3. They made similar pretensions to credibility. Simon Magus gave out

“that himself was some great one;” and these, that they utter divine truths.

4. Similar regard was bestowed on those, which is claimed for these. To Simon “they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.” Yet “he had bewitched them with sorceries.” Similar claims by, and regard for these modern pretenders to the same art, do not relieve them from the suspicion of a like agency. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness: whose end shall be according to their works,” 2 Cor. 11:13-15.

5. Both have given utterance to some truths. The legion of demons who were cast out of the man into a herd of swine, acknowledged Jesus to be “the Son of the Most High God;” and the pythonic spirit which so grieved Paul, declared the apostles to be “the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation.” Such communications with the invisible world being forbidden, their credibility is disproved.

They claim that spirits of the departed are brought into direct and intelligent communication with the living, who desire to interrogate them. What more was claimed by the necromancers of old? Said Saul to the woman of Endor: “Divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee,” 1 Sam. 28:8.

They claim that not all, but only those persons are mediums who are peculiarly susceptible to spiritual influences. Wherein, then, admitting their claims, do the “mediums” differ from those of old, who divined by a familiar spirit?

Their responses are frequently disproved by facts; and themselves admit the existence of unreliable spirits, which communicate like them. They give contradictory responses, and mutually criminate each other; but their reality is not disproved by any discrepancy, or want of truthfulness in their responses; for if they are spirits, none but unclean spirits would respond in a forbidden manner.

These spirits are to be discredited, because they preach a different gospel from that preached by Paul, who says: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed,” Gal. 1:6-9. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maran-atha.” 1 Cor. 16:22. Said John, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world,” 1 John 4:1. Also Isaiah said, “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,” Isa. 8:19, 20.

Because of these practices, the nations were driven out from before the children of Israel. And with the miracles to be wrought, the frog-like spirits are to go forth to “the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”

In the time of Abraham, “the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full,” (Gen. 15:16); but in four hundred years they had practised all the abominations for which they were to be destroyed, and the practice of which God has expressly forbidden. He said to Israel, in the wilderness, “When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nation. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do,” Deut. 18:9-14.

Similar pernicious practices and dangerous heresies, are to prepare the way for the final destruction of the nations who reject the claims of Jehovah. Peter declares that “there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not,” 2 Pet. 2:1-3. And Paul says of that wicked: “Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,” 2 Thess. 2:9-12.

“The battle of that great day of God Almighty,” it would seem, must commence by a conflict of opinions. Mind will war with mind, and puny man will stoutly contend against the truths of the Almighty. In this revival of demon-worship, the old gods of the heathen are to be set up against the claims of Jehovah. His declarations are to be made to give place to “doctrines of demons.” The teachings of God and of these spirits are to be brought into direct conflict.

The followers of the spirits have baptized their new theological dogmas, “The Harmonial Philosophy,” of which Reason is the final umpire. Revelation no longer speaks to them in tones of authority. From the Bible, it is claimed, “the seal of infallibility must be broken away, before a new light and beauty can enliven and embellish the mystical disclosures of any seer, prophet, or evangelist.” So writes Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer, one of the leaders of this new school, who complains that “owing to the dogmatism of infallibility, the Bible is taught now-a-days as it was nearly four centuries ago.”—Review of Dr. Bushnell, p. 10.

The Scriptures are, with those of his faith, only “the paper and ink relics of Christianity,” (Ib., p. 21); which they regard as “a foundation as impermanent as the changeful sand” (Ib. p. 24), and not adapted “to the wants or requirements of the nineteenth century,” Ib. p. 26. They reject Him, whom they style “the cruel and capricious God generally worshipped by the Bible Christians,” Ib. p. 47. “The Jewish God,” says Davis, “is cruel, capricious and tyrannical,” whose “kingdom is more despotic, and more contracted in principle, than the present government of the Russian empire,” Ib. p. 61. He adds, “The Old Testament idea of a Deity is the outgrowth of the despotic stage of human mental development,” and “a superannuated monotheistic conception,” Ib. p. 62. In their opinion, “the developments of republicanism, and of mental happiness among men, depend very much upon the absence of these dogmatical compilations, or fossil relics, of an old Hebrew and Chaldean theology,” Ib. p. 70. With them “the Bible account of creation is a very interesting myth,—mainly a plagiarism from the early traditions and cosmological doctrines of the ancient Persians and Chaldeans;” and, instead of being “a divine revelation of truth,” is “a pagan relic, which should no more command serious respect than the ancient doctrines of Fetichism,” Ib. p. 90.

These “Harmonial Philosophers” are antagonistic to the teachings of Jehovah in nearly all their theological notions. They scout the idea that any actual evil exists in the universe. They deny the existence of the devil, and of evil spirits. “Everything,” says Davis, “is forever progressing in goodness and perfection,” Ib. p. 180. The salvation of all men, is with them as certain as the operation of fixed laws. They recognize no Saviour and no atonement in their system of faith. The teachings of spirits, and “a certain organization of labor, capital and talent,” they fancy, “will effect the desired cure” for all actual or supposed ills, Ib. p. 178. They recognize no responsibility in the sinner, but attribute his wrong-doings to ignorance and accident; and their laws of right, are the dictates of their own wisdom.

Their system is essentially Pantheistic, all things being regarded by them as a part and parcel of Deity. They argue that “every object which has an existence in the universe must be in its nature good and pure, on the principle that the effect must partake of the nature of the cause, and the stream must be the corresponding emanation of the fountain from which it flows.”—Elements of Spiritual Philosophy, p. 55. They teach that human spirits are “formed primarily from the animating essences that pervade the creation,—which essences,” they say, “are the breath and presence of the Divinity;” and hence they argue, “that there are no spirits which are intrinsically evil in their nature, and none which do not present in their inward depths the reflection of divine purity,” Ib. p. 56. Going still further, they claim that there is no existing “source of positive evil,” “no principle of this nature in the human spirit,” and that consequently “there can be no evil designs to emanate from such a source,” Ib. p. 60.

These assertions are put forth authoritatively; for the “Elements of Spiritual Philosophy” are attested by witnesses to be “written by Spirits of the Sixth Circle, R. P. Ambler, Medium.” And if they are met by the declarations written by those who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, they reply: “The Christian who deifies his Bible is as much an idolater as the heathen who burns his incense before his household image. It is surely attributing to the book what the Pagan attributes to his image.”—Shekinah, April No., p. 251. Christianity, they denominate, “learned scepticism, baptized in the name of Jesus,” &c., Ib., p. 301. Thus are they warring against the word of God, and placing themselves in direct conflict with the Almighty.

This warfare is not only avowed to be against the God of the Bible, but is recognized by themselves as the last great conflict previous to the millennium. They regard this subject as “the great question of the age, which is destined to convulse and divide Protestantism, and around which all other religious controversies must necessarily revolve.”—Davis’ Review of Bushnell, page 3. The millennium which is to be thus ushered in, they regard as a period when “every one that desires will be able to hold direct intercourse and conversation with the spirit world.”—Spiritual Tel., Vol. 1, No. 1. Says Davis: “The thunders of a stupendous reformation are soon to issue from the now open mouth of the Protestant church. The supernatural faith,” i.e. a belief in the authenticity of Scripture, “will be shaken, as a reed in the tempest. New channels will be formed for the inflowing of new truths, and then a long-promised era will steal upon the religious and political world.”—Review of Bushnell, p. 187.

In another place he says: “You may be assured of the truth of this approaching crisis. The world must recognize it, because it will be accompanied with war; for politics are inseparably connected, all over the world, with religious systems. Religion will develop reason; but politics will impel the masses to unsheath the sword, and to stain the bosom of Nature with blood! Friends of progress! be not discouraged; for the FINAL CRISIS must come; then the strange interregnum,” Ib. p. 217. “Protestantism as now constructed will first decay; because it is to be divided into two,—the smallest party will go back into Catholicism; the other will go forward into Rationalism. And then, after a succession of eventful years, a political revolution will hurl the Catholic superstructure to the earth, and the prismatic bow of promise will span the heavens. The children of earth will then be comparatively free and happy! for the millennial epoch will have arrived; and there will be something like a realization of peace on earth, and good will toward all men!” Ib. p. 221.

Such are their delusive hopes, while setting themselves against the Lord, and against his Anointed. The Bible teaches that multitudes will be deceived by them, and, if it were possible, some of the elect; and hence:

The Admonition.

“Behold, I come like a thief. Happy is he who watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” Rev. 16:15.

“The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,” 2 Pet. 3:10. The Saviour said to his disciples: “Watch, therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come,” Matt. 24:42. Says Paul: “Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night; for when they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh, ... and they shall not escape; but ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief,” 1 Thess. 5:1-6.

Thus will the day of the Lord come, as a thief, on those who are careless and indifferent to its approach; but it will not thus overtake those who watch, and keep their garments. Because so many will be deceived by the strange performances of the spirits of demons, and their miracles so delude the multitude, Christ’s coming will be to them sudden and unexpected. Therefore the greater necessity for watchfulness. While this is a predicted means for lulling the world to sleep, it is given to the Christian as an indication of the near coming of Christ, whose advent synchronizes with the outpouring of the seventh vial. The blessing pronounced on those who watch, is an intimation that the people of God will be expecting Christ’s advent, while others will be taken by surprise: “unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation,” Heb. 9:28. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” Titus 2:11-13.

Those who keep their garments, are those who have not “defiled” them with sin, (3:4); they will walk with Christ in white, being worthy; “for the fine linen” in which they are to be arrayed “is the righteousness of saints,” 19:8. To be destitute of this, is to be unclothed; and hence the Saviour says: “I counsel thee to buy of me ... white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear,” 3:18. The intimation is clear, that to be deceived by the unclean spirits, is to lose those robes of righteousness, and to be found naked at Christ’s appearing.

The Success of the Spirits.

“And they gathered them into a place called in Hebrew Armageddon.” Rev. 16:16.

Before the coming of the Lord, and as a preparation for that event, the nations are to be thus gathered. Armageddon is the name of a valley at the foot of Mount Megiddo, famous for its bloody slaughters. It fitly symbolizes the final gathering of the nations. The enemies of God will marshal for the final conflict. The powers of darkness will fancy themselves on the verge of victory; and then will be poured out:

The Seventh Vial.

“And the seventh poured out his bowl on the air; and there came a loud voice from the temple [of heaven], from the throne, saying, It is done! And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were on the earth, so mighty and so great an earthquake. And the great city became three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon was remembered before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of his furious wrath. And every island fled, and the mountains were no more. And vast hail, weighing a talent, fell from heaven on men; and men reviled God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceedingly great.” Rev. 16:17-21.

The atmosphere is not limited, like a river, or portion of the earth, to a given locality, but encircles the globe. Consequently the effect of the vial poured out on the air, would be universal, and not local like the effects of the previous vials. The air is the region of storms. These symbolize the expression of conflicting opinions, and violent outbursts of passion; which may be the commencement of that “great battle,” for the preparation of which the unclean spirits went forth under the sixth vial, to gather the people, and which terminates by the slaying of the remnant with the sword of the Lord, 19:21.

An earthquake is a symbol of a political revolution. As this is to be greater than all preceding ones, it must extend to all nations. It is during the earthquake, that the cities fall and the mountains and islands flee away. This commotion evidently synchronizes with the “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time,” when God’s “people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book,” Dan. 12:1.

“It is done,” is a declaration indicating the completion of the work symbolized. It marks the termination of the events of the seventh vial, which are described in the verses following:

“The great city” is “Babylon,” (14:8); which “reigneth over the kings of the earth,” (17:8); and which John had seen sitting “upon many waters,” 17:1. This was doubtless seen when he saw the waters of the symbolic Euphrates being dried up, 16:12. Babylon, being a symbol of the Roman hierarchy, its triple division indicates a like division of the church of Rome, not geographical, but under different leaders, previous to its destruction.

“The cities of the nations,” must symbolize other hierarchies, analogous to that of Rome, of which there are the Greek church, in Russia and Greece, the Arminian and Syrian churches, and other corrupt nationalized establishments. All such will become disconnected, like Babylon, with the governments by which they are sustained.

“Great Babylon” then comes into remembrance to drink the cup of the wine of the fierceness of God’s wrath. Because her sins have reached unto heaven, “God hath remembered her iniquities,” 18:5. This synchronizes with her destruction, symbolized in Rev. 18:8-23. As the Papacy continues till Christ’s coming (Dan. 7:21, and 2 Thess. 2:3-8), this epoch must synchronize with that event, when he comes to receive his chosen ones.

With the destruction of Babylon, occurs the subversion of all national authority. As ecclesiastical hierarchies are symbolized by cities, the “mountains” and “islands” on which they are situated must symbolize the larger and smaller governments; and their removal from their places, their subversion in the great moral “earthquake” which is to overwhelm them. This synchronizes with the sixth seal, when they are all “removed out of their places,” (6:14); and it leaves the inhabitants of earth in a state of anarchy. It is at this time that the kings and great men of the earth become aware that the great day of God’s wrath is come, 6:15-17. With this time of trouble, comes the deliverance of God’s people, (Dan. 12:1); who shall be caught up together “to meet the Lord in the air,” 1 Thess. 4:17. To them the Lord has said, “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation,” Ps. 91:5-9.

The removal of the saints leaves the wicked exposed to the vengeance of God’s wrath, of which a terrific hail-storm on their defenceless heads, is an expressive symbol. The Lord said, by Isaiah: “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. For the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption even determined upon the whole earth,” Isa. 28:17-22.

This must synchronize with the final conflict, (symbolized in Rev. 19:19-21): also with the casting of the vine of the earth into the wine-press of God’s wrath (14:19), and terminates the battle of “Armageddon,”—the “battle of that great day of God Almighty,” 16:14.

The Judgment of the Harlot.

“And one of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls, came and talked with me, saying, Come here; I will show thee the judgment of the great harlot who sitteth on many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Rev. 17:1, 2.

The Roman hierarchy had been frequently referred to in the preceding visions; but an institution, so interwoven with the history of the nations, required a more full and minute symbolization.

The subject of this vision is announced to the revelator, by one of the angels who had the seven vials;—very probably, the seventh. The harlot is identified as one “that sitteth upon many waters.” Ancient Babylon was thus addressed: “O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness,” Jer. 51:13. She is also described as “The well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts,” Nahum 3:4. Therefore the harlot whose judgment is to be more minutely shown, is the city of the previous vision, which received the cup of the wine of God’s wrath (16:19), and which probably was shown to John on the waters of the Euphrates, (16:12); for the reference indicates that she had been thus previously exhibited,—the waters on which she was seated, being the people, nations, &c., which sustained and defended her idolatries, 17:15. In the vision now to be shown John, the Roman hierarchy is symbolized by Babylon; but it is first exhibited as:

A Woman on a Scarlet-Colored Beast.

“And he carried me away in spirit into a desert: and I saw a woman seated on a crimson-colored wild beast, full of names of reviling, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and crimson, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead a name was written, A SECRET: BABYLON, THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus; and when I saw her I wondered greatly.” Rev. 17:3-6.

“And the angel said to me, Why dost thou wonder? I will tell thee the secret of the woman, and of the wild beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and the ten horns. The wild beast which thou didst see, was, and is not, and will ascend out of the abyss, and go into destruction; and those who dwell on the earth will wonder, (whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world,) as they behold the wild beast that was and is not, and will be. And here is the mind having wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must remain a little while. And the wild beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into destruction. And the ten horns which thou didst see are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom; but they receive power as kings, one hour, with the wild beast. These have one mind, and will give their power and strength to the wild beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them; for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and those with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” Rev. 17:7-14.

“And he saith to me, The waters which thou didst see, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and crowds, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou didst see, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot, and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh, and burn her up with fire. For God hath put it into their hearts to perform his purpose, and to agree, and give their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman whom thou didst see is the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Rev. 17:15-18.

That the woman and city symbolize the same, is shown by the declaration that she is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth, v. 18. She is also thus indicated by the name of “Babylon,” on her forehead, and the golden cup in her hand: “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore are the nations mad,” Jer. 51:7. In like manner has the church of Rome intoxicated the nations.

“The scarlet-colored beast” on which the woman is seated, is evidently the same beast that John saw “rise out of the sea, having seven heads, and ten horns,” 13:1. The Roman empire had been symbolized by “a great red dragon,” which also had seven heads and ten horns. In that vision, crowns were on the heads of the beast, (12:3); which indicated that Rome, during the period thus represented, existed under the forms of government symbolized by the heads. These heads, the angel affirms, are the seven mountains on which the woman sitteth, (v. 9); and also that they are seven kings (v. 10), or forms of government. Mountains also symbolize governments, (16:20); and as the heads and mountains are the same, they must alike symbolize the seven forms of government under which Rome existed previous to its subversion by the northern barbarians,—viz.: 1, the kingly; 2, consular; 3, dictatorial; 4, decemviral; 5, tribunitial; 6, pagan-imperial; and 7, Christian-imperial. At the time of the explanation of this vision to John, the “five” first-named forms had passed away; or, as the angel says, had “fallen,” v. 10. One then was:—Rome then existed under its pagan-imperial, or sixth head. The other, the Christian-imperial, had not then come; but after it came, and had continued for a time, the Roman empire was subverted by the irruptions of northern barbarians. Thus “the beast was;” and then, was not for a season. But afterwards it emerged again from the sea (13:1), under an “eight” form, which was of the previous seven, 17:11. When it reäppears, its crowns are not upon its heads, but encircle its horns, (13:1); indicating that those governments have the ascendency, which are symbolized by the “ten horns;” and which, according to the angel, are “ten kings,” which had not received their kingdom at the time of the vision, v. 12. These were to be kings in “one,” or the same hour with the beast, and must therefore be contemporary kingdoms, while the forms symbolized by the heads, are evidently successive. They constitute the government of Rome, in its eighth, or decem-regal form; and symbolize the ten kingdoms which arose after and out of the subversion of imperial Rome. Under this form, the beast goes into perdition, (v. 11):—they continue under various combinations, till the end of the world, when they will war with and be overcome by the Lamb (v. 14), in the great battle of Armageddon, 19:19-21.

The ten contemporary kingdoms have one mind, (v. 13): they perpetuate the kingdom of the beast, by adopting similar laws, pursuing the same line of policy, and assuming the same powers that the empire exercised.

The “names of blasphemy” which cover the beast, symbolize its arrogating the right to dictate in matters of faith and religious worship, and to punish those who dissent from its creed. The Roman hierarchy was supported by legal enactments against heretics in all of the ten kingdoms. Those who dissented from the church were delivered over to the power of the civil arm, which punished by imprisonment, confiscation of goods, bodily torture, and death. The exercise of such power, was a blasphemous usurpation of the prerogatives of Christ, and an assumption of authority over the legislation of God.

On this beast the woman is seated. As its rider, she guides it, and is sustained by it. She is its directing power; and while she is thus seated, there is no reference to crowns encircling either heads or horns. All rule for a time is subservient to her control. Thus were the ten kingdoms obedient to the Roman hierarchy,—sustaining, and being controlled by it. She crowned their kings, and dethroned them at her pleasure. The religion of the church was enforced by the sword of the state; and thus did the kings of the earth commit fornication with her,—the idolatries of the church being sanctioned by them.

The superb attire of the woman, and the costly gems with which she is decked, denote the wealth, luxury, and regal splendor of the hierarchy which she symbolizes. The cup, and its abominations in her hand, denote the false doctrines with which she would seduce the nations. Her names describe her nature, and identify her with Babylon; and her intoxication with blood, indicates her blood-thirsty, persecuting character, and the delight with which she would exult over the slaughter of the saints.

The Roman hierarchy was not, however, always to retain her supremacy over the nations. She was in due time to fall from the position symbolized by the woman seated on the beast; and the kings of the earth were to hate and burn with fire, her whom they had recognized as their mistress, and to whose control they had submitted. The governments which have sustained her pretensions, were to cast her off contemptuously. This has been in progress of fulfilment from the days of Martin Luther, since which her control of the ten kingdoms has been only limited and partial. Many of her ecclesiastical estates have been confiscated, and she has been deprived of her prerogatives in many countries. There may, perhaps, be hereafter a more complete fulfilment of this prediction. It is symbolized in the following chapter, by:

The Fall of Babylon.

“And after this, I saw another angel descending from heaven, having great power; and the earth was enlightened by his glory. And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, She is fallen: Babylon the great is fallen, and is become a dwelling of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird, for all the nations have drunk of the wine of the fury of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” Rev. 18:1-3.

This announcement of the fall of the city, synchronizes with the same symbolization in the 14th chapter: “And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,” 14:8. The angel, proclaiming her fall, doubtless symbolizes a body of men, who shall give utterance to corresponding declarations.

The epoch of this utterance is shown by the identity of this angel with that of Rev. 10:1-3. They thus correspond: They both descend from heaven: the one is a mighty angel, and the other has great power; the one is enveloped with a robe of cloud, his head is arched with the rainbow, his face is like the sun, and his feet like fire, and he stands on both earth and sea; the other is so glorified, and occupies a position so conspicuous, that the earth is enlightened with his glory; and the one cries “with a loud voice as when a lion roareth,” while the other cries “mighty with a strong voice.” Thus their position, manner and conspicuousness, are alike. What was uttered by the angel of the tenth chapter, is not revealed; but the fall of Babylon being announced in the eighteenth, it follows that it was the subject of the angel’s utterance in the tenth.

As the messenger of the tenth chapter appears subsequent to the sixth, and before the seventh trumpet; and as, after this epoch, there were to be prophesyings “again, before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings” (10:11), it follows that the time then symbolized must be at an epoch anterior to the end of the world. A corresponding reason—namely, the command to come out of Babylon, and the fulfilment of her plagues and sorrows, which are to intervene between the cry of the angel announcing her fall and the time of her actual destruction—proves that the mighty angel of the 18th of Revelation must also be at an epoch having a considerable period between it and the end.

It follows, that when John saw the angel of the eighteenth chapter, and “the earth was lightened with his glory,” it did not symbolize a literal but a moral light,—the light of truth. And as the enlightening of the earth by its promulgation, pre-supposes a previous state of corresponding moral darkness, it must, as in the tenth chapter, symbolize an epoch, prominent in the history of the world, as a time when the darkness of ignorance, error and superstition, began rapidly to disappear before the spread of the light of truth and knowledge.

These considerations point to the epoch of the REFORMATION, when the midnight darkness of the dark ages began to be scattered before the uprising and onward progress of truth and knowledge. Then appeared a body of religious teachers, aided by the newly discovered art of printing, who so brought the Scriptures out from their obscurity, opposed the pretensions of the Papal hierarchy, and, by the clear teachings of the word, so secured the spread of gospel light and liberty, that they might appropriately be symbolized by an angel coming down from heaven, and enlightening the earth with his glory. The descent from heaven would symbolize the heavenly origin of the doctrines promulgated. His mighty power, and the strong voice with which he proclaimed his cry, would symbolize the greatness and earnestness of the movement, and the mighty results to be effected by it. This symbolization, twice given, could only be fulfilled by some great and mighty movement, like the Reformation.

The fall of Babylon is distinct from and anterior to its destruction, and must correspond with the fall of the woman from her position on the beast;—she is no longer to be the director of, and to be sustained by, the civil power. The cry of the angel, announcing her fall, as Mr. Elliot remarks, seems to be anticipative, and not retrospective. The denunciations of the Papacy by the reformers were of a character to fulfil this symbolization.

The year 1300, during the pontificate of Boniface VIII., may be regarded as marking the highest eminence to which the Papal power ever attained. From this period the dominion of the Roman Pontiffs appeared to be gradually undermined. Twenty-four years after this date, John Wickliffe was born, who, together with his followers, made more vigorous attacks upon Babylon itself. Some of these declared Rome to be mystical Babylon, and the Pope and church there to be Antichrist. These heralds announced the fall of mystical Babylon, as the ancient prophets had done that of literal Babylon, long before the event.—Jer. 51:7, 8. Antichrist and Babylon are identified in prophecy. In 1518, Luther first suspected their application to the Papacy; and, writing to his friend Link, on sending him a copy of the acts just published of the conference at Augsburg, he says: “My pen is ready to give birth to things much greater. I know not myself whence these thoughts come to me. I will send you what I write, that you may see if I have well conjectured in believing that the Antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks now reigns in the court of Rome.”

At first, Luther and his companions sought only the reformation of that church. They had no idea of dissolving their own connection with it. But when the thunders of the Vatican were hurled at them, and they found themselves excommunicated as heretics, they came to the conclusion that the church of Rome was the Babylon of the Apocalypse. Immediately upon this conviction, they began to cry, “Babylon is fallen!”

In 1520 appeared a famous book, by Luther, on the “Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” in which he attacked Rome with great skill and courage. In Switzerland and England the reformers considered themselves as fulfilling this message of the Apocalyptic angel. Elliot says, “They seized on this very prophecy for application; and, for the first time, upon grounds of evidence sound and tenable, concluded on the fact of progress having been made up to it, in the evolution of the great mundane drama, and on their own chronological place being already far advanced under the sixth trumpet, and in near expectancy of the seventh trumpet, of the Apocalyptic prophecy.”

These denunciations against Mystic Babylon, and protestations against all her idolatrous ceremonies and superstitious appendages, were given, by the great body of the reformers, within the very bounds of her empire. They resulted in her loss of power, and of control over the princes of Europe. In 1526, the other monarchs becoming jealous of the power of Charles V., Emperor of Germany, “Pope Clement VII. placed himself at the head of a league of the principal states of Italy against him; but their ill-directed efforts were productive of new misfortunes. Rome was taken by storm, by the troops of the constable, sacked, and the Pope himself made prisoner. Charles V. publicly disavowed the proceedings of the constable, went into mourning with his court, and carried his hypocrisy so far as to order prayers for the deliverance of the Pope. On restoring the holy father to liberty, he demanded a ransom of four hundred thousand crowns of gold, but was satisfied with a quarter of that sum.”—Ency. Am., v. 3. p. 76.

All the Protestant princes of Germany denied the assumptions of the Pope; and the powers of western and northern Europe, one after another, denied their allegiance to him. In 1798, Pius VI. was taken prisoner by the French, under Gen. Berthier, and died in exile. When Berthier entered Rome, many of the cardinals “fled from the city on the wings of terror;” but those who remained “were disposed still to uphold the authority of the Pontiff.” Finally, however, “with melancholy voice, they pronounced their absolute renunciation of the temporal government.”—Life of Pius VI. His successor resumed his position. But in 1848 Pius IX. fled from his own subjects, and was only restored by French arms. Thus gradually the Babylonish woman became unseated, and fell from her position on the beast; and, instead of guiding and directing the civil power, now only exists by sufferance. As a city, also, her supremacy was gone. Being no longer the mistress of the nations, or the ruling city, the Papal See is in the condition of ancient Babylon when becoming a dependency of the Medes and Persians.

After the fall of ancient Babylon, it became gradually more and more deserted, until there was a literal fulfilment of the words of Isaiah: “Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces,” Isa. 13:21, 22. In like manner the apocalyptic Babylon, after her fall, and the withdrawal of Protestants from her communion, was to become the receptacle of corresponding spirits. Her members were to be more impious than before, and were to adhere more closely than ever to her idolatrous practices. The contrast between these and true Christians would also be more apparent from the separation which succeeds her fall, in obedience to:

The Voice From Heaven.

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins have reached to heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities! Reward her even as she rendered to you, and double to her according to her works, in the cup which she hath poured out, pour out double to her. By as much as she hath glorified herself, and lived luxuriously, so much torment and mourning give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am not a widow, and shall see no mourning. On this account, her plagues will come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she will be burned up with fire; for strong is the Lord God, who judgeth her.”—Rev. 18:4-8.

So long as the true character of the apostate church was unperceived, she would contain many good, as well as a multitude of bad members. The voice from heaven, indicates an epoch when there should be a widely extended and marked separation between these two classes. Till the time of that separation should be indicated, the children of God would be justified in continuing members of her communion; but not subsequently. The condition of Babylon, at the time of her fall, indicates that the separation must take place in near connection with that event; and the cry must synchronize with that of the third angel in Rev. 14:9,—which symbolized a body of men who should insist on such a separation from the Papacy as that here symbolized.

After the discovery that the church of Rome was the Babylon of the Apocalypse, the reformers began to call on the people of God to desert her communion; and the formation of the reformed churches was the consequence. This was preached wherever the Reformation extended, and has been continued to the present time. The Protestant churches have proclaimed connection with Romanism, an obstacle to salvation; and have called on its Christian members to come out from her abominations. Even the name “Protestant,” was given because of their protestation against the corruptions of the Papal See.

After the fall of ancient Babylon, and before her destruction, the people were, in like manner, commanded to forsake her. Said Jeremiah: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; he will render unto her a recompense. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies,” Jer. 51:6, 8, 9. And Isaiah said: “Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob,” Isa. 48:20. “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord,” Isa. 52:11.

Sins reaching to heaven, indicate great wickedness. Thus God said to Jonah: “Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me,” Jonah 1:2. And he said of old Babylon: “Her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies,” Jer. 51:9.

The Destruction of Babylon.

“And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her, will weep and wail for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off through the fear of her torment, saying, Woe! woe! that great city, Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come! And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her; for no one buyeth their merchandise any more; the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and crimson, and all thine wood, and all kinds of vessels of ivory, and all kinds of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and fragrant ointment, and incense, and myrrh, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and bodies, and souls of men. And the autumnal fruit of thine appetite’s desire is departed from thee, and all things dainty and sumptuous are destroyed from thee, and thou wilt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who were enriched by her, will stand afar off, through the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe! woe! that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and crimson, and adorned with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! for in one hour such great wealth is destroyed. And every pilot, and every one sailing to any place, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried, when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like the great city? And they cast dust on their heads, and cried out, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe! woe! the great city by which all who had ships on the sea, were made rich through her precious merchandise! for in one hour she is desolated.” Rev. 18:9-20.

“Rejoice over her, O heaven, and ye saints and apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her!” Rev. 18:20.

“And a strong angel took up a stone like a great mill-stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus violently, will Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and be no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and pipers, and trumpeters, will be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of any art, will be found any more in thee; and the sound of a mill-stone will be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a lamp will shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride will be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the nobles of the earth; for by thy sorcery all nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all those slain on the earth.” Rev. 18:21-24.

The punishment of Babylon is proportioned to her wickedness, and is to be inflicted partially by the kings of the earth, and partially by other agencies. The kings were to hate, and burn her with fire, (17:16); and were also, when they should see the smoke of her burnings, to bewail and lament for her, 18:9. The former passage indicates their agency in her impoverishment, and has been fulfilled in the confiscation of her property in France and England, the spoliation of churches and religious houses, wherever the arms of Napoleon extended; the dethronement of the Pope, by Gen. Berthier, in 1798; the refusal of some of the powers to permit her to nominate, within their limits, the candidates for ecclesiastical preferment, &c. She is thus made to feel her widowhood,—her divorce from the secular arm,—and has mourned the loss of her most devoted children, who have forsaken her communion.

Her final destruction is, however, to be entire. She is totally to disappear, like the sinking of a millstone in the sea. She is to be utterly burned with fire; but the lamentation of the kings over her burning, indicates that her destruction is to be completed by other instrumentality than theirs. Probably the multitude are to be incensed against her, and will so manifest their hatred that the governments will neither join in it, nor attempt to resist it, for fear that the same torment will be inflicted on them, 18:10. But her existence is terminated by the brightness of Christ’s coming, 2 Thess. 2:8. Her destruction precedes that of the kings of the earth, who mourn her end. The merchants of the earth, the captains, sailors, &c., symbolize those who bear a relation to the hierarchy, analogous to that sustained by such to a great commercial emporium. They are those who have the control of her preferments, benefices and revenues,—who traffic in her indulgences, and thereby become themselves enriched. And these articles of traffic are symbolized by the merchandise which, after her destruction, no man would buy.

The commerce of this ecclesiastical city, has been immense,—particularly in indulgences. The sale of these was reduced to a system, says D’Aubigné, by “the celebrated and scandalous Tariff of Indulgences,” which went through more than forty editions. The least delicate ears would be offended by an enumeration of all the horrors it contains. Incest, if not detected, was to cost five groats; and six, if it was known. There was a stated price for murder, infanticide, adultery, perjury, burglary, &c. Polygamy cost six ducats; sacrilege and perjury, nine; murder, eight; and witchcraft, two ducats.

The penances of various kinds which were imposed as a punishment for sin, might also be compounded for money.

Tetzel, one of Rome’s travelling merchants, told the people of Germany that for “a quarter of a florin” they might “receive letters of indulgence,” by means of which they might “introduce into paradise a divine and immortal soul, without its running any risk.” Hist. Ref., pp. 56, 242.

He also said “Indulgences avail not only for the living but for the dead. With twelve groats you can deliver your father from purgatory.” “At the very instant,” said he, “that the money rattles at the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory, and flies, liberated to heaven.” This is but a specimen of her vile traffic.

Responding to the command, are heard the voices of much people in heaven,

Rejoicing Over Babylon’s Destruction.

“And after this, I heard a loud voice of a mighty crowd in heaven, saying, Praise ye Jehovah! The salvation, and the glory, and the power of our God! For true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot, who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand! And again they said, Praise ye Jehovah! And her smoke ascendeth for ever and ever. And the twenty-four elders and the four living beings fell down and worshipped God, who sat on the throne, saying, So be it! Praise ye Jehovah!” Rev. 19:1-4.

Daniel, in vision, saw the same persecuting power symbolized by a “Little Horn,” having “eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things;” and he beheld, “and the same Horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom,” Dan. 7:8, 21, 22. And Paul testified of “that Wicked” who was to be revealed, that he was the “Man of Sin,” “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming,” 2 Thess. 2:3-8. The destruction of that which was thus symbolized and predicted, must, consequently, be at the epoch of Christ’s second coming and of the establishment of the kingdom of God.

It is also at the epoch anticipated by “the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held,” who, from under the altar, on the opening of the “fifth seal,” “cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” 6:9, 10. The epoch which they anticipated not having then arrived, “white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also, and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled” (6:11),—i.e., till their number should be filled up. As the destruction of that hierarchy, in which “was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all that were slain upon the earth” (18:24), had just been symbolized (in the 18th chap.), and as these rejoicings are because God “hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand” (19:2), it follows that the epoch here symbolized is that to which the saints were to wait, and that they are now to be crowned with their reward.

As the destruction of Babylon is a little anterior to that of the beast and false prophet (19:20), and is to be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming (2 Thess. 2:8), at a time when the kingdom is to be given to the saints of the Most High (Dan. 7:22), it explains how it is that the kingdom is set up in the days of the kings symbolized by the divided toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image: symbolic of the same as the horns of the beast in Dan. 7:7, 24, and Rev. 17:3, 12, 16; for “in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever,” Dan. 2:44.

The kingdom is therefore commenced previous to the descent of the Lord to the earth, by the saints being caught up to meet him in the air. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord,” 1 Thess. 4:16, 17.

This epoch, then, is that of the sounding of the seventh trumpet; for “in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets,” 10:7. This mystery Paul thus explains: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed,” 1 Cor. 15:50-54. This “saying” was thus written by Isaiah,—“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation,” Isa. 25:8, 9. It follows, then, that the voices heard in heaven, shouting “Alleluia,” and ascribing “salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God” (v. 1), synchronize with those heard when “the seventh angel sounded: and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.—And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned: And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth,” Rev. 11:15-18.

The time of the dead being come that they should be judged, and the saints rewarded, is another evidence that this epoch is that of the second advent and kingdom of Christ, “who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and kingdom,” 2 Tim. 4:1. Consequently it must synchronize with that of:

The Marriage of the Lamb.

“And a voice came from the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both the small and the great! And I heard a voice like that of a great crowd, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Praise ye Jehovah! for the Lord God Almighty reigneth. Let us rejoice and exult, and give glory up him: for the marriage of the Lamb hath come, and his wife hath prepared herself! And it was granted to her to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: (for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.) And he saith to me, Write, Happy are those called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. And he saith to me, These are the true words of God. And I fell before his feet to worship him. And he saith to me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant and one of thy brethren, who have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Rev. 19:5-10.

The marriage of the Lamb is at the epoch when “the kingdoms of this world are to become our Lord’s and his Christ’s”—when the Lord God Almighty takes to himself his great power and reigns, 11:15, 17. Therefore, in connection, are heard the mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia; for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,” 9:16. This scripture, then, corresponds with that in Matt. 24:30, 31, when “they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” For, “when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats—the one on his right hand and the other on his left,” Matt. 25:31, 32. Those on his right, we learn from 1 Cor. 15:51, and 1 Thess. 4:16, 17, are the elect, gathered by the angels from all parts under heaven, who are caught up to meet the Lord in the air—and those on the left are consequently the living wicked, who are to be slain by the sword which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lamb, 19:21.

The wife who “hath made herself ready,” is shown by the foregoing scriptures to be, undoubtedly, the church triumphant—the redeemed, who have been raised out from among the dead, and the living saints, caught up together to meet the Lord in the air; to welcome him in his coming to reign. These constitute the bride, the Lamb’s wife; for as “the husband is the head of the wife,” even so “Christ is the head of the church,” Eph. 5:23. He “loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish,” Eph. 5:25-27. This accords with God’s ancient promises to his people. Thus Isaiah saith: “Thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel: the Lord of the whole earth shall he be called,” Isa. 54:5. Also Hosea: “And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi,” my husband; “and shalt call me no more Baali,” my Lord. “And I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord,” Hos. 2:16, 19. Thus is the church “espoused to one husband,” to be presented “as a chaste virgin to Christ,” 2 Cor. 11:2.

The epoch of this presentation being here symbolized, it synchronizes with that part of the parable of the “ten virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the Bridegroom,” when, the Bridegroom having come, “they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut”—those left without, afterwards crying in vain for admittance, Matt. 25:10. The wife had been made ready by its having been “granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white—[mar. ‘bright’]; for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints,” 19:8. Such were the “white robes” given to those who cried from under the altar (6:11), and who afterwards, at an epoch synchronizing with the marriage of the Lamb, appeared, “a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,” who “stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb,” 7:9, 10. These were they of whom one of the elders asked, saying, “What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?” and who was answered: “These are they which 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 God, 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 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” 7:13-17. These had complied with the condition to the promise: “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before the Father and before his holy angels,” 3:5. “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb,” 14:4.

“Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb,” 19:9. Truly are they blessed; for “they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat,” 7:16. They attain the promised blessing: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection,” 20:6. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away,” 21:4. So entranced was the apocalyptic seer at these symbols of the glorified redeemed, that he fell at his feet to worship the angel who showed him these things. But his fellow servant shrank back from the reception of homage, and pointed to God as the only object of adoration.

The union of the saints to Christ in the clouds of heaven being symbolized, they receive the gracious welcome: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” Matt. 25:34. But first it is necessary to redeem the “purchased possession” (Eph. 1:14), to reconquer the revolted province, which, since the fall, has been subject to “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2), to rescue it from the dominion of the usurper, and deliver it from its present mis-rule “up to God the Father” (1 Cor. 15:24), who will bestow it on One who is worthy to wear its crown. For when Daniel saw that “the judgment was set and the books were opened,” he also “saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came in the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him; and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed,” Dan. 7:10, 13, 14. He comes, then, to dispossess the usurper, and to take possession of his kingdom. The next representation, then, symbolizes the coming of:

The King and his Armies.

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse: and he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judgeth and maketh war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many diadems; and he had a name written which no one knew except himself. And he was clothed with a garment dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And from his mouth goeth forth a sharp sword, that he may smite the nations with it: and he will rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the wine-press of the furious wrath of God, the Almighty. And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” Rev. 19:11-16.

According to the significance of symbolic language, Christ is here represented as coming personally. The heavens open and he appears in resplendent majesty, in accordance with the predictions respecting his second advent. When the clouds of heaven had received the ascending Saviour, the shining ones who stood by said to the gazing disciples, “This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven,” Acts 1:11. “And they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” Matt. 24:30. “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him,” Rev. 1:7.

The white horse of the King, and those of his armies, are symbols of the pomp and grandeur of their descent, and show that they will triumph in victory.

The names ascribed to the descending Monarch are applicable only to Christ. He was “the Faithful and True Witness” who commanded John to write “to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans,” (3:14); for he who commanded John to “write in a book and send it unto the seven churches” of Asia (1:11), was the One whom John saw “in the midst of the seven candlesticks, like unto the Son of man” (1:13), and who announced himself as “the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come—the Almighty,” 1:8. “The Word of God,” was the “Word” that was “in the beginning,” that “was with God,” and that “was God,” the same that was “in the beginning with God,” and which “was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” John 1:1-14. Jesus is “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” (Ib., 29); and “the Lamb” “is Lord of lords and King of kings,” 17:14. It is “Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth,” (1:5); and he alone is possessed of that incomprehensible “Name” which no man knoweth, and which he hath promised to write on “him that overcometh,” 3:12.

That the visible and personal coming of Christ, and not any providential interposition, is here symbolized, is self-evident. For, while no created object can adequately symbolize Him, it would derogate from the dignity of his character and position to be a symbol of some inferior object. In all mere providential interpositions, foreshown by symbolic imagery, the predicted events are represented by corresponding acts of symbolic agents. War between nations is symbolized by beasts, representatives of the nations, contending with each other. (See Dan. 8th chap.) Pestilence and famine are symbolized by analogous results, and not by Christ’s appearing. When, therefore, he is seen coming in person, it must symbolize his personal advent.

His eyes “as a flame of fire,” show his identity with the one “like unto the Son of man” in the “midst of the seven candlesticks” (1:13), the author of the message to “the church in Thyatira;” which “things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass,” 2:18.

His “many crowns” are symbols of his sovereignty. Rome undivided and mistress of the world, when symbolized by the seven-headed and ten-horned dragon, is represented with the crowns on the heads, which were the seven successive kinds of government by which its sovereignty was enforced, 12:3, and 17:9, 10. But when its imperial had given place to its decem-regal form, and it is to be shown under the government of ten contemporaneous kingdoms, “the crowns,” the symbols of sovereignty, are represented as encircling the “horns” of the beast, 13:1. So, when “the King of kings” cometh, to take to himself his great power, and to reign, and “the kingdoms of this world are become those of our Lord and of his Christ” (11:15, 17), He, “the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10), at whose name “every knee should bow” (Phil. 2:9), is shown the wearer of “many crowns.”

“Come, then, and, added to thy many crowns, Receive yet one, the crown of all the Earth, Thou who alone art worthy! It was thine By ancient covenant, ere nature’s birth; And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with thy blood.” Cowper’s Task.

His “vesture dipped in blood” is symbolic of his coming to tread “the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (19:15), when he shall “smite the nations,” and “rule them with a rod of iron,” (Ib.) Thus Isaiah prophesied: “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth,” Isa. 63:1-6.

The “armies” which follow him, symbolize the attending saints and angels who will accompany his advent. They are all “clothed in fine linen, white and clean,” which constituted the wedding garments of those who were called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb, and which was worn by those who had washed their robes, and made them white in his blood, (7:14); “for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints,” 19:8. The righteous being caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:17), “when Christ, who is our life shall appear,” they will “appear with him in glory,” (Col. 3:4); so that “the Lord my God shall come and all the saints with thee,” Zech. 14:5. “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him,” Jude 14, 15.

Not only saints, but angels also, will attend his coming. For “when the Son of man shall come in his glory,” there will be “all the holy angels with him,” Matt. 25:31. “He cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels,” Mark 8:38. “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,” 2 Thess. 1:7.

The “sharp sword,” going out of his mouth, must be a symbol of his word. He speaks, and it is done, Psa. 33:9. “For the word of God is quick 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 is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” Heb. 4:12. As “he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked,” (Isa. 11:4); and as “the Lord shall consume” “that Wicked” one “with the spirit of his mouth” (2 Thess. 2:8), it follows that the sword proceeding out of his mouth is a symbol of the words he shall speak for their destruction; for with it he smites the nations, 19:15. And this he does when he comes to “rule them with a rod of iron” (Ib.) and tread them in “the wine-press” of the wrath of God. This brings us to the object of his coming, which is to “judge and make war,” 19:11.

And first, “To judge.” This proves, that Christ’s second advent is here symbolized; for, as before quoted, he is to “judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and kingdom,” 2 Tim. 4:1. This is at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, for then is “the time of the dead that they should be judged,” 11:18. “With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth,” when he “shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked,” Isa. 11:4. “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with truth,” Psa. 96:11-13. He cometh “to execute judgment upon all,” Jude 15.

To “make war.” That this is another object of his coming, is shown by:

The Final Conflict.

“And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds flying in the midst of heaven, Come! gather yourselves to the great supper of God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of commanders, and the flesh of the mighty, and the flesh of the horses, and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the wild beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered to make war with him, who sat on the horse, and with his army. And the wild beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, who wrought signs in his sight, with which he had deceived those who received the mark of the wild beast, and those who worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were slain with the sword of him who sat on the horse, which sword goeth forth from his mouth; and all the birds were filled with their flesh.” Rev. 19:17-21.

The contest being between the Lord and his armies on the one part, and the wicked nations on the other, the angel seen standing in the sun and performing an important act in connection with the Lord’s army, must represent one of his attending angels; for the acts to be performed are to be by their instrumentality: “In the end of this world, the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire,” Matt. 13:40-42.

His crying to the fowls of heaven to come and sup on the bodies of the slain, is indicative of the certainty of victory and of the entire overthrow of those who war against the Lamb. As birds gather on fields of slaughter to feast on the slain, so a cry to “all the fowls of heaven” is expressive of the extent and thoroughness of the destruction to be inflicted. It is the same cry which is made in Ezekiel, 39:17, when the armies of Gog are slain on the mountains of Israel. The beast and the kings of the earth symbolize the various governments in the world. The “beast” is that which had seven heads and ten horns (13:1, and 17:3), and was a symbol of Rome in its decem-regal form. It was said of this beast, it shall “go into perdition,” (17:8); so that under some manifestation, it must continue till the end of the world: the earth being “reserved unto fire against the day of judgement, and perdition of ungodly men,” 2 Pet. 3:7. As only in its divided form, the Roman empire continues till then, the beast is here significant of the divisions represented by its ten horns—the governments of modern Europe. “These shall war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords and King of kings; and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful,” 17:14.

“The false prophet,” which is taken with the beast, is described as the one “that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image,” v. 20. This identifies him as the two-horned beast of Rev. 13. (13:11-17). The two-horned beast being a representative of the Eastern Roman empire, when that was subverted by the Turks it became the seat of the false prophet,—the Mahometan hierarchy.

The kings of the earth must be the remaining governments which are not represented by those two. By their subsequently warring with the Lamb, it follows that the previous resurrection and translation of the saints does not produce a cessation of all government. Those events may not be apparent to all eyes; or they may serve only to madden the unbelieving, and to make them more desperate in their infidelity.

They gather their armies to war against the Lamb. They resist his authority. They will not have Him to reign over them. They are instigated to oppose him by “unclean spirits like frogs” (16:13), which are the spirits of devils [demons, understood by the Jews to be spirits of the wicked dead] working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty, Ib. v. 14. This is when Christ is to “come as a thief;” and they are to be gathered “into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon,” 16:15, 16. This was the name of the valley at the foot of Mount Megiddo (Judg. 5:19), which was famous as a valley of slaughter. In it Jehu fought against Ahaziah and Joram, and slew both the kings of Israel and Judah, 2 Kings 9:27. It was afterwards memorable for the death of king Josiah, when Pharaoh-necho fought against him, (2 Kings 23:29); so that the mourning as “in the valley of Megiddon,” became a proverbial expression in Israel for great mourning, Zech. 12:11,12. It is therefore significantly applied to the final battle.

Thus do “the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his Anointed;” but “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” For the decree has gone forth: “I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel,” Ps. 2:2-9. In this victory the saints, also, have a part; for it is written: “He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father,” 2:26, 27.

As thus predicted, in this final conflict the nations are smitten, 19:15. Those symbolized by the beast and false prophet are cast alive into the burning flame; i.e., the individuals constituting the bodies of those beasts are cast therein: their governments cease when taken by the Lamb and his armies. This is in accordance with what Daniel saw, who “beheld, even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame,” Dan. 7:11.

“The remnant” also are slain; so that there are none left alive on the earth of all the wicked. Thus Daniel interpreted to king Nebuchadnezzar his dream: “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image [representing the governments of earth] upon his feet, that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them,” Dan. 2:34, 35. It will “break in pieces, and consume all these kingdoms” (Ib.), according to the prediction: “The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted,” Isa. 60:12. “And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people which have fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongues shall consume away in their mouth,” Zech. 14:12. “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch,” Mal. 4:1. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it,” Isa. 13:9. Thus will the Saviour come “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he comes to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day,” (2 Thess. 1:8-10): saying to the nations on his left, “Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,” Matt. 25:41. Thus will he “gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” Ib., 13:41, 42. The destruction of all the wicked from the earth is followed by:

The Binding of Satan.

“And I saw an angel descending from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he seized the dragon, the old serpent, who is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut him up, and set a seal over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were completed; and after that, he must be loosed a short time.” Rev. 20:1-3.

The angel descending from heaven, must be a representative of his own order; for at this epoch there are no other orders of beings for him to be a representative of. He therefore symbolizes the angels who are commissioned to “gather out of his kingdom all things that offend,” Matt. 13:41.

The “key,” “pit,” and “chain,” symbolize the instruments of restraint and confinement to which Satan is to be subjected; and his being bound and confined symbolize his restraint.

The “Dragon” is expressly called “that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.” With the appendages of heads and horns—symbols of political sovereignty—he is used in Rev. 12:3, as a symbol of the Roman civil power, under Pagan rule; and in verse 7, when divested of political insignia, of the pagan hierarchy. But now, as the beast, another symbol of Roman civil rule, has been cast into “the lake of fire and brimstone,” and the “remnant” are “slain with the sword” (19:21), there are no analogous powers remaining on earth for him to be a representative of, and consequently he is here represented as a symbol of himself.

Of his identity there can be no question: He is “that Old Serpent,” who, being “more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1), “beguiled Eve through his subtlety,” 2 Cor. 11:3. He is also the Devil, by whom our Saviour was tempted in the wilderness, (Matt. 4:1-12); and the Satan, whose working is “with all power and signs and lying wonders,” 2 Thess. 2:9. He is our adversary the devil, who, “as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour,” (1 Pet. 5:8); and against whom we are to guard continually, “lest Satan should get an advantage of us,” 2 Cor. 2:11.

Coëval with the fall, the promise was given that his head should in due time be bruised, and he is not ignorant of his doom; for when the legion saw the Saviour about to dispossess them of the two men among the tombs, they recognized him as “the Son of God,” and cried, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:29); “and they besought him, that he would not command them to go out into the deep,”—the pit, or abyss, Luke 8:31. The epoch when he should be there confined, is also shown by Isaiah to be when “the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,” when “the earth also shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain,” Isa. 26:21. For “in that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan [the dragon], the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent,” Ib. 27:1. This synchronizes with the slaying of the remnant with the sword, when Satan is bound and cast into the abyss, to continue there a thousand years.

His being bound and confined must symbolize his dejection to a position where he can have no possible influence over the nations during the time he is bound. It can be no partial restraint, as some theologians hold; for that is contrary to the conditions of the symbolic representation. His restraint is full, complete, and entire. Consequently his influence, for the time being, will have entirely ceased. The period of his confinement, therefore, cannot be one of partial exemption from sin; but the living will be perfectly free from all its contagious influences. He is to deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years shall be fulfilled.

“The nations” who are freed from his influences, and also those whom he is subsequently to deceive, are not, necessarily, organized political bodies, under civil rulers, as they now exist. The original term, εθνος, is defined by Robinson to be “a multitude, people, race, belonging and living together.” At this epoch, the national organizations having disappeared, and the people constituting them being translated or slain, the only nations remaining will be “the nations of them which are saved” (21:24), over whom the influence of Satan will have ceased forever; and those constituting “the rest of the dead” (20:5), who will not live again till the end of the thousand years—at the very time when Satan is to be loosed from his prison to go out to deceive them, 20:7, 8.

The Cleansing of the Earth.

There is, in the Apocalypse, no symbolic representation of the act of the cleansing of the earth, yet various scriptures show that it is at the epoch of the second advent, and of the establishment of the kingdom of God. If so, it follows the destruction of the wicked and the binding of Satan, while the raised and transfigured saints—constituting “the bride”—are still with the Lord in the clouds of heaven (19:7-9), where they were caught up to meet him in the air, 1 Thess. 4:17.

A restoration of the earth, in connection with the first resurrection, is in accordance with the testimony of scripture, and was the opinion of the ancients. We read in Isaiah: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind,” Isa. 65:17.

“As for my opinion,” saith R. Menasse, a Jewish Rabbi, “I think that after six thousand years, the world shall be destroyed, upon one certain day, or in one hour; that the arches of heaven shall make a stand as immovable; that there will be no more generation or corruption; and that all things by the resurrection shall be renovated, and return to a better condition.” He also assures us that “this, without doubt, is the opinion of the most learned Aben Ezra,” who looked for it in the new earth of Isa. 65:17.

“Man shall be restored in that time, namely, in the days of the Messiah, to that state in which he was before the first man sinned.”—R. Moses Nachmanides in Duet. § 45.

“Although all things were created perfect, yet when the first man sinned, they were corrupted, and will not again return to their congruous state till PHEREZ (i.e., the MESSIAH) comes.” “There are six things which shall be restored to their primitive state, viz.: the splendor of man, his life, the height of his stature, the fruits of the earth, the fruits of the trees, and the luminaries, (the sun, moon, and stars.)”—R. Berakyah, in the name of R. Samuel—Bereshith Rabba, Fol. 11, Col. 3.

“In that time (i.e., of the Messiah) the whole work of creation shall be changed for the better, and shall return into its perfect and pure state, as it was in the time of the first man, before he had sinned.”—R. Becai, in Shilcan Orba, Fol. 9, Col. 4, p. 360.

“Theopompus, who flourished three hundred and forty years B. C., relates that the Persian Magi taught that the present state of things would continue 6000 years; after which hades, or death, would be destroyed, and men would live happy,” &c. “The opinion of the ancient Jews, on this head, may be gathered from the statement of one of their Rabbins, who said, ‘The world endures 6000 years, and in the thousand, or millennium that follows, the enemies of God would be destroyed.’ It was in like manner a tradition of the house of Elias, a holy man, who lived about B. C. 200, that the world was to endure 6000 years, and that the righteous, whom God should raise up, would not be turned again into dust. That, by this resurrection, he meant a resurrection prior to the millennium, is manifest from what follows.... It is worthy of remark, that the two ancient authors, whose words have just been quoted, speak of the seventh millennium as ‘that day’—the day in which God will renew the world, and in which he alone shall be exalted.”—Dis. on Mill. by Bishop Russell, Prof. Eccl. Hist. in the Scottish Epis. Ch.

“The Divine institution of a sabbatical, or seventh year’s solemnity among the Jews, has a plain typical reference to the seventh chiliad, or millenary of the world, according to the well known tradition among the Jewish doctors, adopted by many in every age of the Christian Church, that this world will attain to its limit at the end of 6000 years.”—Mede.

“The observance of the Sabbath is essential to the faith; for such only as observe the Sabbath confess that the earth will be renewed: because He who created it out of nothing will renew it.”—David Kimchi, on Isa. 55:5, quoted by Mede.

“In as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years it is perfected; for if the day of the Lord be as it were a 1000 years, and in six days those things that are made were finished, it is manifest that the perfecting of those things is in the 6000th year, when anti-Christ, reigning 1260 years, shall have wasted all things in the world, ... then shall the Lord come from heaven in the clouds, with the glory of his Father.” Irenæus, Bish. of Lyons, A. D. 178.

“In six thousand years, the Lord will bring all things to an end, ... when iniquity shall be no more, all things being renewed by the Lord.”—Epst. of Barnabas, sec. 14, 15.

“Let philosophers know, who number thousands of years, ages since the beginning of the world, that the 6000th year is not yet concluded or ended. But that number being fulfilled, of necessity there must be an end, and the state of human things must be transformed into that which is better.”—Lactantius, B. of Divine Inst., A. D. 310.

Thomas Burnet (Theory of Earth, Lon. 1697) states “that it was the received opinion of the primitive church from the days of the apostles to the council of Nice, that this earth would continue 6000 years, when the resurrection of the just, and conflagration of the earth, would usher in the millennium and reign of Christ on earth.”

“God’s blessing the Sabbath day, and resting on it from all his works, was a type of that glorious rest that the saints shall have when the six days of this world are fully ended.... He will finish the toil and travail of his saints, with the burden of the beasts and the curse of the ground, and bring all into rest for a thousand years.... None ever saw this world as it was in its first creation but Adam and his wife, neither will any see it until the manifestation of the children of God; i.e., until the redemption or resurrection of the saints.”—John Bunyan’s Works, vol. 6, pp. 301, 329.

“I expect with Paul a reparation of all the evils caused by sin, for which he represents the creatures as groaning and travailing.”—John Calvin, in his “Institutes.”

The reformation of the earth “never was, nor yet shall be, till the righteous King and Judge appear for the restoration of all things.”—John Knox.

“The groans of nature in this nether world, Which heaven has heard for ages, have an end. Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, Whose fire was kindled at the prophet’s lamp, The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes: Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world; and what remains Of this tempestuous state of human things, Is merely as the working of a sea Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest; For HE, whose car the winds are, and the clouds The dust that waits upon his sultry march, When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot, Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend, Propitious, in his chariot paved with love; And what his storms have blasted and defaced For man’s revolt, shall with a smile repair.” Cowper’s Task.

The above are only a few of many extracts which might be made, showing the faith of the church in past ages; but which are of no weight, only as they are in accordance with the harmony of scriptural testimony.

When man sinned, this earth was cursed for his sake. The Lord said to him, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Gen. 3:17-19.

Such was the curse to which the whole creation was subjected because man sinned. “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,” Rom. 8:20. And this hope is for a removal of the curse thus inflicted, and a restoration of all things to their original condition.

As the earth was subjected to the curse at the time when man was made subject to death, the removal of the former would naturally be expected at the epoch of the fulfillment of the promise to the just: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death I will be thy plagues; O grave I will be thy destruction,” Hos. 13:14. And thus Paul testifies: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God, ... Because the creature itself, also, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,” Rom. 8:19, 21-23.

The removal of the curse removes also its consequences. Thus it is promised: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree,” Isa. 55:13. “The inhabitant shall not say I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,” Isa. 33:24. “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people will he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it,” Isa. 25:8. “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,” Isa. 65:17. “And there shall be no more curse,” Rev. 22:3. “For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody,” Isa. 51:3.

The removal of the curse is called “the regeneration” (Matt. 19:28), “the times of refreshing,” and of “restitution;” which Peter places at the advent of Christ: “whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution(10) of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began,” Acts 3:21. He also places it at “the perdition of ungodly men,” which must synchronize with the epoch when the beast “goeth into perdition” (17:11), and “the remnant” are “slain with the sword,” (19:21); “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 2 Thess. 1:7, 8. Says Peter: “The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word [‘whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished’ v.6] are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men.... But the day of the Lord will come, as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also; and the works that are therein shall be burned up.... Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,” i.e., “righteous persons”—Horsely, 2 Pet. 3:7-13. This harmonizes with the day that “cometh that shall burn as an oven,” when “all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly” shall be burned up, and become “ashes under the soles” of those on whom “shall the Sun of righteousness arise,” (Mal. 4:1-3); which must be the time intervening between the resurrection of the righteous and that of the wicked. This also harmonizes with the testimony of our Saviour, that when, “in the end of this world,” He “shall send forth his angels and gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; ... then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” Matt. 13:40-43.

The earth being cleansed, and all things made new, it will have been prepared for the “dwelling” of “righteous persons” (2 Pet. 3:13), who,—having “put on incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:53), and been “caught up ... in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17), where, constituting “the bride,” “the Lamb’s wife,” they were “called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (19:7-9),—will descend from heaven to take possession. Thus John writes, that one of the angels said to him: “Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and he showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,” 21:9, 10.

“Lo, what a glorious sight appears To our believing eyes: The earth and seas are passed away, And the old rolling skies!

From the third heaven where God resides, That holy, happy place, The New Jerusalem comes down Adorned with shining grace.

Attending angels shout for joy, And the bright armies sing, Mortals, behold the sacred seat Of your descending King.”—Watts.

The Kingdom given to the Saints at the resurrection of the just.

“And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given for them: and I saw the persons of those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and those, who had not worshipped the wild beast, nor his image, nor had received the mark on their forehead, or on their hand; and they lived and reigned with Christ the thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Happy and holy is he, who bath part in the first resurrection: on such, the second death hath no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him a thousand years!” Rev. 20:4-6.

“Thrones” are symbols of power. As the saints are to reign with Christ on the renewed earth, in obedience to the invitation: “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” (Matt. 25:34); their being inducted into the kingdom is symbolized by their being seated on thrones. Thus they sing in the “new song,” addressed to Christ: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth,” 5:9, 10. In the first chapter, also, all who ascribe praises to “Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,” also add: “and hath made us kings and priests unto God, and his Father,” 1:5, 6.

All the saints being thus exalted to kingly and priestly dignity, symbolizes the exalted rank they are to hold in the new creation—the symbols of their station being taken from the most exalted offices known on earth. Thus God said to ancient Israel: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation,” (Ex. 19:6); and the Christian church is addressed as “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,” 1 Pet. 2:9.

The time when the saints shall reign on the earth is in connection with the destruction of the “little horn” of Daniel’s “fourth beast,” which, as he saw, “made war with the saints and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom,” Dan. 7:21, 22. “The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever,” Ib. v. 18. “And the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him,” Ib. v. 27. “And they shall reign forever and ever,” 22:5. Thus the Saviour said: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” Luke 12:32.

Those who receive the kingdom are symbolized by the souls of martyrs, &c., living again and reigning with Christ. The symbol includes, with the martyred saints, those who had stood aloof from the worship of the beast and his image, and those who had not received his mark; who are shown by a parallel scripture to represent all who are redeemed to God “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation,” 5:9, 10. Some of these were symbolized, under the fifth seal, as crying from under the altar in anticipation of this day, 6:9. Now, with “their fellow servants,” they receive their reward.

The souls of the departed living again, can only symbolize those who have been subjected to death, and are again raised. Consequently they are the subjects of a real resurrection. And this is shown by the explanation of the symbol, which affirms that, “This is the first resurrection.”

It is denied by many that a literal resurrection is here taught; but in so doing they deny the faith of the church in its best and purest ages. In the first two centuries after Christ, there was not an individual, who believed in any resurrection of the dead whose name or memory has survived to the present time, who denied that the resurrection of the just is here taught.

Eusebius, who opposed this view, quotes Papias, who he admits was a disciple of St. John and a companion of Polycarp, as saying that “after the resurrection of the dead the kingdom of Christ shall be established corporeally on this earth.” And Jerome, another opposer, quotes from him that “he had the apostles for his authors; and that he considered what Andrew, what Peter said, what Philip, what Thomas said, and other disciples of the Lord.”

Polycarp was another of John’s disciples; and Irenæus testifies in an epistle to Florinus, that he had seen Polycarp, “who related his conversation with John and others who had seen the Lord, and how he related their sayings, and the things he had heard of them concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and doctrine, as he had received them from the Lord of life; all of which Polycarp related agreeable to the scriptures.” Following such a teacher, Irenæus taught that at the resurrection of the just, the meek should inherit the earth; and that then would be fulfilled the promise which God made to Abraham.

Justin Martyr, born A. D. 89, says that, “A certain man among us, whose name is John, being one of the twelve apostles of Christ, in that Revelation which was shown him, prophesied that those who believe in our Christ shall fulfil a thousand years at Jerusalem.” He affirms that himself “and many others are of this mind”—“that Christ shall reign personally on earth;” and that “all who were accounted orthodox so believed.”

Tertullian, about A. D. 180, says it was a custom for Christians to pray that they might have part in the first resurrection. And Cyprian, about 220, says that Christians “had a thirst for martyrdom that they might obtain a better resurrection.”

Mosheim assures us that the opinion “that Christ was to come and reign 1000 years among men,” had, before the time of Origen, about the middle of the 3d century, “met with no opposition.” And it is the testimony of ecclesiastical historians, that the first who opposed it, seeing no way of avoiding the meaning of the words in Rev. 20th, denied the authenticity of the Apocalypse, and claimed that it was written by one Cerenthus, a heretic, for the very purpose of sustaining what they called “his fiction of the reign of Christ on earth.” This doctrine is not now evaded in this way, but by spiritualizing the language of the Apocalypse, and thus finding a meaning in it which is not expressed by any of the admitted laws of language. Theologians who thus reason make the first resurrection the conversion of the world. But those who are affirmed to be raised, are persons who have lived and are dead. If the resurrection is a mere metaphor, then the martyrs must have metaphorically died, and must have comprised only those who had been previously converted and were fallen away. The rest of the dead must then be understood as persons morally dead, which would be inconsistent with the idea of a converted world. Those who were raised being those who were previously converted, they must have been literally dead, and the only resurrection predicable of such is a literal resurrection.

The Bible teaches such a resurrection of the righteous prior to that of the wicked. Thus the Psalmist says of them: “Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.” But of himself he says: “But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave,” Psa. 49:14, 15. Of the wicked Isaiah testifies: “They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise,” i.e. with the righteous; but to Zion he says: “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead,” Isa. 26:14, 19. To the same import is the prophecy of Daniel, respecting the time when Michael shall stand up, and “thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some, [the awakened, shall be] to everlasting life, and some, [the unawakened, shall be] to shame and everlasting contempt,” Dan. 12:1, 2. Such, according to Prof. Bush, is the precise rendering of the original.

The New Testament also teaches a resurrection of the just, in distinction from that of the wicked. Paul says, while all are to be made alive, that it will be “every man in his own order,” or band—“Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming,” 1 Cor. 15:23. None others are spoken of as being raised at that epoch. When the Lord descends from heaven with a shout, at the trump of God, not the entire mass of the dead, but “the dead in Christ shall rise first,” before the righteous living are changed, 1 Thess. 4:16. In accordance with this priority in the resurrection of the righteous, Paul teaches that the worthies who died in faith “accepted not deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection,” (Heb. 11:13); and himself, he says, counted all things loss for Christ, “if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead,” (Phil. 3:11); which is “the resurrection from among the dead”—it being a resurrection to which some will not attain. Thus also the Saviour taught: while “they that have done good shall come forth at [as it is literally] the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil at the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29), the two are not co-etaneous; for the righteous shall be “recompensed at the resurrection of the just,” Lu. 14:14. That must be the resurrection of which those are the subjects who receive the kingdom; for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” 1 Cor. 15:50. While “the children of this world marry and are given in marriage,” “they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection,” Lu. 20:34-36.

The children of the resurrection thus include all who attain unto that world, which, consequently, the wicked do not obtain, and of which the righteous dead and the living saints are made equal subjects, according to Paul’s “mystery:” “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed,” i.e., to the same incorruptible state to which the dead are raised, (1 Cor. 15:50-54); so that all the righteous will alike “bear the image of the heavenly” (v. 49) when they “shall be caught up together” (1 Thess. 4:16) “to meet the Lord in the air.”

The resurrection state is that to which the ancients looked for the restoration of Israel.

Rabbi Eliezer the great, supposed to have lived just after the second temple was built, applied Hosea 14:8 to the pious Jews, who seemed likely to die without seeing the glory of Israel, saying: “As I live, saith Jehovah, I will raise you up, in the resurrection of the dead; and I will gather you with all Israel.”

The Sadducees are reported to have asked Rabbi Gamaliel, the preceptor of Paul, whence he would prove that God would raise the dead, who quoted Deut. 9:21: “Which land the Lord sware that he would give to your fathers.” He argued, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had it not, and as God cannot lie, that they must be raised from the dead to inherit it.

Rabbi Simai, though of later date, argues the same from Ex. 6:4, insisting that the law asserts in this place the resurrection from the dead, when it said: “And also I have established my covenant with them, to give them the Canaan;” for, he adds, “it is not said to you, but to them.”

Mennasseh Ben Israel says: “It is plain that Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs did not possess that land; it follows, therefore, that they must be raised in order to enjoy the promised good, as otherwise the promises of God would be vain and false.”—De Resurrec. Mort., L. i., c. 1. § 4.

Rabbi Saahias Gaion, commenting on Dan. 12:2, says: “This is the resuscitation of the dead Israel, whose lot is eternal life, and those who shall not awake are the forsakers of Jehovah.”

“In the world to come,” says the Sahar, fol. 81, “the blessed God will vivify the dead and raise them from their dust, so that they shall be no more an earthly structure.”

Thus “Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance ... sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” Heb. 11:8-10. While he dwelt in that land, God “gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him,” Acts 7:5. This was also true of all those “who died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,”—desiring “a better country, that is, a heavenly” (Heb. 11:13-16), “not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection” (v. 35), “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect,” v. 40.

When the promises are thus made good to Israel, all who are of the faith of Abraham will participate in the same promises. For “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law ... that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.” “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,” Gal. 3:13, 14, 29. So the Saviour said to the Jews: “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom [unregenerate Jews] shall be cast into outer darkness,” Matt. 8:11, 12. And then, as the Saviour said to the twelve: “Ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” Matt. 19:28.

“The rest of the dead,” who live not again till the thousand years are ended, must be the wicked dead; for, the righteous being raised, no other dead ones remain. They include all the wicked, who have died in all ages, and “the remnant” who “are slain with the sword” (19:21), when the kingdom is cleansed from all things that offend.

“The thousand years” to intervene between the two resurrections, are regarded by some as a symbol of 360,000 years. There seems to be no necessity for such an interpretation. When time is symbolized, it is always proportioned to the duration of the other symbols used. Thus, in Dan. 8th, when beasts symbolize kingdoms, it would have been incongruous to have specified the duration of the vision in literal years; for beasts do not continue during centuries, as the kingdoms symbolized by them have done. But days are proportioned to years, as beasts are to kingdoms; so that there is a fitness in symbolizing the years foreshadowed in that vision, by 2300 days; between which measure of time and the duration of the existence of beasts, there is a perfect congruity.

In the 4th of Daniel, where the cutting down of a tree is used to symbolize the loss of the king’s reason, there is no such disproportion between the duration of man’s existence and that of a tree, as there is between the life of a beast and that of an empire. And therefore there is no incongruity if the time specified is a symbol of literal time, i.e., if a time is used to symbolize a year. In this case, the seven years could not have been symbolized by seven days; for there is no marked disproportion between the duration of the other symbols in connection, and the things symbolized; and had days been used, days must have been understood in the fulfilment.

There might be either 1000 years, or 360,000, between the first and second resurrections, without conflicting with any other Scripture. But there is no disproportion between the other symbols and the things symbolized,—the living again of the martyrs in vision, and their actual resurrection; and therefore the 1000 years need not, by any parallel usage or law of language, be understood, to be other than a literal thousand.

The Wicked Raised, and Satan Loosed

“And when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be loosed out of his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them to battle: the number of whom is like the sand of the sea. And they ascended on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the beloved city: and fire descended from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where both the wild beast and the false prophet are, and will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it; from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and a place was not for them. And I saw the dead, the small and the great, standing before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged from the things written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead in it; and death and the pit gave up the dead in them: and they were judged every one according to their works. And death and the pit were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And whoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.” Rev. 20:7-15.

Verses 11-15 contain the record of the symbolization John saw, of what was to transpire at the end of the thousand years; while verses 7-10 appear to be explanatory of events which would then be fulfilled. This explanation, previous to the exhibition of the symbolization, is appropriate in the connection, and makes more forcible the fact that “the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.”

As the rest of the dead live not till the end of the thousand years, they come forth at “the resurrection of damnation,” at the end of a thousand years of the reign of the saints on the earth, and at the epoch when Satan was to be loosed from his prison. As all who had part in the first resurrection were to be exempted from the power of the second death, the nations who are then deceived by Satan, must be the nations composing the rest of the dead, who live again at that epoch.

Their number “as the sand of the sea,” and their coming from “the four quarters of the earth,” show that they are no obscure people, living unknown to the saints; and their existence can only be accounted for by the event of a resurrection of the wicked.

Their names, “Gog and Magog,”—those applied to the ancient enemies of Israel, (Ezek. 38:38),—are appropriate titles to designate the subjects of the second resurrection.

They encompass the camp of the saints, and the beloved city—showing that the city descends at the commencement of the thousand years—but there is no battle: before they are permitted to harm the saints, fire from heaven devours them; and the devil that thought to lead them against the holy city, is cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet were cast at the commencement of the millennium.

In connection with the resurrection of the wicked, is their judgment—not following necessarily in the precise order of the record. The “small and great” who stand before God, are not small and large persons, but those from all stations and ranks in society. The king and the beggar equally receive according to their deserts: They are the bond and the free, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, including those who fought against the Lamb, and were overcome by Him, 19:18.

The open books symbolize the record of their evil deeds, for which they are to be judged. And the “book of Life” is opened to symbolize that the names of those who are judged are not there recorded, and that consequently they are justly condemned. To “him that overcometh,” the Saviour promised “I will not blot his name out of this book of life,” 3:3.

The sea, death, and hell giving up their dead, indicates that all of the “rest of the dead” are here resurrected, and that none are left out from among whom these are raised, as these were, from whom came forth the subjects of the first resurrection.

The casting of death and hell into the lake of fire, symbolizes the casting in of those who were within their domains; and “the lake of fire,” symbolizes the place into which—the impenitent are consigned—which is the “second death.”

The New Creation.

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.” Rev. 21:1, 2.

The new heaven and new earth are symbols of the new order of things. The old heavens and earth having been dissolved, their elements melting with fervent heat (2 Pet. 3:12), the “new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,” for which Peter looked, succeed to their place. So much more resplendent are these than the former, that those “shall not be remembered, nor come into mind,” i.e., to be desired, Isa. 65:17. This is the eternal state in which we are commanded to be “glad and rejoice forever,” when God shall “create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.” Then “the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.” There “the elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands;” for “as the days of a tree, are the days of my people,” saith the Lord; who has also declared that, “as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain,” Isa. 66:22.

The sea is now “no more,” in the same sense that the first heavens and earth are passed away—all having disappeared in the conflagration, and given place to the “restitution of all things spoken of by the mouth of all the holy prophets,” Acts 3:21. Whether the new creation will comprise both sea and dry land, as was first created (Gen. 1:10), is not here decided; but there is no reason to suppose that this characteristic of the original creation will be forever obliterated.

The new Jerusalem descends, adorned as a bride for her husband. She is shown in the 19th chapter to be “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white”—a symbol of “the righteousness of the saints.” As the corrupt Roman hierarchy was symbolized by an adulterous woman (17:3), and also by the corrupt city of Babylon (18:2), so symbols of an opposite character—a chaste bride, and the new Jerusalem—are chosen representatives of the church triumphant, whose Maker is her husband.

Mr. Lord very justly remarks: “The descent of the city is to take place at the commencement of the millennium, manifestly from the representation that the marriage of the Lamb was come, and that his wife had prepared herself, immediately after the destruction of great Babylon, (19:7, 8); from the exhibition of the risen and glorified saints, as seated on thrones, and reigning with Christ during the thousand years; and from the representation of the beloved city as on earth at the revolt of Gog and Magog, after the close of the thousand years.”—“Ex. Apoc.” p. 529.

“Jerusalem, my happy home, O how I long for thee; When shall my sorrows have an end? Thy joys when shall I see?

“When shall these eyes thy heaven-built walls And pearly gates behold! Thy bulwarks with salvation strong, And streets of shining gold?

“O when, thou city of my God, Shall I thy courts ascend, Where congregations ne’er break up, And Sabbaths have no end?”

The Tabernacle of God with Men.

“And I heard a loud voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, even their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will be no more death, nor mourning, nor crying out, nor will there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said, Write, for these words are faithful and true. And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him, who thirsteth, from the fountain of the water of life freely. He, who overcometh, will inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But the cowardly, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, will have their part in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Rev. 21:3-8.

The utterances of the “great voice out of heaven” are not what John saw, but are what he heard; and are therefore to be interpreted, not by the laws of symbols, but by those of tropes and literal language.

The “tabernacle of God with men” is explained in the same connection to be his “dwelling with them.”

“When our Saviour was incarnate, and vouchsafed to dwell amongst the children of men, the same phrase is used by this same author, Eskeenoose (John 1:14), ‘The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled amongst us: and we beheld his glory,’ etc. We read it, he dwelt amongst us: but rendered more closely, it is, he set his tabernacle amongst us. And that which the Hebrews call the Shekinah, or divine presence (Maimon, Mor. Nev. par. 1, chap. 25), comes from a word of the like signification, and found with the Greek word here used. Therefore there will be a Shekinah in that kingdom of Christ.”—Tho. Burnett.

When Israel first entered the wilderness, God entered into a covenant with them (Ex. 19:3-8), in consequence of which he said to Moses, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them,” (Ex. 25:8)—the pattern of which was shown Moses in the mount; and when completed “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40:34), and there “the Lord talked with Moses,” Ex. 33:9. Thus did God dwell among them while they were in a probationary state; but he indicated a more intimate connection with them, by promising, if they were obedient to his statutes in all things, that “I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people,” Lev. 26:11, 12. This promise was not fulfilled to the Jews, because of their sins; but Paul quotes it (2 Cor. 6:16), and applies it as a promise still to be made good to the church of Christ. Thus, the “Word” that “was God,” who was made flesh and tabernacled among us at his incarnation, is again to come and dwell with us in his human tabernacle, as at his first advent. Then will God enter into a new covenant with his people, as he has said: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord; but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” Jer. 31:31-34.

As the saints, before the resurrection of “the rest of the dead,” “reign with Christ 1000 years,” (20:4); it follows that during that period the tabernacle of God is with men, when he dwells among them, which is an additional evidence that “the restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21) is at the commencement of the millennium.

This is a tearless state—all tears being then wiped from every eye. Isaiah predicted, when “He will swallow up death in victory,” that “the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces: and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation,” Isa. 25:8, 9. The commencement of the tearless state is thus placed by Isaiah at the resurrection, and at the appearance of Christ; which is confirmed by Paul, in his inspired commentary on the same, who affirms that at the last trump, “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory,” 1 Cor. 15:54. This state was also promised to the entire company “which 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 God, 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 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” Rev. 7:14-17.

There shall then “be no more death”—for that “last enemy shall be destroyed” (1 Cor. 15:26), and there shall be nothing to “hurt nor destroy, in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.” Death will have been swallowed up in victory, (Isa. 25:8)—the redeemed having been ransomed “from the power of the grave,” Hos. 13:14. “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection,” Luke 20:36.

After the destruction of death, there shall be “neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.” This was to be when “the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” Isa. 35:10. And one of these songs was to be: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue, and people and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth,” Rev. 5:9,10.

Then, everything which distinguishes the present world from that, will have passed away; for all things will be created anew. These words, uttered by Him who is the “Alpha and Omega,” are no rhetorical flourishes, nor mere figures of speech, but contain the exact and literal truth, and are not to be set aside as unmeaning figures. For He who sat upon the throne has declared: “These words are true and faithful.” Faithful is He who hath promised, and he will surely make good his words—bestowing on the righteous the inheritance of all things; and on the wicked, their fearful doom.

The New Jerusalem.

“And there came to me one of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come, I will shew thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in spirit to a vast and high mountain, and shewed me the holy city Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; having a wall vast and high, and having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on the gates, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. On the east, three gates; on the north, three gates; on the south, three gates; and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them, the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he, who talked with me, had a golden measuring-reed to measure the city, and its gates, and its wall. And the city lieth square, and the length is as much as the breadth: and he measured the city with the measuring-reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal. And he measured its wall, a hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the structure of its wall was jasper: and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was a jasper; the second, a sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, a sardonyx; the sixth, a sardius; the seventh, a chrysolite; the eighth, a beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was of one pearl; and the wide street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.” Rev. 21:9-21.

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb. In the midst of its wide street, and on each side of the river, was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit monthly, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there will be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it; and his servants will serve him: and they will see his face; and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no night there; and they have no need of the light of a lamp, nor of the light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they will reign forever and ever.” Rev. 22:1-5.

Objects of great interest, of which only a passing glance was permitted in previous visions, are again and again presented, until their relative glory is sufficiently manifested. Thus the new earth was considered worthy of being the subject of a special vision; and now the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, although before referred to, is again made the subject of a special vision, under the symbol of a city, explained to be the bride.

The descent of the city, to harmonize with corresponding scriptures, has been shown to be at the commencement of the millennium, when those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb descend from the clouds of heaven, to receive “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you ... ready to be revealed in the last time,” 1 Pet. 4:5.

“The glory of the Lord,” which is the light of the city, is explained to be “the Lamb” (21:23), which “is the light thereof.” “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” “That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” John 1:4, 9. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9), so that as the Holy Shekineh illumined the pathway of ancient Israel, the nations of the redeemed will walk in the light of His glory.

The gates of the city correspond with the number of the tribes of Israel; and the “names of the apostles” are in its foundations. Thus Paul affirms that the “fellow citizens” of “the household of God” are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, Eph. 2:20.

The dimensions of the city are in length equal to the breadth—and 1500 miles in circumference, or 375 miles square. The length is in all parts equal; and so is the breadth, and the height,—the latter being 216 feet.

Its splendor is fully equal to all that inspiration has recorded respecting those on whom the Lord will have “everlasting kindness;” and to whom he saith: “O thou afflicted, tossed with the tempest, and not comforted! behold, 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 the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee,” Isa. 54:11-14. “Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation; I the Lord will hasten it in his time,” Isa. 60:11-22.

O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, Scenes of accomplish’d bliss! which who can see, Though but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refresh’d with foretaste of the joy? Rivers of gladness water all the Earth, And clothe all climes with beauty. The reproach Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean, Or fertile only in its own disgrace, Exults to see its thistly curse repeal’d. The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal spring, The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence; For there is none to covet: all are full. The lion, and the libbard, and the bear, Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Antipathies are none. No foe to man Lurks in the serpent now: the mother sees, And smiles to see, her infant’s playful hand Stretch’d forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, or to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. All creatures worship man, and all mankind One Lord, one Father. Error has no place; That creeping pestilence is driv’n away: The breath of Heav’n has chas’d it. In the heart No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. One song employs all nations; and all cry, “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!” The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy; Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise fill’d! See Salem built, the labor of a God! Bright as a sun the sacred city shines: All kingdoms and all princes of the Earth Flock to that light; the glory of all lands Flows into her; unbounded is her joy, And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there: The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, And Saba’s spicy groves, pay tribute there. Praise is in all her gates; upon her walls, And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the farthest west; And Æthiopia spreads abroad the hand, And worships. Her report has travel’d forth Into all lands. From ev’ry clime they come To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, O Sion! an assembly such as Earth Saw never, such as Heav’n stoops down to see. Thus Heav’nward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restor’d, So God has greatly purpos’d: who would else In his dishonor’d works himself endure Dishonor, and be wrong’d without redress. Haste then, and wheel away a shatter’d world, Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see (A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet) A world that does not dread and hate his laws, And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair The creature is, that God pronounces good, How pleasant in itself what pleases him.—Cowper.

Final Admonitions.

“And he said to me, These words are faithful and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to shew his servants the things, which must shortly take place. And behold, I come quickly: happy is he, who keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book. And I John saw and heard these things. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who shewed me these things. And he saith to me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and one of thy brethren the prophets, and one of those, who keep the words of this book: worship God. And he saith to me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book: for the season is near. He, who is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he, who is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he, who is righteous, let him perform righteousness still: and he, who is holy, let him be holy still. Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give each one as his work shall be. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Happy are those, who do his commandments, that they may have the privilege of the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. For without are the Sodomites, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and whoever loveth and practiseth falsehood. I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify to you these things in the congregations. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning-star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him, who heareth, say, Come! And let him, who thirsteth, come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

“I testify to every one, who heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any one shall add to these things, God will add to him the plagues written in this book: and if any one shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things written in this book. He, who testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly. So be it, come, O Lord Jesus!

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints.” Rev. 22:6-21.

With the representation of the city, the symbols of the Apocalypse are terminated. What follows are the words of Christ. The import of these is guarded by his declaration that they are “true and faithful.” There is a reality and definiteness in them, which will not admit of their being added to, or taken from. So that any attempt to fritter away their meaning, will be followed by the curses written in the book, and a loss of the blessings therein promised.

The command not to seal this prophecy, is in contrast with the close of Daniel’s prophecy, which was “closed up and sealed till the time of the end,” Dan. 12:9. The Apocalypse, as its name imports, being an “unveiling” of the obscurities of Daniel, the seal from the former was removed—the time of the end, in that sense, being equivalent to the last days, or the gospel dispensation.

The time was “at hand,” when the great series of predicted events was to commence. As he that was unjust was to be unjust still, and he that was righteous was thus to remain, it follows that the visions therein recorded, continue down to the close of probation; and that the new earth is one of everlasting reward, wherein is to be fulfilled the promise: “Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth,” Matt. 5:3.

In this connection the Saviour answers the question, which so perplexed the Pharisees: If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? Matt. 22:45. Being the Root from whence David sprang, and in his humanity David’s offspring, he was both his Lord and son.

The invitation appended is one of the most endearing that it is possible to conceive of, and the threats are the most terrific. These are given for the admonition of all; and yet how many will turn away from the study of the book, which commences with a blessing on him “that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein,” (1:3); and closes with an invitation for all to come and “take of the water of life freely.” It is no mystical record, and there is nothing equivocal in its predictions. Neither is it to be fulfilled in the distant future; for “He which testifieth these things saith: Surely I come quickly.” And shall not every one who loves his Lord respond, “Even so; come, Lord Jesus.”

“The Church has waited long Her absent Lord to see; And still in loneliness she waits, A friendless stranger she. Age after age has gone, Sun after sun has set, And still, in weeds of widowhood, She weeps, a mourner yet.”

“The whole creation groans, And waits to hear that voice That shall restore her comeliness, And make her wastes rejoice. Come, Lord, and wipe away The curse, the sin, the stain, And make this blighted world of ours Thine own fair world again. Come, then, Lord Jesus, come!”

Rev. H. A. Bonar, (Eng.)

THE OLD EARTH.

Old Mother EARTH is wan and pale, Her face is wrinkled sore; Her locks are blanched, her heart is cold, Her garments stiff with gore; With furrowed brow and dim sad eyes, With trembling steps and slow, She marks the course that first she trod Six thousand years ago!

The Earth is old, the Earth is cold, She shivers and complains; How many Winters fierce and chill Have racked her limbs with pains! Drear tempests, lightning, flood and flame Have scarred her visage so, That scarce we deem she shone so fair, Six thousand years ago!

Yet comely was the youthful Earth, And lightly tripped along To music from a starry choir, Whose sweet celestial song Through Nature’s temple echoed wild, And soft as streamlets flow, Where sister spheres replied with her, Six thousand years ago!

And many happy children there Upon her breast reclined, The young Earth smiled with aspect fair, The heavens were bright and kind; The azure cope above her head In love seemed bending low, O happy was the youthful Earth, Six thousand years ago!

Alas! those children of the Earth With hate began to burn, And Murder stained her beauteous robe, And bade the young Earth mourn. And ages, heavy ages, still Have bowed with gathering woe The form of her whose life was joy, Six thousand years ago!

Old Earth! drear Earth! thy tender heart Bewails thy chosen ones; Thou look’st upon the myriad graves That hide their gathered bones; For them, by day and night, thy tears Unceasingly must flow; Death chilled the fountain-head of life Six thousand years ago!

Old Earth! old Earth! above thy head The heavens are dark and chill, The sun looks coldly on thee now, The stars shine pale and still; No more the heavenly symphonies Through listening ether flow, Which swelled upon creation’s ear, Six thousand years ago!

Weep not in bitter grief, O Earth! Weep not in hopelessness! From out the heavens “a still small voice” Whispers returning peace. Thy tears are precious in the sight Of ONE who marks their flow, Who purposes of mercy formed, Six thousand years ago!

Thy days of grief are numbered all, Their sum will soon be told: The joy of youth, the smile of God, Shall bless thee as of old; Shall shed a purer, holier light Upon thy peaceful brow, Than beamed upon thy morning hour Six thousand years ago!

Thy chosen ones shall live again, A countless, tearless throng, To wake creation’s voice anew, And swell the choral song. Go, Earth! go wipe thy falling tears, Forget thy heavy woe: Hope died not with thy first-born sons, Six thousand years ago!

KNICKERBOCKER.

FOOTNOTES

1 The first Advent was, according to the best-settled chronological data, about four thousand one hundred and twenty years from creation.

2 See margin of Whiting’s Testament. Lord has it, “when he can be ready to sound.”

3 The constitutional language was, “By the authority of the senate, and consent of the soldiers.”—Gibbon, vol. I., p. 44.

4 This is given on the authority of the London Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, for 1852, p. 330, which states that the edict will be found in the “Theodosian Code, XVII. to XX.”

5 “Ubi cogniti fuerint illius hæresis sectatores, ne receptaculum iis quisquam in terra sua præbere præsumat: sed nec in venditione aut emptione aliqua cum iis omnino commercium habeatur.”—Hard., vi. ii. 1597.

6 The following philological law or canon of criticism is universally admitted, and all dictionaries, grammars, and translations, are formed in accordance with it:

“Every word not specially explained or defined in a particular sense, by any standard writer of any particular age and country, is to be taken and applied in the current or commonly received signification of that country and age in which the writer lived and wrote.”—Campbell.

7 This possession by demons is similar to the mode by which pretended spirits claim that they communicate through mediums. One of them, purporting to be the spirit of a departed son of Adin Ballou, in answer to the question, by his father, “Can you describe how you are able to write through a medium?” says, “I feel as though I enter into her for the time being, or as if my spirit entered into her. I am disencumbered of my spiritual form, and take hers. More than one spirit can enter the medium at once. The mediums all go into the trance by means of several spirits entering the body at one time.”—Spiritual Telegraph, May 8, 1852.

8 The word is demon or demons in all the instances referred to.

9 Necromancy is derived from the Greek words nekros, dead, and mantis, a diviner. The Greek, Necromantia, is defined: “The revealing future events by communication with the dead; necromancy.” And Nekromantis: “One who reveals future events by communication with the dead; a necromancer.”

10 This is in the Syriac, “Until the fulness of the time of all things.” Irenæus says, “Till the time of the exhibition or disposal of all things;” and Œcumenius, “Till the time of all things does come to an end;” and we have the suffrage of Thesychius and Phavorinus, that “ἀποκατάστασις is τελειωσις, ‘the consummation’ of a thing.”—Whitby.