works, which they could not do if by resurrection per se they were of necessity incorruptible and immortal.

Judgment at the house of God being ended (1 Pet. 4:17) by the separation of the good and bad fish enclosed by the gospel net (Matt. 13:47,48), the good are appropriated by the Lamb for future use. Cleansed and purified from tares they constitute the wheat of his garner. All "false brethren," and mere pretenders, not having on the wedding garment, being cast into outer darkness, those who are accepted by the King as "holy, unblamable, and irreproachable in his sight" (Col. 1:22), "enter in through the gates into the holy city" -Apoc. 22:14; and become "the 144,000 having the Lamb's Father's name written on their foreheads" - ch. 14:1. These accepted ones are the saints to whom judgment is given for the destruction of the Fourth Beast - Dan. 7:22,26. "They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth" in all the scenes and enterprises of "the war of the great day of Ail-Shaddai," until they are seen no longer as the Rainbowed Angel with feet as pillars of fire - ch. 10:1; but under the new aspect of Divine Harpers standing on a sea of crystal, no longer "mingled with fire," as the conquerors of the beast and all pertaining to that hateful dominion, singing the song of victory - the song of Moses and the Lamb-ch. 15:2.

Thus, the events of this third part of the sixth vial are an organization and preparation of the Stone-Power - the cutting of the Stone out of the mountain without hands - Dan. 2:45; for the work of smiting Nebuchadnezzar's Image on the feet, and of reducing the broken pieces to powder, light as the chaff of the summer threshing floors, that all may be carried away of the tempest and found no more. The Stone-Power is constituted of the Eternal Spirit, or Deity, manifested in Jesus and the Saints, "glorified together," and directing

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and leading the tribes of Israel, and the mixed multitude commingled with them. At this time, and thus officered and commanded, Israel will have arrived at "their latter end;" have been made "willing;" and have been energized for "one to chase a thousand, and for two to put ten thousand of their enemies to flight" - Deut. 32:29,30. "Yahweh Elohim," the Spirit incarnate in Jesus and his Brethren "is with them and the shout of the King is among them." They have now "the' strength of the unicorn; and are risen up as a great lion, and lifted up as a young lion; and shall not lie down until he devour the prey, and drink the blood of the slain." The time now comes for the King of Israel to be higher than Gog, or Agag; and for his kingdom to be exalted. Thus officered, and commanded by Michael the Great Prince, "he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows." In this third part of the sixth vial, the Star of Jacob prepares to shine forth as Israel's Sceptre, and to smite the princes of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth - him that remaineth of the city - Num .23:21,24; 24:7,8,14,17-19.

The saints being "gathered together unto Christ," his day is come; and the due season at length arrived for the consumption and destruction of the Lawless One by the spirit of his mouth, and the manifestation of his presence - 2 Thess. 2:1-8. All things being thus ready, the messenger-power of the Sixth vial proceeds to the gathering of the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, into Armageddon. This introduces the fourth part of the vial, and creates the situation necessary to the parallel outpouring of the seventh. In this fourth section of the vial-period the peoples will associate themselves against Israel, in whose midst Immanuel now is; and, under the fiery flying serpent of Assyria, will rush as the rushing of many waters, and with the sound of the roaring seas, to spoil and scatter them - Isa. 8:9,10; 14:25,29; 17:12-14. They will ascend like a storm-cloud to cover the land in this the day of Yahweh's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion - Isa. 34:1-8; 63:1-6. He will cause them to come up from the north parts, and bring them upon the mountains of Israel, which are the apocalyptic 'Armageddon" - Ezek. 38:9; 39:2,4. There, under the king of the north, encamped between the seas, even to the mountain of the glory of the holy (Dan. 11:41,45) will they be gathered against Jerusalem to besiege and take it, and rifle it, and to make captives of its residue - Zech. 14:2. But they will not find therein the King of Israel. By this gathering of all nations against Jerusalem, in tempestuous conflict among themselves for the possession of the holy city, which becomes to them "a cup of trembling," and "a burdensome stone" (Zech. 12:2,3) the judgments of the Sixth vial

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are closed. It will have assembled the Laodicean and other heathen in that part of Armageddon called in Joel "the valley of Jehoshaphat;" where Yahweh Elohim, the Spirit incarnate in the Saints, will sit in judgment upon them. "The mighty ones" of the Spirit having descended into the arena, or valley of decision or threshing, and its fats overflowing with multitudes upon multitudes of wicked, "the great and terrible day of Yahweh" is about to shine forth in their overthrow and destruction - Joel 3:9-14.

The fourth section of the Seventh Seal is the seventh and last vial. The judgments of this pertain emphatically to "the great and terrible day of Yahweh," styled in ch. 14:7, "the Hour of his Judgment." It is "the consummation of the seventh seal, which fills up the wrath of Deity" upon the Laodicean Apostasy. It is the vial-period in which the sea of nations is mingled with the fiery indignation of the Eternal Spirit-- ch. 15:2. It begins with Yahweh going forth to fight against the assembled nations; and in vanquishing them in Armageddon, to stand upon the Mount of Olives preparatory to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem - Zech. 14:3-4., 9:9,10; Psa. 24:7-10; 118:26; Matt. 23:39; Apoc. 14:1. This defeat consummates the outpouring of the seventh vial upon "the Air" - it shakes the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; it shakes all nations to the overthrow of the throne of kingdoms and the destruction of the strength of their dominions -Hag. 2:6,7,21,22; Joel 3:15,16. Consequent upon the full exhaustion of the vial is the darkening of the sun and moon, and the extinguishing of the stars of the Gentile aerial, by the bathing of Yahweh's sword therein. In the words of the Spirit, "all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree" - Isa. 34:4,5; Joel 3:15; and as a consequence, he before whose face this earth and heaven flee away (Apoc. 20:11) appropriates the world's kingdoms to himself and friends - Apoc. 11:15.

The overthrow of the armies of the nations in Armageddon is the manifestation of the end. Subsequently to the defeat of the enemy, by which the king effects his entrance into the Holy City, he issues a proclamation, styled "a great voice out of the temple of heaven from the throne," announcing that "It is done" - ch. 16:17; 21:16. What is done? "That which is determined" - the full accomplishment of the indignation which scatters the power of the holy people - Dan. 11:36; 12:7. The "time of the end" is finished when the angel-power of the seventh vial has poured out all the wrath upon "the air" of the Nebuchadnezzar Image: the "time, times, and a half," or 1260 years of

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Dan. 12:7, are expired; and the 1335 years of verse 12 also. This exhaustion of the indignation is styled "the consummation" in Dan. 9:27. The indignation hath its first end and its "last end" (Dan. 8:19) and between these two ends a long intermediate interval of centuries of desolation. The seventh vial is identical with "the last end," in which the Little Horn of the Goat power, "the king who doth according to his will," "the Assyrian" (Mic. 5:5), "Gog of the land of Magog," "the King of the north," Nebuchadnezzar's Image, the four great beasts from the sea, "the dragon," "the Beast and his Image," the ten horns----all terms representing "the kingdom of men" - will stand up in battle array against the Prince of princes and his faithful and chosen followers. But affliction comes upon the tents of Cushan, and those of the land of Midian are made to tremble at the Ensign lifted up upon the mountain of Israel - Hab. 3:7; Isa. 18:3. Great and terrible is the power of the Holy One in the judgments of the seventh vial. "He stands, and measures the earth; he beholds and drives asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains are scattered, and the perpetual hills do bow"; or, in the words of Apoc. 16:20, "every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but he who comes with dyed garments from Edom, is with burning and fuel of fire - Isa. 9:5; 63:1-6; 66:15,16. The armies of the kingdom of men issue forth as a whirlwind to scatter him; but vain are all their efforts; for He will march through the earth in indignation, and thresh the nations in anger; for he goes forth for the salvation of his people, and he will not be foiled.

"It is done." Is the result of the exhaustion of this vial upon "the air," the fourth beast of Daniel's vision will have been totally destroyed in all its parts, and the kingdom of God established as the sole political organization for the government of the nations. It will then be said, "Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith Adonai Yahweh; this is the day whereof I have spoken - whereof he has spoken by his servants the prophets that he would break the power of the Gentiles, when saviours should come up on Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the Kingdom should be to Yahweh" - Ezek. 39:8; Obad. 21.

Such is the general result of the Seventh vial upon 'the air." There are, however, certain stages through which judgment passes to the subversion of the existing order of things, and the establishment of that which is to last unchanged for a thousand years - "the world to come." This fourth section of the Seventh Seal is divisible into two acts, or summaries of detail. The first relates to what may be styled, the first angel mission of the seventh vial; the second, to the second and

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third angel missions of the same. The first angel mission forewarns the nations of what is prepared to burst forth upon them. It announces that the Hour of Judgment has actually arrived; and declares the glory of Yahweh among the Gentiles inhabiting Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, Javan, and the isles afar off from Jerusalem - Isa. 66:19; Apoc. 14:6. This manifesto is proclaimed after the advent and resurrection, and separation of the tares from the wheat at the judgment seat of Christ, and occupation of Jerusalem by the great king, and before the fall of Babylon by certain "of those who escape." They are sent as moshkai kesheth, "sounders of truth," to blow the great trumpet of the jubilee, and to invite all nations to do homage to the King of the Jews - Isa. 18:3; 27:13; 66:19; Lev. 25:10; Apoc. 10:11. To this proclamation succeeds the day of affliction, in which a great sacrifice is offered by Yahweh for the birds and beasts of prey - "the flesh of the mighty, and the blood of the princes of the earth" - Lev. 23:27-32; Ezek. 39:17; Apoc. 19:17.

The offering of this sacrifice is the punishment of the goats -Zech. 10:3-6; Matt. 25:31-46; and constitutes the second act of this fourth section of the seventh seal. The offering is the mission of the mighty angel with the rainbow upon his head, whose countenance is as the sun, and his progress as moving pillars of fire - Apoc. 10. He places his right foot upon the sea, and his left upon the earth, and thus takes up a burning position upon the territory of the ten-horned, and two-horned beasts of ch. 13. "The earth and the whole habitable" thus become an arena of intense conflagration, in which the Gentile body politic is given to the sword and the burning flame - Dan. 7:10,11:--"the sea" is mingled with fire, and the "the earth" becomes "a lake of fire burning with brimstone" - ch. 15:2; 19:20: - "the Aion-Fire prepared for the Devil (Dragon - ch. 20:2) and his angels" - Matt. 25:41; into which all are cast who are condemned to share in the punishment inflicted upon the goats - ch. 20:15; 14:9- II.

This rainbowed angel is symbolical of the Eternal Spirit incarnate in Jesus and his Brethren, the glorified saints, in their warfare against 'the beast and his image," over which they get the victory. He is the "Four Living Ones full of eyes," in one symbol, giving utterance to the roar of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah- Joel 3:16; 2:11; Jer. 25:30-38; Isa. 42:13-16. What proceeds from the company of actors represented by this symbol, "proceeds from the throne," whence issue forth "lightnings, thunderings, and voices" - ch. 4:5. The rainbowed messenger is the embodiment of "the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne" - of the "seven horns and seven eyes, the seven spirits of the Deity, sent forth into all the earth" - ch. 4:5; 5:6. "When

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he had cried," or made the proclamation pertaining to the first angel mission, which is responded to by the armies of the Ten Horns rushing forth as a whirlwind to scatter him (Hab. 3:14; Apoc. 17:14) "seven thunders utter their voices" - ch. 10:3. The details of these thunders are not specified. They will become history to be read by the generations to come when they shall have thundered down all opposition to the dominion of the saints. It would have swelled the apocalypse to an unwieldy size, and have greatly augmented its complications, to have recorded in detail the utterances of these thunders. John was therefore commanded to "seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and to write them not." Hence, all we can say about them is, that as "thunder," which implies lightning, is the symbol of destruction, the seven thunders augur only a bitter practical prophecy to many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings - ver. 9, 11.

But in the hand of this mighty heaven-descended Spirit-Messenger, not naked spirit, but "clothed with a cloud" of the holy and blessed of the Father, is "a little scroll open." It is not closed or rolled up like the seven-sealed scroll, but open and unsealed. It is the scroll of judgments in bitter manifestation, in current outflow from the body of John and his coworkers in the execution of the judgments written - ch. 10:9; Psa. 149:5-9. It contains the denouement of the apocalyptic tragedy---the issue of the plot, or, as Daniel was informed, "the end of the matter."

In this little open scroll is written the performances of the actors in the second and last act of the fourth section of the seventh seal. It is, therefore, the key that opens or unlocks "the Mystery of the Deity as he hath declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets" - ch. 10:7. Upon it are inscribed the missions of the second and third angels, comprehensive of the judgment of Babylon, the conquest of the Ten Horns and destruction of the Beast, and the slaying of "the remnant" not included in the symbol, by the white-robed battalions of the King of kings and Lord of lords - ch. 19.

The mission of the second angel is to destroy "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and the Abominations of the earth" - ch. 14:8. It is a work of the saints to do this; for she is "drunk with their blood, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus" - ch. 17:6; 18:4-8. Hence, they are the messenger-power of the second mission. They enlighten the nations with the glory of the co-working Spirit, so that they bring into contempt the Laodicean Apostasy in its Greek, Latin, and Protestant manifestations, causing the spiritual merchants of all privileged and unprivileged sects of "Christendom" to weep and mourn, "because no man buyeth their merchandise any more" - ch.18:11

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.

The Ecclesiastical Corporation of the Fourth Beast, by the abundance of whose spiritual delicacies the great men of all nations, styled demons, foul spirits, unclean and hateful birds, had waxed rich (ch. 18:2,3,23), being tormented to utter and final extinction from "the Air" (vv. 8,15,21) by the second symbolic angel, or Yahweh Elohim and the Saints (vv. 6,8), they continue their work in the mission of the third angel to the tormentation and destruction of the beast and false prophet-power in their civil and military organizations. The adherents of these constitutions bewail and lament the breaking up of the priest and clergy craft of 'Christendom" (vv. 9,10), showing that their political existence continues beyond the fall of that "Mystery of Iniquity." These, therefore, become the next object against which 'the holy messengers and the Lamb" direct their exterminating judgments- ch. 14:9-11. This work of destruction continues so long as the smoke of their torment ascends, which is till the body of the beast is destroyed by the burning flame that issues forth from before the Ancient of Days or, as it is apocalyptically expressed, eis aionas aionon, to aions of' aions, which is to the commencement of the thousand years' reign -Dan. 7:10,11; 2 Thess. 2:8; Apoc. 14:10,11.

This whole burnt-sacrifice of the fourth beast in the day of Yahweh's vengeance would have consummated the tragic drama of the apocalypse had there been no Gentile Remnant beyond the jurisdiction of the fourth beast. Had Daniel's vision presented before him only one beast, then there would have been no more to do than to celebrate the victory, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and so enter upon the reign. Or, had Nebuchadnezzar's Image consisted only of one metal, and been pulverized by a single blow of the stone upon the feet, the stone would at once have become a great mountain filling the whole earth. But these suppositions do not obtain. There are four beasts to be disposed of, and four metals, and a grinding of the whole to powder after the fracture of their image-combination by the stone. The fourth beast and the iron teeth and brazen claws thereof being in process of demolition by the second and third angel missions, 'the remnant (ch. 19:21), or "dragon" (ch. 20:2,3), or first three beasts of Dan. 7:4,5,6,12, are being also collaterally and coetaneously subjected to the sword of the King of kings and his white-robed squadrons of the heaven. This great potentate, riding this "white cloud" or body of celestial horse (ch. 19:11,14), 'having on his head a golden wreath and in his hand a sharp sickle" (ch. 14:14,15), reaps the harvest of the earth, and gathers the clusters of the earth's vine, and casts them into the great winepress "without the city," which he treads in anger,

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making them drunk in his fury, and so brings down their strength to the earth (Isa. 63:1-6; Joel 3:13; Apoc. 14:20).

The result of the reaping the harvest and treading the great winepress is the binding of the Dragon-power and the shutting of it up in the abyss for a thousand years; in other words, the taking away of the dominion of the Assyrian lion, the Medo-Persian bear, and the Greco Egypto-Anglican leopard, for a season and a time - Dan. 7:12. These organizations of peoples are not destroyed, as was the Babylonian fourth beast embodying the Laodicean Apostasy. They are conquered and deprived of dominion, which is transferred to their conquerors the saints, who will have brought down their strength with a sanguinary and mighty overthrow. Thus, Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Khush, Elam, Shinar, and the islands of the sea, will have felt the edge of their two-edged sword, as well as Europe and the West; for, like birds of prey, their tribes will "fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West; they will spoil them of the East together; they will lay their power upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them" (Isa. 11:11,14). The face and condition of the East will then be altogether changed. With the present spiritual and temporal constitution of 'Christendom" destroyed, and the East brought into subjection to Deity, the nations will then be truly "blessed with" and "in Abraham and his seed," as predicted in the gospel of the kingdom. Yahweh will be made known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Yahweh in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation. . . In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land; whom Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance - Isa. l9:21-25

As to the leopard, or "Philistines toward the west," the third beast, of which Egypt is a part, Tarshish and Javan, these also become a spoil in the war of the great day of Yahweh Ail-Shaddai. The Tyrian commerce of the Great Sea is turned from Britain to Palestine as a flowing stream; and "her merchandise and her hire is holiness to Yahweh; it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing" Isa 23 18; 60 5 9; 61 6 ;66 12, Psa .45:12; 72:10.

In the development of the second and third angel-missions, and in the harvesting of the earth and treading of its vintage, all the work of the seventh vial will have been accomplished. All its voices, thunders,

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and lightnings, will have been hushed into eternal silence; the vibrations of the greatest earthquake that ever shook the nations will have ceased their tremblings for ever; the threefold divisions of the great city will all have been confounded in the fall of Babylon, and the flight of every political island, and disappearance of the imperial mountains of ancient date. Jesus and his Brethren, energized by Yahweh, the Eternal Spirit, descending as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, will have beaten down the Assyrian, and swept away all refuges of lies. The Laodicean Apostasy will have been demolished and for ever abolished; and "the smoke of the temple from the glory of the Deity, and from his power, will all have cleared away, and men will enter into the temple and go out no more (Isa. 30:30; 28:2,17; 32:19; Ezek. 38:22; Apoc. 11:19; 25:8; 3:12; 16:17-21). "IT IS DONE. " "The Air" is purified of "the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies" (Eph. 6:12), and nothing remains but for the victorious saints and the conquered world of nations to celebrate the victory.

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Such is a brief sketch of this remarkable prophecy, outlined in the light of the prophets, the testimony of history, and the reality of what exists, truly brought out by the unerring principles of apostolic truth. The Apocalypse is its own evidence of its divine authenticity. Its perfect harmony with Moses and the prophets, the discourses of Christ Jesus, and the teachings of all the apostles; its unique and inimitable structure, and its complete frustration of all the attempts of "the wise and prudent" to comprehend it (Matt. 11:25), are evidences that it originated, not from John or any other of his learned or unlearned contemporaries, but from the mind of Him to whom are known all his works from the beginning. It brings to nothing "the understanding of the prudent," and resolves into outer darkness the wisdom of all the world's rulers and soul-merchants, in whatever name or denomination they may rejoice in Church and State. "If any man will do the Father's will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of the Deity" - John 7:17. No man can do his will who is not intelligent in "the truth as it is in Jesus;" because his will demands an enlightened obedience. A man, therefore, who is not an enlightened believer, is essentially deficient in the prime prerequisite qualification of an interpreter and critic of interpretations. This is the reason why there is not a single scriptural interpretation of the apocalypse extant from the days of Sir Isaac Newton to the current year. Many attempts have been made, but they have all proved failures; because their "wise and prudent" authors, being the mere embodiments of the dogmatic pietism sanctified in the world's opinion by the "names of blasphemy" of which "the scarlet

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colored beast," in contemporary existence with Christ's advent, is "full" (ch. 17:3), are necessarily ignorant of 'the first principles of the oracles of God." A man cannot be loyal and true to his Romish or Protestant creed and understand the apocalypse. His head will be full of immortal soulism, heaven beyond the realrns of time and space, purgatory, mariolatry and saint-worship, eternal subterranean hells, baby-ghosts transformed into angels studding the cloudy vapors of the air, and of all other speculations kindred to these. Such a wise and prudent genius mistakes a community of confessed "miserable sinners," assembling in an ecclesiastical temple of the dead, and rejoicing in the Queen as their head, for the Church of Christ, and looks only for saints in "sainted" sinners translated to the skies! Such a "theologian," be he lay or clerical, conformist or dissenter, never has, and never can, understand the apocalypse till he abandons these traditions of the Apostasy.

The author of this work does not address himself to such. He writes of them as an interpretation of the book that delineates the terrible catastrophe coming upon them demands; but he writes for "the servants of the Deity," that they may read and understand. Lest, therefore, the sketch already given should fall short of that simplicity necessary to the comprehension of the apocalypse by the least intelligent of his brethren in Christ, the author invites their attention to the following "Tabular Analysis," which presents, as it were, synoptically, the subject matter of the previous sketch. The method of the Analysis is suggested by the Apocalypse itself. The first general division of the prophecy contains the first five chapters; the second, the seven sealed scroll; the third, that portion pertaining to the introduction of the thousand years' reign, or kingdom of God; the fourth, the prophecy of millennial blessedness; and the fifth, the prophecy of the "little season." These divisions must not be confounded with the divisions of the scroll; for the two divisions of the scroll are comprehended in the second general division of the prophecy.

The Roman figures, I., II., III., IV., V., prefixed to certain captions of the Analysis, indicate that all following that title belongs to the divisions so numbered.

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TABULAR ANALYSIS OF THE APOCALYPSE

GENERAL SUBJECT

A REVELATION symbolically and dramatically exhibited of the enmity between the Serpent and his Seed, and the Woman and her Seed, as especially developed in the conflict between CHRIST AND His BRETHREN with Daniel's Fourth Beast System of Powers: of the judgments retributively affecting these; of the sufferings of Christ's Brethren in the conflict; of their subjugation until the ANCIENT OF DAYS appear; of the subsequent overthrow and destruction of the Powers of the World by Christ and His Brethren; and of the consequent establishment of the Kingdom and Throne of David promised to the saints, and never to be destroyed.

Gen. 3:15; Dan. 2:44; 7:21,22,26,27; Apoc. 6-20:5; Heb. 2:11-14.

TIME OF DEVELOPMENT

From A.D. 107 to A.D. 1905 = A.M. 5995.

GENERAL DIVISIONS

I. The Seven Apocalyptic Epistles to the Seven Representative Ecciesias. II. The Seven-Sealed Scroll. III. The Little Open Scroll containing the utterances of the Seven Thunders from the throne, which John was forbidden to write. IV. The prophecy of Millennial Blessedness. V. Prophecy of the "Little Season."

I. THE SEVEN APOCALYPTIC EPISTHES

(See the First Volume, page 428)

II. THE SEVEN-SEALED SCROLL

1. FIRST GENERAL DIVISION OF THE SCROLL

The First Four and the Sixth Seals representative of the judicial manner of "taking out of the way" the PAGAN OONSTITUTION of the "Dreadful and Terrible Fourth Beast," which withheld the revelation of "the LAWLESS ONE;" (Dan. 7:7; Apoc. 6; 2 Thess. 2:3-9) and the consequent manifestation of the CATHOLIC MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, or Man-of-Sin Power, in the Heaven of the said beast, or "Great Red Dragon" (Apoc. 12:1-5, 7-13).

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 107 to A.D. 325

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2. SECOND GENERAL DIVISION OF THE SCROLL

The Seventh Seal, Seven Trumpets, and the Six Vials to the appearing of Christ "as a thief;" exhibiting the development of the Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast, in the wounding of the Sixth Head and establishment of the Seventh (Apoc. 7,8); the subversion of the Greek Catholic Dynasty of Constantinople (Apoc. 9); the rising of Daniel's Episcopal Horn, or Eighth Head, that speaks blasphemies and "as a dragon" (Apoc. 13:1-5, 11-18; 17); the war of the saints with this power; their subjugation, death, resurrection, and ascension to the heaven, at the ending of the Sixth Trumpet (Apoc. 11:3-12; 12:14,16,17; 13:6-10); judgments upon their enemies, the Horns, Eighth Head, and Image (Apoc. 6:1-11), and the preparation of their way (Apoc. 16:12-14).

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 325 to the Fall Seasons of A.D. 1864-8, or thereabouts.

III. THE LIT'TLE OPEN SCROLL

The Seventh Seal, Seventh Trumpet, Seventh Vial, and Seven Thunders from the manifestation of Christ and his Brethren as the Lamb in the midst of the 144,000 redeemed from the earth, to the full establishment of the Millennial Throne and Kingdom of David upon the utter destruction of Daniel's Dreadful and Terrible Fourth Beast; and the subjection of the first three, or the Lion, the Bear and the Leopard.

Apoc. 4:5; 5:5-14; 7:9-17; 10; 11:15-19; 13:10; 14; 15; 16:15-21; 17:14; 18; 19; 20:1-6, 11-15; 21:8.

TIME OF EVENTS

"The Time of the End," (Daniel 8:17; 11:40; 12:14) from the Quadrennial Epoch, A.D. 1864-8 to A.D. 1905.

IV. THE PROPHECY OF MILLENNIAL BLESSEDNESS

Millennial blessedness and glory pervade the earth, and all its nations are "blessed in Abraham and his Seed," acoording to the Gospel. The government of the world being in the hands of Jesus and his Brethren, there is "glory to the Deity in the highest heaven, over the earth peace, and good will among men," who all rejoice in their great deliverance from the tyranny and misrule of the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies of Church and State.

Daniel 7:14,27; Apoc 513 1413 1534 206 21927 221-5.

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 1905* to A.D. 2905 (*)

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V PROPHECY OF THE "LITILE SEASON"

The Postmillennial "Little Season," when the Adversaries of righteousness administered by the saints in Church and State, will get up a widespread rebellion against their government. War ensues, and their camp and capitol are invested; but the power of the administration prevails; and with the suppression of the insurrection, the time comes to consummate the work of "taking away the sin of the world," in the destruction of "the last enemy" - of "that having the power of death," and of "the works of the Devil."

Apoc. 20:7-10; 21:1,3-7; 22:3; 1 Cor. 15:24-28; Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:8.

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 2905 to A.D. 2910 = A.M. 7000

(*) Dr. Thomas' anticipations of the time of the Lord's return proved premature. See comment upon this fact, and the suggested reason for it on p. 1O.

SPECIAL DIVISIONS

OF THE

APOCALYPTIC TRAGEDY

1.THE FIRST SIX SEALS

ACT I. - SEAL 1

The ARCHER of the white horse goes forth from the Lamb with his bow, on a career of conquest - ch. 6:1,2.

ACT II- SEAL 2

The rider of the red horse puts an end to the previous peace, and involves the populations of the Fourth Beast polity in bloody civil wars-- ch. 6:3,4.

ACT 111-SEAL 3

The Greco-Latin Horse black with lamentation, mourning and woe - ch. 6:5,6.

ACTS IV - SEAL 4

War, famine, pestilence, and barbarian invasion combined, sickly over the Roman Horse with the pale cast of death and corruption -ch. 6:7,8.

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ACT V - SEAL 5

A period of great resistance unto blood on the part of the Bowmen engaged in the conquest of the paganism of the Fourth Beast - ch. 6:9-11.

ACT VI- SEAL 6

A great earthquake inaugurates this judicial period. War in the heaven, (Apoc. 12:7) resulting in an eclipse of the sun, in the moon becoming blood, in stars of the heaven, the stars drawn by the tail of the Dragon, falling to the earth, and in the casting out thereinto of the great red dragon (Apoc. 12:4). The heaven of the Dragon-polity departs as a scroll rolled up; and every mountain and island change their places. The angels of the dragon are cast out with him (Apoc. 12:9). No place for them any more in the heaven from which they are ejected having been effectually conquered by the Archer - the fellow servants and brethren of the souls under the altar; who conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, on account of which they were slain, not loving their lives unto death (Apoc. 12:11; 6:9). Great rejoicing in the heavens by them who succeed the ejected dragon and his officials, who rage with great fury in the earth and sea of their late dominion (Apoc. 12:12). The great day of wrath upon paganism.

The woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, the Laodicean Apostasy, imperialized, and the Man-of-Sin power revealed (Apoc.2:20; 3:16; 12:1-5).

II. THE SEVENTH SEAL

Apoc. 8

This seal covers the whole period from A.D. 325 to A.D. 1905, an interval of 1580 years. It therefore contains the judgments specially allotted to the seven trumpets, seven vials, and seven thunders.

It treats of the development of the imperialized Laodicean Apostasy into "the powers that be" of the Greco-Latin habitable under the forms of the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth, (Apoc. 13) the scarlet-colored beast and drunken woman (Apoc. 17:1-6), the image of the Beast, (Apoc. 13:14-18; 15:2), and of the relation of these powers to the fugitive woman and to the remnant of her seed "who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Apoc. 12:17). They are prevailed against (Apoc. 13:7; 11:2; Dan. 7:21); but the Ancient of Days comes to their relief; the tide of adversity is turned; the Saints become victorious; the Apostasy

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incorporated in the Names and Denominations of "Christendom," is abolished; and they take possession of the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven (Dan. 7:27) of Daniel's Four Beasts.

ARENA OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

'The Earth and the whole Habitable" (Apoc. 16:14). Territory of Nebuchadnezzar's Image.

INDUCTION OF THE JUDGMENTS OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

Though cast out of the third of the Heaven, as indicated by his Tail drawing the third of the stars of the heaven, and casting them into the earth (Apoc. 12:4), the Dragon still retained power in "the earth and sea" of the Greco-Latin Polity (Apoc. 12:12,13,15,16; 7:3). His power there was a "woe" to their indwellers, not excepting those who professed the faith of Jesus. Retribution, however, followed in his entire exclusion from the Heaven A.D. 324; upon which the Sealing of the 144,000 servants of the Deity, and the period of 'Silence" about half an hour, began. Further retribution was suspended during the silence; but this being ended, the prayers of all the saints which ascended during the silence as a cloud of incense from the Golden Altar of the Tabernacle of the Testimony before the Deity, was answered by "voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and earthquake," (Apoc. 12:8; 8:3,4) which preceded the Preparation of the Seven Trumpeters to sound against the earth and sea (Apoc. 8:6).

FIRST SECTION OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

The four winds of the earth for the injury of the earth, sea, and trees-ch. 7:1.

PREPARATION FOR SOUNDING

Seven angels having the seven trumpets prepare themselves to sound - ch. 8:6.

BLOWING OF THE FOUR WINDS, OR FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS

ACT I. - FIRST WIND-TRUMPET

Apoc. 8:7

The hurting of the earth by hail and fire mingled with blood; by which a third part of the trees, and all green grass is burned up.

ARENA The third part of the Fourth Beast habitable. A.D. 395

ACT Il-SECOND WIND-TRUMPET

Ch. 8:8,9.

The hurting of the sea by a great mountain burning with fire being cast into it; by which the third of the sea became blood; the third of its living creatures died; and the third of its ships was destroyed.

ARENA - The third part of the sea of the Greco-Latin empire.

A.D. 429.

ACT III- THIRD WIND-TRUMPET

Ch. 8:10,11

The poisoning of the third of the rivers and fountains of waters with a deadly bitterness, by the great blazing star, Wormwood, falling from the heaven into them, and causing the death of many.

ARENA The third of the rivers and fountains of the empire.

A.D. 450

ACT IV. - FOURTH WIND-TRUMPET

Ch. 8:12.

The darkening of the third of the luminaries of the Greco-Latin Catholic firmament by smiting them; so that the day and the night of their system were without ruling lights, and, therefore, shone not the third of them.

A.D. 476

NOTE

The judgments of these Four Winds culminate in the development of the Seventh Head, which "continues a short space," (Apoc. 17:10) and of the Ten Diademed Horns of the Beast that rises out of the sea; (Apoc. 13:1); in the "wounding as it were to death" of its Sixth Head; (Apoc. 13:3) and in the consequent cession by the Dragon of his power, throne, and authority (Apoc. 13:2) over the affected third part, which, before the blowing of these winds, was a constituent of his dominion.

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 395 to A.D. 554, the end of the darkened day and night in the third of them, being equal to a period of 159 years.

SECOND SECTION OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

Apoc. 9

The first two woe trumpets.

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ACT I. - FIFTH TRUMPET OR FIRST WOE

Apoc. 9:1-11.

A star falls from heaven into the earth, to whom is given the key of the pit of the abyss, which he opens, and from its furnace a smoke issues that darkens the sun and air. Out of the smoke locusts go forth into the earth with scorpion power to torment "those men who have not the seal of the Deity upon their foreheads," during five months, and to injure them other five. Their king is styled the Angel of the Abyss; in Hebrew, Abaddon; in Greek, Apollyon.

TIME OF EVENTS.

From A.D. 632 to A.D. 932 = 300 years.

ARENA - The territory of the Dragon upon which "the sun" shone before being darkened by the smoke.

ACT II. - SIXTH TRUMPET OR SECOND WOE

EASTERN PART

Apoc. 9:13-21

Still in response to the prayers of all saints, a voice from the four horns of the golden altar of incense commands the four messenger powers, confined by the great river Euphrates, to be loosed. They are prepared for successful aggression against the Byzantine empire during the hour and day and month and year, that, at the end of this period, they may slay with political extinction the power of the men who ruled the Eastern Third of the Roman orb, and worshipped demons and images, and were murderers, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and thieves; and had not been smitten by the judgments of the wind trumpets.

TIME OF EVENTS

From April 29, 1062, to May 29, 1453 = 391 years 30 days.

WESTERN PART

Apoc. 11:1-13.

The fugitive woman in the wilderness and the remnant of her seed, as the nave of the Deity, the altar and the worshippers therein, measured by John. These are the holy city, and posterior to their measurement, are trodden under foot forty and two months by the Lion-Mouthed Gentiles of the unmeasured outer court; that is, until the Ancient of Days comes.

But "the earth helps the woman" from the time of her flight into the wilderness of the two wings of the Great Eagle, where she is

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protected for a time, times, and half a time (Apoc. ~:16,14). To "the earth," as the two witnesses against the woman's persecutors power is given to maintain their testimony in sackcloth 1260 days. In exercise of their mission, they smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will. At length the Lion-Mouthed Beast of the Sea effects their subjugation and political extinction. But after three days and a If they stand upon their feet again, and ascend to the heaven in sight their enemies. At this crisis, an earthquake overthrows a tenth of the city, "Babylon the Great;" titular distinctions within the sphere of the convulsion are abolished, and many of those who rejoice in them slain; rest are terror stricken, and give glory to the God of heaven.

During the testifying of the witnesses the Ten Horns, the two homed beast of the earth, and the image of the wounded sixth head of beast, appear upon the arena.

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 312 to A.D. 1794, a period of 1482 years.

THIRD SECTION OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

So much of the seventh trumpet or third woe as is comprised in the first six vials to the advent of Christ as a thief - ch. 16:15.

ACT III. - SEVENTH TRUMPET OR THIRD WOE

Apoc. 11:14; 8:13.

The judgments of this last woe extend to the end of the Seventh al, or victory of the saints over the beast, his image, his mark, and .number of his name (Apoc. 15:2). In the days of the voice of this woe when its calamities shall be complete, the mystery of the Deity will be finished, as he hath declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets (Apoc. 10:7). The Eloah of the heavens will then have set up kingdom (Dan. 2:44) promised to them that obey him (James 2:5); that the kingdoms of this world will all have become Yahweh's and His Anointed's (Rev. 11:15), who reigns for the aions of the aions.

But before this glorious and blessed consummation, Yahweh Ail Shaddai, the Ancient of Days, comes in (Zech. 14:5), upon the world a thief in the night (Apoc. 16:15). This is indispensable, because it is ' personal mission to accomplish it (Isa. 40:10). At his coming the nations will be in a state of anger among themselves, with distress and perplexity; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the habitable (Luke 21:25).

In the midst of this the saints are raised from the dead to their

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judgment; after which all of them who are approved and chosen are recognized by the Lamb as constituents of the 144,000, and follow him whithersoever he goes (Apoc. 14:1-4). Being approved, judgment is given to them for execution upon many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings (Apoc. 10:11); in the rendering of which there issue from them lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail, every stone being about the weight of a talent (Apoc. 11:19; 16:21).

ARENA The whole habitable of Daniel's four Beasts.

FIRST SIX SPECIAL DIVISIONS OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET,

OR THIRD WOE.

ACT I. - FIRST VIAL

Apoc. 16:2

The pouring out of wrath in the form of a noisome and grievous sore upon that part of the earth inhabited and ruled by those having the mark of the beast, and who worship his image.

ACT Il-SECOND VIAL Verse 3

The pouring out of wrath upon the apocalyptic sea, making it as the blood of a corpse; so that every living soul therein died.

ACT III. - THIRD VIAL. Verses 8,9

The outpouring of wrath by which the rivers and fountains of waters of the beast's dominion are turned into blood, in righteous retribution for the cruelties of his Lion Mouth, perpetrated in that section of his empire upon the saints and prophets whom he had subjugated and killed. This vial gives their "destroyer" (Apoc. 11:18) blood to drink.

ACT IV. FOURTH VIAL. Verses 4,7

The outpouring of wrath upon the sun of the beast's dominion; and power is given to a constituent of that luminary to scorch with great heat the blasphemers of the Deity's name; yet they repent not to give him glory._________

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Verses 10,11

The outpouring of wrath upon the throne of the Beast, which fills his kingdom with darkness. The rulers and their adherents gnaw their tongues for pain, and blaspheme the Deity of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they repent not of their deeds.

ARENA OF THE FIRST FIVE VIALS.

The Horn-kingdoms of the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth, and the States of the Image of the Sixth Head, commonly styled "the States of the Church."

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 1795 to A.D. 1819, a period of 24 years.

ACT VI. SIXTH VIAL

Verses 12-16

Part I

Verse 12

Outpouring of wrath upon the great river Euphrates, by which its water is dried up, that the way of the kings of a Sun's risings may be prepared.

Part 2

Verse 13,14

Three Frog-like, unclean, wonder-working spirits of demons issue forth from three principal governments from the Mouth of the Dragon, the Mouth of the Beast, and the Mouth of the False Prophet-------to the powers of the earth and of the whole habitable --- to gather them for the war of the great day of AIL-SHADDAI - the Seven Horns and Seven Eyes of the Lamb, the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth into all the earth (Apoc. 4:5,6); the Spirit incarnate in Jesus and his brethren, the Saints.

Part 3

Verse 16

While the frog-like spirits are working, "the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17,18) comes into the world as a thief in the night. He descends from heaven having great power - the key of the abyss and a great

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chain (Apoc. 18:1; 20:1) for the work of enlightening the earth with his glory (Apoc. 18:1). Having been clothed with a cloud (Apoc. 10:1: Heb. 12:1) of witnesses, he stands on Mount Zion in the midst of the 144,000 - his companions and co-workers - the mystical Son of Man, whose voice is as the voice of a multitude (Dan. 10:6); as the sound of many waters (Apoc. 1:15). His head is encircled with the rainbow of the covenant; his face is as the sun, and his goings forth as pillars of fire. Thus prepared, he stands ready for action with his right foot upon the sea, and his left upon the earth, and a little open scroll in his hand, upon which are inscribed, "the lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquake, and great hail," to be ministered by those who are honored to take the scroll and to eat it up (Apoc. 10:9; 11:19).

Now is the judgment of the nations - the Hour of judgment, in which they are invited to fear the Deity and to give glory to him (Apoc. 14:6,7). Proclamation is made by the One Body, now anointed and glorified, and of which Jesus is the Head, that "there shall be no longer delay" in the finishing of the mystery of the Deity. They sing a new song before the throne; and confidently aver that they shall reign as kings and priests of Deity upon the earth (Apoc. 14:3,9); to accomplish which are the judgments of the Little Open Scroll given to the Saints (Dan. 7:22).

Part 4

Verse 16

The advent, or 'manifestation of the sons of the Deity," having transpired, the angel of the sixth vial gathers the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable into the place styled in Hebrew, Armageddon. This gathering is effected by the events of the seventh vial.

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 1821 to the overthrow in Armageddon

III. - THE LITTLE OPEN SCROLL

FOURTH SECTION OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

"THE GREAT DAY OF AIL-SHADDAI"

Apoc. 10:2

The things written in this scroll, sweet as honey in the mouth of them who eat it, but bitter in its effects upon them that perish, are the remaining judgments of the seventh seal, and wholly comprised in the seventh vial (and a fraction of the sixth), which is the last division of the seventh trumpet, and fills up the wrath of the Deity upon the

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nations (Apoc. 16:14; Joel 2:31; 3:11). And whereas, all the judgments ot the Seventh Seal running parallel with the Laodicean Apostasy are executed by the wicked upon the wicked as the sword of Yahweh; (Psa. 17:13) those of this "little open book," the crowning judgments of the wrath of the Deity, consummate his indignation, and are assigned to the saints of the Rainbow, who have the "honor" of their execution, by which they "prophesy again" with John, "against many peoples and nations, and tongues, and kings" (Apoc. 10:11).

THE SEVENTH VIAL

Apoc. 16:7-21

The exhausting of the judgments of this vial consummates the sounding of the seventh trumpet which transfers the Kingdoms of this world to Yahweh, and his Anointed Body -- the saints. The wrath of this vial is poured into the Air - the firmament of the appropriated kingdoms. When the wrath upon "the House of the Wicked" is expended, the Times of the Gentiles will have wholly expired, and a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne proclaims, "It is done!" (Ezek. 39:8; Apoc. 21:6) Yahweh's bow is now made quite naked, even that word which went forth "conquering and to conquer." (Hab. 3:9-13; Apoc. 6:2).

But, between the advent of the Son of Man and the proclamation aforesaid, is an interval of several years. This interval is Daniel's "time of the end" - the time specially appointed for the judgments of the Little Open Book. In it is developed the antitype in full of the Passover, of the First Fruits, of the Blowing of Trumpets, of the day of Covering of Iniquity, of the Jubilee, of the Feast of the Tabernacles, and of the Bearing of Palms. The antitypical celebration of the last three feasts of Yahweh consummates the time of the end, and inaugurates the reign of the thousand years. The judicial events of this little open scroll open the "door in the heaven," and place therein the Great White Throne upon which is set the jasper and sardine-like Man, (Apoc. 20:11; 4:1,2,3) encircled with a coronetted "multitude which no man can number" (Apoc. 4:4, 7:9). These are the "thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousands" who are prepared to go forth as a fiery stream, and as the Spirit's wheels of consuming flame (Dan. 7:9,10), for the utter destruction of the body politic of the Fourth Beast, and subjugation of the other three (Dan. 7:11,12).

In their execution of "the judgment written" there is a great earthquake, which develops Daniel's "time of trouble," (Dan. 12:1) in which the superstitions of "Christendom" are abolished, and their

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blaspheming clergies of all orders and degrees made to drink the cup of the wine of the fierceness of Divine wrath. All islands and mountains of the political world disappear; and the stone that smiles and grinds them to powder becomes a great dominion, and fills the whole earth (Dan. 2:34,35,44,45). With a view, therefore, to this "end of the matter," (Dan. 7:28), the following symbolization thereof is revealed.

ACT I. - MISSION OF THE FIRST ANGEL

Apoc. 14:6,7

The postadventual proclamation of the good news concerning the Aion to all the governments and populations of the habitable, announcing the fame and glory of the Great King, (Isa. 66:19) and that the hour of His judgment has at length arrived. In making this proclamation the class represented by John, "prophesy again before many peoples, nations, tongues and kings." It results in separating the nations one from another as a shepherd divideth sheep from goats, (Matt. 25:32) and in the goats coming out like a whirlwind to scatter Him and his hosts (Hab. 3:14; Apoc. 17:12-14).

THE SEVEN THUNDERS AND THEIR VOICES

Apoc. 10:3

These are the lightnings, and thunderings, and voices proceeding from the newly established throne in the heaven (Apoc. 4:5). They are the lion-roaring voice of the rainbowed angel, who strides the earth and sea with feet as pillars of fire, or as fine brass glowing in a furnace Apoc. 1:LS; Isa. 30:30; 31:4; Joel 3:16). They result in the mightiest earthquake that ever shook the constitution of the political world. The shepherd like separation of the nations divides the great city Babylon into three parts, (Apoc. 16:19) and the kingdoms of nations fall. ~The goats are punished," being conquered by the Lamb and his associates in arms, (Zech. 10:3; 9:13; Apoc. 17:14; 19:19-21) who "follow him whithersoever lie goes"

ACT II. - MISSION OF THE SECOND ANGEL

Apoc. 14:8

The spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies of the great city commonly styled "Christendom," rewarded double according to their works by Yahweh Elohim - Eternal Spirit incarnated in the quickened saints, and styled, "heaven and holy apostles and prophets" (Apoc. 18:4-8,20-24). These retaliate upon the Apostasy with torment and sorrow by which it falls, and is abolished from the earth.

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THE HARVEST

Apoc. 14:14-16

Consequent upon the result of the proclamation of the good news by the first angel, another angel from the temple announces to the golden wreathed Son of Man, associated with a cloud of followers in white, upon whom he sits as the Commander-in-chief, faithful and true, prepared in righteousness to judge and make war, that the time is come for him to reap the ripe harvest of the earth (Apoc. 19:11-14; Joel 3:13). This He does, and the result is the fall of Babylon the great.

ACT. III. - MISSION OF THE THIRD ANGEL

Apoc. 14:9-11

The work of this angel-power exhausts the wrath of the Deity upon the nations of the Fourth Beast Polity, the destruction of which it consummates. It is the supper of the great Deity upon the mountains of Israel (Apoc. 19:17-21; Ezek. 39:17-22) in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb; who torment them with fire and brimstone, and give them no rest day nor night, to the aions of the aions; by which time the seven plagues of the seven angels of the vials, will have been fulfilled (Apoc. 15:8).

THE VINTAGE

Apoc. 14:17-20

The consummating vengeance of the altar. The national clusters of the Gentile vine are gathered into Armageddon, the great wine press without the city, full to overflowing with the wicked (Joel 3:11-13; Isa. 63:1-6; 34:1-10; Dan. 11:45). The treading of this, binds "the Dragon that Old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan," and shuts him up in the abyss, and seals him that he should deceive the nations no more till a thousand years are fulfilled (Apoc. 20:2,3). This binding also deprives the lion, the bear, and the leopard of their dominion; but does not extinguish their political life, which is prolonged for "a season and a time," or 1000 years (Dan. 7:12; Isa. 19:23-25). "It is done!" The third angel's mission is complete; and the blessed are now prepared to rest from their labors. The earth and the heaven of the Gentiles have fled away from the face of the enthroned, and no place is found for them again (Apoc. 20:11).

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IV. - THE PROPHECY OF MILLENNIAL BLESSEDNESS

Apoc. 14:13.

The feast of Tabernacles. The white robed palm-bearers (Apoc. 7:9-17) and divine harpists stand upon the sea of nations now no longer mingled with fire, and celebrate their victory over the vanquished powers of the world. They sing the song of Moses and the Lamb (Apoc. 15:2-4); and a song before the throne which no man could learn who is not redeemed. The smoke of divine wrath being dispelled, they enter into the temple of Deity (Apoc. 15:8) where they rest from their labors of judgment, and serve him day and night. Over them the second death hath no power; but they are priests of the Deity and of Christ, and reign with him upon the earth a thousand years (Apoc.20:6).

As the great and holy city, the new and holy Jerusalem, the bride, the Lamb's wife (Apoc. 21:2,9,10), they shed their light upon the nations saved from their present delusions, degradation and oppressions, being then joined to Yahweh as his people, and blessed in Abraham and his Seed (Apoc. 21:24; Zech. 2:11). Yahweh Ail Shaddai and the Lamb are the temple of those who had died in the Lord; and the glory of Deity and the Lamb their light (Apoc. 21:22). The healed nations walk in this light; and the kings of the earth, the saints, do bring their glory and honor, and the glory and honor of the subject nations, into it.

V. PROPHECY OF THE "LITTLE SEASON"

Apoc. 20:7-10.

The end. Rebellion against the government of the saints. The Devil and Satan, whose dominion had been suppressed a thousand years before, is permitted to renew the struggle for sovereignty over the nations of the earth. These are deceived to a vast extent by the illusions of the flesh, stimulated into insurrection by the ambition of evil counselors, by whom they are precipitated into a great war against their divine rulers, which eventuates in the manifestation of 'the end" (1 Cor. 15:24-28). The lake is rekindled by the fire and brimstone of God's wrath, and the saints torment them in war to the end of the aions of the aions, or expiration of "the little season.

The rebellion being destroyed, the heaven and earth of the previous thousand years are superseded by a New Order of things, in which there is no more sea of nations of mortal men to be lashed into tempest and fury by ambitious and deceitful demagogues (Apoc. 21:1). The Son - Jesus and his brethren - has reigned until the Father hath

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put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy, death, comes now to be abolished, and all things made new. The mediatorial kingdom of the thousand years is delivered up to the Father by his kings and priests, who become subjected to Him, who becomes the all things in all the dwellers upon earth - ta panta en pasin. - Amen.

IV. SEVEN-SEALED SCROLL

1. FIRST GENERAL DIVISION OF THE SCROLL

The First Four and the Sixth Seals, representative of the judicial manner of "taking out of the way" the PAGAN Constitution of the "Dreadful and Terrible Fourth Beast", which withheld the revelation of "the LAWLESS ONE," (Dan. 7:7; Apoc. 6; 2 Thess. 2:3-9; Apoc. 12:1-5,7-13) and the consequent manifestation of the CATHOLIC MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, or Man-of-Sin Power, in the heaven of said beast, or "Great Red Dragon."

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 107 to A.D. 324

THE FIRT SEAL

The arrowless Bowman symbol of the conquest of Roman empire through the influence of Christ. The crown or stephanos (coronal wreath) on his head was the symbol of victory The epoch of the first seal (A D 96-183) saw the reigns of what historians term the good emperors Nerva Trajan Hadnan and the two Antonines The first three years of the reignof Commodus continued the era of peace, but then personal pride and suspicion began to dominate him and he initiated a reign of terror and moral decline. This was followed by a train of events that brought Pagan Rome to an end to be replaced by Papal Rome (the 6 th Seal)

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Chapter 6

The opening of the first six sea/s in order, the cumulative effect of which is the abolition of the heaven which hindered the manifestation of the Lawless Power.

TRANSLATION

Apoc. 6

1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard from one of the Four Living Ones, saying, as a voice of thunder, Come and see!

2. And I saw, and behold a White Horse, and one sitting upon him having a bow; and there was given to him a coronal wreath, and he went forth conquering, and that he might conquer.

3. And when he opened the second seal, I heard from the second living one, saying, Come and see! 4. And there went forth another, a Fiery Red Horse; and to him sitting upon him, to him it was given to take the peace from the earth, and that they might slay one another; and there was given to him a great dagger.

5. And when he opened the third seal, I heard from the third living one, saying, Come and see! And I saw, and behold a Black Horse, and he who sits upon him holding a balance in his hand. 6. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living ones, saying, "A choinix of wheat a denarius; and three choinices of barley a denarius; but the oil and the wine thou mayest not act unjustly by!"

7. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living one, saying, Come and see!

8. And I saw, and behold a Pale Horse, and he who sits upon him, the name for him is Death; and Hades followed with him: and there was given to them authority to kill upon the fourth of the earth with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

9. And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the Altar the souls of them who had been slain on account of the word of the Deity, and on account of the testimony which they held. 10. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Until when, 0 thou who art the Despot, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those who dwell upon the earth?

11. And to them each were given white robes, and it was answered to them that they should repose yet a short time, while their fellow-servants and their brethren should be filled up, who are about to be killed even as they.

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal; and behold a great earthquake occurred, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. 13. And the stars of the heaven fell to the earth, as a fig-tree casts its unripe figs, being shaken by a mighty wind.14. And heaven

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departed as a scroll rolled up; and every mountain and island were removed out of their places. 15. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich, and the military chieftains, and the mighty ones, and every bondman and every freeman, concealed themselves in the caverns and among the rocks of the mountains; 16. And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for that great day of his wrath has come, and who could have been caused to stand."

1. Introduction

This sixth chapter of the prophecy constitutes the rehearsal of the first six acts of the tragical conflict between the Lamb and his adherents of the one part, and the constituted authorities of Greek and Latin Paganism in Church and State of the other. The translation given is of the text amended by Griesbach, and compared with that of Tregelles, and others, whose rendering, however, has had but little influence with the author. Indeed, I have been greatly disappointed in the fruit of the labor of the wise and prudent biblical critics of the original text of the Apocalypse. Their grapes are wild and bitter; and not less so those of the Tregelles vine, which has increased the bewilderment of the learned author of the "Horae."

The Rev. S. P. Tregelles, a dissenting minister of Plymouth, England, is learned in the languages of the East, a clear writer, and not without authority in the wisdom of the world-religious. He has published a translation of the apocalypse 'from the Greek text according to the ancient authorities," not more modern than twelve hundred years, and the far greater part fourteen hundred years ago. He has published this translation by itself, and introduced it by a very Interesting preface. On reading this, I supposed that an enlightened critic had appeared among the divines of the apostasy, who had risen above the bias of his religious metaphysics, and would therefore give us a reliable version of the book. But, alas, how disappointed was I when I came to examine the result of the rules and principles by which he had promised to work. The following specimens of new translation based on his "ancient authorities," will show of themselves to "the servants of the Deity" what I mean.

1. In ch. 1:6 - "Re hath made for us a kingdom - priests unto Him who is his God and Father."

2. In ch. 5:10 - "Thou hast made them unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign on the earth."

3. In ch. 6 before us, he omits "and see" in the four places where the phrase "Come and see" therein occurs.

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Now, the first two instances prove to an intelligent believer of the gospel that Mr. TregeHes' "ancient authorities" are unreliable; and that, if he understood "the truth as it is in Jesus," he would not have been led by them. Fourteen hundred years ago carries us back to the latter half of the fifth century, or A.D. 464, about 140 years after the complete establishment of Laodicean Catholicism as the religion of Daniel's Fourth Beast. This Church and State establishment was then regarded as God's kingdom, and the Laodicean ecclesiastics as his priests. Now, some Greek MSS, of this epoch read as Tregelles has given it; while others read "kings and priests, and they shall," not they "do," "reign on earth." Here is a discrepancy - some fifth century manuscripts against some less ancient. Tregelles prefers the former because of their relative antiquity, and is biased, though he may not be aware of it, by the Laodicean dogma that the Church is the kingdom, that Christ is now reigning, and the saints with him as they join him in the skies. We have, therefore, no hesitation in rejecting the authority of his new translation based on such readings which are utterly at variance with the first principles of the oracles of God. The readings are self-evident corruptions of the true text by transcribers who sought to make the apocalyptic saints sing in harmony with the traditions of the Laodicean Apostasy. True believers are now kings and priests elect for God. He has promised them a kingdom, and they shall reign on the earth. This is the teaching of the word ministered by prophets and I apostles, and not readings of Greek MSS., even if written in the days of John, affirming the contrary, could be anything else but spurious.

I have not seen any good reason for much diversity of rendering in the translations of this sixth chapter. The common version is substantially correct. I not only see no reason for striking out "and see" from the text of verses 1,3,5 and 7, but I see a good and sufficient reason why it should be retained. The reason is this. In ch. 5:3, it is affirmed that no man in the universe was found worthy, blepein auto, to see it - the scroll with seven seals. John wept at this announcement. But he was afterwards comforted with the assurance that Jesus Christ could see it, and loose the seals. When, therefore, the time came to convert this assurance into fact, John, as the dramatical representative of a class who would be contemporary with the opening of the first four seals, and would "see" or discern their unloosing, was invited not only to "Come," but to "Come and see." Hence, the significance of the sentence would be spoiled by rejecting the words kai bleme, "and see." What was he to come for? To see - to see or discern the operation while the Lamb should be engaged in the successive seeing or loosing of the first four seals. The words are an important part of the text, and

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must in no wise be rejected, as the learned and "divine" author of the "Horae Apocalypticae" has done on the authority of Dr. Tregelles, whose translation he follows.

I have deviated from the common version in rendering zoa, living ones, instead of beasts; stephanos, coronal wreath, instead of crown; purros, fiery red; choinix, and denarios, terms of measure and coin, I leave for interpretation; Hades, I have transferred; despotes, also transferred; but as to the phrase, "the fourth of the earth," in verse 8, we defer any remark upon it until we come to the interpretation of the fourth seal.

I have remarked above that the general subject of the translation of Apoc. 6 is the conflict between the truth incarnate in the Woman's Seed and their adversary, the seed of the Serpent, enthroned in Pagan Rome. However prolonged, it reveals that the conflict was not to be endless, but should terminate in bruising the Satan, and the departing of his heaven as a scroll when it is rolled up. This is the terminus ad quem, the end to which this sixth chapter brings us. It begins with the first seal and ends with the sixth; hence, the first seal is the tenninus a quo, the end from which the conflict takes its apocalyptical inception.

The first seal, then, being our point of departure in this great contest, which was to determine the fate of that Pagan power which had "magnified itself against the Prince of the Host, and had already taken away the Daily, and cast down the place of his sanctuary" (Dan. 8:11), it is important and desirable to know the chronology of the first seal, that is, the epoch of the beginning.

And how is this to be determined? It certainly was not opened before John's banishment to Patmos; for the seals were a prophecy to him of what should come to pass afterwards. The best evidence extant declares that John resided in Patmos in the reign of Domitian, where, A.D. 96, he saw the things he records in the apocalypse. The first seal in its symbolization is not of a color suited to the times and events of the period from the assumption of Jesus to the right hand of power, to A.D. 96. The following quotation from Gibbon will give the reader some idea of the agents who figured before the world and gave character to the times in which it was the misfortune of honest men to live. With the exception of Vespasian and his son Titus, by whom God broke up the Jewish State, and burned the city of his Son's murderers (Matt. 22:7), the imperial rulers of the Roman people, from Tiberius to Domitian, were tyrants of a truly "dreadful and terrible" description. "Their unparalleled vices," says he, "and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved from them oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the

Page 130 profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellitis, and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian's reign) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy period."

The color of the first seal is not characteristic of the age in which these rulers flourished in crime. Red or black would have expressed the color of their times, but certainly not the white of the first seal.

I see no epoch for the commencement of the first seal earlier than John's exile in Patmos, nor any one later than the reigns of the five emperors who succeeded 'the timid, inhuman Domitian." When we 'come" to consider the first seal in particular, we may perhaps be able to "see it.

The chronological epoch of the commencement of the seals being determined, the loosing of the seals will, of course, be in the order of their enumeration - the second before the third, and the third before the fourth, and the fourth before the fifth, and the fifth before the sixth, and the sixth before the seventh. There will have been to the loosing of each seal a definite period assigned, which may be styled the seal-period. The predicted events of a seal must be found in its own seal-period; they will culminate and acquire their full development in the period; but it by no means follows that the judgments will have ceased to operate, or have become exhausted, before the opening of the next seal ensues. Thus, lamentation, mourning, and woe, are the subject of the third seal, and a characteristic also of the fourth; only in the latter the evil is increased by its association with famine, pestilence, and the sword. Certain things symbolized in the first seal, and in active development in the first seal period, do not cease at the opening of the second seal, but continue operative through all the six, till it can be said, "He that was to go forth conquering and that he might conquer, and receive the coronal wreath, hath conquered, and is crowned the victor in the fight." Hence, certain of the things "signified" in the first seal, though not expressed in the word-painting of the others, underlie them all. and crop out in another part of the prophecy.

2. Of the War-Horse Symbol

But, in reading the first four seals, the student of this prophecy must have been struck by the symbolization of which the war-horse is the root. What does this sign import? What use does the Spirit of Christ make of the horse in prophecy? What does He signify by it, and what did he intend it to signify when he exhibited it before John, now

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white, then red, black, and pale'?

In Isa. 63:13, the Spirit says, that Yahweh led the whole tribes of Israel "as a horse in the wilderness that they should not stumble." This use of the animal is making it the symbol of a nation, or people.

Again, in Zech. 10:3, the Spirit saith, "Yahweh Tz'vaoth hath visited his flock, the house of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle." Thus, when Messiah comes he will ride Judah as his war-horse. From these instances, then, it is scriptural to say that the Spirit in prophecy sometimes represent a people by a horse.

Now it is also scriptural to say that where He finds people representing themselves by animals, he adopts their symbols, and speaks of them by their own signs. Thus, the Persians represented their nation by a Ram; the Macedonians theirs by a Goat; the Romans theirs by a Horse, a Dragon, an Eagle; and the Franks their people by Frogs. The Spirit of Christ that was in the prophets has appropriated all these in speaking prophetically of each. The Ram-people and the Goat-people are largely treated of in Daniel; and the Horse-people, Dragon people, Eagle-people, or Greco-Latin, or Roman people; and Frog-people, figure conspicuously in the apocalypse.

There can be no reasonable doubt of the Roman people having symbolized themselves by a war-horse. This is clearly shown by the Rev. E. B. Elliott, A.M., in his work on the apocalypse, both by quotations from Latin authors, and from ancient Roman coins. They claimed to be the offspring of Mars, their god of war, whom they honored and worshipped by horse-races and horse-sacrifices in spring and fall from the time of Romulus, the founder of their state, down to the time of the emperors. The horse was also, according to Pliny, one of the ancient Roman war-standards; so that Mars, the Horse, and the Roman people, had an established and recognized affinity.

The introduction of the Roman Horse into the symbolization of the first four seals as representative of the Roman people, was peculiarly appropriate. It was their symbol as pagans - worshippers of their father Mars through the horse which they sacrificed to him. It represented the pagan Roman people, who were to be ridden by the judgments of the first, second, third and fourth seals in retribution for the cruelties they perpetrated upon the seed of the Woman in their fight of faith against idolatry during the first.

Now the diverse colors of the horses indicate certain diverse conditions of the body politic typified by the horses. White is emblematic of peace; red of war, black of lamentation, mourning and woe; pale green of famine and pestilence. From the time of John, the pagan body politic, with whom he and his brethren and fellowservants were

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contending to the death, was to pass through seal-periods of a peaceful onslaught upon their superstitions, war, famine and pestilence, in the order of symbolical enumeration. The first seal-period, then, was to be a period of internal peace and prosperity to the pagan Roman world; and this period is only found in pagan Roman history subsequent to the death of Domitian, between that event and the accession of the emperor Commodus, A.D. 180.

This, then, is the chronological initiatory epoch of the seals. The Lamb begins the unrolling of the scroll by causing the removal of the 'timid inhuman Domitian," A.D. 96; and the introduction upon the arena of a new class of imperial agents, who should promote the material prosperity and happiness of the people. John saw the change and partook of its benefit. On the opening of the first seal, he returned from exile. He lived through the short reign of Nerva; and died, according to the consent of antiquity, in the early part of the reign of Trajan: an event very analogous to that of Daniel, who lived to see the opening of the "2400 evening-morning" period; and then went his way till the end shall be when he and John will arise to their inheritance at the end of the days.

SECTION 1

THE EPHESO-SMYRNEAN STATE

Vol.1 pp.,428, 432, 433.

This section of the subject answers to those things written within the scroll pertaining to the concluding portion of the Ephesian, and commencement, or first part of the Smyrnean, state of the Body of Christ.

ACT I. - SEAL PERIOD FIRST.

Chap. 4:1,2

The Archer of the White Horse goes forth from the Lamb with his Bow on a career of conquest.

A.D. 96.

I. INITIATION OF THE SEAL-PERIOD.

1. "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard from one of the four living ones saying as a voice of thunder, Come and see!"

In spirit John was in the Lord's day, and "saw" spirit-manifestations, or spirit-forms, styled by us symbols or emblems; and among these was the spirit-manifestation, or "sign," of this first-seal period. It

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was all a visual creation of the spirit "signified to his servant John," that through this recorded rehearsal, might be shown to the fellow-servants of the apostle, his brethren and companions in the Domitian tribulation, and in the kingdom and patient waiting for Jesus Christ ha dei genesthai en tachei, things which must come to pass speedily.

These honored "servants of the Deity," while John was in Patmos, shared with him in the great tribulation inflicted upon the whole community of the faithful at the close of the first century by the government of "the timid inhuman Domitian." This man was son of Vespasian, and brother of Titus, the renowned destroyers of the holy city and temple of the Jews. These had learned in the school of experience the value of reason, humanity, and justice in the government of mankind; and they accordingly exhibited a character which, in some of its parts, was still new on the throne previously occupied by Tiberius, '3aligula, Claudius, Nero and Vitellius - the character of wisdom, propriety, and humanity, assumed fbr its own sake, and without any intention to circumvent the people, or to impose on the world But the fortunes of their family soon devolved upon a person equally unfit to sustain them, and equally unfit to be endured by a submissive world.

Domitian ascended the throne of the Caesars, A.D. 81; and, as a "destroyer of the earth," his tyranny was endured for fifteen years. The greatness of his family alarmed his pusillanimity, which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed. His ferocity does not appear to have been inflamed against the christians immediately upon his accession to power. He increased in cruelty as he approached the end of his reign, when he renewed the horrors of Nero's persecution, imputing to his victims the guilt of "atheism and Jewish manners," which was the common charge against christadelphians* on account of their refusal to worship the idols of Greece and Rome. "Many," says Dion, "were condemned who had embraced Jewish customs, part of them were put to death, and others spoiled of their goods and banished." Tertullian says, he ordered John to be cast into a caldron of boiling oil, but that he came out unhurt. If this really happened, it did not bring liberty to the apostle who was forthwith driven from the haunts of men, and confined in Patmos, a solitary island of the sea.

In this state of things at the close of Domitian's maladministration of power, there was nothing answerable to the spirit's symbolization of

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* The word Christadelphian is used in this volume as representative of the real Brethren of Christ in contradistinction to the common herd of professors who undeservedly appropriated to themselves the name of christian, which has long since ceased to represent the believers of "the truth as it is in Jesus." Page 134

the first seal period. There was no whiteness in the situation nor the times for pagan, Jew, or Christadelphian. How much longer the tyrant should redden them with their own blood, and desolate their hearths with his fierceness, who could tell? A gloomy cloud was impending; and, as there was no habeas corpus for the defense of liberty, the lives and property of the whole people were suspended on the fiat of "the basest of men."

1. The Voice of Thunder

But hark! Hear ye not, 0 ye servants of the Deity, that "voice of thunder," issuing from that one of the four living ones like a lion, and inviting you to "Come and see!" It is the voice of the Spirit, as fatal to Domitian as the writing of the same spirit upon the wall was to Belshazzar on the night he was slain. The voice is the opening voice of the first-seal period, A.D. 96. A voice that changed the times, and whitened the Situation of the affairs of the great Roman Habitable. It was the thundering voice of revolution that hurled the tyrant from his throne, and inaugurated a new course of things; the effect of which should not cease until Christ had conquered Caesar. And what the second causes resulting in this premanifestation and predetermination of the Spirit? Listen; Domitian bestowed on his cousin Flavius Clemens his own niece Domitilla in marriage, adopted the children of that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested their father with the honors of the consulship. But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy, when on a slight pretence he was condemned and executed; Domitilla was banished to a desolate island on the coast of Campania; and sentence either of death or of confiscation was pronounced against a great number of persons who were involved in the same accusation - atheism and Jewish manners. He charged this upon those symbolized by "the Lamb and the Four Living Ones;" and in so doing the pagan government, their Accuser, "accused them before the Deity day and night" - ch. 12:10. But the mandate of retribution had gone forth, and a few months after the death of Clemens, and the banishment of Domitilla, Stephen, one of her freedmen who had enjoyed her favour, assassinated the emperor in his palace. Thus Heaven's decree, that "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," took effect in Domitian's case. He had shed the blood of the servants of the Deity, and by the wicked as His sword, he fell.

2. The Lamb

Such was the secondary agency in this revolutionary event, but

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what was the primary? John says, that the first cause of all the events represented in the seals was THE LAMB;" "he openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;" He opens all the seal-periods; and, by that omnipotence given to him in heaven and in earth, he gives such a shape and color to the world's affairs, civil, ecclesiastical, and social, as accords with the prefigurations of the Spirit in this prophecy. He is that popularly styled "Providence," who, for the past eighteen centuries, has been engaged in preparing a situation of affairs favorable to the establishment of his throne and kingdom upon earth. Providence is the Lamb; and the Lamb, with his seven horns and seven eyes, recovered from the wound with which he was wounded in the house of his friends (Zech. 13:6); and embodying the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne - is the symbol of the All-powerful Spirit of the Deity. This is manifest from ch. 4:5; 5:6. It gives symbolic shape to the great mystery of Deity manifested, justified and glorified in crucified flesh. The embodiment of this mystery was "made both Lord and Christ" by his ascent from the lower nature of His fathers Abraham and David, to the higher nature of his Father the Eternal Spirit - John 10:17; Heb. 2:7,9,16,17; Acts 2:36. Thus he became spirit after leaving his sepulchre, and about forty days before his assumption to the right hand of power. Ever since he hath been "the Lord the Spirit" - 2 Cor. 3:17; "the Quickening Spirit" - 1 Cor. 15:45: so that when "He that was dead"-Apoc. 1:18, dictates to John the matter of the epistles to the seven Asian ecclesias, he concludes his address to each of them by an exhortation to "hear what THE SPIRIT saith to the ecclesias." As the Dead One, anointed with spices and bound with grave clothes, he was Sin's Flesh crucified, slain, and buried; in which by the slaying sin had been condemned, and by the burial, put out of sight: but as the Living One again alive for the Aion of the Aions - 'the Son of Deity with power by spirit of holiness out of a resurrection of dead ones," He is the Spirit - "the Seven Spirits before the throne;" "the Alpha and Omega, beginning and ending; the first and the last; he who is and who was and who is coming, THE

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Opp. DOMITIAN Domitian was the son of Vespasian, and brother of the popular Titus who took the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. He came to office a despised younger brother, embittered by his elders' contempt He vented his spite on such notable men as Juvenal, Tacitus, Seutonius and Pliny. He encouraged the pernicious system of the common informer and the law of treason. He persecuted the Christians, continuing the policy and legislation of Nero in that regard. Domitian considered himself a god, and accused the Christians of treason for refusing to acknowledge him as such. According to Irenaeus (5:30:3), and accepted by J. Thomas, the Apocalypse was written during his reign. Domitian 's suppression of Christianity extended to his family, so high had the movement penetrated. And this increased his opposition to it. It is conjectured that Domitian banished John the Apostle to Patmos, there to work in the mines (Rev. 1:9). In A.D. 96, Domitian was murdered after a plot supported by his wfe, who felt the insecurity of her own position. In such circumstances, the Apocalypse was given to John, and circulated among the ecclesias.

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OMNIPOTENT-Apoc. 1:4,8,11; 16:5.

Such is the signification of the symbolic Lamb who opens the scroll, having prevailed so to do, and to "see it" in the loosing of all its seals, that the prophecy may be read, and understood, and observed by them who are faithful and true.

3. - The Four Living Ones

But beside the symbolic Lamb we find the Four Living Ones acting a part in connection with the first four seal-periods. They are not introduced into the drama as mere drapery and ornament; but as representative of a class of agents performing a very important part in association with the Lamb during the first four seal-periods. Aggregately they are the symbols of the "ONE BODY - of "the Ecclesia which is His body" - Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4. When encircling the throne, they represent the one body of the redeemed after their appearance at the judgment seat of Christ; but in these seals they are emblematic of the general assembly and ecclesia of firstborns, who have been enrolled for heavens (Heb. 12:23) in their relation, or rather, opposition, to "the Prosecutor of the Brethren" enthroned in the heaven of Pagan Rome-- ch. 12:7-10. This power, symbolized by "the Dragon in heaven," was continually assailing them with accusations of blasphemy and atheism, and of hatred to mankind in general; and unrighteously subjecting them to the cruelest pains and penalties of despotic and arbitrary power. But, energized by the Lamb, "they loved not their lives unto the death"; and "by the word of their testimony" withstood their enemy until at length "they overcame him."

The Lamb and the Four Living Ones in the first four seals symbolize, then, what may be styled in popular phrase, "the church militant" - such as the ecclesia of the Deity was in the time of the apostle John. The Lamb was then in the midst of the seven golden lightstands, in which burned the seven flames of fire. In other words, the apostolic ecclesias were all in the Spirit's Mouth, from which they were not "spued," or ejected, until after the fifth seal. The Lamb and the Four Living Ones were One Body - "the Father in Jesus, and Jesus in the Father, and they, the true believers, in them," a Divine Unity. This was a power too strong for the Dragon-power of Rome. It was the spirit of the Deity in intellectual and moral activity contending in flesh and blood "against principalities, against powers, against the worldrulers of the darkness of the aion, against the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" of Daniel's fourth beast - Eph. 6:12. While the weapons of the Dragon's warfare were carnal - imprisonment, torture, confiscation, fire, and sword; the weapon of theirs was

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"the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." It was not they who opened the seal-periods, but the Spirit-Lamb; and when he opened them in order, the voice of that same spirit, issuing from the corporate aggregations of eyes, which derived their intelligence from Him, invited John as a member of the body, and as the dramatic representative of his class in then present and after times, to "Come and see". "And," saith he, "I saw." The dethronement and death of Domitian were the thunder-voice of the opened first seal-period, which arrested the attention of all Christadelphian eyes to behold what was next to "come." Their Ephesian vigilance required not to hear the mandate, "Come and see," for their eyes were full orbed upon the government; and anxiously and earnestly watching events bearing upon its policy with reference to themselves, and the conflict in which they were engaged.

The fall of Domitian, then was in itself a command to all the eyes of the One Body (and it was gemonta ophthalmon, ch. 4:8; Ezek. 10:12) to come "to the consideration of the event," and to "see," to discern, the unloosing of the seal.

And what did they see in the Dragon-empire consequent upon the tyrant's fall? They saw a very remarkable change of times. The previous fifteen years of misrule and cruelty were immediately succeeded by a mild and beneficent reign of sixteen months and eight days. This was the short, but brilliant reign of Nerva, which was inaugurated by an act of the Roman Senate, which condemned Domitian's memory, and rescinded his decrees. Nerva was one of the best monarchs permitted by the Lamb to occupy the Dragon throne. Under his mild administration of the laws, the people of the Roman Horse was everywhere contented and happy. He extended his clemency as "the minister of the Deity for good," to all who were imprisoned for treason; called home all that had been banished in Domitian's time, except the tyrant's own niece, Domitilla, whose freedman had assassinated him; restored all sequestrated estates; punished informers, and, to the utmost of his power, redressed the grievances of every description of his subjects. To christadelphians he allowed the freest toleration, not permitting any to persecute either them or the Jews, though the saints were generally regarded as Atheists, having no visible temples, altars, or sacrifice, which the pagans considered as essential to a profession of religion.

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II. THE SEAL-PERIOD OCCURRENT

2. "And I saw, and behold, a White Horse, and One sitting upon him having a Bow, and there was given to him a coronal wreath; and he went forth "on quering, and that he might conquer."

1. The Whiteness of the Horse

In regard to the period thus propitiously initiated by the reign of Nerva, Gibbon has remarked that, "were a man called to fix upon an epoch in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was the most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus," namely, from A.D. 96, to A.D. 180. "The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power under the guidance of wisdom and virtue. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their day been capable of enjoying a rational freedom."

Here then are two periods of about equal duration, the one ending, and the other beginning at the death of Domitian; the former styled by the historian, "that unhappy period;" and the latter, "the most happy and prosperous" known to the world. This happiness and prosperity of the Roman people for eighty-four years was owing to the exemption they enjoyed from civil discord under these emperors. The period was a reign of peace over the Roman earth, granted by the opener of the seal; and as white is symbolical of peace and prosperity, the Horseman in the first seal-period, is paraded upon the arena sitting on a white horse.

Some light is thrown upon the whiteness of the horse in this seal by what the spirit saith of the white horses in Zech. 6:6. He reveals four chariots issuing forth from between two mountains of brass, and horsed with horses of divers colors. He terms these "the four spirits of the heavens which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth." One of the spirit-chariots was harnessed with black horses, and another of them with white. Their mission was "into the north country"

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- north from Jerusalem. That country was to be plagued, therefore the black horses were sent thither first. While they were doing their work, the Lord's Spirit was in a state of unrest, actively inflicting judgment upon the workers of iniquity in the north country. But when they had been sufficiently plagued, the white horses were sent into the country after them - "the white go forth after the black." As the white drove through the land the black would retire; and the vision of the north country would be a spirit-chariot with white horses. What then would be the condition of that country so symbolized? The answer is, peace, prosperity, and plenty would be its condition; in other words, the Lord's Spirit having conquered, would be in a state of rest; his wrath against the people would have passed away, and public tranquillity be restored; as saith the Spirit, "Behold these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country."

Now without identifying the vision in Zechariah with the seals, the illustration of the figuration of the first seal derived from it is this. The "unhappy period" which preceded the fall of Domitian was a period of unrest to the Spirit of the Lord of the whole earth - "the Lamb." In it "the spirits of the heavens" went forth through all the Roman habitable earth, inflicting judicial calamities upon the families which had for ages presided over the destinies of the republic, and upon the pagan people; all of whom were colleagued against the Deity in their persecution of his apostles unto death, and of his saints and nation. Had these fourscore years of trouble been symbolized by horses, they would have been black and red; and while in motion, going forth, would have indicated the unquiet state of the spirit of judgment. But the judicial condition of the Roman habitable during those years is not symbolized. We know from Daniel, that the Roman Dragonic Horn would magnify itself against the Prince of Judah's host, suppress the Daily Sacrifice, destroy the city and sanctuary, cast down the truth to the ground, and practice and prosper - ch. 8:11,12; 9:26; --- all of which came to pass in the period before Domitian's assassination. But, of the judicial visitation that should fall upon Roman society in the period the Roman government and people should be venting the ferocity so characteristic of them upon Messiah the Prince and "the people of the holy one," prophecy does not testify. But with the first seal's symbolization, we "see," as John "saw," that whatever might have been the color of things hitherto, a white horse was to be the spirit of the heaven when the first seal-period should be open; and that then the spirit of the Lord would be quieted in the Roman Habitable until the time arrived to open the second seal-period however long that might be; and that then in the first seal-period, there would be peace,

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prosperity, and plenty for the people generally.

2. - The Rider and the Bow

But John not only saw the coming of this "most happy and prosperous period" in the color of the horse, but he saw a rider upon him. The rider of a horse is one who governs, controls, influences him in all his movements. He is active, while the horse is passive and subject to his will. The Roman horse, or people, in this first seal-period, were to be ridden, or subjected to certain activities, which would result in such a consummation as was indicated by other elements of the figuration. The rider was "the spirit of the heaven" whose mission was conquest. He gave energy to a certain class of activities, by which they were prosperously advanced, until at length they overcame all obstacles. He was not therefore an emperor, nor a succession of emperors, wreathed or diademed; but a class of spirit-agencies to be coronally wreathed when their triumph over all that hindered was complete.

A rider with any thing remarkable in his hand would naturally attract a beholder's attention, and fix it upon himself and the instrument he bore. John therefore not only notes the rider, but tells us that "he had a bow." Whatever the bow may signify, it was the rider" badge or token, a mark by which he might be known. He was then, an archer, and his mission that of archery. But he had no "quiver full ol arrows," nor any arrow at all; what use then a bow without arrows to shoot? But suppose he had been armed with arrows, what then? In that case the horse he rode should have been red, not white. He would have represented a bloodshedding agency, which would have been incompatible with the color pertaining to the first seal-period.

"He had a bow." John did not see him without a bow. The bow was inherently his. It was the weapon of his warfare which killed without shedding the blood, or piercing the bodies, of his enemies. Ii was the weapon with which "he went forth conquering that he might conquer." It was an invincible weapon in his hand; and he who used it though unharnessed with shield, breastplate, or helmet in the figuration, was fearless of heart, and able to quench all the fiery darts of his adversaries.

But this conquering archer's bow, what did the Deity "signify" by the use of it in this symbolization? To get at the divine signification, wc must consider the prophetic use of the symbol in other parts of thc scripture; we may perhaps then be able to "see it"

In Zech. 9:13, the Spirit says, "I will render double unto thee, O Zion, when I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim and

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This equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Emperor from A.D. 161 to 180, and author of the famous Meditations stands in the Piazza dcl Campidogilo on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, illustrates the symbolism of the First Seal. In The Apocalypse the horse is used as a symbol of Rome, and the rider thereon as its ruler. Marcus Aurelius reigned during portion of the period of the 1st Seal, an epoch of Roman history when peace generally reigned, permitting the spread of the Gospel. Gibbon in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire describes this period as the happiest era in the entire course of human history. The waverley Book of Knowledge States concerning the period of the First Seal: ~In this period of tranquillity the new religion founded by Jesus of Nazareth had an opportunity to grow, until, in the reign of Constantine, Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire."

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raised up thy sons against the sons of Greece." In this a bow in the hand of the Spirit symbolizes a multitude, and that multitude the whole tribe of Judah. This will be a mighty bow, but not arrowless, like the same Spirit's bow in the seal. The arrow of the Judah-bow, is Ephraim, or the ten tribes which fill the bow. Here is a bow and arrow of tremendous power when handled by the Spirit, who expelled the Dragon-power from the heaven in the period of the sixth seal. Of this Ephraim-arrow, which is Yahweh's, it is said, "it shall go forth as the lightning," and "they shall devour."

Again, in Hab. 3:9, the Spirit saith, "quite naked was made thy bow - oaths of the tribes - the word." Here bow stands for the word, which contains the covenanted promises of Deity concerning the tribes of Israel. In other words, bow represents that "certain word" which Paul preached as "the hope of Israel," and styled in the New Testament "the gospel of the kingdom." This is the Spirit's Bow from which arrows are shot more killing than barbed steel.

Thus a multitude imbued with the word is an agency that might be fitly represented by a bow in the hand of the Spirit of the heaven riding the white horse of the seal. But then, how does he use this intelligent multitudinous bow? How does he shoot from it; and what are the arrows he shoots? We shall be able to "see" this by reference to other scriptural uses of the word bow.

In Psalm 64 it is written, "the workers of iniquity whet their tongue like a sword, and bow their arrows, bitter words, that they may shoot in secret at the perfect." In this the tongue is compared to a bow from which words are shot forth as arrows. Hence, a multitude may not only itself be a bow, but its tongues may be bowed or bent, to shool forth doctrine or testimony, which, as an arrow in the vitals, shall pul to death the enmity of the carnal mind, or "the thinking of the flesh," against the Deity. When such a multitude would deliver the testimony ii held to be true, it would be drawing the bow and shooting at its adversaries the word of truth. This word would also be the arrow ol their bow, as well as their sword; and whether regarded as an arrow ol a sword, "living and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword. piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the Joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" - Heb. 4:12.

But there is a remarkable instance of the use of the phrase drawing the bow, in the sense of proclaiming the truth, in Isa. 66.19. thus, I will send maihem of those that escape to the nations Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, drawers of the bow; Tubal and Javan, the coasts far off which have not heard my fame, nor seen my glory; and they shall declare my

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glory among the nations." "Yahweh gives the word, and great is the company of those who publish it" - Psa. 68:11.

Translators of Isaiah have been much at a loss what to do with moshkai kesheth "drawers of the bow," in this text. Some have thought that moshkai should be rendered Meshech, called Moschi by the Greeks, as a proper name, seeing it is associated with Tubal as in other places. Boothroyd has so rendered it, and Lowth is inclined to it, as appears from his notes; but in the text he renders the phrase by the words "who draw the bow" in common with the English Version. But though it is true it may be literally rendered thus, the strictly literal sense does not apply in this place. "Who draw the bow," or "drawers of the bow," is a mode of warfare not at all more characteristic of Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, than of Tubal and Javan, of whom it is not affirmed. They all drew the bow in battle when the prophet wrote; and Tarshish at the present time is more famous for gunpowder and cannon balls than for shooting arrows from the bow.

The metaphorical, and not the literal, must be the sense of the words in this place. It should be rendered sounders of the truth, which is in agreement with what is affirmed of those sent saying, "and they shall declare my glory (or sound the truth in bowing, or bending, their tongue to shoot) among the nations.' See note in Anatolia, * p.94.

From this text we derive then the idea of a multitude going forth with a bow to the nations, and in their use of it, declaring the truth, or their testimony, to them concerning the coming of Yahweh with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. Such is the style in which the spirit gives expression to "the deep things of Deity" in the holy writings of the prophets; and as the writings of the apostles are a revelation by the same spirit of the hidden mysteries of the prophetic scriptures, he continues therein to speak after his wonted manner; which is "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the holy spirit teacheth, interpreting spiritual things by spiritual."

We conclude then that the spirit-symbols of the first seal, which are its "spiritual things," are scripturally interpreted by comparison with the "spiritual things" of the law and the testimony; for "the servants of the Deity" are instructed out of the law, and not out of learned and classical disquisitions on Greek and Roman Numismatics. The rider and his bow in the first seal, doubtless, symbolizes a like idea to that of the Spirit giving the word, and bowing or shooting it through

The book Anatolia, written by the Author of Eureka was later replaced by The Exposition of Daniel The comment referred to is found at the end of the book in Section 34 entitled: The Times Of The Kingdom of Babylon and of Judah.

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a great company of believers to the world. This answers to the facts in the case as they obtained in the first, second, and third centuries; and as they will obtain again, when the Lamb appears upon Mount Zion with the 144,000 gathered unto him - ch. 14:1; 2 Thess. 2:1. A great company of obedient believers had been gathered together into "one body" by the labours of the apostles, which, in John's apocalyptic epoch, had attained "to a perfect man" - a man that could not be seen as an ordinary man by the eye of sense; but a man who could be seen, discerned, looked upon, as the seals can be seen, by the eye of the understanding enlightened by the divine testimony. This was the Spirit-Man who fought for conquest against Caesar as the power which hindered, that he might be taken out of the way. He began this good fight in Caesar's empire on the fiftieth day after he was wounded in the heel by the serpent-power. Being healed of his wound, he went forth with his bow "conquering;" and in his prospering course, "pulling down strongholds, casting down reasonings, and every lofty conceit that exalted itself against the knowledge of the Deity, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" - Eph. 4:13; 2 Cor. 10:5. For about sixty years he had handled his bow with great dexterity, prowess, and effect; and had already witnessed the signal overthrow of the Jewish power, against which he had been practicing his archery nearly forty years. But the fall of Jerusalem did not bring peace to him. His work was still to "contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints," until the idolatrous superstition of which Caesar was the Chief Pontiff should be expelled from place and power in "the heaven" of the Roman Orb, or habitable earth. For upwards of thirty years he had been bleeding at every pore, "sweating great drops of blood," in his encounters with the Neros and Domitians of the Roman state. Still he went on conquering with his bow, subduing enemies with the truth, and transforming them into Eyes of the Living Ones, and his own faithful allies in the good fight of faith.

This perfect man of the Ephesian phasis of the "One Body" had thus for sixty years "borne, endured, and labored for the sake of the Spirit's Name, and had not fainted" (ch. 2:3). He drew his bow against all adversaries, whether lying pretenders to apostleship, and Nicolaitanes within; or the Jewish and Pagan denizens of the rayless darkness without. They were all the prey of his devouring bow, which spared neither age, sex, nor condition, admitted of no neutrality, knew no compromise, and tolerated only that which was indisputably true. This Spirit-Man, whose head was Christ, his members in particular, those whom he filled with spirit-gifts for the work of the ministry and edifying of the body; and his flesh and bones, the faithful in general

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Eph. 4: 10-12; 5:30 this Spirit-Man, I say, was a real and formidable potential existence in the empire of the Goat's Little Horn. He had made Felix tremble; he had almost persuaded king Agrippa to be bowman with himself; and he had so alarmed Caesar, that this imperial pontiff of the state superstition commanded him to draw his bow no more in the name of Jesus. But to this mandate he paid no regard. The louder the lion of the forest roared, the louder the echoes of his voice above the battles din, and the grander the execution of his bow; so according to Pliny's letter to Trajan (see vol.1 p.254) in the early par of his reign, the number of the bowman's victims was so great as to call for the serious consultation of the authorities; for, he says, "the contagion of the superstition hath spread not only through cities, but even villages and the country: . - . the temples were almost desolate the sacred solemnities long intermitted, and the sacrificial victims could scarcely find a purchaser," This roused the priests, who had their wealth by the craft "by law established," to infuriate official Rome to the deadliest ferocity against him. But "the great iron teeth, and brazen claws," of the Dragon could not devour and rend him to death. The two-edged sword of the magistrate was too dull fatally to disable this Bowman of the Seal. His "fellow-servants and brethren might be laid under the altar, weltering in their blood (see fifth seal); but the power of Rome was not equal to the subjugation of what Pliny styles "their sullen and obstinate inflexibility." They obeyed Christ before Caesar, whose gods and imperial image were their abomination; and his power. though "dreadful and terrible," too impotent to compel them to invoke.

While John was in Patmos, and recording ha eisi the things which are, and anxiously awaiting the opening of the first seal, he was gratified with the apparition of this valiant archer, bow in hand, and bestriding the Roman world as its conquering rider, in a period ol public prosperity and peace. This represented an existing fact, as we have seen, on the fall of Domitian, and before the death of John about A.D. 98 . John "saw him thus produced in vision; and doubtless, by spiritual discernment, recognized him as his ancient and familiar companion in arms. John knew that hitherto they had been successful in their warfare against Judaism and idolatry; but what of the future'?--- what ha mellei gin esthai meta tauta, the things that sit all come to pass alter these, in relation to the archer'? Shall his career of conquest be arrested'? Shall the Dragon and his adherents break his bow, and silence his testimony; or shall he prove too strong for him, and hurl him like lightning from "the heaven" amid "the inhabiters of the earth and sea. - 12:12. This was an interesting inquiry for John and all the

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saints with him; for the issue of the cause for which they counted everything but refuse was comprehended in this archer's fate.

3, The Coronal Wreath

Mow gratifying, then, to the spectator when he beheld a coronal wreath bestowed upon him - "and there was given to him a stephanos," 'not a diadema. John "saw" the full import of this sign, which we who are confined to the English Version do not In the revelation communicated to him the Spirit was very exact in the use of words When he desired to impart distinct ideas, he did not select one word sign as representative ot them all For different ideas he chose different Greek words and phrases This rule the translators of our English Version have not regarded, for, in numerous instances they have used but one and the same word to express the words which the Holy Spirit teacheth." Thus, for aion, kosmos, ge, oikoumene four widely differ mg word-signs, they have substituted our indefinite sign world for machaira and rhomphaia the word sword and for stephanos and diadema the word crown These are only a few instances but sufficient to show that the English translation does not with critical accuracy represent "the things which the Holy Spirit teaches This defect we must endeavor to supply by interpretation and exposition

As to diadema, the diadem, we see in Apoc. 12 3 the great red dragon in the heaven wearing seven diadems, one upon each head In ch. 13:1, we behold ten diadems on the beast that rises out of the sea one on each of his horns And lastly in ch 19 I2 many diadems are seen upon the head of Him, who conquered and possesses the kingdoms of the nations previously held by the ten horns - on the head of the King of kings and Lord of lords. These are the only places in the apocalypse where diadem occurs.

Diadema signifies a band or fillet, and comes from diadeo, to bind round. It was properly the band of the tiara or turban worn by kings. The diademed tiara was the badge of sovereignty among the Asiatics' hence it signifies in the symbolization of the apocalypse the royal dignity of the wearer. Kings used several diadems when they possessed several kingdoms. Thus, ,Ptolemy, having conquered Syria, made his entry into Antioch, wearing two crowns upon his head, that of Egypt and that of Asia. The seven heads of the Dragon were actually sovereign; so the Ten Horns; and so will the Faithful and True One be over the many kingdoms, when the time for the verification of the prefiguration shall have been fulfilled.

A diadem was not given to the Bowman of the first seal. He was therefore not a reigning sovereign; and could not represent a Roman

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emperor, or a succession of emperors, as is supposed by the learned author of the Horae Apocalypticae. The Roman emperors, good, bad, and indifferent, were already diademed in the sixth head of the Dragon. The Bowman had nothing to do with the emperors but to obey them in all things not forbidden by the Spirit; and to contend against the superstition over which they presided as pontiffs supreme. The destiny of the rider of the white horse was not to wear the diadem, but to win the stephanos when the limit of his conquering should be reached.

We need not say much about the stephanos in this place, having dwelt upon it considerably in vol.1. p.386. It was a circlet of evergreen offered as a prize of honor and glory to the victor in the public games celebrated in the service of the gods. Before the combatant could receive the stephan he had to go on conquering according to the rules of the fight; then at the end of the conflict, he was adorned with the emblem of victory. The srephan may therefore be said to import, as a symbol, something to be obtained by conflict; or something that may have been obtained thereby. In Apoc. 4:4,10, the twenty-four elders are stephaned with each a stephan, which they cast down before the throne. Their stephans are golden or unfading, which they receive after having been invested with white garments - victors' wreaths, bestowed by the Spirit upon all who overcome.

In Apoc. 9:7, the locusts have something on their heads resembling stephans of gold - yellow turbans. In ch. 12:1, the woman in the heaven, from which the Dragon had been expelled, is encompassed about the head with a step hanos of twelve stars, indicating that she had obtained her position there by having conquered. Lastly in ch. 14:14, one resembling the Son of Man rides a white cloud, and wears a golden stephan. This indicates that he has a conflict before him, and at the same time is predictive of his conquering unto final victory.

From considerations, then, derived from the use of the word stephanos in general and particular, we "come" with John “and see," that the valiant archer of the seal was not a ruler, or succession of rulers, of an established dominion, or royalty; but a combatant, an athlete, in that great public game, whose issue was his extermination by fire and sword; or his victory over Caesar, by which that god of the whole Roman earth should be displaced, and the Man-Child of the Star-wreathed woman enthroned as his substitute over all the nations of the Dragon empire. This was the grand proximate issue between the "One Body," or Christ Mystical, to which John belonged, and the pagan Roman power that oppressed him and his brethren and companions in tribulation for the word of the Deity, and for the testimony

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of Jesus Christ - ch. 1:9. They were gratified, comforted, and energized, by the testimony of this prophetic seal, that they would go on conquering for a purpose; and that purpose, not merely the converting of men and women from idolatry that they might obtain remission of sins and eternal life; this was only one department of their mission, great and important in itself; but "conquering that they might conquer" the great Dragon, that old Serpent, surnamed the Diabolos and the Satan, which deceived the whole habitable and persecuted them continually unto imprisonment, confiscation, and death - ch. 12:9. Hence, the mission of this body of believers in its manhood, with no other weapon than a bow, - the word of the Deity, or gospel of his kingdom, - was twofold; namely, "to take out from the nations a people for his name;" and secondly, and subordinately to this, so to indoctrinate society with their principles, as by its enlightenment to make it the instrument of a grand political revolution, by which its constitution in all departments of the body politic should be changed and thoroughly remodelled after a pattern altogether different from the old. This conquest of Rome pagan they saw foreshadowed in a stephanos being given to the rider on the white horse. They knew from the nature of the gift, and their own condition in the world as a proscribed people, that it was prophetic, and not the representation of an accomplished fact. When they reviewed their progress in the empire for the past sixty years, they perceived that they were a conquering people, but that they had not yet won the stephan, or victor's wreath. They had therefore to go on "conquering that they might conquer;" and with this most satisfying consideration to strengthen and encourage them, that if in the conflict their blood were poured out under the Altar, and they might not be personal witnesses of the Dragon's explusion from the heaven, yet, "precious in the eyes of Yahweh is the death of his saints;" they would therefore not be forgotten, but at a remoter epoch would be raised from among the dead, and be associated with the Lamb as his companions in arms in the conquest of the Ten Horns, and in the binding and shutting up of the Dragon in the abyss for a thousand years.

Such, then, is the general import of the first seal. Although its period was most happy and prosperous for the generations ruled by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the two Antonines, yet the "we all who had come to a perfect man" had often to groan under the bloody despotism of those wise and virtuous heathen. Of Trajan, the historian saith, 'There remains one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the Senate, in pouring out the accustomed acclamations on the

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accession of a new emperor, wished that he might surpass the fidelity of Augustus and the virtue of Trajan." Yet this virtuous emperor ordered his subjects to be capitally punished if convicted of the guilt of Christianity, as is clearly seen from his letter to Pliny. There is still a letter extant addressed by Tiberianus, of the province of Syria, to Trajan, which shows his persecuting spirit, and the boldness of his victims. "I am quite wearied," says he, "with punishing and destroying the Galileans, or those of the sect called Christians, according to your orders. Yet they never cease to profess voluntarily what they are, and to offer themselves to death. Wherefore I have labored, by exhortation and threatening, to discourage them from daring to confess to me that they are of that sect. Yet, in defiance of all persecution, they still continue to do it. Be pleased, therefore, to inform me what your highness thinks proper to be done with them."

Whatever answer was given to this, the sanguinary enmity of the government continued to be evinced during the whole of Trajan's reign; for it does not appear that the edicts which were in force against the christadelphians and their fellowservants when he ascended the throne, were ever repealed or revoked during his life, which was closed A.D. 117, while prosecuting his great military expedition into the East, having swayed the imperial sceptre nineteen years.

Trajan was succeeded by Hadrian, under whose reign the state of affairs in regard to our hero of the first seal-period was somewhat ameliorated. This ruler had decreed that "these people were not to be officiously sought after;" nevertheless, such as were accused and convicted of an obstinate adhesion to the faith, were to be put to death as criminals; a sentence from which there was no escape but by worshipping the gods and adjuring Christ. Nevertheless, Hadrian, according to Gibbon, was a wise and virtuous prince, under whom "the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged views and the minute details of civil policy; but the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As these prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was by turns an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant." He reigned twenty one years, that is, to A.D. 138, when death caused him to give place to the Antonines.

According to Tertullian, he was in the highest degree curious and inquisitive. His knowledge is said to have been varied and extensive -he had studied all the arts of magic, and was passionately fond of the rites and institutions of Paganism. There could, therefore, have been

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no sympathy in his heart for those who were handling the bow for the victor's wreath. Apologies, or vindications of christianity were addressed to him by two writers named Quadratus and Aristides, A.D. 126, which were supposed to have favorably affected him; but it could only have been slightly, as the imperial edicts were permitted to operate against them.

Concerning the period of this seal, Mosheim has remarked that such of the christians as could conceal their profession were indeed sheltered under the law of Trajan, which was therefore a disagreeable restraint upon the heathen priests, who breathed nothing but fury

this space had a picture depicting a coin

The above coin was one of the first minted by Hadrian. In order to impress the Romans that he ruled by the authority of his predecessor, he is depicted as receiving the globe from Trajan's hands. He claimed to follow the policy of Trajan, but in fact, varied It where It suited him. Trajan extended the horde's of Rome, Hadrian restricted them and consolidated the power of the Empire. He reigned for 21 years, and spent much of his time traveling throughout his realm. He was a shrewd and talented ruler, and did much to firm the peace that the empire enjoyed during the period of the first seal which depicted the rider on the white horse (Apoc. 6:2). Note that the Emperor is wearing astephanos, the symbol of victory and authority.

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against the disciples of Jesus. The office of an accuser was also become dangerous, and very few were disposed to undertake it, which put the priests upon inventing new methods of oppressing the christians. The law of Trajan was consequently artfully evaded under his successor Hadrian. The populace, set in motion by their priests, demanded from the magistrates, with one voice, during the public games, the destruction of the christians; and the magistrates, fearing that a sedition might be the consequence of despising or opposing these popular clamors, were too much disposed to indulge them in their request. During these commotions, Serenus Granianus proconsul of Asia, represented to Hadrian how barbarous and unjust it was to sacrifice to the fury of a lawless multitude persons who had been convicted of no crime.

This remonstrance was not without effect. Hadrian saw the propriety of the complaint, and his moderation in yielding to it is supposed to have been attributable to the "Apologies" before mentioned. Serenus having resigned, Hadrian addressed the following rescript to his successor:

"TO MINUTIUS FUNDANUS

"I have received a letter written to me by the very illustrious Serenus Granianus, whom you have succeeded. To me, then, the affair seems by no means a fit one to be slightly passed over, that men may not be disturbed without cause, and that sycophants may not be encouraged in their odious practices. If the people of the province will appear publicly, and prefer open charges against the christians, so as to afford them an opportunity of answering for themselves, let them proceed, but in that manner only, and not by rude demands and mere clamor. For it is much more proper, if any person will accuse them, that you should take cognizance of these matters. If, therefore, any should accuse the christians, and show that they actually break the laws, do you determine according to the nature of the crime. But by Hercules! if the charge be a mere calumny, do you estimate the enormity of such calumny, and punish it as it deserves.'

But, during this seal-period, the swinish multitude and priests of pagan Rome, with the civil power of the state, were not the only enemy in the "outer darkness" with which the rider on the white horse had to contend in his conquering career. The Jews, whose state had been dissolved by the fervent heat of divine indignation, still were true to the character given to them by Paul, that 'they pleased not God, and were contrary to all men" contrary to the saints in Christ, and contrary to the Romans. Still, if the Gentiles made an onslaught upon the christians, the Jews were sure to throw in all their influence to aggravate the horrors of the situation. But the eye of the Deity was upon them, and his wrath ready to flame out anew.

During the half century that had elapsed since the destruction of

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Jerusalem by the Roman Horn of the Goat, the Jews had wonderfully increased. They felt their importance in this respect, and became daring and ferocious, making violent attempts, as opportunity seemed to favor, to restore their government. Their first rebellion was about a year before Trajan's death. It extended through the Jewish population of Palestine, Egypt, Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and the neighboring coasts, and much blood was shed between them and Rome. A second rebellion broke out in the sixteenth year of Hadrian, A.D. 133. This was also very sanguinary, and continued to increase for about four years. In its suppression there was an unpitying destruction of the Jews, being more severe because they had long irritated and vexed the Romans. "But," as a writer has well remarked, 'their sufferings were a just reward for their cruelty and unrelenting hatred toward the christians, whose principles would not allow them to unite in rebellion against the government." This ruin of Jewish affairs was of some advantage to the party of the Bow, which, though not delivered from their hatred, was liable to less annoyance from the diminution of their influence with those in power.

But, with the death of Hadrian, A.D. 138, and the accession of Titus Antoninus Pius, a senator of about fifty years of age, who filled his place in '"the heaven," the state of the combatant for the victor's wreath was relatively improved. The emperor appears to have been a most amiable prince. He caused order and tranquillity to be maintained throughout the empire, and though a heathen pontiff, he was never guilty, so far as his own personal character and intentions were concerned, of wantonly shedding the blood of christians. They were, however, cruelly treated in some of the Asiatic provinces. The crimes laid to their charge by the priests were those of impiety and atheism from a pagan point of view. But Antoninus issued an edict in which he decided that the profession of christianity was not in itself either the one or the other. He addressed a letter to this effect to the magistrate, as follows:

THE EMPEROR OF THE COMMON COUNCIL OF ASIA.

"I am quite of opinion that the gods will take care to discover such persons. For it much more concerns them to punish those who refuse to worship them, than you, if they are able. But you harass and vex the christians, and accuse them of atheism and other crimes, which you can by no means prove. To them it appears an advantage to die for their religion, and they their point while they throw away their lives, rather than comply with your injunctions. As to the earthquakes which have happened in past times or lately, is it not proper to remind you of your own despondency when they happened, and to desire you to compare your spirit with theirs, and to observe how serenely they confide in God? In such seasons you seem to be

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ignorant of the gods, and to neglect their worship. You live in practical ignorance of the supreme God himself, and you harass and persecute to death those who do worship him. Concerning these same men, some others of the provincial governors wrote to our divine father Hadrian, to whom he returned answer, 'that they should not be molested unless they appeared to attempt something against the Roman government.' Many also have signified to me concerning these men, to whom I have returned an answer agreeable to the maxims of my father. But if any person will still persist in accusifig the christians merely as such, let the accused be acquitted though he appear to be a christian, and let the accuser be punished." Set up at Ephesus in the Common Assembly of Asia.

Eusebius informs us that letters to the same purport were written to other assemblies, and to all Greeks; and that the humane emperor took care that his edicts were carried into effect. He reigned twenty-three years, and it seems not unreasonable to conclude that during the greater part of that time the "we all who had come to a perfect man" were enabled still to go on conquering with the bow without very formidable molestation. But at length the senior Antoninus died, A.D. 161; and was succeeded by his colleague, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, an implacable persecutor of the faithful; yet, according to Gibbon, "just and beneficent to all mankind." These two Antonines governed the Dragon empire forty two years "with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. Their united reigns," continues this elegant apologist for paganism, "are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government." Marcus detested war as the disgrace and calamity of human nature; yet he was forward to shed the blood of christians without a pang.

But Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher of the sect of the Stoics, the old opponents of Paul in Athens. His philosophy was his superstition. He fancied that he carried the Deity within him, and that to be good and virtuous was only to follow nature and to obey the dictates of the Deity that is, of the human soul, which was divine and self-sufficient. Such was his wisdom - the wisdom of the world, which the wisdom of the Deity in its conquering progress proved to be folly. The collision of these systems brought the rider of the white horse into conflict with this imperial champion of deified human consciousness. His bow dashed it in pieces as a vain conceit; and as Dagon before the ark, scattered its fragments to the pity and contempt of myriads. This indignity was too much for the pride of a Stoic, wielding despotically the "dreadful and terrible" power of the Roman Dragon. The pride of the emperor was deeply wounded. He could not endure to be proved a fool by the logic of the truth twanging from the archer's bow in flights of missiles, darkening the air of his philosophy. Nothing but blood Page 155

could expiate the offense. Hence his cruel and exterminating policy against the christians, so opposite to that of his humane and noble predecessor.

In speaking of this ruler, Mosheim remarks, that "most writers have celebrated Marcus beyond measure on account of his extraordinary wisdom and virtue. It is not, however, in his conduct towards the christians that we are to look for the reasons of these pompous encomiums; for here the clemency and justice of that emperor suffers a strange eclipse . . . So that if we except Nero, there was no reign under which the christians were more injuriously and cruelly treated." He commenced a persecution against them, and carried it on with merciless barbarity in those Asiatic regions which had been relieved by Antoninus Pius, whose tolerant principles, in the plenitude of his power, he dismissed altogether from his regard. Still, though the blood of the saints poured forth copiously afresh, the archer was not dismayed at the terrors of the fight. His career could not be impeded by an imperial professor and lecturer on Stoical metaphysics. He rode on, "conquering that he might conquer," rejoicing in the honor of death, that being faithful thereto, he might receive the wreath of victory, and of the life that knows no end - Apoc. 2:10. But, though undismayed, voices were sometimes heard deprecating the cruelties inflicted by power. "Pious persons," said Melito of Sardis to the emperor, A.D. 177, "aggrieved by new edicts published throughout Asia, and never before practised, now suffer persecution. For audacious sycophants, and men who covet other persons' goods, take advantage of these proclamations openly to rob and spoil the innocent by night and by day. If this be done by your order, let it stand good, for a just emperor cannot act unjustly; and we will cheerfully submit to the honor of such a death. This only we humbly crave of your Majesty, that after an impartial examination of us and of our accusers, you would justly decide whether we deserve death and punishment or life and protection. But if these proceedings be not yours, and the new edicts be not the effects of your personal judgment - edicts which ought not to be enacted even against barbarian enemies - in that case we entreat you not to despise us who are thus unjustly oppressed."

The reign of this "philosophic emperor" abounds with instances of unrelenting cruelty towards the christians. He made it a capital offense for any one to avow himself a christian; by which he afforded the world a striking illustration of the justice, mercy and benificence, which flow from the mere reason and philosophy of the natural man! His theory deified what he called the soul; and this rational and philosophic god within him devoted all its divinity and power, inherent and acquired, to

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the maintaining a system of superstition and idolatry, repugnant to every principle of reason enlightened by sobriety and truth. But, the Lamb who opened this seal, and who was now about to open the second, had tolerated this blind and ferocious philosopher's malignity, so much in accord with the fury of the besotted and brutal populace, to the utmost of his forbearance. He had afforded "philosophy" in purple an ample opportunity and a splendid theatre for the display of its 'wisdom and virtue," in promoting the honor of the Deity, and real happiness of mankind. But it had been weighed in the divine balance, and proved by the conquering bowman of the seal, to be lighter than vanity. His cruelty upon the Brethren of Christ is an indelible disgrace to his memory; which, however, according to Gibbon on the authority of Dion, "was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century after his death, many persons preserved the image of Marcus Antonius among those of their household gods." His death occurred A.D. 180, by which a period was put to the flaming of this firebrand, which, with little intermission, had continued in one quarter or another during a period of eighteen years.

4. Of Clerical Expositions

In concluding this section, 1 remark, that it is not within the scope of this exposition to occupy its pages in stating and examining the multitude of opinions and theories that have been broached by the many and various writers that have preceded me in attempts, all of which have proved futile attempts, at apocalyptical interpretation. To expose their speculative demerits would leave neither time nor space for the exposition of the text; and we should fall into the error of our predecessors, which has been a losing sight of the subject in the fog of their own "ripe scholarship," with which they have confounded and stultified themselves, in demolishing the vain imaginations of their opponents. If A prove B's position to be untenable, it does not therefore follow that A's is impregnable. The reader is interested to know, not how many views there are of our grand subject in general and detail, or in what their error consists; but what is its true scriptural and historic import. This 'the natural man" can neither unfold, nor "see" when it is explained; for the simple reason that it is "spiritually discerned" 1 Cor. 2:14. The clergymen and ministers who have mystified themselves and the public by their apocalyptic researches have all signally failed for this cause; not for want of an acquaintance with heathen authors in their original Latin and Greek, proficiency in which is the glory of the natural man; but for want of that spiritual discernment which is anchored to a comprehensive understanding and belief of the truth, as it is in the prophets and apostles. Not having this light within them they cannot "see" that apocalyptic vein of pure gold, which is traceable amid the historic quartz and sands of the "great mountain," which is to become a plain before Zerubbabel. This vein cannot be prospected by any signs extant in the literature and philosophy of the natural man. Volumes of this learned lumber may be compiled, with the most amusing and curious notes, annotations, and addenda, and after all said, the first scriptural idea fail of having been elicited, as in the Rev. E. B. Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae. This accomplished "divine" of the Anglican Harlot as by Satan's law established, whose book is a monument of industry, literary and classical research, and Laodicean foolishness, informs us of the opinions of other "divine" naturals concerning the first four seals, which he rightly rejects as absurd; and then adds thereunto a palpable absurdity of his own. "Hence," says he, "the inadmissibility not merely of such directly antichronological explanations as that of the martyrologist Foxe and Mr. Faber, which interprets the four horses and horsemen of the four successive military empires of Babylon, Persia, Macedon, and Rome, the three first of which had already some centuries before St. John passed away: - but also of such as Dr. Keith's, which would interpret them to symbolize the four successive religions of Primitive Christianity, Mohammedanism, Popery, and Infidelily; though elsewhere insisting on the establishment of the reign of popery and the popes, as dating near a century before the rise of Mohammedanism." Having disposed of these, and very properly repudiated the notion of the horses signifying the church, he would have us believe that the first four seals in their figuration represent the martial Roman nation and its emperors. On this assumption, be expounds the figuration of the first seal of the Roman people in a happy and prosperous state, ruled by five successive emperors of extraordinary excellence; and characterized as the imperial riders by the Stephanos; and of the Nervan family of Caesars by the bow, the symbol of Nerva the founder of the gens; who sprang originally from Crete, celebrated of old time for the manufacture of bows, which thus became the symbol of the Cretans, and stamped upon their coins! This "crowned bow bearing rider," the Nerva family of emperors, "went forth conquering and to conquer;" "thereby," says Mr. Elliott, "assuring the general inviolability from foreign foes, and perhaps (for the words might seem to intimate as much) advancing the limits and the greatness of the empire" of Rome!

It is said, that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and surely here it is. The figuration of the seal is the sublime; but this Elliott "commentary" thereon is certainly the ridiculous

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. The reader, however, who now has the subject fairly before him, must judge for himself according "to the law and the testimony;" for, if we speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in us. Let him compare, if he will, these diverse and rival expositions; and according to the magnitude and grandeur of the things we have set forth, let him determine of himself, if their fitness be not more nearly allied to the heaven-born things of Deity than the learned and classical elaboration of the Nervan bow, by the antiquarian and excursive ingenuity of the "late Vicar of Tuxford."

SECTION 2

THE PERGAMIAN STATE

Vol.1. p. 428,436

The Epheso Smyrnean State of the Ecclesias degenerates into the Pergamian. The doctrine of Balaam and the Nikolaitanes gaining the ascendancy. Celsus, a heathen opponent of the word, objects, that christians were now so split into sects, that the name, christian, only remained to them in common.

ACT II. SEAL-PERIOD SECOND

Apoc. 6:3,4

The rider of the Red Horse puts an end to the previous peace, and involves the populations of the Fourth Beast Polity in bloody civil wars.

A.D.183

3. "And when He opened the Second Seal, I heard from the Second Living One saying, 'Come and see!' 4. And there went forth another, a fiery-red horse; and to him sitting upon him, to him it was given to take the peace from the earth and that they might slay one another; and there was given to him a great dagger."

1. Preliminary Remarks

In my previous exposition I have shown that the Bowman of the first seal is emblematic of the spirit of the heavens manifested in the "we all" who had "come to A PERFECT MAN," who was engaged in an earnest contention for the faith against the superstition and infidelity of the world. This was that one styled by the Spirit in David, in Psa. 68:18, adam, "the man," for whom the Lord Jesus received official gifts when he ascended to the right hand of power - "thou receivest gifts ba'adam for the Man," or for the Adam. Paul styles Jesus, "made Lord and Christ," "the last Adam;" and says, that as the saints have born

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the image of the first Adam, so also shall they bear the image of the last- I Cor. 15:45-49. They shall be in nature like what he is now. But, in a moral sense they are required to be now like to what he was while on earth 'learning obedience by the things which he suffered." This tuition developed the moral image of Deity, as the creative energy of the Spirit did the material image after his resurrection. It is divinely predestined, therefore, (and the predestination is a necessity that cannot be dispensed with) that all who shall inherit salvation in the kingdom of the Deity shall be 'conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the Firstborn (or Chief) among many brethren." Paul says to the Colossians, "ye have put off the Old Man," or moral image of the First Adam, '"with his deeds; and have put on the New Man," or last Adam, "who is renewed by knowledge after the image of him that created him" - 3:9,10. This they had done. They were in the last Adam, and conformed to his moral image, in hope of being conformed to his material image at the coming of their Chief.

Here then are two men, or Two Adams, occupying the arena of the Roman Habitable - the Old Adam and the New Adam. The former is an infidel atheistic sinner, declared by Paul to be atheos en to kosmo, atheist in the world. Read his summary of him in Eph. 2:12; and his description of his vices in Rom. 1:21-32. The whole world of unenlightened natural men of all ages and generations constitutes collectively the Old Adam, who is also "the Devil and Satan" in a certain relation of things. This man has long since come to a perfect man- to the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Antichrist. He is strong and lawless, doomed to perdition when the times apocalyptically "signified" shall be fulfilled.

The other Adam came upon the arena of the habitable in a later age and generation; and was regarded by him as an intruder, and an enemy to be ejected by all possible means, the end to be attained sanctifying everything, however criminal or ferocious. But, if he could not prevail by violence, it was within the scope of his policy to try and corrupt with flatteries; for if he could put to silence by these he would convert the New Man into a partisan, and all opposition would cease. So long, however, as each remained true to his principles, the Old Adam to those of the flesh, and the New Adam to those of the word, there could be nothing but war until the one or the other were subdued.

But, the New Man, though "perfect," did not in all the constituents of his body continue in all his conflicts undefiled. Much of his flesh became diseased and gangrenous, and perished by the way. This reduced his proportions considerably, and leaves him in his nineteenth

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century existence feeble, emaciated and decrepid; while the Old Adam is still robust and powerful.

In the days of the first seal, the New Man of the spirit was healthy, vigorous, and formidable to the Old Man of the Flesh; who ruled in the Pagan Church and State, as he does now in all the Churches and States of what he ignorantly calls "Christendom." The conflict between the two was very earnest and bloody. Many lives or souls were ruthlessly precipitated under the altar, while many of the Old Serpent-Man's adherents fell from their allegiance, and became incorporated in the New Man. But, in this sanguinary strife all the desertions were not from the party of the Serpent; many relaxed their hold upon the Lamb, fell into the ranks of the enemy, and became, either implacable adversaries, or perverters of the truth, who pretended to have found a common ground, on which Jew, philosopher, vulgar Pagan, and christian might meet in the fellowship of the same essential opinions. Sects, formed of the factions who had become impatient of the restraints of the truth, had greatly multiplied. The seed sown in the first century by the seducers, evil men, and false prophets, of whom we read so much in the New Testament, was now in vigorous growth; multiplied, varied, complicated, and refined by endless subtleties and fancies, in which the poverty of taste and genius discovered itself abundantly.

There were at the time of the closing of the period of the first seal and the opening of the second, two classes among the professed adherents of the New Man, whose opposite characteristics were becoming daily more distinct. The one may be regarded as the vital and wholesome element of the man himself- Christadelphians; those who held fast the Spirit's Name, and had not denied His faith; and those of the Balaam class, who held the teaching of the Nikolaitanes, or Gnostics, and were multiplying considerably. Instead of holding fast the Spirit's Name, they were developing what in history is called the Arnestitheos apostasia, or Deity-denying apostasy, which affirmed that "Christ was no more than a man." The Spirit's Name is the Father by his spirit manifested in Sin's Flesh begotten and born, not of the will of man, but by his own creative energy, as was Adam the first: but, to say, that he was no more than a man, was to affirm, that he was begotten of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man; which was to lay the basis of a name which the spirit not only will not recognize, but one which he hates. These Gnostics also, while they claimed the name of christian, denied the Spirit's faith, as do "the names and denominations" of modern times. These Nikolaitans sects amused and stultified themselves with the discussion of the merest trifles; such as, the proper

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time of the observance of Easter; the pretended prophetical illuminations of fanatics, and the questions agitated by the Eclectics of Egypt. These sects were "the Mystery of Iniquity" working under the name of christians; the Synagogue of the Satan that aggravated greatly the difficulties of the genuine elements of the New Man in that department of his work, the "taking out from among the Gentiles a people for the Spirit's Name." Still, out of the evil of these sects some good was extracted. They became a numerous and powerful political party, which eventually acquired sufficient strength to contend with the pagan party sword in hand and to expel it from "the heaven" of the Roman world. While they had denied the Spirit's name and faith by their traditions, they still contended against the idolatry of the Gentiles; and in this contention they were, doubtless, very successful. The Christadelphians or true believers, and the heretics called Christians combined were too much for the heathen in their argument against their gods, and the worship with which they honored them; so that the New Man, notwithstanding all the discouragements which afflicted him on the right hand and on the left, still went on 'conquering" under this second seal "that he might conquer" under the sixth, when his brethren and fellow servants who were to be slain should be filled up.

Now these Nikolaitan Heretics who were defiling the temple of the Deity with their traditions, were exhorted at this period to "repent; or else," said the Spirit, I will come unto thee suddenly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth" - ch. 2:16. Hence the Spirit had a controversy with them as well as with the heathen populace, priests, and civil, and imperial rulers. He will not permit His name, His faith, and His faithful and true ones to be disregarded, denied, tormented, and destroyed with impunity. Nemo me impune lacessit, no one provokes me without punishment, is the Spirit's maxim with respect to his holy things. Retribution had therefore accumulated within the past eighty years upon the heads of two classes of offenders- upon the Roman people and government; and upon the sectarian or Pergamian apostates, who were neither pagan, Jew nor Christadelphian; but, like our modern "names and denominations," Balaamite and Nikolaitan blasphemers of the truth yet "christians" so-called.

The retribution threatened against these apostatizing professors of christianity was that the Spirit would fight with them, and that the weapon he would wield against them would be "the sword of his mouth." That is, he would command a sword to be unsheathed against them. Such a sword would consist in something more practical and material than reason and testimony. These were fast becoming to them, what their brethren in modern times affirm the word of the

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Deity to be now, "a dead-letter." Argument by the Spirit through the Angel-elderships of the Ecciesias had been exhausted; so that appeals to their intelligence being fruitless, it remained only to treat them as heathen men and publicans - mere creatures of sensation, brutish as the beasts that perish.

The sword, then, that was suspended over them was a sword of retribution, which, on smiting them, would also smite the heathen populace and its rulers, and redden society with its own blood. That this is the kind of sword "signified" by the Spirit's words, will appear from the use of the phrase in Apoc. 19:15 - "Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword that with it he might smite the nations;" and in verse 20, "The remnant were slain with the sword of him sitting upon the horse, which sword proceedeth out of his mouth;" and the blood of those slain flowed to the horse-bridles of them who inflicted the vengeance.

"Repent," metanoeson, change your minds, "or else I will come unto thee suddenly, and fight with thee." But instead of such repentance as this, they hardened their hearts, and went on from bad to worse, until the patience and long-suffering of the Deity being exhausted, the Lamb opened suddenly the Second Seal, and a fiery red condition of society became the characteristic of the "Spirit of the Heavens" that ruled the passing hour.

2. The Opening of the Seal-Period

When the Lamb opened the first seal, John's attention was called to the fact by a voice "as of a voice of thunder;" but in the opening of the second, he hears a voice of the same import, only without the thunder. There was no hurling of the tyrant Marcus Aurelius Antoni-nus into the shades of death by the hands of an assassin, and the revocation of his edicts, and declaring his memory infamous, by the decrees of an indignant Senate, as in the case of Domitian. Though this imperial Stoic had shed so much christian blood, or permitted it to be shed when he could easily have prevented it, which is equally criminal with the Deity, the Lamb allowed him to depart to his own place without any signal personal vengeance being inflicted upon him. He died without violence, aged about fifty-seven, having reigned conjointly with Antoninus Pius twenty-three years, at the expiration of which he became sole emperor for thirteen, when he associated his son Commodus with him in the government. Four years after this he died, leaving Commodus, at the inexperienced age of about nineteen, the uncontrolled and irresponsible despot of the so-called "civilized world."

Commodus ascended the throne as sole ruler A.D. 180. "The

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beloved son of Marcus," says Gibbon, "succeeded to his father amidst the acclamations of the Senate and armies, and when he ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this calm, elevated station, it was surely natural that he should prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian."

During the first three years of his reign, he reluctantly surrendered himself to the direction of those experienced counselors whom his father had delighted to honor. By their influence his profligacy was confined to his private revels; and as his hands were yet unstained with blood, there was hope that he might become, if not the most virtuous, at least not the most "dreadful and terrible" of his kind. A fatal incident, however, dashed all hopes, and decided his weak and timid character for the worse, until cruelty degenerated into habit, and at length become the ruling passion of his soul.

One evening as Commodus was returning to the palace through a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheater, an assassin, who waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "The Senate sends you this." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy. The conspirators, who, with the assassin himself, were senators, were all executed. But though relieved of their presence, the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body of the Senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now suspected as secret enemies. The Delators, a race of men discouraged and almost extinguished in the former reigns, again became formidable, as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding disaffection or treason in the Senate. This great council of the nation was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans, and distinction of every kind soon became criminal. "The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the vices of Commodus; important services argued a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of Marcus Aurelius always ensured the aversion of his son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof, trial to condemnation. The execution of a senator of consideration was attended with the death of all who might lament or avenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse."

Such was the opening of the Second Seal, A.D. 183. It was a sign

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in "the heaven," and the color of the sign was fiery red. The spirit that ruled the situation there was that of retributive vengeance, through a class of agents who were the blind executioners of a purpose which they knew not. Bloodshedding was the order of the day. The son-in-law of the late emperor was among the victims; and Anus Antoninus, the last representative of the Antonines, also fell by the axe of the executioner. Every sentiment of decency and humanity was extinct in the mind of Commodus. He abandoned the reins of empire to the most unworthy favorites, and valued nothing in sovereign power except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites. He is said to have been the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. From his earliest infancy he discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace, the sports of the circus and amphitheater, the combats of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. He entered the lists as a gladiator, and gloried in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy.

He had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise from himself that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of sense and virtue in his empire. History has preserved a long list of consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out with peculiar anxiety those unfortunate persons connected, however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the ministers of his crimes or his pleasures. His cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity the noblest blood of Rome; he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics. He was strangled while laboring with the effects of poison and drunkenness, A.D. 192, after a sanguinary reign of thirteen years.

This reign may be regarded as the opening period of the Second Seal. In its course divine vengeance executed through the wicked, as the sword of Deity, retributive justice upon the authorities, and upon the imperial family, who had shed the blood of the saints in the former reigns; and, when the work was consummated in their case, the imperial executioner was punished for his crimes by death at the hands of the infamous.

But, though Commodus had destroyed the peace and happiness of the Senate and patricians of Rome, his reign was remarkable for the peace granted to the Ecclesia of Christ in all the habitable. In this one particular point only, namely, in his conduct towards the christians, Commodus was more just and equitable than his philosophical father.

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In this the change of emperors was propitious. The power, goodness, and justice of the Deity were evinced in making so vile a character at once his sword upon the persecutor and a check upon persecution, by which a breathing time was afforded after eighteen years of sufferings exceedingly cruel. The gospel, or what was called the gospel, is said to have flourished abundantly, and many of the nobility of Rome, with their whole families, embraced it." At all events, they abandoned paganism; but whether or not they embraced "the truth as it is in Jesus," is beyond the competency of historians to testify.

THE OPENING OF THE SECOND SEAL

This area contained a picture of Commodus

Seldom in history has so speedy and tragic a reversal taken place as that which followed the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the emperors of the first seal. At his death (A.D. 180), the empire stood at the zenith of stability; but in the hands of his successor, the gross and dull-witted Commodus, it entered into a sharp decline that approached disruption. He instituted a regime of terror, one so unjust and savage that many leadmg citizens looked to the armies for relief, and so laid the foundation of further bloodshed.

Commodus (see left) considered himself the incarnation of Hercules and had himself portrayed with the attributes of that god: a club and a lion's skin. He degraded himself by appearing in the arena as a gladiator, there to slay unarmed opponents. He slaughtered senators at will, and permitted his pampered favorites in the Praetorian Guard to run the affairs of state as they pleased. He sought out every form of perversion, his excesses causing disgust among the people over whom he ruled, until, finally a hired assassin put him to death by strangling. His reign commenced the epoch of bloodshed and evil that finally brought the empire to an end.

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3. The Horse Fiery Red

In the first seal the horse was white - it was in peace and prosperity; but the horse in the second seal appears under an administration that "takes away the peace from the earth." Hence the redness of the horse a horse dyed with blood - with arterial blood the life of the flesh, and therefore its fiery rather than a purple hue. The same word is used by the LXX in 2 Kings 3:22, purra hos haima, red as blood. The word is very expressive; the root of it being pure fire, it indicates in this emblem both the brightness of the red and the cause of the horse's redness - the fiery indignation of the Deity. John beheld the horse in a state of fiery redness without any whiteness about it. Not that the social horse became all over red on the opening of the second seal, but that this would be its condition before the seal-period should be superseded by that of the third. While the horse represents Greek and Latin society, the color represents that society's judicial condition. The judgments brought upon it in the reign of Commodus fell chiefly upon the uppertendom of the State. The lower classes, however, of the city Rome did not altogether escape. Pestilence and famine broke out among them there, so that two thousand persons died every day for a considerable length of time. The pestilence was attributed to the just indignation of their gods; but the famine they considered as owing to speculators, and among these principally to the emperor's favorite, who had monopolized the breadstuffs of the city. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled circus. The people quitted their favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards the palace in the suburbs, and demanded with angry clamors the head of the public enemy. The obnoxious favorite ordered a body of praetorian cavalry to disperse the seditious multitude. The people fled towards the city; several were slain, and many more trampled to death. But when the praetorians entered the city, the foot-guards joined the people. The tumult became a regular engagement and threatened a general massacre. The cavalry at length gave way, and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. Two of his concubines, however, ventured to break into his presence, and revealed to the affrighted tyrant the impending ruin. He started from his dream of pleasure, and commanded that the head of his favorite should be thrown to the people. The desired

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spectacle appeased their rage, and the tumult ceased.

This was a sort of earnest of the sanguinary aspect that awaited the whole social horse when the judgments of the seal should be fully developed. He would, in all his parts, under the administration of his bloodshedding rider, bleed from every pore, and became fiery red, as John saw him in the vision; so that when the seal-judgments should be complete, the Senate, the executive, the pagans, philosophers, and heretics, of Daniel's "dreadful and terrible" fourth beast, should be all fiery red from the sanguinary calamities their crimes, unbelief, and apostasy had brought upon them.

4. The Rider of the Horse

John refers to the rider by the phrase "him who sits upon him." This equestrian is a symbolical personage, not representative of an individual man, but of a class of agents blindly executing retribution upon those obnoxious to the Lamb's displeasure. He evidently represents a class of agents endued with the power of the sword, and who could wield it in the cause of peace or war. "It was given to him," says John, ..to take away the peace from the earth." This shows, first, that the white period of the first seal was a period in which peace ruled the situation; and, secondly, that it was given to him to destroy public tranquillity - to abolish "the peace," and to substitute tumult and confusion where it had previously reigned. But this state of public disorder might obtain without bloodshedding John was therefore informed that the reason why it was given to him to take away the peace, was that "they," the agents symbolized by the rider, "might slay one another." This was an intimation to the apostle that, when the second seal should be in manifestation, a period of civil commotion and bloodshed would have superseded "the most prosperous and happy era" of the first seal. A sanguinary revolutionary condition of things, in the presence of that generation of "the people of the mighty and the holy ones," symbolized by the second or Ox-headed Living One "full of eyes," was the signification of "mystery" of Roman society dyed fiery red and ridden by this "dreadful and terrible" equestrian.

In the English Version it reads, "Power was given to him to take peace from the earth." This is very indefinite unless it is distinctly understood what is "signified" by "the earth." In the original the phrase is, labein ten eirenen apo tes ges, to take THE peace from the earth. The relation of the first two seals shows that the definite article, ten, ought not to be omitted, whether it be so in some manuscripts or not. Public tranquillity had obtained within the limits of the Dragon empire from the fall of Domitian to the alleged sending of a sword to Page 168.

Commodus by the Roman Senate, a period of eighty-seven years. This was peace notably definite in the history of the imperial diademed head of the Dragon, and the taking of it away was very properly foretold in the definite form of the original. I have, therefore, not omitted it in my rendering of the text, but, after "the form of words" before me, instead of "take peace from," have given it "take the peace from the earth."

5. The Great Dagger

"And there was given to him (the rider) a great dagger." So I render the words, kai edothe auto machaira megale. In the English Version, machaira megale is rendered a great sword. My objection to this is, that in the symbolization of the Fourth Seal the sword is introduced in the English Version, although in the Greek the spirit has selected a different word, which, in fact, represents a weapon of a different kind. In verse 4, a machaira was given to the rider; while in verse 8, they kill with a rhomphaia. There must be a reason why two different words, both rendered sword in the English Version, are used by the Spirit in the second and fourth seals. A machaira and a rhomphaia, though both weapons of destruction, are such in the hands of different classes of destroyers. In Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, machaira is defined 'a large knife or dirk,' a short sword or dagger; but still rather an assassin’s than a soldier's weapon." It was worn by the emperors as a symbol of their power, as magistrates-in-chief, over life and death. It was also worn by the praefects of the imperial guard. It was the badge indicating them as the constitutional authorities whose function it was to cause the laws to be obeyed on pain of death.

As a symbol, then, adapted to the representation of events peculiar to the bloodstained condition of things in the second seal-period, a machaira was very appropriate. In this symbolization, it was the emblem of the murder or assassination, committed by them, who wielded constitutionally the power over the lives of their contemporaries, commonly termed the power of the sword. It was a great dagger symbolically great It was great in the excessive and unconstitutional, or illegal use of it. Though a short, small, weapon in itself; yet in the hands of the class represented by the rider, it was great, or "dreadful and terrible." It was a weapon in the hands of imperial and military assassins of murder by wholesale in cold blood; and of blood-shedding in civil war to avenge assassination; or to retain sovereign power which had been acquired by the dagger's use. In giving therefore to this rider "a great dagger," he had power "given to him to take away the peace of the earth," and to cause its potsherds to slay one another in civil wars. He would redden them with a fiery redness - the redness of a brother's blood.

6. "The Earth"

"It was given to him (the rider) to take the peace from the earth." "The earth" in this place cannot be the earth wherever men dwell, comprehending what we term Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia. The last two were unknown to the ancients; and may therefore certainly be excluded from "the earth" having relation to events being transacted in their time. The use of the phrase in this seal furthermore, could not have comprehended even all the territory known to them, for the prediction was "to take the peace" of the first seal 'from the earth." Now, "the peace" of this seal was internal, not external, peace; for although it was a "most prosperous and happy" period for the Roman people, they still waged great wars against the Persians, Jews, Quadi, Marcomanni, &c., in the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Antoninus. Hence, the territories inhabited by these peoples must be excluded also from "the earth" of this text. In other words, "the earth" was bounded and confined to the frontiers of the Greco-Latin Dragon of Daniel and John; extending two thousand miles in one direction, and three thousand in another; and inclosing within its circuit the Mediterranean sea. This was the sense in which 'the earth" was understood by the Greeks and Latins in John's time. A writer named Dionysius speaks thus concerning it, He de Rhomaion poliS apases men archei ges, hose me anembatos esti pasis de kratei thalasses - the city of the Romans indeed governs the whole earth, as much as is not inaccessible, and holds possession of all the sea. And Ovid sings,

Gentibus est alus tellus data limite certo,

Romanae spatium est urbis et orbis idem.

that is, to other nations territory is given with a defined limit; to tile Roman the extent of the city and the orb is the same; and in another place, he says, Roma caputorbis, - "Rome the head, or capital, of the earth." This will remind the reader of what John says of this city in his day under the figurative name of "Babylon the Great," in Apoc. 17:18, "that great city having dominion over the kings of the earth."

This formula, then, "the earth" in this prophecy of the six seals, is to be interpreted of the Roman territory - all that portion of the orb we inhabit subject to the dominion of Pagan Rome. Beside the text before us, we have it occurring in verses 8,10,13,15. In all these places "the earth" has the same limitation; and is to be interpreted only as the

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arena of events happening to the peoples and government of Rome.

Raving thus expounded the beautiful and expressive figuration of the second seal, I shall now proceed to lay before the reader a narration of events illustrative of the foregoing exposition. I shall condense it from Gibbon as the best historian who has compiled the history of the seal-periods. If I wrote for the learned, this would still be indispensably necessary; for, though they may be well acquainted with the transactions of the times, very few of them are able to trace the apocalyptic vein of the fine gold that runs through them; in other words, to run a parallel between the prophecy and its historical fulfillment. But, this exposition is for the same class of readers as that to whom John was ordered to send the prophecy -"to the servants of the Deity;" and these in all the ages and generations since his day, have been mostly of the poorer sort; and but little acquainted with what has happened in the world beyond what is written in the scriptures. It is necessary, therefore, for their sakes, not only to explain the symbols, but to give so much history as will enable them to "see" for themselves, the reasonableness of the explanation; so that, when they shall have the prophecy in symbol turned into the prophecy in signification, and the history before them, they may be able to conclude that it can only mean what is shown, and nothing else.

7. fulfillment of the Prophecy

Commodus, the imperial sword-bearer of the Roman empire, was not poinarded, but strangled to death. He was succeeded by Pertinax, the praefect of Rome, a senator of consular rank, and conspicuous for his merit. He was chosen emperor by the Praetorian Guards, whose praefect, Laetus, had procured the murder of Commodus, and his election by the military. The election was ratified by the Senate, A.D. 193, which at the same sitting branded the memory of Commodus with eternal infamy.

Pertinax was a "virtuous" pagan, who sought to heal the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny. The innocent victims who yet survived, were recalled from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of murdered senators (for the cruelties of Commodus, an individual element of the rider of the fiery red horse, endeavored to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory was justified; and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined afflicted families.

Economy and industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth. The rapacious extravagance of Commodus had left only about forty thousand dollars in the treasury. With this small sum he had to defray the expenses of the government, and to discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative he had been obliged to promise the licentious and turbulent soldiery who had elected him. Yet under this pressure, he remitted all the oppressive taxes invented by Commodus, and canceled all the unjust claims of the treasury; declaring, "that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by ways of tyranny and dishonor."

His thorough radical reform of state abominations secured to Pertinax the love and esteem of the people, who never would have acquired a fiery redness had they been ridden solely by rulers of his description. They already flattered themselves that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration. But his zeal to reform the corrupted state was too hasty, and proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united against him the servile and swinish multitude, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favor of the most vicious tyrants to the inexorable equality of the laws.

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the praetorian guards betrayed their discontent. They dreaded the restoration of ancient discipline; and regretted the license of the former reign. Three days after their election of Pertinax, they seized on a senator with the design of making him emperor. But he escaped their grasp, greatly alarmed at their purpose of thrusting upon him so dangerous a distinction. A short time after this, one Sosius Falco, a rash youth, conspired with the soldiery in the absence of Pertinax; but the conspiracy was foiled by his unexpected return to Rome. Falco was on the point of being condemned to death by the Senate, but escaped through the intercession of the emperor, who desired that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty senator.

These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the licentious and brutal praetorians, who were the curse of the state it was their duty to defend. Only two months and twenty-six days after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in their camp, which the officers wanted either the power, or inclination to suppress. They marched at noonday with arms in their hands, and fury in their looks, towards the imperial palace. Their companions on guard gave them free admission; and they were welcomed by the domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the life of the too virtuous emperor. Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to meet those in whose fiery red hand was already brandished "the Great Dagger." He recalled to the minds of these

Page 172 picture of Roman Praetorians (soldiers)

The Praetorians (opp.) were an arrogant military elite created as the emperor's guard. They spent much of their time in Rome, and ultimately became tyrannical in their domination of the city, choosing and deposing several of the Emperors. They installed Pertinax as Emperor when he paid them a bribe, but after a few days murdered him. They had frequent recourse to the assassin's sword (the machaira of Ch. 6:4) to gain their way until disbanded by Severus who replaced the existing guard with his own legions. In the left background is a standard bearing the imperial eagle with which Rome was identified (see Matt. 24:21).

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 173

assassins his own innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. But all in vain. A barbarian leveled the first blow, and Pertinax fell, pierced with a multitude of wounds. His head was borne on a lance in triumph to the praetorian camp in sight, of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of an excellent prince, and the transient blessings of a reign the memory of which could serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes.

The praetorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and proximate cause of the decline of the Roman empire, numbered about fifteen thousand. They were instituted by Augustus for the maintenance of his usurped dominion. They enjoyed double pay, and superior privileges. After fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius for ever riveted the fetters of his country by concentrating them at Rome, in a permanent camp without the walls, which was fortified with skill, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills.

Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal, to the throne of despotism. But thus introducing the praetorian guards as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which distance only and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was it possible to conceal from them that the person of the sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of empire, were all in their hands.

The advocates of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that their consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an emperor. "Where," said they, 'was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a servile populace as devoid of spirit as destitute of property. The defenders of the state were the genuine representatives of the people, and the best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic." These assertions became unanswerable when the fierce praetorians increased their weight by throwing their swords into the scale.

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We have seen in the exposition of the first seal, how a bow may symbolize a multitude; it will not therefore be difficult for us to comprehend, how that the "great dagger," or small sword, of the second, may symbolize a multitude of bloodshedding assassins in the hand of the power that rides the people, or rules the state. The scripture in various places uses the sword as emblematic of a multitude in arms. The wicked are the sword of Yahweh (Psa. 17:13); the sons of Zion are compared to a sword - Zech. 9:13; all the tribes of Israel are styled Yah Elohim's battle axe and weapons of war, with which He will break in pieces the nations, and destroy kingdoms - Jer. 51:20. Hence, they are symbolized in the apocalypse by a sword proceeding out of His mouth with which he will smite the nations - 19:15. These praetorian assassins, who claimed to be the representatives of the Roman people, were the sword in the hand of power; and became signally "great" when their numbers were increased by Severus, "the military chief of the republic," to fifty thousand.

Having violated the sanctity of the throne by their atrocious assassination of Pertinax, the praetorians at once proceeded to dishonor its majesty by proclaiming, with a loud voice from the ramparts of their camp, that the Roman world was to be disposed of by public auction to the highest bidder. This infamous excess of military license diffused grief, shame and indignation throughout the city. Two bidders presented themselves, Sulpicianus, father-in-law to Pertinax, and governor of the city, and Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator. The former offered £160 to each soldier; when the vain old Julian, eager for the prize, offered upwards of two hundred pounds sterling to each. This was irresistible; the gates of the camp were instantly thrown open to the purchaser. He was declared emperor; received their oath of allegiance, which would be regarded so long as convenient; and was conducted, in close order of battle, through the deserted streets to the senate-house where he received the imperial symbols from the obsequious and false-hearted council of the nation.

On the throne of the world, Julian now found himself without either friend or adherent. The praetorians even were ashamed of him, nor was there a citizen who did not regard his elevation with horror as the last insult on the Roman name. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude insulted the person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and called aloud upon the legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the Roman empire.

"It was given to him to take the peace from the earth." The public discontent was soon diffused from the centre to the frontiers of the

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empire. The armies in Britain, in Syria, and in Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, as an old and favorite commander, and sternly refused to ratify the ignominious sale. "Their immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to the public peace; as the generals of the respective armies, Albinus, Niger, and Septimus Severus, were still more anxious to succeed, than to revenge the murdered Pertinax. Of these rivals, S. Severus was the most fortunate; and as the time of the seal-period had arrived, "that they should slay one another," they all prepared for the arbitrament of the sword. Severus being a man of energy as well as a soldier of experience and capacity, and having the best troops of the service; and being also nearer to the capital had much the advantage over Niger of Syria, and Albinus of Britain. He speedily assembled his Pannonian legions; painted in the most lively colors the crime, the insolence, and the weakness of the praetorians, and animated his soldiers to arms and revenge. He concluded with the persuasive of about nineteen hundred and fifty dollars to every man; a donative double in value to the bribe with which Julian had purchased the world. The acclamations of the army immediately saluted Severus as emperor, who without delay marched them into Italy on the way to Rome.

Severus and his Pannonian legions were a "great machaira" in every sense of the phrase. His approach to the city made both Julian and the praetorians to tremble. They quitted, with a sigh, the pleasures of the baths and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had almost forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed. Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity, which, with secret pleasure, was greatly enjoyed by the Senate. He insisted that Severus should be declared a public enemy; anon he entreated that he might be associated with him in the empire. He sent public ambassadors to negotiate, while he dispatched private assassins to slay him. He designed a solemn procession of vestals, and all the colleges of priests in their canonicals, and bearing before them the symbols of Roman superstition, to meet the Pannonian legions; and at the same time he vainly tried to interrogate, or to appease, not "the Lamb," but "the Fates," by magic ceremonies, and unlawful sacrifices. But Severus dreaded neither his arms, nor his enchantments, but took wise precaution against assassination. His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the guards, that provided they would abandon Julian, and the assassins of Pertinax, to the justice of the conqueror, he would no longer consider that murder as the act of the whole body. The faithless praetorians complied with these easy terms, seized the greater part of the assassins, and signified to the senate that they no longer

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defended the cause of Julian. That assembly forthwith, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor; and pronounced sentence of deposition and death against the unfortunate Julian, who was beheaded as a common criminal in a private apartment of the baths of the palace, after an anxious and precarious reign of sixty-six days.

Having settled affairs in Rome upon the new basis, he left the city at the end of thirty days, and led his legions to the slaughter decreed for them and their compatriots under Niger and Albinus, in the second seal - it was given to him to take the peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another." In less than four years Severus subdued the legions of the east under Niger and the valor of the west under Albinus. He vanquished these two competitors of reputation and ability, and defeated numerous armies provided with weapons and discipline equal to his own. He was, as a legitimate imperial power, truly a "great machaira;" whose uncommon abilities and fortune had induced an elegant historian of that age to compare him with the first and greatest of the Caesars. He was a man of great craft and dissimulation. He promised only to betray, and flattered only to ruin. By these arts as well as by arms, his rivals fell singly and successively, an easy prey to their subtle foe. The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands at Rome. As long as the power of their father inspired terror, or even respect, they were educated with most tender care with his own children; but they were soon involved in Niger's ruin, and removed -first by exile and afterwards by death - from the eye of public compassion.

As for Albinus, he was induced to accept from Severus the precarious rank of Caesar, as a reward for his neutrality in his conflict with Niger. Till this civil war was decided, he treated Albinus, whom he had doomed to destruction, with every mark of esteem and regard. Even in the letter in which he announced his victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his soul and empire. The messengers charged with the delivery of this were instructed to accost the Caesar with respect - to desire a private audience, and to plunge their daggers into his heart. The conspiracy was discovered, and the too credulous Albinus crossed over to the continent to meet Severus in arms for the work of mutual slaughter, according to the terms of the second seal. The battle of Lyons in France, where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans were engaged, was fatal to Albinus; and this second civil war was finished by that memorable day, A.D. 197.

Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight from the field of battle. Severus' unforgiving temper stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there was no room for

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apprehension. The most considerable of the provincials who had obeyed the vanquished governor under whose authority they were accidentally placed, were reddened with their own blood, sent into exile, and lost their estates by confiscation. He sent the head of Albinus, with a threatening letter, to Rome, in which he announced that he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of the Caesar. He condemned forty-one senators to the fiery redness of the seal. Their wives, children, and clients attended them in death; and the noblest provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same fiery red ruin. Such rigid justice - for so he termed it - was, in the opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of ensuring peace to the people, or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to lament, that to be mild it was necessary that he should first be cruel.

Having thus become the "great machaira" of his age, Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and proceeded to improve and cultivate so valuable an acquisition. In the administration of justice, his judgments were characterized by attention, discernment and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in favor of the poor and oppressed. The misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The wrath of the Lamb was temporarily assuaged; and the judgments of the second seal were complete. The calm of peace and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces. The fame of the Roman arms was revived by that warlike and successful imperial sword-bearer: and he boasted, with no little pride, that having received the empire oppressed with foreign and domestic wars - 'slaying one another" - he left it established in profound, universal and honorable peace.

But, while "the peace" was taken "from the earth," and the armies of the empire were engaged in "slaying one another," what was the condition of those anti-pagan professors of christianity who had let go their hold upon the Spirit's name, had denied his faith, and had embraced the dogmas of Nikolaitanism? And amid all the trouble of the times, was the Bowman of the first seal "conquering," while the Imperial Machaira of the second was blindly executing rigid justice upon the pagan senate and public at large?

In the beginning of the third century, at which we have arrived, we find an unhappy mixture of metaphysical self-righteousness and superstition, now amply developed in "the names and denominations" of blasphemy, overshadowing and darkening the world, and greatly clouding and depraving the pure light of the gospel. This perverting the gospel of Christ, and preaching another gospel than Paul's, had been progressing from his time; but recently it had been greatly promoted by

178 EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE.

Ammonius, Pantaenus, Clement, Origen, of the Divinity School at Alexandria, the capital of Egypt; who were all eminent in the unhallowed work of making christianity palatable to heathen philosophers and admirers of the world's wisdom - a work that could only be successful by corrupting it. Would the Deity look with complacency upon this? Though they had renounced the gods of Greece and Rome, and contended against their existence and worship, as protestants now protest against the saints of the Romish calendar, and the worshipful honor paid to them, still this was only the negation of a particular superstition. The denial of this was not affirming "the truth as it is in Jesus." Hence, Alexandrian divinity was no more the doctrine of Christ, by which alone men can be saved, than modern protestantism. It was a protest against vulgar paganism without being also an earnest contest for the faith. It was protestantism, only with a different form of superstition for its adversary. Did the Deity esteem the overthrow of heathenism more highly than holding fast his name and affirming his faith. We know he did not; for he threatened this class of professors that he would "fight with them by the sword of his mouth," as he now fights against both papists and protestants by setting them to 'slay one another" for their blasphemies and abominations. Zeal against an error or superstition does not sanctify the ignorance and unbelief of the zealots. They were vessels to dishonor in the master's house. I say in the master's house, for he had not yet "spued them out of his mouth," as he did afterwards. They had not yet arrived at "the mystery of iniquity" in its seventh, or Laodicean degree. Christ loved them still, and therefore he chastised them to bring them back 'to the faith once delivered to the saints."

The great imperial machaira was the power employed in inflicting judgment upon "the house of the Deity" - 1 Pet. 4:17. In his younger days Severus had been a bitter persecutor of the christians at Lyons, where he afterwards fought his great battle with Albinus. But through the influence and kindness which he had received from Proculus, a christian physician, he became favorably disposed towards them for a time. It was not till about the tenth year of his reign, or A.D. 202, that his native ferocity of temper broke out afresh, and kindled a very severe persecution against them. He may have been provoked to this by some political demonstration against his administration on the part of heretical professors; who, taking advantage of the trouble of the times, may have given aid and comfort to Niger or Albinus, preferring them as rulers rather than Severus. Be this as it may, he visited Alexandria, formerly under Niger, with great severity. From various parts of Egypt professors were brought to that capital to suffer; and

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they expired in torments. The justice of the Deity was very retributive in that city. It was the Oxford and Cambridge - the Andover and Princeton of spurious christianity; and there, consequently, the providential visitation was the most intense. From all I can see in the history of those times, the executions seem to have been chiefly of professors who coveted martyrdom, which was contrary to the teachings of Christ who told them that 'when persecuted in one city they should flee to another." But, the reverse of this, they rushed into the mouth of the dragon, and provoked him to devour them with his 'great iron teeth," and to rend them with his "brazen claws." After the death of John this practice soon began to prevail. Multitudes in Asia presented themselves to Arrius Antoninus for execution in Trajan's reign. He ordered a few of them to execution, and said to the rest, "Miserable people, if you choose death, you may find precipices and halters enow." As time rolled on, this folly increased to mania; and in A.D. 167, we find the ecclesia in Smyrna saying, in its letter about the execution of Polycarp, "we do not approve of those who offer themselves for martyrdom, for we have not so learned Christ." Among the Alexandrians, several were burned and destroyed in various ways. Of these Heraclides is mentioned, who had not been baptized, and was therefore certainly not a christian. Basilides, a soldier who had assisted at the execution of a professor, was converted by her appearing to him three days after her death; and on declaring that he was christian, he also was put to death. Such spurious conversions as these abounded; and christians (!) of this sort had an idea that "by one hour's torment they redeemed themselves from eternal punishment." Such "miserable sinners," styling themselves "christians," abound in our time; multitudes of whom, tired of the troubles of life, would joyfully suffer death under the delusion that by giving their worthless bodies to be burned, they would by a brief torment acquire posthumous notoriety, and hide a multitude of sins. All this voluntary martyrdom was the result of ignorance and misdirected zeal. It was no proof of the sufferers being Christ's Brethren. We may admit the piety and sincerity of many of them; but Paul has taught us that giving the body to be burned is no equivalent for the want of that "love," which he, after the teaching of the Christ, says is "the fulfilling of the law" - hoping and believing all the things testified in the truth - I Cor. 13. Martyrdom, then, is no proof of a man's being in Christ; and without being in him, he cannot be a christadelphian. The most it proves is the sincerity and devotion of the martyr to his profession, whatever that may be. Hence, the martyrdom of Huss, Jerome, Cranmer, Servetus, and such like, proved the sincerity of their anti-romish and anti-calvinistic opinions; it did not

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alter the fact of their being eminently pious members of the Apostasy; the stain of which cannot be obliterated by body-burning, but only by an intelligent belief and obedience of the truth.

There were many such "fellowservants, who were tormented to death by order of Severus - fellowservants with the 'brethren" (see the distinction made in the fifth seal), in the sense in which the Spirit spoke to Jeremiah of his 'servant Nebuchadnezzar" - fellowservants in the work of "conquering the ruling superstition of their times." Whether any of "the brethren" fell in his exercise of "justice," as he called it, we can only conjecture. It is probable from the wording of the fifth seal that there were some. Ecclesiastical writers, being ignorant of the truth, are unable to discern between the two classes. They have not been able to "come" to the subject, "and to see." Having no scriptural waymarks, they are lost in the sectarian wilderness of the early centuries; and find it, therefore, impossible to enlighten their readers in the premises. They tell us that heretics abounded in these times, all of them claiming the name of christian. Of these they judge them to be heretics, whom they in our times would decree to be such, according to their own creeds and articles: but they are more likely to have been the true brethren of Christ, or Christadelphians, than heretics. Little has been handed down to us that is reliable upon this point. The writers contemporary with the seals were chiefly of the heretical classes. Modern "divines" style them "the Fathers." And so they were. They were the fathers of the Laodicean Apostasy, taught by that woman Jezebel to commit spiritual lewdness; and to speak according, to the depths of the Satan - Apoc. 2:20-24. They denounced all for heretics who rejected their teaching. But the Deity knows his own, if they do not. The real heretics of the leading factions of Satan's synagogue, doubtless, served for an earthwork upon which the dragon power expended much of his rage, before he reached the citadel of the four living ones' encampment. While therefore many fell under the severe justice of this reign, few of the truly faithful may have suffered; for it was not against them, but chiefly against those who repented not, that the Spirit declared he would fight with the sword of his mouth.

Though troubled with fears within, and fightings without, the Archer with his bow, still went on 'conquering." Niger and Albinus had been conquered, and their rival parties torn up by the roots. The same imperial conqueror, or "great machaira," had made war upon him. The flood, however, though it dashed against him with roaring impetuosity, had not swept him away. Many had fallen around him, but he had not only not been conquered, but still was "conquering;" and his ranks were swelled with more deserters from the enemy than he

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had lost by fire and sword.

But, after nine years of sanguinary conflict, "the Lamb" sent relief to his suffering people. After a reign of eighteen years, Septimus Severus died, A.D. 211. From this time, "the brethren and fellowservants" found peace and tranquillity for the space of thirty-eight years. During this long period, a short turbulent interval under Maximin excepted, they enjoyed a continued calm. In this period, their sufferings were those of the third and fourth seals, of which they were partakers with the general public. What these were, we shall "see" in our further exposition of the prophecy.

SECTION 3

THE THYATIRAN STATE

Vol.1, pp.428, 439

The Pergamian with all its evils merging into the worse Thyatiran degree of apostasy. Christians so-called, as intensely nominal and worldly as sectarians of the nineteenth century. The prophetess Jezebel, and "the Satan," their representatives in the third century -Apoc. 2:20,24.

ACT 111. - SEAL-PERIOD THIRD

Apoc. 6:5.6

The Greco-Latin horse, black with lamentation, mourning and woe.

A.D. 212

"And when he opened the third seal, I heard from the third living one, saying, 'Come and see.' And I saw, and behold a Black Horse, and one sitting upon him holding a Balance in his hand. 6. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living ones. saying, 'A choinix of wheat a denarius; and three choinices of barley a denarius; but the oil and the wine thou mayest not act unjustly by'."

1. The Spirit not yet Withdrawn

Such is the expressive hieroglyphic by which the Spirit "signified" to "his servants" the nature of the situation which should succeed the period in which they would "slay one another," and "a great machaira" would appear to aggravate the strife. The Lamb also opens this third seal. It is an opening, not to give exit to blessedness upon Roman society; for that is not the nature of a seal; but, to loose those evils upon the world, which would be calamitous to pagan, Jew, and

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Jezebel-professors of christianity, in all the empire. Though the evils would be general, "the Brethren," or as many as had not the Jezebel doctrine, would, doubtless, not suffer so severely as others; for in the time of the first four seals, it was certainly a ministration of Spirit in which retribution came upon ecclesias "according to their works." It was, I say, a ministration of Spirit, though not so amply manifested as when Paul wrote I Cor. 12, ~ and 14. The presence of the Four Living Ones, and the emanation of voices from them, as a part of the symbolization, proves this. When the fifth seal is opened, there is no invitation from a Living One to "come and see." Yet the Spirit still lingered among the Lightstands, as may be inferred from the saying, "it was said unto them."

The third Living One is the symbol of the ecciesia of the Deity in its Pergamo-Thyatiran declension. Its face was that of a man, and "full of eyes before and behind." The reader will remember, that in the apocalypse these four living ones are related to two states - the state of suffering in the flesh; and the state of glory in the resurrection; and that they are only introduced in the prophetic drama where there is direct and potential ministration and manifestation of Spirit.

2. The Black Horse

While it is true, that black is used in scripture in connection with scarcity and famine; I am satisfied that in this third seal famine is not indicated by the color of the horse. The reader will therefore be so good as to run his pen through the word "famine" in line 16 of our "Chronological Tableau of the Apostasy," on page 428, Vol.1. The color indicates mourning, distress, intense depression of mind, from any kind of calamity that may befall. This appears from Job 30:26-31:

"When I looked for good then evil came; and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not; the days of affliction anticipated me. Mourning (kodair, darkening) I went without the sun. . . . My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat. My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep." We need not multiply examples. This from Job shows, that the outside blackness is caused by the inner heat of burning, or intense, affliction. So also in the case before us the severe oppression to which the community represented by the horse, is subjected by them who ride, or rule it, gives it hieroglyphically, a black skin. It is therefore to be viewed as under the operation of great evil in days of affliction, producing lamentation, mourning, and great distress. The horse represents the same community as the white of the first seal, and the fiery red one of the second - the peoples subject to pagan

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 183

Rome: the different colors signifying their different condition in different periods.

3. The Balance-Holder

The rider of the black horse may be known by his badge. John saw one sitting upon him "holding in his hand a balance." The other riders of the first and second seals were identified by their badges - the bow and the great dagger; and so must this of the third by the balance, which is his. He represents a class of agents who, in relation to the Roman peoples, held the balance as their badge of office; the duties of which they performed so oppressively that they became a public evil, which like a noxious weed of most luxuriant growth, "darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade."

Among the Greeks and Latins, as also among the moderns, a balance was the symbol of justice. The scripture also adopts it as such:

"Let him weigh me," says Job, "in the balance of justice" - 31:6. In the hand of an official it indicated a judge, or an administrator of justice, or properly, of law; which, in the mouth of a judge, is often times far removed from justice. In this seal, it is the symbol of agents, whose office it was to execute the laws - the imperial functionaries of the empire; both the emperors and their subordinates. There are Roman coins in the cabinets of the collectors of coins and medals, illustrative of this. Mr. Elliott has given copies of some in his work. Among these is an imperial coin of Alexander Severus. On one side is the head of an emperor; and on the other, a diademed figure holding a balance in the right hand and a measure in the other, with the legend Aequitas Augusti, S.C. It is the symbol of the equity of the emperor by decree of the senate in his levies upon the people in kind; for in imperial times the supreme judicial and financial, as well as supreme military power centered in the emperors. For this reason, the balance of justice is ascribed to them as well as the machaira, which, says Paul, 'he beareth not in vain, for he is the minister of the Deity, a revenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil" - Rom. 13:1-4. So Shakespeare combines them in the address of Henry V. to the Lord Chief Justice, as the monarch's representative;

"Hold thou still the balance and the sword."

4. The Voice

John says, that when he saw this vision of the third seal, he heard a voice in the midst of the Four Living Ones." Voice is sometimes used in scripture in the sense of the signification, or the thing signified

THE THIRD SEAL

This page contains picture of a coin and "bust" of Caracala

- A.D. 212-235:

FAMINE

The seal describes the rider on a black horse as holding a pair of balances in his hand (Apoc. 6:5). Eureka refers to medallions of Rome that depict this symbol. The above medallion was issued by Septimus Geta. It deicts three Monetae each holding a lance, and personifying the metals of gold, silver and bronze whilst at the feet of each is a pile of coins. Juno Moneto was the name given to Juno the Adviser, in whose temple at Rome money was coined, and by whom its value was guaranteed so as to create public confidence in the monetary system. But it is ironical that the invocation of such began at the very time that inflation and debasement of the coin-age was well established. It is remark-able how the coinage and monuments of the Roman Empire illustrate the symbolism of the Apocalypse, and confirm the exposition of Eureka. Caracalla (left) whose reign commenced the epoch of this seal, is remembered chiefly for his treachery and cruelty. He murdered his brother Geta to obtain sole rule, but plunged Rome into greater distress.

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by a sign; as in Exod. 4:8. Moses was to do certain signs before the people, to convince them that he was sent by Yahweh to deliver them. 'If," said he, "they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, they will believe the voice of the latter sign." The voices, though not expressed in words, were, that he whose power turned his flesh leprous as snow, and restored it instantly; and changed the water of the Nile into blood, had sent Moses with power to deliver them. The sign was one thing, the voice of the sign another. Voice also is sometimes used law; as if thou shalt be obedient to his voice," i.e. to his law. It is also used for proclamation; as in Ezra 1:1, "Cyrus caused qowl, a voice to pass through all his kingdom;" that is he made a proclamation through all his kingdom.

This voice that John heard was edicts, decrees, or laws, proclaimed by authority; and to be executed by the class of agents who exercised the power symbolized by the balance - the praetors at Rome, and the governors of the provinces. John heard the voice "in the midst of the four living ones." These being emblematic of the brethren and their fellow-servants in all the Roman earth, an imperial decree, addressed to the agents symbolized by the rider holding the balance, would be, hieroglyphically speaking, "a voice in the midst of the four living ones.

The decrees of this voice caused to pass by authority throughout the Roman world were "a choinix of wheat a denarius; and three choinices of barley a denarius; but the oil and the wine thou mayest not act unjustly by." This was the voice in sign. It was the sign-voice. We are not to expect to find an imperial decree in these words, because the thing signified will be different from the sign. But when we come to understand the character of the sign, if it be an evil sign, we may expect to find the administration of the balance-holder evil; and ptoductive of such results as would blacken the community over which he rules; or cause to it lamentation, mourning, and woe: but if the sign-voice were a good sign, it would have developed a different aspect. The horse would have been white; because the administration of the rider to whom the voice comes, would have been beneficent. The sign voice implies an intensely oppressive administration of public affairs in all the third seal period, with a brief intermission only. This was indicated by the words, "the oil and the wine thou mayest not act unjustly by." This implies that the edict-making power, or voice of the seal, would not in all its career be devoid of equity. The words me adikesis in the English version are rendered hurt thou not; but, I prefer the above translation as more in accordance with the etymology; for it is a compound of a negative, and dike justice a denial of justice, which is

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unjust. There was one of the riders, or ruling class, who was ordered not to act unjustly in relation to "the oil and the wine" - THOU mayest not act unjustly by the oil and the wine.

This injunction in regard to the oil and the wine, indicates that injustice would be done in the matter of the wheat and the barley. These were taxable articles from which a great revenue was derived for the use of the state. The decrees, or seal-voice of the senate, fixed the tariff, which the emperors and their subordinates carried into effect, justly or otherwise as it pleased them. The grain tax was levied in kind, or an equivalent was paid in money to the farmers of the revenue; who often sent the treasury at Rome what the law required, and retained for themselves the excess they had extorted from the taxpayers they oppressed. Thus, for example, if wheat were assessed by the senate at ten cents a bushel, they might extort thirty; send the treasury its due, and keep the twenty for their own use. According to this principle of robbery in Sicily, when the wheat-procurations were required from the islanders, the market price being not above one denarius the modius, Verres exacted three denani from some of them as a money equivalent for each modius due. These extortionate proceedings of the farmers of the revenue were a cause of great public distress and irritation. They were appointed for an equitable administration of affairs, and the collection of revenue in kind and money according to the voice of the Senate. But, being pagans without enlightened conscience, they acted under the blind impulse of their natural organization, and plundered the people as far as they could do so with impunity. Those," says Gibbon. "who had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against Verres, might instruct themselves in all the various arts of oppression with regard to the weight, the price, the quality, and the carriage; and the avarice of an unlettered governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent." The emperor Alexander Severus used to style the revenue-collectors, the robbers of the provinces;" it was with them as Hosea says of Ephraim, "the balance of deceit is in his hands, he loveth to oppress."

The Choinix

The voice made proclamation of a denarius the choinix of the wheat. There are various opinions concerning the choinix. The English version uses the word in its widest sense for measure of capacity, without defining the capacity. In Ezek. 45:10 the Septuagint translators are thought to have used the word in this generic sense, Zugos dikaios, kai metron dikaion, kai choinix dikaja esto humin tou metrou; this is translated to suit the idea, let there be among you a just

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balance, and a just measure, and a just choinix." But this is not true to the original; it should be, ~a just balance, and a just measure, and let there be to you a just choinix of the measure." Here, the word does not stand for measure in general but for a specific part of measure called choinix. The general opinion of the learned is, that there were three choinixes in use among the Greeks and Latins, of the value of three, four, and eight cotybe, of three gills each, respectively. The Attic choinix was the most common, and consisted of three cotybe, or nine gills, or one quart and an eighth, and weighing about two pounds.

"A choinix of wheat a denarius; and three choinixes of barley a denarius." A denarius was a silver coin, worth about fifteen cents, or eight pence sterling. It was a coin of the Roman empire; and thereby indicates in its symbolic use, that the seal prophecy had relation to Greco-Latin affairs. In the English version it is "for a penny," or denarius. In the original, denariou is the genitive of estimation or value; which the English version supposes to be the price of the wheat and barley, and therefore inserts the word "for." I have omitted this word, and in my translation reduced it as near to the original as possible. It may have been the symbolic price of the grain before its assessment, which was to be added; or it may have been the tax assessed independently of the market price. In either view of the case, as emblematic of the financial extortion and all its attendant evils by which the body politic was made black, it was an enormous oppression of the people.

Wheat at fifteen cents, or eight pence, the two pounds, would be four dollars and fifty cents, or about twenty shillings sterling a bushel, estimated at sixty pounds weight. I believe it takes about four bushels to make a barrel of flour, weighing one hundred and ninety-six pounds. Hence, the first cost of the flour would be eighteen dollars, say in Egypt, Roman Africa, or Sicily. To this must be added exporting and importing mercantile profits, and freight to Rome; so that by the time it reached the consumers, it would more than double our New York prices after three years of civil war, in which our social horse has become red. But this would not be all the trouble. To this high price must be added the tax on every bushel, collected by the robbers of the provinces," before the wheat was converted into flour; so that when the whole should be summed up it would make a sign" indicative of great distress among the people.

But, if a denarius is to be taken as the price of the grain, three times the quantity of barley could be purchased for that coin - "three choinixes of barley a denarius" - twenty-seven gills, or three quarts and three gills. Hence, then denani, or about one hundred and fifty

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cents, would purchase a bushel of untaxed barley. This is high for barley; and indicates some calamitous condition of public affairs, causing the necessaries of life to range so high. It would affect all classes, rich and poor, bond and free; none would be exempt. When the tax was paid on the barley, what would be its price then?

But after all, a denarius may not have been the price of the choinixes; but the tax assessed on each respectively - a denarius on a choinix of wheat; and a denarius on three choinixes of barley. This, I am inclined to believe, is the signification of the voice. If so, a bushel of wheat would be assessed at four dollars and fifty cents; and a bushel of barley at one dollar and fifty cents. This superadded to the market-price would make the cost of the necessaries of life enormous; and cause whole tracts of country to be thrown out of cultivation, and so prepare the way for that famine which came upon the people as one of the miseries of their situation during the fourth seal - verse 8. The Emperor Trajan likened the undue enlargement of the taxation, with exacting procurators to collect it, to the morbid enlargement of the spleen, causing atrophy. And, after the failure of Alexander Severus, who responded to the Senate's voice, "not to act unjustly by the oil and the wine," in attempting to ameliorate existing fiscal evils, the history of the sequel illustrates fully the truth of Trajan's comparison. A general internal wasting of the Roman state resulted from it. Speaking of this seal-period, Gibbon remarks, that the form of the state was still the same as under Hadrian, "but the animating health and vigor was fled; the industry of the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long series of oppression;" and again, "that the general famine, which (soon after Philip's death) befell the empire, was the inevitable consequence of the rapine and oppression, which extirpated the produce (the wheat and barley) of the present, and the hope of future harvests." The agriculture of the provinces was insensibly ruined; and thus preparation was made for famine. "The injustice and avarice of the provincial governors," says Mosheim, "together with the rapacity of the publicans, by whom the taxes of the country were farmed, were the source and occasion of innumerable grievances to the people;" and another writer says, 'the rapacity of the imperial procurators were among the causes that finally wrought the downfall of the empire.

An edict by Aurelian shows what extortion had effected previous to his reign. It speaks incidentally of the desolation in Italy; and

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* The "measure" or choinix was about a quart, and the "penny" or denarius comprised the ordinary day's wage of a laborer. So by assessing a laborer’s wage today, the cost of a quart of wheat can be established, and the burden of the times better understood. - R.P.M.

EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 189

urges agriculturists to plant vines on certain extensive fertile lands of Etruria, that had been deserted. With reference to a later period, Gibbon states that sixty years after the death of Constantine, and before a barbarian invader had been seen in Italy, an exemption from taxes was granted for 300,000 acres in the fertile province of Campania, that is, for one eighth of the whole province, as being by actual survey ascertained to be desert; and he ascribes it to the long impoverishing effects of fiscal oppressions; the chief era of which is the period of this third seal.

Thus, the rapine and oppression symbolized in the sign-voice "in the midst of the four living ones," involved both the depopulation and desolation of regions in themselves fertile. People do not abandon to the wild beasts of the forest such tracts of country, unless they are oppressed by their rulers, or left without protection against the barbarians without. The sign-voice in its operation reduced the in-habitants of the earth to despair, and banished every patriotic sentiment from their minds. Illustrative of the personal and family distress induced by official robbery and oppression which Constantine sought to remedy, Gibbon says: "The horrid practice of exposing and murdering their newborn infants was become every day more frequent in the provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerable burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their insolvent debtors. The less opulent or the less industrious. . . instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the impending miseries of a life which they were themselves unable to support. The humanity of Constantine, moved perhaps by some recent and extraordinary instance of despair, engaged him to address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of Africa, directing instant relief to those parents who should produce before the magistrates the children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate."

The voice, then, of this third seal hieroglyphic, was not the voice of famine, but of an intolerable assessment for state purposes of the abundance already in store, and to be hereafter produced. The era succeeding the seal-period in which they were slaying one another under the generalship of the great machaira, was one of abundance of wheat, barley, oil, and wine. This appears from the testimony of Dion who lived in those times. He says that Septimus Severus celebrated the secular games with extraordinary magnificence, and at his decease, left in the public granaries a provision of grain for seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or pecks, or about 10,000 bushels a day. This was a part

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of the policy of S. Severus by a constant and liberal distribution of grain and provisions, to captivate the affections of the Roman people. But the policy of his son and successor, the fierce Caracalla, was "to secure the affections of the army, and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little moment." The liberality and indulgence to the troops was tempered by the father with firmness, authority, and prudence; but the careless profusion of Caracalla's reign, the inaugural period of the sign-voice of the third seal, was, as Gibbon says, "the inevitable ruin both of the army and of the empire. The excessive increase of their pay and donatives, exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose modesty in peace, and service in war, are best secured by an honorable poverty."

I take it, then, that the sign-voice may be expressed thus: "Let a choinix of wheat be assessed a denarius; and three choinixes of barley rated at the same; but the oil and the wine thou mayest not act so unjustly by." The signification of this, and the causes operating so grinding and blackening a despotism, will appear in the Lamb's opening of the seal hereafter to be expounded in the following.

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this scheme was defeated by the influence of their mother; and Caracalla got rid of Geta by an easier, though more sanguinary process. He artfully listened to his mother's entreaties and consented to meet his brother Geta in her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation. In the midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had contrived to secret themselves, rushed with drawn swords upon him, and laid him lifeless at his mother's feet. The deed accomplished, Caracalla, rushed with horror on his countenance, to the praetorian camp, where he reported in broken and disordered words, his fortunate escape from attempted assassination. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers, but complaint was useless, revenge dangerous, and they had still a reverence for the house of their "great machaira," Severus. Their discontent died away in idle murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his cause, by distributing to them in one lavish donation the accumulated treasures of his father's reign. The real sentiments of the soldiers alone were of importance to his power or safety. Their declaration in his favor commanded the dutiful professions of the Senate, which obsequiously ratified as usual the success of villany the most lawless and abandoned.

The anguish of remorse henceforth seized upon the haunted imagination of Caracalla, which prompted him to remove from the world whatever could remind him of the fratricide, or recall the memory of Geta. Seeing the empress Julia, his mother, in a company of matrons, weeping over his untimely fate, he threatened them with instant death; the sentence was executed against Fadilla, the last remaining daughter of Marcus Antoninus, the imperial stoick, and sanguinary persecutor of the christians, under the first seal. It was computed, that under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death. His guards and freedmen, the ministers of his serious business, and the companions of his looser hours, those who by his interest had been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the long connected chain of their dependents, were included in the proscription; which endeavored to reach every one who had maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented his death, or who even mentioned his name. The particular causes of calumny and suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was accused of being a secret enemy of the government, Caracalla was satisfied with the general proof that he was a man of probity and virtue. From this well-grounded principle he frequently drew the most sanguinary inferences.

Such was the opening of the third seal, A.D. 212. Through the mad ferocity of one of the basest of mankind, retribution fell upon the

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heads of a people, who in their public pastimes clamored for inoffensive and non-resisting professors of the christian faith, to be brought ut of prison to fight with savage beasts in the amphitheater’s for their amusement. It is a remarkable fact, and deserves to be noted, that while this monster of wickedness was filling the families of pagans with lamentation, mourning and woe, christians found in him friendship and protection. His father Severus, we have seen, was a cruel persecutor; but in this son of iniquity, arose an avenger, who rendered the earthen public BLACK with mourning and distress. The education of aracalla is said to account for his favor towards them. He had known roculus his father's physician, who was a christian, if not a christalphian, and maintained in the palace to his death; and he had himself been nursed by a professed christian woman. This gave him an early predilection in favor of the christians, insomuch that when he was seven years old, observing one of his playfellows to be beaten because he followed the christian religion, he could not for some time after behold with patience either his own father, or the father of the boy.

The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost instantly at Rome, or in the adjacent villas, fell principally upon the senatorial and equestrian orders. But Caracalla was the common enemy of his heathen subjects. He left the capital, and never returned it, A.D. 213. The rest of his reign was spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly those of the East, and every province was by turns made black by rapine and cruelty. The senators, compelled by fear to attend his capricious motions, were obliged to provide daily entertainments at an immense expense, which he abandoned with contempt to his guards; and to erect in every city, magnificent palaces and theatres, which he either disdained to visit, or ordered to be immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families were ruined by partial fines and confiscations and the great body of his subjects oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes. In the midst of peace, and upon the slightest provocation, he issued his commands at Alexandria Egypt, the seat of paganized christianity, and where in his father's reign so much blood of professing christians had been shed, for a general massacre. From a secure post in the temple of Serapis, he viewed and directed the slaughter of many thousands of citizens, as well as strangers, without distinguishing either the number or the crime the sufferers; since, as he coolly informed the Senate, all the lexandrians, those who had perished, and those who had escaped, were alike guilty - guilty of slaying the disciples of the Lamb; and therefore in opening the third seal, the Lamb retributively gave them blood to drink; and made the survivors, black with lamentation and

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distress; so fearful a thing is it to tamper with the truth, and to persecute its friends. Sooner or later, terrible vengeance overtakes the guilty, even by the wicked, who are the Deity's sword-bearers against all such evil-doers.

As long as the vices of Caracalla were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, however, provoked by his own jealousy, caused his assassination, and the election of the chief conspirator as his successor. The grateful soldiers forgot his vices, remembered only his liberality to them, and obliged the Senate to stultify itself and their superstition, by decreeing him a place among the gods. While living, Alexander the great was the only hero which this "god" deemed worthy of his admiration; but in no one action of his life did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance to him, except in the murder of a great number of his own and of his father's friends.

His extraordinary gifts to the army amounted annually to about two millions three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, or about 1,750,000 dollars. The prodigality of Caracalla left behind it a long rain of ruin and disorder. But the policy of the house of Severus was to increase the dangerous power of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty that was still impressed on the public mind. In pursuing this policy, Severus and his son undermined the foundations of the empire, and hastened its decline. An important edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the inhabitants of the empire the name and privilege of Roman citizens, greatly contributed to this. This edict made the limits of the city Rome, and the limits of the empire, the same. His unbounded liberality, however, flowed not from he sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of avarice. Inattention, or rather, averse to the welfare of his subjects, he found himself under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he had excited in the army. The favour of citizenship was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title, and the real obligations of Roman citizens. Nor was the rapacious Caracalla contented with such a measure of taxation, as had appeared sufficient to his predecessors. Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth, a denariad of all legacies and inheritances; and during his reign he crushed alike every part of the empire under the weight of his iron sceptre. The new citizenship brought with it only an increase of burdens. The old as well as the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. This was an intolerable grievance, which found only a temporary remission in the reign of Alexander Severus, who reduced the tributes to a thirtieth part of the

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sum exacted at the time of his accession. "In the course of this history," says Gibbon, from whose work I have condensed as before, "we shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions of grain, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital." Caracalla supplied the necessities of these insatiable consumers without any regard to the blackening effect produced upon the unhappy civilians, from whom the supplies were so oppressively obtained.

Caracalla was assassinated A.D. 217, after a reign of six years; and was succeeded by Macrinus, at whose instigation he was stabbed by a desperado, to whom he had refused the rank of centurion.

The reader will, perhaps, now be able to '"see" the historical significance of the hieroglyphical "opening" and 'voice" of this seal-period; and how, by the sanguinary and fiscal oppression of the rulers, the horse-people whom they rode, were made black with anguish and despair. The mad career of Caracalla, however, was only the opening sorrows of this third seal. He had sown tares which bore much evil fruit in the reigns of his successors. Macrinus, who had procured his assassination, was proclaimed by the praetorian guards, whom he had bribed by promises of unbounded liberality of indulgence, the head of the empire. Macrinus had now reached a height where it was difficult to stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant destruction. The mercenary and fickle loyalty of the soldiery, to whom, from his reforming tendencies, he soon became detestable, was his only support. But the necessity of financial reform was inevitable. The expenses of the government had to be reduced; and he might have succeeded if the numerous army assembled in the East by Caracalla, and which had made him emperor, had been immediately dispersed through the provinces. But they remained concentrated in the luxurious idleness of their quarters; where, from various causes, they soon became ripe for another revolution, by which they might recruit their exhausted treasure. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon presented itself.

A new candidate for the honor and danger of the imperial balance-holder appeared in a pretended son of Caracalla, the high priest of the sun, at Emesa, in Syria. The soldiers accustomed to attend his ministrations, professed to recognize in his the features of Caracalla, whose memory they now adored. His emissaries distributed large sums among them with a lavish hand, which silenced every objection, and they declared the young pontiff the successor of Caracalla, by hereditary right, and their own good pleasure. Macrinus remained inactive at Antioch. At length he went forth to encounter the forces of the young

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pretender. But, he was defeated and fled, and a few days after slain by his own guards.

Having been elected by the military, A.D. 218, Elagabalus, the high priest of the sun and the first Asiatic emperor of the Romans, without consulting the Senate, beside the machaira, assumed the balance in assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers of the State. It was the prerogative of the Senate to confer these by its decree- by "a voice in the midst of the four living ones" - upon the imperial sword-bearers; a right which had hitherto been respected by the turbulent praetorians and the imperial puppets it was their pleasure to set up. "This new and injudicious violation of the constitution," says Gibbon, "was probably dictated either by the ignorance of his Syrian courtiers or the fierce disdain of his military followers."

The timid prudence of the obsequious Senate having acquiesced in what it could not remedy, Elagabalus was duly recognized both as bearer of the balance and the sword; and the most potent, grave and reverend senators confessed with a sigh that, after having long experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of oriental despotism.

The installation of the Sun in Rome as chief over all the religions of the earth, was the great object of the zeal and vanity of Elagabalus. The Sun's marriage with the Moon, and the display of superstitious gratitude to him for his elevation to the throne, were the only serious business of his reign. He called himself Elagabalus (though his real name was Bassianus) after the name of his god, an appellation dearer to him than all the titles of imperial greatness. He was an irrational voluptuary who abandoned himself to the grossest gratification of sense with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust and satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. Whilst he lavished away the treasures of his people in the wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers applauded a spirit and magnificence unknown to the tameness of his predecessors. To sport with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements. No more beastly a sensualist could have been found in Sodom than this high priest of the Sun. The public scenes displayed before the Roman people attest that the inexpressible infamy of his vices and follies surpassed that of any other age or country. The corrupt and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites. Elagabalus, in his turn, viewing every rank of his

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subjects with the same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

But the licentious soldiers who had raised this dissolute pretender to the throne of the balance and the sword, blushed at their ignominious choice, and turned with disgust from the monster to contemplate with pleasure the opening virtues of his cousin, Alexander Severus, whom he had been induced to invest with the title of Caesar, that his own divine occupations might be no longer interrupted by the care of the earth. In the second rank, that amiable prince soon acquired the affections of the public, but not without arousing the tyrant's jealousy, who determined, but without success, to take away the life of his rival. Failing in this, he degraded him from the rank and honors of Caesar. This sentence was received in the Senate with silence, and in the camp of the praetorians with fury. These swore to protect Alexander, and to revenge the dishonored majesty of the throne. Elagabalus trembled, and begged for his life with tears; his prayer was granted, but the folly of the emperor brought on a new crisis, which was instantly fatal to his minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the infuriated praetorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the streets of Rome and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was branded with eternal infamy by a decree of the Senate in the year of his death, A.D. 222, after a reign of three years, nine months, and four days.

With two such tribunes and proconsuls of the Roman Senate, or Balance-Holders, as Caracalla and Elagabalus, what but oppression and injustice could result? The d7oinix of wheat and the cizoinices of barley must have been heavily taxed to provide the means of perpetuating for ten years such wild and reckless extravagance as history attributes to their administration. Better to grow no wheat or barley, than, having produced it, to be subject to the visits of the rapacious farmers of the revenue of such monsters. As we have remarked already, they did abandon the labors of the field, and left thousands of fertile acres waste and desert, by which, as one among other causes, preparation was made for the intense famine of the fourth seal. Could any people be white - happy and prosperous - under such riders? Could they be anything else than black - overshadowed by the blackness of darkness that might be felt in all parts of the body politic.

But, for the sake of the four living ones (and concerning them whom they represent, Paul says, "All things are for their sakes" (2 Cor. 4:15) the Lamb, who presided over these seal-judgments, had provided temporary relief in the preparation of a balance-holder, who would "not act unjustly by the oil and the wine" - in other words,

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whose rigid economy in every branch of the administration would seek to neutralize the injustice under which they had previously groaned. Alexander Severus, aged seventeen, and his mother, Mammaea, 'were the persons under whom this happy transformation of public affairs was brought about. On the death of Elagabalus, Alexander was raised to the throne by the praetorian guards. His amiable qualities and his danger had already endeared him to the people, and the eager liberality of the Senate decreed to him in one day - the voice in the· midst of the four living ones - the various titles and powers of the imperial dignity, all summarily symbolized by the Balance and the Sword or Dagger of the State.

The regency of Mammaea was equally for the benefit of her son and the empire. With the approbation of the Senate, she chose sixteen of the wisest and best disposed senators as a perpetual council of State, before whom every public business of moment was debated and determined. The celebrated Ulpian was at their head, and the prudent firmness of this aristocracy restored order and authority to the government. Learning and the love of justice became the only recommendation for civil offices; valor and the love of discipline the only qualifications for military employments.

The uniform tenor of the emperor's life left not a moment for vice or folly. Since the accession of Commodus, the Roman world had experienced, during a period of forty years, the successive and various vices of four tyrants. From the death of Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and prosperity, under the administration of magistrates who were convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their sovereign. The price of provisions and the interest on money were reduced by the care of Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without distressing the industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the populace. The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the Senate were restored, and every well-intentioned senator might approach the person of the emperor without a fear and without a blush.

In the civil or balance-holding administration of Alexander Severus, wisdom was enforced by power, and the people, sensible of the public felicity, repaid their benefactor with their love and gratitude. There still remained a greater, or more necessary, but a more difficult enterprise - the reformation of the military order, whose interest and temper, confirmed by long impunity, rendered them impatient of the restraints of discipline and careless of the blessings of public tranquil-

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lity. By the most gentle arts he labored to inspire the fierce multitude with a sense of duty; but his prudence was vain, his courage fatal, and the attempt toward a reformation served only to inflame the ills it was meant to cure.

The administration of Alexander Severus was an unavailing struggle to "act justly by the oil and the wine." Mutinies of the troops perpetually broke out; his officers were murdered, his authority insulted, and his life at last sacrificed to the fierce discontent of the army. Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened a revolution which distracted the Roman empire with a long series of intestine calamities.

Alexander was one of the most moral heathens of the ancient world. His mother, Mammaea, who was cruelly jealous and avaricious, is called by Eusebius, a bishop of the Laodicean Apostasy, "a most godly and religious woman." There are many such in our day -Gentiles, who are "godly and religious" people, but as ignorant of the first principles of the truth as Mammaea and her son. While residing at Antioch, they invited that celebrated son of Jezebel, Origen, to visit them. They could have sent for one whose christianity would have been less offensive to imperial liberalism. Origen's christianity and theirs were not very remote, save that Origen did not bow down to imaginary deities. Alexander admitted into his own chapel all the deities of his wide empire. Jesus Christ, Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, &c., were placed among them. It is almost certain that his mother had biased him in favor of philosophical christianity in which she believed. He had a desire to erect a temple to Christ, and to receive him regularly among the gods! The excellent qualities of this amiable and just ruler were, doubtless, attributable to the divine principles he so imperfectly understood. These caused him to treat professors of christianity with favorable regard. As an instance of this, it is related that the right of possessing a certain piece of ground was claimed by a tavern-keeper. It had been without owner or possessor for a long time, and the christians had occupied it as a place of worship. "It is fitter," said Alexander, "that God should be served there, in any manner whatever, rather than it should be used for a tavern." He frequently said, "Do as you would be done by." He obliged a crier to repeat it when he punished any one, and was so fond of it that he caused it to be written in his palace and in the public buildings. When he was going to appoint balance-holders of provinces, he proposed their names in public, giving the people notice that if they had any crime to accuse them of they should come forward and make it known. "It would be a shame," said he, "not to do that with respect to

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governors, who are intrusted with men's properties and lives, which is done by Jews and christians when they publish the names of those they mean to ordain priests. His great desire was, not only that he himself should not, but also that the representative officials of the Roman majesty in all parts of the empire, should "not act unjustly by the oil and the wine."

There was no persecution of the christadelphians, nor of philosophical christians, under the Balance-Holders of this seal - to wit, Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus. The calamities they experienced befell them in common with the general public. Though primitive christianity was losing ground, the Archer with his bow was still 'conquering" the popular superstition. An Alexander Severus, on the throne of the world, was evidence that philosophical christianity, the metaphysics of the Alexandrian School of "Divinity," was supplanting the grosser superstition of the heathen. Though christianity in the purity of its faith and practice, was succumbing to the rising and now rapidly maturing apostasy, there were very many christadelphians or Brethren of Christ, who still contended earnestly for the faith, as "the living ones" of the third Cherub of the seal. These were the salt which preserved the whole professing community from putrefaction. Little, however, is known about them, seeing that the writers of their times were the philosophicals of the Satanic synagogue, of which, by way of derision, the pagans named Alexander the chief.

SECTION 4

THE SARDIAN STATE

Vol.1., pp.428,443

Spiritual death overshadowing the ecclesias from long peace and the philosophical "divinity" which had, to a great degree, superseded the gospel. The things that remain not yet dead, "ready to die." The Thyatiran, or Jezebel-and-Satan, ethics, the seed which ripens into the Sardian - Apoc. 3:1.

ACT IV. -SEAL-PERIOD FOURTH Apoc. 6:7,8

War, famine, pestilence, and barbarian invasion combined, sickly over the Roman Horse with the pale cast of death and corruption.

A.D. 235

"And when he opened the Fourth Seal I heard the voice of the Fourth Living One, saying, 'Come and see!' 8. And I saw, and

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behold a pale horse, and he who sits upon him, the name for him is Death; and Hades follows with him: and there was given to them authority to kill upon the fourth of the earth with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and under the beasts of the earth."

The fourth living one full of eyes is likened in countenance to a flying eagle. The people represented by this were still "a habitation of the Deity through the Spirit," and witnesses of the judgments to be revealed in this fourth seal. The Spirit of this divinely inhabited community did not invite John to "come and see" till the Lamb had opened the seal; and this series of events did not occur till A.D. 235, when the auspicious calm that had pervaded the Roman world for thirteen years came to an abrupt and sanguinary termination by the assassination of Alexander Severus, and the massacre of his most faithful friends, by the fury of the soldiers.

When the opening was complete, John saw hippos chloros, a pale horse. The word rendered pale indicates green as the basis of the pallor. Pallida mors was proverbial among the Latins. Hippocrates enumerates the color of the facial skin fading into green and black among the symptoms of approaching death. Nothing could be more appropriate than the color which accompanies putrefaction as representative of the Italian body politic at this crisis of its "dreadful and terrible" history. It had suffered severely under the second and third seals; but what were these in comparison of the death-strokes by sword, famine, pestilence, and beasts, speedily and of long continuance, to fall upon the Pagan Horse! A deadly paleness and livor would come over it- a hue emblematic of approaching dissolution, as most expressively represented by the chloros of the fourth seal.

1. The Rider "Death"

John says that the name of the representative personage he saw sitting above, over, or upon, epano, the pale horse, was "Death." The form of words in which he tells us this is according to the form of the previous seals. "The rider was not, as before," says Elliot, "the representative of human functionaries and rulers, whose distinctive emblems, though well understood at the time, might now require investigation to unfold them. It is a symbol of meaning as obvious to the reader now as it could have been then to the seer; for who it meant is expressly told us. It was the personification of Death! To mark that it was the actual King of Terrors - and not as otherwise it might possibly

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have been construed, the destroyer merely of political existence - his badge, so to express it, is said to have been Hades following him, the recipient, with his opening jaws of the victims slain by Death." But Mr. Elliott has not attempted to show why death should be personified in the fourth and not in the second seal, where the horse is fiery red, and they are engaged in slaying one another. The truth is the very reverse of Mr. Elliott's supposition; for the rider, as before, represented, not death in the abstract, but human functionaries and men of power, so victimizing and victimized by assassination and war as to become, as it were, the sons of death, and, therefore, as a class, fitly represented by the symbolical name, "Death." John does not say that the sitter upon the pale horse was death, but that the name bestowed upon him was death - "the name for him is Death." Neither did the rider, Death, indicate "the destroyer of mere political existence;" for the agents, as a class, and the state, still survived the fourth seal. No interpretation of a fulfilled prophecy not in harmony with authentic history can be correct; therefore, this last idea of mere political destruction must be rejected. History will show that my interpretation is the only true one, namely, that the name "Death" was bestowed upon the class of agents riding, sitting upon, or affecting the dying horse or heathen people and empire, because few of them died a natural death. In the first fifty years of the period of this seal, there were thirty-nine claiming to be emperors, and all of them died by violence. One of them fell by pestilence, and the form of the death of another is uncertain; but, with these two exceptions, nearly all died by assassination, and two or three by the sword in battle. Let such a class of rulers, then, predetermined to death as sure as they obtained the imperial office, be symbolized in a hieroglyphic, by what could they be so fitly represented as by a man with the name of "Death?" This name was his badge; so that any ruler represented by this class-man entered on the imperial office under the sentence of death, as prefigured by "the name" of this seal.

2. Ho Hades

John says, that he saw ho Hades, following with Death. This word haides, or hades, is usually derived from a privative, and idein, to see; others regard it as "most clearly derived from aeides, "invisible." It therefore means that which is concealed from present vision. This is the most common acceptation of the word - the unseen, whether as to place or state.

The expression oikos Hadou, corresponds both in form and sense, to the Hebrew baith olam, Ecc. 12:5, "man goeth to the House of Olam," house of the unseen, instead of long home, as in the English

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Version; that is, the grave. When men are therein deposited they are invisible; hence the grave becomes their house, oikos, in which they are unseen. They are then in hades. Xenophon in his life of Agesila us, says: "And thus this man spent his life in the service of his country, and having at length died he was carried down into the invisible dwelling" -eis ten aidion oikesin kategageto. So also Diodorus Siculus, in his account of the Egyptians, says: "They call the habitations of the living, inns, because we dwell in them for a short time; but the abodes of the departed they style hidden houses, because in the unseen they remain the unknown cycle" - aidious oikous prosagoreuousin, hos en Haidou diatelouvton ton apeiron aiona - lib. 1.51. The word Haidos, in relation to world, time, place, can only signify boundless, eternal, everlasting, in the sense of heathen boundless inexperience and ignorance of invisible things. The phrase eis Haidou, is eliptical for eis oikon hadou, into the house of the unseen, or the grave; and is supposed to have been derived from the baith Olam of the Hebrews.

The pulai hadou, the Gates of Hades, or the gates of the unseen, is used in Matt. 16:18. To say as there, that they should not prevail against Christ's ecclesia, was to predict the resurrection of his saints; and that they should no more be shut in from the outside world by grave or sepulchre. The dead are truly themselves the unseen, as well as in the unseen. Open the graves of the generation of this seal, as an instance; lay them all into one vast unpartitioned area; let us descend and enter there, and view the mighty hollow, and ask, where are all the dead? They are all invisible. The grave, which is the mouth, or gate, of this vast subterranean hall, has eaten them up, and consumed their form. Ask for them; but you ask in vain; they are all there, but you cannot see them; therefore they are in Hades, or in Sheol.

"Our Saxon word Hell," says Lord King, "in its original signification, exactly answers to the Greek word Hades, and denotes a concealed or unseen place; and this sense of the word is still retained in the eastern, and especially in the western counties of England; to hele over a thing is to cover it." The modern, or Laodicean use of hell is not the scriptural use of hades or sheol; but the old mythology of the heathen - the fabulous theory according to which they fitted up and furnished, the vast subterranean we have supposed, with flames, sulphur, brazen-throated dogs, furies, and such like. Plato, speaking of all this mythological apparatus and the legends appended to it, says, "Which, under the name of Hades and similar titles, men (that is, pagans) greatly fear, and dream about living and dissolved of bodies." This last expression is explained by what he says elsewhere: "For be well assured, 0 Socrates, that when any one is near that time in which

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he thinks he is going to die, there enter into him fear and anxiety. For then the old stories about Hades, how that the man who has here been guilty of wrong must there suffer punishments, torture his soul. Wherefore he who in the retrospect of his life, finds many crimes, like frightened children starting from their sleep, is terrified, and lives in evil forebodings." Thus, as Paul says, "through fear of death they were all their lifetime subject to bondage" - afraid, like the heathen of the Laodicean Apostasy, of what awaits them in the unseen. Hence, when they approach dissolution of body, terror seizes them, and they send for the priest of Plato, or some minor god, in ancient and modern times, to calm their panic by the pseudo-consolations of their respective delusions.

Such, then, is Hades abstract from this fourth seal; not "a place of departed spirits;" not a place divided into two grand compartments or chambers; in one of which the spirits of "virtuous heathen," ancient and modern, of "all names and denominations of professors" and christians, are provisionally cribbed, cabined, and confined, in a sort of dreamy blissfulness, awaiting their reunion, at some indefinite epoch, with their old grave-eaten mortalities, as a condition upon which they shall enter upon eternal fullness of felicity and joy, beyond the bounds of Hades, yea, "beyond the bounds of time and space," if any one can tell where that is! Not a place, in the other compartment of which, "the spirits of the damned" are in view of the dreamy blessed, heightening their felicity, with their torment-developed wailings and gnashing of teeth. It is no such pagan, papal, protestant, and sectarian "hell," "purgatory," "heaven," or "intermediate state," as this; but simply, the receptacle into which is carried down all the remains of a man when he is dead, with this single exception - his character. Before he is born he is in a sort of Hades, the womb of his mother; and when he is dead, he is deposited in the womb of his mother earth, a larger excavated Hades, in which, if one of "the faithful in Christ Jesus called saints," he sleeps death's sleep until awaked by the Spirit's power, when "in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, he has the dew of his birth," - Psa. 110:3. This is Hades abstract from the seal- Hades in the abstract.

In Isaiah 5:14, the Spirit speaks of Hades, by the name of Sheol, and as a female with a mouth that is insatiable - Sheol is never satisfied (Prov. 30:15,16). "My people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst; therefore Sheol, or Hades, hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall

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descend into it." though metaphorical, this is very intelligible. It predicted great destruction of all ranks and classes in Israel; and consequently, a great shoveling of them into the never filled receptacle of the dead. This insatiable nature of Sheol, or Hades, is the reason of her being styled "cruel." Thus, "love is strong as Death; jealousy, cruel as Sheol" - Cant. 8:6.

Again, in the Spirit's prophetic address to Belshazzar, as the Lucifer of the Babylonish Heavens, he says, "Sheol or Hades, from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee.... who say, Art thou become weak as we? Thy pomp is brought down to Hades . . the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee! Thou art cut down to the ground; thou art brought down to Sheol or Hades, to the sides of the pit. All the kings of the nations lie every one in his own house, but thou art cast out (violently excluded) from thy kever, sepulchre . . . as a carcass trodden under feet; thou shalt not be joined with them in burial" - Isa. 14:9-20. Here, this cruel subterranean unseen is personified. She has the dead in custody, all their individual graves and sepulchres being the houses or cells of her vast prison. She is metaphorically supposed to arouse all her prisoners to meet a great destroyer when he is about to be brought by bearers into his sepulchre; and to taunt him with his iniquity perpetrated above ground. She is that vast prison; and all whom she has swallowed, she devours with the worms spread under and over, "which cover," the weak and helpless, and unconscious, unseen sleepers in their cells.

This Hades is a great and voracious destroyer, the cruel ally of Death. They are companions in nature, as they are made symbolical associates in the fourth seal. It is, however, comforting to know, that, though Death and Hades went forth on such "a dreadful and terrible" mission of destruction by sword, famine, pestilence, and beasts of the earth, in this fourth seal-period of apocalyptic development, yet both of them shall be destroyed when the purpose of the Deity shall have been fully apocalypsed. "0 Death," saith the Spirit, "I will be thy plagues; 0 Sheol or Hades, I will be thy destruction" - Hos. 13:14. And the earnest of this we have in the manifestation of the Deity in our nature, as Jesus Christ; "who has prevailed," as the Seven-Horned and Seven-Eyed Lamb, "to unroll the scroll, and to unloose the seven seals thereof;" and hath abolished death through death, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel of the kingdom - Heb. 2:14; 2 Tim. 1:10. Still, we see Death reigning, and Hades following with him, on every side. True; but the Spirit tells us by Paul, that Death is the last enemy, and shall be destroyed; and apocalyptically by John,

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that "there shall be no more death," and "no more curse" - ch. 21:4; 22:3. "Death, is," then, "swallowed up in victory," which victory is obtained through Jesus Christ. Temporarily, victory is on the side of Death and his companion Hades; but when he and she have come to "the End," their power and victory over the faithful will prove to have been without permanent results. Then, "0 Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where thy victory?" Both abolished with the abolition of every curse for sin will be served no more on earth; and therefore, "the wages of sin," which "is death" will no more be earned and paid; so that Hades having no more victims for her devouring maw, is herself destroyed - she dies for the want of sustenance.

What a glorious and blissful consummation is this of human affairs. Instead of generation after generation of our unhappy race, rushing like a torrent into the deep caverns of the unseen never more to see the light of day; instead of sword, famine, pestilence, and all the mishaps of fire, flood and field, sweeping them for seven thousand years into a subterranean prison-house, within whose gates they are barred up for ever; instead of this, the time will have arrived for every individual dweller upon the earth to be, what Jesus Christ is now -incorruptible, deathless, glorious, and powerful; Deity manifested in glorified nature - ho Theos ta panta en pasin, the Deity the all things in all men.

But from the contemplation of this brilliant and eternal future, we must return to the consideration of the fearful and gloomy past, when DEATH sat, as it were, the grim and livid occupant of the imperial throne: and HADES reigned with him, the cruel and voracious goddess of his dominion.

As the rider on the pale horse symbolized a class of ruling agents sold to the work of death, and in the midst of it to a violent death for themselves; so "Hades following with him," is representative of another class of destroying agencies which cooperate in the destruction of the horse-people, so as to bring their body politic to the verge of dissolution, as indicated by the color of the hieroglyphic.

3. "The Fourth of the Earth"

When John beheld these two symbolical powers, Death and Hades, he saw that "exousia, authority was given to them to kill upon the fourth of the earth, with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and under the beasts of the earth." The phrase, "the fourth of the earth," implies other three fourths. Did such a division of the empire obtain, as seems to be indicated here? There can, I think, be little doubt of such a division. The whole empire was one Roman

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Sovereignty or Majesty, but, at a certain epoch of its history, for convenience of administration, there was a practical distribution of the imperial territory into Four Prefectures. Gibbon says: "According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian (A.D. 292), the four princes had each their praetorian praefect; and after the monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he still continued to create the same number of four prefects, and trusted to their care the same provinces which they already administered.

1. The Proefect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of Persia.

2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, acknowledged the authority of the Proefect of Illyricum.

3. The power of the Proefect of Italy was not confined to the country whence he derived his title; it extended over the additional territory of Rhaetia as far as the banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania.

4. The Proefect of the Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed "from the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount Atlas."

But previous to Diocletian, and in course partly of the fourth seal-period, the empire was subjected to four sovereignties; first, Syria and the East under Odenathus and Zenobia; second, Ilyricum under Aureolus; third, Gaul, Spain and Britain, under Posthumus and then Tetricus; and fourth, Rome and Italy under Gallienus. The last was constitutionally emperor of the whole; but usurpations which he could not suppress, left the reigning power in actual possession of only the fourth division of the Roman earth, for nearly ten years previous to the death of Gallienus, A.D. 268.

Now, certain writers who have attempted an interpretation of the fourth seal, have doubted the correctness of the reading in the text. Those who perceive the time of the seal to be that interval between the death of Alexander Severus and the death of Gallienus, find the words, there was given to them authority to kill upon the fourth of the earth," a difficulty in the way of satisfactory exposition. '"The devastations," say they, "extended over all the Roman earth; how then are the history and the text to be reconciled? And how is the text to be reconciled with itself? For not a fourth part of the horse, but the whole

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horse was sickly pale." Not being able to solve this enigma, they have fallen back upon the suggestions that to tetarton tes ges, is a spurious reading; and that the true reading conjectured by Mede is, to tetradion tes ges, the quatern ion (or all four parts) of the earth. They strengthen themselves in this conjecture by the reading of the passage in Jerome's Latin Version, who has it, super quatuor partes terroe, "over the four parts of the earth." In commenting upon this, Mr. Elliott says: "The genuineness of this, as Jerome's own version, and not any mistake of a later copyist, is indubitable; and since his faithfulness to the Greek text is as unquestioned as his critical judgment in choosing between various readings in it, it follows that he must have had before him some correspondent reading in a Greek manuscript, or manuscripts, of authority, though our extant Greek manuscripts do not exhibit it; and which he deliberately preferred, as of all the best. Admitted, this reading makes the prophecy at once consistent with itself."

What Mr. Elliott says of Jerome is no doubt correct. He saw Greek copies, one or more, with such a reading; yet there is now no such reading extant. This is Greek against Greek; what then shall we do'? I know of only one course - make it harmonize with history as it stands in our Greek text; and if this cannot be done, then adopt Jerome's testimony, and reject it for his emendation. Can this be done'? Let us "see."

The prophecy of the fourth seal does not import that the devastations of Death and Hades were to be confined or restricted to the fourth of the earth; on the contrary, as the history shows, they would be coextensive with "the earth." What then the specialty in the premises'? Why this; that, whereas in the second and third seals, the judgments peculiar to them did not notably affect "the fourth of the earth," or praefecture of Italy, as defined by our quotation from Gibbon: inasmuch as, that the riders on the red and black horses, had not received authority specially to distress that region; but that, in this fourth seal, the time had come in the wise providence of the Deity, to bring judgment home to the very heart and soul of the Italian body politic. "Authority was," therefore, "given to Death and Hades, to kill upon the territory of the Italian Fourth with sword, with famine, with pestilence, and by beasts of the earth," as well as upon the other three praefectures. But, if the authority had not been given with reference to "the fourth of the earth," the praefecture of Italy would still have remained exempt from the combined operation of the four plagues. Thus, then, there is no need of any learned emendation of the text; for rightly understood, there is no real difference in Jerome's Greek copies and ours. The reading, however, as it stands in our version is

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preferable to his. In ours we have the enigma, which has so puzzled the learned Laodiceans of "christendom," that they have given it up; but in Jerome's reading the enigma is lost, and the prophecy, consequently, deprived of much of its ingenuity and force. The Fourth Beast empire originated with the city of Romulus and its Italian territory as the brain and heart of the future dominion; in order then to affect the body politic with a mortal languor, as represented by the deadly pallor of the horse ridden by Death, it was necessary morbidly to affect the vital organs of the state located in the original "fourth of the earth," or Italian Praefecture; for so long as this retained its vigor dissolution would be deferred - men do not die till the brain and heart have been stricken fatally by disease. Hence, the reason of the authority given. Death and Hades might have continued their work indefinitely upon the praefectures of the East, Illyricum, and the Gauls, the other three-fourths of the earth, and by so doing have invigorated the Italian Fourth, seeing that a cause of the weakness of the Roman Body was its extreme magnitude. But this was not the purpose of the Deity. His purpose was to take political paganism out of the way, that the Man of Sin-Power, which the Lamb and his followers are to have the honor of destroying, might be revealed. The time had come, therefore, after the death of Alexander Severus, to begin the work of exhausting the seat of the pagan power of its vitality, that it might be paralyzed in all its members, and be prepared for the consummating events of the sixth seal, in the development of which it should be dethroned, or "cast out of the heaven." The authority was therefore given to Death and Hades to extend their operations into the "fourth of the earth," and to kill there with all the agencies at work in the other three fourths of the dominion.

4. Fulfillment of the Prophecy

A. Death and Hades kill with Sword

The Sword in the hands of Death and his companion Hades, is not machaira, as the second seal, but rhomphaia. The former was a small sword, or dagger, borne by imperial magistrates; the latter was a different weapon - "a large sword used by the Thracians" - orthas rhomphaias barusidero us, strait swords heavy with iron. A very expressive symbol of what is now to be related of Death and Hades killing upon the fourth of the earth with the Thracian weapon, heavy in its fall upon all it destroyed.

About thirty-two years before the death of Alexander Severus, Septimus Severus, "the great machaira" of the second seal, was in Thrace, celebrating with military games the birthday of his younger

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son, Geta. Among the spectators was a young barbarian, whose gigantic stature exceeded the measure of eight feet. He earnestly solicited permission to contend for the stephan of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian peasant, he was matched with the stoutest foll6wers of the camp, sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. Next day, having attracted Severus' notice, he ran up to his horse, and followed him on foot, without apparent fatigue, in a long and rapid career. "Thracian," said the astonished emperor, "art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race?" "Most willingly, sir," replied the youth; and almost in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the army.

This youth, whose name was Maximin, having been received into the imperial body guard, became in the reign of Alexander Severus, tribune of the fourth legion, which distinguished him as its favorite hero, by the names of Ajax and Hercules. From tribune he was successively promoted to the first military command; and, but for the fierceness of his savage origin which he still retained, he might have become the husband of the emperor's sister.

But the favors bestowed served only to inflame the ambition of the Thracian, who deemed his fortune unequal to his merit so long as he was constrained to acknowledge a superior. Selfishly cunning, he perceived that his emperor had lost the affection of the army and how their discontent might be turned to his own exaltation. The troops listened with pleasure to his emissaries. It was time, they cried, to cast away that useless phantom of the civil power, and to elect a real soldier, who would assert the glory, and distribute among his companions the treasures of the empire. One day, as he entered the field of exercise, the Army of the Rhine saluted him as emperor, and consummated their rebellion by the murder of Alexander Severus.

Maximin, now become the straight heavy Thracian weapon, or rhomphaia, in the hand of Death and Hades, was cruel as Sheol. His cruelty is said to have been derived from fear of contempt. He was conscious that his mean Thracian origin, his savage appearance, and gross ignorance, formed a very unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of his unfortunate predecessor. He remembered that he had often waited before the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and had been denied admittance by the insolence of their slaves. But those who had spurned, and those who had protected the Thracian, were guilty of the same crime - the knowledge of his original obscurity. For this crime many were put to death.

To be distinguished by birth or merit was to become an object of

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suspicion to his dark and sanguinary soul. Alarmed by the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and unrelenting. Without a witness, without a trial, and without an opportunity of defense, Magnus, a consular senator, with four thousand of his supposed accomplices, were given over to Death and Hades. The Italian fourth, and the whole empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the slightest accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, governors of provinces, and commanders of armies, were chained on the public carriages, and hurried away into his presence. Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommon instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he order to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals, others to be beaten to death with clubs, and others again, to be exposed to wild beasts, for "under" these the reigning authority was commissioned "to kill." During the three years of his reign, he disdained to visit either Rome or Italy, but dragged his victims from that "fourth" by his secret police to his camp on the Rhine or Danube, the seat of his stern despotism which trampled upon every principle of human law and justice, and was supported by the avowed power of the sword.

As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious senators, and bold adventurers, who in the court or army expose themselves to the caprice of circumstances, the body of the people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with pleasure. But the tyrant's avarice, stimulated by the insatiate desires of the soldiers, at length attacked the public property. Every city of the empire was possessed of an independent revenue, destined to purchase wheat and barley for the multitude, and so forth. By a single act of authority he acted unjustly by the wheat and barley, like the predecessors of Alexander Severus, and confiscated the whole mass of wealth to the use of the imperial treasury. The temples were stripped of their most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and the statues of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down, and coined into money. This retributive indignation of Heaven upon paganism by the blind instrumentality of this Thracian sword, excited tumults and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to descend into Hades in defense of their superstition, than to behold in the midst of peace their cities exposed to the rapine of cruelty and war. Throughout the Roman world a general cry of indignation was heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy of mankind; or, in view of the hieroglyphic of the fourth seal, on "Death" who rode them, and in "Hades who followed with him;" for these are "the common enemy of mankind."

At length a province of "the fourth" praefecture "of the earth,"

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was driven into rebellion against this Thracian minister of Death and Hades. The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master, who considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of the most fruitful branches of the imperial revenue. The despair of this class roused them to arm their slaves and peasants for their protection, and to destroy the rapacious treasurer. Having assassinated him, they seized on Thysdrus, and there erected in the name of the two Gordians, the standard of rebellion against the Thracian despot. The Senate ratified their election to the imperial office, and thereby involved Rome and Italy in the guilt of treason against him. His hatred against the Senate was declared implacable; the tamest submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence would not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own safety urged them to share the fortune of an enterprise of which, if unsuccessful, they were sure to be the first victims. They, therefore, boldly prepared for the issue, and without delay proclaimed Maximin, and his adherents, enemies of their country; and offered liberal rewards to whosoever had the courage and good fortune to destroy them.

The result of the secret sitting of the Senate soon manifested itself in the assassination of the praetorian praefect by their quaestor and tribunes, who, on their return from the camp, ran through the streets with their bloody daggers in their hands, proclaiming to the people and the soldiers the news of the happy revolution! The statues of Maximin were thrown down; the authority of the two Gordians and the Senate was acknowledged by the capital; and the example of Rome was followed by the rest of Italy. Thus, the whole "fourth of the earth" was prepared for the invasion of Death and Hades, who were divinely authorized "to kill upon it with sword, famine, pestilence, and beasts of the earth."

Having assumed the reins of government, the Senate selected twenty of their number to conduct the war against Maximin. To these the defense of "the fourth of the earth" was entrusted. A number of other deputies were sent to the provincial governors of the three other praefectures, earnestly conjuring them to fly to the assistance of Rome and Italy, and reminding the nations of their ancient ties of friendship with the Roman senate and people. The reception of these deputies, and the zeal of Italy and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that the subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress, in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression than from resistance. The consciousness of "that melancholy truth, inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in those civil wars which are artificially supported for the benefit

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of a few factious and designing leaders.

But, in a conflict with Maximin's Mauritanian governors, the Gordians, after a reign of thirty-six days, lost both life and throne. The news of this filled Rome with just but unexpected terror. Silent consternation also seized upon the senatorial assembly, till a descendant of Trajan aroused them from their fatal lethargy. He reminded them that Maximin was advancing towards Italy at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their only remaining alternative was to meet him bravely in the field, or tamely expect the tortures and ignominious death reserved for unsuccessful rebellion. He then proposed two successors to the Gordians, named Maximus and Balbinus; one to conduct the war against Maximin; the other to direct the civil g6vernment in Rome. This was readily acquiesced in; and to appease the clamors of a seditious multitude, a third Gordian, a boy of thirteen years, was invested with the ornaments and title of Caesar.

While these events were transpiring "upon the fourth of the earth," Maximin was agitated with the most furious passions. He received the news of the rebellion, and the Senate's decree against him, with the rage of a wild beast, which threatened the lives of all that ventured to approach him. Revenge was the only consolation left him, and this could only be obtained by arms. But delays are dangerous to all but omnipotence. It proved so to the redoubtable Thracian, who did not reach the frontiers of "the fourth of the earth" till the ensuing spring, A.D. 238. This delay gave the Senate's lieutenants time for preparation; so that when his army arrived at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were dismayed by the silence and desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy. The villages and open towns were abandoned, the cattle driven away, and provisions removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was anything left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an invader. Aquileia received, and withstood, the first shock of the invasion. lts citizens were animated by the extreme danger, and their knowledge of the Thracian's unrelenting temper. Their fears for the result were unexpectedly quieted by the appearance of the heads of Maximin, his son, his praefect, and principal ministers of his tyranny, paraded on spears before the walls. They threw open the gates of the city, and the whole army fraternizing with the citizens, gave in their adhesion to the Senate and people of Rome, having obeyed its decree in assassinating the tyrant, and thereby entitling itself to the promised liberality and reward.

While the fate of Italy was being contested under the walls of Aquileia, Death and Hades were actively engaged in scenes of blood and intestine discord at Rome. Distrust and jealousy reigned in the

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senate; and in the temples where they assembled, every senator carried open or concealed arms. In the midst of their deliberations two veterans of the guards having intruded beyond the altar of Victory, two senators, drawing their daggers, laid them dead at the foot of the altar; and then advancing to the door, exhorted the multitude to massacre the praetorians, as the secret adherents of Maximin. Those who escaped the first fury of the tumult took refuge in the camp, which they defended against the attacks of the people, assisted by numerous bands of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. Death and Hades held high revel here for many days, with infinite loss and confusion to the combatants on both sides. When the supply of water was cut off from the camp, the praetorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but, in their turn they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a great number of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of the inhabitants. The Emperor Balbinus attempted to reconcile the factions. But their animosity though smothered for a while, burnt with redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the senate and people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted either the spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects.

But distrust and jealousy reigned in the emperorship as well as in the senate. Maximus and Balbinus despised each other; and they both feared the praetorians as much as these turbulent military profligates hated them and the civil authority in general. The result was, that while Rome was celebrating some heathen games, a troop of desperate assassins invaded the palace, seized both "the Emperors of the Senate,' as they contemptuously styled them, stripped them of their robes, dragged them in insolent triumph through the streets of the city, in which they left their bodies, mangled with a thousand wounds, exposed to the insults or to the pity of the mob.

Thus, in the space of a few months, Death and Hades had killed with the sword, six emperors. The third Gordian, officially styled Caesar, still survived. The praetorians, who asserted the authority of the sword, saluted him Augustus and Emperor, in which election the Senate and people acquiesced, rather than hazard the renewal of war in the capital. In A.D. 242, Gordian, who was only nineteen, marched his forces against the Persians; but while engaged in this war, his praetorian praefect, Philip, an Arab by birth, and a robber by original profession, was made emperor by the soldiers; and the unfortunate Gordian was sent down into Hades by the sword, which had destroyed so many of his more guilty predecessors.

In A.D. 248, Rome had attained the venerable age of one thousand years from its foundation by Romulus. Philip, whom Eusebius

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styles a christian (!) solemnized with infinite pomp and magnificence, the secular games, which were skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind with deep and solemn reverence. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared as powerful a monarch as Hadrian or Augustus. The form of the dominion was still the same, "but the animating health and vigor were fled." This is Gibbon's remark without alteration or condensation by me. When the animating health and vigor of bodies have departed, they are pale with the paleness of death, as the horse in this fourth seal. "The industry of the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the legions was corrupted by the ambition of the emperors; the strength of the frontiers was insensibly undermined; and the fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the barbarians," or "beasts of the earth," who, under the inspiration of the opener of the fourth-seal, of "the authority given to Death and Hades to kill," soon discovered the decline of the pagan empire of Rome.

B. Death and Hades kill with Wild Beasts of the Earth

John informs us, that "authority was given to Death and Hades to kill by wild beasts upon the fourth of the earth." In commenting upon this, Mr. Elliott says: "There is just one of the destroying agencies mentioned in the vision that is passed over without notice by the historian - that of the wild beasts of the earth." This idea of Mr. Elliott's is quite a mistaken one; and he is led into the assumption by supposing that the theria which we agree to render wild beasts, or beasts of prey, are quadrupeds and reptiles. He enters into an argument to show, that these creatures must have been extensively employed in the service of Death and Hades, as one of the plagues with which the land was then afflicted, because one Arnobius about A.D. 296, says: "Men complain, there are now sent us from the gods pestilence, droughts, wars, scarcities, locusts, hail and other things noxious to man; but, was it not so in ancient times also?" Again: "If every species of corn be now devoured by locusts, or if floods destroy the human race, was it not so before? Were there not wars with wild beasts, and battles with lions, and destruction from venomous snakes, before our time?" The christians, who were able to "see" the fourth seal while being fulfilled, were, no doubt, arguing that the calamities of the times were sent upon the pagan world by the displeasure of "the Lamb.;" which caused Arnobius to rebut the idea with the above argument, beyond which our contemporaries have not advanced. There may have been trouble with beasts of this kind in parts of the

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empire. But, I am satisfied that they were wild beasts of a different sort sent "to kill upon a fourth of the earth."

Paul in Titus 1:12, styles the Cretans kaka theria, evil wild beasts. They had all the characteristics of men without understanding in divine things, who, the Spirit testifies, are "as the beasts that perish." Apocalyptically, this term is used emblematically tor the wild savage men who should invade the empire, and carry death and destruction into the central itself. Instead of Gibbon passing over the plague of wild beasts unnoticed, the tenth chapter of his history is a remarkable illustration of the fulfillment of this specification of the seal. We learn from him, that the "wild beasts of the earth" were the Franks, the Alemanni, the Goths, and the Persians; comprehending adventurers of less considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only serve to oppress the memory and perplex the attention of the reader.

Illustrative of this part of the seal, we learn from this historian that from the celebration of the secular games by Philip in A.D. 248, to the death of Gallienus, A.D. 268, there elapsed twenty years of shame and misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time was marked, every province of the Roman earth was afflicted by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, the "wild beasts of the earth;" and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution. Gibbon had no understanding of this seal, and all his sympathies were with the adversaries of the christians. He cannot therefore be suspected of giving a prophetic coloring to the history of these twenty years. He speaks of the empire as ruined, and death-stricken, and of being in the article of death - the last and fatal moment of dissolution. Let the empire, then, be represented by a horse, with what color should we paint him; and what kind of a rider should be placed upon him; and by what name should he be called; in order to represent on canvas the state of the dominion as history reveals it? The only answer is, that no hieroglyphic would be so appropriate as that given to John a hundred and fifty years before in the imagery of the fourth seal.

In the fifth year of his reign, retribution fell upon the head of Philip for the murder of the third Gordian. A senator named Decius, whom he had sent to quell a military insurrection in Maesia, was saluted Augustus by the insurgents; upon this he marched them into "the fourth of the earth," and there met Philip in battle near Verona, under the inspiration of "Death and Hades who followed with him." Philip went down into Hades there, by sword or dagger; while in Rome his son and associate was hurried after him by the sanguinary praetorian Page 216

NOTE MAP NOT COPIED BY SCANNER

The above map, taken from The Penguin Arias of World History illustrates how heavily the barbarians (the "wild beasts of the earth" - Ch. 6:8) pressed on the borders ot the Roman Empire Ultimately the Empire collapsed under the pressure

A few months after these events, the Emperor Decius was summoned to the Danubian frontier to repel an invasion of wild beasts, rude and warlike barbarians, known in history as the Goths. This is the first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the capital, and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. They migrated from Sweden into Prussia, and thence to the Ukraine. From this region they poured through Dacia, now Hungary, and appeared at length under the walls of Marcianopolis, the capital of the second Maesia, now called Bulgaria. A large sum of money ransomed the city; but they soon returned with increased numbers, and scattered devastation over the country. They took Philippopolis, a city of Thrace, by storm; and 100,000 persons were massacred in the sack of that great city. Thus, Death and Hades killed by wild beasts on this first meeting between the Romans and the Goths. Not long after this slaughter, Decius encountered the barbarians in a terrible battle; it was the conflict of despair against grief and rage. The fortune of the day was adverse to the Romans. Their army was irrecoverably lost, and Decius was slain in the overthrow, A.D. 251. He was succeeded by Gallus, and Hostilianus, his only surviving son.

The policy of Gallus was to get these wild beasts out of 'the earth" into their native dens at any sacrifice. He consented to leave in their

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hands the rich fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and a great number of prisoners of the highest merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every convenience that could assuage their angry spirits, or facilitate their departure; and even promised to pay them annually a large sum of gold, on condition that they should never afterwards infest the Roman earth" with their incursions.

This ignominious treaty, although it gave the Romans peace for a year, did not secure their repose. The dangerous secret of the wealth and weakness of the empire had been revealed to the world. New swarms of "wild beasts," encouraged by the success of their brethren, invaded "the earth," and spread desolation through the Illyrian provinces, and, passing into "the fourth of the earth," carried terror to the gates of Rome. The defense of the monarchy, which seemed abandoned by the emperor, was assumed by Aemilianus, governor of Pannonia and Moesia. He attacked them unexpectedly, chased the "wild beasts" beyond the Danube, and distributed the money for the tribute among the soldiers, who forthwith proclaimed him emperor. Gallus hearing of this, advanced to meet him in battle on the plains of Spoleto, about seventy-five miles from Rome. The assassination here of Gallus and his son interrupted briefly the work of Death and Hades killing on the fourth of the earth with sword; these were, however, hewing down the people with a raging pestilence, according to history and the seal, by which Hostilianus had been swept into Hades. The Senate gave a legal sanction to the triumph of Aemilianus over Gallus, and were blindly assured by the victor that he would, in a short time, deliver the Roman Horse from Death and Hades, who were killing and devastating by the wild beasts of the north and east. Of course, he did not give the assurance in these words; but what he said was in substance the same. Hercules the Victor, and Mars the Avenger," as he is styled in medals struck in honor of him, did not, however, execute his purpose. Death and Hades did not grant him time to fulfill his splendid promises; for less than four months intervened between his victory and his assassination. Valerian at the head of the legions of Gaul and Germany arrived in "the fourth of the earth," with the resolve to avenge the murder of Gallus, by sending Aemilianus and his adherents down into Hades to be devoured with her myriads of worms. The issue was tried by the sword on the plains of Spoleto, and decided against Aemilianus. The fortune of war had spared him. Death and Hades, however, would not be cheated of their prey; and the usual course of the praetorians added him by the assassin's dagger to the long, but still unfinished, list of victims sacrificed to their avarice and rage Page 218

Valerian was now recognized as emperor; and consulting only his affection or vanity, he immediately associated with him in office his worthless son Gallienus. The whole period of their reigns was one interrupted series of confusion and calamity. This was in strict conformity with the imagery of the seal. The Roman empire was at the same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of foreign invaders, the "wild beasts of the earth," and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers, Death and Hades' "sword." The Franks broke in upon "the earth." Their rapid devastations spread from the Rhine to the foot of the Pyrenees. Spain was unable to resist. During twelve years it was the arena of destructive hostilities. Taragona was sacked and almost destroyed; and as late as the fifth century, wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins of magnificent cities, still recorded the ferocity of these wild beasts from what is now Hesse, Brunswick, and Lunenburgh. From Spain they transported themselves into the Mauritanian province of 'the fourth of the earth." The fury of these "wild beasts of the earth" astonished these Roman Africans, who regarded them, from their name, manners, and complexion, as a destroying storm from a world unknown.

But Death and Hades had work for their wild beasts to do "upon the fourth of the earth" nearer to the seat of empire. The Alemanni burst into Gaul, upon the rich provinces of which they inflicted severe wounds, and afterwards were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of them crossed the Danube, and penetrated through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. Valerian being in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine, the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In the emergency the Senate became courageous, and prepared to meet the foe, who found it prudent to retire, to save the spoil with which they were encumbered. But, under the reigns of these emperors the frontier of the Danube was perpetually infested by the inroads of German and Sarmatian "wild beasts." The Goths renewed their incursions, which were diverted into a new channel. They acquired ships, by which they were enabled to ravage the coasts of Asia Minor. They took Trebizond, and put the inhabitants to the sword. The booty they acquired was immense, and the number of captures incredible. The rich spoils of Trebizond filled a large fleet of ships found in that port. The robust youth of the Black Sea-coast they chained to the oar; and satisfied with the success of their first naval expedition, returned to their new establishments in the kingdom of the Bosphorus Page 219

C. Death and Hades kill with Famine and Pestilence

It was revealed to John that among the agencies cooperating in the development of deadliness in the enemy with which the Bowman of the first seal would have successfully to contend, there would be famine

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and pestilence - so we render with Mr. Elliott the word, thanatos, on the authority of the Septuagint, in 2 Sam. 24:13,15 - Or shall it be three days dever, pestilence?" where the LXX, translation is thanatos.

What the Spirit revealed to John, history informs us came to pass with a destructiveness by no means exaggerated in the imagery of the fourth seal. Death and Hades killed the people with famine and pestilence with terrible fatality. Gibbon tells us that there was a long and general famine of a very serious kind, and that it was the inevitable consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the produce of the present and the hope of future harvests. Then, in the order of the seal, which places famine before pestilence, he proceeds to inform us that the famine generated pestilence. Famine, says he, is almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of scanty and unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year 250 to A.D. 265, raged without interruption in every province, every city, and almost every family of the Roman empire. The fourth of the earth was not exempt. During some time five thousand persons died daily in Rome, and many towns that had escaped the sword and wild beasts of Death and Hades, were entirely depopulated. Above half the people of Alexandria had perished in their calamities; and if the analogy might be extended to other provinces, it might be concluded that war, pestilence and famine had consumed in a few years the half of the human species.

In conclusion of our exposition of this seal, though not the full end of the seal-period itself, which continued yet a few years developing results of Death and Hades' mission similar to those already before the reader, we may record in this place the testimonies of Sismondi, Schlegel, and Niebuhr concerning the deadly paleness of the Roman body politic consequent upon the judgment of this seal. Sismondi says, as quoted by Mr. Elliott: "Diocletian put an end to this long period of anarchy. But such a succession of invasions and civil wars, and so much suffering, disorder, and crime, had brought the empire into a state of mortal languor from which it never recovered." The apocalypse which enables one to "see" below the surface of events, teaches me that "the Lamb," not Diocletian, put an end to the long period of anarchy caused by Death and Hades by opening the fifth seal. Diocletian was only the instrument by which He effected it. The mortal languor was represented in the pale color of the horse ridden by Death. Speaking of the state of things after Diocletian's accession, A.D. 285, Niebuhr says:

"After the cessation of the plague ('which began to decrease in the time of Probus,' between A.D. 276 and A.D. 282) the empire was suffering from general distress; and its condition was very much like

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that which followed after the cessation of the Black Death in the middle ages." And Schlegel says: "The division of the empire among several sovereigns appeared then (in the reign of Diocletian) as afterwards, an inevitable and necessary evil. In other words, the several parts and members of the vast body of the Roman empire, which approached nearer and nearer to dissolution began to fall to pieces."

The rest of the events of this seal-period fall under the reigns of Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, Carus and his sons, and the first eighteen years of Diocletian, embracing a period of thirty-five years in which the blood of the people was poured out like water. Thus, the whole period of the fourth seal would be sixty-eight years, the result of which was the establishment of a new system of government, which was afterwards completed by the family of Constantine.

SECTION 5

THE PHILADELPHIAN STATE

Vol.1., pp.428, 446

The Sardian state of the Ecclesias, in which things spiritual were "ready to die," merged into that in which the "few names," representative of those who were not "dead," were the "little strength" -the Philadelphian. The philosophical christianity and superstition of Satan's synagogue everywhere prevalent. The "little strength" the salt that preserves the christian community from utter corruption - Apoc.3:7.

ACT V. - SEAL-PERIOD FIFTH

Apoc. 6:9,10,11.

A period of great resistance unto blood on the part of the arrowless Bowman engaged in the conquest of the paganism of the Fourth Beast.

A.D. 303

"And when He opened the Fifth Seal, I saw underneath the Altar the souls of them who had been slain on account of the word of the Deity, and on account of the testimony which they held. 10. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Until then, 0 thou who art the Despot holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them who dwell upon the earth? 11. And to them each were given white robes, and it was answered to them that they should repose yet a short time while both their fellow-servants and their brethren should be filled up, who are about to be killed even as they."

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1. Why the Four Living Ones do not Appear

This fifth seal comes in between the expired political judgments of the fourth and the renewed judgments of the sixth. While, in the previous four seals, the Roman heathen were the subject acted upon in their visions, in this, the fifth, it is those who profess the faith of Christ who are the object against which the seal-judgment is directed. The horses and their riders have disappeared from view, and, what is more remarkable, the four living ones also. John no more hears a voice from them inviting him to "Come and see." He is not called upon to "see" or contemplate the judgments of the Lamb upon the heathen people. He had been invited to "see" the fourth seal; and he might still see the result of those calamities working evil upon "that which hindered," and preparing for it the last struggle which would eventuate in casting it out of "the heaven." This was an object to be beheld by one of the eyes of the fourth living one - an object external to itself; but, in the fifth seal, those "brethren" and "fellow-servants," of which he was a representative, were the subject of its judgments, and therefore an object to be beheld, and not spectators of the scene.

As already remarked, it is remarkable that neither of "the Four Living Ones full of eyes" is introduced into the imagery of the fifth and sixth seals. In the first four seals, they occupy a conspicuous place; but in the fifth and sixth they are not found. This peculiarity is certainly not accidental. The omission must be significative of something real in the situation of affairs pertaining to those engaged in "conquering" that which hindered the manifestation of the Man of Sin-power. We know, that the Four Living Ones are symbolical of the Heavenly Encampment, the imperium in impeno, the aggregation of the company separated from among the Gentiles for the Name; as opposed, or in active hostility, to that other encampment, or imperium, represented by the four horses under divers colors. The heavenly camp was the habitation of the Deity by his Spirit; not that his spirit was in all the individuals of the encampment; but that His Imperial Pavilion was in their midst, as the tent of the commanding general was in the midst of the Roman military camp. The Seven Asiatic Ecclesias as representative of all the militant ecclesias in the Greco-Latin Habitable, constituted this Heavenly Camp, with its divinely appointed standards of the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle faces; and, I doubt not, that in the whole period of the first four seals, a period of two hundred and five years, "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," understood that their body, nation, community, or militant association, in the general, was "signified" by those four remarkable figures. I am strengthened in this

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conviction by the following notable passage in a letter from the presbyters of the church, or ecclesia, in Rome to Cyprian and his brethren in Carthage. "Let us pray," say they, "that those who have fallen (or lapsed from the faith) may become sensible of the greatness of the crime. . . . and that they may not disturb the yet fluctuating state of the Ecclesia - lest they should appear to aggravate our distresses by exciting internally seditious and inflammatory commotions. Let them knock at the doors, but not break them. Let them go to the threshold of the Ecclesia, but not leap over it. Let them watch at the gates of the Heavenly Camp, but with that modesty which becomes those who remember they have been deserters. Let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of humility, and resume that shield of faith which they dropped through fear of death; but so that they may be armed against the Devil, not against that very Ecclesia, which laments over their fall." This was written in the middle of the third century, and in the fourth seal-period. The writers regarded the Ecclesia throughout the Roman world as "the Heavenly Camp" with gates. This idea they would derive from Apoc. 21:12, where "the gates" are revealed as twelve in number, and emblematic of the "twelve tribes of the children of Israel." These gates are grouped in threes, according to the encampment of the tribes, four square, each three symbolized by the standard of Judah, Ephraim, Reuben, and Dan; or, the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle, as exhibited in the Four Living Ones full of eyes. They regarded this Ecclesia-Camp as militant, and all its combatants as armed with "the shield of faith," which those who became apostates, or "deserters," threw away.

But, why is this Heavenly Camp not symbolized in the fifth seal? First, I conceive, because its work was done at the expiration of the fourth seal; secondly, because its unity had been destroyed under that seal; and, thirdly, because in default of that unity, the Deity no longer resided in it by his Spirit.

First, the work of the Spirit through the undivided Christ in convincing pagans of "the truth as it is in Jesus" was finished. The agency employed in separating the heathen from the Roman superstition, consisted of philosophical disquisitions on idolatry, and denunciations of the terrors of the law upon them. They were exhorted to "believe and live;" and at the same time told to "even in the very exit of life pray for remission of sins, and implore the only living and true God with confession and faith: pardon is granted to him who confesses his sin; and saving grace from the divine goodness is conferred on fhe believer; and thus may a man pass from death to immortality in his very last moments." This extract is from a letter of Cyprian, a model christian

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of the fourth seal-period, to Demetrian, a persecuting pagan in the Roman Africa; and given by Milner approvingly, as a specimen of his preaching to men, although profane and unconverted. Such preaching would do very well for the conversion of pagans to the Laodiceanism of the third or nineteenth centuries; but it would be of no use in regard to "the great salvation" - it could put no one in possession of the faith; and through the obedience of faith, of a right to eternal life in the kingdom of God. Such preaching might do for a cathedral, church, or conventicle, pulpit of our times; but not for preaching to be endorsed by the Spirit. The Spirit could not sanction such eloquent trash, and therefore he withdrew from the camp, and left it in the gloom of its own darkness. For this cause, the symbol of the Heavenly Camp is not found in the fifth seal. The Spirit had withdrawn from it as no longer fortified with the truth. The untraditionized word was not taught; and it had become the synagogue of the Satan, "after whose energy, and with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness," the Lawless One was to be developed. Where the truth is not, there the Spirit is not; for "the Spirit is the truth." This is the reason why the Spirit is not now with "the names and denominations of Christendom" in whole or part. They are destitute of the truth. It is not preached among them, nor known to them; and therefore not believed and obeyed. Hence, the churches of Christendom could not be represented by the Four Living Ones, as under the four seals. They do not constitute a Heavenly Camp; but "the Great City" to be besieged and taken when the Four Living Ones shall plant their standard-faces against it, in the resurrection and regeneration. They brought the Great City to ruin - to pale-horse distress, in the period of the four seals; and again, under the Seventh Vial, the same "great city" under its papal and ten-horn constitution, will be demolished by them, and finally superseded by their Heavenly Camp, from which there will then be no deserters who have dropped the shied of faith; and none within to be more zealous for traitors, than the truth.

Secondly, the symbol of the Spirit in the midst of the saints does not appear in the imagery of the fifth seal, because the unity of the camp had been broken up in the fourth seal period. In this period there were several severe persecutions of the christians; and also, prosperous intervals in a worldly sense. In peaceful times, multitudes forsook the temples of the gods, and joined the ecciesias under the influence of their families, and of such preaching as Cyprian's. Some, doubtless, through study of the scriptures, and the aid of faithful men, came to an intelligent faith and obedience. These were the "few names" of the fourth seal period, on account of whom, and with whom, the Spirit still

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occupied the encampment. They were the salt by which the lump was seasoned; and in whose absence the camp was no longer tenable by the Spirit.

The multitudes who forsook the gods very much resembled the multitudes who forsake the world (!) when, in modern times, they "get religion," and become papists, protestants, and sectarians. The one and the other forsake not the gods and the world with the intention of enduring torments, or of holding on to their profession at the cost of liberty, chattels, or life: but so long as it is safe and pleasant, or not too inconvenient, they are willing to rejoice in a more reasonable and decent calling, than in a declining and vulgar superstition like the Roman, or in the wickedness of what they call "the world." The persecutions of Maximin, Gallus, and Valerian, all occurred under the fourth seal. When any of these befell the encampment, multitudes turned traitors and deserted to the enemy. They dropped the shield of faith, and were pierced by the fiery darts of the wicked. The emperors ordered all who had become christians to sacrifice to the gods, and to renounce and curse the Lord Jesus; or to be tormented and put to death, if they refused. This was a trial multitudes were unequal to. The ecclesia in Carthage was numerous. At the beginning of the Decian persecution Cyprian says, "It stands firm in the faith in general;" but when it was over its declension was most deplorable. It had been sifted by the storm so much that the greatest part of its professors had apostatized. The case of Carthage will exemplify that of very many other ecclesias. The apostates were innumerable; they forsook the Heavenly Camp in crowds, and sought safety and protection in the pardon offered by the magistrates to all who should recant.

But, when peace was restored to the Heavenly Camp, multitudes of these deserters besieged its gates for readmittance. Within the camp, there were two classes of professors; one, consisting of "the few names in Sardis which had not defiled their garments;" the other, consisting of all the rest, who "had a name that they were living, but were dead"- Apoc. 3:4,1. The latter class was favorable to the readmittance of the deserters, or "lapsed;" the minority was determinedly opposed to it. The head of the majority was Cornelius the bishop of the ecclesia in Rome; and the leader of the "few names" in the Sardian state, was Novatian, who was elected bishop in Rome in opposition to him about A.D. 251. He is acknowledged by his opponents to have been no heretic; and to have excelled in genius, learning, and eloquence. No immoralities have been proved against him, though he did not escape the evil speeches and maledictions of the majority; though it is certain, that while he continued a presbyter of the ecclesia in Rome, his fame

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was not only without a blot, but very fair in the camp. He was put to death for the faith in the reign of Valerian.

It will be well here to sound in the ears of the reader the voice of history concerning the state of the majority which the Spirit says had a name that it was living, while it was really dead; and the division of which is charged upon Novatius as a crime.

"The most respectable writers of that age," says Mosheim, "have put it out of the power of an historian to spread a veil over the enormities of ecclesiastical rulers. For, though several yet continued to exhibit to the world illustrious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue (these were "the few names even in Sardis"), yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness; puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition; possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy professors and ministers. In many places the bishops assumed "princely authority, particularly those who had the greatest number of churches under their inspection, and who presided over the most opulent assemblies. They appropriated to their evangelical function the splendid ensigns of temporal majesty. A throne, surrounded with ministers, exalted above his equals the servant of the meek and lowly Jesus; and sumptuous garments dazzled the eyes and the minds of the multitude into an ignorant veneration for their arrogated authority. Presbyters followed their example, neglected their duties, and abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. Deacons imitated their superiors, and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order."

In support of this statement, we have the testimony of Eusebuts who was contemporary with what he describes. "Through too much liberty," says he, "the Christians grew negligent and slothful, envying and reproaching one another - waging, as it were, civil wars among themselves, bishops quarreling with bishops, and the people divided into parties. Hypocrisy and deceit were grown to the highest pitch of wickedness. They were become so insensible, as not to think of appeasing the divine anger, but, like atheists, they thought the world destitute of any providential government or care, thus adding one crime to another. The bishops themselves had cast off almost all concern about religion; they were perpetually contending with one another; and did nothing but quarrel, and threaten, and envy, and hate one another; they were full of ambition and tyrannically used their power.

Such was the state into which the ecclesias had fallen in the second

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half of the third century, against which Novatian protested. Many, in all the Roman empire - Christadelphians, in contrast to "Christians," a name disgraced then as now " united with him in bearing a noble testimony against the prevailing corruption in the camp; and by so doing acquired the name of Novatianists. They were also termed Puritans, or in Greek, Cathari - a name bestowed on them by their adversaries, who reproached them for what they considered their excessive severity of discipline and exclusiveness.

The ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, says that Novatius separated from the Roman Church because Cornelius the bishop received into communion believers who had sacrificed during the persecution which the emperor Decius had raised against the ecclesia. Having seceded on this account, on being afterwards elevated to the episcopacy by such prelates as entertained similar sentiments, he wrote to all the ecclesias insisting that they should not admit to the sacred mysteries those who had sacrificed; but exhorting them to repentance, leave the pardoning of their offense to God, who has the power to forgive all sin. These letters made different impressions on the parties in the various provinces to whom they were addressed, according to their several dispositions and judgments. The exclusion from participation in the mysteries (Lord's Supper) of those who after baptism had committed any sin "unto death," appeared to some a cruel and merciless course; but others thought it just and necessary for the maintenance of discipline, and the promotion of greater devotedness of life. In the midst of the agitation of this important question, letters arrived from Cornelius the bishop, promising indulgence to delinquents after baptism. On these two persons writing thus contrary to one another, and each confirming his own procedure by the testimony of the divine word, as it usually happens every one identified himself with that view which favored his previous habits and inclinations. Those who had pleasure in sin, encouraged by the license thus granted, took occasion from it to revel in every species of criminality. The Phrygians, however, appear to be more temperate than other nations, and are seldom guilty of swearing. The Scythians and Thracians are naturally of a very irritable disposition, while the inhabitants of the East are addicted to sensual pleasures. But the Paphlagonians and Phrygians are prone to neither of these vices; nor are the sports of the circus nor theatrical exhibitions in much estimation among them even to the present day (A.D. 445). And this will account, as I conceive, for these people, as well as others of a similar temperament and habit in the West, so readily assenting to the letters written by Novatius. Fornication and adultery are regarded among the Paphlagonians and

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Phrygians as the grossest enormities; and it is well known that there is no race of men upon the face of the earth who more rigidly govern their passions in this respect."

This testimony of Socrates shows that morality and virtue were on the side of the Novatians; and even their catholic adversaries did not accuse them of unsoundness in the faith. Cornelius, the bishop of the church in Rome, styles Novatius, 'that artful and malicious beast;" and denounces him in his letters for his artifice and duplicity, his perjuries and falsehoods, his dissocial and savage character. But this proves nothing against Novatius or his friends, and is prima facie evidence that the spirit in him, Cornelius, was the spirit of the flesh, which afterwards became so rampant in his successors the Popes. From Eusebius' account, Novatius and his adherents appear to have been excommunicated by a council assembled in Rome; and the course pursued against him there evinces more of party malignity than of zeal for the truth in faith and discipline. But it did not succeed in suppressing the Novatians, who prospered in Rome considerably. Socrates says, that A.D. 421, Cornelius' representative was one Celestinus. 'This prelate," says he, "took away the churches from the Novatians at Rome also, and obliged Rusticula their bishop to hold his meetings secretly in private houses. Until this time that sect had flourished exceedingly in the imperial city of the West, possessing many churches there, which were attended by large congregations. But envy attacked them also, as soon as the Roman episcopate, like that of Alexandria, extended itself beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of priesthood, and degenerated into the present state of secular domination. For thenceforth the Roman bishops would not suffer even those who perfectly agreed with them in matters of faith, and whose purity of doctrine they extolled, to enjoy the privilege of assembling in peace, but stripped them of all they possessed. From such tyrannical bigotry the Constantinopolitan prelates kept themselves free, inasmuch as they not only permitted the Novatians to hold their assemblies within the city, but treated them with every mark of Christian regard."

The position assumed by the Novatians was perfectly scriptural. Sins unto death disqualify for inheritance in the kingdom of the Deity, and therefore for fellowship with those who are "the Heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to them who love him," or obey him; which is the same thing, for "love is the fulfilling of law." There can be no sin more deadly than that of a christian sacrificing to other gods, and cursing Christ, for the sake of present ease and comfort. Paul settles this clearly enough to the minds of all who receive the word as the end of all controversy. "If they who were once enlightened," says he, "shall

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fall away, it is impossible to renew them again unto a change of mind -eis metanoian, seeing they crucify again for themselves the Son of the Deity, and expose him to public shame." This is bearing thorns and briars; and such, Paul saith, "is rejected, and nigh to cursing; whose end is to be burned" - Heb. 6:4-8. For an enlightened man to sacrifice to the gods of Greece and Rome, was for him to "sin willfully" a sin for which no sacrifice is provided in the system of righteousness devised by the Deity. It is therefore "a sin unto death;" and for that for pardon of that, John discountenanced all petition: "there is a sin unto death; I say not that ye shall pray for it" - 1 John 5:16. Of sins of this sort, Paul says: "If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of the Deity, and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace" - Heb. 10:26. The christian who sacrificed to the gods of the Gentiles, in so doing, "trod under foot the Son of the Deity, and counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing." The gospel of the kingdom has no good news for such. They have denied Christ; and Paul saith again, "If we deny him, he also will deny us" - 2 Tim. 2:12; and Jesus himself says, "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:33).

It is clear, then, in relation to "the lapsed," apostates, or deserters from the Heavenly Camp, the Novatians were in the right, though they were in the minority. Cornelius and his Council who excommunicated them, in so doing, turned the truth into the streets a houseless wanderer. Having ejected Christ, who, when on earth, said, "I am the truth," the Spirit who spoke to the ecclesias, forsook them, and left them to their own waywardness. Having things now all their own way, they received again into the bosom of what they called "Mother Church," apostates, adulterers, drunkards, lovers of pleasures, &c., upon profession of sorrow, but without amendment of life. Well might the Spirit say to such "churches:" "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." The institutions and worship of such a dead body could be of no worth. The "few names in Sardis," called Novatians, were satisfied of that, and therefore they rejected the baptism, and ordination of the so-called "Mother." They repudiated Jezebel and all her ordinances; so that they reimmersed and reordained all who came over

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to them from the majority, which now began to designate itself the

HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Here then were two leading and rival divisions in antipagan society, both claiming the christian name, with the addition of Catholic and Puritan, as the names distinguishing their several hosts in the long warfare waged between them. These antagonist camps were in active conflict during the fifth seal; how then could the Four Living Ones, who symbolized the undivided heavenly camp, be introduced into the imagery of the fifth seal, inasmuch as in that and the sixth seal period, the original Organization of the camp no longer obtained? The time was rapidly advancing after the close of the fourth seal, when the Spirit would fulfill his threat of spuing them out of his mouth; and of organizing a new advocacy of the truth - a protest, not so much against paganism, as against Laodiceanism incorporated in the Synagogue of Satan, styled in the language of the Apostasy, THE HOLY APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC CHURCH Mother and Mistress of all the churches of Antichristendom.

Thirdly, the unity of the Heavenly Camp having been broken by this great schism, the blame of which before the Lamb would rest on them who sympathized with the deserters who denied him, and who excommunicated the friends of purity and good morals, the Deity could no longer reside in it by his Spirit; the symbol of the four living ones consequently could not be introduced into the imagery of the fifth seal. But though as a community they were dead, yet we learn from the epistle to Sardis, that even in that dead community there were a few living ones who had not defiled their garments. These were Christadelphians. The Deity walked in these. His spirit was in them, because Christ was in them by faith. "Know ye not," saith the apostle, "that Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates," or without judgment. "I am the truth," saith Jesus. "Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith," saith Paul: from all which it is manifest that every real christian has Christ in him; and that he has Christ in him when he intelligently believes the truth, and by obeying that truth, puts on Christ, and walks in him by walking in the truth. Now, as "the spirit is the truth," and 'my words are spirit and life," it follows that the spirit of the Deity resides in all in whom the truth and His words influentially resides. In this sense, the spirit may have dwelt in a few among the Sardian dead, who did not actually separate themselves with the Novatians. As the Spirit had not till the sixth seal-period spued the ecclesias out of his mouth, there would till then continue to be some living among the dead; and according to the proportion and quality of these living, would be the spirit-possession of each ecclesia. The Sardian state under the fifth seal

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merged into the Philadelphian; and the 'few names" of the former, became the 'little strength" of the latter. This little strength was derived from the truth believed, as before explained. For there to be a little strength in the Philadelphian state was for there to be a little spirit still; for there is no christian, spiritual, or moral strength where there is no spirit or power. The gospel is the power of the Deity for salvation; but it is not power to numb or deaden the pain of torment inflicted upon the bodies of the saints when tortured by the cruel pagans, and afterwards by the more savage Laodiceans. It is probable that with the 'little strength" there was also a little physical power still possessed by the subjects of that little strength by which the torture they were called on to endure was deadened. The only evidence of the spirit being possessed in the fifth seal-period in any other than a doctrinal sense as before explained, is the question and answer it contains. Had the four living ones been in the imagery, we should have known that the Spirit, or 'the Lamb," still occupied the camp, plaguing from thence the Roman Horse, and fortifying the bodies of his servants to the patient endurance of the most cruel torments inflicted upon them in the good fight. But they are not there; so that we can only infer that His "grace" was not entirely withdrawn, and was still sufficient for the emergencies of the few, who, in the fifth seal period "kept his word, and denied not his name.

I may remark here, that in the first four seals, the four living ones were all present in the arrangements of each, though only one is specially indicated by ordinal number. This presence of all the four in each seal is intimated in the first verse, 'I heard from one out of the four living ones, saying:" and though only one is named in the second seal, yet in the third a voice is said to be sounded in the midst of the four about the taxation of wheat and barley. They were all four present in reality; and the Lamb, or Spirit, was in the midst of them, attacking the Roman people and empire with sword, taxation, famine, pestilence, and beasts of the earth. And the pagans were not altogether unaware of this, for they charged the miseries of the times upon the christians. And they had unquestionably to do with them as being associated with the Lamb who opened and supervised the seals. Cyprian, in his letter to Demetrian, a heathen, endeavored to persuade him of the unreasonableness of the charge. But there was more reason in it than Cyprian knew; and if he had known, he might have made a powerful argument in favor of christianity, on account of so reasonable a fact.

Treating of the first eighteen years of Diocletian's reign, and therefore the eighteen concluding years of the fourth seal-period,

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Milner says, after Eusebius: "During this period he was extremely Indulgent to the christians. His wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria, were christians in some sense secretly. The eunuchs of his palace and his most important officers were christians; and their wives and families openly professed the gospel. Christians held honorable offices in various parts of the empire; innumerable crowds attended christian worship; the old buildings could no longer receive them; and in all cities wide and large edifices were erected."

The rider of the first seal was still "conquering" paganism; and a state of things had obtained indicating that the time was not far off when the coronal wreath or stephan, would adorn his brow. If the strength and beauty of christianity were to be measured by secular prosperity, here might be fixed the era of its greatness. "But, on the contrary, the era of its actual declension must be dated in the pacific part of Diocletian's reign. During the whole third century the work of God, in purity and power, had been tending to decay. The connection with philosophers was one of the principal causes. Outward peace, and secular advantage completed the corruption. Ecclesiastical discipline was now relaxed exceedingly. Bishops and people were in a state of malice. Endless quarrels were fomented among contending parties; and ambition and covetousness had in general gained the ascendancy in the christian church. Some there were who mourned in secret, and strove in vain to stop the abounding torrent of the evil" These were the "little strength," and "the brethren" of the fifth seal. For the space of thirty years no bishop, or priest, among the catholics appeared eminent for piety, zeal, or labor. Eusebius, indeed, mentions the names and characters of several bishops; but he extols only their learning and philosophy, or their moral qualities. "Notwithstanding this decline, both of zeal and of principle; still christian worship was constantly attended; and the number of nominal converts was increasing after the fashion of our time; but the faith of Christ itself appeared a mere ordinary affair. And "here terminated," says Milner, "or nearly so, as far as appears, that great first effusion of the Spirit of God which began at the day of Pentecost Human depravity effected throughout a general decay of godliness; and one generation of men elapsed with very slender proofs of the spiritual presence of Christ with the church."

2. The Altar

John informs us, that when the Lamb opened the fifth seal he saw THE ALTAR and souls underneath it. There are two apocalyptic altars pertaining to the apocalyptic temple the thusiasterion of the priest's court, and of the Holy Place. The one seen by John in this seal was the

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thusiasterion of the Court of the Priests, where sacrifices were burnt, and the blood thereof poured out at the altar's base.

A thusiasterion was a structure of earth, unhewn stone, or brass, elevated in an area, upon which the bodies of slain animals were burned. The burned bodies consumed into smoke were whole burnt offerings; and typified, or represented the utter destruction of Sin's Flesh, which sin had been condemned in the flesh of the victim, by the abstraction therefrom, or the pouring out of the soul of the flesh in the slaughter of the victim. "The soul of the flesh is in the blood." The blood covers upon the soul, or life; therefore in pouring out the blood, the soul, or life, of the animal was poured out unto death; and the blood being poured at the base of the altar, the soul was there, and the altar was considered as covering it; hence the phrase "underneath the altar the souls of the slain." The only difference between soul and blood sacrificially, is blood flowing in the veins and arteries; and blood in the sacrificial bowl. In the latter, it is a coagulated mass unfit for the purpose of the body; in the former, it is a fluid maintained in fluidity by the electro-nervous, or vital, energy generated by the processes of digestion and respiration. When the blood is shed it soon loses its fluidity. The electro-nervous energy, soul, or life evaporates, and the blood becomes solid, or concrete. It is physiologically decorous, therefore, in hieroglyphic writing to make a distinction between soul and blood, and to give the intellectuality of the scene to the soul, as in the fifth seal.

In patriarchal and Mosaic times. when things instituted possessed a typical significance, altars were designated by divine and highly expressive titles. In Gen. 33:18-20, we learn that Jacob erected one at Shalem, and called it AIL-ELOHAI-YISRAAIL- the Strength of the Mighty Ones of Power's Prince. As Jacob did not consider the work of his own hands was this STRONG ONE; in its being testified that he called the altar by this name, we are instructed that the prophet (and Jacob was a prophet as well as Abraham and Isaac) erected it as a type, or symbol, of Him the Strength or Power, who promised him such great things with his Seed - the Mighty Ones of Jacob.

Again, Moses built an altar after the battle with Amalek at Rephidim, and named it, Yahweh-nissi; "and he said, Because his hand is against the throne of Yah, there is war for Yahweh with Amalek from generation to generation" - Exod. 17:15. Here, the altar's name is He shall be my banner. Who shall be? He who shall be the Deity manifested in flesh, the Mighty One of Jacob. He shall be Israel's Banner against all the Powers that lift the hand against kais Yah, the throne of Him who shall be; for there shall be war against

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such till their thrones become the conqueror's.

But, in the building of altars the will of the Deity was that they should be of earth; or if of stone, that the stone should not be hewn. "An a/tar of earth thou shall make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings; in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon - Exod. 20:24. The permanent altar was made of wood, overlaid with brass; and when cleansed, anointed, and sanctified, it was Most Holy; and whatsoever touched it was holy.

Now, all this was significant of the substance, Christ, who was "the end of the law." The Holy Spirit signified something that he regarded important in his system of wisdom, in commanding an altar to be made of earth, or of unhewn stone; and in forbidding a tool to be lifted upon it. The things commanded were "a parabola for the time then present '" a riddle, the meaning of which would be found in the realities developed in the Christ. He is declared by Paul to be the christian altar. "We have an altar," says he in Heb. 12:10, which in being cleansed by the blood of Jesus is made identical with him. He was the altar of earth, or of unhewn stone; and in his making, or generation, he was begotten, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the Deity." To affirm, that in his generation he was begotten of Joseph, is to "pollute him." In admitting his altarship, and at the same time affirming his paternity to be of Joseph, and not of the Deity, as related in Luke, is to make Joseph the builder of an altar of hewn stone - a polluted altar, upon which a man's nakedness had been discovered.

Jesus being set forth by the Deity a propitiatory for the remission of sins that are passed through faith in his blood (Rom. 3:25) exhibits him in relation to the believer of the truth as an Altar - the real Ailelohai-Yisraail and Yahweh-nissi. The Word made Flesh was at once the victim, the altar, and the priest. The Eternal Spirit-Word was the High Priestly Offerer of His own Flesh, whose character was without spot - "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;'" "who knew no sin;" yet whose nature was in all points like ours - "sin's flesh," in which dwells no good thing - Heb. 9:14; 7:26;2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3; 7:18; Heb. 2:14-17. The Flesh made by the spirit out of Mary's substance, and rightly claimed therefore in Psalm 16:8; Acts 2:31, as His flesh, is the Spirit's Anointed Altar, cleansed by the blood of that flesh when poured out unto death "on the tree." This flesh was

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the victim offered - the sacrifice. Suspended on the tree by the voluntary offering of the Spirit-Word (John 10:18), "sin was condemned in the flesh," when the soul-blood thereof was poured out unto death. The Spirit-Word made his soul thus an offering for sin (Isa. 53:10); and by it sanctified the Altar-Body on the tree. It was now a tizusiastenon - an Altar Most Holy; and all that touch it are holy; and without touching it none are holy.

This then is the Altar that decorates the Court of the Priests in the temple-system of apocalyptic symbols. It is the mystical Christ-Altar, to the horns of which the sacrifice is bound (Psa. 118:27). The magnitude of this altar is equal to the One Body of which the Lord Jesus is the head; so that all who are "in him" "wait at the altar, and are partakers with the altar," because they "eat of the sacrifice" (1 Cor. 9:13; 1~): 17,18): they "eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, which is meat indeed, and drink indeed." This eating and drinking is intellectual. What we read, or hear and understand, and believe, we eat, and digest, and assimilate, and grow thereby. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood," saith Jesus, "dwelleth in me, and I in him" - John 6:56. Here is a mutual indwelling between Christ and the believer. When the enlightened believer has got into Christ, he dwelleth in him, and feeds upon his flesh and blood - he is within the Altar, and partaking with it. He has touched the Most Holy, and is therefore holy, or a saint.

But how doth a sinner get into the Altar so as to be within it, and to be a worshipper therein? (Apoc. 11:1). The only way is by his 'believing the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of the Anointed Jesus;" and, if he believes these things with a faith that works by love" and "purifies the heart," by being immersed into the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:12; Matt. 28:19). In passing through this process, the sinner, who is by nature "dead in trespasses and sins," is quickened by the word understood and believed; word-life, or a new spirit, has entered into him, which is the spirit of a ready and willing obedience to all that is commanded; and the first command for such an enlightened sinner is, "be immersed upon (epi) the name of the Anointed Jesus into (eis) remission of sins." In doing this, his love-working faith is counted to him for repentance and remission of sins, and he is inducted into the Altar. In passing through the water he passes through the Laver to the Altar; and in the passage, he becomes sprinkled in heart by the blood of sprinkling, which is the blood of the Altar-Covenant, through the faith which he has in the doctrine concerning it (Heb. 10:22; 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:2; 2:24). Such an one is no longer a sinner because he has

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touched the Altar; and "whatever toucheth it is holy," or a saint. Now, to saints within the altar the apostle saith, "all sons of Deity are ye in the Anointed Jesus through the faith; for as many as into Christ have been immersed, have put on Christ. . . and if ye be Christ's then ye are Abraham's Seed, and heirs according to promise (Gal. 3:26-29). They are in the Altar-Name. There is a remarkable sentence in one of Ignatius' epistles, indicative of this subject being better understood in the reign of Trajan, A.D. 107, than contemporary with the fifth seal, or now. "Let no one,,' says he, "mistake; if any man is not within the Altar, he is deprived of the bread of the Deity;" which is equivalent to saying, if any man be not in Christ - if Christ be not the covering of his nakedness, he cannot obtain eternal life in the kingdom of God.

From these premises, then, the reader will easily comprehend the phraseology of the fifth seal concerning "souls underneath the Altar." When "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," and therefore "within the Altar," die, and return to their parent earth without violence, they are "underneath the Altar," sleeping in Jesus," "dwelling in the dust," "sleeping in the dust of the earth:" but if they are made to lie "underneath the Altar" by the blood-shedding cruelty of the enemy, their souls are said, as in the language of the fifth seal, to cry with a great or loud voice for judicial vengeance on the murderers, who poured out their soul-blood unto death. Abel's blood shed by Cain is said to have a voice, and to speak - 'the voice of the bloods of thy brother cry to me from the ground" (Gen. 4:10); and the blood of Jesus, shed by his brethren of the flesh, "speaks better things than the blood of Abel" speaks. It speaks according to the teaching of the revealed mystery, pardon to the guilty, and life eternal to the pardoned; but the blood of Abel only speaks of vengeance against Cain, not of pardon even to him. Now, if this about Abel had been hieroglyphically represented as in this seal, "the voice of the bloods" would have been styled "the soul of Abel who had been slain, saying, until when dost thou not judge and avenge my blood upon Cain'?" John, with the eyes of his understanding enlightened by the Lamb's messenger, two hundred and five years before the seal, saw the souls of them that had been slain, lying underneath the Altar, and heard their great voice. This of course, was a shadowy representation of what would be; for multitudes of the souls had no existence when he saw the vision. The voice of their blood was great, for, contrary to Gibbon's supposition, their number was great, who had "resisted unto blood striving against the sin" of apostasy in sacrificing to the gods and in denying Jesus.

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3."Until When?"

The soul underneath the Altar, though really dead and therefore unconscious (for "the dead know not anything" Ecc. 9:5), are represented as speaking. They are supposed to utter a demand for vengeance upon their enemies, whose death-dealing power had, after a long interval of peace, broken out against the "partakers with the "Altar" afresh. "UNTIL WHEN, 0 Despot, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, on them that dwell on the earth?" They desired to know the time when he that went forth conquering with the bow should be stephaned with conquest over the "Great Red Dragon" in the heaven; "red" with the blood of them "slain for the word of the Deity, and for the testimony which they held" against paganism, and the corruptions in the world through lust. The religious war between their Camp and the Dragon had continued over two hundred years since John's exile; how much longer, they are hieroglyphically supposed to inquire in the interest of their camp, was the sanguinary conflict to endure before "the Dragon and his Angels," who rent them with his "Iron teeth," and "Brazen Claws," should be ejected from "the heaven?" How long till their travailing community should appear in "the heaven?" to give the stephanizing blow to the blood-stained adversary, that, being bruised, he might no more send souls with cruel violence underneath the Altar? Their inquiry had no reference to the time when the Lord Jesus should destroy the Man of Sin-power with the spirit of his mouth, and with the brightness of his presence; for it was not believed by those living in the first five seal-periods, that the Man of Sin-power had yet been born of the Woman. Their supposed anxiety was about the issue of the conflict, which had placed them "as souls slain" underneath the Altar - the fall of political paganism, and the substitution of a power that would feed and nourish them in civil, ecclesiastical, and social prosperity and peace. They called for divine vengeance "on them who dwelt on the earth," in the period of the fifth seal; not on those who dwelt in Persia, Germany, or in other countries beyond the Euphrates, Rhine, and Danube; for these were beyond the limits of "the earth" at that stage of apocalyptic development. It was the Dragon's earth, or territory, that was pre-eminently the arena of their conquering unto victory; and they sought hieroglyphically to know for the encouragement of the living saints, when that victory would be?

The answer they received was truly encouraging to all at the time, who, in studying the seals, were able to "see," or discern, the signs of the times. The purpose of the Dragon authorities during the fifth seal-

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period was to extinguish the name of christianity. Indeed, so satisfied were they that they had given it its quietus, that two pillars wer erected in Spain, on one of which was the inscription: "Diocletian] Jovian, Maximian, Herculaeus, Caesares Augusti, for having extended the Roman empire in the East and West, and for having extinguished the name of Christians, who brought the Republic to ruin." On the other thus: "Diocletian, &c., for having adopted Galerius in the East for having everywhere abolished the superstition of Christ, for having extended the worship of the gods." The idea of these emperors was that the terrible calamities that had befallen the Roman people in the years previous to the celebration of their triumph commemorating their success in rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants and barbarian "wild beasts," Nov.20, A.D. 303, styled by Gibbon "that memorable era," they judged, I say, that the pale-horse ruin had been brought upon the State by the christians. And, when we consider into what extreme degeneracy of faith and practice - as appears from the seven epistles descriptive of as many states typified by each ecclesia, and by history already quoted - they had fallen; it is not at al unlikely, that multitudes of them had plunged into the roaring waters of Dragon politics, and by their influence, like the equally demoralized abolitionists of our day, increased the confusion of the times. These emperors regarded them as a sort of copperhead faction among politicians, who only waited a favorable opportunity to seize sovereign power, when they would abolish the worship of the gods, to which they were themselves devoted. This was, no doubt, a correct view of their political relations. They had become like our modern pietists -political pietists. The professors of our day all pretend to be christians, yet they are as intensely devoted to politics as the old heathen. What popish, protestant, and sectarian politicians now are, the professed christians were in the fifth seal-period under these emperors. Of course, we except from this remark, the "Little Strength" that "kept the word, and denied not the name" of the Spirit, who addressed the ecciesias. Of this sort there are none, and from the very constitution of modern names and denominations of pietists, there can be none, among papists, episcopalians, lutherans, presbyterians, methodists, and such like. These are all Sardian and Laodicean. They have a name among themselves that they are living, and are dead; in fact, they never were anything else but dead - "dead in trespasses and sins;" they say, "they are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that they were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;" though with hypocritical words in the exercise of their stereotyped formalism, they claim brotherhood with every criminal

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they inter, and confess that they are "miserable offenders" in whom "there is no health." There is not an atom of life or strength in such "christians" so-called as these. During the fourth and fifth seals professors of this type abounded in the military and civil service of the Dragon; and their presence there was a source of irritation and annoyance to those emperors, who were fanatically devoted to the gods. They persecuted them, and sought to exterminate the hated name they bore; and if we were to believe the Spanish pillar-inscriptions, and that of the Diocletian medal "no mine christianorum deleto," we should conclude, that the judgments of the fifth seal had accomplished the sanguinary work. But, they did succeed in turning multitudes to the gods, and so extending their worship; and, in a like sense to the extinguishing the name of Whig from the executive, legislature, and armies of the North; so the name of christian was extinguished from the court, and military, and civil service of Diodetian, Maximian, and Galerius. Whigs and Democrats became Federals and Abolitionists according to the safety and profitableness of the change; so the servants of these emperors, became Jovians and Herculeans, worshipping the fortunes of their imperial masters, rather than incur the dangerous liabilities that pertained to a loyal and faithful adhesion to the "Despot" who is "holy and true."

But, the souls underneath the Altar, slain, and reposing in the dust - those of the slain in previous times who were in very deed saints and faithful in the anointed Christ-Altar, and who had been killed by the Dragon authorities - "them dwelling upon the earth;" - are hieroglyphically represented as desiring to know, "until when" the sanguinary conflict was to continue undetermined - that conflict, in which they had been "conquering" though they had fallen in the war, but in which their camp had not yet succeeded "to conquer?" This question is figuratively suggested in fulfillment in the period of the ten day-years tribulation succeeding, A.D. 303 - Apoc. 2:10. This has to be remembered that the reply may be appreciated. It was not how long from the time of John's exile in Patmos; but how long from the termination of the fourth and the opening of the fifth seal to the judicial avengement of their blood upon the Dragon and his angels then in the heaven of Daniel's Fourth Beast; and making such sanguinary havoc upon those within the Altar, but not then as yet underneath it as to cause three Dragon imperial friends aforesaid, to declare that "the name of the christians was extinguished." "It was answered to them," says the Spirit, "that they should repose yet a short time, chronon mikron, while heos hou, both their fellowservants and their brethren should be filled up, who are about to be killed even as

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they." This indicates that from the opening of the seal there was to be a period of soul-blood shedding by the Dragon power; and that when this sanguinary work should be over - a work that would be finished in 'a short time," then the judicial vengeance should be manifested. History shows that this "short time," reached to A.D. 312-13, when this severest of all persecutions of christians by the power of the pagan government of the Fourth Beast, was put an end to, by the deposition and death of Maxentius and Maximin by the victorious Constantine and Licinius.

4. White Robes

"And there were given to them each white robes," says John, stolai leukai. These were symbolically given to the souls already slain, and reposing underneath the Altar of Sacrifice. They were stoles, or external vestments reaching to the feet, like to that with which the Son of Man was invested, when John saw him in the midst of the Seven Lightstands burning with spirit-oil (Apoc. 1:13; Dan. 7:9); and like to those holy garments worn by the High Priest in which he appeared before the Ark in the Most Holy Place. Kings and priests were arrayed in white robes "for glory and for beauty;" they are therefore symbols of worthiness on the part of those who receive them; of their being exalted to kingly and priestly honors and glory; and consequently, in the case before us, of the deliverance of these symbolical souls from prostration underneath the Altar, by resurrection, and of an incorruptible investiture, when they shall be 'clothed upon with their house" or white robe "which is from heaven . . that mortality may be swallowed up of life" - 2 Cor. 4:2-4.

This was especially promised to the "few names in Sardis," because they had "not defiled their garments" - "they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy" - Apoc. 3:4. This shows that the white is symbolical of the worthiness of the clothed. And again, in the same place, "He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment" - showing that the white robe is emblematical of victory. Hence, "O Death, where is thy sting'? 0 Hades, where is thy victory'? Thanks be to the Deity who giveth us the victory," or white robe, "through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15:55,57). When, therefore, in the Apocalypse, personages are emblematically clothed with white raiment, it signifies that they represent persons who have been raised from among the dead to incorruptibility and life, which have become to them the "spiritual body" of the eternal state. Thus, the twenty-four elders sitting upon their thrones are "clothed in white raiment" (ch. 4:4). These are a symbolical twenty-four; and among those they

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represent are the souls underneath the Altar to whom the white raiment is promised, and therefore emblematically given. A soul underneath the Altar and a soul sitting upon a throne, though one and the same person, is that soul in two different states and in times far apart. A soul, whose blood is poured out at the bottom of the Christ-Altar of sacrifice in the fifth seal period, to whom a white robe is dramatically given, fifteen or sixteen hundred years after, as we may suppose, is seen by John alive again and reigning with Christ a thousand years (ch. 20:4); and this conjunction of souls with Christ in preparation to assert their rights, and to take possession of their millennial thrones, is symbolized by the twenty-four presbyters in white, in association with the Heavenly Camp, as "signified" by the Four Living Ones full of eyes.

These same souls and elders are represented in Apoc. 7:9, as "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." In this scene, the emblematic and acted-promise of the fifth seal is fulfilled. They are actually clothed, and as the "palms" indicate, have gotten the victory over all their enemies. They were in full possession of the great salvation, to which they have attained through great tribulation. Their robes are made white by washing in blood, and that not their own blood, but the blood of the Lamb. In their soul-body existence, or life-time, they believed the promises covenanted to the fathers and "the faith" which came by Jesus in other words, in "the things concerning the name of Jesus Anointed," among which, the cleansing from sin by his sprinkled blood, the blood of the Abrahamic covenant, holds an indispensable and prominent position; they believed this gospel, and were immersed in water into Christ, and so put on their holy garments, which are therefore said to be "washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb" - ch. 7:14. "Therefore are they before the throne of the Deity, and serve him day and night in his temple and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters; and the Deity shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Such is the white-robed "holy nation" of the Deity - "the Israel of God," sealed by his truth to eternal glory.

Concerning this holy and mighty people, Paul says: "All things are for your sakes" - 2 Cor. 4:15. "Ye are the holy temple of the Deity. All things are yours; whether the world, or life, or death, or things

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present, or things to come: all are yours; and ye are Christ's and Christ is the Deity's" - 1 Cor. 3:16-23. This is all said to the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus; and it shows what an important and honorable people they are considered to be by the Deity who are christians of the ancient and original stamp - Christadelphians. There are very few of them to be found in the year of grace 1864 - so few that one would be justified in saying almost none; for, certainly, these bloodshedding parsons and their flocks, who are on both sides of the line hounding on chaplained armies of their fraternal potsherds to mutual slaughter and devastation, committing all kinds of depredations and profligate abominations upon the helpless and unoffending victims of their lusts, can have no scriptural claim to the name christian. What are they but heathen of the blindest species! Assuredly they are not the holy temple of the Deity. Though they have got the world - for they are the world - the world is not theirs; nor is any thing that exists for their sake. No; it is for that poor and despised company - that "contemptible few," who are "rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which the Deity hath promised to them;" it is for the sake of these that all things consist.*

This important testimony, that all things are for the sake of the true believers, is presented symbolically throughout the Apocalypse. Because the things represented in the seals were for the sake of believers of the original Abrahamic type, the Lamb and the Four Living Ones are introduced as the ruling spirit of the scenes. The Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, all-seeing and all-powerful, was superintending and working together all things for the good of them who love the Deity, and who are the called according to his purpose; so that, suffering with him when that purpose is effected, they may all be glorified together - Rom. 8:28,17. The Lamb, the Spirit, opened the seals and worked their invisible machinery for the good of these sufferers unto death, if need be, represented by the Eyes of the Four Living Ones. He subverted the pagan constitution of Daniel's Fourth Beast for their good and his own glory, and made a present of its dominion to those degenerate adherents who had fought against it, who, though they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, as modern papists and protestants almost, were an improvement upon the blind and dissolute worshippers of the gods. He gave the beast's dominion to the self-styled and self-glorifying "catholics," who said they were "rich, and increased in goods, and had need of nothing;" but to the true and faithful, who doctrinally, and not in mere form or

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* The reference to the "bloodshedding parsons “.-. on both sides of the line" relates to the American Civil war that was raging at the time.

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sacrament, kept the word and denied not his name, he gave no part in that dominion, but, emblematically, gave them the glorious and beautiful "white robes" of the Royal Priesthood, which shall inherit "under the whole heaven" a more magnificent dominion, when its holy kings and priests shall have destroyed the Fourth Beast with the burning flame of divine fury, even the dominion of all nations, enlightened, regenerated, and truly civilized, for a thousand years.

Furthermore, as with the seals so with the trumpets. The judgments of these fell not upon the worshippers of the Greco-Latin gods, nor upon "the servants of the Deity, sealed in their foreheads" with the truth, but upon the Laodiceans of "the Holy Catholic Church," the enemies and persecutors of the faithful and true, since they had succeeded pagans in the sovereignty of the Dragon. The trumpet-judgments were for the sake of the sealed servants of the Deity, the machinery of them was engineered by the Lamb for their good. The prayers of all these saints ascended as a cloud of incense for divine intervention in their behalf. The Deity heard their cry, and answered them by casting fire from the golden altar into the Greco-Latin Catholic earth. The voices, thunderings, lightnings, and earthquake which ensued, and the trumpets, which sounded afterwards, in their results, were all for the good and for the sake of the Woman and her seed, who kept the commandments of the deity and had the testimony of Jesus Christ (Apoc. 8:3; 12:17).

And when, again, we descend to later times, the period of the first six vials, the contemporary existence of faithful ones is admitted by the exhortation addressed to them in ch. 16:15. They are represented by the Spirit as watchers with garments well kept - watching the Vial-Signs, and preparing, by trimming their lamps, for the thief-like incoming of the Ancient of Days. "All things" enacted in the vial-periods "are for their sakes." Not, certainly, for the sakes of papists, Mohammedans, and protestants, upon whom the wrath is poured out, but for the sake of "the saints and prophets," and of those within the Altar of Sacrifice, alluded to in verses 6 and 7. Devotees of the various "names and denominations" of religiondom - the "names of blasphemy," of which the scarlet-colored politico-ecclesiastical beast is "full" - these are not within the Altar, neither are they watchers with garments well kept. They are all fast asleep, snoring in midnight darkness. Nothing is being done for their sakes; only for the sake of those who obtain a change of raiment in putting off the filthy rags of their theological factions, coming out from among them, and putting on Christ as their white robe of righteousness, through an intelligent induction by faith and immersion. By doing this they join the Heavenly

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Camp, and become "eyes" in the Four Living Ones, for whose sake every thing is done. For this cause it is, that, in ch. 15:7, one of the Four Living Ones is represented as giving the seven vials full of the wrath of the Deity to the seven angels. This signifies that the outpouring of the seven vials is for the sake of those represented by the Four Living Ones, some of whom are contemporary with all the vials, and all of whom, to whom "white robes" shall be given will be engaged in the execution of the seventh, which exhausts in their destruction the indignation of the Deity against Babylon the Great Mother, the National Ecclesiastical Harlot, and all the Sectarian Abominations of the Earth, which have directly or indirectly sprung from their adulterous commerce with the world.

For further remarks upon the white robes of the faithful, the reader is referred to Vol. 1, pp. 169, 356, and to what will be said hereafter when treating of the Bride of Apoc. 19.

5. Souls

"When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the Altar the souls of them who had been slain" - tas psuchas ton esphagmenon. Clerical metaphysicians, with rare exceptions, declare these hieroglyphic souls seen by John in vision to be the disembodied immortal spirits of saints with Christ in heaven. The Alexandrian and Origenic philosophy - the exceedingly thin and innutritious fluid supplied them by what they call their Almoe Matres - knows no other souls, and can make no other disposition of them than this. With this heathen theory of souls darkening their understandings, the Apocalypse is for them a sealed book. Their attempted interpretations have all failed because they have sought an exposition in harmony with this dogma, which is the rope of sand by which the whole edifice of their Laodicean superstition is bound together. What they call "religion" is for the conversion and salvation from eternal torment in flaming brimstone, and from the Devil, of immortal and post-mortem disembodied spirits, by sending them at death on angels' wings to heavenly kingdoms beyond the realms of time and space! But there is no such soul; and, therefore, the "religion" invented for it by the Laodicean Apostasy is vain - a mere invention for the salvation of a nonentity, or, in the expressive language of Paul, "a lie" - 2 Thess. 2:11. But, being divinely and judicially deluded "because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved," they seek support for "the lie" they believe in this fifth seal. They think it is a proof of the existence of a part of man in a conscious state altogether independent of body. That the dead are not dead, but, freed from "mortal coil," exceedingly

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elastic and lively; that "the dead" is a phrase only to be applied to body; that, beyond this there is really no such thing as death; so that "the dead" is only a conventionalism, by which the living freed from mortal coil in the world of spirits is to be understood; and that, though divided from us by the veil of flesh, they are highly intellectual and well informed of all that is transacting among the sons of men; and many more absurdities they teach styled by the Spirit "the depths of the Satan as they teach," which 'are so well known by all who are familiar with pulpit traditions that it is needless to encumber our pages with any more details.

In addition to what we have already said about souls underneath the Altar, we may remark that all the corporeal organizations of the animal world are denominated souls in the scripture. A few references will sufficiently prove this. "And Elohim said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly sheretz nephesh khayyah, 'swarming soul of life' "-Gen. 1:20. In the next verse all fish are termed souls; and, in verse 24, all creatures produced from the earth are styled nephesh khayyah, "soul of life." In verse 28 the creatures thus called are summed up as kol-khayyah "everything of life;" and, in verse 30, every beast, fowl, and reptile, are said to have "in" them "soul of life."

What the Spirit, who made them all, says of these creatures, he affirms also of man. He, even as they, has in him "breath of lives" and "soul of life," and is "a soul" or body "of life." Thus, in Gen. 2:7, it reads, "And Yahweh Elohim formed the man, dust of the ground; and breathed into his nostrils breath of lives; and the man was FOR A BODY OF LIFE~' - le nephesh khayyah. If we come to the word with our minds free from tradition, there is no difficulty in understanding this simple statement. The man is put on the same footing with all other creatures. They are bodies or "souls of life," and so is he; they all have "the breath of the spirit of lives," and so has he; they are all "dust of the ground," save those from the waters, and so is he; the only difference between him and them is the same thing that constitutes the difference between the dog and the lion, or the elephant and the camel - organization of the dust.

The same "breath of the spirit of lives," I say, is common to all animals and man. This will be evident to those who can consult the original of Gen. 7:22 15 They know that in the English Version it is not correctly rendered' "breath of life;" the words "the spirit of" have been unfaithfully omitted. In verse 15, the words rendered "breath of life" are not the same as those similarly rendered in Gen. 2:7. In this, it reads nishmath khayyim, "breath of lives;" and in that, "from all the flesh which has in it ruach khayyim, spirit of lives." So that man is

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affirmed to have "the breath of lives" in his nostrils, and all other flesh "the spirit of lives" in theirs; hence, as spirit is regarded as of a higher dignity than breath, we might, on such premises, conclude that the "lower" animals are really demiurgically superior to man. And, indeed, when we compare the doings of said animals with the conduct of men, lay and clerical, we might suppose that the stupidity and brutishness of brain-flesh was truly their distinguishing characteristic, and that the so-called "brutes" were essentially their superiors. But said premises are not sound; for the superiority of the one race over the other is not predicated on the matter of which they are made, and by which they are vitalized, but on the organic formation of the same. Hence, there is no natural demiurgic difference between an Archbishop of New York or of Canterbury, or a Bishop of Natal, and the serpent and monkey tribes of the forest; the Spirit, therefore, by Moses (and this perhaps, may be the reason why the Bishop of Natal is so hostile to Moses) has been careful in Gen. 7:22, to give us to understand that the nishmah and ruach, "breath" and "spirit," are common to all kinds of human brutes, both "lower animals" and men. I say human brutes, for the word human, which one class of brutes has appropriated to itself exclusively, really or demiurgically pertains to all the earthborns or formations from the ground(*) The text reads, after mentioning all the creatures, "and every man, all which has breath of spirit of lives, kol asher nishmath-ruach khayyim, in their nostrils, out of all which is in the dry land, died."

We have seen that man and the other creatures are all termed nephesh, and are said to have nephesh in them; and in Gen. 9:4, we are informed by the Spirit what nephesh elementally, or in concrete essence, is, in the law given to Noah. "Flesh with its nephesh, or soul, its blood, ye shall not eat." From these premises, then, we learn, that men and their brethren of the ground are all of them souls - human or ground-souls; that they have all got souls in them; and that these souls are the blood of their flesh. For further remarks upon soul in blood see what we have written concerning the Altar.

Now, by this Mosaic testimony the Eternal Teacher proclaims the doctrine that man, though created in the image and likeness of Elohim, as Seth was in the image and likeness of Adam, hath nevertheless "no preeminence over a beast." And this testimony is doubtless true, and in perfect harmony with man's developments when abandoned by his creator to his own instincts and lusts. But, we are not left to inference. The Spirit has endorsed our inferences by positive testimony. In

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(*) Homo, a man or woman, for humo, from humus, h.e., made of earth. Hence, humanus,

human - Lat. Diet.

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speaking by Solomon of the divrah, or cause for adjudication, termed "estate of the sons of the man," the old man of the flesh, the king is caused to say, "would that the Elohim would purify them, so that they might see for themselves that they are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of the man also befalleth the beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as dieth the one, so dieth the other; for there is one spirit for all; so that excellence over the beast the man hath none; for the whole are a vapour (Psa. 78:39). The whole go to one place: the whole was from the dust, and the whole return to the dust. Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of the man that it goeth upwards? Or the spirit of the beast that it goeth downwards to the earth? Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that the man rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who shall cause him to see what shall be after him?" (Ecc.3:18).

Leaving the reader, then, to adjudicate the traditions of the Apostasy by this divine teaching, I proceed to remark that the Spirit has favored us with a comment upon his own words in Gen. 2:7, in what he caused Paul to write in 1 Cor. 15:44,45. "There is a natural body," saith he; a soma psuchikon: and he proceeds to prove the assertion by quoting the words of Moses, saying, "And so it is written. The first man Adam was made into a living soul - eis psuchen zosan. These words are parallel with le-nephesh khayyah, and are explanatory of them. If the Spirit be asked, what is a nephesh khayyah, he answers in Greek, psuche zosa; and if it be further inquired, what is psuche zosa? the English version replies, a living soul, or a natural body; but as khayyah is not an adjective, but a substantive, it should be rendered a body of life.

And what, then? say "the merchants of the earth," who auction off their spiritual merchandize from the pulpits of all lands. Are not "bodies and the souls of men," somata kai psuchai anthropon, the most precious of our wares? But wherein is the preciousness of souls, which we proclaim to be immortal jewels, whose estimation is incalculable, if men have no preeminence over monkeys; and bishops, deans, and ministers, no excellence over the reptiles of the wilderness? The supposition is downright atheism and infidelity! (Apoc. 18:13,11).

Doubtless, in the opinion of the soul-merchants of the earth the Spirit's teaching is both atheistic and infidel, for it is destructive of their whole system. He has, to speak apocalyptically, "spued them out of his mouth;" how, then, could there be any harmony between his word or teaching and their theologies? They teach that there are in men "immortal souls;" souls which are immaterial, and therefore immortal; and which when their bodies die, exist without bodies: that the value of

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a single such soul is incalculable; and that it is the possession of this divine incorporeal entity angelized at death, which constitutes the preeminence of men over all other created things. But to such, the Spirit rejoins, "Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" - "Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish" (Psalm 49:12,20). One such divine oracle is worth incalculably more than whole shiploads of university logic and collegiate "bodies of divinity."

This, then, is the grand principle upon which the immortality of man is based - a scriptural comprehension of the truth developing a faith that works by love and purifies the heart in the obedience it commands. A man with such an understanding heart is a "spiritual man;" but before he had the understanding of the truth, he was like bishops, deans, ministers, reptiles and monkeys, without preeminence demiurgically on any other specialty than form. The "natural man," the Spirit saith, is a beast; a mere "body of life." He may be decorated with all imaginable titles of honour, and humbly worshipped by his fellows; nevertheless, if he "understandeth not," he is a mere natural still. There is no seed of immortality in him.

Now, the scriptures teach that the seed of immortality in a believing man is Christ; and therefore he is styled by Paul in writing to saints in Colosse, "Christ our life." "I am," said Christ, "the truth and the life." "Let Christ," says Paul, "dwell in your hearts by faith;" hence, "the truth and the life" dwell in the heart by faith, by an intelligent comprehension and conviction of the truth. A man of such an understanding has life in him in this sense; and in the same sense it is, that "he believing into the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36); for "my words," saith Christ, "are spirit and life" (John 6:63).

From this testimony, it will be perceived, that the principle of a man's immortality is not physical or material, but doctrinal - the truth revealed and believed. Faith such as Abraham had, gives a believer "a right" to eternal life; and in so doing makes him "an heir of life," and "joint heir with Christ of all things." Hence, it is written, Apoc. 22:14, "Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." So Tregelles' text. It is equivalent to the words in the Common Version; for no believer can "wash his robes white in the blood of the Lamb" unless he "do his commandments," which say to him who believes the gospel of the kingdom "metanoeite, change the mind, and be immersed upon the name of Jesus Christ for or into the remission of sins" - Acts 2:38). To obey these commandments is to wash the robes white in the blood of Christ, and to obtain a right to life when he shall appear in

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glory (Col. 3:4). By such a washing, he lays hold of the horns of the Altar, and is safe, if he continue within the Altar, otherwise not.

But, the right obtained may be forfeited by misconduct. Hence, Paul says to certain who had obtained the right, "If ye walk after the flesh, ye shall die;" that is, if ye obey the instincts and lusts of the natural man ye shall die, or forfeit your right. He therefore exhorted them to keep down these lusts by the power of the truth; and assured them that, if they sought for glory, honor, incorruptibility, and life, by "a patient continuance in well doing," the Deity would render them eternal life (Rom. 2:7); and thus, the right obtained would merge into actual possession.

Now, when actually possessed the possessor is a "spiritual man" in the highest sense. He becomes such after resurrection from among the dead. Before he died he differed from all natural men and other animals, in that he was "filled with the knowledge of the Deity's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" (Col. 1:9); and thus became "a partaker of the divine nature," in a moral sense: and in this sense also he was a spiritual man. But, though wise and understanding, he was still encumbered with a "vile body." This needed to be changed, "that it might be fashioned like to the body of Christ's glory" - like to that which He now has - Phil. 3:21. In other words, he needed to be invested with the white robes symbolically given to the souls underneath the Altar; a robe, which clothes one to the feet with the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the promise is, "When Christ shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" - I John 3:2. The saints shall be like him. "I was dead," says Christ, "but I am alive for evermore" - Apoc. 1:18. Paul styles him, "the Lord the Spirit," "a Quickening Spirit," "the Lord from heaven," "the Heavenly Man," "the last Adam." The wise shall be like what he now is. They will therefore be partakers of the divine nature in a substantial material sense; in other words they will be spirit; "for that which hath been born of spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).

From this condensed view of the subject, it will, then, be perceived, that, according to the scripture teaching, there are in the arrangements of Deity two bodies of life that is two kinds of body through which life is manifested the one body in its organization Is essentially perishable' the other essentially imperishable Each body is formed, or organized before it is made the medium of the life peculiar to it. At this crisis, they are simply nephesh psuche or soul, but when the mechanism of each body is put into motion the one becomes nephesh khayyah, psuche izosa, living soul or natural body; and the other, sonia pneuniatikon a spiritual body, "spirit; pneuma agiosunes

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, spirit of holiness, or holy spirit nature. But these bodies of life are not absolutely independent of one another. Their relationship is similar to that between the wheat standing in the field in winter time, and the same plant in harvest. The perishable body is projected from the earth in the resurrection period, when it stands a body of life, waiting for the Deity to give it a body according to his own good pleasure (1 Cor. 15:30; John 5:21) to give it a white robe if approved. No body of life is resurrected except such an one, whose organization will give expression to a character extant before death. Such a corporeally expressed character is the restoration of personal identity. The resurrected body of life, thinks, remembers, feels and acts, like Paul, or, it may be, Judas; therefore, it is Paul or Judas to all intents and purposes. But, in this stage of the affair, the resurrected body of life, so named because of identity, is a body capable of perishing again, if left to itself; or, of becoming imperishable eternally if acted upon by the power of Deity. This alternative, then, has to be determined by the Judge. Paul informs the saints of both classes - of that class who have "walked worthy of their high vocation," and of that, who have "walked after the flesh," since their immersion - he says to both these "Every one of us shall give account of himself to the Deity;" "for we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive dia tou somatos, through the body the things according to that he hath done, whether good or bad" (Rom. 16:12; 2 Cor. 5:10). Hence, Paul and Judas will both be there to tell the story of their lives in a previous state of existence. While they are giving account of themselves they are both of them bodies of life, like two plants of the same species in the field, the one may perish by frost or other cause; the other may be unaffected by evil, and yield fruit in harvest. The fate of Paul and Judas will depend on the nature of the account given by each. The rule by which the causes will be adjudicated is laid down by Paul in Gal. 6:7,8 - "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." A man sows before death; he reaps after rising from death. "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." This is the rule, which is also illustrated by Paul himself and Judas. The last "sowed to his flesh;" and in his account he will abundantly show it. The sentence upon him in the resurrection period will therefore doom him to "reap corruption of the flesh" - to "receive through the body according to what he had done;" and as this was bad, he will, through the body he acquires in the future, receive "bad," or corruption. The body of life, then, named Judas, as a type of his class, remains perishable, and "when cast into outer darkness," reaps all the

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evil of which it is susceptible.

But Paul's case is differently disposed of. He also may represent a class. In his previous state of being, instead of betraying the truth, or perverting it to his own fleshly purposes, he "sowed to the Spirit." By reading the New Testament, it is easy to see how he did this. He will give account of himself in accordance with what is written of him; and he had great confidence that it will be accepted. Being accepted, then, he will "of the Spirit reap everlasting life." A white robe, as it were, will be presented to him. The power of the Deity will change, or transform, the body standing at the tribunal in the twinkling of an eye; even as Paul testifies, the saints living at the advent, who may be approved, shall be changed without tasting of death (1 Cor. 15:51,52). Thus, the body by this transformation is "clothed upon" with incorruptibility and immortality, by which mortality is swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. 4:4); and thus will be verified in his own experience, his own testimony, that "this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality," when "death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:53,54); and when this process is completed, Paul in victory, is spiritual in the highest sense, a body of life eternal

The scripture teaching, then, concerning souls and immortality, has no affinity with the teaching of pulpiteers on these subjects. The scripture defines immortality to be life manifested through incorruptible body; and declares, that the only being in the universe that has it underived is the Deity (1 Tim. 6:15,16). It also declares, that it is a part of the reward promised to the righteous to be given to them exclusively after the advent of Jesus in power, and his resurrection of them from the grave. Men attain to immortality, or deathlessness, in recompense for character, conformed to the moral image of the Deity, as he shines forth in the example of Jesus Christ. Faith and obedience are the basis of this character. Men are alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them (Eph. 4:18). Hence, there is no immortality for those who understand not the gospel; and this can be believed by none who believe the foolish rhapsodies and rhodomontade histrionically dispensed from the pulpits of the world. There is no immortality out of Christ; and they only are in him, who "believe the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ, and are immersed unto him, both men and women" (Acts 8:12).

John says, in ch. 20:4, "I saw the souls, tas psuchas, of them who had been beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of the Deity . . . and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." As we have remarked before, among these

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beheaded souls were those of the fifth seal which he saw underneath the Altar, and to whom white robes were given. When he sees them in ch. 20 they were, hieroglyphically, resurrected souls; for he says "they lived." Those in the fifth seal were, emblematically, in the death state, where nothing is really known, for "the dead know not anything" "for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, b'sheol (in the land of forgetfulness - Psa. 88:12), whither thou goest" (Ecc. 9:5,10). But, in the fifth seal symbolization, a white robe is given to each, with an injunction to repose. This repose continues till the Messenger descends from heaven with power. He then awakes them, and they stand again on their feet above ground. This is anastasis. At this crisis they are "souls" or bodies of life, prepared for investiture with the white robe of incorruption. When John saw these beheaded souls alive again he also saw thrones -"1 saw thrones," says he," and they sat upon them." But, says Paul, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of the Deity; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (1 Cor. 15:50). Now, as I have shown, bodies of life projected from the grave, with antecedent personal identity, are perishable. At this stage, therefore, of renewed existence they could not occupy the thrones seen. They must first appear at the tribunal of Christ, the Great White Throne (ch. 20:11), and give account of themselves or report to him. Being deemed holy, and unblamable, and unreproveable in his sight, having continued in the faith, rooted and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel" (Col. 1:22,23); Christ transfigures the bodies of their humiliation, that they may become symmorphous or conformable to the body of his glory, through the energy whereby he is able also to subdue to himself all things (Phil. 3:21). Being thus "clothed upon," they are no longer mere "souls," which are "naked" and put to shame if not "clothed," but incorruptible and deathless beings, "the sons of the Deity, being the sons of the resurrection, and equal to the angels" (Luke 20:36). Thus robed in the pure incorruption of the Spirit, Paul's objection in their case is removed, and they are qualified to possess "the thrones of the House of David;" so that it will be said to them by the King, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the state" (Matt. 25:34).

In dismissing this item of the fifth seal, it may be remarked that its symbolization, with respect to the souls, is the representation in emblem of ideas perfectly familiar to the christian mind of the times antecedent and concurrent with the seal. Believers were exhorted by the apostles to be ready at any time for a sacrifice of themselves. In view of his own execution, Paul says, "If I be poured out upon the

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sacrifice of your faith, I rejoice;" and again, "I am now ready to be offered," or poured out at the base of the altar, "and the time of my analysis is at hand." And, in the century succeeding the apostolic age, Ignatius, who was ordered to execution by Trajan, speaks of his approaching end as his being poured out as a libation to God on his altar. And speaking of Polycarp of Smyrna, who suffered about A.D. 160, his biographer says: "Having his hands tied behind him, and being bound as a ram out of a great flock for an offering, and prepared for a burnt sacrifice, acceptable to the Deity, he looked to heaven and said: '0 Father, I give thee hearty thanks that thou hast vouchsafed to me that at this day and this hour I should have a part in the number of thy witnesses in the cup of thy Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life both of soul and body, in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. Among whom may I be accepted this day before thee as an acceptable sacrifice, as thou hast ordained'." He regarded his execution as a sacrifice, or outpouring underneath the altar, and met it cheerfully, in hope of the resurrection of his soul as well as his body for investiture with the white robe, which he styles the "incorruption of the Holy Spirit."

In conclusion, I may just inform the reader that the Rev. Mr. Elliott expounds the white robes emblematically given to the souls underneath the altar as symbolical of their justification before the pagan public by the edict of the emperor Galerius, granting toleration to christians, and entreating them to pray to their God for his restoration to health. Thus, he considers their memory was justified. A remarkable robe this, and of pagan manufacture too! A clergyman might rejoice in the honor of such a justification, but certainly not the humblest of the saints.

6. "0 Despot, Holy and True!"

Such was the style of address put into the mouths of the souls underneath the altar by the Spirit - ho Despotes ho hagios kai ho alethinos. This is the only place in the Apocalypse where the word Despotes occurs; in the twenty-two other places where the word Lord is found it is kurios, in the original. I conclude, therefore, that there must be some special reason why despotes and not kurios is adopted in the symbolography of the fifth seal.

I find that despot is used in nine other places in the New

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The word “departure" (2 Tim. 4:6) is from the Greek anaIusis, signifying "an unloosing", or as a military term, the breaking op of an encampment. The English word analysis denotes the separating of a whole into its constituent elements. The use of the word by Paul is significant. He was not writing of his "departure" but of his death and consequent disintegration of his bodily parts. HPM

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Testament. In four of these it is applied to men, and translated master; in one instance it is so rendered in regard to God; and in the remaining four it is rendered Lord, and affirmed of the Deity. In Acts 4:24, the Holy and True Despot is declared in the address of the disciples after their return from the Chief Priests to their companions, saying to the Deity, "O Despot, thou art the Deity who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them; and spake by the mouth of David." And Jude, speaking of certain false professors that had crept into the ecclesias unawares, says, that they "denied the only Despot Deity - ton monon despoten Theon - even the Lord Jesus Anointed." These were Nikolaitans, who were without judgment in the "great mystery of Deity manifested in Flesh" - "the fathers" of that great apostasy which afterwards developed itself into that enormous imposture, THE KINGDOM OF THE CLERGY, which darkens and demoralizes the peoples of the earth.

The Deity, then, symbolized by "the Lamb as it had been slain, having Seven Horns and Seven Eyes," is the only Holy and True Despot Deity of the Universe. This, however, in the period of the fifth seal, was disputed by another, who denied the existence of the Holy and True One, and claimed that he was the only Despot of the habitable, whom men ought to honor and obey. He styled himself Diocletianus Jupiter or Jove, while Maximian, whom he associated with himself in the imperial offices, assumed the title of Hercules.

Now, it is a remarkable historic fact that, at the epoch of the opening of the fifth seal, a New Despotism was set up by Diocletian Jupiter, totally different from that to which the Roman peoples had been subject from the days of Augustus hitherto. Gibbon says, Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire." This arduous work, he says, he completely achieved by A.D. 303, which was the twentieth of his reign, when he celebrated that memorable era, by a Roman triumph. He framed a new system of imperial government, which was afterwards completed by the family of Constantine." Eight years before his elevation, the Roman Senate had aspired to the restoration of republicanism. This was an offense in his sight, and he assigned to Hercules the work of reducing it to sheer abjection, while the dignity of Rome was impaired by the studied absence of Jupiter and Hercules, who made Milan and Nicomedia their palatial residences. By this policy, "the Senate of Rome, losing all connection with the imperial court and the actual constitution, was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline Hill."

The ancient modest titles of civil magistracy were laid aside, and, if these deities still distinguished their high station by the appellation of

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DIOCLETIAN'S REIGN

(Period of the 5th Seal - Apoc. 6:9-11)

These Roman coins illustrate the exposition of p 255 onwards. The concord with which Diocletian and Maxirnian governed the Empire was illustrated on such. Both are shown carrying globes and scepters and as jointly crowned by Victory However supreme rule was in the hands of Diocletian he comment is made that a New Despotism was set up by Diocletian Jupiter totally different from that to which the Roman peoples had been subject from the days of Augustus hitherto.. Under this new form of rule he assumed the authority of a Despot and this was shown by him wearing a diadem instead of a laureate (stephanos) Eureka comments The Diocletian Jupiter ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty "The coins below depict Diocletian as wearing a diadem instead of the laureate (left), whilst the reverse side depicts Jupiter (representing Diocletian, who claimed identity with that god) receiving the dominion of the world from Victory. He holds thunderbolt and sceptre, and places his right foot on the neck of a bound and seated captive

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emperor, or imperator, that word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the Sovereign of the Roman World. The title emperor was associated with another of a more servile kind. Dominus, or master, owner, supreme lord, was expressive of the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. Viewing it in this odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Caesars. "Pliny," says Gibbon, "speaks of Dominus with execration, as synonymous with tyrant and opposite to prince." But, notwithstanding this repugnance, the name in time lost its odiousness, till at length the style of "Our Despot and Emperor" - Dominus et Imperator noster - was not only bestowed by flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments. The whole magnificence and ceremony of Asiatic state and servility was introduced under Diocletian and Maximian, who usurped the attributes of Divinity, and transmitted the titles expressive thereof to a succession of Catholic emperors. The Diocletian Jupiter ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the madness of Caligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set with pearls, which encircled the emperors head. Thus, the Sixth Head of the Dragon was diademed, whereby also, as all the five previous forms of government were all subordinately merged in the emperorship, they were diademed as well. The progress of despotism was rapid and irresistible. When a subject was admitted to the divine presence of the imperial Jupiter, he was obliged, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his Lord and Despot. The state maintained by Diocletian was theatrical, the object of which was to display the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over the Roman world.

Now, it cannot be supposed that this novel despotism should develop itself and be established without exciting great attention and discussion among the people. The immense number of professors of christianity in the empire would reject the pretensions of Diocletian to be the only true and holy despot of the world. They would affirm the claims of the Deity whom they worshipped; and would refuse to prostrate themselves in his imperial presence in recognition of his divinity and lordship upon earth. This was, doubtless, the reason why a great number of "christians" were dismissed from their official employments in the imperial household and other departments of the state. An issue was joined upon the question of - Who is the Holy and True Despot of the world, Jupiter or the Lamb? This was the great question

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of the day, which, until the Lamb's party gained the victory, absorbed all others. It was a question which, in its discussion, shook the empire to its foundation, and brought great calamity upon those who repudiated the high pretensions of "the Father of the gods and men." Like the question that abolished the constitution of the Union and brought ruin upon the republic, it had its period of discussion and its period of war. The first eighteen years of the reign of Diocletian afforded scope for "the word of the Deity and the testimony held" against his usurpation of divine attributes. Policy, however, inclined him to toleration, until, by the importunity of his associate, Galerius, who entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and religion of Christ, he was induced to proclaim war against the adherents of the Lamb. This edict inaugurated the fifth seal, of which the great and absorbing subjects of debate were the antagonistic claims of Jupiter and the Lamb to the Despot-Sovereignty of the world.

This, then, is the reason why the Spirit puts this remarkable style of address into the mouths of the souls underneath the altar. By so doing, he pronounces through them sentence in the great controversy being so sanguinarily discussed during the period of the fifth seal. In effect, he proclaims, "I, even I the Lamb, am the Despot, holy and true; the claims of the pretended Jupiter shall not stand; for the great day of my wrath is near, when I will judge and avenge the blood of my servants, and expel from the heaven their persecutor and cast him to the earth" (ch. 6: 17; 12:8). The introduction of the word Despot in this the only place of the Apocalypse, is a sort of chronological indication that the fifth seal belongs to the period to which it is herein assigned.

7. Their Fellowservants and Brethren

In the answer given by the Spirit to the emblematic souls underneath the altar, the professors of christianity still alive and contemporary with the fifth seal period, are divided into two classes -the one the fellowservants, and the other the brethren, of the deceased souls. The brethren are fellowservants, but all the fellow-servants were not brethren - even as christadelphians are christians, but all christians so-called are not christadelphians. The brethren of the souls were all fellowservants of the Lamb's household in the service of "conquering" the idolatry enthroned in the Dragon empire. The Nikolaitanes, the spurious Jews of Satan's synagogue, the Balaamites, Jezebel's children, the dead Sardians who had only a name to live, the feeble Philadelphians, and the lukewarm Laodiceans, were all fellowservants in this crusade against that which hindered the manifestation of the Man of Sin. They all belonged to the ecclesiastical community

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called "Christian" by the idolators, and were exposed in common to all the persecutions raised against it by the priests and rulers of the Roman Habitable. Multitudes of them were killed in this long and sanguinary religious war. But, though they thus became what ecclesiastics call "martyrs," they "remembered not from whence they had fallen, to repent and do the first works;" they repented not of the blasphemy of styling themselves Jews when they were only of the Satan's synagogue; they still taught that believers might eat things sacrificed to idols, and themselves sacrifice as an expedient to save their lives in times of persecution, and, though thus "lapsed," on the restoration of peace, be received again among "the brethren;" they still adhered to "the depths of the Satan as they teach;" they kept not the word, and denied the Spirit-Name; they repented of none of these things, but still styling themselves "Jews inwardly," or christians, they waxed worse and worse to the times of the Sixth Seal, saying, at the crisis of the war against the Dragon, "We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;" but they knew not that they were "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

Many of them "gave their bodies to be burned" in this great antipagan war; but, not possessing the agape, or love which comprehends the one faith and the one hope, believing and hoping all the things, and rejoicing in the truth, and styled in the Common Version, most incorrectly, "charity," they were sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Paul had prevision of these "fellowservants" in the war, who, indeed, brought much trouble upon him in his day. In reference to them, he warned the Ephesian Brethren that from among their own Elders men would arise "speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them;" and, in writing to the saints at Corinth, says of their class in 1 Cor. 13:2: "Though I have prophecy, and understand all the mysteries, and all the knowledge; and though I have all the faith, so that I could remove mountains; and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor (charity); and though I give my body to be burned, and have not agape, or love, (as he defines it), it profiteth me nothing." Hence, the "martyrdom" of the many of these fellowservants of the souls underneath the altar, so glorified by their class in then present and aftertimes, was of no profit to them; it served for a testimony against paganism and judgment upon themselves for their apostasy.

About fifty years previous to the opening of the fifth seal, a broad line of demarcation began to be drawn ecclesiastically between these "fellowservants" and "the brethren." As we have already seen in our account of the Novatians, these fellowservants, who called themselves "Catholics," because the majority, and holding chiefly the offices of

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the Ecclesias, expelled "the brethren" from their pale. Cyprian, whom modern Episcopalians regard as the great "father" who championed the things which they approve, was a notable chief of the fellowservants in the Roman Africa. He was a notable specimen of a pious, eloquent, and charitable ecclesiastic; he would have made a first-rate archbishop of Cambray, or Canterbury; or a zealous minister of any other denomination. No one can doubt his sincerity; for he suffered death for the testimony he held against paganism. But he was not of "the brethren." We refer the reader to Vol.1, p.444, for reference to him more in detail than is necessary here. He may also turn to p.296 of that volume, for things taught and believed by "the fellowservants." None who rejoice in such traditions can be brethren to "souls slain for the word of the Deity." This does not teach the inherent and hereditary immortality of ground-souls; it does not teach, the salvation from, or damnation in, flaming sulphur, of infant immortal souls; it does not teach sacramentalism; or the impartation of converting and regenerating spirit, technically styled "grace" by Laodiceans, through unenlightened formalism; or the subjection of an infant, or ignorant faithless adult, to the ceremonial use of water, bread, and wine, in any form; it does not teach, either baptism or rhantism - immersion or sprinkling - for the remission of original sin; nor does it teach, that baptism came in the room of circumcision. The word of the Deity, on account of which the souls underneath the altar were slain, teaches none of these "depths of the Satan;" therefore they were not slain on account of them; and the living styled "their brethren," could not have believed them.

The Brethren in the period of the fifth seal had become what would now be styled "a contemptible few." They were, however the "little strength" of the dilapidated and demoralized christian body. The true scriptural understanding of the word was with them. They were the salt, without which the whole community of professors would have been currently putrescent. The Lamb, for their sakes, still delayed to "spue them out of his mouth;" but, when the number of the Brethren that should be killed by the pagan power should be filled up, there would no longer be any reason why the spuing should be deferred.

During the period of the first Six Seals the number of "the Brethren" or christadelphians, continually decreased, while that of "the fellowservants" as persistently and rapidly increased. This will appear, not only from history, but from the general tenor of the epistles to the seven Asiatic ecclesias. In Ephesus, contemporary with the giving of the apocalypse, the Brethren of Christ were in the

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majority, as they were also in all other parts of Asia Minor, The Spirit commends their works, and labor, and patience; though indeed, they were not up to that standard of excellence that prevailed in the time of Paul. They had "fellowservants" among them when John wrote; but being in the official, as well as the popular majority, they were able to try and convict pretenders to apostleship; and to denounce their Nikolaitanism as a hateful and detested imposition. But, in two hundred years after, a great revolution in affairs had been effected; and the relative position of parties altogether reversed. The Brethren had entered the Sardian state. They had dwindled down to "a few names," and to but a "little strength;" while the Fellowservants had gained official and numerical ascendancy; they "had a name that they were living;" that they were vigorous, and Strong. They now formed a distinct and independent republic, in the midst of the empire, governed by its own laws and magistrates, possessed of a public treasury, and intimately connected in all its parts, by the frequent assemblies of its bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent congregations yielded an implicit obedience. Thus ecclesiastically organized, the Fellowservants considered that "they were rich and had need of nothing," but a military leader, (for they already swarmed in the armies of the state) to place the sovereign power in their hands. But against all this "the Brethren" protested as indicative of spiritual death; that those who approved it were "dead;" and that the system itself, as a divine institution for the separation of a people from among the Gentiles for the Spirit-Name, was "ready to die." But the protest of the Brethren was unheeded by their Fellowservants, or the "Catholics" so-called. The events of the Sixth Seal furnished these with the desired Military Chieftain in one of the six emperors of the Roman world. Thus led, they became victorious over Jupiter and Hercules; and in their prosperity, ignored all connection with "the Brethren;" who, having been mostly killed in the period of the fifth seal, were added to the souls underneath the altar; so that the "little strength" of the Philadelphian state being reduced to lukewarmness among the Fellowservants, these under the sixth seal entered the Laodicean, in which they shone forth "clothed with the sun, and the moon under their feet, and upon their head a stephan, or coronal wreath, of twelve stars" (ch. 12:1). Politically, they had "conquered" the Pagan, whose philosophy spiritually had vanquished them.

In conclusion, it may be remarked under this head, that the term "fellowservants" is as appropriate for "the Catholics" of the latter part of the third century and the early part of the fourth (but not "catholics" of succeeding times) as the term "sanctified ones" was to the pagan

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Medes and Persians in Isa. 13:3. These were the Spirit's sanctified ones in the sense of their being separated by him for the work of overthrowing the Babylonish Lion. The primitive catholics were separated, or sanctified, to the service of "casting the great red Dragon and his angels out of the heaven" (ch. 12:7-10); because he was the prosecutor of "their brethren." The Brethren themselves, who were not allowed the use of carnal weapons, could not have effected this expulsion; it was therefore reserved for the time when the Brethren would be inappreciably few, and in effect superseded by mere nominal professors of christianity calling themselves Catholics, to expel by these the Accuser from the heaven. These christians in name, having become in the sight of Deity "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" - only a slight spiritual improvement, if any, upon the vicious and bloodstained idolators - he assigned to them the service of dethroning Jupiter by the sword; for "the wicked are His sword." They were sanctified to this work; or, in modern phraseology, this was their mission. The doctrinal defeat of paganism, in the conversion of the worshippers of the gods to "the faith once delivered to the saints," was due to "the Brethren" who faithfully adhered to "the word of the Deity;" but the political and military overthrow of the common enemy, to "the Fellowservants" or catholics under the Sixth Seal, who were prepared like the troops of Cyrus, to combat on the principles of the flesh, for dominion and the glory of the world. Victory gave them these, and they have retained them to this day. The use they have made of them has been worse than pagan. Having become putrid, the Spirit ejected them with disgust and loathing; and as "the thinking of the flesh" now obtained full Sway, they were inimical to the Deity and "the word of his grace," and became the violent and bitter persecutors of "the Brethren," - "the remnant, who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (ch. 12:17).

In conclusion lastly, the reader may now "see" the reason why the symbolization of the first seal was white indicative of peace and prosperity within the limits of the Roman Habitable; and of the succeeding seals, red, black, livid pale, and the sun of the heavens black as sackcloth of hair, indicative of war, distress, famine, pestilence, and total obliteration. The reason may be found in this. Christ said to his disciples, "ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost is savor, wherewith shall it (the earth) be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and trodden under foot of men." During the first seal-period, the Body of Christ had not lost its savor; it salted Roman Society, "the earth," with divine wisdom; and society had peace and prospered. Life and property were secure; government was

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fairly administered; and the people were successful in trade and commerce. But, in the second seal-period, the savor of the salt had much deteriorated - civil war took the peace away from the earth in retribution; in the third seal-period, the savour had still more diminished, and there were superadded greater public calamities: in the fourth seal-period, it was hardly possible to discover any salt in the so-called Body of Christ at all; and the consequence was that famine, pestilence, and sword, brought the state to the verge of dissolution, and reduced the population of the world to half: in the sixth seal-period, the salt had become tasteless; in the mouth of the Spirit, it was utterly insipid, and "good for nothing but to be cast out;" and therefore, as he threatened to do if they repented not, he spued the self styled "catholics" out of his mouth - He repudiated them with all their speculations about immortal souls, eternal torture with and by the devil in flaming brimstone, going to heaven at death, infant damnation and salvation, baby and adult sprinkling, baptism in the room of circumcision, salvation of apostates, the saving efficacy of martyrdom, salvation by sacraments without faith, the apostolic successorship of ecclesiastics, and many other vain traditions too numerous to mention here - He spued them all out of his mouth as the loathsome and nauseous putrid sloughs of a carcase he pronounced "dead," and dissolving in corruption. Such was the end of primitive christianity in the times parallel with paganism in power. It went forth "conquering" and it "conquered." It gained the stephan in the games; but in its victory became a wreck.

8. Historical Illustration of the Fifth Seal

At the commencement of this period, A.D. 303, the Roman people were under the dominion of two emperors of the first rank styled Augusti; and two of an inferior grade, styled Caesars. Of these four, the two former were Diocletian, who surnamed himself Jupiter; and Maximian, surnamed Hercules; and the two others, Galerius, the Caesar and son-in-law to Jupiter; and Constantius Chlorus, Caesar and son-in-law to Hercules. Diocletian the parent of the fortunes of the other three, was a man of profound dissimulation, vigorous mind, steady in the pursuit of his ends, ambitious, superstitious, but not naturally cruel. For about eighteen of the earliest years of his reign, he protected the Catholics; and but for the savage fierceness of Maximian, and his son-in-law Galerius, who influenced him against them, he would probably not have figured among the persecutors of the faith. Constantius, the father of "Constantine the Great," was a person of probity and humanity. Of the other three, the ferocity of Galerius was

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the most remarkable; so that it may be truly said, that the inauguration of the slaughter of the fifth seal was referable to him.

The third century concluded with some symptoms of a storm ready to burst upon "the fellowservants and brethren," who had long been in a state of ease and worldly prosperity and as we have seen, deeply declined from the purity and simplicity of the gospel. In Eusebius is found the following observation in reference to the times: "The heavy hand of the Deity's judgments," says he, "began softly, by little and little, to visit us after his wonted manner. The persecution that was raised against us, took place first amongst the christians (the Fellowservants) who were in military service; but we were not at all moved with his hand, nor took any pains to return to God. We heaped sin upon sin, judging, like careless Epicureans, that the Deity cared not for our sins, nor would ever visit us on account of them. And our pretended shepherds ("the clergy") laying aside the rule of godliness, practised among themselves contention and division." Then speaking of the persecution of the fifth seal, he says: "The dreadful persecution of Diocletian was then inflicted on the Ecclesia, as a just punishment and as the most proper chastisement for their iniquities."

Toward the end of the third century, while Diocletian was practicing the superstitious rites of divination, he became persuaded that the ill success of his attempts to pry into futurity, were Owing to the presence of a catholic servant, who had made on his forehead the sign of the cross: and he immediately in great anger, ordered not only those who were present, but all in his palace, to sacrifice to the gods, or, in case of refusal, to be scourged with whips. He commanded also the officers of his armies to constrain all the soldiers to do the same, or to discharge the disobedient from the service. Many of the catholics (for it was only these bearing the name of christian that enlisted in the armies of Jupiter) chose rather to resign their commissions. A very few were put to death on this account. Marcellus a centurion was one of these. His story is, briefly, that A.D. 298, at Tangier in Mauritania, while every one was employed in feasting and sacrifices, he took off his belt, threw down his vine branch and his arms, and added, "I will not fight any longer under the banner of your emperor, or serve your gods of wood and stone. If the condition of a soldier be such that he is obliged to sacrifice to gods and emperors, I abandon the vine branch and the belt, and quit the service." He was ordered to be beheaded; and Cassianus, the register, whose business it was to record the sentence, cried out that he was shocked at its injustice. He was put to death a month afterwards.

But the general persecution which destroyed such numbers, was

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At first the Roman Empire was ruled as one vast state but as its borders were extended further assistance was required Accordingly Diocletian divided control with Maximian and incorporated two lesser Caesars to assist Hence there began to emerge a quadripartite division of the Empire. When Constantine came to power he found Rome inconvenient as a centre of rule, and established the civil and military power in Constantinople This prepared the way for the division of the Empire into East and West answering to the legs of the Image of Daniel 2 The above sketch. map is from The Apocalypse and History

withheld for some time. In the prelude already mentioned and of which we have only a dark and imperfect account, something of Diocletian's policy seems conspicuous. He probably feared the catholic element of his armies, thinking it might subvert the order of things he had established, and set up Catholicism in its place. By purging the army he might prevent this, and perpetuate the reign of Jupiter without a rival, as the Despot of the Roman world. Be this as it might, it is evident that after he had long favored the Catholics, from some cause or other, he had now contracted a prejudice against them, though at first he made use of artifice rather than violence.

But, as we have said, Jupiter's son-in-law Galerius was a most ferocious monster of superstition. Hating the catholics intensely, he determined to gratify his malignity by stirring up Diocletian, if possible, to agree to their extermination by fire, axe, and torture of every kind. He accordingly visited the Court at Nicomedia in the nineteenth of his reign, A.D. 302, and there, during the whole winter, devoted himself to the obtaining of the imperial sanction to this iniquity. He proposed a general persecution; but Diocletian Jupiter remonstrated against the impolicy of such sanguinary measures, and was for limiting the persecution to the officers of the court and the soldiers. Finding himself unable to stem the fury of Galerius, he called

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council of a few judges and officers. Some gave it as their opinion, hat the christians should in general be put to death; and others, induced by fear or flattery, assented. Still D. Jupiter was averse and through policy, or superstition, determined to consult the oracle of Apollo at Miletus. Apollo's priests in charge of the oracle, answered, as might [ave been expected, in a manner friendly to the views of Galerius. Staggered by repeated importunities, the old emperor still hesitated, and could not be persuaded to attempt the annihilation of christianity by bloodshed; whereas Galerius, strengthened in his murderous intent by the equal hatred of his extremely bigoted mother, desired to burn live all who refused to sacrifice to the gods of Greece and Rome.

The pleasure of the imperial hierarchy of paganism was at length signified to the fellowservants and the brethren of the souls already underneath the altar, who, during the course of this gloomy winter had expected, with anxiety, the result of so many secret consultations. The 3rd Feb. A.D., 303, which coincided with the Latin festival of the Terminalia, was appointed to set bounds to the further progress of christianity. At the earliest dawn, the praetorian praefect, accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal catholic edifice of Nicomedia, which was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly broken, and they rushed in, searching in vain for some visible object of worship (evincing so far a diversity between ancient catholicism and modern popery), they were obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames - not a mass book, or piscopal liturgy, for this trumpery even in those degenerate times had not then been invented - but the volumes of holy scripture. These imperial ministers of destruction were followed by a numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the destruction of fortified ties. By their incessant labor, an ecclesiastical edifice, which towered above the imperial palace, and had long excited the indignation and envy of the idolators, was in a few hours leveled with the ground.

The next day the general edict of persecution was published. It as enacted that the ecclesiastical edifices, styled by the Apostasy "churches,' in all the provinces of the empire, should be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of death was pronounced against all who should presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. And as it was understood, that the doctrines of the faith of Christ were all contained in the writings of the prophets and apostles, it was ordered that the bishops and presbyters would deliver all the sacred books into the hands of the magistrates;

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who were commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By the same edict, all ecclesiastical property was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might consist, were either sold to the highest bidder, united to Jupiter's imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to dissolve the government of the Catholic Church, it was thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those perverse individuals, "the brethren," who should still reject the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of liberal birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or employments; slaves were for ever deprived of the hopes of freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every action that was brought, against a christian. But the fellowservants, and the brethren of the slain, were not permitted to complain of any injury they themselves had suffered; and thus these unfortunates were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice.

This edict was scarcely exhibited to public view, in the most conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by a fellowservants," who expressed at the same time, by the bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such impious and tyrannical despots. His offense amounted to treason, and was punishable with death. He was roasted over a slow fire; and every refinement of cruelty was exhausted, but without effect, to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still reserved in his countenance. The catholics, though they confessed that he had been imprudent, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of the victim, contributed to fix a deep impression of terror and hatred in the mind of the reigning Jupiter.

His fears were soon alarmed by a danger, from which he narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days, the palace of Nicomedia, and even the bedchamber of Diocletianus Jupiter, were twice in flames. Suspicion of this incendiarism naturally fell upon the catholics; and it was suggested that, provoked by their present sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, they had entered into a conspiracy with the eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom they detested as the irreconcilable enemies of their church. Jealousy and resentment prevailed in the breasts of their enemies, especially in that of Diocletian. A great number of distinguished catholics were thrown

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into prison. Every mode of torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as the city, was polluted with many bloody executions. No discovery, however, was extorted. A few days afterwards, Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia, declaring that if he delayed his departure from that devoted palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the christians. Eusebius confesses his ignorance of the cause of the fire; while others attribute it to the malice of Galerius himself.

This "declaration of war," as Gibbon styles the edict, was published fifty days afterwards in Syria, and four months from date in the Roman Africa. At first, the magistrates were restrained from the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity was commended to their zeal. The fellowservants and the brethren, who cheerfully submitted to the stripping of their edifices, resolved not to interrupt their religious assemblies, nor to deliver their sacred books to the flames. It was not long before this resolution brought upon them the punishment of death. Many were added to the souls underneath the altar; but there were likewise multitudes who saved their worthless lives by discovering and betraying the Holy Scriptures into the enemy's hand. A great number of catholic bishops and presbyters acquired, by this criminal compliance, the opprobrious epithet of Traitors; and their offense was productive of much present scandal, and of much future discord among the professors in the Roman Africa.

The copies as well as the versions, of scripture, were already so multiplied in the empire that the most severe inquisition could no longer be attended with any fatal consequence; and even the sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were preserved for public use, required the consent of some treacherous and unworthy professors. It was preeminently a war upon "the word of the Deity," which "he has magnified above all his name." Treachery to this was therefore the high crime against him. If all had been Traitors, Jupiter and Hercules would have triumphed; and in these times we should have been groping in the darkness of heathenism and in the shadow of death. But thanks be to the Deity and the faithful "Brethren," who by their "little strength" were enabled to circumvent "the Devil and Satan." These preserved the Holy Scriptures of the apostles, transmitting them to us through "the Remnant" which succeeded them. This remnant performed against the papists, who in after ages tried to exclude men from the word, the same service as the Brethren against the pagans; so that we have received "the Revelation of the Mystery," not by the favor of catholics, but in spite of traitors and heathen who were reckless of its fate.

The ruin of the ecclesiastical edifices was easily effected by the

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authority of the government, and by the labor of the pagans. In some provinces, however, the magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the places of religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with the terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral pile, they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice. In carrying out these measures, some terrible scenes were enacted. In a small town in Phrygia, the magistrates and the body of the people had become catholic; and as some resistance was apprehended to the execution of the edict, the governor of the province was supported by a numerous detachment of legionaries. On their approach, the citizens assembled in their meeting house, with the resolution either of defending it by arms, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected the notice and permission given them to retire, till the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate refusal, set fire to the building on all sides, and consumed a great number of Phrygian fellowservants, with their wives and children.

About this time a series of cruel edicts were issued by Diocletian which were "written," says Guizot, "if I may use the expression, with the point of a dagger." He declared his intention of destroying the christian name. By the first of these, the provincial governors were directed to apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the prisons destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to employ every method of severity which might reclaim them to the national superstition. This rigorous order was extended by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of fellowservants and brethren, who were exposed to a violent and general persecution. It became the duty as well as the interest of the imperial officers, to discover, to pursue, and to torment, the most obnoxious among the faithful. Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should presume to save the proscribed from the just indignation of the gods, and of the emperors.

Diocletian had no sooner published his edict against the christians, than, as if desirous of committing to other hands the bloody work, he divested himself of the imperial office. Maximian soon followed his example. These abdications elevated to the first rank Galerius and Constantius. The latter reigned over Britain, Gaul, and Spain. His mild and humane temper was averse to oppression. The principal offices of his palace were exercised by catholics. He loved their persons, esteemed their fidelity, and though a pagan, entertained no dislike to their religious principles, which, however, speaks little in their behalf.

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But so long as he filled the subordinate station of Caesar, it was not in his power openly to reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of Maximian. His authority, however, contributed to alleviate the sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented, with reluctance, to the ruin of the ecclesiastical edifices; but he ventured to protect the catholics themselves from the fury of the populace, and from the rigor of the laws. The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent dignity of Augustus, gave free scope to the exercise of his good qualities, and the shortness of his reign did not prevent him from establishing a system of toleration, of which he left the precept and the example to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from the first moment of his accession, declaring himself PROTECTOR OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, at length deserved the appellation of the first emperor who publicly professed and established the Catholic Religion. The progress of this revolution, which, under his powerful influence, rendered catholicism the reigning religion of the Roman empire, forms the very interesting and important subject of the Sixth Seal. At present, it may suffice to observe that every victory of Constantine was productive of some relief, or benefit to the Catholic Church.

The provinces of Italy and Africa, "the fourth of the earth," experienced a "short" but violent persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were strictly and cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated the catholics, and delighted in acts of blood and violence. After his abdication they were exposed to the implacable resentment of Galerius. But the revolt of Maxentius, son of Maximian, brought them relief; and the same tyrant who oppressed every other class of his subjects, showed himself just, humane, and even partial towards the afflicted catholics. But according to Eusebius, this was mere hypocrisy. "Maxentius," says he, "who possessed himself of the entire power in Italy, at first feigned himself a christian in order to gain the favor of the people of Rome. He commanded his ministers to stop the persecution of christians, affecting a hypocritical piety for the sake of appearing more mild than his predecessors, but his actions proved at last that he was altogether different from what at first he was expected to be." Whatever the motives of Maxentius might be, the catholics of Rome seem to have been little deserving the favor of heaven. Marcellus, the bishop of the catholics in Rome, had thrown the capital into confusion by the severe penance he imposed on a great number of "fellowservants," who during the persecution under Maximian had renounced, or dissembled their religion. The rage of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood of the

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fellowservants was shed by each others' hands; and the exile of Marcellus was found to be the only measure capable of restoring peace to the distracted church in Rome. Truly might the Spirit say to such "christians," "Ye know not that ye are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." This is what they had come to two hundred and eight years after the apocalypse was given to John - mere Antipagans, called "christian" by the heathen, and "catholics" by themselves. They are the ecclesiastical ancestry of modern professors of religion, who shed each others' blood in international and civil wars, with as much zest as their antipagan brethren under Marcellus. Such is clerical religion, whether of the third, of the nineteenth, or of all intervening, centuries - the Mystery of Iniquity in Laodicean manifestation; the Apostasy, that Paul predicted would be, and shall utterly be destroyed by Christ in the days of his power.

The frequent disappointment of his ambitious views, and the experience of six years of persecution, suggested to Galerius, who was now suffering a lingering and painful distemper, that the most violent efforts of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to subdue their religious convictions. Desirous of repairing somewhat the mischief he had originated, he published in his own name, and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, as follows:

Among the important cares which have occupied our minds for the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and reestablish all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the deluded christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our empire. The edicts which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods having exposed many of the christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men, the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them, therefore freely to profess their private opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the established laws and government. By another rescript we shall signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope that our indulgence will engage the christians to offer up their prayers to the deity whom they adore, for our safety and prosperity, for their

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own, and for that of the republic."

When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, A.D. 311, he was well assured that Licinius and Constantine would approve it. But, he could not venture to insert the name of his nephew, Maximin, in the preamble, whose consent was of the greatest importance. In the first six months, however, of his reign over Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, Maximin affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his associates. His praetorian praefect, Sabinus, by his order, addressed a circular letter to all the prominent governors and magistrates, expatiating on the imperial clemency, acknowledging the invincible obstinacy of the christians, and directing the officers of justice to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and to connive at their secret assemblies. In consequence of these orders great numbers were released from prison and the mines. The confessors singing hymns of triumph, returned into their own countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the tempest, 'the lapsed" who had returned to paganism, solicited read-mission, as so many repentant Esaus, into the bosom of the Catholic Church; I say catholic church for the Novatian Ecclesias in which “the Brethren were found," readmitted no apostates under any circumstances.

But this was only a treacherous calm of short duration. Maximin was cruel and superstitious, and altogether unworthy of confidence. He was devoted to the study of magic, the worship of the gods, and to the belief of oracles. His prophets were the philosophers, whom he revered as the favorites of heaven. He frequently raised them to the government of provinces, and admitted them to his most secret councils. They easily convinced him that the christians had been indebted for their victories to their regular discipline, and that the weakness of polytheism had principally flowed from a want of union and subordination among the ministers of religion. A system of government was therefore instituted, which was evidently copied from the policy of the Catholic Church. In all the great cities of the empire, the temples were repaired and beautified by the order of Maximin; and the officiating priests of the various deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff, destined to oppose the bishop and to promote the cause of paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged in their turn the supreme jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests of the province, who acted as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor himself. We have here "the Dragon and his Angels," in their ecclesiastical Organization, preparing for the approaching final conflict with "Michael and his Angels," or the Lamb's party, which was to result in the ejection of the Dragon and his Angels from the heaven. A white

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robe was the ensign of their dignity. In the language of the fifth seal, but with a different signification, "white robes were given to every one of them; and it was said to those who received them that they should be priests of the gods, and reign with the emperor." But how much nobler the dignity of the souls slain, whose robes are the emblems of incorruption, in a royal priesthood, and reign with Christ a thousand years. These new prelates of the Dragon were carefully selected from the most noble and opulent families. By the influence of the prelatic and secular authorities dutiful addresses were got up, artfully representing the well-known" intentions of the court as the general sense of the people, and soliciting Maximin to consult the laws of justice rather than the dictates of his clemency. They expressed their abhorrence of the christians, and humbly prayed that these impious sectaries might at least be excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The answer of Maximin to the address he obtained from Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and devotion in terms of the highest satisfaction, descants on the obstinate impiety of the christians, and betrays, by the readiness with which he consents to their banishment, that he considered himself as receiving rather than as conferring an obligation. The priests, as well as the magistrates, were empowered to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were engraved on tables of brass; and though it was recommended to them to avoid the effusion of blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments were inflicted upon the refractory fellowservants and brethren."

The Asiatics had everything to dread from the severity of a bigoted monarch, who prepared his measures of violence with such deliberate policy. But, a few months had scarcely elapsed, before the edicts published by Constantine and Licinius, the emperors of the West, obliged Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his designs; the civil war which he so rashly undertook against Licinius employed all his attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon delivered the fellowservants and brethren from the last and most implacable of their pagan enemies. Struck with rage at his disappointments, in the sad reverse of his affairs, he slew many priests and prophets of his gods, by whose enchantments he had been seduced by false hopes of universal empire in the East. So amazingly were affairs now changed, that contending emperors courted the favor of the persecuted. After his edict in their favor, he was struck with a sudden plague over his whole body, pined away with hunger, fell down from his bed, his flesh being so wasted away by a secret fire, that it consumed and dropped off from his bones; his eyes started out of their sockets; and in his distress he began to see that the true Deity was executing judgment upon him.

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Frantic in his agonies he cried out, "1t was not I, but others who did it!" At length, by the increasing force of torment, he owned his guilt, and every now and then implored Christ, that he would compassionate his misery. He confessed himself vanquished and expired.

Thus closed the most memorable and most violent of all the sanguinary endeavors of "that Old Serpent, the Devil and Satan," to extinguish christianity from the Roman Habitable. Authors are not agreed as to the numbers who fell in the conflict; but from the testimony of the enemies themselves, the numbers were great, and the cruelties intense. The fierceness of paganism exhausted itself in this last effort, and the triumph of the Lamb was near.

SECTION 6

THE LAODICEAN STATE

Vol.1. pp. 428, 449

The "Little Strength" of the Philadelphian State exhausted, and Laodiceanism fully established. Persecution having ceased, and "the Catholics," as nominal christians were now called, being in high favor with the authorities, they say, "We are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing" - Apoc. 3:17. Being "lukewarm," the Spirit "spues them out of his mouth."

ACT VI. - SEAL-PERIOD SIXTH

Apoc. 6:12-17

A great earthquake inaugurates this judicial period. War in the heaven, resulting in an eclipse of the sun, in the moon becoming blood, in stars of the heaven - the stars drawn by the Tail of the Dragon -falling to the earth, and in the casting out thereunto of the Great Red Dragon. The heaven of the Dragon-polity departs as a scroll rolled up; and every mountain and island change their places. The Angels of the Dragon are cast out with him. No place found for them any more in the heaven from which they are ejected, having been effectually conquered by the Archer of the First Seal in his Fifth Seal manifestation -conquering him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, on account of which the fellowservants and brethren were slain, not loving their lives unto death. Great rejoicings in the heavens by them who succeed the ejected Dragon and his officials, who rage with great fury in the earth and sea of their late dominion. The great day of wrath upon Paganism.

The woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, the Laodicean Apostasy, imperialized, and the man of Sin Power revealed.

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A.D. 311

12. "And I saw when he opened the Sixth Seal; and behold a great earth quake occurred, and the Sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the Moon became as blood. 13. And the Stars of the Heaven fell into the earth as a figtree casts its unripe figs, being shaken by a mighty wind. 14. And the heaven departed as a scroll rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich, and the military chieftains, and the mighty ones, and every bondman and every freeman, concealed themselves in the caverns and among the rocks of the mountains: 16. And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb for that great day of his wrath has come, and who could have been caused to stand'?"

1. Preliminary Remarks

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah and Root of David, who prevailed to unroll the apocalyptic scroll, and to loose the previous seals opened this, the Sixth also. He had executed judgment on his own "Holy Nation" (1 Pet. 2:9) for its iniquities; and in this, he was about to bring to an end the power of the idolators; of "the world rulers of the darkness of the Aion;" of "the spirituals of the wickedness in the HEAVENLIES" who had oppressed them - Eph. 6:12: and if "judgment begin at the House of the Deity, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of the Deity? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" - 1 Pet. 4:17. The sixth seal will answer these questions as it regards the disobedient ungodly and sinners of the pagan Roman Habitable, who had warred against the Lamb till A.D. 311.

The remarkable symbolization of this seal represents a universe convulsed by earthquake, blood shedding, and tempest, indicative of the wrath of the Deity in a great day of wrath, upon the panic-stricken enemies of the Lamb. It does not represent the Universe; because symbols do not represent themselves: on the supposition that they do, we should be making them both sign and thing signified, which would be absurd. The nature of symbolic writing requires that the signs and the things signified be analogous, but different. But the Apocalypse is not a revelation of natural appearances, or extraordinary phenomena, in earth, sea, and sky; but a sign-representation of things extant in John's day; and of things which should be after his time, in relation to

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the Holy Nation of the Deity planted in the territory of Daniel's Fourth Beast, until the coming of the Ancient of Days. The apocalyptic symbolization is illustrative to them who can "see" of the conflict of the saints with pagan Rome until they "conquered" it; with Catholic, and afterwards, with Papal, Rome, until it conquered them; and hereafter, with all "the powers that be," until they in turn conquer and abolish them for a thousand years. This being the nature of the Apocalypse, we must not look to the natural, but to the POLITICAL UNIVERSE for the interpretation of its signs.

And here we find it necessary to remark in this so-called enlightened century, that "the signs of the times" vouchsafed by the Deity for the use of his genuine servants in their several generations, are not in the sky. He has not placed them there. No intelligent believer of the gospel looks overhead for a darkening of the solar system, and the falling of stars, as a sign of the great day of the Lamb's wrath being near. The alleged darkening in New England, A.D. 1780, and falling of stars, A.D. 1833, were phenomena that none but Laodicean Heathen would regard as signs of the times. The Deity's revealed signs are not manifested in America. We may feel the working of them; but they are not in these heavens, natural nor political. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks signs in the sky like the signs of the weather with which they are familiar; but no sign shall be given it. Let the reader, then, not "learn the way of the Heathen; and be not dismayed at the signs of the heaven; for the Heathen are dismayed at them: for the customs of the people are vain" (Jer. 10:2). Neither John nor Peter represented or taught the dissolving of the physical universe, and the "burning up of the earth." "The earth is Yahweh's," for he made it; it is temporarily "given into the hand of the wicked," till the King shall come to possess it with his Saints to the uttermost parts thereof. "He hath established it for ever." No interpretation of scripture that would falsify these statements can be true. All theories of the kind must therefore be rejected as mere idle tales in which only the children of the Apostasy can take delight.

No, the Deity's signs are in the political universe. This, in a sense analogous to the material, hath its earth, sea, and firmament or aerial expanse; in which are set its greater and lesser lights, and constellations- its Sun, Moon, and Stars. It hath its hurricanes, shakings, eclipses, hailstorms, and so forth, which affect injuriously those who belong to the Body Politic, whether they be rulers or the common people.

The territory of Daniel's Fourth Beast, styled by John, "the Great Red Dragon," was the arena of a political system "diverse from all the beasts that were before it." The whole extent of this wide domain was

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decreed to be the Great Roman City." The dominion of this power centered in Rome, covered the whole territory as a sheet of parchment covers a surface equal to itself. This parchment lifted up over that surface, would symbolize the aerial expanse, firmament, or constitution of the State, or kosmos; and would divide "the waters," or "peoples" of the system, from the waters; the waters under the aerial, would be "the earth," "sea," "rivers and fountains," "mountains and islands;" and the waters above, the ruling classes, "thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers," or sun, moon, stars, and constellations. Such was the Roman Universe in its apocalyptic symbolization. In the creation, "Elohim called the firmament Heaven;" and so in the political system, the Spirit styles the aerial, "heaven;" and all who live under the dominion are said to be, "under the whole heaven."

There have been several political universes in the past; as, the Babylonian, Idumaean, Egyptian, Israelitish, and so forth. When the Eternal Spirit decreed their overthrow, the epoch of judgment upon each, was styled "the Day of Yahweh." There have been as many such days as there have been powers destroyed. There was a day of Yahweh on Babylon predicted in as highly metaphorical a style as the Day of the Lamb's wrath in this Seal. In Isa. 13, the conquest by the Medes and Persians is styled, "the Day of Yahweh coming as a destruction from Shaddai to lay the land (of Chaldea) desolate for the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light the sun shall be darkened in his going forth and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." Then follows in the next verse the interpretation to wit, "and I will punish the world (of Babylon) for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible And to show how intense the judgment was intended by the metaphois it is added "I will make a man more precious than fine gold Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place in the wrath of Yahweh Tz'vaoth and in the day of his fierce anger All of which was accomplished by Cyrus as Yahweh‘s Anointed commander and leader of his sanctified ones the Medes and Persians.

The prediction in Isa. 34 of a similar day on Idumea is expressed in the same grand and magnificent style: "The indignation of Yahweh is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies, he utterly destroys them, he delivers them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stench shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood." Then follows the same prediction exhibited in hieroglyphics strikingly similar to the Sixth Seal, to wit: "And all the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved, and

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the heaven shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the figtree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven." Then the less figurative style is resumed, and is made expletive of the metaphorical, saying, "Behold it (the sword) shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse to judgment. The sword of Yahweh is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh had a sacrifice in Botzrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea."

Christ Jesus and Peter adopted the same metaphorical style in predicting the Day of the Lord upon the Commonwealth of Judah. The former blended the literal and the figurative after the manner in Isaiah; but the one, so easily distinguishable from the other, that no confusion need result in the comprehension of the discourse.

Now, the Deity in the Sixth Seal decreed the fate of the Roman Universe, as constituted under Jupiter, in a style identical with the formula he pronounced against Babylon under Bel, and Idumea under Chemosh. He declared that "the Heaven" should "depart as a scroll rolled up." Illustrative of this, the reader may imagine our symbolical parchment rolling up like a scroll. As it curled up, the surface beneath would be proportionately uncovered, until the rolling up should be completed, when the whole subjacent superficies would be exposed. The heathen firmament, or aerial expanse, of the Roman Universe having thus "departed," room would be provided for a New Heaven to expand itself over the same geographical limits of earth and sea. Thus, one heaven would be exchanged for another, in which the sun, moon, and stars would shine forth again with a light in harmony with the new parchment, or aerial constitution of the Body Politic.

But, the firmaments, or heavens, of orbs political, do not pass away, or suffer radical change, without violence. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, are all evidential of the truth of this. The violence may proceed directly from the oppressed peoples, or the earth and sea; or from a conflict generated in the rivalries of the powers in the heaven; or from both causes in cooperation. When the convulsion begins under the heaven, it ascends, if successful, as clouds of smoke darkening the sun and air (ch. 9:1,2); or, the earth may be shaken, which, when the shaking is great, more or less agitates the aerial. But, sometimes the electricity from the earth accumulating in the firmament, the heavenly region itself becomes inflamed, and the elements thereof commingle in the thunders and lightnings of war. It may, then, be said, "there was war in heaven" (ch. 12:7). But when the heaven is concussed with elemental war, no dew or gentle rain

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descends upon "the earth" or peoples. These, in the political universe, are influences which cause the peoples to flourish and rejoice. The electrical condition of "the earth," or people, may shut up the heaven against the descent of dew and rain, which must of necessity parch up all beneath it (ch. 11:6). The heaven, however, intensely excited, becomes exceedingly dangerous to all beneath it. It may pour down a great storm of hail upon men, every stone being of a talent weight (ch. 16:21); or as in the sixth seal, it may overspread its sun with blackness the most intense, redden its moon with blood, and with its electric hurricane, project its stars into the earth.

When "the heaven departed as a scroll rolled up," another heaven took its place. This was "the Holy Catholic" Heaven, with sun, moon, and stars, to suit. The commencement of this heaven was characterized by "silence in it about the space of half an hour" (ch. 8:1). Jupiter's heaven was subdivided by four; while the Catholic came transiently to be distributed into thirds. Upon this heavenly organization came the judgments of the Trumpets and the Vials The threefold division

Map page 281 not copied by scanner

The above drawing is taken from The Apocalypse And History It depicts a three fold division of the Roman Empire into cultural and religious groups After Constantine however, the Empire was divided into two parts the western and Eastern Empires The western Empire fell in A.D 476 when Romulus Augustulus was deposed the Eastern Empire fell in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Mohammedans and the headquarters of the Greek Catholic Church was removed to Moscow The year 800 saw the uprise of the Holy Roman Empire in the west, leaving the area still divided into two parts.

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obtains at the end as well as in its earlier times; for under the Seventh Vial, which is concurrent with the resurrection-period, "the Great City," is said to be "divided into three parts" (ch. 16:19). And, when the Seven Thunders shall have uttered their voices; and the judgments of the last vial shall have had their full effect upon "the air," firmament, aerial expanse, or constitution of things in the Gentile world, then, the Apostate Laodicean "earth and heaven flee away; and no place is found for them" (ch. 20:11). They are abolished in a time of trouble, far exceeding in the intensity of its distress the terrors of the sixth Seal; for it will be "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time (Dan. 12:1).When this old Romish Heaven and Earth shall have fled before the face of the Lamb and his Associates, "a New Heavens and a New Earth in which dwells righteousness" (2 Pet. 3:13) will take their place; when "Jerusalem shall be a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Isa. 65:18). These Heavens and Earth "shall remain before me, saith Yahweh;" even saith the Spirit by John, "a thousand years;" at the end whereof, they will "pass away" to make room for a new and improved constitution of things upon earth, when there shall be no more sin or evil - when death shall be abolished, and every curse shall cease (ch. 21:1,3,4; 22:3).

2. Earthquakes of the Apocalypse

The earthquakes of the Apocalypse are not concussions of the ground from the subterranean, but popular convulsions. In ch. 12:16, we are told that "the earth helped the Woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the Dragon cast out of his mouth." As we shall hereafter "see," the earth here is the symbol of the people under the dominion of the Dragon. The worldrulers are placed metaphorically in "the heaven;" and therefore according to symbolic fitness, the world ruled by them, the undistinguished and various multitude, is aggregated together as "the earth," or "small dust of the balance." Hence, Moses addresses the people and their rulers as "the heavens" and "the earth," saying in Deut. 32:1, "Give ear, 0 ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, 0 earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: because I will publish the name of YAHWEH: ascribe ye greatness unto our ELOHIM." Then, again, in Gen. 6:11,12, "The earth was corrupt before the Elohim, and the earth was filled with violence. And Elohim looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted HIS WAY upon the earth." In this text, the literal and figurative use of "the earth" is blended; but it is easy to see when it

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signifies "all flesh," and the place of its habitation. The figurative use of the phrase is transferred to the Book of Symbols, where it stands for "the peoples," though not always, but when the context and subject will decide.

When, then, "the earth," in this sense, is seized with shaking fits, its agitation is metaphorically an earthquake. If the paroxysms are violent, upheaving, and overturning, it is styled, as in the Sixth Seal, "a great earthquake." The people are shaken; and when, with their upheavings, the luminaries of their political system no longer shine in the possession of the "spoils of office," and the constitution is destroyed; then the sun, moon, and stars, are darkened and fall, and the heaven departs as a scroll rolling up. Thus, the earthquake operates as the proximate cause of the disturbance in the heavenlies.

"A great earthquake" is foretold in three places of the apocalypse also, "an earthquake" twice without the addition of "great." The first "great earthquake" is predicted in this seal; the second, in ch. 11:13; and the third, in ch. 16:18. The first revolutionized the whole GrecoLatin Habitable, dethroned Jupiter, cast all his official adherents out of their places, and installed the "Holy Catholic Church" and her Laodiceans in the government of the Roman world. The effects of this "great earthquake" are felt in every part of the globe to this day.

The second "great earthquake" overthrew "the tenth of the city;" destroyed all titles; and developed the Reign of Terror, and all its consequents. This popular upheaving brought up from the symbolical abyss, one of the spirits of that "vastly deep" ever ready for any work that will afford scope for self-glorification; and threw him on to the surface as the Napoleonic Scourge of the enemies of God. This "Man of Destiny" left a mark upon society which will not be obliterated till the coming of the Ancient of Days.

The third great apocalyptic earthquake is yet in the future. It is styled "a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great." The effect of this is the threefold subdivision of the Great City; the fall of the kingdoms of the nations; the judgment of Babylon; the disappearance of the political islands and mountains; and all consequences flowing from these events. Daniel's "time of trouble" pertains to this earthquake; also Jeremiah's "Jacob's trouble," "Alas!" saith he, "for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth, I will break his (Esau's) yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him (Jacob): but they shall serve Yahweh their Elohim, and David their

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King, whom I will raise up unto them" (ch. 30:7). The earthquake of Apoc. 11:19, is the same as this greatest of all earthquakes, being associated with the "great hail."

The earthquake of ch. 8:5, is not termed "great." It occurred before the sounding of the first trumpet. It was an upheaving of the pagans for the recovery of lost privileges and power; but it did not result in the permanent overthrow of the New Order in the State; and therefore it was simply "an earthquake," or shaking from below without any permanent eclipse of the heavens.

In dismissing the subject of the symbolic earthquakes in general it may be remarked that, though the apocalypse does not predict the occurrence of physical earthquakes, we are not to conclude that there will be none such in the "time of trouble." Ezekiel and Zechariah predict a very formidable one, which in Palestine will be attended with great and important, as well as interesting changes. The Mount of Olives will be divided, a valley opened with a flowing river, and there will be a great shaking in the land, and a casting out of the dead from the graves of earth. The prophets treated of the literal and material in which a mystery was involved. This, Peter says, they did not see into; and until the Lamb prevailed to unfold it, "no one in the heaven, nor upon the earth, nor underneath the earth was able to open the scroll, nor to see it." In the prediction of an earthquake that shall divide Olivet, and cause the outflow of a river from the altar base, they did not "see" the mystery of a mighty earthquake that should also contemporarily divide Babylon, and cause an issuing forth of rivers of living waters from the Christ-Altar, that should heal the nations. The apocalypse brings out the mystery of the Deity as he revealed it to the Prophet; it is with the mystery symbolically revealed we have here to do; not with the purely literal and material (Apoc. 10:7).

3. The Sun and Moon of the Heaven

"The SUN became black as sackcloth of hair." As the sun is the great source of the electrical glory and power of the solar system, it is said in scripture, to "rule the day." The moon and the stars become visible to us by the reflection of his beams. Their light or glory is borrowed; and when he is darkened, they also are in eclipse. The sun is therefore a very appropriate symbol of the supreme or sovereign power of a political universe. In Joseph's dream, predictive of his exaltation, and of the homage that would be paid to him by his kindred, his father is represented by the sun, as the ruling authority of the circle; his mother by the moon; and his brethren by eleven stars (Gen. 37). They all "made obeisance to me," said Joseph; and though highly figurative,

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Jacob readily perceived its signification, saying, "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

This use of the sun, moon, and stars as representative of persons constituting a domestic circle, and differing from each other in social position, came afterwards to symbolize gradations of powers in the same circle, when it had become sufficiently enlarged to enclose a nation of twelve tribes. Hence, the Spirit in addressing the Zion of the Holy One of Israel now in the days of her mourning, saith in Isa. 60:20, "Thy Sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw herself." Here the sun and moon represent the civil and ecclesiastical authority in Zion before they were abolished. And speaking of her destruction by the Chaldeans, the Spirit in Jer. 15:9, says, "Her sun is gone down while it is yet day." Her royalty was suppressed; yet her moon and stars continued to shine under the Persian administration. But, a greater calamity was predicted in Joel 2:10, when the earth should quake, and the heavens tremble; in other words, when "the sun and the moon should be dark, and the stars withdraw their shining." This would be a total eclipse of Israel's Commonwealth by "the host given to the Little Horn of the Goat;" as foretold in Dan. 8:9-12: "It waxed great to the host of heaven; and it cast down of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them;" which in the interpretation given in verse 24, is explained to signify, "He shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy great ones (the stars) and the people of the Holy Ones" - or the host Powers on earth do not literally pluck the stars from their spheres and stamp upon them; but they sometimes make sad havoc among the sun, moon, and stars of a political organization. The Lord Jesus reproduced Daniel's prophecy in his discourse on the destruction of the city that killed the prophets, in saying: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven (symbolized by these orbs) shall be shaken" (Matt. 24:29). These were the lights in which there were to be "great signs and fearful sights," indicative of the parousia, or presence, though invisible, of the Son of Man when the Greco-Roman army should be sent by him to destroy the city of his murderers (Matt. 22:7). In the same style, Peter speaks of the rapidly approaching fulfillment of the prediction, when the heavens being on fire should be dissolved and should pass away with a great noise, and their elements melt with fervent heat (2 Peter 3).

But Israel's was not the only political universe on earth. Their sun has been turned into darkness and their moon into blood; but "the

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great and notable day of the Lord" has not yet quite come. When it arrives, there will be a sun, moon, and stars shining in all their glory; and, concerning them, the Spirit says: "The Moon shall be confounded and the Sun ashamed, when Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously" (Isa. 24:23). These are the sun and moon of the Gentile Heavens; the same sun upon which the fourth angel poured out his vial (Apoc. 16:8)-- the sun which shines in the firmament, or aerial expanse, through which flash the lightnings and roll the thunders in that tempestuous time when men are plagued with a storm of hail "exceeding great," in the outpouring of the seventh - verses 17-21. These are the sun and the moon which shall stand still in their habitation, when Yahweh, the Commander like to Joshua, "shall march through the land in indignation, and thresh the nations in anger" (Hab. 3:11,12). Then, also, in retribution for what the Gentiles have done to Israel in putting out the lights of their heaven, shall "the sun and the moon be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. Yahweh also," as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, "shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Yahweh will be the harbor of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel" (Joel 3:15).

The sun, moon, and stars, to be extinguished in 'the great and notable day of Yahweh," from before whose face the heaven in which they shine and the earth over which they shed their rays will flee away, are the luminaries of the Greco-Latin political universe. This political universe is that which is vulgarly styled "Christendom," or properly the domain of Antichrist, but apocalyptically, "Babylon the Great City." The sun by which this is enlightened is the Imperial Civil Power; the moon, the Imperial Ecclesiastical; and the stars, the subordinate powers created by the constitution and reflecting the Imperial Glory. They have not always shone with persistent and undimmed brilliancy; for, when the Star fell from the heaven and opened the abyss, the smoke that issued thence darkened the sun and the firmament, or heaven, in which he shone (Apoc. 9:1,2); and also, previously to that, which came to pass in the seventh century, '"the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars, so as the third part of them was darkened;" and as, according to the decorum of the symbols, this could not occur in nature without affecting the day and the night, it is added, by way of instructing us in the duration of this ternary eclipse, "and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise" (ch. 8:12).

In the Sixth Seal symbolization, "the sun became black as

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sackcloth of hair, the moon became as blood, and the stars of the heaven fell into the earth," that is, "a third part of them" (ch. 12:4). This indicates great wrath upon the orders of the state entering into the composition of the symbols, and a great change in the manifestation of their heavens. The sun might recover its brightness, and the moon her silvery hue. Should this be the case, it would indicate that there was "silence in the heaven," and that war caused blood there no more to redden "the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" (ch. 8:1; 12:8). And such we really find to be the situation. For when "the great day of the Lamb's wrath" upon "the Dragon and his angels" had been assuaged in the casting them out of the heaven - in other words, when the pagan power that hindered the revelation of the Man of Sin had been punished and removed out of the way - the sun, moon, and stars again shone forth from a newly constituted firmament, aerial, or heaven, from the midst of which they diffused their rays over the Roman Habitable as before. But, in order to indicate the effect of the recent revolution and the new character of the heavens, a woman is placed in the sun. She is "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a stephan, or coronal, of twelve stars" (ch. 12:1). Here were "the Fellowservants" - the "Holy Catholic" element of the Lamb's espoused (2 Cor. 11:1-3) - clothed with imperial Roman splendor, and so entering into the elemental constitution of, not the Sun of Righteousness, but of the supreme imperial power of the new Roman Christendom - the sun of the Roman world. But the sunshine of the world's heavens is no condition for the Spouse of Christ. The Bowman of the first seal had "conquered," and won the starry stephan; but, this accomplished, it was no place for "the Brethren" to disport themselves "in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day." The time, therefore, having now come for the Spirit to spue the rich Laodicean fellowservants out of his mouth, and thereby to mark the broad line of separation that was henceforth to divide "the Brethren" from the Kingdom of the Clergy, and all its pride and circumstance of worldly pomp and glory, the Woman fled from the dazzling sunshine into the deep shadow of the Roman wilderness, where she was to be fed for a thousand two hundred and sixty symbolic days.

But the history of the Sixth Head of the Dragon illustrates the remarkable appropriateness of the sun and moon as the symbols of the imperiality of the Roman State. The reader will please return with me to the reign of Elagabalus, A.D. 218, parallel with the period of the third seal, of some of the transactions of which Gibbon furnishes in substance the following account:

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Elagabalus caused his portrait to be placed in the Senate House, over the altar of Victory. He was painted in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, after the loose and flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians. His head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white. Such was the ornamentation of the High Priest of the Sun.

The Sun was worshipped at Emesa under the name of Elagabalus, and under the form of a black conical stone, which was believed to have fallen from heaven at Emesa. To this protecting deity the emperor ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his reign. The triumph of the Sun over all the religions of the earth was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the appellation of Elagabalus (for, as pontiff and favorite, he assumed the name of his god) was dearer to him than all the titles of imperial greatness.

In a solemn procession through the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the black stone set in precious gems (a notable antithesis to the White Stone engraved with a New Name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it - Apoc. 2:17), was placed on a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The imperial fanatic held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the divine presence of the Sun. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the Sun were celebrated with every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar a chorus of Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and army, clothed in long Phoenician tunics officiated in the meanest functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation.

To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, Elagabalus removed the Ancilia, the Paladium, and all the insignia of the superstition of Numa. A crowd of inferior deities were set up in various stations to attend, as it were, upon the Majesty of the Sun; but his court was considered still imperfect, till a goddess of distinguished rank was admitted to his couch. Pallas had been first chosen for his consort, but as it was feared that her warlike terrors might affright the soft delicacy of an Eastern deity, THE MOON, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte, the Queen of Heaven, was deemed a more

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suitable companion for the Sun. Her image, with the rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital and throughout the empire.

Thus were the Sun and Moon inaugurated as the sovereign deities of the Roman world. After the death of Elagabalus, they still retained their high and Sovereign position in the pagan heavens and the state. Gibbon informs us that Constantine had a particular veneration for Apollo, or the Sun, to which Julian, surnamed "the Apostate" by catholics, alludes in his orations. His words are as follow:- "The devotion of Constantine (while a pagan) was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the Apollo of the Greek and Roman mythology, and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath (stephan), immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine, and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of that tutelar deity, and that, either waking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine, and the pagans might reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite" when he became a catholic. Thus, it was a worshipper of the Sun, himself a constituent of the sun of the political heaven, who with adulterous embrace united the Catholic Jezebel to the Roman State. She was clothed with the sun, and standing upon the moon, became symbolically identified with that orb as the future Queen Consort of the Imperial Majesty of the heavens of the Laodicean Apostasy.

But, in the apocalypse, the sun is also used to symbolize the enlightening majesty of the millennial heavens, which are to succeed and supersede the heavens of the apostasy, in which at present shine over all the nominally "christian world," the spirituals of a mystery of iniquity. In ch. 1:16, the symbolic Son of Man's countenance is "as the sun shining in his strength." Again, in ch. 10 the same multitudinous personage appears as a mighty messenger descending from heaven, his "face being as it were the sun:" and in ch. 16:12, certain "kings" are mentioned, and styled "risings of a Sun," in the phrase, he hodos ton basileon ton amo anatolon heliou. These kings that are "the risings," are aggregately the Sun-power of the Millennial Heavens, "from whose

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face the earth and heaven" of the Apostasy "flee away" (ch. 20:11). They are the Millennial Sun-Power, because they are emanations from "the Sun of Righteousness," whose beams have healed them in quickening them with incorruptibility and power (Mal. 4:2). Having become elements of this power, they go forth, and tread down the wicked of the earth and sea with their "feet as pillars of fire" "feet like unto fine brass, as if they glowed in a furnace;" "for they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet, in the day that Yahweh Tz'vaoth (the Spirit who shall be Hosts) shall work." This Millennial Sun, then, symbolizes all the saints when "glorified together" with Jesus (Rom. 8:17,29,32): and, when they "rest from their labors" of destroying Babylon who oppressed them; of giving the worshippers of the Beast to drink of the wine of divine wrath; of binding the Dragon, and shutting him up in the abyss; and of "enlightening the earth with their glory" -they will "then shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father;" or, as the same idea is expressed in Dan. 12:3, "they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and as the stars for the Olahm and beyond" (Matt. 13:43).

The glorified and victorious saints, then, will be the Sun of the Millennial Kingdom. They will therefore have "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it" (ch. 21:23): and "the nations 6f them being saved shall walk in the light of it." These are the New Heavens and New Earth. How unlike those of the Apostasy by which they are preceded. These new heavens will "declare the glory of AlL; and their firmament, or aerial, His handiwork. Day unto day will utter speech; and night unto night shall show knowledge: and there will be no speech or language where their voice is not heard. THEIR rule will go out through all the earth, and THEIR words to the end of the world." Paul has quoted these words in Rom. 10:18, as predictive of the apostolic proclamation of the kingdom. There was great significancy in such an application; for they who made the proclamation will constitute the heavens that rule - the personal Son of Man on the throne of his glory; and the apostles on the thrones of David's house; with all the approved and glorified sharing in their administration, in the grand era of regeneration (Matt. 19:28; Apoc. 2:26; 3:21). "Among them he sets a habitation for the sun, who is as a Bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof'" (Psa. 19:1-6). This bridegroom is the Sun, and his bride, the moon, and her distinguished companions, the stars of the brilliant firmament which will be displayed as the handiwork of the Spirit; when, co-operating with them, he looks forth as the

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morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" (Cant. 6:10; Apoc. 14:13; Zech. 4:6).

4. Concluding Remarks

This sixth seal is a prophetic summary of what is more particularly related in the twelfth chapter, concerning the Woman, her man child, the Dragon, and the war in the heaven between the symbolical Michael and his angels on the one side; and the great red Dragon and his angels, on the other. I shall, therefore, follow the apocalyptic arrangement, and defer entering into details until I arrive at that chapter. A few things, however, may be presented here of a general character. The seal-prophecy predicts an exceedingly tempestuous period, which in an especial manner affects the ruling orders of the Roman Habitable. The first three verses represent this in the expressive imagery of symbolical prophecy. There is much grandeur in the symbolization. The earthquake, the darkness, the falling stars, the hurricane, the curling up departure of the firmament, and the removal of the mountains and islands from their places - all these phenomena in combined operation, show a political universe in a state of awful and terrific tumult. The last three verses of the prophecy interpret what had gone before, and demonstrate that this was the true condition of things in the period succeeding to the termination of the fifth seal, when the Lamb's enemies found that it was more easy for them to decree the extinction of the christian name than to effect it. The situation was awful and terrific to "the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich, and the military chieftains, and the mighty ones, and every bondman, and every freeman;" for the peril of the time caused them to "conceal themselves in the caverns, and among the rocks of the mountains;" and to call on them to fall upon them, and hide them from the vengeance in execution. Here were all ranks and classes of society recognizing the crisis; as "the great day of the Lamb's wrath" upon them. They had been warring against him upwards of two hundred and eighty years; and in all that long period had sought by every and any means in their power, to suppress and extirpate his name from the earth. But hitherto they had failed; and they now perceived that the death-struggle for ascendancy on earth had overtaken them.

The Sixth Seal was opened A.D. 311-12, and closed A.D. 324, a period of twelve years. It opened with the Roman empire subject to four emperors, Licinius, Maximin, Maxentius, and Constantine; and paganism the religion of the state: it closed with the battle of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, as it is now called, the result of which was the reunion of the empire under Constantine as the sole emperor; and the

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establishment of the Catholic Apostasy as the Lunar Bride of the Roman Sun. In the defeat of Hadrianople, which preceded that of Scutari, the historian says, that "the greater part of the fugitives retired to the mountains." This they did, of course, for the purpose of concealment from the conqueror who had won the wreath, as predicted in the seal. Though the mountains did not fall on them, they hid them until their panic having subsided they surrendered themselves to the discretion of the victor.

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Chapter 7

THE LAODICEAN STATE

The Laodicean State is parallel with the Seventh Seal from its opening to the Fall of Babylon after the appearing of "THE ANCIENT OF DAYS."

A.D. 324 to A.D. 1864-8,

or thereabout. ( *)

See Vol.], p. 428

2. SECOND GENERAL DIVISION OF THE SCROLL

The Seventh Seal, Seven Trumpets, and the Six Vials to the appearing of Christ "as a thief;" exhibiting the development of the Ten Horns of Daniel's Fourth Beast in the wounding of the Sixth Head and establishment of the Seventh (Apoc. 8); the subversion of the Greek Catholic Dynasty of Constantinople (Apoc. 9); the rising of Daniel's episcopal eleventh horn, or Eighth Head, that speaks blasphemies, and "as a Dragon" (Apoc. 13:1-5); the war of the saints with this power; their subjugation, death, resurrection and ascension to the heaven at the ending of the Sixth Trumpet (Apoc. 11:3-12; ~: A, 16,17; 13:6-10), judgments upon their enemies, the Horns, Eighth Head and Image; (Apoc. 16:1-11); and the preparation of their way (Apoc. 16:12-14).

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 324 to the Fall-Seasons of A.D. 1864-8, or thereabout.

TRANSLATION

Apoc. 7

1. And AFTER THESE THINGS, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth, that a wind blow not against the earth, or against the sea, nor against any tree.

2. And I saw another angel having ascended from sun's rising having a seal of the living Deity: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given for them to injure the earth and the sea:

3. Saying, Injure ye not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, while that we may seal the

See comment on the prophetical chronology, p. 10.

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servants of our Deity upon their foreheads.

4. And I heard the number of them who had been sealed - a hundred and forty-four thousands having been sealed out of every tribe of Israel's sons.

5. From Judah's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Reuben's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Gad's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Asher's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Nephthalim's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Manasseh's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Simeon's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Levi's tribe, twelve thousands being sealed; from Issachar's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Zebulon's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Joseph's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Benjamin's tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed.

9. AFTER THESE THINGS, I saw, and behold, a great multitude, (which, that it be numbered, no one was competent to do) out of every nation, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, who had been standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, having been clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; 10. And vociferating with a loud voice, saying, "The salvation be ascribed to him who sits upon the throne of our Deity, and to the Lamb!" 11. And all the angels stood in the circle of the throne and of the elders, and of the four living ones; and they fell before the throne upon their face, and did homage to the Deity; 12. Saying, "So let it be! The blessing, and the glory, and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honor, and the power, and the majesty, be to our Deity for the cycles of the cycles! So let it be!"

13. And one from among the elders was speaking, saying to me, These who have been clothed with white robes, who are they, and whence came they?

14. And I answered him, "Sire, thou hast known." And he said to me, "These are they who came out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb.

15. On account of this, they are before the throne of the Deity, and they shall minister to him day and night in his temple; and he that is sitting upon the throne shall pitch his tent over them.

16. They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun smite them, nor any heat. 17. Because the Lamb in the very midst of the throne shall tend them, and lead them to living fountains of waters, and the Deity shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.

1. Of Things Written on the inside of the Scroll

The arena upon which the predicted Operation of sealing the servants of the Deity was to be performed was 'the earth and sea." The reason given why the four angels were to restrain the four winds from blowing to the injury of these, is proof of this. The blowing of the winds upon the earth and sea, by injuring them with the tempests they were capable of exciting, would have rendered the work of sealing

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impossible. Greece, Italy, Britain, France, Spain, Africa, the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, the countries of the Danube, the Rhine, and the heights and valleys of the Alps and Appenines - these constituting the western Roman empire, were "the earth and sea" upon which the apocalyptic tempests were forbidden to blow until the work of sealing should have been complete. At the four corners of the terrestrial of this arena, stood four angels, or restraining powers, having a certain mission to execute in favor of the inhabitants of the earth and sea. In the period of the sixth seal, the Devil had come down to them with great wrath, knowing that he had but a short time (ch. 12:12); but that time had passed with the termination of the seal period, A.D. 324; and now a period of tranquillity was granted them, for the sake of those who might be separated among them as the sealed ones of the Deity.

History shows us that the first "wind" began to blow upon "the earth" A.D. 396. Hence, the interval between A.D. 324 and A.D. 396, a period of three score years and twelve, must be regarded as the time allotted for the work of "sealing the servants of the Deity in their foreheads." There can be no doubt of the sealing period commencing after the sixth seal, and not contemporary with it, as some suppose, inasmuch as this seventh chapter begins with the words meta lauta, ajier these things; and the only things that can be intended, are those recited in the sixth seal which immediately precede the chapter. I suppose the notion of the sixth seal including the sealing arises from the position of the chapter between the prophecy of the sixth seal and the intimation of the opening of the seventh in ch. 8 But the truth is, that the sealing is the opening event of the Seventh Seal, concurrent with "the silence In the heaven." it does not terminate with the breaking of the silence, but continued long after. The seventy-two years of the sealing were the first Seventy-two years of the seventh seal-period; and though the Laodicean Catholic Apostasy imperialized in the heaven, richly deserved all the judgments restrained by the four angels, its adherents were spared the infliction for the sake of the servants to be sealed. The first seal-period was peaceful and prosperous for the idolatrous empire under Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines; not for the sake of the pagans, but for the sake of the work the Holy Archer had to perform in the period: so in this opening period of the Seventh Seal, judgment was restrained, not for the sake of the Laodiceans, but on account of the sealing angel's work.

2. The Sealing Angel

But, beside the four angel-powers standing at the four corners of

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the earth restraining the four winds thereof, John saw a fifth, or 'another angel." Of this angel, he says, anabanta apo anatoles heliou,

having ascended from sun's rising. He did not see him, as the English version would lead us to suppose, in the act of ascending from sun's rising; but having ascended at some previous epoch not indicated in this scene, he sees him at the expiration of the sixth seal, in possession of a certain seal, and about to make use of it in all the period the winds are restrained from blowing upon the arena of his operations. The word unaban to, rendered in the English Version ascending, as if it were the present participle, is really the second aorist participle; and signifies a past action, the effect of which, may or may not be in operation. Having once ascended, is the force of the tense or time of tinabanta. When John saw him he was up. He was not down east, and about to set out on his ascent. John did not in this scene catch sight of him there, and then see him ascending westward; but he saw him in the west "having ascended from sun's rising." His back was therefore towards the sun rising, and his face consequently westward. His ascending from east to west had been completed when John saw him in this scene. The phrase quoted shows this. The exact rendering of aizabanta relieves us of a great difficulty. On the hypothesis of John seeing him start from the east, and beholding him traveling an ascending course until he had gained his highest altitude in the west, we must have sought for something in the history of the times immediately succeeding the expiry of the sixth seal answerable to the symbolization; but we should have sought in vain; for there is no testimony in history ecclesiastical or profane that gives anything analogous to it. There was nothing remarkable transpiring in the east connected with "a seal of the living Deity" in any part of the three score years and twelve succeeding the expiration of the sixth seal. The seal for sealing was inoperative there at that time, and has continued so even to this day. No symbolic angel was seen there commencing a sealing work, and ascending in that work until he had established himself and his labors in the west. We might seek for this, but we should not find it. Not so, however, our search for an ascended angel in the west. There we find one in activity who had already arrived from the east. We find him there, too, just at the right time - the time the Woman turned her back upon the emperors and courts and fled into the western wilderness, where she had henceforth two wings of the Great Eagle - a place which had been prepared of Deity, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days (ch. 12:6,14). We find him effecting her transition from imperial sunshine, and developing her as the Mother of the Servants of the Deity being

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sealed in their foreheads; and thus, by the sealing, constituting them '"the remnant of Her seed, who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of the Anointed Jesus" (ch. 12:17). In other words, the persecuted woman and the remnant of her seed, are identical in time, place, and persons, with the sealed ones, or 144,000.

But this sealing angel was not a single individual. He was neither, according to the Rev. Mr. Elliott's notion, "The Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus;" nor, according to the Rev. P. Allwood's "evidently Constantine the Great." He was a symbolical personage representative of a class of agents engaged in the work of sealing. This is manifest from the terms of the proclamation put into his mouth by Him who invented the hieroglyphic. In his address to the four angels, he commands them not to injure any thing, "while that WE may seal the servants of OUR Deity in their foreheads." Here, the "we" and the "our" are indicative of a plurality associated in the sealing operation upon the foreheads of men. The agency divinely appointed for the carrying on of this work when the apostles and their inspired colaborers should have been withdrawn from the scene, was that enjoined by Paul in 2 Tim. 2:2, where he says to his son in the faith, "The things which thou hast heard of me with many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." Were there any faithful men competent to teach the faith once delivered to the saints, contemporary with the establishment of the "Holy Apostolic Catholic Church" as the religion of the Roman Dragon? Where were those "few names even in Sardis;" the "little strength" of the Philadelphian State? Were there none in the Laodicean state of Apostasy now fully developed, and firmly established, who had escaped the general lukewarmness; who heard the voice of Him standing at the door and knocking, and opened to him? To these inquiries we may confidently reply, that there was extant at this time a class of true believers, or Brethren of Christ, Christadelphians, who refused to identify themselves in fellowship with those "Fellowservants," who now styled themselves the "Holy Apostolic Catholic Church;" - a class which included the "few names," the "little strength," and the "loved, convinced, and instructed," who still lived to witness the Jews after the flesh, and the heathen humiliated, "and compelled to do homage to "the Galileans." Only twenty one years had elapsed since the beginning of the emblematic cry of the symbolic souls underneath the altar. In this sanguinary period, some of their number had been killed by the enemy; but he had not succeeded in exterminating them all. There were many survivors of the Christadelphian class, styled "the Brethren;" yet, compared with contemporary

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"Fellowservants," they were what would now be called "a contemptible few." But few and contemptible as they may have been in the judgment of 'the Synagogue of the Satan who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie," they were the enlightened few, beloved, convinced and instructed by the Lamb. They were those of the fourth century who had responded to the counsel of the Spirit in Apoc. 3:18-20. They had bought of Him "gold tried in the fire,' that they might be "rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom" promised in verse 21: they had bought of Him also, "white raiment that they might be clothed, and that the shame of their nakedness appear not;" and they had "anointed their eyes with eye salve, that they might see." The effort made in the Diocletian and Galerian persecution of the fifth seal period to destroy every copy of the Holy Scriptures that could be found, while it failed, served to endear these writings to the faithful, and to stir them up to a more diligent study of their contents. The Satan perceived, that "the truth as it is in Jesus" could not be extinguished so long as a single copy of the writings of the apostles and prophets remained in circulation. It has been the satanic policy, therefore, of all the ages and generations, either to suppress the scriptures, by destroying them, or forbidding people to read them; or to persuade readers of them, that their true meaning is too recondite and obscure to be "seen" by any, but a highly educated and learned few. This has been the policy of pagan, catholic, papist, and protestant; a policy, that has been circumvented by "the Brethren" by all means within their reach. They are devoted students of the scriptures themselves, and earnest in their endeavors to induce all within the sphere of their influence to study them also; and to enable them to understand them that they may believe and obey the truth; for they believe with full assurance of faith, the saying of Paul, that "Every scripture divinely inspired is also profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for the instruction in righteousness; that the man of the Deity may be perfect, completely fitted for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16).

There was, then, in this sealing period, a class of men "completely fitted" by scripture study, for the "good work" of sealing those of their contemporaries who were teachable. They were Paul's "faithful men, able to teach others;" and who in this crisis of Laodiceanism, heard the voice of the Spirit, who had come into them, and supped with them, and they with Him (ch. 3:20). These repudiated the alliance of "Church and State" with indignation and disgust; and would have no fellowship with such an abomination. It could hardly be styled a fellowship of righteousness with unrighteousness; or a communion of light with darkness; or a concord of Christ with Belial; for the thing

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called "Church," that could ally itself with "the Powers that be," or accept their patronage and donatives, as do catholics, papists, protestants and dissenting sects, is already Belial, in utter darkness and unrighteousness. THE ECCLE5IA of the Deity, in this sealing period, would have no fellowship with 'THE CHURCH" of the Dragon; but protested against it as antichristian, and rejected all its institutions and traditions as mere will worship, after the commandments and doctrines of men (Col. 2:8,18-23).

Now, in the apocalypse, THE ECCLESIA is symbolized by a persecuted woman; by the 144,000; by the temple of the Deity and the Holy City; and by the Lamb's wife made ready (ch. 12:6; 7:4; 11:1,2; 19:7): while "the Church" so-called, is styled "the Synagogue of the Satan;" "the Court of the Gentiles without the temple;" "the Great City, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt;" "a woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars;" "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth," and "Names of Blasphemy" (ch. 2:9;3:9; 11:2,8; 12:1; 17:3,5). Between these two institutions, there has been since their contemporary development irreconcilable "enmity." so long as the Brethren of the Ecclesia are faithful to the Word of the Deity, there can be nothing else; for they are "the Seed of the Woman," who "keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Gen. 3:15; Apoc. 12:17): while "the Church" is "the Seed of the Serpent;" and between these two seeds, the Deity has put an "enmity," which can only cease by the destruction of one or the other party, or by apostasy from the truth.

The enmity between these hostile institutions is amply illustrated tn the apocalypse. Thus, the Church, or Court of the Gentiles, treads under foot the Ecclesia, or Holy City, forty and two symbolical months; and the Church again, becomes "drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus." But though the Church prevails against the Ecclesia for a symbolic "time, times, and a half," this period has an end; and in that end, the Church is humbled in the dust at the feet of the Ecclesia; as it is written: "I will make them of the Synagogue of the Satan who say they are Jews (or christadelphians) and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee."

This state of things, however, in connection with the Body of Christ, did not obtain in the

beginning. There were then no rival bodies, each claiming superiority over the other "There is," says Paul, "one Body;" and that body he styles "the Ecclesia;" of which the Head

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is Jesus; and the foundation, the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief corner (Eph. 4:4; 1:22,23; 2:20). In the beginning, the members of this body were brethren, the sons of the Deity; and consequently, the brethren of Jesus Christ. There were no sects, nor any Catholic or Protestant churches. But all the brethren were of one mind and disposition; or, in the words of Luke, "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul;" an original unity to which the Brethren of the Ecclesia in all ages and generations, are earnestly exhorted, both by their Elder Brother and Lord, and his apostles. "Holy Father," said he, "keep through thine own name those (the apostles) whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are, sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. I pray for them also who shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us . . . that they may be made perfect in one" (John 17). And Paul says: "The Deity of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another after Jesus Christ; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify the Deity" (Rom. 15:5,6); and in 1 Cor. 1:10, he says; "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you,' but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment" Like passages might be also quoted, but these are enough to show the mind of Christ.

But, though things were thus in the beginning, the Spirit expressly predicted the development of division and factions among the professors of the faith; and that they would be originated by "grievous wolves" speaking perverse things in the very eldership of the body; and for the purpose of drawing away disciples after them. These "evil men and seducers" were those whom Jude declares, "crept in among them unawares;" and set up to be Clergy, and lords over "the flock." They were the founders of "the Church," or Kingdom of the Clergy; and by all of their communion, are styled and revered as "THE FATHERS." Hence, the Spirit through Jesus and the Apostles founded the Ecclesia; and "the Fathers," the Church. But a divinely formal separation between the two classes did not ensue until the Clerical Apostasy was consummated in its alliance with the Dragon power. The Spirit had forewarned them by John, that He would "spue them out of his mouth." This is a very remarkable and forcible expression. The word emeo, to spue, is used metaphorically by Eunapius in the fourth century, in the sense of to throw up a flood of bad words. Hence, in the metaphorical phrase above quoted, we are to understand the Spirit as threatening to "throw forth from his mouth words of evil against them."

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"Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee, mello se emesai, out of my mouth." The time had now arrived for this work - the vomiting forth a testimony against the Clerical Adulteress, in the sealing of the servants of the Deity in their foreheads.

As I have already remarked, there was a class of enlightened believers, who were able to discern the signs of their times, and who had in their understandings and affections, "the testimony of Jesus Christ." Armed with this, they were prepared as the Spirit's Mouth, to fight against the clerical Nikolaitanes and children of Jezebel with his sword. By the possession of the testimony, they were completely fitted for the good work of unmasking the Laodicean Apostasy; and, having full assurance in what they understood, they were stirred up by the testimony, as a few are in our time, to "contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints." "Having the very spirit of the faith, as it has been written, 'I believed, and therefore have I spoken;' we also believe, and therefore speak." They had been sanctified by the truth, and they boldly stepped into the arena of the west, to do battle for it against the Apostasy, as in former times they had combated against paganism to the death.

In the symbolization before us, this intelligent and enterprising class of believers are dramatized by the "Angel who had ascended from sun's rising.'' They had a seal of the living Deity, whom they claimed as "our Deity," and thereby, in effect, repudiating the right of their adversaries to any relationship with him. Having been themselves sealed, as are all the faithful in all ages and generations, they went forth in all the region of the "two wings of the Great Eagle." The third wing was not included in the scene of their labors. They had ascended from this, and, in the early years of the Seventh Seal, were engaged in organizing a community whose mission should be to witness for the truth against "the Church" that "worshipped demons, and images of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood" - images of saints - "which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk; and which repents not of its murders, nor of its sorceries, nor of its fornication, nor of its thefts" (Apoc. 9:20). The apostasy in the third division of the Great Roman Eagle was abandoned to its own corruption. In this it was allowed to perish. John did not see the Angel sealing in the East. Syria and Egypt were beyond the limits of his mission. Empire, for many ages, was destined to proceed westward; and this would be the empire of the Apostasy. It was deemed necessary, therefore, in view of the end, to antagonize it with a living organized testimony. We can now see that such a testimony in the Asiatic provinces of the Dragon would have

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been for ages past of no use, Mohammedanism having there tormented it and then suppressed it. Hence, it was in the west that John saw him sealing - an operation the effect of which is still felt by the populations of that section of the earth

But, though John did not see these Angel-sealers in the East and ascending, their class had executed a like mission there, and had been ascending thence toward the Roman Metropolis and throne, during the previous period of nearly three hundred years. They commenced operations at "sun-rising," both in a doctrinal and natural sense. Doctrinally, they began the sealing when the Sun of Righteousness had risen from beneath the horizon of life. They could not begin it before, because it was indispensable that He should rise, that justification of life might be proclaimed through his resurrection - "He was raised for our justification." They proclaimed the rising of a Sun, anatole heliou, whose rays would shed life and vigor, with endless glory, upon all who should be warmed by them. From this Sun's rising they took their departure. No one could be sealed who did not believe that the Deity had raised him from the night of the invisible, and had placed him in the heavens to rule the day. The death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are essential and indispensable elements of the faith that seals the intellects of men. Believe every thing else, but reject these facts and their doctrinal signification and no such professor can be saved - he is unsealed with the seal from a sun's rising. In a natural sense, these Angel-Sealers took their departure from the sun's rising. They were commanded to "begin at Jerusalem," and from thence to proceed to the ends of the earth. This commission they had executed

- they had preached the gospel to every creature under heaven (Col. 1:23) - and had therefore "ascended;" and now, in this scene, John, seeing them thus, also sees their class prepared for a new effort against a new enemy in the West - against the self-styled 'Holy Apostolic Catholic Church," the unholiest and least apostolical community that can be conceived.

In dismissing this part of the symbolization, it may be remarked that the phrase apo anatoles heliou is rendered in the translation as literally as our language will admit. It is destitute of articles and I have inserted none. From sun's rising is a formula that leaves the subject of discourse to determine whether it be the natural sun or the Sun of Righteousness whose rising is intended. Although it is true that the apostolic sealers began in the geographical east, I believe that the symbolization has more especial reference to the rising of the Sun of Righteousness as the doctrinal point of departure; in other words, that the Angel-Sealers, in their new western enterprise against the Laodi

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cean Apostasy, labored to bring back the minds of their contemporaries to "the Revelation of the Mystery," based on the rising of the Christ-Sun, as it was originally proclaimed by the apostles on the Day of Pentecost. They were, therefore, in every sense, Messengers from Sun's rising.

But, in Apoc. 16:12, 'the East" is again in the English Version made the substitute for a similar formula. There the phrase reads he liodos ton basileon ton apo anatolon heliou, literally, "the way of the kings which (are) from risings of sun." There is doubtless a good reason for anatolon here being substituted for anatoles, as it is in ch. 7. The one is genitive plural, the other is genitive singular. In ch. 7 there is but one rising; but in ch. 16:12, we have a plurality - as many risings, in fact, as there are kings. In other words, every king is an individual rising emanating from the Sun. The formula is the symbolization of the oracle in Mal. 4:2 - "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth." Here this Sun is a rising and a healing to every one that fears his name. Symbolically, he is a sun's rising, and where there are many they are sun's risings.

3. The Seal and the Foreheads Sealed

John says, the angel who had ascended had a seal It was a remarkable seal, and pertained to "the living Deity," as opposed to all other deities flourishing in those times which had no life in them. Of course, it was a symbolical seal he saw, and represented something capable of making an impression upon the sealed. Seals were anciently, as in modern times, engraved with devices, that when pressed upon a softened surface the device might be transferred thereto, as the mark of the owner of the seal. The Deity has a device which he has himself engraved upon his own seal, the counterpart or mark of which is transferred to the hearts of those who are impressible, and they become his sealed servants. It is written in Job 33:16, "The Deity openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." From this we may learn that sealing has to do with teaching; and, consequently, as the seal of the Deity is applied to a surface capable of thinking, his seal is that which impresses his ideas, or "thoughts and ways," upon the brains of his creatures.

Now, all the true servants of the Deity are thus "sealed in their foreheads," which, hieroglyphically, are symbolical of their intellects and affections. The Chief of these servants, the Messiah or Christ, was

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PICTURE OF IMPRESS OF A SEAL NOT COPIED BY SCANNER

The impress of a seal on an object established the right of possession to the owner of the seal. The impress was usually made in clay and allowed to harden. The above seal was found during the excavations at Megiddo. The inscription reads: "Belonging to Shema, servant of Jeroboam."

himself to be sealed. This predetermination was revealed by the Spirit to Daniel the prophet, in ch. 9:24. In that place we are informed that, within the Seventy Weeks, prophetic time, "the Vision and PROPHET" should be sealed, lakhtom khazon wenavi; and, besides this, "the Holy of holies" should be "anointed", limshoakh kodesh kodashim. Within the period prescribed, Jesus was manifested, and put in his claim to be THE PROPHET; and, from the New Testament, we learn that he was both anointed and sealed. "The Deity," says Peter, "anointed Jesus of Nazareth with holy spirit and power" - pneumati hagio kai dunamei -(Acts 10:38); and, speaking of the Son of Man, Jesus says, "him hath the Father, the Deity, sealed." Now, as sealing has to do with instruction, we find Jesus was not only able to do works of power, in "healing all that were oppressed of the devil," but he could speak words of spirit and life which the sealed only can dd. "The words I speak unto you," said he, "are spirit and life." And, again, he said: "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak." "I am in the Father and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself." Hence, the discourses of Jesus must be received as the discourses of the Deity or Spirit in him. What he gave utterance to was "the word," or teaching of the Spirit - the things sealed or impressed upon his brain

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by the Deity. To be sealed is, therefore, to be taught of the Deity; and, in regard to those who in very deed come to Christ, it is written in the prophets, "they shall be all taught of the Deity." "Every man, therefore," saith Jesus, "that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." The Father teaches men by what he causes them to hear, that they may learn it. "I have told you the truth which I have heard of the Deity." "I speak to the world those things I have heard of him." These things spake Jesus. He was sealed by what he heard; and the things spoken to him were the seal of the Deity by which he was impressed.

The seal of the Deity, then, is divine teaching. This may be sealed or impressed upon the brains or "foreheads" of men directly or indirectly. Jesus was sealed directly. He heard in his sensorium what no one heard but himself. "How knoweth this man letters not having been taught?" said the Jews. "He knew what was in man," says John. This was inspiration. Select ones alone were sealed thus. "The Revelation of the Mystery" was sealed upon the foreheads of the apostles in the same way. "I have yet many things to say unto you," said Jesus to the apostles, "but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak, and will declare to you the things coming. He shall glorify me." And, on another occasion, he said to them, "When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given to you in that very time what ye shall speak: for it is not ye who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father which is speaking by you." This was divine sealing direct, without the intervention of any human agency. The Father could have sealed or taught all men in this way. There can be no question of his ability so to do; but it did not so please him. It would have saved mankind a great deal of trouble, and might have saved them from much error. It would have been a system of infallible sealing or teaching, which would have left them nothing to think out; so that, for want of use, their brains might have become enervated and imbecile. Thus, extremes meet. Imbecility from knowing all the truth without mental effort, and imbecility from knowing nothing about it, as in the case of our contemporaries who have sold themselves to the clerical soul-merchants of the world (Apoc. 18:13). But except in the class of cases adduced, the Father requires men to use "their foreheads" upon what he causes to be presented to them for faith. He requires them to listen and to understand what the Spirit saith. He hath created them with ears for the purpose of hearing what he hath to say, that by the hearing they may learn the truth and believe it. "Faith

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comes by hearing the word of the Deity," says Paul; and it matters not how the hearing gets into our "foreheads" so that the word heard effects a lodgment there.

In the case of Jesus and the Apostles, there were no writings from which they could learn the mystery hidden from the ages and the generations. The knowledge of this had to come by direct sealing. There was ample material for them to exercise "their foreheads" upon in the scriptures of the prophets, so as to sharpen them by reason of use. But they had to speak things about which all antiquity was silent, and this required direct sealing or teaching by the Deity himself.

When men are sealed they are sanctified; and it is written 'Sanctify them by thy truth; thy word is truth;" and John says: "to pneuma estin he aletheja, the Spirit is the truth." To be sealed, then, by the truth is to be sealed by the Spirit; and to be sealed by the Spirit is to be sealed by the truth; and he that is ignorant of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, which was in strict harmony with the prophets, is not sealed at all, however pious or religious he may feel. The feelings are blind, and excitable by any and every kind of foolishness; so that pious and religious feeling may, and does, result from faith in the dogmas of Confucius, of Mohammed, and of all classes of so-called "divines" in all the realm of the catholic and protestant Laodicea. Hence, pious feeling is no evidence of a person being one of the sealed servants of the Deity. The New Man these sealed ones put on is "made new by exact knowledge - eis epignosin - after the likeness of him who created him;" for "they are the Deity's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Col. 3:10; Eph. 2:10). Ignorance of the truth in its effects and consequences is the reverse of all this. Gentiles of mere pious and religious feeling "walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened (their foreheads, in other words, unsealed), being alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them, because of the insensibility of their heart" (Eph. 4:17).

The symbolical seal of the Deity, then, John saw in the possession of the Angel-sealers who had ascended, was something to be exactly known; in other words, it represented the truth - "the word of the truth of the Gospel." This is the seal of the Deity "his power for salvation to every one who believes: for therein is his righteousness by faith revealed for faith; as it has been written, The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:16); so that, in writing to Jews and Gentiles in Corinth, who, having heard from him "the Word of the Kingdom," "believed and were immersed" (Acts 18:8), Paul says to them, in 2 Cor. 1:21 "Now he who stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is Deity; who hath ALSO sealed us, AND given the earnest o'f the Spirit in

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our hearts." Here the sealing is additional to "the anointing" and "the earnest." The three thousand on the day of Pentecost were first "sealed in their foreheads," and when, as an evidence thereof, they inquired what they should do, they were commanded to "change their minds, and be immersed upon the Name of Jesus Christ into the remission of sins," and then promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, or "anointing" and "earnest." Where "the gift" was received (for it was not given to every one who was immersed, but only to such of certain qualifications, who were selected for "prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers" - 1 Tim. 3:1-7; Eph. 4:11), they were sometimes said to be "sealed with the holy Spirit of the promise," as, "Ye trusted in Christ after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom, also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of the promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, for redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory." Here the sealing with Spirit is preceded by sealing with the gospel teaching. The power of the truth taught caused them to believe and trust; and after these results were evinced which showed that they had been "sealed in their foreheads," they were sealed with holy spirit, as promised, and could exercise gifts which none have had access to since the Apostasy was enthroned. They could use these sealed gifts or "Spirits," or abuse them; for "the spirits of the prophets" were "subject to the prophets." They were, therefore, exhorted to "grieve not the Holy Spirit of the Deity by which they were sealed for a day of redemption" (1 Cor. 14:32; Eph. 1:13; 4:30). The exhortation, how-ever, was not generally heeded. They abused "the Spirits" or spiritual gifts, and therefore the consequences threatened were manifested in the withdrawal of the Spirit, or, symbolically speaking, on ''removing the lightstand out of its place," by which they were left in the "outer darkness" of the kingdom of "the Spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" of the world.

The reader will perceive from these premises, that the traditions of "the Church" (in which we include all "the Names and Denominations of Christendom" that practise baby-sprinkling; and all others which practise immersion of adults, without their being first "sealed in their foreheads" with the gospel Paul preached as "the seal of Deity") are altogether contrary to scripture. "The Church" has substituted sacramentalism for Christ. This was especially the feature of the times concurrent with the ministry of the Angel-Sealers. The Rev. Mr. Elliott, himself a baby sprinkler and signer of the cross upon their unsealed and unsealable foreheads, speaking of these times, says: "But what of the neophytes' personal looking in faith to Jesus, as the soul's

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life and light, whereby alone to secure the spiritual blessing shadowed out in the sacramental rite (baptism)? Of this and of the doctrine inculcating it, we read little. On the other hand, it is scarce possible for a student of the church history of the times not to be struck, as he reads, with the exaggerated and unscriptural notions then widely prevalent of the virtue attached to the outward baptismal rite as if in itself sufficient to secure them: that is, when duly performed by the ministering presbyter; or, as in Levitical phrase, and with Levitical functions attaching, he was now generally called, the ministering hiereus, sacerdos, or priest? Throughout the whole of the preceding (third) century, and even earlier, a preparation had been making for these views by the accumulation of titles of honor on it (baptism). Besides its earlier title of the loutron paliggenesias ('laver of regeneration' Tit. 3:5) it was now denominated, as Bingham tells us, sphragis seal, karakter kuriou, the Lord's mark, photismos, the illumination, phulakterion, phylactery or preservative, aphtharsias enduma the investiture of incorruption, soterion, the salvation. In the language of an eminent (catholic) bishop of that day (Cyril): "It was the ransom to captives the remission of offenses, the death of sin, the regeneration of the soul, the garment of light, THE HOLY SEAL indissoluble, the chariot to heaven, the luxury of Paradise, the procuring of the kingdom, the gift of adoption' . . . A magical virtue, as it has been expressed, was too generally thought to attach to the rite; and that not only were all sins ipso facto washed away by it, but all evils, as by an amulet, averted. The ceremonies now superadded to the simple form prescribed and practised at its original institution, added to this impression. The custom is recorded how the candidate turned to the West, while priestly words of exorcism were uttered, by which it was supposed that he was now at length delivered from the dominion of the Prince of Darkness; then to the East, as to receive, together with the baptismal immersion (Elliott's own phrase, and equivalent to immersional immersion) the illumination of the Spirit. And then he was enrolled in the church-register, as being of the number of THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. A crown was borne by him, in token of his victory over sin and the world; a white dress put upon him, as on one washed from sin, and robed for immortality: and moreover, as Gregory Nazianzen tells us, he was led up before the altar in token of the beatific vision of the life to come; and received with psalmody, as in foretaste of the hymnings of the blessed."

Such was the ritualistic initiation of crowds renouncing idolatry into the catholic church in the days of Constantine, who figured in all the sixth seal, and in the half hour silence of the seventh. They claimed

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to have been marked with the Lord's Seal and Mark upon their foreheads. But it was Mother Church's seal, "impressed on them," says Elliott, "by the officiating presbyter, and perfected by the chrism of the confirming bishop; this last being deemed an essential point:" and he might have added, constituting "the mark" which "the Beast" afterwards required all to receive upon pain of death if refused (Apoc. 13:16). The presbyter only baptized by permission of the bishop. The bishop's confirmation, of which anointing was the sign, was then administered soon after baptism, or immersion; but now years after sprinkling, but without the oil. This was the origin of the idea of baptism being a christening, or anointing.

Thus, the sealed foreheads of the Church, were foreheads wetted with water, and greased with oil, by presbyters and bishops. This sealing, however, did not get below the skin. It did not reach the intellect and affections; and therefore effected no spiritual good. The Laodiceans thought otherwise. "The neophyte emerged from the waters of baptism," say they, "in a state of perfect innocence. The dove (Holy Spirit) was constantly hovering over the font, and sanctifying the waters to the mysterious ablution of the sins of the past life. The water itself became, in the vivid language of the church, the blood of Christ" - Milman, Hist. Christ. With such "Holy Water" what need of understanding and belief? The church administers to its devotees its "sacraments" without regard to their quality. Though the seal of the Living one teaches, that "without faith it is impossible to please Him,' the Church pays no regard to the principle; but sacramentalizes all sorts, the only disqualification being, to be "sealed in the forehead by the seal of the living Deity," which all her officials denounce as heresy not to be tolerated or endured. Thus, sacramentalism substitutes mere water, oil, bread, wine, and priestly ministration, for the faith that comes by hearing, and understanding the gospel Paul preached. According to the Church, a babe, or an idiot, is regenerated by sprinkling its face with sanctified water. The spirit held in solution by the water mysteriously ablutes original and actual sin. Hence, faith is superfluous; and if babes and idiots may be regenerated by sanctified water, and saved from the flames of hell, why may not benevolent and well meaning people, go up to heaven at death, who, like the Quaker pietists, make no use of water at all? Yes, why not? And because the Church sees no valid objection, it recognizes these pious deists as christians! Thus, the Church having lost sight of the faith; having transmuted baptism of believing adults into rhantism of unconscious babes; and substituted priestism for the word; she was repudiated by the Spirit as an unbaptized apostate, "wretched, and pitiable, and poor,

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and blind, and naked." As, therefore, she was no longer competent to teach "the words of eternal life;" and that He might still have a light in the world - a "name" and a "tabernacle," in which heavenly place his sealed ones might dwell (Apoc. 13:6); and that an enlightened agency might be organized for the developing from succeeding ages and generations those, "whose names had been written (gegrammenoi) in the book of life" - He stirred up faithful men to an active and energetic testimony against "the Church," who unveiled its imbecility and folly; and showed their contemporaries of the fourth century a more excellent way. They went forth mighty in the word with their faces westward, convincing and converting catholics from the error of their superstition; teaching them "the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and the name of Jesus Christ;" and then immersing the taught "both men and women" (Acts 8:12). Thus, many Laodiceans bought gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, and anointed their eyes with eyesalve, and became rich, clothed, and seeing; they heard the voice of the spirit in having the word preached, and opened to them, and "he dwelt in their hearts by faith" (Eph. 3:17); and thus, with this potent seal, they were sealed in their foreheads as the servants of the Deity to the number, symbolically expressed, of "144,000 of all the tribes of the sons of Israel."

Between "the Church," then, and the Ecclesia, an antagonism was established by the sealing, direct, uncompromising, and irreconcilable, on all points of faith, practice, discipline and policy, which has continued to this day; and will continue till "the Church" is abolished by the Ecclesia; and the homage of emancipated and enlightened nations be willingly and joyfully given to Jesus and the sealed. Had it not been for the sealing of the 144,000, at the period under consideration, real christianity would have soon become extinct. But by this divine interposition, the Ecclesia was extricated from her great peril; and enabled to maintain a testimony for the truth for many ages after.

4. Tribes of Israel's Sons

John says, that the servants of the Deity were sealed from among, or out, of every tribe of Israel's sons - ek pasesfules huion Israel. This, of course, is metaphorical - a simile comprised in a phrase not according to the primitive meaning of the words. The real signification of the phrase, is the mystery it conceals from the eye of the unsealed -from the perception of the churchman, or "natural man." The Seven Stars, and Seven Golden Lightstands, of ch. 1:20, were not to be taken literally, as what are vulgarly styled stars and lamps. They had "a mystery" hidden in the words; "star" being used to signify in that

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place, angels, or Spirit-anointed elderships, of the Ecciesia; and 'lightstands," the Ecciesias themselves. So in the sentence before us, Israel, tribe, sons, are words used apocalyptically in a metaphorical sense. They each contain a mystery, which is the literal apocalyptic import, or true meaning of their use in this place.

In the prophetic and apostolic writings, "Israel" is used in more senses than one. The first time it was used is found in Gen. 32:28. The divine man with whom Jacob wrestled said to him, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but also Israel; for thou hast power as a prince with Elohim, and with men, and hast prevailed." In Exod. 4:22, it is applied to the whole of Jacob's descendants who came out of Egypt under Moses. "Israel," said Yahweh to Pharaoh, "is my son, my firstborn." Here it stands for a nation of twelve tribes, which comprised also "a mixed multitude," who were not the fleshly descendants of Jacob (Exod. 12:38). Tried by a law of faith, this nation was partly believers of the promises, and partly not. The believing section, which was always a small number, were the real "Israel;" all the rest of the fleshly descendants were "not Israel;" as it is written in Rom. 9:6: "They are not all Israel who are of Israel: neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children: but in Isaac, 0 Abraham, shall thy seed be called. That is, they who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of the Deity; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." Moses, Phineas, Joshua, Caleb, David, the prophets, and those of their school, were "Israel;" Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Saul, Ahab, Manasseh, and their class, though descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, after the flesh, were "not Israel." The difference between these two classes of the same nation, was purely a matter of faith. The Mosaic Law condemned both classes to death; for "by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified;" "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." "The law was weak through the flesh," in which "dwells no good thing;" therefore the law which was good in itself, became death to those who lived under it: for it is written, "Cursed be every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." No Israelite ever escaped this curse; for, although Jesus was "without sin," the law cursed him, saying, "Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree."

From these premises it will be seen, that Israel, not only signifies the man Jacob, and the Twelve Tribes his descendants according to the flesh, but men of the nation who are Israel in the highest and noblest sense of the word - the metaphorical. Hence, in regard to the question, who are the seed of Abraham; who are the sons of Israel, who the sons of the Deity? Christ Jesus interposes, and says, "the flesh

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profits nothing." Israelites will not inherit the blessing promised to Israel, because they descend from Jacob, they must be men of faith, "Israelites indeed in whom there is no guile" - Israelites, the sons of the Deity, who believe into his name; "who have been begotten, not of bloods, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the Deity" (John 1:12,13). Therefore it is that, because "the flesh profits nothing." Israel after the flesh, are not now the people and sons of Deity. They are broken off because of unbelief in the gospel Paul preached. But, they will not always continue a faithless and stiff-necked generation; for "they shall be willing in the day of the power of David's son and Lord" (Psa. 110): and then, "in the place where it was said to them, 'Ye are not my people,' there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of AlL the living one" (Hos. 1:10).

But, before they were broken off because of unbelief in "the truth as it in Jesus," efforts were made by John the Immerser, Jesus Christ, and the Apostles; in other words, by the Spirit of the Deity through them; to manifest a generation of "Israelites indeed," of the sons of Abraham and Israel, and therefore, of sons of the Deity, by faith, repentance, and immersion:- by faith in the promises covenanted to Abraham, and David, and in Jesus as their promised seed, delivered for the offenses, and raised for the justification of all who believe the promises: by repentance, characterized by a thinking and disposition such as Abraham evinced: and by immersion, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, for the remission of sins. Many "of Israel" became "Israel" after this method. They were begotten of the will of the Father of Lights by the word of truth, which they received with meekness as the engrafted word which was able to save their souls (Jas. 1:18,21). But, after all done, compared to the whole nation this was but an election, and that only a remnant. It did not afford Israelites indeed in sufficient number for the kingdom of the Deity. They of Israel "who were bidden were not worthy." Those servants, therefore, who had the seal in those days, were sent into the highways to gather people together of all sorts that the wedding of the King's Son might be furnished with guests; and his house be filled.

This was quite a new crisis in Israelitish affairs. It consisted of nothing less than, as it were, raising up children to Abraham from stones - creating Israelites out of Gentiles upon the same principle that "Israelites indeed" were created out of mere natural Jews styled by Paul "Jews outwardly." Peter, to whom the opening of the kingdom to the Gentiles was committed, went to the house of Cornelius upon this mission. He invited them to become Israelites in every respect except the accident of fleshly descent, which "profited nothing" in the

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begettal of sons to Deity. When he recounted what he had done to the brethren, he told them that "Deity put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." And afterwards, when writing to these newly created Israelites, he says: "Ye as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to the Deity through Jesus Christ." Again, he says: "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a HOLY NATION, a purchased people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light ('the Gospel of the Kingdom'); who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of the Deity; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy" (1 Pet. 2:5-10).

Paul also in treating of the same subject, says, that "he is not the Jew who is one outwardly; but he is the Jew who is one inwardly" (Rom. 2:28). That is, he is not the Jew who is the seed of Abraham in the sense of being heir of the promise, who is only a Jew by accident: to be the seed of Abraham, a man must be a Jew inwardly; he must be sealed in the forehead with the truth which is Deity's seal: in other words, addressing both natural Jews and natural Gentiles, Paul says:

"Ye are all sons of Deity in Christ Jesus through the faith;" and here follows the reason: "For as many as have been immersed into Christ, have put on Christ." In whom "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:26). "They who are of faith, the same," saith he, "are the children of Abraham."

And again likewise, addressing the Gentile element of the Ecclesia in Ephesus, Paul calls upon them to remember that in time past they were uncircumcised Gentiles in the flesh, and consequently, "without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and atheists (atheoi) in the world." But now, all this was reversed when they came to be sealed, and to be constituents of the New Man - "THE ISRAEL OF THE DEITY" (Gal. 6:16): "the One Body." They were now "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, and familiars of the Deity" (ch. 2:11-19). They had become the adopted citizens of Israel's Commonwealth or polity. They were Jews inwardly, "walking in the steps of that faith of their father Abraham which he had before he was circumcised." They differed from common Jews in not being of the same fleshly descent, which was a matter of no profit; and they differed from them also in being men of faith like Abraham. But the only difference between them and those noblest of all Jews, the

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prophets and their class, was the accident of birth. Ezekiel, Danici, Cornelius, Crispus, Gaius, Erastus, and such like, though Jews and Greeks, were yet all "Israelites indeed" through faith - the Jews inwardly, living under the law before the faith came by Jesus, being justified 'by faith" in the promises (ek pisteos); and the Jews inwardly, living after the faith came, being justified by one and the same Deity, "through the faith" dia tes pisteos, in the promises, or "the truth as it is in Jesus" (Gal. 3:23-25; Rom. 3:30; 4:12-16).

Now, the citizenship of the Old Israelites commenced on earth; while the politeuma, or citizenship of the New Israelites begins in heavens, en ouranois huparchei. The citizenship of mere common, or outward Jews, begins with circumcision - with the flesh. If they omit this, the accident of birth from Jewish parents goes for nothing, they are regarded by the law as cut off from their people, having broken the covenant of Yahweh in the omission of the rite on the eighth day (Gen. 17:14). They are neither "Israel" nor "of Israel."

But the citizenship of the New Israelites, or Israelites of the New Covenant, begins in heavens, and also with circumcision - it begins with faith, with the truth believed and obeyed, with the Spirit. A Jew, or Greek, comes to "believe the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of Jesus Anointed;" and to fall in love with them above all other things; he acquires a "faith," in other words, that "purifies his heart," and "works by love" - he receives the doctrine of the kingdom of the Deity as a little child - with all humility and teachableness; and demands only to know what the Lord would have him to do, that he may do it. He is required, then to be circumcised in Christ, to "purify his soul in the obedience of the truth" - to "put off the body of the sins of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ." The churchman, or mere pious natural man, discerns not these "deep things of the Deity;" but such a Jew or Gentile as we are considering, being "filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding," knows that, by being buried with Christ in the one immersion, he puts on Christ; and that when thus invested with him as with a white robe, all his sins are covered over, remitted, or washed away; and that he stands "complete in him." Jesus was circumcised the eighth day, according to the law; he was a Jew; the son of Abraham, David, and the Deity; the Heir of all things; he was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; he is king, priest, and so forth. Now, it is only those Jews and Gentiles, the eyes of whose understandings have been enlightened by the word of the truth of the gospel of the kingdom, who can by immersion get into Christ; for men are saved "through the faith," dia tes pisteos; and "without faith," which Paul

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defines as, 'the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," - "it is impossible to please the Deity." This, then, is the indispensable prerequisite for introduction into Christ, and completeness in him. Those who are thus qualified in the act of passing through the bath of water, pass into Christ. Before entering the bath, the truth believed has changed their minds, made them "dead to sin," and "quickened them with Christ" (Rom. 6:2,11; Eph. 2:5): when they are in the bath, and buried under the water, they are "buried with Christ by the immersion into his death," which was for sin. Hence, this water burial is their investiture with Christ as with a white robe. The burial is, therefore, a clothing, or covering over by which their sin-nakedness is metaphorically concealed; and they are in that situation in which it may be said of them, in the words of the Spirit, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered over" - epekaluphthesan (Rom. 4:7). This is the point of time in which they are "circumcised with the circumcision made without hands;" and, as in the circumcision performed with hands, there was a cutting, or putting, off, of flesh, so in the circumcision made without hands, there is a metaphorical putting off of flesh, "in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh in the circumcision (en te peritome) of the Christ, being buried with him in the immersion" (Col. 2:11,12).

Being therefore thus introduced into Christ's circumcision by faith and burial, they are the subjects of "circumcision of heart in spirit, not in letter" - "the foreskins of their hearts are circumcised, and they are no more stiff-necked" (Deut. 10:16) like many that could be named. "We are the circumcision," says Paul, "being servants to Deity by spirit (or by the sealing truth) and rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and having no confidence in flesh." By this admirably devised scheme, Jews and Gentiles get into Christ, though at the right hand of Deity and they upon earth; and "their citizenship begins in heavens." He, being the truth, dwells in their hearts by faith; and having got into him constitutionally by water burial, they continue to dwell in him; so that having come forth from the water-grave, the life which they live in the flesh, they live by the faith of the Son of the Deity, who loved them, and gave himself for them (Gal. 2:20).

Being thus circumcised in their water burial by the truth believed they become Jews in the noblest sense of the word. They went into the bath dead to Judaism and Gentilism, and were born of the water in coming out of it, Israelites indeed, sons of Abraham, David and the Deity; brethren of Israel's King; heirs with him of all things; holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; citizens of the commonwealth of Israel; kings and priests for the Deity - they become all this

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and more, because Christ is such, and they are "complete in him."

Hence, circumcision of heart, in the sense explained, is as indispensably necessary to the Israelitish citizenship which begins where Christ now is, as circumcision of flesh was to Israelitish citizenship beginning the eighth day after birth. The two circumcisions developed two Israels - the carnal and the spiritual. While occupying Palestine, the Carnal Israel were the kingdom of the Deity under the Mosaic Constitution; and the throne upon which David and Solomon reigned in Jerusalem was "the throne of Yahweh." Deity permitted them to continue in the land so long as the constitution was respected; and there were enough "Israelites indeed" among them, to preserve the nation from putrefaction. These were the real, spiritual, life of the nation - the salt of the land; and when they became insipid; or, when they, as the chosen generation, died off from the arena, the nation became "a carcass," fit only for the talons of the Roman Eagle, according to the predictions of Moses, Daniel and Christ (Deut. 28:49; Dan. 8:10-12,24; Matt. 24:28).

But, when the Israelitish Carcass was rent and devoured by "the Great Eagle," "THE ISRAEL OF THE DEITY," consisting of Jews and Greeks in other lands, or sections of the habitable, who were Jews in Christ, was still an organized and flourishing community, styled also by Paul, "the Ecclesia, his Body," of which Jesus Christ is the Head; and the "One Body." This new community figures in symbolic writing, as "The Seven Ecclesias which are in Asia;" these seven being representative of all Israelites, "circumcised with the circumcision made without hands," in all the habitable. This Israel was rooted in Jacob's twelve sons, as the patriarchs of the tribes. "First that which is natural," says Paul, "and then that which is spiritual." This is the order of the Deity's developments in relation to body, world, and nation. Hence, the spiritual body is developed out of the natural; the spiritual world out of the natural; and the spiritual Israelitish nation out of the natural, we Gentiles coming in by adoption through the King of Israel, who himself was first natural before he became spirit. The principle is fundamental, and perceived in the generation of all things - first, the naked grain, or body; then that which shall be fruit-bearing in the field.

Jacob was the wall of Israel, and his sons his twelve gates, in the beginnings of things. Jesus and the Apostles emerged from Jacob through these gates; being descended from Jacob in their line. But said the Spirit in Jesus, "before Abraham was I am." He was "the Root" of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David; and when He came to be manifested in Jesus, in this combination of flesh and spirit, he was "the Offspring" of those patriarchs. While, therefore Jacob was a wall

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PICTURE OF EAGLE PAGE 318 NOT COPIED BY SCANNER

"The Israelitish carcass was rent and devoured by 'the Great Eagle' "Eureka p. 317. Many national enemies of Israel used the symbol of the eagle, including Egypt, Rome and Germany! Shortly before 100 B.C., Marius ordered a likeness of the eagle to be affixed to the standard of each legion. It was the custom of standard bearers to throw the ensign at the advancing enemy, and the warrior who retrieved it was rewarded. The onyx relief above dates from about the time Rome took the Jewish people into captivity. By then the eagle had come to symbolize the power and majesty of imperial Rome

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enclosing the whole future nation in his loins, "the Root and Offspring of David," and therefore of Jacob (Apoc. 5:5; 22:16), is the Jasper Wall, great and high, "in whom" is contained all "the Israel of the Deity." At the natural gates of the twelve tribes, the apostles stood as so many Angels or messengers (ch. 21:12). They went forth inviting Jews and Gentiles to "enter in through the gates into the city," enclosed within the Jasper Wall (22:14) to enter into Christ through adoption into the commonwealth of Israel; that in so entering, they might, as precious stones, garnish the twelve foundations which represent the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The apocalyptic Jasper Wall, which constitutes the limit of the Holy City, is Deity manifested in flesh; who, in Zech. 2:5, saith "I will be unto Jerusalem a WALL OF FIRE round about her, and will be the glory in the midst of her." The Chief Corner, or Prince, of this foursquare wall is Jesus. The Deity, before his manifestation in him, said unto him in prophecy, "Thou art my servant, 0 Israel, in whom I will be glorified. . . It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the desolations of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my (Yeshua or JESUS) salvation to the ends of the earth" (Isa. 49:3,6). Thus, the Deity manifested in Flesh is herein styled Israel; and in calling him, "my salvation," He is also styled Jesus. Now, the spirit in Hosea 11:1, says of him, what is equally true of the whole nation in Moses, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt;" which saying, as a part of its mystery, Matthew says was fulfilled in the child Jesus (ch. 2:15).

Christ, then, being Israel, all who "wash their robes, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb," become Israel also - the metaphorical Israel developed out of the outward, whose polity flourished two hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem. This spiritual commonwealth, I have said, is symbolized during this period by the Seven Ecciesias, which were encamped in the territory of the Great Eagle, an imperium in impeno; and symbolized again, in the periods of the first four seals, by the Four Living Ones full of eyes. These all were the spiritual "tribes of Israel's sons" - the Sons of Deity, and brethren of Jesus, constitutionally manifested as such by immersion, as the outward sign. Speaking of this honor, John saith:

"Behold what great love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called CHILDREN OF DEITY Beloved, we are now children of Deity, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). Then will be "the apocalypse of the sons of

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the Deity;" and the world that knows them not now, because it knows him not, will be brought into such practical acquaintance with them, that its knowledge of them will never again fade from its remembrance (Rom. 8:19).

But, after the apostles were withdrawn from the arena, it happened to the "Tribes of Israel's sons," as to the fleshly Israel after the decease of the elders who overlived Joshua, that they began to fall away from the institutions of the Deity. Immersionists, or as they would now be styled, "Baptists," began to teach "perverse things" to draw away disciples after them; and in so doing, to corrupt the way of the Lord, and to conceal it at length, under a cloud-capped mountain of "philosophy and vain deceit." As we have seen elsewhere, these evil men and seducers in Israel were denominated "Nikolaitanes," "that Woman Jezebel," "the Satan;" nevertheless, they pertinaciously claimed to be Jews. The Spirit, however, repudiated their claim, and denounced them for liars and blasphemers of the Synagogue of the Satan (Apoc. 2:9; 3:9). But as Paul predicted, they "waxed worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," until they had succeeded in substituting SACRAMENTALISM for "the simplicity that is in Christ" (2 Cor. 11:3). They preached "another Jesus," "another Spirit," and "another gospel" than Paul preached, as the basis of their immersion; and therefore were "accursed" Israelites, and degraded to a level with mere formalists, who had "a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof: from such, saith the apostle, "turn away" (2 Tim. 3:5; Gal. 1:8,9).

Here then, were two classes of Israelites in apostasy - the one class composed of men circumcised in flesh; the other, of men having the form, immersion, which introduces to the circumcision of Christ. These had the form or profession of christianity without the power; the others had the form of Mosaicism, but without faith in the promises made to Abraham. The apocalyptic "tribes of Israel's sons" had substituted abstract spirit for belief of the truth - abstract spirit was the power, or virtue, that accomplished everything for them. It entered the water they used, and made it holy, and purifying, to every faithless ignoramus they put into it; it entered the hypocritical and spiritually dead carcases of the "seducers" they ordained to "holy orders," and made them sanctifying administrators of ordinances; it entered the bread and the wine, and made them spiritual meat and drink: in short, this abstract quiddity mesmerized everything, as in all "the names and denominations" of our day, being the very essence of sacramentalism, as opposed to the "form of godliness" and its true "power." The Tribes of Israel's sons had degenerated into mere ritualists, who, in practicing

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religious ceremonies, regarded them as both the form and power of christian godliness. The Jews of our time practicing the mummeries of the synagogue; or papists genuflecting with their priests before images; or snoozing protestants dosing under the vaporous emissions of pulpit drones and imbeciles - are legitimate and life-like representatives of "Israel's sons," established by Constantine the First as "the lords spiritual" of the Great Eagle of the earth.

The following extracts from ecclesiastical writers on the times of Constantine, will afford the reader some idea of the condition of things in the apocalyptic "tribes of Israel's sons," called "the Catholic Church."

"In the new order of things," says Jones, "which took place under the Emperor Constantine and his clergy, one of their first objects was to remodel the form and order of the christian church, the administration of which was, as far as possible, arranged conformably to the government of the state. The emperor himself (unimmersed as he was) assumed the episcopal functions, and claimed the power of regulating its external affairs - in other words, he was constituted HEAD OF THE CHURCH"

the new-born Man of Sin. "He and his successors convened councils, in which they presided, and determined all matters of discipline. The bishops corresponded to those magistrates, whose jurisdiction was confined to single cities; the metropolitans to the proconsuls, or presidents of provinces; the primates, to the emperor's vicars, each of whom governed one of the imperial provinces. Canons and prebendaries took their rise from the societies of ecclesiastics, which Eusebius, Bishop of Verceil, and after him Augustine, formed in their houses, and in which these prelates were styled their fathers and masters." Scarcely any two things can be more dissimilar than this new order of things, and the order instituted by the Apostles nearly 300 years before. Mosheim speaking of the episcopal presbyters, or overseeing elders, of the apostolic ecclesias and those of the second century, says:“Let none confound the bishops of this primitive and golden period of the ecclesia with those of whom we read in the following ages. For though they were both designated by the same name, yet they differed extremely in many respects. A bishop during the first and second centuries was a person who had the care of one christian assembly, which at that time was, generally speaking, small enough to be contained in a private house. In this assembly he acted not so much with the authority of a master, as with the zeal and diligence of a faithful servant. The ecclesias, also in those early times, were entirely independent; none of them subject to any foreign jurisdiction, but each of them governed by its own rulers and its own laws. Nothing is

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more evident than the perfect equality that reigned among the primitive ecciesias; nor does there ever appear in the first century, the smallest trace of that association of provincial ecciesias from which councils and metropolitans derive their origin." "Nothing," adds Jones, "could be more abhorrent to the first churches than to acknowledge any earthly potentate," and he not even a christian, 'as their head." "Be not ye called Rabbi," said Jesus to the apostles, "for one is your guide, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. Neither be ye called guides; for one is your guide who is Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your minister; and whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." These divine maxims, which are constituent principles of the christian ecclesia, were lost sight of by the ecclesiastics who undertook to remodel the churches under the auspices of the Emperor Constantine, whom they, as a matter of courtesy, condescended to make their earthly head" -the Head of every "Tribe of Israel's sons."

In proportion as these Sons of Israel enjoyed any intervals of exemption from persecution, they became more litigious in their tempers, and more worldly minded. But now that the restraint was entirely removed by Constantine, the churches endowed, and riches and honors profusely heaped upon the clergy; when he authorized them to sit as judges upon the consciences and faith of others, he confirmed them in the spirit of this world - the spirit of pride, avarice, domination, and ambition. The glaring delinquency that marked the conduct of the leading ecclesiastics, in professing a religion of humility and self-denial, and at the same time pursuing the pleasures and aspiring after the honors of this world, seems to have struck the very heathen themselves. Hence, a pagan historian who lived shortly after the days of Constantine, named Ammianus Marcellinus, remarked concerning some of the leading bishops: "It would be well if, despising the magnificence of the city, they would copy the example of some of the bishops of provincial towns, whose temperance, plainness of dress, and heavenly-mindedness, must recommend them to the Deity as his sincere worshippers." These to whom he refers were probably some of the sealed ones with whom he happened to be acquainted.

These testimonies may serve to show us how "the Mystery of Iniquity" was then busily working in "every tribe of Israel's Sons," developing the already gendered Man of Sin Power, as well as the powerful hand the clergy, so-called, had in it. Restored to the full possession of their liberty, the places of worship rebuilt and secured to them, and the imperial edicts everywhere published in their favor, these new bishops soon gave the emperor convincing proof what

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manner of spirit they were of! As their several revenues became augmented, they grew more and more ambitious, less disposed to endure contradiction, more arrogant and haughty in their behavior, more litigious, and more reckless of the simplicity and gravity of their character and profession. Constantine's letters afford ample proof of the jealousies and animosities which reigned among them. Adverting to a quarrel that had arisen between Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, and Coecilianus, Bishop of Carthage, in which the principals had enlisted a host of their colleagues as auxiliaries, he tells them that it was a very grievous thing to him to see such a number of persons divided into parties, and even bishops disagreeing among themselves. He earnestly wished to compose their differences; but, in defiance of all his efforts, they persisted in their quarrels, which drew from him a feeling complaint, that those who ought to have been the foremost in maintaining a brotherly affection and peaceable disposition towards each other, were the first to separate from one another in a scandalous and detestable manner, giving occasion to the common enemies of Christianity to scoff at and deride them. To put an end to such disgraceful proceedings, Constantine summoned a council to meet at Arles, in France, in order, if possible, to bring to a friendly and Christian compromise this long pending altercation, at which tbe emperor condescended to be present, and there exerted all his influence to restore peace and harmony between them; but it proved to be with little effect. He had to do with the men Paul predicted, in 2 Timothy 3:1-13, would appear in "the Israel of the Deity," making the times perilous to his sealed servants. "Men," said he, "shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, devils, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those who are good, betrayers, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of the Deity; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." Constantine had sown fresh seeds of strife and contention among these mere ritualistic and sacramentarian Israelites, by his liberal endowment of their churches, and by the riches and honors he had conferred upon the bishops; and he was now reaping the fruit of his own folly.

From this and much more that might be adduced from history, it is evident that the Wild Olive Branch, which had by "the engrafting word" been grafted into the good Israelitish Olive Tree, was in a perishing condition. In Romans 11, Paul, speaking to the Gentile element of Israel, exhorts them not to boast against the branches of the good olive tree, broken off because of unbelief in the word of the kingdom; and adds, "Thou standest by faith; be not high-minded, but

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fear: for if the Deity spared not the natural branches" of the good tree, 'take heed lest he also spare not thee." The goodness of Deity had been manifested to the pagan Gentiles in inviting them to fellow-citizenship with those Israelites who had already become Christians -in offering them repentance and remission of sins, and a right to incorruptibility and life in the kingdom of Christ and of the Deity, on the same terms. It was, nevertheless, possible to place themselves in a position such as the Jews were in at the time of the breaking off by the Roman power. They had become faithless, and were broken off in consequence. If the New Israelites by adoption through Jesus, became faithless of the Word, the same fate awaited them; for they only stood in the favor of Deity by faith. Therefore, Paul adds, "if thou continue not in his goodness, THOU ALSO SHALT BE CUT OFF." The "goodness" he refers to is, the exhibition of the goodness of the Deity set forth in the gospel of the kingdom, the belief of which "leads to repentance." We have seen that they did not continue in his goodness, but had turned their backs upon it, and bartered off faith in that goodness for irrational sacramentalism, and the wealth and honor of the state. The gospel, which is the "Deity's power for salvation," had no power over them. They had failed to continue "to stand" in it, and to hold fast to it, or keep it in mind. That "certain word" Paul preached was forgotten, and buried under those piles of rubbish, taught as orthodox theology by their descendants, in the schools, colleges and pulpits of our modern Laodicea. They could no more "handle the word" as skilled workmen, than the benighted spirituals of our "glorious and enlightened 19th century!" A "strong delusion had come over them, a vail had overspread them, the spirit of the world had "made them drunk," and, instead of the truth, "they believed a lie" (2 Thess. 2:11; Isa. 25:7; Apoc. 17:2,6; 18:3). What was to be done with such unprofitable, blasphemous, faithless, and disgusting Israelites as these?-- these ancestors of modern Christendom? What but to pronounce upon them the sentence that awaits all such - "Lo-ruhamah and Loammi"; "thou art not my people, and shalt obtain no mercy." This sentence is embodied in the words, "thou shalt be broken off." They had come into the situation they were warned against - a state of unbelief - and, as the Deity always fulfills his threats, as well as his promises of good, the time had almost arrived to do execution upon the guilty.

But, there were many centuries and generations to come and pass away before "the Mystery of the Deity should be finished, as he had declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets" (Apoc. 10:7); and he did not intend in breaking off the unbelieving tribes of Israel's

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sons, to leave himself without witnesses and a testimony against Loammi the Apostate. For this reason, the symbolic sealing angel proclaimed an arrest of judgment, that time might be afforded for taking out from the apostate tribes a "REMNANT," which would be more and longer faithful to the commandments of the Deity, and the testimony of Jesus Christ (Apoc. 12:17). To afford scope for this, he said to the four angel-powers, standing ready for the work of judgment at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds, "Injure ye not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, while we may seal the servants of our Deity in their foreheads." This sealing work accomplished, and there would be no cause for longer restraint upon the howling, and sweeping, and uprooting tempests, which were to signalize the breaking off of the decayed and sapless branch apocalyptically styled the tribes of Israel's sons. The judicial visitations of the first six seals were against the worshippers of the gods; while the more terrible judgments of the trumpets and vials, and thunders, were and are the indignation and wrath of the Lamb upon the apostate symbolical "tribes of Israel's sons," repudiated by the Spirit as "men of corrupt minds, reprobate, or of no judgment, concerning the faith," and therefore no longer the people of the Lord.

5. The 144,000 Sealed.

John says: "I heard the number of them who had been sealed;" and then informs us that the number amounted to 144,000. As we are expounding a revelation hieroglyphically communicated, we must not suppose that this is the literal number of the sealed. Like all other numbers in the apocalypse, it is symbolical or representative; and subject to the like rule for its interpretation. They do not represent less numbers than themselves, but more. This remark, however, does not include the thousand years, which is the numerical symbol representative of "the Day of Christ," comprised between the binding of the Dragon, and his release for a little season.

The 144,000 represent the whole number of the redeemed. This appears from ch. 14:3, where they are styled hoi egorasmenoi, "the redeemed" (or those acquired by the Lamb by a ransom or price paid, his blood) "from the earth." The real, or exact, number of the "redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without spot" (1 Pet. 1:18,19), we are told in Apoc. 7:9, is "a great multitude which no man could number." Abraham was invited to number the stars, if he were able, which, of course, he was not able to do; upon which he was told, "So shall thy seed be" (Gen. 15:5). Paul tells us, we are Abraham's seed, if we be Christ's:

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otherwise, we are not; and in Rom. 4:18, informs us, that the promise embraces whole nations of mankind, which, in the day of Christ, when he dwells in the midst of Zion, will "be joined to Yahweh and be his people" (Zech. 2:11; Apoc. 15:4). The number of the redeemed, saved, or sealed, it is impossible for any but the Deity to define. He has chosen to be reticent upon this point - to conceal it by saying nothing about it, further than to let us know that no man can count them. It is clear, then, that 144,000 is only a definite number representative of a much larger multitude, which the Deity himself alone can define to a man; for "known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the world" or Aion (Acts 15:18) and every redeemed man is one of his works, as saith Paul, "we are his workmanship" (Eph. 2:10). In this counting up the number of the saved, he will, therefore, remember exactly how many he has created after the likeness of his Son Jesus. We must, then, be content to know simply the number by which he has thought proper to represent the unknown, and the mystery that number secretes, from all who have not the wisdom to "see" and understand.

Thus, then, the 144,000 being a miniature representation of an unknown predetermined original, it cannot be interpreted by what is called the literal; a rule which, when applied to the Apocalypse, reduces it to an unintelligible absurdity, which commends itself only to the mind of a "churchman," or of one hopelessly spoiled by "philosophy and vain deceit."

But what is the mystery of the Deity secreted in this number? Why should the number representing the redeemed be 144,000? Why might not 121,000, or any other number, have sufficed? I reply, because 12 and not 11, is the square root of "that great city, the Holy Jerusalem," which is the Bride of Christ (ch. 21:2,9,10). The holy root of the Good Olive Tree is 12; which, when multiplied into itself, produces 144, thousands, furlongs, or cubits, as the number or mensuration may be in the premises. If, in the Holy Root, there had been only 11 sons of Israel, "the Urim and the Thummim" would have consisted of no more than eleven precious stones; the foursquare breastplate of judgment would have been defective in one of its rows, a twelfth stone would have been wanting; there would have been only eleven oxen under the laver, and eleven tribes of Israel; only eleven lions on the steps of Solomon's throne; there would not have been a double 144, "instructed in the songs of Yahweh" (1 Chron. 25:7); nor a double 144,000, under twelve captains, or princes (1 Chron. 27:15): there would have been only eleven thrones of the House of David, which would have required only eleven apostles to occupy them in the regeneration

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(Matt. 19:28). Had 11 been the square root, and not 12, there would have been only twenty-two elders, and 121,000 sealed, 11,000 from each of 11 tribes; there would have been only eleven gates to the Holy Jerusalem, and at the gates only eleven angels standing; there would have been only eleven foundations to the city on which only eleven names of apostles would have been inscribed. The city would have been only 11,000 furlongs, and the encircling wall but 121 cubits; and lastly, the Wood of Life would produce only eleven fruits. From this, the reader may see how the difference of a unit in the root of the Holy Square would have affected the divine numerical system from Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse.

Any number multiplied into itself will produce a square. In 144,000 we have a square number given, from which the square root is extractable according to rule. The extraction is the finding of the number, which, multiplied into itself, will make the given number. Thus, 12 x 12 = 144 - thousands, furlongs, or cubits, as the case may be. It is the square of twelve, and, as the symbol of a commonwealth, polity, or city, applicable only to a community all of whose citizens are based upon a square root of 12. In the Apocalypse, this root is doubled in ch. 4:4, there being "twenty-four elders;" and in ch. 21:12, there being twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates. The reason of this is, that the Holy Square, styled Jerusalem "holy" and "new," and "above the Mother of us all," both Jews and Gentiles in Christ, consists of two classes; the one, based upon the prophets; and circumcision of flesh, which made them citizens of the polity founded on the twelve sons of Israel - their faith in promises made and covenanted to the fathers, giving them citizenship in the Holy Square; one 12, therefore, is their symbol: the other class, without regard to flesh, are adopted into the Foursquare Polity, and partake of the square root 12 with those under the law; and are also based upon another 12, the apostles of the Lamb, with whom the believers before Christ came as yet had no acquaintance. Hence, to represent these two classes united in one and the same square, the square root is doubled in the elders, and the gates and their angels; and in Chronicles both the root and its square, where the numbers are 24 and 288, the last being a double 144. The 24 has been transferred to the apocalypse, where the 288 has been halved, 12 being the square root of neither 24 nor 288.

6. The Apocalyptic Urim and Thummim

The apocalyptic 144,000, 144 furlongs, and 144 cubits, are the Breastplate of Judgment; that is, the thing signified in that splendid decoration worn on the breast of Aaron in the holy place, is fulfilled in

Those who are the units of the Holy Square.

To understand this, the reader must first comprehend the Aaronic symbol itself. The first place mention is made of it is in Exod. 28:15. It was not a plate of metal, but a texture wrought of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen. It was foursquare and of equal sides. It was filled in with settings of precious stones; four rows of them, and three in a row, and each stone set in gold. Upon these twelve stones were engraved, as upon a seal, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, thereby showing that these tribes were represented by them; so that symbolically speaking, the whole nation of Israel was contained in the square ornament, and borne upon the breast or heart of the High Priest in the holy place. This ornament, styled khoshen rnishpat, and in our version, "the breastplate of judgment," was attached to the aiphod, a robe called ephod, or the overall, because it was put on over all other vestments.

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Having prepared the foursquare texture, Moses was commanded to put into it the Urim and the Thummim; that is, the twelve precious stones: not that the stones abstractly were the Urim and the Thummim, but were indispensable to its manifestation. The Urim were the glistering of the stones - the lights refracted and reflected from their cut and polished surfaces, and developing lights of divers colors. These were styled, urim, lights; and the twelve stones themselves, thurnnzim, fulnesses, that is, of number and measure - fullness of number, and fullness of measure; or 144,000 and 144 cubits and furlongs; because these are the perfections, or square of 12

The next remarkable place where the Urim and Thummim are named is in Deut. 33:8. There Moses speaks of them prophetically. lie addresses the tribe of Levi, whose chief pontiff wore the ornament, or as it is allusively termed by Paul, "the breastplate of righteousness," and saith, "Thy Thummim and thy Urim be of the Man thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah." In Exod. 17, the particulars of this strife are recorded. The question in debate was "Is Yahweh among us, or not?" This was affirmatively proved by his saying to Moses, "I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink:" and by his doing what he said. Now, in all this there was a mystery hidden, which they did not see into, nor Moses, nor the Elohim themselves; but which we may discern: for, in "the revelation of the mystery" taught by Paul, referring to this strife in I Cor. 10:4, he says:

"They did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ." The

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Holy man, ish khasid, with whom they strove, stood upon the rock, and thus, in a figure, made the rock a part of himself; and representative of something afterwards to be smitten by certain, who, like Moses, should speak unadvisedly with their lips. In that way, it became a "spiritual rock." Paul says, "the Rock was Christ;" that is, it was representative of him. The Holy Man upon the rock was the Elohistic representative of the Deity dwelling in light whom no man hath, or can see (1 Tim. 6:16). He spoke the words of the Invisible One, by whose power, placed at his disposal, water was made to flow. Hence, Eternal and Almighty Power pervaded the rock in Horeb so long as the water gushed forth and followed them in their wanderings. The Holy Man himself was an embodiment of this power; and as the same power was afterwards to be manifested in the nature of Abraham, and thus become his Seed, the Rock became highly typical of Christ. Hence, the Power, of which the Holy Man on the rock was an expression, was YAHWEH, or "He who shall be," first in Christ Personal, or Jesus; and afterwards, in Christ Mystical, or the Square of Twelve.

In Moses' prophecy of Levi, he says: "They have observed thy word, and will keep thy covenant." The second generation of Levi in the wilderness had observed the divine word, but the covenant referred to they have not yet kept. Levi after the flesh has been in apostasy for ages, and will continue to be so until "Yahweh, the Messenger of the Covenant," shall come. When the time appointed arrives, he will suddenly come in, and proceed to the work of purifying the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto Yahweh an offering in righteousness (Mal. 3:1-4). From this future time, "they will keep the covenant," even the New Covenant, of which Jesus, not Moses, is the Mediator. Then, when Yahweh-Christ, the Branch of Righteousness, shall sit upon the throne of his father David, and execute judgment and righteousness in the land of Israel, "the priests the Levites shall not want a man before me, ' saith the Spirit by Jeremiah, "to offer burnt-offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, aud to do sacrifice continually" (ch. 33:15-18).

When Levi, then, is in this purified condition contemporary with the reign of the Lamb and the 144,000, Levi's Urim and Thummim will be, as Moses testifies, "of the Holy Man," who will then be their High Priest "after the order of Melchisedec. He will not need to wear on his breast such Urim ,and Thummim as Aaron wore. The Lights and fullness will be of himself, He being Deity Incarnately Manifested; for "it pleased the Father that in him all fullness dwell" (Col. 1:19).

Ezra and Nehemiah, doubtless, understood that a priest was to stand up, in and from whom the reality signified by the Aaronic Urim

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and Thummim should proceed. This appears from Ezra 2:63; Neh. 7:65. In these places we learn that certain priests sought their genealogy in the register, but it could not be found; "therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood; and the Tirshatha said to them, that they should not eat of the most holy things until there stood the Priest kakkohain, for Urirn and Thummim." Although they were thus excluded from the priesthood, yet, if they were Israelites of faith, when the Priest who shall himself be Urim and Thummim shall stand in the temple Ezekiel describes, they, having risen from the dead, will be permitted to eat of the most holy things in the Paradise or kingdom of the Deity.

It has been remarked that, where the precious stones are mentioned, there is no mention of Urim and Thummim, as in Exodus 39:10; and that, where the Urim and Thummim are mentioned, there is no mention made of the stones, as in Lev. 8:8, which seems to show they are one and the same thing. The reader, however, will have perceived that they are not exactly the same - that the difference between the Urim and the stones is the difference between various colored lights and the stones reflecting them; and yet, without the glistering gems there would be no light; so that the lights imply the stones, and the stones the lights, and the presence of the one argues that of the other. As to the Thummim, the difference between them and the stones is not a matter of lights, but of number and measure. If, by some accident, the filling in were deficient of one or more of the twelve stones, the Four-square Ornament would not have been Thummim, however bright the Urim of the gems present might have been. The deficient stones must have been supplied, and then Thummim would have been restored to the Holy Square.

From this scriptural identification of the Urim and Thummim with the Expected Priest after the Order of Melchisedec, we have one of a multitude of instances in which, as Paul teaches, "the Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes" the gospel of the kingdom. But he is the beginning also, therefore he styles himself "the Beginning and the Ending" (Apoc. 1:8); hence, as it is written, "Out of him, and through him, and into him, are all things" (Rom. 11:36). The Mosaic law, in all its "weak and beggarly elements," compared with the things they represented, was all of or from Christ, and through Christ, and into or for Christ. He invented these elements of the world," which "made nothing perfect;" through the Christ-Spirit he showed them to Moses, and taught him, and the prophets and apostles that they were a foreshadowing of "heavenly things," which were to soma tou Christou, the Body of the Christ (Col. 2:17), of

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which body Jesus is the head - the Body, "the fullness of him who filleth all" the saints "with all things" (Eph. 1:23).

In Hebrews 8:5, Paul tells us that the priests of the law served for an ocular representation and shadow of the heavenlies; that is, that Aaron and his priests, in their service, vestments, and relations to the Deity and Israel, submitted to the eyes of observers a shadowy representation of things pertaining to Jesus and his Brethren, the saints - Christ personal and Christ mystical. These constitute "the heavenlies," "in the heavens," en tois ouranois, not in "the heaven," ton ouranon, where Jesus now is, but in the heavens in which they enjoy their great reward, when he shall sit upon the throne of his glory in Jerusalem, and they shall "reign with him upon the earth" over Israel and the nations, as the kings and priests of the Deity (Apoc. 5:10; 20:4). The law, in all its details, was a pattern - a system of figurative righteousness, which represented a system of real righteousness, termed "the righteousness of the Deity." The figurative was prophetic of the real; so that, until the real was developed, no one could fulfill the righteousness of the law. When Jesus was about to be immersed by John, he said: "Thus it is becoming for us to fulfill all righteousness;" and what was becoming for him is deemed so by the Spirit for all who would become constituents of the Holy Square of Twelve. The Deity condemned sin in the flesh of his Son, says Paul, "that the righteousness of the law 'might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," or the truth (Rom. 8:4). This was a most remarkable development, that the prophets and priests under the law could not fulfill its righteousness. The High Priest might put on the ephod decorated with its sparkling jewels, and thus be invested with a holiness and brightness and perfection which, when put off and suspended in the wardrobe, left him in all the unholiness, dullness, and imperfection of the natural man. A man whose righteousness is in his dress fulfills not the righteousness of the Piety represented by the dress. This can only be fulfilled by those "who walk after the Spirit;" and they only so walk, who, whether Jews or Gentiles, it matters not, understand the gospel of the kingdom and the truth as it is in Jesus; who believe heartily what they understand, and obey the truth by immersion into the Christ, and a patient continuance in well doing. These, who were never under the Mosaic law, do what the priests and prophets could not do. By their intelligent obedience to the law of faith, they show the work of the Mosaic law written in their hearts, whereby they do the things contained in the law, and so fulfills its righteousness.

Now, the Ephod, with its Foursquare of precious stones, represented to sorna tou Chnstou, the Body of the Anointed. "By one Spirit

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we all into one body were immersed, whether we be Jews or Gentiles . and all into one Spirit have been made to drink; for the body is not one member, but many" (1 Cor. 12:13). For the development of this body, the Deity set forth Jesus as a Propitiatory or Mercy Seat in his blood. He was of the curiously wrought texture of the ephod, in common with all those who should become his brethren. "My body," said the Spirit in David, "was not hid from thee, when I was made in the hiding-place, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth" (Psa. 139:15). The Ephod was of the same material and workmanship as the Vail, with the addition of gold; and the vail, we know, from its being rent when the body of the Spirit was broken on the cross, and from the teaching of Paul (Heb. 10:20) - represented the flesh, which, in Psa. 16:9, the Spirit styles "my flesh." The embroidering in of gold thread, in addition to the "blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen" of the Vail, indicated purity of the flesh after trial - "when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold."

While Jesus, then, was living, and afterwards in death, he was typified by the Vail, whole and afterwards rent; but when he lived again, and ascended to the Divine Nature, and became Son of Deity with power by "Spirit of holiness," he was typified by the "curiously wrought" ephod, or Jeweled Overall and Robe put on by Aaron when standing before the Deity. As the living embroidered Ephod, he stands in the presence of the Father with the names of the twelve tribes of the "HOLY NATION" engraven on his heart. He is set forth "for all," as an ephod to be put "upon all" who would enter the Divine Presence, that they die not. This ephod may be put on after the manner in which Jesus became the ephod by being born of water and Spirit. When the ephod is thus assumed, the immersed and resurrected believer is not only regarded as in it, but a part of it, and, consequently, as one of the Urim and Thummim - one of the lights - and, therefore, one of the elements of the twelve precious stones, or Thummim; for, as each stone in the type represented a tribe, a multitude of individuals must have been signified by a separate stone.

It may be remarked here that the Apocalyptic Urim and Thummim, or 144,000, are presented before us in two states. In the present state, in which they are being sealed, and in the future state, with the Lamb on Mount Zion (Apoc. 7 and 14). The two states are divided by the resurrection. As the gold wire has been twined and interwoven with the blue, and the purple, and the scarlet, and fine twined linen of the Vail, as far as the Lord Jesus is concerned, the Ephod is perfected; but, in relation to his brethren, the gold is in their moral texture only as a principle - a tried faith; but when by Spirit of holiness they are

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quickened, a golden thread of incorruption, as it were, will be interwoven throughout all their material substance, and they will be like Jesus, immortal. By being born of water, then, the true believer, and only such, is even now invested with the Ephod, and a light of the Urim and the Thummim of the Square of Twelve.

The following testimonies will identify the saints as the Urim and Thummim of the foursquare of the Body of the Christ. The Spirit by Isaiah addressing the widowed Jerusalem, which shall hereafter be married to the Elohim of the whole earth, saith, "I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of Yahweh; and great shall be the peace of thy children" (ch. 54:11). In this, the children of Jerusalem the exalted, "the Mother of us all," are compared to precious stones of fair colors, or lights, Urim, without defining the Thummim, or full number of them.

Peter styles the saints "living stones;" and all that are built upon the foundation that Jesus is the Christ, and stand firm by the truth, Paul calls "gold, and silver, and precious stones." And when he teaches, that they are citizens of the commonwealth of Israel, he says in effect, that they are Thummim, or individual elements of the precious stones, whose rootfulness of number is twelve, and its symbolical square 144,000.

In Zech. 14:7, the saints who come in with Yahweh Elohim are styled yekaroth, the splendid shining or glorious ones. The word is used of stones, gems, and stars. Their splendor constitutes them Urim. They are the gems and stars through which the brightness of the Spirit enlightens the nations of the earth, when Jesus and his Brethren inherit all things. This reference to the Urim is very remarkable, and in the English Version very imperfectly translated. As it stands in verses 6 and 7, no sense can be made of it. It may be seen by the margin, which deepens the obscurity of the text, that "the authorities" do not know what to do with it. There is no obscurity, however, ir the original to one whose mind is not darkened with clerical traditions, and who understands the glory. to which the saints are called in the gospel of their salvation. The passage should read thus: "Yahweh my Elohim (He who shall be my Mighty Ones, or righteous governors) shall come in, all the saints with thee. And it shall be in that day there shall be no brightness, the splendid drawing in. And it shall be one day that shall be made known by Yahweh; not day nor night, but it shall be in time of evening there shall be brightness," or Ur. From this we learn, that when the Lamb and 144,000 enter upon their work of judgment at

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eventide, they will not "shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars" (Dan. 12:3) they will not be manifested as Urim; but, though capable of so doing, they will draw in their brightness, and appear as men: but, when the judgment is over, and the kingdom established, and the time is come for them to rest from their labors, then they will no longer draw in their splendor, but "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13:43); not in the "day" of Jerusalem under the law; nor in the "night" of her widowhood, "not day nor night;" but at eventide, which begins the seventh, or great sabbatic day.

In the present state, the believers, who are constitutionally in the Christ-Ephod, and therefore citizens of the Foursquare Polity which decorates it, are Urim, and addressed as such by Paul in Phil. 2:15, in the words, "in a crooked and perverse generation, ye, the sons of the Deity, shine as lights," or Urim, "in the world:" and in Eph. 5:8, "ye were formerly darkness, but now light in the Lord; walk as children of light." Being in the Lord, they are the lights and precious stones of his breastplate the Urim and Thummim of his Ephod. They became such by the law and the testimony dwelling in them richly. This gives them their polish, and enables them to "shine as lights." Where the law and the testimony are not in the understanding, there is no light there. In such only darkness reigns; and while this continues, they can be neither Urim nor Thummim, nor in Christ.

It was because of the darkness, or 'strong delusion Deity had sent" the apocalyptic twelve Tribes of Israel, "that they should believe a lie; and all be damned who believed not the truth" sent by him as a punishment upon them for not continuing in the love of the truth he had given: because of this, he commissioned the sealers to make proclamation among them, that, if there were any disposed to return to first principles, they might be "sealed" with these principles "in their foreheads;" and thus polished and filled in, might shine as the Apocalyptic Urim and Thummim - as the Lights and Fullness of the Body of Christ.

All exterior to the sealed community, the Holy Square of Twelve, are mere denizens of the unmeasured Court without the Temple (Apoc. 11:2). These are mere Gentiles, who hold a like relation to the Foursquare Community, that mere Jews do to "the Israel of the Deity," constituted of Israelites under the law who were sons of Abraham by faith. Blindness has happened to these mere Gentiles of the Court, as it has to mere Jews. The mission of the Angel-Sealers in sealing the 144,000, was to preserve the faith from extinction. Had they not been stirred up by the Lamb through an intelligent belief of the

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truth, to "spue," or throw up a flood of words of evil against the apocalyptic tribes of Israel's sons, the catholics would have had everything their own way; and there would have been no Holy City for them to tread under foot for forty-two symbolic months; there would have been no Witnesses to prophesy in sackcloth a thousand two hundred and sixty symbolic days; there would have been no woman in the wilderness for a like period; there would have been no Remnant keeping the commandments, and having the testimony of Jesus Christ; there would have been no war between the Beast and the Saints resulting in their being conquered; and there would be none now to watch and keep their garments in expectation of the Lamb. In all the past fifteen hundred years and upwards, Deity would have had no Urim and Thummim to stand as embodied lights before him. The Body of the Christ would have perished the while; and nothing but "a wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked," world of apostate "tribes," calling themselves "the people of God," would have remained. But, the labors of the Angel-Sealers altered all this. By them, the Lamb "spued out of his mouth" those in place and power with all their adherents, "who said they were Jews, but," in so saying, "lied;" and organized anew the Holy Nation of Israel's sons.

7. The Tribes of the Apostasy

That the tribes from which "the Remnant of the Woman's Seed" was to be separated were not the tribes of Israel after the flesh, appears from the specification of them. The reader will see from the following table, that the lists enumerating and specifying their names, vary according to the speaker or writer passing them in review. Thus:

Apocalypse Ezekiel Jacob Moses

1.Judah 1. Dan 1. Reuben 1. Judah

2.Reuben 2. Asher 2. Simeon 2. Issachar

3.Gad 3. Naphtali 3. Levi 3. Zebulun

4.Asher 4. Manasseh 4. Judah 4. Reuben

5.Nepthalim 5. Ephraim 5. Zebulun 5. Simeon

6.Manasseh 6. Reuben 6. Issachar 6. Gad

7.Simeon 7. Judah 7. Dan 7. Ephraim

8.Levi 8. Benjamin 8. Gad 8. Manasseh

9.Issachar 9. Simeon 9. Asher 9. Benjamin

10.Zebulun 10. Issachar 10. Naphtali 10. Dan

11Joseph 11. Zebulun 11. Joseph 11. Asher

12.Benjamin 12. Gad 12. Benjamin 12. Napthali

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In the apocalyptic specification Levi and Joseph are inserted, and Ephraim and Dan omitted. Ephraim and Dan are both inserted in Moses' distribution of the tribes into Four Camps. This diversity shows that two different organizations called Israel are signified; nevertheless, though diverse, yet related according to the principles I have before explained. In the apocalyptic Israel, the tribe of Levi is not Yahweh's especial inheritance, lot, or clergy, as in the natural Israel; although, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the "Jews of the Satan's synagogue," who set up for apostles, and by the saints in Ephesus were found to be "liars," claimed to be the Lord's clergy, as at this day, in place of the natural tribe of Levi. "Yahweh's inheritance is his people;" not a particular tribe of them. Joseph is inserted instead of Ephraim in the apocalyptic polity by which the division of the natural Israel into two nations and kingdoms under Judah and Ephraim is repudiated. The future union of the natural Israel under Jesus and his Brethren is foreshadowed in the union of the symbolic Israel. In the regeneration, when the apostles sit on the twelve thrones of the House of David ruling the twelve tribes, there will be but one nation and kingdom in the land upon the mountains of Israel, with Yahweh's servant as their Prince for ever (Ezek. 37:15-28).

In Ezekiel 48, the two tribes omitted by John are inserted, because Ezekiel is treating of the allotment of the land of Israel among the natural tribes restored from their long dispersion. Levi has no allotment of territory as under the Mosaic law.

The 144,000 sealed ones being separated by the truth believed and obeyed from the apocalyptic tribes of apostate sons of Israel, become themselves exclusively the Foursquare Community, or "Israel of the Deity." They are not his kingdom, but "the Heirs" of it, through the gospel thereof they believe. They constitute the only temple, or habitation, he has upon earth. He dwells in them, and walks in them, by the truth believed, which is his moral power, or spirit. The Spirit in Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Hence, in the individual, or community, in which the truth dwells, the Deity dwells. It is a body anointed with the truth, and therefore the Body of the Anointed, or Christ. Being founded upon the Square Root - upon the Root and Offspring of Israel - it is regarded as consisting of twelve tribes, though no fleshly, territorial, or political divisions among the faithful exist; for "they are all one in Christ Jesus."

8. Historical Testimony

The materials for a complete history of the community sealed during the interval from A.D. 325 to A.D. 396, are very scanty. All

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that can be done is to glean a few scattered hints, principally to be found in the writings of their catholic adversaries, who maligned them as heretics and schismatics.

We find that in this period the Novatianist societies, which, as we have seen, originated in the middle of the third century, were numerous; and maintaining their original distinctiveness from what had now become the Religion of Rome by law established. The following incident shows this. The historian Socrates informs us that Constantine, anxious for peace and desirous to procure the concord and harmony of the churches of his empire, invited Acesius, one of the Novatianist bishops, to attend the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, which he did. When the Nicene creed had been composed and subscribed by the synod, Constantine appealed to Acesius, and asked him whether he assented with them to the creed? He replied: "The Synod has determined nothing new, my prince; for thus heretofore, even from the commencement and times of the apostles, I traditionally received the definition of the faith, and the time of celebrating Easter." When therefore the emperor further asked him, "For what reason then do you separate yourself from communion with the rest of the church?" he related what had taken place during the persecution under Decius; and referred to the rigidness of that canon which declares, that it is right to account unworthy of participation in the divine mysteries persons who, after immersion, have committed a sin, which the sacred scriptures denominate " sin unto death" (1 John 5:16): that they should indeed be exhorted to repentance, but were not to expect remission from priests, but from the Deity, who is alone able and has authority to forgive sins. When Acesius had thus spoken, Constantine said to him, "Place a ladder, Acesius, and climb into heaven alone."

The Novatianists had now been before the public about seventy five years. They were very numerous, but seem to have abounded most in Rome, Constantinople and Asia Minor. Morally, they were a considerable improvement upon the adherents of the State Church, being careful to retain none among them whose characters were not reputable in the estimation of good men. Doctrinally, however, they do not appear to have differed materially from the so-called "orthodox." Indeed their close agreement with state-churchmen in opinion concerning the Deity, and the time of observing the Passover, exempted them from persecution in common with other sects. Persecution, however, sometimes afflicted them; but it does not appear to have befallen them because of their testimony for Jesus Christ against iniquity in high places, but, because of their sympathy with the Homoousians, or Consubstantialists, who were sure to come to grief

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when the Arians became the guardians of the imperial conscience.

The reply of Acesius to Constantine shows a unity of faith between the Novatianist Dissenter and the national Religionist, quite incompatible with the required intelligence of an angel-sealer of the servants of Deity in their foreheads. Had Acesius, as a type of his brethren, been ~ sealed in his forehead," he certainly could not have assented to the Nicene Creed as a scriptural definition of "the faith" taught by the apostles, nor would he have troubled himself about the celebration of Easter. The apostolic faith was as little comprehended by church and dissent at this crisis, as by their representatives in our day. Hence, the statement of it by the Nicene Fathers was poor and meager in the extreme; and, as the symbol of their spiritual intelligence, justifies in a great degree the judgment of Sabinus, a bishop of the Macedonian sect contemporary with the council, who styles all that were convened there "idiots and simpletons," and "such as had no intelligence in the matter." The historian Socrates, however, is quite restive under this opinion, and cites the declaration of Eusebius Pamphilus who was present, that "some were eminent for the word of wisdom, others for the strictness of their life; and that the Emperor Constantine himself being present, leading all into unanimity, established unity of judgment, and conformity of opinion among them." But, with all deference to Socrates, the testimony of Pamphilus rather confirms the judgment of Sabinus; for, if the Nicenists had been truly wise in the word, it would not have required the superior wisdom of an unbaptized semi-heathen emperor to lead them into unanimity, and to establish unity and conformity among them. Imperial sunshine had more to do with the creed than "the wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy" (James 3:17):which Constantine to his sorrow found was by no means characteristic of the three hundred and eighteen fathers of this Council of Nice.

It was the year next ensuing the termination of the Sixth Seal that Constantine convoked this first Ecumenical Synod. He hoped by it to quiet and discord in his church then in full blast between Alexander and Anus; and to allay the incessant strife and tumult among his catholic people. The emperor had great expectations from the council, which Pamphilus in his life of Constantine, styles, "a sacred edifice, dilated as it were by the Deity" - "a convocation in imitation of the Apostolic Assembly" on Pentecost; which, he says, was inferior in this respect, that all present were not ministers of the Deity: whereas at Nice the number of bishops exceeded three hundred; while the number of the presbyters, deacons, and acolyths, (or young priests) who attended

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them was almost incalculable." Many of the laity were also present, who were practised in the art of reasoning," or of darkening counsel by words without knowledge; "and each prepared to advocate the cause of his own party. For a short time previous to the general assembling of the bishops, the disputants engaged in preparatory logical contests with various opponents: and when many were attracted by the interest of their discourse, one of the laity who was a man of unsophisticated understanding, and had stood the test of persecution in his confession of faith, reproved these reasoners; telling them that Christ and his apostles did not teach us the dialectic art, nor vain subtleties, but simple-mindedness which is preserved by faith and good works." This man spoke like one of the Angel-sealers, the words of truth and soberness. "All present," continued Socrates, "admired the speaker, and assented to the justness of his remarks; and the disputants themselves, after hearing his ingenuous statement of the truth, exercised a far greater degree of moderation; and thus the disturbance caused by these logical debates was suppressed.

In the second chapter of the Acts, the reader may find the Pentecostian declaration of faith proclaimed by the Spirit through the Twelve Apostles. He can compare this with the creed concocted and published by the episcopal fathers of the Nicene Pentecost, and then say, if it would not have been more demonstrative of the alleged wisdom of these Constantinian Catholics to have reaffirmed "the Spirit's" simple declaration; than to have given utterance to the Nicene speculations of their "great and holy synod." A comparison of the two is sufficient to convince any sealed servant of the Deity, that the opinion of Sabinus is correct; and that, clearly, "they had no intelligence in the matter."

As many of our readers may have no acquaintance with this celebrated symbol of the Apostasy, by the unintelligible jargon of which, the minds of beclouded bishops, presbyters, and peoples, were distracted, and the peace and safety of society fatally impaired, I have concluded to insert it in this place, as the declaration of

9. The Faith of "the Woman Clothed with the Sun."

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible:- and in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God of God, and Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made, consubstantial (hornoousion) with the Father: by whom all things were made, both which are in heaven and on earth: who for the sake of us men, and on account of our salvation, descended, became

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incarnate, and was made man; suffered, arose again, the third day, and ascended into the heavens, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. We also believe in the Holy Spirit.

"But the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes those who say, that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that he was not before he was begotten; and that he was made from that which did not exist; or who assert that he is of other substance or essence than the Father; or that he was created, or is susceptible of change."

Such was the rattling skeleton enthroned in the temple of the Imperial Mother of the Man of Sin. All who desired court favor were required to glorify it as the orthodox definition of what they styled "the Unity of the Holy Trinity." By the philosophy and vain deceit with which they were spoiled and deluded, they had lost the knowledge of the great mystery of godliness exhibited by Christ and the Apostles, "Deity manifested in flesh;" and, under the inspiration of what the Greeks called wisdom and logic, substituted this shallow conception which resulted in a furious and sanguinary strife about the words ousia, substance; homoousion, consubstantial, or of the same essence; homoiousion, of the like substance; and so forth. The apostates in favor of the creed were styled Trinitarians, and the apostates opposed to it, Arians, all "men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith," as their writings and practices abundantly show.

Having thus presented the reader with "the Faith" of the Catholic Mother, on account of which her fractious and ill-mannered offspring afflicted one another with pains and penalties more sanguinary and brutal than they had formerly experienced from the pagans, it will, I conceive, be perfectly in point, by way of contrast, and as an illustration of "the Seal of the Deity," brought into renewed and active operation by his providence at this crisis of affairs, to present also "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" in luminous simplicity by the Holy Spirit, in whom the Homoousians said they believed, but whose teaching had no more weight with them than with the hierarchists of modern times.

10. The Faith Apostolically Declared

Acts 2:22-39

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, A MAN approved of the DEITY among you, by powers and wonders, and signs which the Deity exhibited THROUGH HIM in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; Him, being delivered by the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of the Deity, ye have taken, and through

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lawless hands have crucified and slain: whom the Deity hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden by it.

"For David (by Spirit) speaketh concerning him (Christ), 'I foresaw Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad: moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not allow my soul to remain in the grave, nor wilt thou permit thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt make me to know the path of lives; thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance.'

"Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you concerning the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us until this day. Being a prophet, therefore, and knowing that the Deity with an oath had sworn to him that out of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit upon his (David's) throne: foreseeing this, he spake concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul should not be left in the grave, nor his flesh see corruption.

"This even Jesus the Deity hath raised up, of which all we are witnesses.

"Being therefore exalted to the right hand of the Deity, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this, which now ye see and hear.

"For David has not ascended into the heavens: but he himself saith, Yahweh said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool of thy feet."

"Therefore, let all the House of Israel know assuredly, that the Deity hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ."

"Let your mind (therefore) be changed, and be immersed every one of you upon the name of Jesus Christ into remission of sins: and YE shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and your children, and to all afar off, as many as the Lord our Deity may invite."

Here, then, are two faiths: the one, the faith of the Catholic Apostasy; the other, the faith dictated and confirmed by Deity himself. By this, the servants of the Deity were being sealed; while Arians and Trinitarians were splitting hairs about homoousion and homojousion, and making themselves ridiculous and hateful on every side. "One saw, says Socrates, "confusion everywhere prevailing; for not only the prelates of the churches engaged in contention, but the people also divided, some siding with one party and some with the other. To so

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disgraceful an extent was this affair carried, that Christianity became subject of popular ridicule, even in the very theatres."

I have searched through Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret the Greek ecclesiastical historians of the period of the sealing, but have been unable to find any footsteps of Angel-sealers contending for th faith delivered on Pentecost, and standing aloof from, and in Opposition to, both Trinitarians and Arians. All in the East seem to have been occupied on one side or the other of Homoousianism, evincing thereby the absence of any divine sealing operation in their foreheads The countries whose vernacular was the Greek tongue seem to have been abandoned of Deity to the darkness of superstition, which was rapidly intensified by the controversialists of Nice. I turn therefore from these to those parts of the Empire where the Latin was the prevailing language of the people - the Roman West, in which John saw the sealing Angel in operation.

In the Roman Africa, then, in one of the wings of the Great Eagle there appeared, in the early part of the fourth century, an intensely anti-Catholic people, a people who, as the faithful agents of the Lamb "spued them out of their mouth." They denied the Christianity of Catholics, and would have no fellowship with them, regarding all religious contact with them as defiling. They rejected their immersion as null and void, and repudiated their bread-breaking as a profane thing, and 'spued Out" their consecrations, unctions, and ordinations, as nauseating abominations. These were just the sort of people John's symbolization requires, as any one who knows what Catholicism was at that time, and how the Scripture reprobates all they called sacred will readily perceive. These anti-catholics were enlightened people or they would have gone with the multitude, and have glorified Constantine and his ambitious and worldly minded clergy. But they were opposed to all their dogmas, and schemes of aggrandizement. They contended for "the simplicity which is in Christ," as exhibited in the word. They were uncompromisingly hostile to all things not according to the testimony of Jesus Christ and the commandment of the Deity. They would be styled, by the milk-and-water respectables and liberals of our day, ironical, sarcastic, uncharitable, and bitter! There might be some among themselves who would wince at the tone of their testimony, on the specious plea that it would "do harm," or "do no good," or that the public would not bear it! But these Roman-African believers were no generally of this punctilious and faint-hearted description. This sort of anti-catholics were few in the fourth century. The exigencies of the crisis, then as now, required earnest men, who feared neither Constantine, his clergy, nor their public, and who had sense and boldness

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enough to "cry aloud and spare not" any thing that exalted its corrupt self against the knowledge with which the servants of the Deity were being sealed in their foreheads. The crisis required men who were not afraid to stigmatize a blasphemy by the word blasphemy, and to nail a counterfeit to the board, and to proclaim it such, wherever they encountered it. They used the sword of the Spirit trenchantly, so that wherever they fleshed it, it made the victim writhe, and left behind its mark. They declared to their contemporary professors that they were not Christians, and could not be saved so long as they continued members of Constantine's church. They knew what the truth was, and what the Deity commanded; and, being logical and sensible men, they knew that whatsoever was not of the truth was a lie, and that obedience to the commands of the Deity alone could impart life. The piety and grace of their dominant opponents were intense. They were of the very cream of orthodoxy, and their silver-tongued eloquence unquestionable. But these blandishments of the devout were lighter than vanity with the angel-sealers of that day. Weighed in the balances of truth, they were found utterly wanting; and food only for the indignant sarcasm, and pungent irony, which was practically developed in burning and scraping catholic altars, and breaking their communion cups!

Ecclesiastical historians take little notice of this terrible people, on whose account the four angels at the four corners of the habitable or Roman earth were commanded to restrain those awful tempests, which, in due time, swept the Latin world with hurricanes of wrath. What has come down to us concerning them is derived principally from Optatus and Augustine, who wrote against them, and denounced them as schismatics and puritans. The learned Du Pin has noticed them, and, though an adversary, seems to have spoken of them without prejudice. 'Hitherto," says he, "we have only represented the Donatists as a faction that separated from the (catholic) church, without taking notice of any particular doctrine whereby they were distinguished. Indeed, they did not teach any thing that was contrary to the (apostle's) creed; but they were so rash as to affirm that all the churches everywhere which had embraced the communion of Coecilianus (bishop of Carthage) and his party, ceased to be the true churches of Jesus Christ; that thus the catholic church was only found among themselves, having ceased to exist in other parts of the world. Besides which, being very fond of the ancient doctrine of the African Ecclesias, that immersion and the other sacraments conferred out of the ecclesia were null and void, they reimmersed such as had been immersed by the catholics, trampled upon their eucharist as a profane thing, and maintained that

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the consecrations, unctions, and ordinations performed by the catholics were of no avail. They burned or scraped the altars which the latter made use of, as being polluted by impure sacrifices, and broke their (communion) cups. They looked upon the vows made in their communion as of no value; in a word, they would not communicate with them. They maintained that the ecclesia ought to be made up of just and holy men, or, at least, of those who were such in appearance; and that, although wicked men might lurk in the ecclesia, yet it should not harbor those who were known to be such.

Thus testifies Du Pin concerning the Angel-sealers of the century preceding the sounding of the First Trumpet. He bears testimony to the soundness of their faith; but, while it was doubtless so, his testimony thereto is of no more value than would be that of Bishop Colenso, Professor Renan, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the simple reason that he, no more than these "divines," is able to define the truth. Their faith was not catholic, but apostolic, and a living protesting to the apocalypse, no other judgment can be given than that, at this crisis, a people of such rigid and sweeping exclusiveness was to exist. For, when the woman should repudiate an adulterous alliance with the against every thing called christian which did not stand out before the world in fellowship with themselves. This was the only ground they could take consistently with their Apocalyptic position of assessors with the Lamb in spuing the Laodiceans out of his mouth. They proclaimed that the true church had ceased to exist in all parts of tue world where they themselves were not. This would be styled arrogant assumption by the Nicene Fathers and the catholic sects; but, according to the apocalypse, no other judgment can be given than that, at this crisis, a people of such rigid and sweeping exclusiveness was to exist. For, when the woman should repudiate an adulterous alliance with the State, and fly for refuge and nourishment into the two wings of the Great Eagle, what would that so-called "christianity" be in all "other parts of the world" but the apostasy "spued out of the Spirit's mouth." They shook their heads, and heaved with nausea and disgust at the wretched, pitiable, poverty-stricken, blind, and naked abortion basking in the sunshine of imperial grace, and glorifying itself with fulsome flattery and courtly phrase. The sealed servants of the Deity are always exclusive; for, being enlightened by the word and ruled by its principles, their liberality, toleration, and charity, transcend not the line which they describe - "to the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Tried by this rule, they found the whole world condemned except themselves, and boldly and bravely proclaimed the truth.

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Behold, too, how energetic their testimony against the barren formality or sacramentalism which reigned on every side. They repudiated it as abhorrent to spiritual purity. Did a courtly bishop consecrate an altar for the exposition thereon of the bread and wine? If that piece of ecclesiastical furniture came into their possession, they regarded the thing as polluted by impure sacrifices, and either burned it as church trumpery, or, if deemed convenient as a table, they scraped it clear of all imaginary sacramental unction ere they recognized it as fit for the use of those "who worship Deity in spirit and in truth.

Du Pin's is a noble testimony to the purity of their discipline. They maintained that an ecclesia of Christ should be constituted of just and holy men, or, at least, of those who appeared to be such; and that, although wicked men might lurk in the ecclesia, yet, when professors manifested themselves to be wicked, the brethren should put them away. This was the principle of the so-called Donatists - a principle fully supported and sanctified, or enjoined rather, by the New Testament. But it was scouted by the catholic church, which tolerated the notoriously wicked of all shades of abomination, and gloried in the presidency of an emperor who, from jealousy, murdered his own son, and was not immersed, though professing christianity for twenty years, till three days before his death. Need there be, then, any special wonder that the catholic church should have become "the habitation of demons, the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird'?" (Apoc. 18:3).

The Donatists were a very numerous body in the Roman Africa, and, indeed, seem to have been almost as multitudinous there as the catholics themselves, which, considering the strictness of their discipline and their firm adhesion to the laws of Christ's house, is gratifying to contemplate. There was scarcely a city or town in the Roman Africa in which there was not an ecclesia of these believers. A public conference was held at Carthage, A.D. 411, at which 286 bishops belonging to the catholics were present, and of the Donatists 279; and when we take into account, not only their rigid discipline, but also that they were a proscribed sect, and frequently the subjects of severe and sanguinary persecution from the catholic rulers, there is good reason to conclude that we have before us in the Donatists the very people foreshadowed in the servants to be sealed. They must have been energized by an enlightened faith, which gave them an intellectual and moral superiority over the imbecile and drowsy sacramentalists of the time. Their increasing numbers attracted the attention of the authorities, who were anxious, if possible, to conciliate them, and form a

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union between them and the catholics. The emperor Constans, A.D. 348, ten or a dozen years after the death of his father, Constantine, deputed two persons of rank to try to bring about a reconciliation between the two parties. When it was urged upon them that it was their duty to study the peace of the church and to avoid schism, they urged the unscriptural nature of the alliance which had recently taken place between church and state. "Quid est imperatori cam ecclesia?" said they - in plain English, "What hath the emperor to do with the church?" A more important and pertinent question could not have been propounded. Had civil rulers known their proper sphere, they would have accorded protection to citizens in all their rights, and have left them to their own convictions in matters of faith and practice. The civil power would then have restrained all ecclesiastics within the sphere of their own pales; and we should have had no "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the earth." The atrocities of the Roman Church would not have soaked the soil with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus for hundreds of years, until she became drunk with their gore. Little was Constantine aware of the consequences that would follow his conferring wealth, and honor, and power upon the bishops, presbyters, and so forth, of the Laodicean Apostasy, which, in the ignorance of all concerned, was mistaken for the Spouse of Christ. Could he have foreseen the racks, the fires, the massacres, the butcheries, that were to follow his misplaced liberality, he would, doubtless, have thrilled with horror and disgust at the Iniquity he had unwittingly evoked.

Another maxim illustrative of the principles of these angel-sealing brethren of "Donatus the Great" is exhibited in the question they used to put; according to Optatus, - "Quid christianis cam regibus, aut quid episcopis cum palatio?" "What have christians to do with kings, or what have bishops to do at court?" They had learned from the scriptures that the principles of the doctrine of Christ were pure, peaceable, impartial, without hypocrisy, and full of good fruits; and that the rulers and courts of the nations were the concentrics of spiritual wickedness and political abomination; and that the overseers, or shepherds, of Christ's flock had no divine call within those circles but to reprove them. They held with James, that "the friendship of the world is enmity against the Deity; - "and that whosoever therefore is a friend of the world is the enemy of the Deity;" and every true believer, in all ages and generations since knows well, that those ministers of religion only obtain access and favor with the authorities and their recognized public, who prophesy smooth things and pervert the truth. They rebuke sin at a distance, rage against the transgressions of the

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lower orders, speculate upon remote abstractions, amuse and satisfy the well to do, and are recompensed with a fading crown of rejoicing in the abounding gifts and honors of a world lying under the wicked. Donatus and his brethren knowing this, as we know it, and all generations of the righteous since the days of Christ, sent out their Agonistici, or combatants, into the fairs, and markets, and other public places, to inquire of their contemporaries, "what christians have to do with kings, or what have bishops to do at court?" They contended against their presence there, and sought to subdue the people to the conviction, that an imperial and courtly christianity, endorsed by Nicene Fathers and Arian philosophers, was no part of "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." In this truly orthodox, but dangerous, enterprise, they were sufficiently successful to be brought into collision with the so-called "First Christian Emperor," who in council assembled at Milan, A.D. 316, condemned them to lose their conventicles, sent their shepherds into banishment, and punished some of them with death! Constantine's son and successor Constans, also exiled Donatus and many of his brethren, whom he severely afflicted. This was the kind of treatment they experienced at the hands of "christian emperors," who smiled with the benignant and genial sunshine, irradiable only by worldrulers in the darkness of high places, upon the metaphysical and courtly episcopal sycophants, who constituted "the tail" - the lying prophets (Isa. 9:15) who caused the people to err; the tail of "the Serpent, who cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the Woman, that he might cause her to be carried away thereby" (Apoc. 12:15). Donatus and his brethren, however, were not so easily to be swept away; for the more friendly "earth helped the woman, and opening its mouth, swallowed up the flood." The enemies of the truth are not omnipotent, and rarely wise. Sooner or later retribution comes upon them; for "precious in the eyes of Yahweh is the death of his saints." ;the cruelties and injustice of the Constantine Family upon the Angel-Sealers of the Deity's servants; and the blasphemies of their catholic parasites, returned upon their own heads in the massacre of the imperial princes, and their eclipse by Julian; who, disgusted with their wickedness and hypocrisy, apostatized from the Apostasy to the more decent philosophy of the Antonines. This same "apostate," who rightly expelled all bishops from court, and sent them to look after their flocks at home, recalled the real servants of the Deity from exile in A.D. 362, and bid them enjoy the rights and privileges which their hypocritical persecutors had wrested from them.

But, when the apostasy had recovered its position in the state, and was again clothed with imperial sunshine, persecution revived against

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them. The emperor Gratian published several edicts against their peace, and A.D. 377, deprived them of their conventicles, and prohibited all their assemblies. This severity is in itself a testimony in their behalf. Had they been sycophants and hypocrites, ignorant and fanatical fools, bringing forth the fruit of their iniquity in "walking after the flesh," the catholic government, always inspired by bishops and their satellites at court, would not have inflicted on them disabilities and pains. But their testimony which they sealed upon the people whom they detached from the apostasy; their uncompromising denunciation of the Eusebiuses, Athanasiuses, Anuses, and Augustines of Roman Ecclesiasticism; their zealous advocacy of the Pentecostian Faith to the utter subversion of all other conceivable creeds - brought down upon their devoted heads imperial and clerical wrath, which, in its tenderest manifestations, is always cruel. Notwithstanding, however, the seventies they endured, the number of their ecciesias was very considerable towards the close of the sealing period limited by the sounding of the first trumpet. But, at this time history testifies that their efficiency began to decline. Their mission, or angelism, antecedent to the loosing of the winds against the Catholic Apostasy of the Roman West, was nearly accomplished; and the 144,000 almost sealed. Historical romances attribute their obscuration very principally to the zealous opposition of a catholic saint, named Augustine, who is the type of the Rev. E. B. Elliott's "true apostolic line and ministry" -Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo, the apostle of that fashionable "divine sovereign grace," which elects, prevents, quickens, illuminates, adopts, saves, and leaves men as ignorant of Moses and the prophets, and the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, as if the Word were indeed "a dead letter," which, though without life itself, effectually "kills!" The decline of these angel-scalers effected by the logic of a catholic saint, who taught that the twelve apostles are now sitting on twelve thrones of judgment in heaven; and who taught, also, the justification of infants from birth sin derived from Adam, its guilt, and condemnation, in their baptism!! This is too ridiculous for serious refutation. A writer who can affirm such nonsense in the very statement proves that he, and all who endorse him, are grossly ignorant of the first principles of the oracles of the Deity.

The Emperor Honorius, stirred up against them by two clerical councils, the one A.D. 404, and the other A.D. 411, adopted violent measures against them. Many he fined, banished their pastors, and some he put to death. This was the policy of the party, of which this Elliott-type of the 144,000, was a bright and dazzling light, or miasmal meteor seductive of the unsealed into the way of death. The sanguinary

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tyranny of the Augustinians, and not the logic of their adversaries, caused their decline. But, the Deity was not unmindful of them in trouble. He had prepared the winds to blast their profligate oppressors. He "hurled a great mountain burning with fire into the sea" (Apoc. 8:8), which stained it with the blood of their enemies, and subverted their rule over the Roman Africa. Under the protection of the Vandals, who invaded that country A.D. 427, they revived and multiplied, and flourished for a hundred and four years. In 534, the power of their protectors was overturned, and left them again exposed to catholic malignity. Nevertheless, they remained a separate body until the close of the sixth century, when Gregory, the Roman Pontiff, used various methods for suppressing them. After this, but few traces of them under the name of Donatists, are to be found in history. The testimony against the catholic apostasy remained, but the Remnant of the Woman's Seed that held it, became pricks in its eyes and thorns in its side by other names.

In concluding this account of the missions, or apocalyptic angelism, of these scalers of the 144,000, it may be remarked, that the relation of Donatus and his brethren to the reigning apostasy is precisely that of the author of this work, and of all Christadelphians, who understand themselves and the truth they have confessed. Christadelphians are neither Arians, Socinians, nor Trinitarians; but believers in the "great mystery of godliness, Deity manifested in Flesh," as set forth in "the Revelation of the Mystery," preached by the apostles. Our faith embraces "the things of the kingdom of the Deity, and of the Name of Jesus Christ," as outlined in Acts 2 and 3; and we recognize none as christians who have not first believed the Gospel of the Kingdom and Name,; and after so believing been immersed "into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Having made this good beginning, we regard such as being "sealed in their foreheads;" as "the servants of the Deity;" as being in Christ, by whom they are covered over as with a white robe, circumcised with his circumcision, and pardoned for all sins committed to the time of their immersion. We recognize no immersion as the "One Baptism," the subject of which has not been previously enlightened in the "One Faith" and the "One Hope of the Calling." We regard all enlightened believers of the gospel of the kingdom, who have been immersed, as "citizens of the Commonwealth of Israel," whose symbols are the square of twelve, as previously explained. During the absence of Christ, we hold these in all ages and generations, by whatsoever name they may be called, to be "the Israel of the Deity," "the Temple of the Deity," and "the Holy City;" and none else.

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Furthermore, we hold, that all such immersed believers are "the workmanship of the Deity," and the "taught of him;" not by Augustinian "sovereign grace," which is the mere epidemic infection of the apostasy; but by the formative power of "the truth as it is in Jesus," studied and understood. We hold, that the knowledge of this is renewing after the Christ-image of the Deity; and sufficient to make them partakers in his moral nature, without which no one can see him in peace and safety.

But, while we believe that we are justified by faith from all past sins in the act of putting on the Christ-robe by immersion, we hold that those only of the immersed will be saved in the kingdom of the Deity, who "by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honor, and incorruptibility and life." In other words all the baptized "who walk after the flesh shall die" the Second Death.

We reject as pure heathenism, the dogmas taught by the clergy, and popularly assented to, on the topics of heaven, hell, souls, and the devil. We hold, that the Roman Catholic Church is "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the earth;" and that all the Names and Denominations of the Fourth Beast dominion, vulgarly styled "Christendom," which practice infant sprinkling, or sanction the immersion of sinners ignorant, and therefore, faithless, of the truth, are "the Harlots and Abominations" - the "Names of Blasphemy of which the scarlet-colored beast is full" (Apoc. 17:3). In the days of Donatus and his brethren, the apostasy had not expanded itself into that ample development with which we are but too familiar. Like the malarious upas, it infects and deadens every thing beneath its shade. We repudiate it in all its details of theory and practice, as irremediably corrupt, and fit only for capture and destruction by the hand of Deity - by Christ and the Saints. Hence we reject all its institutions - its baptisms, "sacraments," ordinations, consecrations, unctions, and so forth, as null and void, profane, polluting, and of no avail. We detest the system even to nausea, and "spue it out of our mouths."

But, while words sufficiently significant fail to express our utter detestation of the hideous spectacle of spiritual rottenness, which seethes and festers in dying putrefaction on every side, we have nothing but kindness in our hearts towards the persons of our contemporaries. We thunder in their ears, and flash before their eyes, the sharp, bright, and rattling words of plain unvarnished truth, to awake them, if it be possible, from that deep sleep, which numbs them with the potency of death. We urge upon our fellow men, that unless they be sealed with the Pentecostian Faith, they cannot be saved. The preaching of the

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351 EEXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE

clergy and ministers of the day, is a mere darkening of counsel by words without knowledge. They preach "another Jesus, another Spirit, and another Gospel," than Paul preached; and upon such, though the preachers might come direct from heaven, he imprecates a curse; and proscribes them from the fold of Christ as deceitful workers, transforming themselves into his apostles; but really like their master Satan, who long since transformed himself into an angel of light, mere ministers of righteousness in outward show (Gal. 1:8; 2 Cor. 11:4,13).

We therefore invite all who have ears, to lend their ears to what the Spirit hath said of old to the children of men. We are all by nature and practice dead in trespasses and sins, and therefore the children of wrath. Made subject to vanity, but not willingly, the Deity commiserates our helplessness, and invites us into his favor. Why should we not, as the Anglican Harlot in her "Common Prayer" expresses it, "renounce the Devil and all his works;" and in so doing, renounce her and all her sister-prostitutes; whose touch uncleansed, defiles to hopeless exclusion from the Virgin Community of the Holy Square (Apoc. 14:4). "Come out of them, my people, that ye partake not of their sins, and receive not of their plagues, for, if ye partake of the one there is no escape from the infliction of the other Be sealed then in your foreheads with the truth, and henceforth walk no more as others walk, in the vanity of their minds, having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts

II. "After these Things."

The eighth verse of ch. 7 concludes the section which treats of the "seaIing; and the ninth verse begins a new section of the prophecy, yet not unconnected with the former, with the words meta tauta, which in the Common Version are inaccurately rendered "after this." The correct translation is "after these things." It is the same phrase with which the chapter opens; and there it is properly rendered; but why it is not similarly given in v. 9, it is not easy to divine.

The reader is referred to ch. 7:9, at the beginning of our chapter. There he will see in ver. 9 that John says, he saw "a great multitude" all of them assembled in a general convention before the Lamb; or, as Paul expresses it in 2 Thess. 2:1, "our gathering together unto our Lord Jesus Christ," as "the Glorious and Fearful Name, YAHWEH ELOHIM" (Deut 28:58) The multitude, John says, no one is competent to compute. It is the multitude of "the redeemed from among men, the first-fruits unto the Deity and to the Lamb" (ch. 14:4) the incorruptible and deathless seed promised to Abraham, who should be countless as

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the stars (Gen. 15:5). This human incompetency for the calculation shows that the number 144,000 is not the real, but only the representative, number of the redeemed. Every saved individual of the unknown number redeemed will be one of the 144,000 sealed ones; he will be an element of the 144 cubits; which embrace within their limits the 144,000 furlongs; for these are the square of the root within which the innumerable multitude is enclosed.

"After these things;" but how long after the sealing in the days of "Donatus the Great," till A.D. 395, before what John saw in vision, shall be seen in fact? The answer to this question is not here expressed in time how long. The time when is indicated by certain characteristics of the great multitude beheld. These are signified by the words, "having been clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." The word clothed is in the perfect participle passive, showing that when they shall be seen in fact, in the palm-bearing attitude, they will have been raised to the divine nature, as Christ now is. This is the pure, incorruptible, and spotless, white robe which they receive who, in a doctrinal and moral sense, have, in the present state, "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." The scene is postadventual and postresurrectional; and furthermore, it belongs to the epoch when the resurrected shall celebrate their first Feast of Tabernacles. This is indicated by their having "palms in their hands; for palm-bearing belongs to the celebration of that festival in type and antitype. Let us look, then, for a little at the

12. Feast of Tabernacles

Israel were commanded to keep their annual feasts: first, the Feast of Unleavened Bread; second, the Feast of Harvest: and third, the Feast of Ingathering, at the end of the year. The first began the day after the Passover; the second, fifty days from the morrow after the first Sabbath following the passover; and the third, the fifteenth day of the seventh month. This last was the Feast of Tabernacles. It continued seven days, and was so called, because Yahweh "made the children of Israel to dwell in tents when he brought them out of the land of Egypt." It celebrated the ingathering of the fruit of Israel's land; and when the seven days of celebration had expired, the next day, the Eighth, was a Sabbath, or Day of Rest. In the celebration, they took the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and rejoiced before Yahweh their Elohim.

Now, we learn from the prophets that the Feast of Tabernacles had a more recondite signification than a mere memorial of the past. In other words, that it was emblematic of things to come in relation to

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Israel and the nations of the earth. The Spirit said by Hosea to Ephraim, "I, Yahweh thine Elohim from the land of Egypt, will yet make thee to dwell in Tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast." This shows that it is connected with the ingathering of Ephraim or the Ten Tribes, into their land, where alone the feast can be lawfully celebrated. The Christ-Spirit also in Zechariah, declares that the nations generally shall come up yearly to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and to do homage to the Royal Name enthroned there (ch. 14:16). This indicates the ingathering of a joyous multitude before the King; for the feast is a rejoicing before the Lord. The sanguinary execution of judgment will have been perfected; and the nations under a new organization and administration, will be "blessed in Abraham and his Seed" - "the Glorious and Fearful Name, Yahweh Elohim."

This great national celebration, of the Feast of Tabernacles, then, argues the previous cessation of judgment; and consequently the resting of the Saints from their labors in the execution of it. There will be no festive rejoicings while the events symbolized in ch 14 are in manifestation; neither will there be any national rejoicing which is not celebrative of their glory. When Jesus and his Brethren, the incorporation of the Eternal Father's Spirit, the Yahweh-Elohim Name "rest from their labors," they do so because they have "gotten the victory over the Beast, and over the Image, and over his Mark, and over the number of his name" (ch. 15:2). Israel, whom they will have gathered into their own land, and the, nations, will all rejoice with them in this great victory of the day a victory, pregnant with political, social, and moral results, which only Omnipotence could gain. Never before will such a Feast of Tabernacles have been observed. World's Fairs, and Fourths of Julys, and the Birthdays of Queens and Washingtons, will fall into eternal insignificance and oblivion before it. "The First in War, the First in Peace, and the First in the hearts" of the peoples will not be these idols of the heathen, but the Lamb in the midst this great palm-bearing multitude, which will make the welkin ring with their "Hallelu-YAHS," ascribing, "the salvation to him who sits upon the throne of our Deity, and to the Lamb!" The ELOHIM of this celebration will be the stars of divers magnitudes, represented by "the Elders and the Four Living Ones," who themselves fall prostrate before the throne and worship the Deity, saying, "Amen: Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might unto our Deity for the aions of the aions," or during the Millennium and beyond, "Amen!" These palm-bearing ELOHIM are the goodly trees, the palm trees, the fig trees, and the willows of the brook' the Trees of Righteousness, whose leaves are unfading; "the planting

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of Yahweh on either side of the pure river of water of life clear as crystal;" the great forest of evergreens filling the earth with their perfume, to the glory of his Name (Isa. 61:3; Psa. 1:3; Apoc. 22:1,2).

But, before they could figure, as stately palm trees in the concourse of nations, they had to "drink of the brook by the way." In this relation of things they were "willows of the brook;" and this is the reason why afterwards, they exalt their heads above the peoples in this great Feast of Tabernacles, as lofty palms. The Captain of their salvation who leads them to glory, was himself once "a willow of the brook" - a weeping willow - 'a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." As the Christ-Spirit in David predicted in Psa. 110:7, concerning David's Son and Lord, so it was verified in Jesus - "he drank of the brook by the way, THEREFORE he shall exalt the head:" "He was obedient unto death, therefore he was crowned with glory and honor." But, in the scene before us, though like their chief, they had been "willows of the brook," John did not see them bearing willow boughs. He saw them only with "palms in their hands." Had he seen willows in their hands instead of palms it would have indicated that they were still a suffering community.

That they had been a community of sufferers in a former state, is certain by the question put to John, and answered by the Elder He asked John, who the palm-bearers were, and whence they came? To which John replied, "Sire, thou hast known" - kurie, su oidas. He knew experimentally, for he was one of them; inasmuch as the elders and living ones are representative of the whole company of the redeemed. "These are they," said he, "who came out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb." Out of the great tribulation which precedes their resurrection from the dead. And, because they held fast the Name and the Faith, and defiled not their garments, and were faithful unto death; "therefore they are before the throne of the Deity, and serve him day and night in His temple." Yahweh Elohim the almighty, is the temple, even the Lamb (ch. 21:22): being, therefore, constituents of Yahweh Elohim, they are living stones of the temple, and serving the Father continually, "who hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their Deity, and they shall be my people" (2 Cor. 6:16):and because it is so written, the Elder added, "and he that is sitting on he throne shall pitch his tent over them. They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun," with which the Woman was clothed, "smite them, nor any heat," or oppression. 'Because the Lamb in the very midst of the throne shall tend them, and lead them to living fountains of waters, and the Deity shall wipe

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away every tear from their eyes."

From these considerations the reader may, perhaps, be able to see," that this seventh chapter of the apocalypse presents before him two great epochs, with a long intervening period of tribulation extending from the one to the other. The first is the epoch of the sealing, ending A.D. 395; the last, the epoch of the festive celebration of the ingathering of the world's fruit unto Yahweh Elohim, marked, probably, by the joyful observance of the first Feast of Tabernacles (for the feast will be celebrated annually) A.D. 1908 (*). "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit" (Isa. 27:6). This, with the gathering together of the saints unto Christ, is the fruit, the ingathering of which is then celebrated.

13. The Intervening Period

The interval, therefore, is long, 1513 years elapsing between the end of the sealing scene, and the manifestation of the "great multitude' as palm-bearers.

The reader, however, is not to suppose, that there was no sealing of servants for the Deity in their foreheads after A.D. 395. The sealing continued in all subsequent generations, and will continue until the Ancient of Days comes; when "the door will be shut," and entrance into his presence as a glorified constituent of the Royal Name, will be denied to every applicant (Matt. 25:1-13). In the chapter before us, the initial and terminal epochs only were exhibited to John, the first described in the first eight verses; the last in the concluding nine; the interval being about to be unfolded in symbolic detail in other scenic representations. The sealing and the palm-bearing are two piers, from which springs an aionial arch, which bridges over the times of the trumpets, vials, and seven thunders; and consequently spans the aion of the Woman in the wilderness; the partly contemporary aions of the two witnesses, the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth, the Imperial Image; and the aion of the judgment of the Scarlet-colored Beast and its drunken ecclesiastical rider. When all these aions, or cycles, have described their appointed circuits, we shall have traversed the grand aionial arch; and have reached the festive celebration which introduces the nations to the Eighth Day of Holy Convocation - the Millennial Sabbatism, or Rest, that remains for the people of the Deity (Heb. 4:9).

(*) See note on chronology p.10.

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Chapter 8

II. THE SEVENTH SEAL OPENED

This seal covers the whole period from A.D. 324 to A.D. 1908, an interval of 1584 years. It therefore exhibits the judgments specially allotted to the seven trumpets, seven vials, and seven thunders.

It treats of the development of the Imperialized Laodicean Apostasy into 'the Powers that be" of the Greco-Latin, or Roman Habitable, under the forms of the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth (Apoc. 13), the Scarlet-colored Beast and Drunken Babylonian Rider (Apoc. 17:1-6), and the Image of the Beast (Apoc. 13:14-18; 15:2); and of the relation of these powers to the Fugitive Woman, and to the Remnant of her Seed, "who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Apoc. 12:17). They are prevailed against; (Apoc. 13:7; 11:2; Dan. 7:21); but the Ancient of Days comes to their relief; the tide of adversity is turned; the Saints become victorious; the Apostasy, incorporated in the blasphemous Names and Denominations of 'Christendom" is abolished; and they take possession of the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven (Dan. 7:27) of Daniel's Four Beasts.

ARENA OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

"The earth and the whole habitable" (Apoc. 16:14), or, Territory of Nebuchadnezzar's Metallic Image.

TRANSLATION

Apoc. 8

1. And when he opened the Seventh Seal, silence ensued in the heaven about half an hour.

2. And I saw the seven angels, who stood in the sight of the Deity, and seven trumpets had been given to them.

3. And another angel came, and stood by the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him many odors, that he might cast for the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which is in the sight of the throne. 4. And the smoke of the perfumes for the prayers of the saints ascended from the hand of the angel in the presence of the Deity. 5. And the angel took the censer, and filled it from the fire of the altar, and cast into the earth, and there were voices and thunders and lightnings, and an earthquake.

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6. And the seven angels having the seven trumpets prepared themselves that they might sound.

7. And the first angel sounded, and there was hail and fire which had been mingled with blood, and it was cast into the earth: and the third of the earth and the third of the trees was consumed, and every green blade was burned up.

8. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire, was cast into the sea; and the third of the sea became blood. 9. And the third of the creatures in the sea having souls, died; and the third of the ships was destroyed.

10. And the third angel sounded, and a great star blazing as it were a torch fell out of the heaven; and it fell upon the third of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters.

11. And the name of the star is called the Apsinthian; and the third of the waters became undrinkable; and many of the men died out of the waters, because they were made bitter.

12. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third of the sun, and the third of the moon, and the third of the stars, was smitten; so that the third of them was darkened, and the day shone not the third of it, and the night likewise.

13. And I saw, and heard from one, an eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying in a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe, to the dwellers upon the earth, from the remaining voices of the trumpet-call of the three angels hereafter to sound."

EXPOSITION

1. Silence in the Heaven

John was informed, that the opening of the seventh seal would be marked by silence coming into existence in the heaven egeneto sige en to ourano. This implies, that before the opening of the seventh seal there was the absence of silence; in other words, that there was noise or tumult in the heaven. The uproar must have been very great, from the fact, that the silence ensuing was deemed worthy of prophetic annunciation. When we are reminded of the events of the sixth seal, there is no difficulty in conceiving the nature of the uproar. The "great red Dragon" of paganism was then in the heaven, and the Michael-Power also. These were two antagonist forces which could not dwell together in unity: so war broke out between them, and they contended for the throne of Deity in the heaven. And so it is written. "There was war in the heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was a place found of them still in the heaven" (ch. 12:7,8).

This expulsion of the Pagan Dragon-Power from the heaven left the Michael-Power sole occupant of the throne in the heaven; so that

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the final victory over the Dragon-Power placed the Michael-Chieftain, who was the new born Son of the Woman, upon the apocalyptic throne of the Deity, to which he had been "caught up" by a career of conquest during eighteen years, in which he never lost a battle. Being therefore, only one supreme power in the heaven, all uproar between powers in the heaven would necessarily cease, and "silence" would ensue. Hence, "silence in the heaven" was peace in the political aerial - the stillness and quietude of a calm after one storm; and before the outburst of another. As one of the idol-poets of the heathen sings:

'Twas as we often see against some storm,

A silence in the heavens; the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless, and the orb below

As hush as death: anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the regions. *

The "silence in the heaven" then, was a period of tranquillity in the region of government, extending from the terminus of the sixth seal, signalized by the decisive battle of Chrysopolis, A.D. 324; and reaching to "the voices," which resulted from the "fire cast into the earth," by the Angel-Priest of the Apocalyptic Temple (ver. 5). Between these two epochs, the reign of the conqueror was undisturbed by rivals or usurpers; and he was enabled to bequeath to his own family the inheritance of the Roman world. "The general peace," says Gibbon, "which he maintained during the last fourteen years of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable views of rapaciousness and prodigality." Having no competitor to dispute his authority, he might have been the happiest of rulers, but for the corrupting influence of prosperity; and the quarrels of the Arian (*) and Trinitarian factions of his new religion. He condescended to beseech these ignorant fanatics not to disturb the general tranquillity of the times. "The favor which I seek," said he, "is that you examine the causes of division, and bring the controversy to a close, and that you thus restore peace and unanimity among yourselves; so that I may triumph with you over our enemy the Devil, who excited this internal strife because he was provoked to see our external enemies subdued and trampled upon beneath our feet" - as symbolized by "the moon under the Woman's feet." While then, there was silence in the___________________

* Hamlet Act 2, Sc. 2

* The Arians believed in one God whereas the creed of Athanasius proclaimed the doctrine of the Trinity. Arians were opposed to Athanasians but failed to comprehend the doctrine of God manifest in Christ. Those whom the author of Eureka styles "the saints" were opposed to both Arians and Athanasians in that they understood and proclaimed the essential doctrine of God manifestation ----------HPM

.

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government, there was uproar in the Church characterized by every evil work, which at length became the cause of the providentially retributive "voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and earthquake" which preceded the preparation of the angels to whom the sounding of the seven trumpets was assigned (ver. 6).

2. Half an Hour

Tranquillity reigned in the newly constituted government of the Roman Dragon hos hemiorion, about half an hour. This is symbolic time, or time in miniature. The apocalypse in the general is a miniature representation of an original conception of Divine Wisdom, which, when manifested in the accomplished facts will vastly exceed in magnitude the terms in which the conception is expressed. Hence, all its particulars partake of this general character, as parts partake of the nature of the whole. Thus, in respect of number, the 144,000 is a miniature representation of an undefined multitude vastly in excess of that numerical square of twelve thousand; and in respect of person, an angel represents a class of agents; so also it is with time; the times of the apocalypse are upon a miniature, but proportional scale; and suited to the nature of the subject in hand.

The longest period in the apocalypse in reference to the affairs of the saints is 1,260. It is transferred from the book of Daniel, ch. 7:25, and 12:7, where it is given in the formula "a time, times, and the dividing of time." This formula is itself reproduced in Apoc. 12:14, as representative of the period during which the Fugitive Woman was to be nourished in the two wings of the Great Eagle. The question, how should these "times" be expressed in figures? is answered in the sixth verse of this chapter, where the period of the nourishing or feeding is stated at 1260 days. This, therefore, gives us certainty, that "a time, times, and the dividing of time" is a period equal to 1260.

This 1260 is a whole number constituting the numerical expression of the aion or cycle pertaining to the saints, in their hostile relations to that blasphemous power into whose hands they were to be given (Dan. 7:21-25; Apoc. 13:6).

The shorter times of the apocalypse are proportional parts of 1260; which is itself the half of 2520, or SEVEN TIMES, allotted to "the Kingdom of Men," styled by Paul, "the powers that be." Between these and the saints in Christ Jesus, there was to be war. The saints were to be overcome till their aion expired; and then they are to conquer, and their conquest will be complete, when the aion of "the Powers that be," the 2520, shall be full (Dan. 4:16,23). The apocalypse has to do with the second half of the 2520; the former half in the first

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six centuries and half of it pertaining to Israel according to the flesh exclusively; and in its last six centuries, to the faithful in Christ in their conflict with paganism and catholicism before the legal and constitutional establishment of POPERY. The second, or latter, half of the 2520, is the aion of the saints running parallel with popery; and terminating with the manifestation era of the Ancient of Days, or Time of the End, which ends with the end of the 2520.

But, what are these Seven Times of 2520? Are they so many of what the Gentile speculators term 'literal days" of twenty-four hours each; or literal years? When we consider the subject of which the 2520 is the aion, or cycle, we shall see that it can only be a cycle of years. It is the Cycle of a Tree representing the loftiness and extension of the Kingdom of Men. This umbrageous dominion existed in great glory; and was symbolized by the majesty of Babylon, styled, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, 'the house of the Kingdom." Nebuchadnezzar being the reigning monarch, was the representative for the time then present of this Tree-Dominion, as was Cyrus after him; and Alexander the Great many years after Cyrus. Over this kingdom 2520 were to pass in the line of its gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay dynastic constitutions. What happened to Nebuchadnezzar was typical of what should happen to the Tree. He was hewn down from his loftiness, deprived of reason, and made to herd with the beasts for 2520 "literal days," or seven times of days. This was the sign, or type; and a sign, in its times, persons, actions, &c., always represents something, analogous indeed, but different from itself. According to the sign, then, so it was to come over the kingdom of men, at that time overshadowing the nations to the end of the earth, like a tree whose height reached to heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth. Its loftiness was to be hewn down, as it was by Cyrus; but it was not then to be uprooted: the stump of its roots was to continue in the earth, banded with iron and brass; and 2520 was to pass over it. Now the Kingdom of Men undeniably exists in our time; and has continuously existed from the days of Nebuchadnezzar, who began his reign over it about 2478 years ago. It is now the Stump banded with a Greco-Latin band; and will continue so banded until it shall have been completely eradicated by Christ and the saints at the end of 2520.

The reader will perceive, then, that the Kingdom of Men being the subject to be passed over by the 2520, the limitation of this period to "literal days" is out of the question. It can only signify 2520 years; and this being so, the 1260 of the apocalypse, being the latter half of it, must be years also.

But this apocalyptic aion of 1,260 years is expressed in months as

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well as days. Divided by 30, the number of units in the twelfth of a time, the product is 42. These,, in Apoc. 11:2, and 13:5, are termed "forty-two months," during which the saints, or Holy City, are trodden under foot by the Gentiles of the unmeasured court, and symbolized in their civil and ecclesiastical constitution by the Beast of the Sea and his Mouth of Blasphemy. By this example, we learn, that a symbolic month is equal to 30 years.

Now, a moon or month is the twelfth of a cycle. If the cycle be of 360 days, it will be 30 days; but if the cycle be of 360 years then the month will be 30 years. Month is used six times in the prophecy; twice in the singular. Except in Apoc. 22:2, it always stands for 30 years, or the twelfth of a time.

Being, then, the twelfth of a cycle, it is also the Hour of that cycle The small cycle of light, called a day, which is the root of all the greater' cycles, was divided by the Jews into twelve equal parts; and the night into other twelve. If they had divided their day-cycle into twenty-four hours, as we do, a month and an hour would not be equivalent. But their division, which is the scriptural one, makes a month and an hour representative of twelfths of a whole to be determined by the subject treated of. In Apoc. 9:15 there is a notable proportional use of a symbolic hour, day, month, and year. Here hour is proportional of day; and month similarly proportional of year. The nature of the subject excludes the idea of day signifying a day, and "year" signifying 365 days, or year; besides that symbolic time, which is time in miniature, always represents time longer than itself. Here, "day" stands for year; and "year for a term of years; so that the "hour" is the twelfth of the "day" or 30 days; and the "month," the twelfth of the "year," or time of years, and therefore equal to 30 years.

This is the only place in the apocalypse where hour stands for thirty days. It occurs in seven other places after this; but in all these it stands alone, and represents a judicial period of thirty years, or the twelfth of a time.

But, in ch. 8:1, are we to understand the Half-hour, as fifteen days or fifteen years? or, as the literalist theory of thirty minutes? The literalist notion is too ridiculous for a serious refutation. A silence of fifteen days would be no novelty, or new thing to predict; for during the uproarious period of the sixth seal, there were many "fifteen days" of silence; but there was no "silence in the heaven as it were fifteen years. ' This was peculiar to the opening of the Seventh Seal We conclude, then, that the half-hour in the text and it is the only half hour specified in the New Testament, is a period of fifteen years. The silence continued about that time. It may have fallen a little short. If it

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had been written in the text egeneto sige hemiorion, silence ensued half an hour, then we should expect to find that it continued exactly fifteen years; but the insertion of hos, about, before hemiorion, leads us to expect the probability of the silence not being prolonged to the full measure of half an hour. What, then, is the

3. Historical Testimony

In the case? It is that the decisive battle that ejected the "Great Red Dragon" out of the heaven, in which he had been carrying on war against the Michael-Power, was fought at Scutari, or Chrysopolis, A.D. 324. '"By this victory of Constantine," says Gibbon, "the Roman world was again united under the authority of one emperor, thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and provinces with his associate Maximin." Constantine reigned after this battle till A.D. 337, in which he died on May 22. This gives a little over thirteen years to his death. But to these thirteen years there are four months to be added, as the silence continued so long after the emperor's death. It may, therefore, be said that the silence was unbroken for nearly fourteen years. As I have already quoted, Gibbon characterizes the last fourteen years of Constantine's reign as peaceful; "the general peace," says he, "which he maintained during the last fourteen years of his reign." I cannot, however, make it quite so long. If he is correct, then, it would be over fourteen, and in the fifteenth year of silence to the first voice. At all events, the silence in the heaven" fell short of the full half-hour, by some months. It was therefore as the text declares, not exactly, but "about half an hour."

4. The Apocalyptic Temple

The sealing of the 144,000 being inaugurated at the opening of the Seventh Seal, by which sealing process the Spirit "spued out of his mouth" the Laodicean Catholicism of the Nikolaitans of the day - the Anuses, Athanasiuses, Eusebiuses, Lactantiuses, and their coreligionists of the fourth century - the Temple, or Tabernacle of the Deity, in which he would condescend to sojourn upon the earth, must be sought for in connexion with a community to which these ecclesiastics, whether Arian or Athanasian, were opposed.

The reader will understand that during that Half-hour Period of the Seventh Seal, there were Two TEMPLES in the Greco-Latin, or Roman, world. They were two hostile establishments which would tolerate no fellowship between their respective members. The one was constituted of all who styled one another Arians and Athanasians; of all who professed a religion of sacraments; worshipped the ghosts of

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PAGE 363 PICTURES OF COINS NOT COPIED BY SCANNER

~ Constantius is portrayed entering London in the year 296 as Caesar he was responsible for Spain, Gaul and Britain He was the father of Constantine

Maxentius, the ruler defeated by Constantine at the battle of Milvian Bridge just outside Rome (312). Just before this battle, he claimed to have seen the cross superimposed on the sun - thus his veneration of Sol Invictus the Sun god and toleration of Christianity. He treated the sun an the Christian God as one. As late as 318 he was issuing coins with the legend Sol Invictus Comes Augusti, and his edict enforced Sun day as a day of rest. His victory resulted in his domination of Rome, capital of the Empire.

Licinius for a time shared the rule of the Empire with Constantine but was in turn defeated and ousted at Chrysopolis in 323. This left Constantine in sole command. On 18 Sept., 324 Constantine crossed the Bosphorus to receive the submission of Byzantium, which two years later he commenced to rebuild. He renamed it New Rome, or Constantinople as it came to be called

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martyrs; venerated relics; practised celibacy and monarchism; commanded to abstain from meats; and gloried in their alliance with the State. This was the temple in which Paul in 2 Thess. 2:4, predicted "the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition," would appear. That he would set himself up above all that is called god, or a power to which homage is paid; and that as a supreme power he would sit in the Temple of the Power, showing himself that he is a supreme power or god. The nucleus of this power had just been born, as the Man-child of the Catholic Woman; and, although an unbaptized emperor, sat in the temple and exhibited himself there as the supreme power, or god. He presided in the Nicene and other Councils, and made laws for his church; and punished with severe pains and penalties those who conscientiously refused submission to his decrees. He was constituted "Head of the Church," and determined all matters of discipline; and acted in all respects as the spiritual vicegerent of the Deity. He confiscated the buildings in which the Donatists assembled; and sent many of them into banishment, which he ultimately revoked. He ordered the observance of martyr-festivals; dedicated churches with great solemnity; preached discourses in them; ordered the sacred observance of Sunday, to which he added that of Friday also, as the week-day of the crucifixion; and taught the soldiers of his army to pray by a form made for their use. But, sound principle being wanting, all this was mere superstition. His sermons had as little scriptural teachings of the truth, as those of the clerical speculators of our own time; they were rhetorical and indistinct, so that no determinate propositions can be extracted from them. He was the living incarnation of the spirit inhabiting the temple in which he sat enthroned. The worst of Constantine's character came out in the half-hour of this seal. "The conclusion of his reign" says Gibbon, "degraded him from the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the Roman princes. In the life of Constantine, we contemplate a hero, who had long inspired his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. An impartial narrative of the executions, or rather murders, which sullied his declining years, will suggest to our most candid thoughts, the idea of a prince who could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of his interest."

Such was the Imperial Bishop of the Catholic Temple, in which superstition and self righteousness flourished vigorously; while "the truth as it is in Jesus" was utterly unknown, or disregarded. The

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PAGE 365 POCTURES OF COINS NOT COPIED BY SCANNER

The medallion, (left) issued by Constantine depicts the Emperor on one side, his left shoulder covered by a shield on which can be seen the wolf and Twins; his right hand holds the bridle of a horse, and behind a shield is a standard. On the imperial helmet in front of the plume is a Christogram. The reverse side shows the Emperor addressing his cavalry. The detail of the helmet indicates the dual commitment of Constantine to both Sol the sun god, and Christ. The standard visible behind Constantine's shield recurs later as a specifically Christian object.

The medallion,(right)- This coin depicts an early form of the imperial "labarum", the standard adopted by Constantine. It is significant that the standard is depicted as being thrust into a serpent. See Apoc. 12:9,15.

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patience of Deity, however, waited until about the end of the half-hour, when he began to visit upon the family of Constantine, "voices and thunderings and lightnings and earthquake," in retribution of his crimes against the guiltless, his spiritual usurpation, and his blasphemy against heaven.

But, in opposition to all this, the Deity was building for himself a habitation, in which his Word should be enthroned. Illustrative of this, we may remark, that Paul, in writing to the ecclesia of saints in Corinth, says in I Cor. 4:15, 'I have begotten you in Christ Jesus through the gospel." This was the prime agent of their introduction into Christ - the gospel ministered by the apostle; so that when, through a hearty belief of it, they came to be immersed for the putting on of him in whom they believed, he says to them in I Cor. 12:13, "By one Spirit are we all immersed into One Body, whether Jews or Gentiles." The many members of this One Body being all the servants of the Deity sealed in their foreheads by the gospel, the apostle tells them in I Cor. 3 that they are "a building of Deity;" "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the foundation-corner; in whom, all the building fitly framed together groweth into a HOLY TEMPLE in the Lord; in whom ye are builded together into a Habitation of the Deity through spirit," or the truth (Eph. 2:20).

Thus, "the Deity dwelleth not in temples," or "churches," "made with hands," but in a Holy Temple built by the formative power of the truth understood, believed, and obeyed. Every stone of this temple is living, and precious, and bought at the high price of the blood of Jesus Christ. Peter says, they are "lively stones built up a spiritual house," or temple (1 Pet. 2:5; and in 2 Cor. 6:16), Paul repeats the idea, saying to the true believers, "Ye are the temple of the living Deity." After such plain and pointed declarations as these, no one being acquainted with them, and comprehending them, can possibly believe, that the temples of the "religious world," whether the term be affirmed of a name, or denomination, or of all names and denominations collectively, or of cathedrals, churches, chapels, and conventicles, - are temples of the Deity. These are none of his buildings. The impress of his workmanship is upon none of them; and therefore in none of them doth he reside, either by the truth, or spiritual gift.

The temples styled by the clericals "Houses of God," are what Daniel's prophecy denominates mii'tzahrai mahuzzim, "Bazaars of the Guardians;" or ecclesiastical edifices dedicated to angels and the ghosts of saints, which are regarded in the mystery of spiritual sorcery, as "guardian spirits," or protectors of those who honor them. In these

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church-bazaars are deposited 'sacred" images and pictures of' saints

They are Demon-Temples, wherein are placed shrines for the repose of relics, supposed to have belonged to the demon, or ghost, when a dweller upon earth; also silver, gold, and ivory crucifixes; old bones, and divers junk-store odds and ends; and various kinds of votive trumpery. They are literally "dens of thieves," without ever having been houses of the Father - dens where people are robbed of their money under divers false pretenses. They are places where pews are sold by auction, the proudest sittings being knocked down to Mammon's greatest favorites; places where fairs of vanity and deceit are beheld for "pious objects;" and where spiritual empirics pretend to "cure souls" in consideration of so much per annum. In view of these facts, the scriptural epithet bestowed upon the ecclesiastical edifices of the Apostasy is most appropriate. They are truly Bazaars of spiritual merchandize; and the prospering craft, "the great men of the earth" made rich by trading in their wares, are the Bazaar-men who extort all kinds of goods from their customers by putting them in fear, and comforting them with counterfeits upon some fictitious bank in the world to come. They "buy and sell" under license from the Ecclesiastical Power, having received its mark in their right hand or in their foreheads, or the name of the beast, or the number of its name (Apoc. 13:16,17). The catalogue of their merchandize is exhibited in Apoc.18:12,13. Among the articles of trade are tithes, bodies,(*) and souls of men. But the trade of those soul-merchants is in any thing but a satisfactory state at present. Great numbers of their customers have discovered that the profit is all on one side; nor are they backward in proclaiming that when a favorable opportunity presents they will break up the iniquitous concern, and make the cheats disgorge their unhallowed gains. This will be a sad day, a day of universal bankruptcy for the weeping and wailing merchants of "Babylon the Great" - the temple of the Man of Sin; "for no man buyeth their merchandize any more." When the man's trade is thus broken up, nothing but ruin stares the shattered tradesman in the face. This is the fate that awaits the preachers of all the gospels of the Bazaars - gospels other than Paul preached, and which leave men in ignorance and disobedience; gospels which make them zealous partisans of human crotchets and traditions; and the apologists of anything sincerely professed as a

(*) How remarkably is this illustrated in the trade carried on by "ministers of religion in dead bodies!" They "consecrate" their bazaars, or a piece of ground for the burial of the dead. having provided these "holy" receptacles, they persuade their dupes that not to be buried there, is to have the burial of a dog or a heathen. This causes the bodies of the dead to be brought to them for religious burial which they perform for a sum of money expressed, or understood. Thus they trade in bodies.

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substitute for the truth.

It is a remarkable characteristic of this designation, that the bazaars for priestly and clerical wares, are distinguished from houses or stores of fair and honorable trade, by the word Mauzzim, being styled Bazaars of Mauzzim. When jewelers, bakers, hardwaremen and such like, open stores, they emblazon their signs with their own names; but when the clergy open houses for the sale of their "spiritual things," they impose upon the ignorant public the idea that the houses belong to the apostles, and to those whom the apostles fellowshipped as saints and brethren! They make their dupes believe that these ancient christian worthies are not dead, but alive in heaven, and greatly interested in human affairs, especially in church-edifices, and the spiritual things vended therein by clerical and ministerial auctioneers! Hence, they put their statues in niches and on parapets, and make them presents of the "sacred buildings" in dedicating them, as is clear from the names they bear; as the "church of the Holy Apostles," and St. Sophia, at Constantinople, St. Peter's at Rome, Our Lady's at Paris, St. Paul's at London, New York, and Richmond, and so forth, in all cities and countries of the Gentiles. The grossness of the imposition, however, is not confined merely to the dedication of their auction-rooms to nonentities as if really in being; but, while they give them to their alleged "departed spirits," they will not permit the gospel the apostles preached, and the institutions they ordained, to be announced within their walls; but perversely persist in excluding it, and in making it of none effect by their vain and foolish traditions. But the whole system is a cheat, and a very profitable one for the present to those that live by it. It is ecclesiastical craft caused to prosper by the civil and military power; witness Rome, for instance, in the occupation of the French; what would become of church-craft, if the military power of France were withdrawn? Nay, what would become of it anywhere, but for the protection of the State? But this is emphatically the hour of church imposture and hypocrisy; which will certainly continue to prosper, until Israel's Commander shall appear; and by his energy cause the mightiness of the truth to prevail, to the disruption and annihilation of all unprofitable and lying vanities.

But to return. The temple of the Deity has no community of faith, interest, or practice with the spiritual bazaars of "the religious world." The apocalyptic temple is founded upon intelligence of the word, and is undefiled by the impostures and superstitions of the Apostasy. This is a temple the purity of which must be maintained, and he that defiles it by word or action will be certainly destroyed; as saith the apostle to the faithful in Christ Jesus, "If any man defile the temple of the Deity,

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him shall the Deity destroy; for the temple of the Deity is holy, which temple ye are (I Cor. 3:17).

Now this temple of the Deity is apocalyptically manifested in two states. In the first state, the "Tabernacle of the Testimony" alone is visible, and that not in the heaven, though in heaven in a certain sense (ch. 8:3; 13:6); but, in the second state, "the temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony" becomes visible; and its interior even is opened, and the Ark of the Covenant is seen therein; and the whole developed in the heaven (Apoc. 3:12; 11.19, 15 5, 21.22).

These apocalyptic temple states answer to the Altar-Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy within the Vail of the Mosaic Building. The apocalyptic Altar-Court and the Holy Place are what Paul styles in Eph. 1:3, "the Heavenlies in Christ." They are constituted of "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," who are partakers with the Altar, and worshippers therein (1 Cor. 9:13; 10:18; Heb. 13:10; Apoc. 11:1). An Ecclesia of Christ is, apocalyptically speaking, "the Altar and them that worship therein." They who constitute it have all been "cleansed in the Laver of the Water with doctrine;" and in passing through the water have passed into the Christ-Altar, and become one with it. When they die, they lie under the Altar, or "sleep in Jesus;" when they are slain for the word of the Deity and for their testimony, they are blo9d-souls under the Altar, crying for vengeance. But while they are living in the present state of tribulation and patience waiting for Christ, they are Altar-worshippers "having access by faith into" the heavenlies where Christ sits at the right hand 6f Power (Eph. 1:20; Rom. 5:2).

But, being constituents of the Altar, they are "a Holy Priesthood," consecrated for the purpose of "offering up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to the Deity through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). Now these sacrifices have to be offered both in the Altar-Court and in the Holy Place, where are the Bread and the Wine, and the ministry of the word, prayer, praise, and fellowship. As a community of priests, the faithful come together on the First Day of the Week, and in their session are manifested as a Heavenly; as a Holy Place; as the Tabernacle of the Testimony, "showing forth the praises of Him, who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light" ver. 9. In their ministrations and worship they stand, as it were an angel at the altar in the court, with the golden frankincense bowl of prayer. They are themselves this golden bowl, in which is much incense of prayers and praises, which they offer upon the golden altar. Their petitions and thanksgiving are kindled into odors of acceptable perfume by the fire taken from the altar of the court; and as constituents also of the golden altar of the Holy Place, the perfumes ascend before the Deity as it were

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PAGE 370 PICTURE NOT COPIED BY SCANNER

THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF CONSTANTINE NEAR THE COLOSSEUM, ROME

A monument to the changing times, the arch is famous for the inscription in the middle of the attica. An English translation reads: "To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine the Great pious, happy, Augustus, since he, inspired by the Godhead and by greatness of spirit, with his army, with lawful weapons and with one blow, avenged the State upon the enemy and upon his whole troop, the Senate and the Roman people dedicate this arch as a sign of his triumph."

The reference to the Godhead was a neutral expression acceptable to both pagans and Christians!

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out of the angel's hand.

The reader will perceive that we are now in view of the scene dramatically exhibited in ch. 8:3-5. In this the angel, the altar, the golden censer, and the golden altar, are all symbolical of one body -the temple of the Deity; or the saints in their spiritual apparatus of worship. They were the thousands being sealed in the half hour, whose prayers against Constantine and his Clergy, in their perversions of the truth and blasphemies against heaven, were answered when the half hour was about expiring, by the "voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquake," which retributively scourged their enemies, the family of the emperor, and the excessively corrupt and vicious Catholic Church. The answer to the prayers from the Divine Temple is dramatized by the angel filling the censer or frankincense bowl with fire of the altar of sacrifice and casting it into the earth. This scene indicates that the judgments inflicted upon the church-peoples or Gentiles of "Christendom" are in the interest of the true believers. In writing to these, Paul says, "All things are for your sakes" (2 Cor. 4:15). These voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and earthquake, were for the sake of those "whose prayers ascended before the Deity out of the angel's hand." The voices, and so forth, would work no harm to them, provided they "loved the Deity, and were the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). The sealed of the 144,000 Foursquare Community prayed, and, in so doing, sent up many perfumes from their burning hearts, which smoked before the Deity. In his presence is their Forerunner, the Head and Chief of their community, no longer like themselves, "compassed with infirmity," but perfected, and, as the Quickening Spirit, makes intercession for them according to the Divine Will (Rom. 8:26,27). He returned the answer to their prayers; for to him is given all power in heaven and in earth (Matt. 28:18). The judicial fire, therefore, went forth from the Christ-Altar, and kindled judgment upon the Arians and Athanasians of the Laodicean Apostasy, styled "the earth," illustrating the saying of Paul, "our Deity is a consuming fire."

The reader will observe that, during this half-hour of silence in the heaven in which the prayers of the sealed saints are odoriferously and fragrantly ascending, the Seven Angel-Trumpeters are standing inactive before Deity. They are represented, in ch. 8:2, as having received their trumpets, but they are not in the attitude of sounding. The powers they represent are quiescent; for, in ch. 7:1-3, four of them--the first four to sound were commanded not to operate until the sealing was effected to a due degree. They stand by, therefore, waiting during the half-hour of incense-burning, during the "voices, and

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thunders, and lightnings, and earthquake," and during all the years elapsing between the earthquake and the consummation of the sealing, when they "prepare themselves to sound" (ch. 8:6).

The temple and altar of the Deity are measured, which is equivalent to saying that the saints who constitute the temple and altar are measured. Their measurement is 144,000 furlongs, or 144 cubits. This is the "measurement of the Man, that is, of an Angel" (Apoc. 21:17). None are included in this measurement who are not in the Man, who have not believed into Christ, and are, consequently, not members of the One Body, which is the almighty angel or Messenger of the Apocalypse. All not of this measured community constitute "the Court which is without the temple." This is cast out unmeasured and given to the Gentiles (Apoc. 11:1,2) who, in relation to the temple of the Deity, are mere outside barbarians, "walking after the imaginations of their evil hearts." This ejected Court of the Gentiles is wholly occupied by those symbols of their civil and ecclesiastical organization, the beast of the sea, the beast of the earth, and the image, and the scarlet-colored beast and drunken woman that sits thereon. What are termed "the Names and Denominations of Christendom," all belong to this outside arena or court, reeking with pollution, and with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus (Apoc. 17:6). No fragrant perfumes ascend from this court before the Deity. It is the arena of "philosophy and vain deceit"' of "science falsely so-called;" of "voluntary humility and worshipping of angels;" of "ordinances after the commandments and doctrines of men, which are a mere show of wisdom in will-worship;" of vain heathen repetitions, in which they think they will be heard for much and loud speaking; of professional prayer-making and sermon-mongering; of "seducing spirits and teachings of demons, who speak lies in hypocrisy with a seared conscience, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats;" of pietistic riotings for religion-getting; it is the arena of all these abominations and blasphemies, and yet more than we have time or space to set forth. These are the pestiferous odors that ascend to heaven from this "court without the temple." They are a thick and heavy fog, too dense to transmit a ray of light from the anointing that shines within the Tabernacle of the Testimony. "Darkness," therefore, "covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples." The worship of this court, according to the rituals of the Greeks, Latins, and Teutons, is mere will-worship. The Deity has not required it of them; and that which he has required they will not observe to do. Catholics and Protestants, churchmen and dissenters, are all outer court worshippers of Deity "according to the dictates of their own consciences," not according to his appointment.

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Their worship, therefore, is vain, and not a spiritual sacrifice. "Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to the Deity through Jesus Christ," do not belong to this ejected outer court. Worship in spirit and in truth (and the Father-Spirit seeks only such (John 4:23,24) belongs exclusively to the Altar and Holy Place - to the Tabernacle of the Testimony. In this only are spiritual sacrifices offered according to the truth. The sacrifices of the Names and Denominations of the Outer Court are offensive abominations; for "the sacrifice and way and thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to Yahweh; he is far from them, and heareth not their prayer" (Prov. 15:8,9,26,29). And that they are wicked, though professors of piety, they themselves confess in their liturgy, saying "Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners! We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to do; and there is no health in us!" Miserable sinners in whom there is no health are unquestionably the wicked. The Outer-Court Church, or "Religious World," is constituted of the wicked; who confess that the charge made against them by the Spirit is true - that they "are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" Laodiceans. Now the scripture saith, "the Deity heareth not sinners" - "they cry unto Yahweh, but he heareth them not;" but of the true worshippers of the Tabernacle of the Testimony it saith, "if any man doeth his will, him he heareth;" and "the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers."

The faithful in Christ Jesus are styled apocalyptically, "His Tabernacle," because they constitute the only habitation the Deity has on earth. "He dwells not in temples made with hands," but in the hearts of his worshippers in spirit and in truth. In writing to these, the apostle saith, "Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith;" and Christ said, "I am the truth." When the truth, therefore, dwells or tabernacles in a man, the Deity dwells there. Hence, an ecclesia of such men is the Deity's Tabernacle preeminently.

It is furthermore styled the Tabernacle of the Testimony, because the faithful in Christ are the community of saints "who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (ch. 12:17); and "the testimony is the spirit of the prophecy" contained in the apocalypse (ch. 19:10). The apostle John was one of this tabernacle, for he bare record of the testimony and suffered for it in Patmos (ch. 1:2,9). The souls were laid under the altar in blood because of their faithfulness to this testimony (ch. 6:9). The tabernacle overcame the Dragon, red with their blood, by the word of their testimony (ch. 12:11). It is synonymous with "the Name," and "them dwelling in the heaven;" for all the constituents of the tabernacle are

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constituents of the Name, having been all immersed into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and they 'dwell in the heaven," in the sense that "the Deity hath made them to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6). Saints walking in the truth, and being in fellowship with the apostles, and therefore with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3), are a holy, heavenly community; and, being all in Christ, when they sit down to break bread and to drink wine, as Aaron and his sons did in the typical heavenly place, and to be instructed by the exposition of the word, which shines into their understanding and illuminates them, after the type of the seven branched lamp enlightening Aaron and his sons, the faithful sit down together in Christ, and apocalyptically "dwell in the heaven" (ch.13:6).

But, though the Tabernacle of the Testimony is visible on earth and may be discerned by all who have spiritual understanding; and though it is now the temple of the Deity, it is not the tabernacle and temple as it will be in the future state. The whole temple of the Deity consists of the Altar-Court, the Holy Place or Tabernacle, and the Most Holy Place or naos. These are the apocalyptic divisions, and answer to like divisions in Solomon's building. The word naos is applied in Greek to the inmost part of a temple occupied by the Deity worshipped. In ch. 15:5, the whole divine habitation is styled ho naos tes skenes tou marturiou en to ourano, the Nave of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in the heaven, understanding by nave the place where 'Deity manifested in Flesh justified by spirit" dwells. In this sense, the apocalyptic nave is separated from the tabernacle by the Veil of flesh. That is, those who constitute the tabernacle are believing men and women, in the flesh and mortal; while those who constitute the nave will be flesh and bones incorruptible and deathless, that is, spirit, as Jesus Christ is now. The way into 'the Nave of the Deity" has been demonstrated by him - first, wash in the Laver of immersion, through which the Altar is approached; then the Tabernacle is entered; death places under the Altar, and the Veil is rent; but, secondly, resurrection to incorruptibility and life constitutes the subject who had been a constituent of the Tabernacle a constituent also of the Nave. At present, the Nave is not opened. It is not yet in manifestation as the Tabernacle is. Jesus is the Nave, being a quickened as well as a Quickening Spirit; and true believers have the promise that "they shall be like him." They, therefore, now enter within the veil where he is, not in person, but by faith; for now they "walk by faith, not by sight."

The grand difference between the Tabernacle and the Nave is the difference between flesh and spirit. When the true believers shall be

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perfected, they will have been both flesh and spirit. As flesh, they are the Tabernacle of the Testimony, witnessing for Jesus against the Apostasy enthroned in the Outer Court; and, as spirit, they are the Nave of the Deity with "the Ark of his Covenant" in their midst, ready to consummate the wrath of the Deity in developing 'the lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquake, and great hail," by which the lies, superstitions, and institutions of the Outside Arena will be utterly swept away.

The opening of the Nave is 'the apocalypse of the Sons of the Deity" (Rom. 8:19). "We are now the sons of the Deity," says John, "but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He (Christ) shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). This is apocalyptically expressed by the words, 'The Nave of the Deity was opened in the heaven, and the Ark of his Covenant was seen in his Nave." It is nowhere seen in the Tabernacle of the Testimony in the apocalyptic visions, because the Ark belongs to the Most Holy, not to the Holy, heavenly ecclesia. These words of Apoc. 11:19, are interpreted in ch. 14:1, by "the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him an 144,000." The Lamb of this vision is the Ark of that, and the 144,000, in the midst of whom he dwells, the Nave of the Deity.

But, when the Nave is apocalypsed, it is accessible only to the glorified community of the saved, each of whom is a pillar in the Nave (ch. 3:12). When opened in the heaven of the apocalypse, it is "filled with smoke from the glory of the Deity, and from his power." The door of admission into it is closed against all occupants of the Outside Arena. Only those who are ready enter into the marriage, and, against all who are without light, "the door is shut" (Matt. 25.8,10). This exclusion, however, is not perpetual. "No man is able to enter into the Nave TILL the Seven Plagues of the Seven Angels are fulfilled" (ch. 15:8). When the judgment given to the saints is fully executed, and they have possessed themselves of the kingdom and dominion under the whole heaven (Dan. 7:18,26,27), then the smoke of the power of Deity in wrathful exercise will be dispelled; and the nations shall walk in the light of it, being "blessed in Abraham and his Seed," and "the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and their honor into it" (ch.

21:24).

Though this is especially affirmed of the Holy City, it is also affirmable of the Nave; for the glorified saints who constitute the one also constitute the other. But, in respect to the saints in their relation to Deity, the Nave, as distinct from the Holy City, no longer obtains. While judgment is being executed by the saints, as the Most Holy

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smoking with wrath, the Kingdom is being set up; when this is established, the smoking Nave becomes quiescent, and the Holy City is apocalypsed in all its glory. "I saw no Nave therein," says John. If he had seen a nave in the Holy City, he would have seen a community higher in dignity, glory, honor, and nature, as the peculiar habitation of the Father, than the Holy Municipality constituted of the Lamb and his Bride, the saints glorified together with him (Rom. 8:17,32). He saw "no nave therein," for Jesus and his Brethren glorified are the incorporation of the Spirit of the Father, between whom and them there are no intermediates in whom he dwells. Between him and the Tabernacle of the Testimony there is intermediation, because the Nave is not yet opened in the apocalyptic heaven, and that intermediate personage is the Forerunner into the Nave-state, even the Lord Jesus; but when the Forerunner and the runners after him shall meet in the glorious Nave-Convention, all intermediation between them and the Father will have been done away, and he will be epi panton, kai dia panton, kai en pasin, "over all, and through all, and in all," or ta pan ta en pasin, "the all things in all" (Eph. 4:6; 1 Cor. 15:28); so that this "all" will be a DIVINE UNITY, or Deity manifested in Flesh, justified or perfected by spirit. This is the great, glorious, and omnipotent "e Pluribus Un urn" of the apocalypse - a Nave or Un urn, constituted of a Multitude "which no man can number." It is in direct and intimate union with the Deity, as Jesus is at the present time. Between the Father and Son there is no intermediate, neither will there be between the Father and all his Sons - Jesus and his Brethren - when the Nave is "opened in the heaven."

But John's declaration that he saw no Nave in the Holy City is immediately followed in the Common Version by the intimation causatively expressed, to wit, "For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it" (ch. 21:22). But what John penned is preferable to this version of it; as, "For the Lord the Deity, the Almighty, is the Nave of it, even the Lamb." This, presented in harmony with the Mosaic teaching, would read, "For Yahweh Elohim, the Almighty, is the Nave of it, even the Lamb." "Not by army, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth." Now, the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes is the symbol of the Seven Spirits of the Deity, or omnipotence, that is, of the Eternal Spirit. Yahweh Elohim is the multitudinous apocalypse of this the "One Spirit," apocalypsed or manifested in Jesus and his Brethren "glorified together." They, in "the Time of the End," and in all subsequent aions, will be "Yahweh Elohim, the Almighty, the Nave of the Holy City," in which John saw no Nave; for the Holy City, being a sinless, guileless,

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faultless, incorruptible, and deathless municipality in all its constituents, is no longer in need of temple arrangements. The Ezekiel temple is a "house of prayer for all nations," in which the "Yahweh Elohim Almighty" will officiate as the sacerdotal intermediation between him who dwells in light, whom no man can see and live, and all the enlightened, justified and regenerated nations of the Millennial Age (Exod. 33:20, 1 Tim. 6:16).

INDUCTION OF THE JUDGMENTS OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

Though cast out of the third of the heaven, as indicated by his Tail drawing the third of the stars of the heaven, and casting them into the earth (Apoc. 12:4), the Dragon still retained power in "the earth and sea" of the Greco-Latin polity (Apoc. 12:12,13,15,16; 7:3). His power there was a "woe" to their indwellers, not excepting those who professed the faith of Jesus. Retribution, however, followed in his entire exclusion from the heaven, A.D. 324 (Apoc. 12:8); upon which the sealing of the 144,000 servants of the Deity, and the period of "silence, about half an hour," began. Further retribution was suspended during the silence; but this being ended, the prayers of all the saints, which ascended during the silence as a cloud of incense from the golden altar of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, before the Deity (Apoc. 8:3,4), were answered by "voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and earthquake," (Apoc. 8:5); which preceded the preparation of the Seven Trumpeters to sound against the earth and sea (Apoc. 8:6).

1. "And there were Voices."

The Angel of the Golden Altar, as we have seen, represents a community - a community consisting of all the saints, with their Chief within the Veil, contemporary with the generation existing in the days of the silence, the voices, the thunders, the lightnings, and the earthquake. These saints were the sufferers by the persecutions of Constantine and his clergy; their prayers would therefore be for deliverance, and divine retribution upon the oppressor who was ruling them unrighteously with a rod of iron (ch. 12:5). "And shall not the Deity avenge his own elect, who cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you, said Jesus, that he will avenge them speedily" (Luke. 18:7). This was verified in the instance of these saints. Before the half hour of silence was fully expired, their frankincense bowl was dramatically filled with fire of the sacrificial altar, and it was cast into the earth. This symbolic action indicates the nature of their

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prayers. Fire is the symbol of judgment against those upon whom it falls; and it was cast in answer to the prayers of all the saints; by which therefore we may know that they had been praying for the avengement of their wrongs upon the heads of their enemies.

It was dramatically cast out of the heaven into the earth. We have seen that the saints who constitute the tabernacle and its apparatus of worship, "dwell in the heaven"; because they constitute the holy and heavenly corporation. In relation to them, the Gentiles of the outside arena, or world, whether they be rulers or nations ruled, are "the earth" and "the inhabiters of the earth"; while these, in relation to affairs peculiarly heathen or gentile, have a heaven, and earth and sea special to themselves. The judicial fire being cast at the prayerful instance of "them who dwell in the heaven," it is represented as falling thence "into the earth," although it especially affected those who dwelt in that other heaven where the silence reigned. The saints did not dwell in this heaven. The Imperial Bishop of the Laodicean Apostasy, and his Hierarchy of Arian and Athanasian Priests, dwelt in the heaven out of which the Great Red Dragon had been cast, and from which silence was about to depart. The saints lived under this heaven, not in it; and were sun-stricken and scorched by the day-star of its firmament (ch.7:16).

Voices were the first results of the Lamb's response to the prayers of his saints. The offering of perfumes in the tabernacle being ended, the noise began in the court without. They were the voices of the Lamb rendering recompense to his enemies. On the twenty-second of May, A.D. 337, death terminated the life of Constantine, at the age of sixty-four. The demonstrations of mourning were excessive. His body, adorned with the vain symbols of greatness, the purple and diadem, was deposited on a golden bed, in an apartment of his palace at Constantinople, splendidly furnished and illuminated for the purpose. The forms of the court were strictly maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the principal officers of the state, the army, and the household, approaching the person of their dead emperor with bended knees and a composed countenance, offered their respectful homage as seriously as if he had been still alive! From motives of policy, this theatrical representation was for some time continued; and, in the language of Laodicean flattery, it was remarked that Constantine alone, by the peculiar indulgence of heaven, had reigned after his death.

But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry, and therefore by the favor, not of heaven, but of fools and assassins; who, while they were performing their idolatrous antics before the corpse of their

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deceased sovereign, were intriguing against the welfare of his kindred. His ministers and generals conducted their intrigue with zeal and secrecy till they had obtained a loud and unanimous Voice from the soldiery, that they would suffer none except the sons of Constantine, to reign over the Roman empire. These military factions continued above four months; and, if they had proceeded no further than to make this loyal declaration, Constantine's three sons, Constantius, Constantine and Constans, would have entered peaceably into the possession of the empire, and the silence in the heaven would have remained unbroken. But this was not the purpose of the Deity. His name had been blasphemed, His truth perverted, His worship superseded by theatricals, and His saints oppressed, and therefore vengeance must be executed upon the guilty. It was destined to begin in the heaven by putting an end to the silence there with a voice of the cry of shepherds and a howling of the princes of the imperial house. Astonished and' overwhelmed by the tide of popular fury, they remained without the power of flight, or of resistance, in the hands of their implacable enemies. Their fate, however, was suspended till the arrival of Constantius, who, according to Athanasius, made oath for the security of his kinsmen.

But the oaths of princes are mere matters of convenience. Having allayed their apprehensions by an imperial promise, his next business was to trump up some specious pretense by which he might release himself from its obligations. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by Eusebius the catholic bishop of Nicomedia. He handed to Constantius a fatal scroll, affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father; in which the emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been poisoned by his brothers; and conjured his sons to avenge his death, and to consult their own safety by the punishment of the guilty. The spirit, and even the forms, of legal proceedings were violated in a promiscuous massacre; which involved the two uncles of Constantius-, seven of his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were the most illustrious, the patrician Optatus, who had married the sister of the late emperor, and the praefect Ablavius, the proud favorite of Constantine who had long directed his counsels and abused his confidence and' whose power and riches had inspired,, him with some hopes of obtaining the purple. "If it were necessary, says Gibbon, "to aggravate the horrors of this bloody scene, we might add, that Constantius himself had espoused the daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had bestowed his sister in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus. These alliances, which the policy of Constantine, regardless of the public

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prejudice, had formed between the several branches of the imperial house, served only to convince mankind, that these princes were as cold to the endearments of conjugal affection, as they were insensible to the ties of consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of youth and innocence. Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone, the two youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from the hands of the assassins, till their rage, satiated with slaughter, had in some measure subsided. The Emperor Constantius, who, in the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious to guilt and reproach, discovered, on some future occasions, a faint and transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious counsels of his ministers, and the irresistible violence of the troops, had extorted from his inexperienced youth."

The massacre of their kindred was succeeded by a division of the empire between the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest, ruled Gaul, Spain, and Britain; Constantius, Thrace, and the countries east; while Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum, acknowledged the sovereignty of Constans.

But, after this partition, three years had scarcely elapsed before these unnatural brothers seemed impatient to convince the world of their total unfitness for their position. Constantine soon complained with a voice of discontent, that he was defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered kinsmen. He therefore demanded of Constans the cession of the African provinces, as an equivalent for Macedonia and Greece, which he had acquired by the death of Dalmatius. Constans' want of sincerity in the negotiation which proved tedious and fruitless, exasperated the fierceness of his temper; and he eagerly listened to his favorites who suggested that both his honor and interest were concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At the head therefore of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for conquest, he suddenly broke into the dominions of Constans, who, on the voice of this invasion reaching his ears, detached some Illyrian troops against him. The conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest. By artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed into an ambuscade concealed in a wood, where, with a few attendants, he was surprised, surrounded, and slain.

The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years, and the revenge of his brother's death was reserved for the more ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The vices and weakness of Constans had lost him the esteem and affections of the people. The public discontent encouraged Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, to assert the honor of the Roman name. Aided by the friendship of Marcellinus, count of the

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sacred largesses, he was enabled to persuade the soldiery to break the bonds of hereditary servitude, and to salute him as emperor in the place of the degenerate Constans. In February of the year 350, Magnentius became master of the troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autun. The voice of the desertion of his soldiers and subjects, left no alternative to Constans but flight or instant death. He fled for a seaport in Spain, but ere he could reach it, he was overtaken near Helena at the foot of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief, regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission by putting him to death.

The usurpation of the sceptre of the West by a perfidious barbarian, excited the indignation of Nepotian, a rash youth, son of the princess Eutropia, and nephew of Constantine. Arming a number of desperate slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the feeble domestic guard of Rome, received the homage of the Senate, and assuming the title of Augustus, precariously reigned during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The march of some regular forces put an end to his ambitious hopes; the rebellion was extinguished in his blood, in that of his mother Eutropia, and of his adherents; and the proscription was extended to all who had contracted a fatal alliance with the name and family of "Constantine the Great."

Another voice that disturbed the tranquillity of "the heaven" was the ferocious administration and tragical death of the Caesar, Gallus A.D. 354. Gallus, and his half-brother Julian, afterwards styled "the Apostate" by Arian and Trinitarian Laodiceans, were the two nephews of Constantine, who were saved from the fury of the catholic soldiery when they massacred his kindred. Gallus was then about twelve, and Julian about six, years of age. The jealousy of Constantius consigned them to the strong castle of Macellum, near Caesarea, an ancient palatial residence of the kings of Cappadocia. Carefully educated in the philosophy and science falsely so-called of the day, they passed six years of their existence there, deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety, in the company of slaves, devoted to the commands of a tyrant, who had already injured them in the murder of their kin beyond the hope of reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state compelled Constantius to invest him with the title and authority of Caesar, and to cement the political connection, to give him the princess Constantina, the cruel and ambitious daughter of Constantine, for wife. His residence was fixed at Antioch, from whence he ruled with delegated authority the eastern prefecture during three years; while his brother Julian obtained an appearance of liberty, and the restitution of an ample patrimony.

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But he soon proved himself incapable of reigning. A temper naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was soured by solitude and adversity; and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who approached his person, or were subject to his power. Constantina, his wife, is described as one of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood. She exasperated the fierce passions of her husband whose cruelty was sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular and military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. A general consternation was diffused through the capital of Syria, the provinces, and among his own courtiers. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his only support, the affection of the people; whilst he afforded the unnatural and timid emperor the fairest pretense of exacting the forfeit of his purple and of his life.

As long as the lightning of internal war was flashing between Constantius and Magnentius, the emperor dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration to which his choice had subjected the East. But when victory was decided in his favor, Constantius privately resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian and Montius, were empowered to visit and reform the state of the East. The rashness of these commissioners hastened their own ruin, as well as the Caesar's. Discarding all prudence, Domitian delivered a concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Caesar should immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that his delay or hesitation should be punished, by suspending the usual allowance of his household. Gallus replied to this by delivering Domitian to the custody of a guard. Upon this, Montius aggravated the situation by his reproaches; and by requiring the civil and military officers, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the persons and dignity of his representatives. By this rash declaration of war, Gallus was provoked to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, and appealed to the populace for safety and revenge. His commands were fatally obeyed. They seized on Domitian and Montius, and tying their legs with ropes, dragged them through the streets of Antioch, and precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the Orontes.

The arrest of Gallus in his capital from this voice appearing to be dangerous, the slower and safer policy of dissimulation was practised with success. He was deceived by the affected tranquillity, and frequent epistolary professions of confidence and friendship from "the Head of the Church." After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to

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fear and distrust. But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of resistance; and being deprived of the credit of his wife by her unseasonable death, the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous passions was completed.

After a long delay, the reluctant Caesar set forwards on his journey to the imperial court. Having arrived at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Caesar himself, should hasten to the imperial residence at Milan. The dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside at Petovio in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where the general Barbatio awaited the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the evening, he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola in Istria. His horror was increased by the appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, by whom, with the aid of a notary and tribune, he was interrogated concerning the administration of the East. Sunk under the weight of shame and guilt, he confessed everything with which he was charged. Constantius was easily convinced that his own safety was incompatible with the life of his cousin. The sentence of death was signed, dispatched, and executed; and the nephew of the great Constantine, with his hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. Such were the VOICES by which silence was excluded from the heaven; and the family of "the First Christian Emperor" nearly exterminated from the earth! How true it is that "the seed of evil-doers shall not be renowned to the Olahm. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers, that they may not rise, nor possess the earth, nor fill the face of the world with cities" (Isa. 14:20). This was said of Belshazzar in whose kindred it was verified, as it was afterwards so notably in Constantine's. Constantius was the only one of them who died a natural death. Why was slaughter prepared for Constantine's kindred? The only scriptural answer that can be given is that he was preeminently an evil-doer. He was the Antichrist of his day, the newly born Man-Child of Sin, and Son of Perdition; "who opposed and exalted himself above all that is called Power, or an object of veneration; so that he as a supreme power sat in the temple of the Power, showing himself that he is supreme." The bloody fate that befell his family by "the voices" is significant of the like consummation that awaits the family of Antichrist by the "lightnings, thunders, and voices" which are to "proceed out of the throne" at the approaching "apocalypse of the sons of the Deity." The sanguinary extermination of the modern family of the Antichrist, will be as complete as that of

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Constantine. The Voices of the Deity are terrific to all evil-doers. They spared Gallus and Julian in childhood; but when their characters were developed, and they proved themselves evil as their catholic fathers were, voices were uttered against them also, and they too were swept from among the living.

2. "And there were Thunders"

The twenty-four years of the reign of Constantius were a period of "voices, and thunders, and lightnings," ending in "earthquake." The whole period was characterized by these, which, affecting the so-called "christian church," evinced the displeasure of Heaven, and the indignant contempt of the Deity for its unholy and blasphemous speculations on the consubstantiality or likeness of his Son. "The christian religion, which, in itself," says Ammianus truly, "is plain and simple, Constantius confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the (Arian and Athanasian) parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies which they called synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect (of catholics) to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." This remarkable passage justifies the reasonable apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving world.

When we consider the impiety and profanity of the church, and the blind impulsiveness of Constantius, the Head thereof, whom its spirituals distinguished by the acceptable and lofty title of "BISHOP OF BISHOPS" - a title well befitting the Antichrist of the day - there is no room for surprise at the "thunders and lightnings" that shook and rent the firmament of the heaven. On the frontier, between the Roman and Persian empires, there was a continued roar of conflict between the two nations from the death of Constantine through all the reign of Constantius. The irregular incursions of the light troops alternately spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch. This active service was performed by the Arabs of the desert, who were divided in their Interest and affections; some of their independent chiefs favoring the King of Persia, whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the Roman emperor. The more grave and important operations of the war were conducted with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia

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encountered each other in nine bloody fields, which, with the campaign of Julian, resulted in the slaughter of thousands of catholics and pagans; and the restoration of five provinces beyond the Tigris, the impregnable city of Nisibis, and certain places in Mesopotamia, to the Persians.

But beside this long war in the East, there were thunders also in the West, that uttered their voices with terrible effect. While the lightning of civil discord was illuminating the heaven with its glare, a numerous swarm of Franks and Allemanni crossed the Rhine, and inflicted upon the catholics of the empire incalculable misery. Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburg, &c., besides a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes. The scenes of their devastations were three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land within the enclosure of their walls.

Under these melancholy circumstances, Julian, the brother of Gallus, was appointed Caesar, A.D. 356, and sent to Gaul, as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of imperial greatness. Though profoundly ignorant of the practical arts of war and government, the active vigor of his own genius, aided by the wisdom and -experience of Sallust, an officer of rank, enabled him soon to acquire a reputation in both departments in advance of his contemporaries. In Aug. A.D. 357, he encountered thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of Germany under the fierce Chnodomar, and with a small army of thirteen thousand men gave them a signal overthrow in the obstinate and bloody battle of Strasburg. Chnodomar was made prisoner, six thousand of the Allemanni slain, and the country relieved by the retreat of their compatriots across the upper Rhine.

After repulsing the Allemanni, he thundered against the Franks, who were seated nearer to the ocean on the confines of Gaul and Germany. In the spring of A.D. 358, he attacked these barbarians, the most formidable and warlike of the German tribes, dispersed in predatory hordes from Cologne to the ocean. While they supposed him to be in his winter quarters at Paris, he appeared among them with his legions; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his arms, soon reduced their suppliant tribes to implore the clemency, and to obey the commands of the conqueror. Thus, in 359, the thunders ceased to roll, and the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of

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the barbarians, whom he had expelled and thrice invaded, and delayed the ruin of the Roman empire in the West.

3. And there were Lightnings

Thunders are international wars, whose echoes reverberate through the heavens of the respective states; while lightnings denote civil discord and revolutions in the government.

The tragic voice which announced the murder of the Emperor Constans by the agents of Magnentius A.D. 350, developed an important revolution. The authority of the regicide was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two great praefectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper prepared by every act of oppression, to collect a treasure to supply the expenses of a civil war.

The intelligence of this revolution which so deeply affected the honor and safety of the House of Constantine, recalled the arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian war. He consigned the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised from a prison to a throne; and marched toward Europe, with a mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and indignation. He rejected the ignominious terms of peace that were offered to him, with disdain; put the usurper's ambassadors in irons, and prepared to wage implacable war, as became the Chief Bishop of the Apostasy!

The contest with Magnentius was serious and sanguinary. He advanced with rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at the head of a numerous army of Gauls, Spaniards, Franks, and Saxons. During the greater part of the summer he operated in the fertile plains of the lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube, where he showed himself the master of the field. The humbled pride of Constantius condescended to solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned to Magnentius the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. But the haughty usurper replied by detaining the ambassador in captivity, and dispatching an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon, if he would instantly abdicate the purple. This, however, he declined to do, and answered that "he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity."

The two armies were confronted in order of battle upon a naked and level plain round the city of Mursa, which has always been considered as a place of importance in the wars of Hungary. On this ground, Sep.28, A.D. 351, the army of Constantius formed, with the Drave upon its right; while the left extended far beyond the right flank of

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Magnentius. Upon this host the son of Constantine bestowed an eloquent speech, and then retiring into a church at a safe distance from the battle-field, committed to his generals the conduct of this decisive day. They deserved his confidence by the valor and skill they exerted. Once began, the engagement soon became general, and was scarcely ended with the darkness of night. Victory declared for the imperialists. The number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and the slaughter of the victors was more considerable than that of the vanquished; a circumstance that proves the obstinacy of the contest, and justifies the remark of an ancient author, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of Rome.

After this fatal overthrow, the pride of Magnentius was reduced by repeated misfortunes, to sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. On Aug. 10, A.D. 353, the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus completely broke the usurper's power. He was unable to bring another army into the field; the fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and they saluted him with shouts of "Long live the Emperor Constantius!" Perceiving by this that all was lost, he prevented their design of delivering him up to his enemy, by the easier and less ignominious death of falling upon his sword. Magnentius being removed, the public tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of the leaders who survived. A severe inquisition was extended over all, who either from choice or compulsion, had been involved in the rebellion. The most innocent subjects of the west were exposed to exile and confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are always cruel, the mind of Constantius, the Bishop of Bishops, was inaccessible to mercy.

These lightning's having ceased to scatter their deadly bolts, the international thunders between the catholic empire and the barbarians of Germany, began to roll as we have already related. They were the echoes of these lightnings; for during the civil war, in the blindness of his fury, Constantius abandoned to the Franks and Allemanni the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged the authority ot his rival He invited them to cross the Rhine, by presents and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant ot all the territory they might be able to subdue. The rapacity of his barbarian allies being thus excited, when he had no further use for them he discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing them, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. They refused to retire, and treating, as their natural enemies, all the subjects of the empire, pillaged and destroyed at pleasure. To relieve the country of this scourge, Julian

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was sent to Gaul to. thunder upon them, as already related in section 2. While the Gallic legions and barbarians were thundering upon the Rhine, the Quadi and Sarmatians, against Constantius and his Illyrian forces, were thundering upon the Danube. Thus, at the same time, "there were thunders" on the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates. Julian and Constantius were both victorious in Gaul and Illyricum; and the praises of Julian were everywhere repeated, except in the palace of Constantius, who was jealous of his popularity, and determined, if possible, to deprive him of his power.

In April A.D. 360, while attending to the public affairs in Paris, Julian was surprised by the hasty arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders from the emperor, that four entire legions, and three hundred of the bravest from each of the remaining bands, should instantly begin their march for the frontiers of Persia. This numerous detachment constituted the strength of the Gallic army, which loved and admired Julian; despised, and perhaps, hated Constantius; and dreaded the laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. If Julian complied with the orders he had received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of the people, who would again be exposed to the invasion of the Germans. But a positive refusal was an act of rebellion, and a declaration of war.

After a painful conflict he ordered the troops to march. A scene of general distress ensued. But the grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage. Their line of march was through Paris, in the suburbs of which they were to be reviewed by Julian. On their approach he went out to meet them. He addressed them in a studied oration, and then dismissed them to quarters. At the hour of midnight their discontent became furious. With sword, and bows, and torches in hand they rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; and careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and irrevocable words, JULIAN AUGUSTUS! He earnestly protested against their treason, but it was useless; they repeatedly assured him, that if he wished to live, he must consent to reign.

Thus, the lightning of revolution and civil discord again began to flash its fires in the political aerial. Julian was a worshipper of Jupiter, the Sun, Mars, Minerva, and all the other deities of the old superstition; while his cousin Constantius was the Chief Bishop of the Apostasy. Hence, they were rival champions of the old and new superstitions of the empire, which were now about to contend for the dominion of the world.

While offering peace to Constantius, he made the most vigorous preparations for war. The cruel persecution of the adherents of

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Magnentius had filled Gaul with outlaws and robbers. These flocked to the standard of Julian. Several months were ineffectually consumed in negotiations at the distance of three thousand miles from Paris to Antioch; at length, perceiving that his adversary was implacable, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war; and though some weeks before he had celebrated the catholic festival of the Epiphany, made a public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced the religion, as well as the friendship of Constantius.

4. And there was an Earthquake

The storm of thunders and lightnings being expended, the earth into which the fire from the angel's frankincense bowl was cast, began to shake. The seasonable death of Constantius A.D. 361, delivered the Roman Empire from the calamities of civil war, which had hitherto progressed without serious effusion of blood. Julian was now acknowledged as emperor by the whole empire. His throne was the seat of philosophy and science, falsely so-called, heathen piety, and vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and discharged with incessant diligence the duties of his exalted station.

The reformation of the imperial court was one of the first and most necessary acts of Julian's revolutionary government. Soon after his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion for the service of a barber. An officer magnificently dressed presented himself. 'It is a barber," exclaimed Julian, with affected surprise, "that I want, and not a receiver general of the finances." He questioned the man concerning the profits of his employment; and was informed that besides a large salary and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many horses. A thousand barbers, a thousand cupbearers, a thousand cooks, were distributed in the several offices of catholic luxury; and the number of the eunuchs of this "christian" establishment could be compared only to the insects of a summer's day. The "Bishop OF BISHOPS" was distinguished by the oppressive magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings and his train. The domestic crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions. The monarch was disgraced, and the people injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure and even titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt. and the bribes they extorted from those who feared their enmity, or solicited

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their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty menials. Their rapine and venality could be equaled only by the extravagance of their dissipations. Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were served with delicacy and profusion; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to dismount from their horses, and respectfully to salute any eunuch they might meet on the public highway. All this excited the contempt and indignation of the philosophic Julian, who despised the pomp of royalty, and was impatient to relieve the distress, and to appease the murmurs of the people. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy the whole train of slaves and dependents. The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so ridiculous in the person of "the first christian emperor," CONSTANTINE, were rejected with contempt by his philosophic and pagan nephew, Julian.

But the "earthquake" would have only slightly shaken the Apostasy, if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the crimes, of his catholic predecessor's reign. "We are now delivered," says he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimates, "we are now surprisingly delivered from the voracious jaws of the many-headed Hydra. I do not mean to apply that epithet to my brother Constantius. He is no more; may the earth be light upon his head! But his artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even those men should be oppressed: they are accused, and they shall enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial." To conduct this inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the state and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary and inexorable Chamber of Justice at Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and execute their final sentence without delay and without appeal. The office of president was exercised by the venerable praefect of the east, a second Sallust, whose good qualities conciliated the esteem of Greek sophists, and catholic bishops. He was assisted by the eloquent Mamertinus, one of the consuls elect. But the civil wisdom of these two magistrates was overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals. One of these, Arbetio by name, more fit for the prisoners' bar than the bench, was supposed to possess the secret of the commission; the armed and angry leaders of the Jovian and Herculean bands encompassed the tribune; and the judges were alternately swayed by the laws of justice, and by the clamors of

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faction.

A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and

Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian; and the superstitious phantoms which existed only in his mind, had a real and judicial effect through the government of the empire. The vehement zeal of the catholics, who despised the worship, and overturned the altars, of those heathen rivals of the martyrs, engaged their imperial votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects. The subsequent triumph of this party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful "apostate has been overwhelmed with a torrent of Arian and Trinitarian invectives, of which the signal was given by the sonorous trumpet of Gregory Nazianzen.

The catholics, who beheld with horror and indignation the apostasy of Julian from their superstition, had much more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent some cruel refinements of death and torture, which had been unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the rival religious factions were disappointed by one who was persuaded that neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. Influenced by this conviction he extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship he inflicted on the catholics, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects whom they stigmatized as idolators and heretics. Among these so-called "heretics," were those who in the reigns of Constantius and Julian were being sealed in their foreheads with the seal of the Deity as the 144,000. The pagans were expressly ordered to reopen all their temples; and they were at once delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations they had sustained under the reign of Constantine and his sons. At the same time the trinitarian bishops and clergy, who had been banished by the Arian emperor, Constantius, were recalled from exile, and restored to their respective conventicles; ako the Donatists,* Novatians, Eunomians, and so forth. Julian, who understood and derided their theological disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable

* Optatus accused the Donatists of owing their safety to an apostate. Yet, the fire of the altar developed the Julian earth quake in their behalf.

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spectacle of their furious encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked him to exclaim, '"Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the Allemanni;" but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied before he dismissed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the union of the '"christians" so-called.

As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to imperial custom, the character of SUPREME PONTIFF. not only as the most honorable title of imperial greatness, but as a sacred and important office, the duties of which he was resolved to execute with pious diligence. Encouraged by the example, exhortations, and liberality of their pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their neglected ceremonies. "Every part of the world," exclaims Libanius, with devout transport, "displayed the triumph of religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods and a supper for their joyous votaries.

As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute power, Julian applied himself with peculiar diligence to corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it was important. On the days of solemn and public festivals, the emperor received the homage and rewarded the merit of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with the military ensigns of the Roman republic; the name of Christ was erased from the Labarum, and the symbols of war, of majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry when he respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The soldiers passed successively in review, and each of them, before he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few grains of incense into the flame which burned upon the altar. This restoration and encouragement of paganism revealed a multitude of pretended christians, who, from motives of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the catholicism of the former reign, and who afterwards returned, with the same flexibility of conscience, to the superstition professed by the successors of Julian.

As I am not composing a history of the Julian earthquake, but

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merely evidencing illustratively by history the symbolical drama of the apocalypse, it is only necessary that I should show that the events of the first sixteen months of his reign over the whole empire, following the "lightnings," were, in the fullest sense, such a revolution as could only fairly and properly be represented by "an earthquake." I need not go into all the details of his remarkable reign. It will, therefore, be sufficient to say that, in his great work of humbling the LAODICEAN APOSTASY in the lowest depths of degradation into which he could plunge it, he proclaimed himself the gracious protector of the Jews! He had no love for these unfortunates, but they deserved the friendship of the idolater by their implacable hatred of the christian name. He proposed to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem, and relieved them of the pecuniary oppressions imposed upon them by the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The catholics were firmly but erroneously persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction rested upon the whole fabric of the Mosaic law. Julian, therefore, argued that the success of his rebuilding speculation would prove the falsity of the prophets, and turn the truth of revelation into a lie. But had he succeeded, his success would only have proved the ignorance of the catholics, who understood nothing aright. His enterprise, however, was defeated by an earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which scorched and blasted the workmen, overturned and scattered their works, and compelled the abandonment of the undertaking.

Foiled in this maneuver, he attacked the catholic church in the very seat of its soul. He transferred to the priests of his own superstition the management of the liberal allowances from the public revenue which had been granted to their church by Constantine and his sons. The proud system of clerical honors and immunities was leveled to the ground, testamentary donations were forbidden, and the catholic priests were confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the people. By this policy he aimed to deprive them of all the temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world, which is "the enemy of God." But, besides this, he prohibited catholics from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric, observing that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or enjoy the advantages of science, and that they ought to content themselves with expounding, not Homer and Demosthenes, but Luke and Matthew in the conventicles of the Galileans. This edict deprived them wholly of the education of youth, which, in the Roman world, was intrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric, who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable privileges. Having thus

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substituted pagan sophists for catholic priests, he invited a free and general resort to the public schools, in a full confidence that the tender minds of the scholars would be paganized by the impressions received. The greater part of the catholic officers were gradually removed from their employments in the state, the army, and the provinces; and the hopes of future candidates were extinguished by his maliciously, but most correctly, reminding them, that it was unlawful for a christian to use the sword either of justice or of war; and studiously guarding the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of idolatry. The powers of government were entrusted to the pagans, who professed an ardent zeal for the superstition of their ancestors. Under their administration the catholics had much to suffer and more to apprehend. Julian was averse to cruelty, but his provincial ministers exercised a vexatious tyranny against sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to confer the honors of martyrdom. He dissembled the knowledge of the injustice exercised in his name, and expressed his real sense of their conduct by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards.

The most effectual instrument of annoyance with which they were armed was the law that obliged the catholics to make full and ample satisfaction for the temples they had destroyed under the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant Laodicean Apostasy had not always the sanction of the public authority; and the catholic bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the head of their congregations to attack and demolish the rival fortresses of Satan. On his consecrated lands, which had been given to the clergy, and on the ruins of paganism, the catholics had frequently erected their conventicles. The ground had to be cleared of these, and the stately temples of the idols which had been leveled, and the precious ornaments which had been converted to catholic uses, had to be restored, making a very large amount of damages and debt. But the catholics, who had robbed and destroyed the property of "heretics" as well as pagans, in this, the dark hour of retribution, were unable to pay. The Roman law, therefore, gave the claimants a right to the debtors' persons. They were, consequently, seized by Julian's ministers, and subjected to bodily pains and torments. In this the moment of their prosperity, they dragged their mangled bodies through the streets, pierced them by the spits of cooks and the distaffs of enraged women, and the entrails of catholic priests and their ecclesiastical females, after they had been tasted by these bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley and contemptuously thrown to the unclean animals of the city.

About the same time, Julian was informed from Edessa that the proud and wealthy faction of Arian catholics had insulted the weakness

Page 395

of a sect of "heretics" styled Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be suffered with impunity in a well regulated state. Upon hearing of this, he confiscated the whole property of the church by his mandate to the magistrates of the place. The money was distributed among the soldiers, the lands were added to the state's domain, and, with the most pungent irony, he wrote to the offenders, saying, "I show myself the true friend of the Galileans. Their admirable law has promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence in the paths of virtue and salvation when they are relieved by my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care," continued he, in a more serious tone, "take care how you provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but fire and sword." The catholics, both Arian and Athanasian, who, before the "earthquake" that leveled their high towers in the dust, had possessed above forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, and the habit of believing that they were the saints, and that the saints alone were entitled to reign over the earth. As soon as the justice of Julian deprived the clergy of the privileges conferred by the favor of Constantine, unmindful of their own tyranny against "heretics," among whom were the sealed servants of the Deity, they complained bitterly of "the Apostate's" most cruel Oppression; and the free toleration of idolators and HERETICS, who were alone benefited by the Julian earthquake, was a subject of grief and scandal to catholics. Their present hardships, intolerable as they might appear, were considered as a slight prelude to impending calamities, which were suspended till their crafty oppressor's victorious return from the Persian war, when laying aside the mask of dissimulation, he would cause the amphitheaters to stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that catholics who persevered in the profession of their Opinions would be deprived of the common benefits of nature and society. These gloomy forebodings of deserved punishment, however, were suddenly dispelled by the death of Julian, who was mortally wounded, June 26, A.D.363. He was pierced by a Persian javelin, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and eight months from the death of Constantius. He was the last of the house of Constantine, which was left without an heir, and the empire without a master, by his unexpected death. The trembling of the catholic world subsided, and the military election of Jovian restored tranquillity to the church and state.

Page 396

Subject Index For Volume 2

Aaron, as a type of Christ 42

Adam, Second 34-35

Adam: the New and the Old 158-159

Aemilianus, Roman Emperor, (4th

seal) 217-218

Aerial, the, meaning of the term 278-279

After these things 351-352

Aion, signification 359

Aion of Aions, number of times occurring

in Apocalypse 106

Aionian fire 104

Alemanni invasion of Gaul and Italy by

(4thseal) 218

Altar, the 234-238,368-372

Angels

The sealing angel 295-304

The angel of the Golden Altar 372-379

Four angels restraining the winds 295

Michael and his angels fight against

dragon and his angels 276-359

Antichrist 93

Antoninus, Marcus, Aurelius A. D. 161-

180. (1st seal) 153-156

Antoninus, Titus Pius Roman Emperor,

A.D. 138. (1st seal) 153

Apocalypse

Inspiration doubted by some 60-65

Clerical exposition of 156-158

Ascribed to Cerinthus 60

Brief sketch of prophecies explained 85-108

Tabular analysis lI0~l25

A miniature representation 359

Apostasy: development shown in the

scroll 71-73,76-80

Apostasy: Laodicean 86-108

Archer, the 141-142

Ark of the Covenant, in the nave 375

Armageddon 22,101-102

Ascension 26-27

Balance Holder (3rd seal) 183

Balbinus & Maximus, Roman Emperors,

(4th seal) 212-214

Baptism required by God of believers. .237,316

Baptismal Rites practised by the Apos

tasy, third century 308-310

Barbarians, inroads on Roman Empire in

third century 215-218

Beast, Dragon and false prophet cast into lake

of fire 104

Sixth head of the 94

Wild beasts of the earth (4th Seal).. .....214-221

In the time of Constantine 321-323

Black 131

Blood 235

Bodies and souls of men 367-368

Bow, the bow and rider (1st Seal) 141-147

Iudah, Sounders of the truth . . .141,143-144

Breastplate of Judgment 327-328

Brethren: difference between fellow-

servants and 259-264,298-299

Camp, heavenly 224-232

Canons, take their rise 321

During the Third Seal 190-194

Cathari, Puritans or Novatians, third

century, (4th seal) 229-232,336-338

Caught away to meet the Lord 24

Cerinthus, Apocalypse ascribed to 63-64

Catholic Church 89-90,232

Change, from the sin nature to the Divine

nature 251

Cherubim, Ezekiel's and Zechariah's 52-53

Choinix 186-190

Christ Jesus, nature of 33-35,91,136,

235-236

As Second Adam 34-35

As Altar 236-237

As the Vail and Ephod 331-332

His moral training and conflict 159

Christadelphians 43,133,160,161,180,199,

229,232,244,259,261,298

Faith of 34~351

Christendom: The ancestors of modern 324

Christians: real 90

Persecution 161-229

Church: Holy Apostolic Catholic 367-369

Citizenship 315-317

Circumcision 315-317

City holy 375-377

Clerical expositions of the Apocalypse 156-158

Commodus, Roman Emperor (2nd

seal) 162-164

Constans, son of Constantine 347-379,386

Constantina, daughter of Constantine

the great 381-382

Constantine:

Christianity in the time of Constantine 8~91

As the woman's son 8~96

Council of Nice convoked by 336-339

Death, and succession of three sons, 377-386

Constantine son of Constantine the

Great 377-380

Constantius, father of Constantine the

Great 264 272

Constantius, son of Constantine the

Great 378-388

Cornelius, Bishop of ecclesiastical Rome .227

Coronal wreath 147-148

Councils: Ecclesiastical

Aries 323

Milan, A.D. 316 347

Nice, A.D. 325 338-340

Court of Gentiles 372-374

Covenant with David 27-28

Covenant with Noah 38-39

Crisis, New i,raelitish 313

Curse of .'.ie Law, no Israelite ever

escapedit 312

Cyprian: Account of declension of pro

fessingChristians 225-261

Dagger, the $reat Machaira, symbolic

of assassination 168-169

Day, of Yahweh 279

Death and Hades, kill with sword (in 4th

seal) 208-214

Death and Hades: In relation to famine

and pestilence 221-223

Decius, Emperor slain A.D. 251(4th seal

persecutions) 215-216

Deity-denying apostasy, that Christ was no

more than a man 160

Denarius 187

Descent of Jesus from Adam 34

Despot holy and true (5th seal) 255-264

Diadem and Crown 147,256-258

Diana, Temple of, burnt by Goths 219

Diocletian, Roman Emperor, persecutes Christians, (4th and 5th seals) .,198,233,240,

256-258,264-272

Dionysius of Alexandria, third cen

tury 59,60,65

Dogs 8I~83

Domitian the Tyrant A.D. 77-92 138-142

Domitilla 138

Donatists or Puritans, flourish from 4th

to end of 6th centuries 341-349

Door, opened in the Heavens I~21

Dragon, and his angels 274,358359

Eagle, Great wings of the 342,344

Earth, the Roman 169,170

Fourth of 205-207

Third of 283

Temporarily given into the hand of

the wicked 278

Earthquake 282

The Julian A.D. 361-363 38~395

Ecelesia, difference between Church

and 300~302,312

Ephesian state of A.D. 96 183. (1st seal) 132

Pergamian state of A.D. 183-212.

(2nd seal) 158181

Thyatiran state of A.D. 212-235. (3rd

seal) 181-199

Sardian, state of A.D. 235-303. (4th

seal) I~223

Philadelphian, state of A.D. 303311.

(5th seal) 223-276

Laodicean, state of 276-293

Elagabalus, first Asiatic Emperor of Rome A.D.218-223.(3rd seal)... .195-197,287-289

Elliott, Rev. E.B. "Horae Apocalypticae", extracts from 157,206,214,222,255,

308,309,348

Elohim 353-355

Ephod, the 331-332

Ephraim: The future arrow of the bow 141

Epiphany 20

Eusebius, testimony concerning Christi

anity in 3rd century 228,266

Evil, created by God in punishment of

sin 93,94

Faith

Of the woman clothed with the sun 339

A p ostolically delivered 340

Christadelphian faith 34~35 I

Famine 221-223

Fathers, the 81-83,180,301

Fellow servants, different from Breth

ren 259-264,298-299

Fire, Ajonian (c.v. Eternal) 104

Lakeof 104

Altar 377-378

Flesh, Sin's 34,91,92,136,237

Foreheads sealed 303~31 1

Four

Four faces 54~56

Four living ones 51-54,140~141,l83

Why thy do not appear 224~225,233

Fourth of Earth 205-208

Franks, invasion in reign of Valerian 218

Galerius, Emperor 264-274

Gallienus: Emperor, friend to Christianity,

letter to Dionysius, Bishop ofAlexandriaA.D. 262(4th seal) ...218~221

Gallus, Roman Emperor, (4th seal) 217

Nephew of Constantine, (7th seal) . .38~384

Geta, Roman Emperor A.D. 211, (3rd

seal) 199-192

Gibbon

Testimony concerning enorniities practised by nominal Christians in 2nd, 3rd

4th and 7th centuries 93

Tyrants reigned from

Tiberius to Domitian 129

Peace in Roman

Empire from Trajan toCommodus 139

Hadrian Emperor A.D. 117-138. (1st

Seal) 153-154

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus A.D. 161-

180(1st Seal) 153~156

Commodus A.D 180~192 (2nd

Seal) 163~164

Extracts from Gibbon's History 186,188,

206,215,222,256,287-289,358,362,364,379

Gnostics, doctrines of 160

Gold, faith perfected by trial 332-333

Gordians, three, Roman Emperors, (4th

Seal) 211-214

Goths, invasion in reigns of Decius, Val

erian, Gallienus (4th Seal) 215-218

Gratian, Emperor A.D. 375 (7th Seal) 348

Hades 201-205

Hadrian, Emperor A.D. 117-138 (1st

Seal) 153

Jewish rebellion in reign of A.D. 133 153

Half-hour 359-364

Heavens

A door opened in the 18~20

Luminaries of the 277-292

Hell 20~209

Holy Place 370,371,374,375

Homoiousians and Homoousians 337-341

Honorius, son of Theodosius the Great, final separation of the Roman Empire

made A.D. 395 34~349

Horns, Ten, budding forth 93

Horses in the Seals

White symbolic of peace (1st seal)

A.D. 9~183 139-140

Fiery-red, (2nd seal) A.D. 18~212 .169167

Black, (3rd seal) A.D. 212-235 181-182

Pale, (4th seal) A.D. 235-303 199-200

War symbol 130~132

Four first, in Seals, Pagan Rome 131,183

Ignatius, contemporaly ;'~'~tli John 255

Immortality of soul; versus the true

doctrine 249-255

Infant Baptism: unscriptural practice

of 309-310

Inspiration of Jesus and the apostles . .305-307

Israel of God 76~77,336

Sons, tribes of 311-325

Regathering of 352-356

Jacob's time of trouble 283

Jasper 36

Jesus (see Christ)

The Yahweh-Spirit manifested in

flesh 169-161

Had no human father 236

Jewish rebellion in reign of Hadrian 153

Jews, inwardly 314~315

Jezebel, that woman 19

John the Apostle, banishment and

death 132-133

Joshua, typical of Jesus 34,90,91,136,236

Jones, historian, extract from 321-322

Jubilee, trumpet of 24~25

Julian, the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, friendly to the servants of

Deity 347

Julian's reign A.D. 361 381,385,389-395

Kings of the Earth, out of a Sun's rising 303

Kingdom, of men 369-364

Lake of fire 104

Lamb, the 138

Lam p soffire, seven 47

Laodicean, state of the Ecclesia 19,89,276

Laver 237

Law

A shadow of things to come 330~331

Weak through the flesh 312

Lawless One, the 87

Licinius, Emperor, (6th seal) 27~275

Lightnings, the 45~6,38~389

Living Ones, four 51-54,134,139,180

Living Ones, why they do not appear 224,

225,233

Lucifer 204

Macrinus, Roman Emperor, A.D. 217,

(3rdSeal) 194

Mahuzzim or Guardians 369-367

Mammoea, mother of

Alexander Severus 198

Man, New and Old 158,159

Man ofsin 87,88,91,321

Manchild of sin 364

Martyrdom, voluntary 179

 Maxentius, Roman Emperor, (5th seal) 272

Maximian. Roman Emperor, (5th

seal) 2~272

Maximin, Roman Emperor, (4th seal). 209-211

Maximin (5th seal) 274~275

Maximus and Balbinus, Roman

Emperors

(4th seal) 212-214

Metropolitans 321

Metaphorical, style of speech adopted by Jesus,

the apostles, and Prophets, when predicting future

political events . 280

Michael and his angels 274,358~359

Milner, Christianity in the times of Con

stantine 234

Moon, sun, sovereign deities of Roman

World 289

Mosheim, extracts from 151,153,155,188

228,321-322

Mystery, of iniquity 19

Name, the 37~374

Nations, symbolized by animals l3~132

Natural, first as a Divine Principle 317

Nave, the 37~376

New heavens and earth 282

Nice, council of 337

Nicene Creed 337-340

Novatian, Novatius, Novatus, or Novatianus,

an elder of the Church at Rome,

AD. 251, (5th seal) 227

Novatians or Puritans 229-233,336~338

Pagan Power, fall of, shown in first six

seals 87- 88

Perfect Man, the saints in multitudinous

manifestation 145

Pergamian State, A.D. 18~212 15~l81

Persecutions of Christians

First century, Domitian and Trajan 133,

138,149-150

Second century, Marcus Aurelius 154

Third century, Severus 178

Fourth century, Diocletian 264-276

Persians, Rome Invaded by. A.D. 260,

(4th seal) 219-220

Pestilence 221-222

Philadelphian State of Ecclesia, (5th

seal), A.D. 30~31l 22~276

Philip the Arabian, (4th seal) 21~216

Prebendaries, time of Constantine 321

Prefects, Roman Empire under four, . 205-206

Primates 321

Promises, precious 74

Puritans, Novatians, or Cathari, 3rd cen

tury, (4th seal) 22~233,33~339

Rainbow throne 36~41

Red, symbolic of war and bloodshed 131.

166,167

Redeemed, the 144,000 325,350

Resurrection and Judgment 24,25,99,100,

252-253

Rider

Arrowless bowman 141-149

Of Red Horse (2nd Seal) 169168

Of Black Horse (3rd Seal) 182-183

Of Pale Horse (4th Seal) 209201

Ritualistic initiation into Catholic Church

in the days of Constantine 309-310

Rock,the 328~329

Roman people represented by a horse 131

Roman sun and moon darkened, 4th wind

trumpet 289

Rotorutmo~David.,.lloiy 326-327

Sacramentalism 3O8~310,32~321

Sacrifice, daily suppressed 140

Saints manifested in brightness 333~334

As the Urim and Thummin 333

As the ark of covenant 375

As Holy city 375,376

As kings from a sun's rising 303~304

Saracens, A.D. 632-932,5th trumpet (1st

woe) 116

Sardian state, A.D. 23~303 199-223

Sardius 36

Satan, cast as lightning from the hea

ven 20~21

Scroll,

Seven sealed, summary of the Apoc

alypse 67 -109

Writing outside 80~85

Writing inside 99,295-296

Little, open 105,111

Sea, translucent, signification 48-51

Great or Mediterranean 48~49

Seal,

1st, A.D. 9~183 112-130,132-158

2nd, A.D. 183~212 112,158~181

3rd, A.D. 212-235 112,181-199

4th, A.D. 235-303 112,199-223

5th, A.D. 303~311 113,223~276

6th, AD. 311-324 110,113,276~293

7th, A.D. 324 to the coming of the

Lord 87~89, 113~124,359-360,375

7th, and first 4 trumpets, A.D.

395-554 114~115

second section of, or 5th trumpet,

A.D 632-932 (1st.woe) 115~116

6th trumpet. or 2nd woe, A.D. 1062-

1453, (Eastern part) 116

6th trumpet, or 2nd woe, (Western part)

A.D. 312-1794 116,117

Third section, 7th trumpet, or 3rd woe

A.D. 1794~I905, as affecting both

East and West 117-118

Fourth section, the little open

scroll 120~124

The seal, of the Deity, and the sealed 303~3l1

Sealed, the 144,000 325~327

Sealers, angel 344~351

Sealing period, A.D. 324-396 295,296

Seals,

Seven~showing Apocalyptic drama 86-87

First six, fall of Paganism, A.D. 96~324, .86-88.110,112-113

Seed,of woman 91

Seraphim 54

Seven, Lamps of fire 47

Spirits 47-48,376

Seals, seven parts of Apocalyptic

drama 86-87

Serverus Roman Emperor, A.D. 195-211,

(3rd seal) 175-182

Alexander, A.D. 223335 189-190

Sheol 204

Sign and Symbol 277,278,359-362

Not in the sky, hut in the political

universe 278

Silence in the heaven, half hour, A.D.324 359-364

Sin, unto death 231

Smoke of their torment 106

Socrates, ecclesiastical historian 229,

230,337-338,341~342

Songs of Zion 33

Souls Under the Altar 234,238-244

Scripturally defined 246-255

Merchandising therein 367

Spirits, seven 47,376

Square, holy saints as 326327,334336

Stephanos 147-148

Stone, the power 23,100

Jasper and Sardine 35,36

Sun, symbolic of Roman Imperiality . .284-292

Sunshine, of the world's heavens 28

Sun-power, the millennial 290-29

Sun's rising, kings out of a 303-304

Sword

Small or dagger 168,169,208209

Long Thracian 208

Death and Hades kill with 208=214

Tabernacle of Testimony 369,373-376

Temple, Apocalyptic 366

Service, priests and singers typical 4245

These thirigs, after, in distinction from

those things 351-352

Third seal

Throne, of David 196-198

27-33

Rainhowed 36-41

Great white 99

Thummim, fulness 327-335

Thunders, the signification of 46

Seven yet future 105

of the fourth century 384-386

voice of thunder, opening first seal 138

Thyatiran State, A.D. 212-235, (3rd

seal) 181-199

Time,

Symbolic 359-362

ToSr~evnent, 359-361

smoke of their 106

Trajan. Emperor, A.D. 98117 150-151

Tregelles, 'Rev.' S.P l27- 128

Tribes (of Israel) different lists of 335-336

Tribes of Israel's sons 311-325

Tribulation, under 5th seal A.D. 303. .264-276

Trinity, Holy, Clerical 340

Trumpet,

5th or 1st woe, AD. 632-932 94,115-116

6th or 2nd woe, A.D. 1062-1453, East

empart 116

6th or 2nd woe, A.D. 312-1794, West

empart 116

7th or 3rd woe, A.D. 17931905, East

and West 98,99,117

Trumpets

Four wind. A.D. 395-554 93,115

Jubilee 25-26

Truth, falling in love with 315

'Tuition," which developed the moral

image of the Deity in Christ 159

Twenty-four, the number 42-45

Elders 41-42

Universe 278-282

Urim and Thummim 327-335

Vail, the 332,374

Emperor, A.D. 257 218-220

Vials, the 98-104

Voice, His, first as a trumpet 23-33

Of thunder, (1st seal) 138

Voice announcing the 3rd seal 183-186

Voices announcing the seventh seal, 377-384

Voluntary offering of Christ 337

Wall of the city, Holy Jerusalem 319

White robes 242-246,354

White horse, (1st seal) 139-141

Willows of the brook 354

Wild Olive-branch, the 323

Witnesses, two prophesying of 94-96

Witnessing, Christadelphian 351-353

Woe,

1st, A.D. 632-932 115-116

2nd, A.D. 1062-1453, judgments on

eastern Roman Empire 116

A.D. 312-1794, judgments on

western Roman Empire 116

3rd, seventh trumpet, East and West

affected. A.D. 17941905 116,117

Woman, the anti~pagan community 89-91

clothed with the sun, representing the

anti-pagan community 287,297

remnantofseed 92

World, different Greek words translated . .147

Yahweh, Tz'vaoth, day of the 279

Yahweh-nissi 236

York, Britain, Septimus Severus, Roman

Emperor. died at A.D. 211, (3rd seal).... 190

Zadok, sons of 43,44