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Giftot
NORMAN SQUIRES HUBBARD
YALE, 1916
1929

THE
REVELATION OF ST. JOHN
THE DIVINE
AN INTERPRETATION

BY

A. H. AMES, M.D., D.D.

NEW YORK : EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS

Copyright by
EATON & MAINS,
1897.

Eaton & Mains Press,
150 Fifth Avenue, New York.

preface

The essay -which foUo-ws is based upon a
conviction that the closing book of the
canon of the New Testament, kno-wn as
the Revelation of Saint John, presents the
thoughts of that holy man and inspired
apostle upon the subject of the kingdom of
Christ, as derived by him from the Old
Testament Scriptures and from the teach
ings of Christ or as drawn from direct reve
lations made to himself. The book presents
a single theme and has a well-preserved
unity. With those theories of interpretation
which would make of the book an epitome
of history, either as confined to particular
epochs or as a whole, and which presuppose
its design to be the prediction of events,
great or small, in the progress of the world
or the Church, the writer of this essay is
not in sympathy. It is mainly because of
the vagaries and conceits to which these
theories have opened the way, which have
clouded rather than cleared the mysteries

Preface
of the Apocalypse and been more promotive
of strife than of salvation, that so many
thoughtful and pious minds have been
driven from the study of what is one of the
most beautiful, as it is one of the most prac
tical, parts of the word of God. How readily
the coincidences, for such they are, which
have been appealed to as verifications of
these theories may be explained and ac
counted for will be shown in the course of
the essay.
Questions of criticism or scholarship do
not lie within the scope of the essay. It is
assumed, not, however, without examina
tion and reflection, that the Revelation is
the work of John, the son of Zebedee, one
of the twelve, and " the disciple whom Je
sus loved." It is also assumed that he was
the author of the fourth gospel and of the
epistles which bear his name.
Commentaries upon the Revelation have
been so numerous that their titles would
fill a volume. It is not likely that anything
can be said concerning it which is entirely
new and has not been somewhere set forth.
The writer of this essay claims originality
so far as that he has not seen the views
here expressed elsewhere presented, al-
4

Preface
though they may have appeared previously
It is not possible for him to say whence he
has gathered the material which has grown
into the essay, so as to make formal ac
knowledgment. Alford, Bengel, Heng-
stenberg, Wordsworth, The Speaker s Com
mentary, EUicott's Commentary, The Exposi
tor s Bible have been consulted freely, and
also The Symbolic Parables of the Apocalypse,
published by T. and T. Clark. The best
commentary upon the Revelation he has
found to be the Scriptures themselves.
Washington, D. C.

Contents

INTRODUCTION
Rules of Interpretation — The Structure of the Book —
Reference to Old Testament — Emblems Interpreted by
Light of Jewish Scriptures and Ritual — Particular Atten
tion to Numbers  Pages 1-26
PART I
The Seven Churches of Asia, or the Kingdom as it Actually
was in the Days of the Apostles and is Now  29-35
PART II
Fundamental Principles on Which the Kingdom is Based —
Emblem of the Seals — Opening of the Seals — The Sealed
Elect  39-52
PART III
The Means by which the Kingdom of Christ is Advanced —
Natural Providences — The Two Witnesses, or the Su
pernatural Scriptures  55-97
PART IV
The Foes of the Kingdom— The Dragon— First Wild Beast,
or Spirit of Worldliness — Second Wild Beast, or Spirit
of False Prophetism — Anticipations of Victory . . 101-166
PART V
The Counterfeit of the Kingdom, or the False Church — The
Judgments of God — Vision of the Vials — Babylon and
its Doom — Methods of Success Reiterated  169-202
7

Contents PART VI
Progressive Steps by Which the Ideal Kingdom is to be
Realized — Restraints upon the Power of Satan — Outpour
ing of the Holy Spirit under the Emblem of Resurrection
— Union of Christian Believers — Final Triumph over Bar
barism under the Emblem of Gog and Magog. . . 205-258
PART VII
The Ideal of the Kingdom — Its Distinctive Features — The
Central Principle of the Kingdom — Negative Character
istics — Fruits and Results  261-276

Untrobuction

Rules of Interpretation
If the Revelation of Saint John has any
right to a place in the canon of the New
Testament, it is reasonable to presume that
its intention was to conform to that general
purpose for which all divinely inspired
Scripture is said to be given, namely, to
" be profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness :
that the man of God may be perfect, thor
oughly furnished unto all good works."
What peculiarly distinguishes it is that
it clothes spiritual truth with a garb of mys
tery which, by challenging investigation,
stimulates inquiry; which affords to the
mind that solves its obscurities the satisfac
tion always to be found in the discovery of
the recondite and difficult; which throws
around prose realities the pleasing charm of
poetry and art ; and which, by connecting
material things with a divine revelation,
and thus linking together nature and the
supernatural, attests the unity of the uni-

Introduction
verse in which we are placed and shows
the world about us and human history to be
full of the presence of God.
It would surely argue great presumption
in any man to claim a perfect understand
ing of a book so marvelous as the Apoca
lypse, whose teachings are not for one age,
but for all ages. Very confidently, how
ever, it may be asserted that by the use of
certain rules of interpretation many of its
mysteries may be explained and its applica
tion to practical life and conduct be made
evident. The reasonableness of these rules
would be readily admitted if applied to any
other part of holy writ ; and hesitation to
accept them here proceeds solely from that
mistaken view of the design of the Reve
lation which isolates it from the rest of
the sacred canon as something anomaioms
and unique. So far is this from being
the case that no book in the Bible can
afford to stand by itself so little as the
Apocalypse, inasmuch as there is no other
into the fabric of which so much of the
other Scriptures is intentionally woven.
The impression which close study of it
makes is that it was designed by its author
to serve as a sacred clasp to bind together
10

Introduction
and hold in harmonious coherence the whole
of God's wonderful volume.
The principles of interpretation deserving
special notice are four in number.
I . The structure of the book itself furnishes
some guide to its interpretation.
The opening chapters comprise brief let
ters, seven in all, which the author is di
rected to write to seven churches of Asia,
the number indicating, not that these com
prehended all the churches in that region,
but that in them were represented all phases
of religious life. These letters set before
us both the spiritual state and the environ
ment of the churches, and are advisory,
monitory, reproachful, or comforting as the
cases demanded.
The closing chapters present us with a
picture of the perfected Christian Church —
a symbolical vision, incomparable in its ex
quisite beauty, of the complete and perma
nent triumph of the Gospel of Christ, in
the individual heart and on the larger field
of the world, over all opposing forces ; the
realization, in fact, on earth of the ideal
kingdom of God made ready for the Lamb.
The most plausible suggestion, therefore,
which presents itself is that the intermediate
11

Introduction
portion of the book is intended to pre
sent in its figures and symbols the means
by which the last condition is to be reached
from the earlier one, the unformed and
fluctuating state of the beginning developed
into the ripeness and perfection of the close,
and that under the guise of metaphor,
trope, and vision there are revealed to us
the dangers which the Church of Christ
must expect, the enemies it must subdue,
the weapons by which victory must be
achieved, the encouragements upon which
it may rely, and, in short, the steps through
which the immature and carnal must be led
in order to reach up to the pure and perfect.
Nor is it with the Church at large that
the warnings and counsels have alone to do.
If " whatsoever things were written afore
time were written for our learning," each
individual disciple of Christ may find in this
book a chart for his own life's journey and
have sufficient warning against the sunken
rocks, the adverse tides, the dangerous
headlands which are to be shunned, and
which are here so clearly and plainly marked
out for him that he may, in the close and
careful study of the map, find equal profit
and pleasure. 12

Introduction
It is very important in this connection to
note the statement of the writer in the first
verse of the book, that his commission was
" to show unto " the servants of God
" things which must shortly come to pass."
It is only by a very forced construction of
the words that they can be made to signify
a prophecy whose fulfillment is to be delayed
for long centuries indefinite in their number.
The most natural construction surely is that
the revelation intrusted to him is one of
which the whole, and not a part only, is to
find its application in the times in which he
lived, or soon thereafter, and to continue
applicable until the glorious result is at
tained of which the closing part speaks.
And if we shall dismiss from our minds all
prepossessions springing out from that view
of the book which makes it a syllabus, or
table of contents, of Christian history the
force of this remark will more clearly ap
pear. 2. Reference must constantly be made to the
Old Testament .
This rule, which is of importance in order
to understand any part of the New Testa
ment, becomes of the highest necessity in
any attempt to interpret the Revelation.
13

Introduction
The writer was evidently a diligent student
of the older Scriptures, absorbing their
images and emblems until they had become
a part of himself. Much in his writings
that at first seems obscure becomes plain
when we put ourselves in his position and
study the Scriptures, which were evidently
in his thoughts.
The prophetical books of the Old Testa
ment especially are to be studied. Between
the relation in which the older prophets
stood to the laws and institutions of Moses
and that which the apostles of the New
Testament dispensation sustained to the
Lord Jesus Christ a strong similarity ex
ists. Neither the one nor the other claimed
to be originators or independent discoverers,
but rather witnesses to truths already re
vealed, which they accepted as primary and
fundamental facts. Into the clear under
standing, indeed, of these they were ena
bled by divine inspiration to look more
deeply than others could, and they were
also supernaturally aided to draw them out
into great principles, capable of application
to human thought and conduct in the shap
ing of individual and national life and prac
tice. Thus, naturally and by sympathy of
11

Introduction
condition, the later writers found themselves
led into careful and profound study of their
predecessors. The prophecies of Daniel
and Zechariah deserve to be especially con
sulted. Written, as they were, at or near
the time of the captivity of Judah, they had
peculiar interest for one who was himself an
exile for the truth. Some of the imagery of
the Revelation is drawn from the glowing
poetry of Isaiah. And almost the entire
Book of Joel has been worked into the
Apocalypse. But of all helps to an understanding of
the Revelation the most fruitful is a close
and careful comparison with the Book of
Ezekiel ; especially is this the case in refer
ence to the closing chapters of both. Be
tween the authors of these two works there
were striking similarities of character and
condition. But a more powerful bond of
union is found in the fact that both of them
were preeminently prophets of the Holy
Spirit, seeming to have reached truer and
profounder views of his work in the econ
omy of redemption than any predecessors
in their separate dispensations. Isaiah and
Paul wrote of Christ and his Church ; but
if we wish to learn the fullest development
15

Introduction
of the office of the Holy Ghost we must
turn to the pages of Ezekiel and John.
In addition to the Old Testament refer
ences, the prophetical discourses of our
Lord uttered near the close of his ministry
and recorded in the synoptical gospels will
throw much light on the Book of Revela
tion. The omission of these from the gos
pel of John may be accounted for by the
fact that in the Revelation the apostle had
made such large use of them. The impor
tant prediction of Paul concerning the man
of sin, found in 2 Thess. ii, must also be
compared with those of John.
3 . The emblems and symbols of the Revelation
must be interpreted by the light of the Jewish
Scriptures a7id ritual.
This, indeed, follows as a corollary form
the preceding rule, but is of so much im
portance as to deserve special mention.
Sometimes a word or a figure of speech or
the connections of a sentence or a passing
allusion to some sacrificial service will afford
a clew to what at the time was in the mind
of the writer. Inasmuch as he was a Jew,
"taught according to the perfect manner
of the law of the fathers," familiar with the
Scriptures, traditions, usages, and history
16

Introduction
of his religion, his interpretation of sym
bols and emblems would naturally be such
as would occur to the mind of a Jew. We
must place ourselves as near as possible to his
standpoint. Yet, as he was also an inspired
apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be
prepared to concede that he read deeper into
these mysteries than his fellows did and was
able to import into them a richer meaning.
4. Particular attention must be given to
the numbers found in the book.
Much that is fanciful and extravagant
has, it must be conceded, been written on
this subject, and to many persons any dis
cussion of it is distasteful. Yet it is certain,
as the Wisdom of Solomon says, that God
has ' ' ordered all things in measure and
number and weight." Otherwise there
could be no such thing as exact science.
Truths lie veiled in figures, for these repre
sent fixed principles and plans in the divine
mind. As a general truth, it may be stated
that the ideas expressed by numbers, not
only in this book, but throughout the Bible,
whenever these are used symbolically, are
those of fullness, exactness, and perfection,
on one hand, or deficiency, incompleteness,
and imperfection, on the other.
2 17

Introduction
The numbers which figure most largely
in symbolism are seven, twelve, six, and
three and a half.
Seven is called the sacred number, and
seems to express the idea of perfection or
fullness to the highest degree and in the
most unlimited sense. As seven days make
a complete week, whole and entire, without
redundancy or deficiency, so that to which
the number seven is attached must be taken
as perfect, fully developed, as a complete
whole. The expressions "seven spirits,"
" seven seals," " seven trumpets," etc., im
ply that what they represent must be taken
as entire, with no possible capacities lying
in them unexhausted.
Twelve, also, signifies completeness; but
its use and application are more restricted.
It is usually connected with the Church of
God, and possibly has some special reference
to it. Thus there are twelve patriarchs,
twelve apostles, twelve foundations to the
holy city. As the number is formed by the
multiplication of three, representing the
Trinity, and four, representing the world
with its quarters, it conveys the thought of
universality as the assured destiny of the
Church. 18

Introduction
Six is, also, as a symbol, connected with
the Church; but, both because it is less
than seven, and only the half of twelve,
has a sinister significance. It represents
the malign and baleful influences which cor
rupt and disintegrate the Church, shearing
it of its power, limiting and obstructing its
mission, and leaving it incomplete, defec
tive, and corrupt.
Three and a half is a number having
special signification and requiring particu
lar investigation. A correct appreciation
of its meaning will throw light upon some
of the most obscure portions of the Apoca
lypse. It occurs — and is, indeed, the only num
ber of which this may be said — in various
forms. Since three and a half years com
prise forty-two months, and since forty-two
months of thirty days each (the usual pro
phetical computation) equal twelve hundred
and sixty days, we may take these three
forms, three and a half, forty-two, and twelve
hundred and sixty, as equivalent expres
sions. So, also, the expression, "a time,
times, and the dividing of times" (i-|-2-fJ
=31), is probably but another form of
this number. That some law governs the
19

Introduction
choice of these various forms is probable ;
but what, it is does not appear.
Since three and a half falls short of seven,
it designates incompleteness. But, inas
much as it is the exact half of seven (in
this differing from six), it signifies an in
completeness which has, so to speak, a com
pleteness of its own — that is, an incom
pleteness which is not anomalous and ir
regular, such as would be expressed by six,
but one which is, by the appointment of
God or as a result of its own nature, in
tended to be such. Any period of time or
epoch in human history which has pre
scribed and well-marked limits or bound
aries, any part of the plan of Providence
which has a specified, but only temporary
and partial purpose as related to the whole
course and complete plan of the divine
Being, is always designated by one or the
other of the forms of this number.
Judaism, for instance, answered these
conditions. It was a providentially ordered
dispensation, but with a specific and limited
object ; fulfilling a definite, but not the com
plete purpose of Providence ; a stage in the
movement of humanity toward the kingdom
of God, but not itself the realization of that
20

Introduction
kingdom ; a type which needed an antitype
to round it out, and throughout which ran
the marks that proved it to be only tem
porary and preparatory to a higher dispen
sation into which it was to blossom. It was
" a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ."
Its glory was something which was " to be
done away," and consequently falls short
of " that which remaineth." And it reached
the "fullness" of its "time" when "God
sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons." And it will be found
that whenever Judaism is symbolized by a
number in the Book of Revelation, it is des
ignated by one of the allotropic forms of
three and a half.*
So, likewise, Gentilism, to which a defi
nite and distinct character or purpose is at
tributed, both by our Lord (Luke xxi, 24)
and by Saint Paul (Rom xi, 25), but which,
when severed from its Jewish antecedents,
has the like features of incompleteness and
deficiency, would be symbolically expressed
by some form of the same number.f
So generally accepted seems to have been
* See Rev. xi, 3 ; xii, 6, 14. f See Rev. xiii, 5.
21

Introduction -
this symbolical use of numbers that it ap
pears even in such pure and simple prose as
the gospels. The evangelist Matthew, in
recording the genealogy of our Lord, di-vides
the period between Abraham and Christ
into three cycles with fourteen generations
in each, or forty-two in all. This period is
exactly coeval with Judaism as a distinct
dispensation ; and forty- two is, as we have
seen, one of the interchangeable forms of
the number three and a half. Inasmuch
as the actual number of generations was,
as is generally agreed, more than forty-two,
and some principle of accommodation must
have controlled the evangelist in choosing
it, we have a right to conjecture that the
symbolism was so well established that
no erroneous impression would be con
veyed. Using these rules of interpretation as a
guide, it will be found that many, if not
most of the obscurities which have made
this book so perplexing and incomprehen
sible will be removed. A unity of purpose
will be seen pervading it. It will no longer
appear anomalous and outre, but harmoni
ous with the rest of the oracles of God ; a
book for the perusal of every indi-vidual be-
22

Introduction
liever, no matter how simple and unlearned
he may be ; having direct reference to his
heart-experience and his moral conduct ; a
vade mecum for the journey of life through
whose aid he may safely encounter the dan
gers and surely overcome the hindrances
he may meet.
The p^reat theme which the inspired
writer and apostle here sets before us is.the
mediatorial kingdom of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The principles which lie at the
basis of that kingdom — the oppositions, ex
temal and internal, to its beginning and
completion, the agencies, divine and human,
upon which reliance must be placed to
achieve success, its superiority to and tri
umph over all hostile forces, and all these
both in the heart of each individual Chris
tian and in that aggregation of Christians
which we call the Church — are here deline
ated as they were revealed to Saint John.
The theories which make of this book an
anticipation of history, and which find in
the events of the last nineteen centuries
continued fulfillments of its predictions, or
which confine those fulfillments to the
periods either near the primitive age or
near the future and final scenes of the
23

Introduction
drama of time are regarded as being not
wholly erroneous, but incomplete and
partial. That the great purposes of divine Provi
dence are continually finding their fulfill
ment in the history of men and nations is
a truth not confined to this book, but spread
throughout all the sacred Scriptures. The
laws of the divine administration are very
exact ; they can be neither obeyed nor dis
regarded without the necessary accompani
ments of legitimate and appointed conse
quences. There is no improbability at all
that moral and spiritual truths may have
their processes and cycles of development,
just as natural things have their seasons
and times of maturity. Whether the events
that have occurred, the organized bodies, sec
ular or religious, that have appeared on the
field of the world, were in the mind of the
apostle as he wrote is a question neither
affirmed nor denied. What is meant to be
said is that the Revelation does more than
merely predict results. It goes do-wn into
the profound region of causes and reveals
the continuity of the plans of the divine
Being. However ingenious or plausible,
therefore, the explanations put upon the
24

Introduction
prophecies of this book by the theories
spoken of above, it is not confined to them.
As long as the world lasts there will be, in
every age and in the experience of every
believer, a fulfillment jof_t')ie trutlis Jiere
set forth. Its warnings and comforts will
never be out of date. Its promises and its
threats are alike imperishable, for they are
a part of that "word of our God" which
"shall stand forever."
A definition of the phrase "kingdom of
Christ" is nowhere attempted in the Rev
elation. It was not needed in an age when
the theme was the staple of preaching and
teaching. To show that it must not be
confounded with the visible Church was the
purpose of the epistles to the churches of
Asia with which the Apocalypse begins.
The fundamental principle upon which the
kingdom is founded, the universal sov-
ereignty of Christ based tvpon hisj;edemp-
tive work, is taught under the emblem of the
goals. The writer then advances to the in
strumentalities, natural and supernatural,
by means of which the kingdom is to be
brought to its consummation. The antag
onisms which the kingdom must encounter
from foes without and within are next
25

Introduction
plainly revealed, and, lest the revelation
may cause discouragement, prophecies of
sure and final victory mingle with warn
ings. The retributive resources of the
kingdom, the just judgments which fall
upon its foes, and especially upon the false
and counterfeit Church, are taught under
the emblem of the vials. The next section
discloses to us the stages of progress through
which the kingdom ascends to its complete
establishment, and the signs by which we
may test its advance or detect its decline.
And finally, with that glowing picture of
the ideal kingdom as it shall be realized on
earth when the Galilean shall have con
quered, a picture so beautiful that our high
est conceptions of heaven seem embodied
in it, the divine seer closes his rapturous
vision.

PARTI
XTbe Seven Cburcbes of Hsfa

IRevelation ot Saint John
tbe Bivine

PART I

The Seven Churches of Asia, or, the Kingdom
as it Actually was in the Days of the Apostles
and is now
The chapters which contain the epistles to
the churches of Asia need not detain us long ;
not that they are devoid of interest, but be
cause anything like a commentary upon the
text lies outside the scope and design of this
essay, whose purpose is to interpret the
general intent of the book itself.
The value of these letters to us lies in the
pictures presented in them of the religious
state of the churches to which they were ad
dressed, and which doubtless were repre
sentative of the Christian world in the days
of the writer. The reading of them will
dispel any illusion in which we may have
indulged as to the superiority of the apos
tolical age over subsequent ones, and will
shatter any hypothesis we may have formed
29

Revelation of Saint John
that primitive Christianity was anything like
Utopia. The condition of the churches
which they reveal to us was one in which
doubt and faith, loyalty and declension,
purity and worldliness, evil and good were
interspersed in varying proportions. The
tares had already begun to grow with the
wheat. And a moment's reflection will convince us
that no other result could reasonably be ex
pected. Divine grace does not obliterate
human nature, and its operations are always
in accordance with rule. The regeneration
of a soul is not synonymous with its entire
sanctiflcation. Growth is an invariable ac
companiment of life. . It would have been
a new and altogether anomalous state of
things if the average of conduct attained by
converts from Jewish and pagan standards
of thought and morals had equaled that to
which we may aspire in whom centuries of
training in the family, the State, and the
Church have created a Christian conscious
ness. Fervor and zeal the early disciples
unquestionably had, but with sad mixture
of inconsistency, inexperience, and weak
ness. It has always seemed hard for Christians
30

The Seven Churches of Asia
to comprehend and fully believe the prom
ise which our Lord gave to the Church
through the apostles, that the Holy Ghost,
when he should come, should " abide " with
it " forever." And this abiding presence
throughout all ages of the Spirit of truth is
not to be in partial or transient manifesta
tion, but in all the fullness of his divine
offices. And attention must be called to the
fact that John, in unfolding the processes
and forces by which the kingdom of Christ
is to be brought to its triumphant complete
ness, points us at the beginning of his
prophecy (Rev. iv, 5) to the seven spirits of
God "burning before the throne," as if to
impress upon us the perfection of degree in
which the Holy Spirit gives himself to this
work. This does not mean that there is
monotonous identity in the modes of his
manifestation, or that the work that he does
is the same in kind with that which he has
done in the past. We are expressly told
that ' ' there are diversities of gifts, but the
same spirit. And there are diversities of
administrations, but the same Lord. And
there are diversities of operations, but it
is the same God that worketh all in all."
Some things which God does he never re
al

Revelation of Saint John
peats. His special presence or work at
some periods and in some things does not
imply that he is any the less, while not in
the same special way, present at all times
and in all things.
"In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth." That was done once for
all. From that period up to this time, in
deed, the " Father worketh; " but it is not
as Creator, but as Providence, developing
and evolving from that beginning the possi
bilities that lay in it. What we call science
is the record of this development, aiming
only at the accurate presentation of the facts
of providence and the adaptation of them to
human needs and destiny. Nature is the
terminus ad quem toward which discovery
and invention tend, not the terminus a quo
from which they start. Progress in them
does not mean adding anything to nature
or superseding it or leaving it behind and
moving to something beyond it, but merely
approaching closer to it, bringing us to bet
ter knowledge of and fuller acquaintance
with it.
So, likewise, that inspiration of the Holy
Ghost by which holy men of God were
moved to speak and write what was specially

The Seven Churches of Asia
revealed to them is never to be repeated.
The lines along which and the limits within
which the Christian Church is to be led were
laid down once for all, as those of nature
also were. The work of the Spirit now is
that of a Pro-vidence to bring to realization
the ideal then foreshadowed ; and in doing
this he has divine freedom to breathe where
and when he listeth. Pentecost was the
commencement of a process of which the
closing chapters of the Revelation disclose
the completion. And in order to attain this
end the perpetual presence and indwelling
of the Holy Spirit are promised in all their
richness and perfection, but in accordance
with the laws of human nature and with
constant increments of knowledge and
power. It is vain, therefore, to claim command
ing authority for any ceremony, formula,
or organization on the ground that it cor
responds with primitive Christianity. The
apostles never felt themselves bound to that
first sketch of the Church which they drew
at Pentecost, as if this were among the
things supernaturally revealed; but they
modified and revised it whenever they
could say, " It seemed good to the Holy

Revelation of Saint John
Ghost and to us." Nor have we any reason
to believe that the process of evolution
which continued throughout their lives
ended therewith. The Holy Spirit did not
then cease his work of guidance and in
spiration. That is the truest and most
apostolical Christianity which, like John,
being "in the Spirit on the Lord's day,"
holds itself ever ready to hear and obey the
"great voice, as of a trumpet," behind and
above it.
And this is the lesson we are to learn
from the seven epistles to the churches of
Asia. They are the record of the begin
ning of the kingdom of Christ, repeated in
the conversion and regeneration of every
individual Christian. They show the point
of departure from which progress is to be
made toward the consummation and per
fection of the ideal. The Christian world
as it was then, with its graces and its
faults, is disclosed to us. The apostle, with
his clearer eye, was able to look below the
facts and recognize the principles struggling
for the ascendency ; and, using these facts
as his data, he drew from them a prophecy
of the development of the kingdom of
Christ of marvelous interest and instruction
34

The Seven Churches of Asia
for all subsequent ages. Nor is there a
single force, friendly or hostile to the king
dom, which does not appear in the warn
ings or encouragements he is directed to
¦write to these infant churches. Whoever
will take the sketch of the kingdom as it
actually appeared to the eye of John, and
contrast it with the culmination of the
process so exquisitely pictured in the last
two chapters of the Apocalypse, will have
some conception of the field over which he
must travel if he would "come in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the
Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ." 36

PART n
jFun&amental ©rfnctples on wbfcb tbe
•KfnQ5om ts 3Base5

Fundamental Principles

PART II
Fundamental Principles on which the Kingfdom
is Based. Emblem of the Seals
With the fourth chapter the symbolical
part of the Revelation begins, and continues
to the end of the book. In that portion of
it upon which we now enter, and which in
cludes chapters iv-viii, i , the emblem of a
seal is employed so frequently as to make
it the distinctive feature. We are told of a
book "sealed with seven seals" which none
but the Lamb is worthy to open. Then we
are told of the opening of these seals, with
visions accompanying the successive loosing
of them. And, lastly, a specific number of
persons sealed in their foreheads are shown
us, following which an innumerable com
pany is seen gathered before the throne of
God. It behooves us to ascertain the typical
meaning of a seal ; and if we succeed in so
doing the purpose of the writer will be dis
closed. I . The Emblem of the Seals. — The seal has
been usually taken as signifying conceal
ment or secrecy ; sealed things have been
regarded as synonymous with hidden things.
39

Revelation of Saint John
And very much conjecture has been offered
as to what were the hidden mysteries con
tained in the sealed book or scroll. But,
whatever secondary meaning the seal may
have, concealment is not its principal one.
A seal denotes, primarily and specifically,
ownership, not secrecy. The sealing of
anything implies that it is, or is claimed to
be, the property of him who affixes the seal.
The outward stamp is the declaration that
the owner makes of his rights and is the
official token of his authority. It is the
mark of lordship or seigniority. Any con
cealment of contents therein involved is a
secondary consideration.
Some illustrations from Scripture will
substantiate this interpretation.
When it is said (Rom. iv, 1 1) that Abra
ham received " the sign of circumcision, a
seal of the righteousness of the faith which
he had," it is meant that he then became in
a special sense the personal property of Al
mighty God and entitled to all the protec
tion of Omnipotence.
' ' He that hath received his testimony
hath set to his seal [' hath set his seal to
this,' Revised Version] that God is true"
(John iii, 33), means that the assured con-
40

Fundamental Principles
viction of God's reality and faithfulness has
become the personal possession of the be
liever, something which belongs to him of
right. "Him hath God the Father sealed"
(John vi, 27) means that God officially rati
fies and acknowledges as his own what
Christ does, and attests it with the stamp of
authority. When Pilate sealed the sepulcher where
Christ was laid (Matt, xxvii, 66) it was
meant that the tomb became the property
of the Roman empire and was under the
guardianship of its officials, and that who
ever tampered with it must be prepared to
try questions with Ctesar.
"Ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit "
(Eph. i, 13) means that ye received as your
own possession, in your own personal ex
perience, the earnest of your inheritance;
the gift of the Holy Spirit attests your
rightful claim to it.
These examples will suffice to indicate
the scriptural meaning of the seal. We
have only to apply this meaning to the so
lution of the problem before us. "A book
written within and on the back side," that
is, completely, all over, with no blank or
41

Revelation of Saint John
empty space, is seen lying in the right hand
of God on the throne. Plainly, this book
with its contents signifies something over
which the divine Being asserts supreme
sovereignty, which he claims as his of right
and alone. And the number of the seals —
seven — indicates that this sovereignty is
complete, undivided, perfect.
What the contents of the book were we
may infer from the preceding chapter (iv),
in which we are shown the court of the
Lord God omnipotent, with his loyal and
obedient servants and hierarchies worship
ing him and saying, " Thou hast created all
things, and for thy pleasure they are and
were created." The book with its seals is
a symbol of the fundamental truth of all
truths, that all things and beings in tlys
universe, whatever and wherever they are,
belong originally and normally to the Cre
ator. His sovereignty over his creatures is
absolute, illimitable, and eternal.
It is quite in accordance with John's cast
of mind (and this furnishes no slight evi
dence as to the authorship of the Revela
tion) in unfolding to us the plan of redemp
tion to take his stand at that period in the
past, far back and without date, when God
42

Fundamental Principles
was all in all, and when sin had not entered
to dispute his supremacy; just as in his
gospel he commences, not with the Christ
in the maturity of his powers, or even in
carnate in the flesh, but with the preSxistent
Word who was "in the beginning," "was
with God," and ' ' was God." Profoundest of
all the apostles, his mind reveled in the con
templation of beginnings and ends, of the
primeval origin and final consummation of
things, of the alpha and omega of creation.
But along with this vision of sovereignty
came the coincident remembrance of the
universe as it is, disordered and in rebellion ;
of a sinful world wandering from its orbit,
disputing the supremacy of its Maker and
God, and in unequal and hopeless conflict
¦with Omnipotence. Into whose possession
should it pass, and who could assume the
reins of power which seemed to have fallen
from the hands of the Creator?
A thought similar to this appears to have
passed through the mind of Isaiah when he
turned from the vision of the throne "high
and lifted up," with the seraphim veiling
their faces in the presence of holy Majesty,
to the spectacle of himself and the world,
and cried, "Woe is me! for I am undone."
43

Revelation of Saint John
So John " wept much" when, after this
view of immaculate purity combined with
almightiness, he contemplated a sinful world
powerless to dispute what it would not will
ingly obey. Who was there worthy to
"open the book" and to "loose the seals
thereof," and thus to bring back creatures
to their rightful allegiance? If they would
not submit, yet could not resist, the result
could be only disaster, for the heavens
must rule, and successful rebellion was im
possible. But there came to John hope and help,
as there had come also to Isaiah ; and to
both from " the altar." As John looked he
beheld the " Lion of the tribe of Judah," but
in the form of a " Lamb as it had been
slain," take the book from the right hand
of God and proceed to break the seals.
Now, if a seal is the emblem of ownership
it follows that the authorized and permitted
loosing of a seal must mean the transfer
ence, or delegation, of proprietorship. And
this is the meaning here. There is an en
dowment— -donation, rather — of authority,
and the change in possession is published.
That which belonged to and had been
under the rule of the Father is consigned
44

Fundamental Principles
to and becomes the possession of the
Son. And the change is not simply one of
sovereigns, but of the ground principle of
sovereignty; not only of rulers, but of
methods of rule. The song of the ' ' elders "
and "living creatures" is now, not "Thou
didst create," but " Thou hast redeemed us
to God by thy blood." There is presented
to us, in fact, a picture of the mediatorial
sovereignty of the Son of God. We see the
inauguration of the kingdom of Christ, the
fundamental principle of which is, "Ye are
not your own;" for "ye are bought with a
price: therefore glorify God." It was
written in the Psalms, "The Lord hath
said unto me. Thou art my Son ; this day
have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I
shall give thee the heathen for thine inherit
ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession." John was looking
upon the fulfillment of that decree.
Of this mediatorial kingdom of Christ, thus
presented to us in symbol, so much is said in
the Bible that only a few texts need to be re
ferred to out of the many which might be
cited. Our Lord himself said of it that the
Father ' ' hath committed all judgment unto
the Son" (John v, 22). And again, "All
4S

Revelation of Saint John
things are delivered unto me of my Father"
(Matt, xi, 27). And still again, " All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth "
(Matt, xxviii, 18). So in Heb. ii, 8, it is re
corded, "Thou hast put all things in sub
jection under his feet." And Paul has writ
ten, " Then cometh the end, when he shall
have delivered up the kingdom to God, even
the Father ; when he shall have put down
all rule and all authority and power. For
he must reign, till he hath put all enemies
under his feet" (i Cor. xv, 24, 25).
2. The Opening of the Seals. — In the exer
cise of his sovereignty the mediating and
atoning Lamb assumes the authority com
mitted to him, and the history of redemp
tion begins. We approach the heart of this
wonderful book, and its great purpose be
gins to reveal itself. But the unfolding of
that history has been so different from the
conception of it that was possible even to an
apostle that "blindness in part" would
happen to us all if we had not the revela
tion of God's plans made known to us in
order to check despondency and animate to
labor. John was one of those to whom the Mas
ter had said, "Behold, I send you forth."
46

Fundamental Principles
He had heard and has recorded the prayer
of the great High Priest, "As thou hast
sent me into the world, even so have I also
sent them into the world." He had received
the great commission, "Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations." He had been taught
that Christians were to be " the salt of the
earth" and "the light of the world" and
were to " occupy " until Christ comes again.
What expectation more reasonable could he
entertain than that redemption, proceeding
from the heart of the Father, consummated
in the sacrifice of the Son, and applied by the
ever-abiding Spirit, would move forward
without let or hindrance from its commence
ment to its glorious realization? And this
is implied in the vision of the opening of the
first seal : ' ' Behold a white horse : and he
that sat on him had a bow ; and a crown was
given unto him : and he went forth conquer
ing, and to conquer." The first stroke of
God's providence always drives the kingdom
well forward. It is the subsequent ones that
try men's faith.
When the -promise of the seed which
should bruise the serpent's head was given
to Eve, and, following that, a son was born
to her, was it not natural that, in the fullness
47

Revelation of Saint John
of her faith, she should exclaim, " I have
gotten a man from the Lord? "
When Almighty God, who had just beaten
down Pharaoh and Amalek and written the
law with his own fingers, said to Moses, "As
truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled
with the glory of the Lord," could the
prophet have any doubt that the ark of the
covenant would move triumphantly onward
until it came to perfect rest in Canaan ?
There is much to show that the apostles
of Christ anticipated the speedy conquest of
the world by his kingdom. The conversion
of thousands at Pentecost, the multitude of
accessions which followed, the obedience of
a great company of priests, the appearance
of miracles all conspired to foster this ex
pectation. The morning hour of every ref
ormation is briglit and golden. It is later
on that clouds gather and the skies darken.
Painful realities soon shake men out of such
sunny dreams, and banish such fond illusions
as did the murder of Abel, the lusting after
the fleshpots of Egypt, the imprisonment of
Peter, the defection of Ananias, the martyr
dom of Stephen and James. And as the
pendulum of hope swings so easily to the
extreme of despair, and every little Ai seems
48

Fundamental Principles
to our alarmed imagination a walled Jericho,
nothing can be conceived more helpful to
faith and courage than to learn that such
things must needs be, and to be comforted
at the same time with the assurance that,
though in the world we shall have tribula
tion, yet Christ has overcome the world and
we must not lose heart.
This is the purpose for which the visions
accompanying the opening of the seals were
given to John. The second seal signifies
war; the third, famine; the fourth, pesti
lence; the fifth, martyrdom; the sixth,
revolutions that seem to ' ' shake the heav
ens, and the earth, and the sea, and the
dry land." These are strange instru
ments to do God's will, unlookod-for mes
sengers to perform his bidding. But not
only all things, but all events as well, are
under the sovereignty of Christ; and in
spite of these obstacles, and perhaps by
means of them, his kingdom moves forward.
And when the seventh and last seal shall be
broken, when every messenger shall have
been delegated, when the last needed en
couragement shall have been given and the
last enemy destroyed, then will come the
unbroken and eternal Sabbath of rest.
4 49

Revelation of Saint John
3 . The Sealed Elect . — The third part of this
section comprises two visions : first, of the
"hundred and forty and four thousand,"
out of the twelve tribes of Israel, sealed in
their foreheads; and, then, of a great
multitude out of all nations and peoples,
clothed in white robes and bearing palms
in their hands. The purpose of these vi
sions is to show that God's ownership ex
tends, not only to things and events, but to
persons as well. " The Lord knoweth
them that are his."
There need not be any hesitation in in
terpreting these visions as referring to Jew
ish and Gentile Christians respectively.
The same distinction between the two is
made in chap, xiv, i-6, where the hundred
and forty-four thousand who stand on Mount
Zion singing a song which no others could
learn, namely, the song of Moses and the
Lamb, are marked off from those in every
nation and people to whom the angel flies
with the everlasting Gospel.
It is not meant, surely, that the number
one hundred and forty-four thousand is to
be taken in an absolutely literal sense. The
definite number in all probability stands for
a great multitude. How large the number
50

Fundamental Principles
of believing Israelites was in the days of
the apostle we have no means of determin
ing. That it was large may be fairly in
ferred from Acts xxi, 20. And in the
great day of accounts the number may be
seen to be beyond our largest calculation.
Still less are we authorized tb impute this
separation of Jew from Gentile -to any na
tional exclusiveness on the part of John.
No apostle of the circumcision was any more
emphatic than was Paul, the apostle of the
Gentiles, in asserting that the order of sal
vation is, first, the Jew, then, the Gentile,
and that "God hath not cast away his
people which he foreknew," although
' ' blindness in part is happened to Israel,
until, the fullness of the Gentiles be come
in." And what part the Jew may yet play
in bringing about that fullness no man is
able to predict.
Moreover, there is no inferiority implied
in the pri-vileges and graces which the
great multitude enjoys as compared with
the sealed elect. They are kings and
priests unto God; they are clothed with
the robes of victory and joy. And the
images by which their nearness to Christ
and their participation in the fullest meas-
61

Revelation of Saint John
ure of nourishment, safety, and felicity are
expressed are not elsewhere exceeded in the
Revelation. The description of their triumph
seems to anticipate the consummation of the
ideal kingdom of Christ, with which the clos
ing chapters of the Apocalypse are replete.
62

PARTin
Ube flDeans bs wbicb tbe minebom of
Cbrist is abvance&

Means by which Advanced

PART III
The Means by which the Kingfdom of Christ
is Advanced — Emblem of the Trumpet
The section of the Revelation which be
gins with chap, viii, 2, and closes with chap.
xi, is characterized by the symbol of the
trumpet. In the interpretation of this sym
bol the key to the understanding of the
section must be found. It must not be in
ferred, because the vision of the trumpets
follows that of the seals, that it designates
events subsequent to the latter. The seals
themselves, as we have seen, are not in
tended to be predictions of historical events,
but strictly emblems of truths or principles ;
and the trumpets must be in like manner
regarded. Succession, coincidence, or any
other relation of time has no necessary con
nection with them. They represent varying
phases of the kingdom of Christ, and their
relation thereto is the only one that need be
regarded. The trumpet was a familiar instrument in
the ritual of Judaism, having a well-known
and prescribed use, and is frequently re
ferred to in the Scriptures. The mention
55

Revelation of Saint John
of the word would readily suggest to the
mind of a Jew its symbolic import, and the
writer of the Apocalypse doubtless em
ployed it in this sense.
The trumpet was used as a means of sum
mons. When an assembly was to be gath
ered, when an alarm was to be given, when
a message was to be communicated, it was by
the trumpet that attention was arrested and
a hearing enforced. It signified that tidings
were to be delivered to which it behooved
men to listen. It increased the range of the
unassisted human voice, with the difference
that, while the intensifying of the sound
through the use of the instrument carried it
over larger spaces, there was a loss of that
delicacy, flexibility, and capacity to convey
emotions which belong to the unaided human
organs of speech.
It was by the trumpet, sounding long and
loud, that Jehovah announced his presence
at Sinai to Moses and the awe-stricken
people, and bade them prepare to receive his
law. It was by the blowing of trumpets
that the approach of the jubilee year was
announced — that very striking type of the
redemption purchased by Christ. When the
Israelites were marching around Jericho
56

Means by which Advanced
' ' seven priests bearing seven trumpets of
rams' horns " went before the ark of the
Lord; and on the seventh day, when, "at
the seventh time," the priests blew with the
trumpets, the walls fell. And the prophet
Joel says, ' ' Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanc
tify a fast, call a solemn assembly : gather
the people. " So familiarly has this symbol
ism passed over into the Christian Church
that the preaching of salvation is very com
monly spoken of as the blowing of the Gos
pel trumpet.
If the seals emblematize the truth that
all things belong of right to Christ as Me
diator, the question very naturally follows.
How is this de jure ownership to be made a
de facto one, and what instruments are put
into the hands of the Church to enable it to
establish the kingdom of Christ on earth?
The vision of the trumpets is designed to
be the answer to this question.
The trumpets, then, signify the instru
mentalities by which men are called to the
kingdom of Christ, or the measures which
the divine Being employs to advance that
kingdom. Their number, seven, indicates
that these measures are complete and com
prehensive, including every available re-
67

Revelation of Saint John
source and employing all possible methods
of approach to man. God avails himself of
every legitimate device to constrain a sin
ful world to accept the proffer of salvation
ere he passes from chastisement and correc
tion to retributive and final judgment. Thus
those who reject the offer will be found
without excuse, and the despisers of the
wedding garment will be stricken speech
less in the day of accounts.
The sounding of the trumpets, -it will be
noticed, is preceded by the ' ' prayers of the
saints;" for that "the effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much "
with God is one of the fundamental facts of
the kingdom (Psalm x-viii, 6-17). And the
token of the hearing of the prayers is seen
in the "voices, and thunderings, and light
nings, and an earthquake " that followed
when the seven angels with the trumpets
prepared to sound. The vision doubtless
recalled to John's mind the remembrance
of that day when, as the disciples prayed,
' ' the place was shaken where they were
assembled together; " God revealing him
self in the new dispensation as he had done
at Sinai when about to communicate his
law. The grandeur of the preparation sug-
es

Means by which Advanced
gests the importance of the tidings to be
communicated. It will be also observed that the episode
of the "two witnesses" (chap, xi) falls
¦within the section marked by the trumpet
emblem. The appropriateness of this and
the ease with which it takes its place here
furnish no slight evidence that the explana
tion of the Revelation adopted in this essay
is correct.
There are two modes by which the divine
Being has chosen to communicate the
knowledge of himself and of his will.
These are his works and his word. The
one is that manifestation of himself in na
ture of which Paul speaks when he says,
" The invisible things of him from the cre
ation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead."
The other is supernatural, the revelation of
himself as a power above nature and not
limited by its laws. It is of this that Peter
says, ' ' We have also a more sure word of
prophecy." The most searching and subtle analysis
to which knowledge and its sources have
been subjected has resulted in this — that
59

Revelation of Saint John
even in the alembic of modern doubt, after
the most biting acids have tried their solv
ent power, there is left as the residuum a
conviction that, besides this known and
knowable universe, there exists a first cause
or force. At the beginning and basis of all
things a duality must be acknowledged. If
human thought by its unaided light is in
competent to go beyond this, it is not allowed
to stop short of it. " The momentum of
thought," Herbert Spencer says, " inevita
bly carries us beyond conditioned existence
to unconditioned existence." "The cer
tainty that, on the one hand, such a power
exists, while, on the other, its nature tran
scends intuition and is beyond imagination,
is the certainty toward which intelligence
has been from the first progressing. To
this conclusion science inevitably arrives as
it reaches its confines." This power, which
science may know only as "an infinite and
eternal energy," is the Being whom the
Scriptures reveal to us as the Lord God, of
whom and through whom and to whom "are
all things: to whom be glory forever."
From this first Cause knowledge comes to
us through two channels — ^his deeds and
his words. The first of these is accessible
60

Means by which Advanced
to all mankind; for the Gentiles, which
have not the law, " show the work of the
law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness." But as that which
is constant and habitual soon ceases to at
tract attention, and the orderly and uniform
processes of nature excite less interest and
awaken feebler curiosity than the anomalous
and occasional, in like manner it is most
frequently by calamities, adversities, seem
ing withdrawals of God's face that men are
brought to reflection, consideration, and
obedience. " When thy judgments are in
the earth, the inhabitants of the world will
learn righteousness." It is this truth that
the vision of the trumpets symbolizes. It
signifies the warnings in the field of natural
providence which the divine Being gives
to men, in order to show the evil and
peril of sin and thus draw back their souls
from the pit. The second of these channels
of knowledge is found in the oracles of God,
the Scriptures committed to the chosen peo
ple. And these are symbolized in the epi
sode of the "two witnesses," which forms a
part of the trumpet section.
The details of the trumpet scenes are not,
it must be confessed, easy of interpretation.
61

Revelation of Saint John
They seem to be selected from various parts
of the Old Testament, and grouped accord
ing to some plan not explained to us, sug
gesting the thought that the interpretation
of them is not to be found in any single
event, but in some common truth embodied
in many events.
The conjunction of "hail" with "fire"
(viii, 7) is also found in Exod. ix, 24 ; that
of "fire" with "blood" (viii, 7) in Joel
ii, 30 ; while all three of these elements are
separately mentioned in many passages.
The moving of mountains (viii, 8) is re
ferred to in Psalm xlvi, 2, and Isa. liv, 10;
and a burning mountain in Jer. li, 25.
"Wormwood" (viii, 11) occurs in Jer. ix,
15, and Amos v, 7. The darkening of the
heavenly bodies (viii, 12) is found also in
Isa. xiii, 10; Amos viii, 9; and Joel ii, 31.
" Locusts" (ix, 3) are mentioned in Exod.
X, 4; Nahum iii, 17; Joel i, 4.
But the assemblage of the events in the
Revelation differs from any other in the
Bible. It is more systematically arranged
than in the series foretold by our Lord in
Matt. xxiv. It differs from the account of
the Egyptian plagues of Exodus in omis
sions, the introduction of new details, and
62

Means by which Advanced
in the fact that the plagues occur in a dif
ferent order. The hail, for instance, which
is the seventh Egyptian plague, is the first
of the plagues in the Revelation. All this
may be explained by the fact that the
plagues of Egjrpt were confined to that
country and were adapted to its local cli
matic conditions, while the plagues of the
Revelation have for their field the world it
self, and were intentionally diversified in
being fitted to this larger sphere.
That a close connection exists between
man and his dwelling place, the earth, is a
truth in which both science and the Scrip
tures cordially concur ; the dispute, if any,
between them is not as to the fact, but its
cause. The doctrine of evolution, which
receives such wide acceptance, rests upon
this connection as a fundamental axiom;
and the Scriptures confirm the fact in the
accounts of the creation and the fall. The
difference between science and the Scrip
tures is, that what evolution attributes to
the operation of natural law the - Bible ex
plains by the working of a moral power.
As for man's sake the ground was cursed
and all nature made to suffer by reason of
his rebellion, so do they bear constant wit-
63

Revelation of Saint John
ness to his advance or degeneration in right
eousness. As purity is in general promo
tive of prosperity, so does sin produce dis
aster. ' ' As the moral life of the soul
expresses itself in the physical life of the
body for the latter's health or corruption, so
the conduct of the human race affects the
physical life of the universe to its farthest
limit in space. The Old Testament is not
contented with a general statement of this
great principle, but pursues it to all sorts of
particular and private applications. The
curses of the Lord fell, not only on the sin
ner, but on his dwelling, his property, and
even on the bit of ground he occupied.
The doctrine of the Old Testament is that
man's sin has rendered necessary the de
struction of his material circumstances, and
that the divine judgment includes a broken
and rifled universe." *
And these calamities, whether brought
about directly by the divine Governor, or
through the operation of general laws, which
is but another mode of his action, are so many
trumpet calls from God warning men to re
trace their erring steps and submit to his
-* Isaiah, vol. i. chap, xxxviii, pp. 419, ff., in the Exfiosi
tor^s Bible, New York, A. C. Armstrong & Co.
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Means by which Advanced
kingdom. " It was plague and fire," Leigh
Hunt says, ' ' that first taught the London
ers to build their city better." And the
divine Being may make use of like means
to forward his moral government.
I . Natiiral Providences. — In the first trum
pet scene the blow falls upon the earth itself.
Its productive resources were severely di
minished through the destructive agencies
of nature, intensified, it may be, by the
horrors of war. The hail and the fire were
mingled with blood. And, since food is
essential to life, "the king himself being
served by the field," such a disaster must
sorely oppress mankind. The apostle had
himself witnessed at least one widely-ex
tended famine, and had noted how the ex
hibition of Christian benevolence had been
made the means of promoting the kingdom
of Christ (Acts xi, 28-30).
The second trumpet scene deals with disas
ters affecting "the sea," the great highway
of commerce, and disturbing the exchanges
of the products of labor among men. More
than once in the history of the world social
revolutions have been the plowshare turn
ing up the soil, that seeds of religious refor
mation might the better grow.
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Revelation of Saint John
In the third trumpet scene it is the sources
of water supply that are affected. A star,
falling from heaven, turns them to worm
wood, which in the Old Testament is used
as a symbol of bitterness and poisoning.
It is in the contamination of these sources
that epidemics and pestilences usually find
their commencement, and a merciful Provi
dence generally spares them until other and
milder warnings have been tried.
In the fourth trumpet scene the heavenly
bodies are involved, carrying out the idea,
so frequently expressed in the Bible, of the
sympathy which the whole creation seems
to feel with the great events transacted on
earth. The universe is so bound together
that whatever touches one part of the great
Governor's empire ultimately affects every
other (Exod. x, 21-24; Isa. xiii, 9-11 ; Joel
ii, 31; Matt, xxiv, 29; xxvii, 45). Yet the
images in this scene may be figurative em
blems of the ruling powers of earthly king
doms, and the vision may be interpreted as
synonymous with the predictions of Hag. ii,
6-9, and Heb. xii, 26-29, in which the
shaking of heaven and earth is made to
precede the coming of the kingdom of
Christ. 66

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The fifth trumpet scene is undoubtedly
the most difficult of all to interpret and re
quires more elaborate treatment. In stfiv-
ing to explain its obscurities the only safe
and satisfactory method is to search for
what may be regarded as certain and plain
in the vision, and from this as a starting
point to essay the more difficult.
Two things seem to stand out prominently
and comparatively clearly in the scene.
Assuming the star which fell from heaven,
to whom was given the key of the bottomless
pit, and who is closely connected with the
angel of the pit named Abaddon or Apol-
lyon — that is, destroyer — to be a repre
sentation of Satan, then for the first time
this archenemy of God and man is in
troduced personally upon the stage. In
whatever the fifth trumpet signifies he di
rectly or indirectly jas a preeminent share.
Then, again, the mention of locusts points
us to the prophecy of Joel, where the de
structive ravages of this scourge are such a
conspicuous figure. If we can reach a satis
factory solution of Joel's prophecy we may
reasonably expect an understanding of this
prophecy of the Revelation.
In the great prophecy of Joel, brief in
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Revelation of Saint John
extent, but comprehensive in import, the
background upon which the earnest preacher
of God paints his vivid pictures is the alarm
ing condition of spiritual declension and
apathy into which the people had fallen,
accompanied with fearful neglect of the
service of God and its ordinances. To
awaken the people out of this deadly state
he predicts the approach of an awful
scourge, the ravages of which would be
felt in a resultant condition of extraordi
nary impoverishment and penury. Pov
erty of spirit must precede entrance into
the riches of the kingdom of heaven.
And so the prophet is commissioned to
promise that, after repentance and re
newal of consecration, there shall be a
rich and plentiful effusion of the Holy
Spirit; and he assures the penitent that
"whosoever shall call on the name of the
Lord shall be delivered" and shall escape
the impending destruction.
Nothing is more probable, therefore, than
that the writer of the Revelation meant to
warn the Church of Christ against a decline
in faith or relaxation in zeal. He assured
it that such a lapse would be followed by
the intrusion into its field of some danger-

Means by which Advanced
ous enemy. What the character of this
enemy should be is indicated by two things.
It will be noticed that, if John deviates from
the description of the locu,sts given by Joel,
it is in the direction of bringing humanity
more into the picture. The locusts spoken
of in this fifth trumpet scene are to have
crowns like gold upon their heads; their
faces are to be as the faces of men ; their
hair to be as the hair of women ; they are
to hurt, not as real locusts do, the earth
and its products, but men ; their sting, un
like that of other locusts, is to be as the
sting of scorpions; and their work will be,
not the destruction of human life, but the
causing of such misery as to make human
life unhappy and undesirable. They are
to be under the direction of Satan, whose
field of operations in the warfare he wages
against the kingdom of Christ is, not the
earth, but the world of human beings.
The truth, then, which seems to be indi
cated in this obscure vision is, that when
ever a Christian man or Church declines
into lukewarmness or apathy there may be
expected to follow an incursion and inva
sion by other and lower forms of reli
gious life and thought. Wherever iniquity
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Revelation of Saint John
abounds and the "love of many" waxes
cold there is sure to be an inroad of heresy,
false doctrine, more or less heterodoxy
of creed. The human heart, like nature,
abhors a vacuum. Where true godliness
wanes false religions rush in to fill the
void ; and the intensity of zeal which false
religions awaken measures the declension
that has befallen true faith. The evil spirit
that comes back to a home from which he
has been once expelled, and finds it empty,
swept, and garnished, takes to himself
seven other spirits more wicked than him
self, ' ' and the last state of that man is
worse than the first." The temperature of
religion when it falls to lower levels never
does so equably. The nobler and more
ideal parts suffer most severely, and, like
the shriveled idol of the Philistines, at last
" only the stump of Dagon is left to him."
There can be no question that the advo
cates of the historical interpretation of the
Revelation have a very strong support for
their hypothesis in the application of this
part of it to the rise and growth of Moham
medanism. It is not to be denied that many
of the essential characteristics of that false
religion are quite accuratelj)- delineated in

Means by which Advanced
this picture. The rise and rapid extension
of Mohammedanism were possible only
because of the dead, formal, and corrupt
condition of the Christendom which it
encountered. Its prophet and founder
preached a faith which was purer than that
of many a so-called Christian bishop ; and
it achieves its triumphs now only in those
regions where Christianity has degenerated
into spiritual barrenness and puerile cere
monialism. But in this, as in so many in
stances, the historical interpretation errs,
not through incorrectness, so much as
through incompleteness. In claiming any
one historical event as the fulfillment of
prophecy it impoverishes inspiration by con
fining that fulfillment to a single fact.
Mohammedanism is but one illustration of
a profounder truth. The Revelation of
John is meant for all ages. It is constantly
finding new illustrations and applications.
In setting before us the causes of decline as
well as of growth, the Revelation teaches
us to be looking for these causes at all
times, that we may avert the decline or for
ward the growth ; and thus it is furnishing
new examples of its divine truth and new
evidences of its divine origin, without ex-
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Revelation of Saint John
hausting its force in any single example or
any single evidence.
The sixth trumpet sounds, and the vision
which is presented to. us is one of increasing
danger and darkness. Warnings unheeded
give way to alarms still more threatening.
The noonday bell of invitation deepens into
the curfew toll of departing day. The ap
proach of an immense and imposing array
of horsemen armed for battle strikes deeper
terror than did the invasion of the locusts
and indicates judgments more formidable.
The power of Satan to harm is overmaster
ing mercy's efforts to save, and the restric
tions which had been laid upon his authority
are being relaxed. We are told now that
' ' by these three was the third part of men
killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and
by the brimstone." As there is suggested a
spiritual condition which has gone beyond
mere declension and apathy to deeper states
of alienation from God, so the perils threat
ened end, not with a destruction of the hap
piness of life, but in death itself.
It must be noticed that the region from
which the new and alarming scourge pro
ceeds is the " great river Euphrates." To
understand this we must place ourselves at
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Means by which Advanced
the standpoint of the apostle. The river
Euphrates was to Palestine what the Dan
ube and the Rhine were to the Roman
empire — the line of demarcation between
civilization and barbarism. The East was
the quarter from which the earlier prophets
always apprehended danger. It was in the
Euphrates that Jeremiah was bidden to cast
the book with the stone tied to it (Jer. li,
63). On the hither side of the great river
lay the kingdoms with which Israel had
mainly had intercourse. On the north of
Palestine was Syria, on the south, Egypt;
on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris
or near by were Assyria and Babylon. The
peoples of these kingdoms were, indeed,
nations whose God was not the Lord ; yet
between them and Israel a modus vivendi had
to some degree been established, and some
common rules of international intercourse
were recognized. But on the farther side
was the land of barbarians among whom
the arts of civilization were unknown, who
acknowledged no code of comity or obliga
tion with which the chosen people were
familiar, whose ways and modes of warfare
were impenetrable and strange, and from
whom all possible evils might be expected.
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Revelation of Saint John
There is, it must be sadly confessed, in
all human beings a latent germ of barbar
ism, a survival of the carnal or animal na
ture. Suppressed, indeed, it may be by
culture, education, or other moral or secu
lar forces, and its existence hardly surmised,
yet it only awaits fostering conditions to
manifest its presence and reassert its power.
Without divine grace no Christian is free
from liability to an outburst of the carnal
mind which may destroy the spiritual life of
the soul. Nor does any grade of civilization
exempt nations from the possibility of a re
version to barbarism, if the excitements to
it are allowed to exist or precautions against
its inroads are neglected. Bishop Butler
expressed the opinion that whole communi
ties, like individuals, might become insane.
Perhaps it is nearer the truth to explain the
sudden frenzies to which men and nations
have sometimes given way as an uncon
trolled irruption of the barbarous element
within. Farther on, in the twentieth chap
ter of the Revelation, we shall find this
tendency toward barbarism more particu
larly referred to by John, and the appre
ciation of it will help us there to solve one
of the most perplexing problems of the book.
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Means by which Advanced
Ethnology either ignores this liability to
revert to barbarism or denies it, and by so
doing impairs the value of those hypoth
eses as to the primitive condition of the
race which it seeks to substitute for the
Bible story. It is not always easy to de
termine whether any particular stage of
barbarism marks a step upward in the
advance of a growing people or a decline
toward animalism from a superior state;
yet the correctness of our inferences de
pends upon an accurate diagnosis of this
question. But human experience is constantly fur
nishing illustrations confirming the utter
ances of the word of God as to the possibility
of a fall from high grades of cultivation to
the depths of savagery. If the counsels of
God are unheeded and the convictions of
the Holy Spirit are resisted nothing can
follow but a descent into lower grades, until
the savage forces that underlie our nature
assert supremacy and overleap the weak
barriers which reason and judgment set up
to stay them.
Something like this seems to be the
warning meant to be conveyed through
the sixth trumpet. A striking commen-
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Revelation of Saint John
tary upon this was given but a few centu
ries after John's death, when the hordes of
barbarians that had been only waiting. op
portunity swept with irresistible fury over
the crumbling walls of the corrupt and
decadent Roman Empire, and imposed upon
the Christian Church the task of saving
civilization itself from destruction. We
may not even now relax our watchfulness
or put off the armor of our faith, lest this
may involve a reversion of mankind to bar
baric naturalism. And a return to barbar
ism is the lowest condition to Vv^hich human
nature can fall. From such a state recovery
is well-nigh hopeless and repentance an ex
treme improbability, for the resources of
mercy will have been almost exhausted, and
beyond lies only doom.
It should be noticed that the Revelation
speaks of three woes. The first one pre
dicted is described under the fifth trumpet.
The second one is declared by the sixth
trumpet. The third one is not uncovered
at all. It lies in that future world from
which the curtain is not lifted and into
which even the light of revelation feebly
penetrates. Whoever has rejected all the
warnings of love and descended the moral
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scale until he has reverted to the state of
sensualism is but a step from the second
death. " He that soweth to his flesh shall
of the flesh reap corruption."
2. The Two Witnesses, or, the Supernatural
Scriptures. — The episode of the " two wit
nesses," to which we are now brought, is
one that has sorely tried expositors. Though
many and various solutions of it have been
attempted, Alford, in his commentary upon
the passage, says, ' ' I will further remark,
and the reader will find this abundantly
borne out by research into histories of
Apocalyptic exegesis, that no solution at
all approaching to a satisfactory one has
ever yet been given ... of this portion of
the prophecy." If it shall be found, there
fore, that the principles which have hitherto
guided us enable us to penetrate to the core
of this mystery, and evolve a meaning in
telligible and reasonable, and which, while
interpreting all the details without distor
tion or suppression, is in harmony at the
same time with the Scriptures in general
and with the purpose for which they have
been revealed, then we may indulge the
hope that these principles are correct and
may advance with some confidence to the
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Revelation of Saint John
problems that still lie before us. Though
long tunnels are yet to be threaded, with
only brief intervals between them of open
air, we shall in time, perhaps, reach the
light of day and rest in the sunshine of dis
covered truth.
It has been already said that through the
vast space that intervenes between the di
vine Being and man two great lines of
communication stretch. These are his
works and his word. It is this truth which
the trumpets symbolize, and we have not
yet gotten beyond the section of the Reve
lation in which this emblem of the trumpets
is the ruling one. Six of the trumpets have
sounded. Whatever can be done by natu
ral providences to arouse men to spiritual
thought and action has been sounded by
them. Nature has no other voices with
which to speak to mankind. But the re
sources of Omnipotence are not exhausted.
God has yet other means of approach to his
creatures. And if, therefore, because of
heedlessness or obduracy or preoccupation
of mind or absorption in temporal things,
one of these lines of light from God's mercy
falls with too light a touch to arrest men's
attention or awaken them to danger or win
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Means by, which Advanced
their consent to seek God's favor, there re
mains another and more efficient one,
namely, his written word ; and here is the
place where we should expect allusion to it.
The two witnesses, then, may be reason
ably interpreted as signifying the law and
the prophets, the titles under which the Old
Testament Scriptures received by John as
divinely inspired were almost universally
designated. Should these fail of their pur
pose, even the divine Being, we may rever
ently say, had no other way of reaching
man. It is our Lord himself who says, ' ' If
they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded though one
rose from the dead." When the great and
strong wind rending the mountains, and
after this the earthquake, and after this the
fire, have failed, it is possible that the still
small voice will arouse to faith and hope and
duty. Should it not do so, then the case is
hopeless. In order to verify the solution which is
here proposed of the episode of the two wit
nesses, a careful examination will be made
of the facts as detailed in the text.
The introduction of the two witnesses,
however, is preceded by two visions by way
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Revelation of Saint John
of prelude. This, we shall find, is what we
might reasonably expect. If the witnesses
are, indeed, symbols of the sacred Scrip
tures, God's direct revelation of his -will and
character to men, it is proper that the scope
and purpose of all revelation shall be plainly
laid down, that we may know how far the
revealed word of God is to be regarded as
evidence, and also that some criteria shall
be given by which we shall be able to dis
cern what the inspired writings are, and how
to differentiate them from human produc
tions. In other words, we have here from
the pen of John his own views of biblical
criticism, and it would have been well if
they had been more carefully heeded in the
discussions of inspiration recently so rife.
In the first of these two visions a " mighty
angel" is seen to " come down from heaven,
clothed with a cloud " and with "a rainbow
upon his head." And he had in his hand
a little book open. But, when ' ' seven thun
ders had uttered their voices " and John was
"about to write," a voice was heard from
heaven saying, ' ' Seal up those things which
the seven thunders uttered, and write them
not." This prohibition is distinctly declared
to be only for a time. "In the days of the
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Means by which Advanced
voice of the seventh angel, when he shall
begin to sound, the mystery of God should
be finished, as he hath declared unto his
servants the prophets."
If the interpretation put upon the two
witnesses is correct, and if they symbolize
the Scriptures, then the purpose of this pre
lude is to indicate what we are to look for
in them. It is not the design of the Bible
to communicate all possible truth, but only
such measure of it as has reference to the
kingdom of Christ. Although the things
which are revealed belong to us and to our
children, there are still secret things which
belong to the Lord our God. He has com
municated much, but he has withheld much,
and doubtless the reasons for the revelation
and the reserve are equally wise. There
are truths which man's own powers enable
him to discover. There are other truths
beyond his ability to comprehend even
should they be revealed. These are excluded
from the Scriptures as being aside from their
purpose. It is only " when that which is
perfect is come," and " that which is in part
shallbe done away," that we shall know as
we are known. Very much that we know
not now we shall know hereafter. But the
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Revelation of Saint John
Bible has specific reference to the kingdom
of Christ and reveals only what has relation
to that kingdom. ' ' The testimony of Jesus "
is the spirit of all prophecy. That which
lies within the capacity of man to discover
is left to the wisdom and patience of men.
That which pertains to the future life, and
would simply satisfy curiosity to know, is
reserved to the time when we shall have
laid aside mortality. The Scriptures reveal
to us only what it is needful for us to know
that we may enter and enjoy and forward
the kingom of Christ. Paul was not allowed
to utter the words he had heard in his
heavenly ecstasy, and John is likewise pro
hibited from uttering things which belong
solely to the divine Being and await his
pleasure to publish. It was sufficient for
him to be told that, however bitter and un
palatable his message might be, he must still
' ' prophesy before many peoples, and na
tions, and tongues, and kings."
The second prelude also has reference
to the limitations within which all revela
tion is confined. "There was given me a
reed like unto a rod : and the angel stood,
saying. Rise, and measure the temple of
God, and the altar, and them that worship
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Means by which Advanced
therein. But the court which is without
the temple leave out, and measure it not ;
for it is given unto the Gentiles : and the
holy city shall they tread under foot forty
and two months."
There are two elements in this which
furnish guides to its interpretation. One
is the distinction so emphatically made
between the temple itself, which, as we
know, was reserved exclusively for Israel
ites, and the outer courts, which were given
to the Gentiles. The other is the use of
the symbolical number forty-two.
Now is it not a reasonable thing that the
apostle, when about to point us to the law
and the prophets as God's two witnesses,
shall put a broad distinction between them
and all mere human productions? The
temple itself is the field within which they
fulfill their office, and those only who speak
from it are God's accredited messengers. If
the Scriptures are the standard by which
truth concerning the kingdom of Christ is
to be tested, if they have authority to bind
the consciences of men, there must be some
criterion by which they shall be judged.
And this is the criterion — " Salvation is of
the Jews." God's messengers and wit-
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Revelation of Saint John
nesses sprang from them. And Paul con
firms this declaration when he says that the
chief advantage which the Jews had was
that ' ' unto them were committed the oracles
of God." The highest creations of human
genius fall short of the special inspiration
which belonged to the prophets and patri
archs and apostles of Israel. The outer
courts, indeed, were given to the Gentiles.
Theirs was the world of art, of science, of
commerce, of literature, of politics, of
earthly dominion ; but the temple and the
altar belonged to the chosen race. Brilliant
stars brightened the darkness of the Gentile
sky, but the sun of spiritual truth shone
only to the teachers whom God called out
of Israel ; and Homer and .^Eschylus, and
muse and sibyl, must ' ' pale their ineffectual
fires " in the presence of his seers and
anointed ones. And this is confirmed by
the use of the symbolical number forty -two.
This number, as we have seen in the Intro
duction, typifies a period which has definite
limits and fulfills a specific purpose. It
may designate Judaism proper or Gentilism
proper. And the meaning here is that now,
and throughout this present cycle of time,
the kingdom of God has been taken from
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the Jew and given to a nation bringing
forth the fruits of the kingdom. Neither
the temple, nor the altar, nor the inspired
Scriptures belong now exclusively to the
Jew. The chosen race has forfeited its pre
rogative of exclusiveness, and the foot of the
Gentile treads the inner as well as outer
court. The Bible belongs to us as well as
to Israel.
With these important and interesting
preludes explained, and the reason of their
introduction in this place accounted for, we
are prepared to investigate the vision of
the two witnesses.
It has already been said, but the impor
tance of the matter requires its repetition,
that the paragraph containing the vision of
the -witnesses is a part of the section of the
Revelation of which the trumpet is the rul
ing symbol ; for it is not until the close of
this paragraph that the seventh trumpet
sounds. It, seems, therefore, plausible that
what is symbolized by the witnesses has
some continuous connection with that which
is designated by the trumpets. And, inas
much as the trumpets are emblems of the
instrumentalities which the divine Being
employs to call men to repentance, obedi-
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Revelation of Saint John
ence, and the service of himself, the wit
nesses are an emblem of some such instru
mentality, ha-ving the same end in view,
but operating in a different mode. The six
trumpets which have already sounded repre
sent what the divine Being does by way of
natural providence, approaching men by
calamities, distresses, the observed connec
tion between impiety and moral, as well as
intellectual, decadence, and such like means.
But nature in any and all of its modes of
manifestation does not comprise all the
modes of communication between God and
man. Nor is the testimony which it bears
to God the highest testimony. The same
Being who ' ' f ormeth the mountains, and
createth the wind," who "maketh the
morning darkness, and treadeth upon the
high places of the earth," also "declareth
unto man what is his thought." "The
heavens," indeed, "declare the glory of God ;
and the firmament showeth his handiwork."
But the law of God does more. It convert-
eth the soul. Nature's witness is given by
dumb signs or inarticulate sounds. It has
no speech nor language. Its worshipers
may cry aloud to their Baal from morning
until the time of the evening sacrifice, but
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there is none to hear, nor any God that re
gards. It is to and through the human
spirit that the divine Spirit must communi
cate his deepest truths ; nor has he done all
that may be done until he has given to men
his word. ' ' The grass withereth, the
flower fadeth ; but the word of our God
shall stand forever."
The two -witnesses, human and intelli
gent, aptly and appropriately represent this
higher mode of communication which God
employs to impress and teach men. By
them we are to understand the law and the
prophets, tlie two component parts of the
Old Testament Scriptures, which at the date
of the Apocalypse constituted the only ca
nonical Scriptures known. In the para
graph which follows there is an intimation
of the New Testament ; but as yet it was
not in existence as a collected code. The
Bible which Christ and his apostles knew
was the Jewish Bible.
The proof of this somewhat novel inter
pretation of the two witnesses, if, indeed,
any interpretation of any part of the Apoca
lypse can be called novel, lies in the fact
that it explains all the details of the vision
which are presented to us simply, easily,
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Revelation of Saint John
and without any forced construction. It is
essential to group together the separate de
tails, and then endeavor to explain them.
The seer says of these two witnesses that
they prophesy in sackcloth twelve hundred
and sixty days, which, as has been said in
discussing rules of interpretation, is one of
the numbers symbolical of Judaism ; they
are identified as corresponding with the
' ' two sons of oil, that stand by the Lord of
the whole earth," of whom Zechariah wrote
(Revised Version) ; they have power to de
vour their enemies and shut heaven by the
miracles of withholding the rain, turning
waters to blood, and smiting the earth with
plagues. There is a period when their ' ' tes
timony " is finished. When that period is
reached their enemy, the beast from the
bottomless pit, kills them, and their dead
bodies lie exposed for three and a half days
' ' in the street of the great city, which
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where
also our Lord was crucified." At the end of
this period ' ' the Spirit of life entered into
them, and they stood upon their feet ; " and
they finally " ascended up to heaven " amid
convulsions which shake the earth and fill
men with terror.

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How accurately all these features of the
paragraph find their fulfillment in the law
and the prophets, or the Old Testament
Scriptures, may be readily shown :
First. It is worthy of consideration as a
strong point that the expression, " the law
and the prophets " (sometimes " Moses and
the prophets " ), is the one almost invariably
employed by our Lord in designating the
older Scriptures (Matt, v, 17; vii, 12; xi,
13; xxii, 40; Luke xvi, 31; xxiv, 27; as
also John i, 45 ; Acts xiii, 15 ; xxviii, 23).
Secondly. The testimony of the prophets
and writers of the Old Testament may be
truly said to have been given in sackcloth.
What one of these messengers of God ever
met with a cordial reception? Well did
Stephen say, perhaps in the hearing of John
himself, ' ' Which of the prophets have not
your fathers persecuted?" "They were
stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted,
were slain with the sword : they wandered
about in sheepskins, and goatskins; being
destitute, afflicted, tormented" (Heb. xi,
37; Luke, xi, 49-5 0-
Thirdly. The law and the prophets found
their special embodiments and representa
tives in Moses (John i, 17) and Elijah (Mai.
89

Revelation of Saint John
iv, 4, 5) ; one the unequaled statesmen and
legislator, the other the most striking and,
in many respects, the greatest of the long
line of prophets. The miracles ascribed to
the two witnesses were actually wrought by
these two extraordinary and typical men.
To Moses was given power to turn waters to
blood and to smite the earth with plagues.
It was at the prayer of Elijah that the
heaven was shut so that it rained not but
according to his word.
Fourthly. Zechariah's vision of the ' ' two
olive branches which through the two golden
pipes empty the golden oil out of them
selves," and which are said to be " the two
anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the
whole earth," finds its most appropriate and
exact fulfillment in the Holy Scriptures,
which testify of Jesus (John v, 39). And
it was the representatives of the law and
the prophets, or Moses and Elijah, who were
chosen to stand by our Lord when he ap
peared in glory upon the Mount of Trans
figuration. Fifthly. The "testimony" of the law and
the prophets is distinctly said by our Lord
himself to have been " finished " when his
own forerunner, John the Baptist, appeared.
90

Means by which Advancea
" For all the prophets and the law prophe
sied until John " (Matt, xi, 13); " The law
and the prophets were until John " (Luke
xvi, 16).
Sixthly. Although the Jews professedly
acknowledged the law and the prophets to
be of divine origin, our Lord emphatically
charged against them that they had by their
glosses and traditions in effect abrogated
them ; devitalizing them and making their
authority to be a dead letter (Matt, xv, 6 ;
Mark vii, 13; Luke xi, 52).
Seventhly. At no period did this nullifi
cation of the power of the Holy Scriptures
reach such extremes as during our Lord's
active ministry on earth. The dead bodies
of the law and the prophets may be said,
without exaggeration, to have lain exposed
in the streets of Jerusalem, where our Lord
was crucified.
Eighthly. The bodies of the two witnesses
are said to have lain ' ' three days and a
half." As the period of our Lord's active
ministry has been computed at three and a
half years the number may refer to that.
But as three and a half is a symbolical num
ber, designating a half period, it may be
used to designate the same here. The min-
91

Revelation of Saint John
istry of our Lord was such a half period,
which was not completed until it had been
supplemented by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Ninthly. After the ' ' three days and a
half the Spirit of life from God " is said to
have "entered into" the two witnesses,
"and they stood upon their feet." This
was remarkably fulfilled on the day of
Pentecost, when, by the illumination and
inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the apostles
were moved to draw from the law and the
prophets those convincing arguments and
promises and appeals which led to the con
version of thousands.
Tenthly. The two witnesses after their
resurrection are said to have ' ' ascended up
to heaven " in the presence of their ene
mies. This finds its fulfillment in the fact
that the Hebrew Scriptures, with the added
life given them by the New Testament,
have been accepted by the Christian Church,
not as the exclusive property of the Jewish
Church or as the archives of the Hebrew
nation, but as the common heritage of the
world and the canonical word of God to the
whole human race.
Lastly. The convulsions of nature which
are said to have accompanied the ascent of
92

Means by which Advanced
the witnesses to heaven were exactly ful
filled, as John could testify, in the events
that followed Pentecost — the terror and
alarm of Christ's enemies, the fear that
came upon all, the shaking as by an earth
quake of the place where the disciples were
assembled in prayer, and the rapid increase
in numbers of those who were slain of the
Lord and raised to a new spiritual life.
If this explanation of the episode of the
two witnesses is correct the depreciation, or
rather, perhaps, under- appreciation of the
Old Testament, which exists even among
those who do not question its inspiration, is
without ground or reason. In the opinion
of St. John the addition of the New Testa
ment does not in any wise supersede or ren
der obsolete the older Scriptures. In the
education of the human race the Creator
did not begin with the more abstruse and
highly developed teachings of the New
Testament, but with the natural, biograph
ical, historical, and providential facts of the
Old. With the exception of the evangel
ical gospels, which belong really to both
dispensations, since the Christ whose life
and words and deeds are there recorded is
both the consummation of the one dispen-
93

Revelation of Saint John
sation and the seed and promise of the
other, no part of holy writ exceeds in inter
est, attractiveness, and simplicity the law
and the prophets, in which John and Peter
and Paul were trained.
The Old Testament contains, albeit in
embryo, all doctrines and truths essential
to the kingdom of Christ. If for a while it
was kept secreted within the bounds of Ju
daism, this was not because its revelations
were meant exclusively for the chosen peo
ple, but that its sacred treasures might be
guarded from waste and wanton destruction
until the rest of the world was prepared to
welcome them. If much of its meaning
was misconceived and misconstrued by the
Jewish mind, this must be attributed largely
to the frailty and ignorance of human na
ture. The New Testament does not so
much add to the Old Testament as illus
trate, explain, and apply it. It is the in
terpreter, not the destroyer, of the Old. It
opens its secrets, brings to light its truths,
reveals to us the face of Jesus Christ every
where in it, and enforces its teachings by
the power of the Holy Spirit. But the
Scriptures of the Old Testament are the
imperishable record of the foundation of
94

Means by which Advanced
Christ's kingdom upon earth. Without
them the writings of the New Testament
would be without connection with that con
tinuous chain of inspiration whose first link
was forged when God said, " Let there be
light." And, equally so, without the New
Testament the Old would be merely a foun
dation lacking a superstructure, and thus
incomplete. Its chain of inspiration would
be without any sure anchorage in the future
eternity, and thus hang helpless and use
less, with no power to bridge the gulf be
tween the alpha and omega, the beginning
of time and its end. But the Old Testament
can never become obsolete. Not one jot or
tittle of it shall pass away until all is ful
filled. And the revelation given in the
New Testament can no more supersede or
abolish it than science can supersede nature,
of which it is the ordained expositor.
There is a healthiness, too, about the Old
Testament like to the quiet restfulness of
nature. When men are disposed to wander
from the safe path into the vagaries of mys
ticism or asceticism nothing will correct the
aberrance more surely than diligent and
profound study of its sober realities and its
everyday life. The reading of it calms the
95

Revelation of Saint John
fevers and dispels the illusions to which we
are prone. It brings to us those soothing in
fluences which we feel when we look at the
" Good gigantic smile of the brown old earth
On autumn mornings,"
or, lying under forest shades, watch the
gentle swaying of foliage, or listen to the
purling of brooks, or catch glimpses of the
calm blue sky. We need its concrete facts
to save us from the abstractions of a vague
and unreal idealism.
Thus closes the vision of the trumpets.
They represent the messengers whom God
employs to call men to repentance, the
methods he avails himself of to forward the
kingdom within and without us. He will
not cease to strive with us until every ap
peal likely to reach us has been tried.
When nature and the supernatural, the
word of God in providence and the richer
word of God in revelation, have exerted
their power the resources of the di-vine
Being have been, we may with all rever
ence say, exhausted, and the time is ripe
for the closing of the drama of probation,
that he which is righteous may be righteous
still, and he which is filthy may be filthy
still. 96

Means by which Advanced
Yet the writer of the Revelation does not
allow us to remain in doubt as to the result
of God's efforts to save a lost world. The
wisdom of God is not astray. "He will
rest in his love." He has himself absolute
confidence in the success of the plans of re
demption. When the seventh and last trum
pet shall sound the curtain will fall upon a
world restored to God, upon a paradise re
gained, and great voices in heaven shall
say, ' ' The kingdoms of this world are be
come the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his
Christ; and he shall reign forever and
ever." 7 97

PART IV
Ube jfoes of tbe iRfns&om

The Foes of the Kingdom

PART IV
The Foes of the Kingfdom
With chapter xii another section of the
Apocalypse begins. Two great truths re
lating to the kingdom of Christ have been
discussed — the fundamental principle of
mediatorial sovereignty upon which it is
based, and the instruments, providence and
the written word, by which it is advanced.
It follows very naturally and logically that
the antagonists by whom the kingdom is
opposed should also be disclosed to us.
Out of his abundant grace and in tender
compassion for human ignorance, God has
made known to us, through this marvelous
book, the adversaries with whom we must
contend before the kingdom can attain its
consummation in our hearts or in the world
at large.
While no part of the Revelation is easy
of interpretation, or can be made intelligi
ble without very careful study both of itself
and of the whole Bible, there has been
added to this part of it the embarrassment
of the odiu-tn theologicum. Bitter controver
sial strifes have raged around the interpre-
101

Revelation of Saint John
tation of it and have raised a cloud of
prejudices, through which the truth has
been sometimes dimly seen. From all such
prejudices we must free ourselves. We are
approaching holy ground, and it behooves
us to put off our shoes, that nothing of
human invention may intervene between
our naked feet and the sacred floor of God's
temple. We need this caution the more because
from the nature of the case the interpreta
tion of this part carries us more or less into
the field of history. The foes of the kingdom
of Christ are visible foes, as well as invis
ible. The contest is not only for the indi
vidual man, but for the race. The commis
sion given to the Church is, ' ' Go, preach
my Gospel to every creature ; " and the key
note of the song of triumph with which the
last part closed was, " The kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord,
and of his Christ."
There is, therefore, a tendency to confine
the interpretation to the field of history, to
direct the attention to large and collective
bodies of men, either world powers or re
ligious societies, or to those historical events
and cycles of events which have apparently
102

The Foes of the Kingdom
changed the currents of the ages, and to
insist that in these the fulfillment of the
prophecy lies.
But history itself is only the record of in
dividuals. We delude ourselves when we
fancy that by association anything is cre
ated. That mystical something which is
imagined to be in collective bodies more
than in the individuals that compose them is
a mere figment of the brain, and to discuss
it is simply to revive the barren conceits of
the schoolmen. A Church is only " a con
gregation of believing men; " a State is a
cooperative association of individuals, not a
corporation ; and neither one has any powers
or forces other than those which exist in the
individual members. Man is both the mi
crocosm and the macrocosm.
The chief value of the inspired book
which we are now studying lies in the fact
that it discloses to us those forces, spiritual
and otherwise, the conflict between which
makes up the life history of each indi
vidual of mankind. It is a chart meant
for every navigator of this boundless ocean
of human existence. Its truths will be as
precious and important to the last man on
this globe as they are to us. The reefs and
103

Revelation of Saint John
breakers it describes are not perils past which
any age can sail and then look back upon
as things done with, but dangers which
beset every voyager. It is true that in the
history of large bodies of men, whether
secular or religious in their character — in
the temptations, declension, growth, and
triumph of nations and Churches — illustra
tions of its truths and fulfillments of its pre
dictions will be found. But these, we must
insist, are merely illustrations. Long as the
world shall last the Apocalyse will prove it
self to be a part of God's boon of revelation,
in that each follower of Christ shall find it
of inestimable value for his own private
guidance, inspiration, and study.
Looking by the light of God's lamp
through the ages to come, John was allowed
to foresee the successful completion of the
lifework and plans of Jesus the Saviour.
He who began both his gospel and his great
epistle with " the beginning" also follows
the course of the drama of redemption to
its final "amen." The saint who, leaning
on the bosom of Jesus, looked up to him as
the Author of his faith was also permitted
to fall at his majestic feet and worship him
as its Finisher. And, from personal com-
104

The Foes of the Kingdom
munion with and contemplation of him as
the Son of man, he rose to the grander con
ception of him as the Christ, the Word of
God, King of kings, and Lord of lords. He
was taught, also, that the progress through
which his own conceptions of the Son of
God had passed was but a type and example
of that which shall take place in time on the
field of the world and in the hearts of man
kind. The cross upon which Jesus of Naz
areth suffered was, indeed, a throne from
which he ascended to the crown of the uni
verse. But John, too, saw that ere that
final consummation can be reached there
are foes to be encountered, hindrances to be
removed, antagonists to be overthrown. A
great and effectual door is opened unto us,
but there are many adversaries. To the
consideration of these he therefore now calls
our attention:
I . The Dragon, or Satan. — The first of the
adversaries with whom the kingdom of
Christ has to dispute supremacy is the devil,
the archfiend and enemy of God and man.
That Satan, the evil one, is referred to in
the description of the great red dragon hav
ing seven heads, ten horns, and seven dia
dems seems an interpretation so natural that
105

Revelation of Saint John
it is hardly worth while to seek for far
fetched meanings when so plausible an ex-
planation lies near at hand. The ten horns
(Zechariah saw but four — Zech. i, i8) are
the instruments with which he seeks to scat
ter and destroy the sheep of God. The
seven heads with diadems represent the
pride and haughtiness of spirit in which he
boasts that the power and glory of all king
doms have been delivered to him and that
he gives them to whom he will. It is a
struggle for life and death between him and
the Christ. If Paul, the man of affairs,
with his practical conception of things in
their concrete relations, says, ' ' Our wrest
ling is not against flesh and blood, but
against the principalities, against the pow
ers, against the world-rulers of this dark
ness, against the spiritual hosts of wicked
ness in the heavenly places" (Re-vised Ver
sion), much more strongly does John, with
his intuition of abstract principles, recognize
and emphasize the power and working of
the dark spirit whose names are Satan and
" destroyer." No writer of the New Testa
ment speaks oftener or more clearly of the
evil spirit than does John. In vivid imagery
and with graphic condensation he sums up
106

The Foes of the Kingdom
the history of the kingdom of darkness, the
long record of Satan's undying antagonism
to the kingdom of Christ.
The woman arrayed " with the sun, and
the moon under her feet, and upon her head
a crown of twelve stars " (see Gen. xxxvii,
9), represents the Church collectively and in
its most general expression ; primarily, the
Je-wish Church, inasmuch as Christianity
had just begun its mission; but not confined
thereto. Against the Church, against every
individual of it, this murderer and liar from
the beginning wages relentless warfare.
His is the power behind all other antago
nisms. To devour the child of the woman
in the hour of its birth, to destroy humanity
itself if he can, seems to be the aim of his
being. Not a soul is now born into the
kingdom of Christ by regenerating grace
but Satan is there to crush the newly-given
life, if possible, in it§ inception.
When the first gospel of salvation and
victory was given to Eve, "Thj^seed shall
bruise the serpent's head," Satan began
his machinations to defeat the prophecy,
even though he knew that he could do no
more than bruise the heel of the promised
seed. 107

Revelation of Saint John
When the promise given to Abrahan^ of
a posterity countless as the stars of heaven
was about to receive its fulfillment in the
extraordinary fertility of the sons of Jacob
in Egypt, it was Satan who inspired Pha
raoh to issue the cruel edict commanding
the death of every Hebrew male child.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judea it was the same dragon that urged
Herod to his mad purpose of slaying every
young child throughout its coasts. ' ' This
is the heir ; let us kill him, that the inher
itance may be ours."
And it is against this wily foe, " the prince
of the power of the air," ' ' the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience,"
that we all have continually to struggle.
For protection against such an adversary
there is certainly need of divine aid. And
that help has never been withheld. ' ' There
were given to the woman the two wings of
a great eagle." Is not this an echo of Exod.
xix, 4, " I bare you on eagles' wings," and
also of Psalm xci, 4, " And under his wings
shalt thou trust " ? And in addition to this
we are told that God prepared " a place " in
the wilderness where the woman might fly
and be nourished. Does not this refer to
108

The Foes of the Kingdom
Palestine, that quiet, secluded land, nigh the
great highways of the world and yet aloof
from them, where in comparative isolation
Israel might develop her own resources and
grow in strength until she should be ready
for her broader mission ? If the purpose of
the divine Being fell short of full realization
the fault was notJiis, but hers, through her
lust to be like the surrounding nations.
The numbers, too, representing the period
of this seclusion, ' ' twelve hundred and sixty
days," and "a time, times, and half a
time," are forms of three and a half, which,
as has been said in the Introduction, sym
bolizes Judaism, or any cycle with a definite
purpose which is, however, only a half
period. And further confirmation of the reference
to the Church of Israel is found in the allu
sion to the archangel Michael, who is always
represented in the Scriptures as sustaining
some special relation to Israel (Dan. x, 21 ;
xii, i).
Yet, mighty as Satan is and venomous as
is his hostility, the believer is endowed with
weapons of offense and defense still more
potent. ' ' They overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb, and by the word of their tes-
109

Revelation of Saint John
timony " (or "witness" with reference,
doubtless, to the testimony of the two wit
nesses of the preceding chapter). In other
words, the cross of Christ and the word of
God are the conquering weapons with which
believers win the victory over Satan. The
Lord Jesus had most plainly foretold the
secret of victory in the hearing of John
when he had said, ' ' Now is the judgment
of this world : now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
And, doubtless, these words came with full
ness and force to the memory of the apostle
when he heard the ' ' loud voice saying in
heaven. Now is come salvation and strength,
and the kingdom of our God, and the power
of his Christ : for the accuser of our brethren
is cast down."
Not yet, however, is Satan ready to cease
his efforts to destroy. He changes the field
of conflict, but does not relinquish the
malice of his assault. If he cannot in
heaven, that is, the Church, countervail the
kingdom of Christ, he will attempt it in the
earth, on the field of secular life. " The
serpent cast out of his mouth water as a
flood, after the woman : that he might
110

The Foes of the Kingdom
cause her to be carried away of the flood."
There is, perhaps, a reference here to
Isa. lix, 19: "When the enemy shall
come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord
shall lift up a standard against him." Look
ing back at that chapter, we shall find that
the flood spoken of means an unusual in
crease of social disorders and crimes. That
is most probably the meaning here. Satan
is the foe alike of God and man. His en
mity is directed as much against all order
and morality as against goodness and right
eousness. He is that "lawless one" of
whom Paul speaks in 2 Thess. ii, 3 (Re
vised Version). If he were allowed to carry
out his will he would subvert all govern
ment, spiritual or secular. But, says the
apostle and seer, ' ' The earth helped the
woman." For its own protection and ex
istence the State must execute laws, must
preserve order, and must secure itself
against anarchy and unbridled libertinism ;
and, in so far as it guards social morality, it
fosters spiritual prosperity. In restraining
crime and violence it must needs allow the
kingdom of Christ opportunity to grow.
Foiled thus again, Satan does not abandon
the conflict, but resorts to other and more
111

Revelation of Saint John
wily means to make; war with the ' ' rem
nant " of the woman's seed "which keep the
commandments of God, and have the tes
timony of Jesus Christ;" and the history
of these efforts must next engage our at
tention. 2. The First Wild Beast, or the Spirit of
Worldliness. — In the chapter of the Revela
tion which precedes the appearance of the
beasts (Rev. xii, 12) the warning had been
given, " Woe to the inhabiters of the earth
and of the sea ! for the devil is come down
unto you, having great wrath." We are
now to witness the fulfillment of this warn
ing. The apostle saw two wild beasts rise,
one from the sea, the other from the land,
both of them formidable foes and intense in
their hostility to the kingdom of Christ.
There can hardly be a question but that
these are intended to represent the means
by which Satan, thwarted in his direct as
saults, endeavors to carry on his warfare.
And just as Christ, in carrying forward his
mediatorial kingdom, makes use of the two
instrumentalities, providence and the writ
ten word, so also, in imitation of him, his
fierce antagonist has his two emissaries and
agents. We shall find as we study this
112

The Foes of the Kingdom
part of the Revelation that one of the most
deceptive and dangerous arts which Satan
employs is his manner of counterfeiting the
form and aping the methods of Christ, in
hope that he may thereby delude the unsus
pecting or heedless. We ought, therefore,
very carefully to note every feature, that we
may be able to detect these dangerous in
carnations of the spirit of evil, and thus
escape his snares.
The first wild beast of John's vision rose
from the sea — an expression which, when
used symbolically, designates the secular or
temporal world, in antithesis to the Church.
His distinctive characteristics are intense
pride, the possession of vast power, strong
vitality enabling him to recover speedily
from severe injuries, insatiable craving after
homage and ability to secure it, outrageous
blasphemy, and undisguised as well as un
ceasing hostility to Christ and his saints.
It is a mooted question whether by this
beast John meant to describe and foretell
the coming of some individual person or
some organization of men, secular or reli
gious. State or Church ; or whether the char
acteristics he portrays are intended to repre
sent some principle of evil, always at work,
8 113

Revelation of Saint John
mightier and more enduring than any or
ganization of men, which manifests itself
in various forms and at all times, but tran
scends all its manifestations, and against
which, because it is one of Satan's most suc
cessful means of antagonism, every Christian
must keep perpetual watch.
The latter of these hypotheses seems to
be more in keeping with the cast of John's
strongly idealistic and abstract mind, and
also with the purpose of the Apocalypse as
intended for the edifying of believers.
And furthermore, as the kingdom of God is
not something that cometh ' ' with observa
tion," so that men can say of it, " Lo here !
or, lo there!" but is something "within"
us, so its opponent is not to be sought in
any particular organization or special event
or single individual, but rather in some ab
stract principle, all the more dangerous be
cause it exists separate and distinct from
these. In his description of this wild beast John
draws his data from the prophecy of Daniel ;
and a study of that book will aid in the
elucidation of this. It is, indeed, true that
in the mind of Daniel the antagonists and
allies of God alike assumed the form of king-
114

The Foes of the Kingdom
doms, or world powers. But this resulted
from the fact that his cast of mind was es
sentially concrete, and also because as a
statesman and man of affairs, charged with
the administration of finances and politics,
accustomed to the handling of men in col
lective bodies and to deal with matters af
fecting their external relations, his concep
tions of religion regarded rather its outward
manifestations than its inward power. We
are not, however, compelled to believe that
John, while using the prophecies of Daniel
as his basis, was limited to the conceptions
of the older prophet. He had a better key
to the hieroglyphics of the kingdom and
could read their meaning more clearly. Be
hind the forces which play their part upon
the world's stage he could recognize the
spiritual principles of which they were in
carnations. The world power which loomed largest to
the mind of Daniel, and whose hostility to
the kingdom of Christ was most dreaded by
him, was one that sprang up after the death
and among the successors of Alexander the
Great. That extraordinary captain and
gifted statesman, the first ruler who grasped
the conception of the essential unity of man-
115

Revelation of Saint John
kind and who strove to realize it by the fu
sion of races into one nation, left no one at
his death capable of comprehending or ex
ecuting his plans ; and the empire that was
formed by his ten generals was a heteroge
neous one, possessing elements both of weak
ness and strength that were incapable of be
ing welded into unity. Among the descend
ants and successors of these generals was
Antiochus Epiphanes, whose hatred of Juda
ism amounted to real monomania, and whose
insane purpose to exterminate utterly the
customs, usages, religion, and even the ex
istence of Judaism carried him to such ex
tremes as to arouse a spirit of revolt which,
under the guidance of the Maccabees, de
feated his intent. In him the prophet
Daniel foresaw the incarnation of all that
is hostile to Christ and his kingdom.
In the days of John the political sover
eignty of the world was wielded by a still
more formidable power, one that combined
in itself the strength of all the four kingdoms
of Daniel, uniting the lion, the bear, and
the leopard with the added and imparted
authority and power of the dragon. That
power was th^ Roman Empire, between
which and Christianity had already begun
116

The Foes of the Kingdom
the antagonism which was to leave its de
cisive and disastrous effects upon both.
The policy of Rome toward conquered
peoples and religions had not been one,
customarily, of harsh severity; indeed, it
had been marked in general by unusual
liberality. Having so many gods in her
own Pantheon, it has been said, the addi
tion or subtraction of a few more or less
was hardly worth consideration. But upon
one thing Rome invariably and absolutely
insisted — the preservation of public order.
Her administration was one of strict, even
stern, paternalism. The individual existed
for the State, and had no rights but such as
the State allowed. The central power did
all the thinking; the subject had only to
submit, whatever his personal wishes. Upon
the emperor, as the embodiment of the
State, devolved the onerous responsibility
of securing and, if need were, of enforcing
peaceful and lawful relations between men
and men. Whenever therefore, the profes
sion of any religion or the organization of
any guild or association interfered with the
prosperity of any branch of trade or com
merce or manufacture, the emperor felt called
upon to interpose, in order to redress the in-
117

Revelation of Saint John
jury caused or wrong suffered thereby. The
more conscientious and upright the em
peror, the more he felt the responsibility of
administering the laws ; and thus just and
righteous rulers, like Trajan and Antoninus
and Marcus Aurelius, were more likely to
enforce these rules of order, even to the
point of persecution, than such men as Nero
and Caligula and Domitian, upon whom
moral considerations sat loosely.
The early persecutions of Christians
sprang out of this fact. There were things
Christian men would not do. They would
not eat meat sacrificed to idols; they
would not attend the spectacles of the
theater; they would not worship or own
images ; and, as the trades and professions
that lived by these things suffered with the
increase of Christians, complaint was made
to the emperor, and the power of the State
invoked in behalf of public order. The riot
at Ephesus (Acts xix, 23-41) is a case in
illustration. Very soon, however, the Roman authori
ties came to see that there was something
back of Christian worship that differentiated
it from other cults. There was a principle
of individual liberty, a conviction of per
ns

The Foes of the Kingdom
sonal freedom, an appreciation of unseen
and divine realities which, if unchecked,
threatened the paternalism and the emperor
— the worship of the Caesars and the contin
uance of the empire ; and so Christians be
gan to be persecuted simply because they
were Christians. Thus began the antago
nism that did not cease until the empire be
came nominally Christian, and the Church,
striving after the universality of the em
pire, became worldly and paternal in its
turn. This antagonism John clearly dis
cerned, and reveals it in the Apocalypse.
But we shall be astray if we conceive that
the beast which the apostle saw symbolized
only the Roman or any other empire. There
is an evil principle which was in existence
long before that empire was established,
and has continued with unabating energy
since its dissolution ; of whose power earthly
and worldly kingdoms are but manifesta
tions ; which Satan has employed in all ages
as one of his most successful weapons ; and
whose deadly hostility to the Christian and
the Church is implacable. It is the principle
of worldliness, that spirit of the world
against which the Bible so frequently and
faithfully warns us. 119

Revelation of Saint John
It is not easy to define worldliness. If it
could be described exactly, and its bounds
accurately meted, its danger would be great
ly diminished. If we could point to the
doing or abstaining from doing of specified
things, or the using or refraining from using
of any particular faculties, and say, ' ' This
is worldliness and this only," how much
easier it would be to avoid it ! Worldliness
is a principle, a spirit and temper of the
soul. It can find a field for its exercise any
where and everywhere, in things essentially
good as well as in the essentially evil. Its
intrinsic spirit lies in this — that it disen
gages men and things from their normal
relation of dependence upon and subjection
to God, and sets them up as rivals to him.
It assumes to displace the Creator from his
rightful sovereignty over thoughts and de
sires and affections and activities, and trans
fers allegiance to some created thing. It
substitutes something temporal and earthly
for God and gives to it the worship that
belongs undividedly to him. It manifests
itself, John tells us, in ' ' the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of
life." This is the spirit of which the Bible
speaks so plainly and forcibly in passages
120

The Foes of the Kingdom
like these: "If the world hate you, ye
know tha.t it hated me before it hated you ;"
" The carnal mind is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be;" " Know ye not that
the friendship of the world is enmity with
God? whosoever, therefore, will be a friend
of the world, is the enemy of God;" " If
any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him." And every charac
teristic of the wild beast which John saw
exhibits this spirit of worldliness. It, and
it alone, exhausts the fullness' of the de
scription. Of this beast which John saw, one of the
heads was, as it were, " wounded [or slain]
to death " — the very words which were used
in the description of the Lamb (Rev. v, 6),
as if there were in this an attempted, al
though feeble, imitation of Christ. World
liness, too, has its Calvaries and Gethsema-
nes ; but they fall far short in measure and
in purpose of the great sacrifice of the cross.
They are compulsory, not self-chosen sacri
fices ; they are not redemptive and substi
tutional in their design, buj; retributive in
flictions of divine justice ; they involve but
a part of the being, and are not, as was
121

Revelation of Saint John
Christ's offering, the surrender of the whole
self. Many such wounds has worldliness re
ceived. The serpent's head has been bruised
again and again by the seed of the woman.
In the judgments which have come -upon
the world throughout the course of its his
tory — in the deluge, the destruction of Sod
om and Gomorrah, the exodus from Egypt,
the overthrow of Nineveh and Babylon, the
fall of Jerusalem — its spirit has been re
buked, condemned, punished. Indeed, in
all the dissolutions and decay of nature — in
the fading of the grass, in the falling of the
flower and of the leaf — the warning is being
constantly given, ' ' The world passeth away,
and the lust thereof . " Most of all, in the
cross of Christ has the world received its
deadliest wound . But how soon is the wound
healed, how quickly are the lessons of prov
idence forgotten ! and the tide of worldli
ness, stayed for a moment, resumes its vol
ume and rapidity and carries its victims to
their destruction.
It is this power of recuperation which con
tributes to the might of worldliness and
makes it the more dangerous. Success adds
to its fascinations and multiplies its votaries.
122

The Foes of the Kingdom
" All the world wondered after the beast"
whose deadly wound was healed. In com
parison with its triumphs the cross of Christ
becomes a stumbling-block to some and fool
ishness to others, because of the paucity of
its victories. And in worshiping the beast
its followers are scarcely aware, or are obliv
ious to the fact, that they are worshiping
the dragon himself ; for Paul says, ' ' The
things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sac
rifice to devils, and not to God."
Another striking and conspicuous charac
teristic of the first beast was his virulent
blasphemy. Upon his heads were ' ' the
names of blasphemy." The voices of his
mouth were blasphemy. His fierce, am
bitious purpose to displace God and usurp
his throne — and this is what the Bible de
fines blasphemy to be — moved him to de
mand such homage as can be given rightly
to God alone, and to set up his own taber
nacle and name as competitors with God's.
Is not this descriptive of the spirit of world
liness? How exacting it is of the worship
of its devotees ! In place of the Creator, who
is blessed for ever, it substitutes the crea
ture. It enthrones nature in some one or
other of its phases as the rival of the divine
123

Revelation of Saint John
Being. It will not admit the visible uni
verse, with its laws, to be merely the vehi
cle through which God reveals himself and
his thoughts, but demands for it equality of
homage with its Maker. It does not claim
for itself power to work miracles, and will
not believe that any are possible. It does
not base its authority upon any supernatural
revelation, and denies that any is needful.
Like Absalom, in the gates it whispers in
every man's ears, " O that I were made
judge in the land!" and thus draws unwary
souls into treason against their King. It
arrogates to itself the right to the whole of
man's being — to all beauty and life, to all
literature and art, to all recreation and en
joyment, to the exclusive and undivided use
and administration of all earthly powers and
faculties. And how ruthless and cruel this spirit of
worldliness can be! Does any human soul,
driven by dissatisfaction and heartache, seek
to lift the veil and penetrate to the secret
shrine of the universe, or to pierce the "rose
mesh " of mystery that surrounds us and as
cend to the divine Spirit above and beyond
it, how quickly is the fascinating smile of
the world turned to bitter scorn, and its
124

The Foes of the Kingdom
smooth flattery to remorseless persecution !
With what haughtiness and assumption does
it contend that, in everything relating to
music and poetry, to the aesthetic arts, to
finance and politics and social matters, the
question of morals has no place and God and
religion have no right to enter !
To this beast, we are further informed,
power, or authority, was given ' ' to continue
forty and two months." This number, it
has been previously said, is the symbol of
an epoch which is limited and fractional,
but which has a definite purpose pervad
ing it.
Throughout the whole period of Judaism
this beast raged with all his ferocity against
the Church of the Old Testament. And,
although the wild beast next to be deline
ated was a more formidable adversary to re
ligion than even he, yet the temptation to
fall into the ways, and follow the practices,
and to drop down to the religious level of
the ungodly world of heathenism around
constituted a peril to the Hebrew faith
against which the prophets had need fre
quently to lift their voices. And how con
stant even now is the peril to the Christian
Church and the Christian believer of falling
125

Revelation of Saint John
into the worship of the same beast of world
liness, is so patent a truth that every man's
observation and experience are sufficient to
prove it. The victims of worldliness are,
indeed, many, and to resist sorely tries " the
patience and the faith of the saints." But
its doom is sure and irretrievable, whether
that doom shall come by the sword of God
or by captivity. Its own methods of hos
tility shall be turned against itself.
3. The Second Wild Beast, or the Spirit of
False Prophetism. — In attempting to solve
the mystery of the second wild beast which
John saw we are confronted with a task
much more serious than has as yet been pre
sented to us. Not only is this antagonist
of Christ a more formidable one than any
hitherto encountered, but there seems an
almost purposed obscurity and indistinctness
about the description, as if to the seer himself
the beast appeared in so vague and nebulous
a form, or else was of such composite and
heterogeneous character, as to be incapable
of more exact delineation. The only way
to reach the truth is to seek out such features
of the description as may be regarded plain,
and from them to advance to the more per
plexing ones. 126

The Foes of the Kingdom
It will be noticed, then, that the second
beast rises not as the preceding from the
sea, but from the earth ; that is, from the
Church, not in its ideal state, but in its ac
tual condition, as the field of human activity
and influence.
Again, it is noticeable that, while in the
description of the first beast the expression
" it was given him " occurs again and again
(much more conspicuously in the original
than in the translation), in the case of the
second one this expression is, in the main,
although not in every instance, superseded
by words suggesting active agency — "he
doeth," " he maketh," " he causeth" — these
being all various renderings of the same
Greek word. This would seem to imply
that, while the first beast is merely an emis
sary or instrument executing the will of
another, the second differs from him in that
he has, or assumes to have, some power of
originating action, some causative agency,
and that he regards himself as having inde
pendent authority. While, therefore, the
results effected by both are the same (" He
had power to give breath to the image of
the beast "), those results are brought about
in different ways. 127

Revelation of Saint John
Another very important feature of the de
scription is that, while the distinguishing
characteristic of the first beast is blasphemy
— an open and undisguised assumption of
the prerogatives of God, with intense and
avowed hostility to him — the properties of
the second are duplicity, deception, and self-
deceit — perversion of the truth rather than
antagonism to it; and hypocrisy, if more
insidious, is far deadlier than open opposi
tion. He has the appearance of a lamb,
while speaking as a dragon. He is said to
work miracles, or at least is said to profess
so to do, which the first beast did not. And
he counterfeits the work of God, in that .by
a peculiar mark he stamps upon his follow
ers his claim to them, as the divine Being
affixes to his a seal in attestation of his own
ership. One further remark may be made. Three
times in the subsequent part of the Revela
tion (Rev. xvi, 13; xix, 20; xx, 10) these
two adversaries of Christ are brought into
juxtaposition, and in these instances it is
the. first beast alone who is designated by
that name. The second beast has the sjm-
onym of "the false prophet." The term
seems to mark his superior power or craft ;
128

The Foes of the Kingdom
to the malice of a beast is added the higher
intelligence of a man. The combination
attests the formidable character of this wily
antagonist. In this last-named feature lies a sugges
tion which may serve as a clew to the inter
pretation of the symbol and unveil its mys
tery. A false prophet can stand only in
contrast with a true one. It will be need
ful, therefore, to discuss, somewhat in de
tail, the characteristic functions of the pro
phetical office as set forth in the Scriptures.
"The usage of the word [prophet]," says
Cremer,* " is clear. It signifies one to
whom and through whom God speaks.
What really constitutes the prophet is im
mediate intercourse with God, a divine com
munication of what the prophet must de
clare. Two things, therefore, go to make
the prophet — an insight granted by God into
the divine secrets or mysteries, and a com
munication to others of those secrets. New
Testament prophets were for the Christian
Church what Old Testament prophets were
for Israel, inasmuch as they maintained in
tact the immediate connection between the
* Lexicon of New Testament Greek, third English edition,
pp. 568, 569-
9 129

Revelation of Saint John
Church and, not the Holy Spirit in her, but
the God of her salvation above her. The
prophets, both in the old and the new dis
pensations, were messengers or media of
communication between the upper and the
lower world."
"The primary idea of a prophet," says
Ewald,* " is of one who has seen or heard
something which does not concern himself,
or not himself alone, which will not let him
rest. It wholly absorbs him, ... so that
he no longer hears or is conscious of him
self, but of the loud and clear voice of an
other who is higher than himself. He acts
and speaks, not of his own accord ; a higher
one impels him, to resist whom is sin. It
is his God, who is also the God of those to
whom he must speak."
" That which," says Oehler,t "made the
prophet a prophet was not his natural gifts
nor his own intention ; and that which
he proclaimed as the prophetic word was
not the mere result of instruction received
nor the product of his own reflection. The
* Prophets of the Old Testament, vol. i, p. 7. London,
Williams and Norgate.
\ Theology of, the Old Testament, §§ 205, 206. New Yoilc,
Funk and Wagnalls. 130

The Foes of the Kingdom
prophet, as such, knows himself to be the
organ of divine revelation, in virtue both of
a divine vocation capable of being known by
him as such, . . . and also of his endow
ment with the enlightening, sanctifying, and
strengthening Spirit of God."
With these statements the concurrent
testimony of the New Testament is in har
mony : ' ' God ... at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets " (Heb. i, i) ;
' ' The prophecy came not in old time by
the will of man : but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost "
(2 Pet. i, 21).
It was, therefore, essential to the credi
bility and authority of the prophet that he
should have received some direct revelation
from God. The message intrusted to him
to deliver must be from a source above and
outside himself. It was not sufficient that
God spake in him ; he must be able to say
that God spake to him. When to the stu
dent prepared by the guidance of a teacher
to receive them nature reveals its facts
and laws, these come to him as something
external to him. They are not suggestions
or inspirations of his own mind, but owe
131

Revelation of Saint John
their origin to a source exterior to it. So
likewise with the prophet. How the revela
tion came to him, and how his hearers be
came convinced that God had spoken to him,
are questions that do not touch the truth of
his message. The important thing is that
the prophet was the agent and representa
tive of God in delivering a message which
had previously been committed to him.
Herein lay the distinction between the
priesthood and the prophetical office. A
priest was a man on whom was laid the re
sponsibility of appearing before God on
behalf of men ; a prophet was one who stood
in the presence of men on behalf of God.
A priest represented man in the court of
God ; a prophet represented God in the court
of human life. A priest was man's advo
cate ; a prophet was God's advocate. The
function of the priest was to intercede
for his fellows ; identity of condition and
tender sympathy with them were therefore
prime requisites. The function of a prophet
was to deliver God's word to man ; strict
fidelity to his message and to the truth were
his essential qualifications. As the priest
hood, then, was a type of Christ, finding
its perfect realization in him who laid down
132

The Foes of the Kingdom
his life a ransom for us, the prophetical
office was a type of the Holy Ghost, whose
work it is to convey to man the message of
God, whether it be of conviction, of justi
fication, of sanctification, of inspiration, or
of assurance.
If, therefore, by a " false Christ " is meant
one who usurps the place of Christ and sub
stitutes himself for him, demanding from
men the allegiance due only to the Son of
God, then by a "false prophet" must be
meant one who unconsciously or purposely
substitutes himself for the Holy Spirit,
setting forth his own conceptions or visions
as the voice of God.
" The characteristic," says Oehler,* " of
the false prophets is declared to be that
they speak that which they themselves
have devised. These latter are designated
(Ezek. xiii, 2) as prophets ' out of their own
hearts, ' who ' follow their own spirit, and
have seen nothing ; ' 'they speak,' according
to Jer. xxiii, 16, "a vision of their own
heart, and not out of the mouth of the
Lord.' "
No stage of history has been free from
such presumptuous prophets. Their exist-
* Theology of the Old Testament, p. 464.
133

Revelation of Saint John
ence and the disastrous work they v/rought
are set forth again and again in the Old
Testament Scriptures. But that their ap
pearance in larger numbers and under more
formidable guises may be expected in the
New Testament dispensation follows from
a consideration of the influence of Chris
tianity upon human nature.
Unquestionably, one marked result of that
copious effusion of the Holy Spirit, which
beginning at Pentecost has continued until
now, was a quickening of the human soul
to a realization of its individuality. Fifteen
centuries of sad experience and a convul
sion which disrupted Western Christendom
were needed to bring any large portion of
the Church to an appreciation of the privi
leges which inhere in this indi-vidualism.
Since the great Reformation of the six
teenth century, men have come by freer
study of the Bible to discern more clearly
the possibilities which it teaches of personal
consciousness of sonship, and of the indi
vidual possession by the Holy Spirit of every
soul availing itself of the privilege ; although
there have never been wanting those who
have discerned the possibility of individual
communion with the spiritual world,
134

The Foes of the Kingdom
In individualism lurks a danger against
which no revelation can absolutely secure us.
I may transgress its prescribed limitations
and become excessive. It may strive after
independence from its Creator and put forth
its hands to forbidden fruit. It may assume
prerogatives which the divine Being reserves
to himself. It may substitute its own im
aginings and volitions for voices of God,
and displace that real spirituality which
only the Holy Ghost can create with an
auto-spiritualism which is deceptive, illus
ory, and specious, the precursor of spiritual
and intellectual anarchy.
Our Lord gave warning of this peril when,
predicting the trials which should come, he
said, ' ' There shall arise false Christs, and
false prophets, and shall show great signs
and wonders; insomuch that, if it were
possible, they shall deceive the very elect."
Paul foresaw it, saying to the Ephesian
elders, "Of your own selves shall men arise,
speaking perverse things, to drawaway
disciples after them." It was this which
led John to write, " Believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits whether they are of God :
because many false prophets are gone out
into the world." 135

Revelation of Saint John
The writer of the Revelation had no need
to go beyond his own memory to find symp
toms of this spirit. Already it had begun
to manifest itself in the apostolic Church.
Simon Magus was a conspicuous but not
solitary example. In the epistles to the
seven churches there are cautions against
"the Nicolaitans" and "the woman Jeze
bel, which calleth herself a prophetess,"
very distinct from those which denounce
the pleasures or the persecutionsof the
world. In the ante-Nicene age gnosticism,
with its pretensions to a theosophy more
profound, a knowledge more extensive and
exact, a code of ethics more consistent,
and a self-denial more rigid than those of
the faithful, was a more dangerous ad
versary than the Roman empire; and we
who appreciate the skillfulness of its spe
cious arguments realize that nothing but
the providence of God carried the artless and
unsuspicious Church safely through the
peril.* And throughout the ages since
there has been a continuous reappearance
of this spirit, sometimes within, sometimes
* Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Bampton Lec
tures, 1886, lecture i, p. 35 ; Harnack, History of Dogma,
book i, chapt. iv. 136

The Foes of the Kingdom
outside the Church ; not always avowedly
antagonistic to Christianity, but assuming
to be a more perfect form of it ; not im
pugning the authority of the Scriptures,
but claiming to possess deeper views of
their esoteric meaning ; not openly subvert
ing the foundations of morals, but supersed
ing them by a show of a more austere and
uncompromising sanctimoniousness. It so
puts on the appearance of a lamb that its
dragon nature is hard to detect. It has
cropped out in Manichaeism, in Paulician-
ism, in Albigensianism, among hermits and
pillar saints, among pietists, mystics, oc
cultists, and other professors of a strained
and exalted perfection and illumination to
which only the elect initiate can aspire,
and from which the common masses of be
lievers are excluded.
It is hard to describe this spirit by a sin
gle name. It wears so many forms that no
one word can comprehend all of them.
Even the apostolic pen failed to depict this
adversary clearly or sketch its outline with
distinctness. Deceit seems to be the per
vading and controlling element of its being,
and to affect both substance and form. But
it has as its usual accompaniment one mark
137

Revelation of Saint John
which it stamps upon its devotees — a scru
pulous and rigid asceticism which deludes
itself with the hope of emancipation from
the necessary conditions of earthly life,
which denounces as sinful things proper in
themselves, simply because they are natural
or secular, and which aims at the profitless
and impracticable task of anticipating in
this life the celestial state of disembodied
spirits. No creature can ever with impu
nity contravene the laws imposed upon his
nature. The abnormal and excessive de
velopment of one side of man's constitution
is sure to involve a corresponding atrophy
of some other side, and thus the sins ex
cluded by one system of defenses find en
trance through some other avenue left
unguarded. And the constant result of
asceticism has been in the end to revive
¦with new power the worldliness it aimed to
destroy; so that in this sense the second
beast gives "life" and breath "unto the
image" of the first. For the termination
of all hyperspiritualism has been either in
an arrogant self -exaltation, the very oppo
site of Christian humility and love, or in an
antinomianism which, under the affectation
of liberty, gives loose rein to sensualism.
138

The Foes of the Kingdom
To the question, which thus becomes of
¦vital importance. How shall we "try the
spirits" to know "whether they are of
God" ? John has elsewhere furnished a suf
ficient answer : ' ' Every spirit that confess
eth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is
of God : and every spirit that confesseth not
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not
of God : and this is that spirit of antichrist,
whereof ye have heard that it should come ;
and even now already is it in the world "
(i Johniv, 2, 3).
The central principle of all asceticism, in
whatever form, and whether perceived and
acknowledged or not, is that matter is
essentially evil and spirit essentially good.
It is in the contact of soul with body and of
spirit with matter that sin lies. Holiness,
therefore, means only the diminution or de
struction of this contact. All bodily desires,
activities, and enjoyments, if they cannot
be annihilated, must be reduced to the
minimum, that thereby the ascendency of
the spirit may be gained and maintained.
Thus human nature is mutilated to half its
capacities. Religion becomes only a " con
cision," not a process of transformation.
The problem of redemption is no longer the
139

Revelation of Saint John
moral one of the salvation of the soul from
the guilt and pollution of sin, but the
metaphysical one of the liberation of the
spirit from matter.* By such as hold this
view of things the assumption by the Son of
God of the likeness of sinful flesh, his birth,
his fellowship with earthly conditions and
experiences, can never be fully accepted ;
his crucifixion is attenuated into a figure of
speech or becomes a mere parable, and
cannot be the necessary means of our sal
vation. Against such a theory the Revelation is
one long protest. Its keynote is salvation
through " the Lamb that was slain." Nor
does anything prove so conclusively that
John was the author of the Apocalypse as
the fact that in it, in the fourth gospel, and
in the epistles which bear his name, the
central and fundamental truth was the
same: " The Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us ; " and, ' ' This is he that came
by water and blood, even Jesus Christ ; not
by water only, but by water and blood.
And it is the Spirit that beareth witness,
because the Spirit is truth."
*M6ller, History of the Christian Church, vol. i, pp. 152,
153. New York, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1892.
140

The Foes of the Kingdom
The acquisition of knowledge depends as
much upon a right method as upon an ear
nest purpose. Alphabets must be mastered
before sentences can be read. No one can
understand the higher mathematics who
has not been grounded in the fundamental
axioms. And one of the axioms of the
spiritual life is that the Holy Spirit cannot
be given until Jesus is glorified (John vii,
39). Whoever does not accept, with all im
plied therein, the exemplary earthly life and
the atoning and sacrificial death of the Son
of God may well pause to reflect whether the
spirit which leads and moves him is indeed
the Spirit of God, or whether it is not the
spirit of evil and untruth. We may not set
limits to the spiritual flights of which the
soul is capable, but it must have a solid
basis from which to start; otherwise it
wastes its strength in aimless wanderings
amid mazy fogs and vagaries.
The path of truth lies between extremes,
and from either side of the ridge along
¦which it winds steep declines lead to danger
ous abysses. If a man, on the one hand,
accepts to the full the reality of the incarna
tion of the Son of God, and then does not
advance to thatother revealed truth, that the
141

Revelation of Saint John
Holy Ghost is of equal power and divinity
and that his mission is as wide in its range
and as complete in its effects, religion will
be to him a thing of externals, of outward
and mechanical forms and rites. On the
other hand, the ascetic who would aspire to
the full heights of the revelation of the Holy
Spirit without accepting what must precede
success — the real humanity of our Lord, his
cross, his grave, his resurrection — will
surely miss the path and be lost in abstrac
tions, fanaticisms, delusion, and deceit.
One last feature descriptive of the second
beast remains to be considered — the number
of his name. ' ' Let him that hath under
standing count the number of the beast : for
it is the number of a man ; and his number
is six hundred threescore and six." If
John meant to cover a mystery he has cer
tainly succeeded, for no explanation has as
yet been offered convincing enough to com
mand the acceptance of the Church. Un
questionably this is the most difficult to
solve of all the problems of the book, and
the apostle is thought to intimate this in
saying, " Here is wisdom ; " although possi
bly his meaning is that the special need for
wisdom lies in defense against the wiles of
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The Foes of the Kingdom
this adversary, rather than in solving the
mystery of his name.
The interpretation which has met with
the largest assent is based on the usage of
employing the letters of the Greek and
Hebrew alphabets as numerals. Men have
attempted to discover some name the letters
of which when added will give the nu
merical value six hundred and sixty-six.
The name which has secured the largest
number of advocates is Lateinos (Latin),
which, written in Greek characters and
numbered, gives six hundred and sixty-six.
By Roman Catholic interpreters who accept
this solution the empire of Rome is sup
posed to be meant ; by Protestants, the
Church of Rome. Dr. Adam Clarke thought
this solution to ' ' amount nearly to demon
stration." In recent times many German and other
scholars, mainly for reasons based on a
special theory of the date of the Revela
tion, prefer the words Nero Caesar, which,
written in Hebrew letters, number six hun
dred and sixty-six. Irenaeus (died about
202), who attempted the problem, out of
many names preferred Teitan, possibly to
suggest an analogy between the attempts of
143

Revelation of Saint John
Roman emperors to crush the Church and
the unsuccessful war of the Titans against
the gods, without venturing to put forth
his opinions in more definite form. Very
many other names of men, ancient and
modern, have been proposed, with greater
or less plausibility ; for curiosity to decipher
numerical symbols, when it possesses a man,
holds him with almost the fascination of
gambling. But it is apparent that the
combination of names possible -with only a
few letters is so much beyond computation
that almost apostolical inspiration is requisite
to decide upon the right one.
To the word "Lateinos," strong as are
its claims, the objection lies that the Roman
or Latin empire can scarcely be meant,
since the beast John describes is evidently
a spiritual power, not a secular one. Nor
can the Roman Church be meant, for it was
not known as Latin in the days of the apos
tle, nor for centuries afterward ; and, as one
design of the Apocalypse was to comfort and
instruct the generation in which John lived,
it would have been inconsistent with that
design to select a name which could have no
meaning intelligible to it or to many gen
erations succeeding. There is wisdom in
144

The Foes of the Kingdom
the words of Bleek :* " The discovery that
a definite name contains this number as the
value of its letters in Greek would not war
rant us to assume the correctness of the in
terpretation if other hints in the book re
specting the beast did not agree."
Another explanation offered is that the
number six hundred and sixty-six is but a
threefold repetition of the number six, John
thus intending to mark in the most em
phatic manner that, however mighty the
power or long the duration of the beast
shall be, it will inevitably fall short of the
completeness and permanence of Christ's
kingdom, as six is less than seven.
Still another explanation proposed is that
the number was originally written with the
Greek letters x^s" ; X being equal to six hun
dred, I to sixty, and r to six. As % (ch) is
the initial letter of Christ, I is supposed to
be an emblem of Satan, being afterward so
used by the Gnostics, and f is the initial
of aravpog, cross. The symbol, it is said,
refers to some Satanic power intervening
between Christ and the cross, some system
which honors him as teacher but denies
* Lectures on, the Apocalypse, ^.^T. London, Williams &
Norgate, 1875.
10 146

Revelation of Saint John
him as Saviour, which accepts Jesus, but
not " him crucified." The description ac
cords well enough with that of the second
beast ; but whether it can be extracted from
the number six hundred and sixty-six is
another question. The monogram, while
harmonizing with the symbolism of the
Apocalypse, and also delineating the nature
of the beast, does not explain the em
phasis which seems to be laid upon his
" name." There is, however, one detail in this part
of the description of the beast often over
looked, but which may carry us far on our
way to decipher the secret of the number.
The number of the name is not monopolized
by the beast ; it does not exhaust itself in
any single individual. We are told that
' ' no man might buy or sell, save he that had
the mark, or the name of the beast, or the
number of his name." The beast has fol
lowers who imbibe his spirit and partake of
his characteristics, and to whom his name
and number are equally appropriate. It is
more in keeping with this statement, as well
as with other details, to interpret the beast
as a principle rather than a person, as be
ing some spirit of evil which, assuming
146

The Foes of the Kingdom
prominence in some man or organization,
is yet shared by many men and organi
zations. The ascetic, false prophetism
which fulfills the other details of the de
scription coincides also with this.
If, following out the rule of interpreta
tion which has guided us hitherto, and as
suming that John drew his prediction of
the future from facts and tendencies exist
ing in his day, we read the epistles con
tained in chapters ii and iii, we shall find
that among the perils which threatened the
apostolic Church none was more imminent
than that which is called ' ' the doctrine of
the Nicolaitans," which was but a repro
duction of the heresy of Balaam, the gifted
and formidable rival and antagonist of
Moses ; the name Nicolaus, indeed, meaning
in Greek the same that Balaam does in
Hebrew. So deep a mark did Balaam make
that throughout the Old Testament, as well
as the New, he stands as the representative,
as he was the first example, of that spirit of
false prophetism which, beginning as as-
cetism, degenerates into antinomianism and
prostitutes genius to the service of the flesh.
Now, it is certainly true, as Ziillig shows,*
*Bleek, Lectures on the Apocalypse-, p, 285.
147

Revelation of Saint John
that the words " Balaam, the son of Beor,
soothsayer," if written in Hebrew letters
do make up the sum six hundred and
sixty-six. It seems, therefore, probable
that some embodiment of his insidious
spirit, some reproduction of his deadly doc
trine, with its resultant lawless practices, is
the solution of this mysterious symbol, the
second beast, against which John earnestly
warns the Church in all ages to guard itself
as the most dangerous foe to the kingdom
of Christ. And possibly the archaeological
researches which are now bringing to light
much of the hidden history of earlier ages
may yet discover to us the sect which served
as the basis of his warning.
The interpretation which has here been
put upon the symbols of the two wild
beasts — namely, that they represent, the
one the spirit of worldliness, the other
that autospiritualism or self-centered piety
which, for lack of a more comprehensive
phrase, may be designated as false prophet
ism or false asceticism — derives some con
firmation from the fact that their resulting
effects have been such as the author of the
Revelation predicted. Worldliness seems
the baser of the two, but its dominion is
148

The Foes of the Kingdom
briefer and less stable. As the mind can
never be content with agnosticism, but must
by necessity search for some explanation of
the mystery of being until satisfaction is
gained, so the heart can never fully rest in
hopes and themes and joys which are only
earthly. The religious instincts inherent in
and inalienable from our nature will assert
themselves and cry for God. On the other
hand, asceticism, while it seems to present
a loftier ideal and holds men thereby with a
more permanent grasp, is all the more bale
ful by reason of its deceptiveness. It veils
pride, ambition, malice, selfishness, under
the guise of superior sanctity, which, while
imposing on others by its well-masked du
plicity, lulls its victims into almost hope
less slumber by its hypocrisy. Those
whom it allures by its professions of su
perior piety it mocks with disappointing
dreams. It is the dark shadow that always
waits on holiness and liberty ; it is the
special temptation that besets souls seeking
after purity and knowledge ; while world
liness is that to which those are most prone
who mingle much with the world and deal
with earthly realities. If, on the one hand,
it is easy for men to fall into the danger of
149

Revelation of Saint John
using their heaven-given faculties for the
ignoble purpose of gratifying their lower
desires or of turning stones to bread simply
that they may live, it is equally easy, on the
other, to wander into the opposite error of
presuming ra.shly upon God's providence and
mercy, although humility has degenerated
into boasting and love has been perverted
to censoriousness. From neither tendency
can the regeneration of the world come;
both are alike enemies of God and of man.
4. Anticipations of Victory. — It is one of
the characteristic peculiarities of St. John's
literary style to introduce a subject which
for the moment he merely suggests to our
notice, returning to it subsequently in order
that he may amplify and complete it. He
goes over his work again and again, each
time adding some new touch, with the pur
pose of bringing out in greater prominence
some detail of his subject. While each sec
tion, therefore, contains in measure an
epitome of the whole, in each one some
single point is more specifically and elabo
rately discussed. There is, it is true, ad
vance of thought ; but the eagle of the apos
tolic band moves in circles, bringing into no
tice of his keen eye every part of the field over
160

The Foes of the Kingdom
which he soars, while each swoop of his
wing carries him a little beyond his former
orbit, so that his progress is in spirals. The
principle which controlled him seems to
have been, that of presenting to us in sharp
and striking antithesis the contrasts between
conflicting ideas, while he holds them under
our observation.
It is also characteristic of a disposition
like St. John's, and of a life so contem
plative and secluded as his was, to view
things in the light of their essential prin
ciples ; not as they become, modified by con
tact and in relation with each other, but
as they radically and germinally are. By
consequence such minds, instead of being
occupied with the intermediate changes,
pass at once to ultimate results and see the
end in the beginning.
An instance of this appears in the four
teenth chapter, which is really but an epi
logue to the preceding chapters. In the
twelfth and thirteenth chapters we have
had presented to our vision the for
midable enemies with which the Christian
believer must struggle. They have been
described most graphically and with a
fullness of detail not subsequently ex-
161

Revelation of Saint John
ceeded. The dramatis personce are all
put upon the stage, and no new actors in
the tragedy of existence need be expected.
But these enemies are sufficiently numerous
and terrible to excite apprehension and
awaken earnest inquiries as to our means of
resistance and possibilities of success. The
seer, therefore, pauses for a moment to re
view the resources put within our reach
and to assure us of their adequacy.
"Greater is he that is in you," he says,
" than he that is in the world." And he
fully indorses the emphatic declaration of
Paul, ' ' The weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty through God to the pull
ing down of strongholds."
In prophesying victory over the dragon
and the beasts to the saints of Christ, John
separates them into two classes, as he had
done in chapter vii. This is not in an}?-
spirit of Jewish narrowness or exclusive
ness. He had long gotten beyond that and
learned to call no man common whom God
had cleansed. Even Paul, the apostle of the
uncircumcision, recognized a distinction be
tween the Jew, who was first, and the Gen
tile ; so there can be alleged against John
no bigotry in recognizing the distinction,
152

The Foes of the Kingdom
inasmuch as he foreshadows equal victory
to both classes. There can hardly be a
question that by the ' ' hundred forty and
four thousand " John meant Israelites after
the flesh ; for they ' ' stood on the mount
Sion ;" they sang a song which none others
but themselves could learn, namely, the
song of Moses and of the Lamb (xv, 3) ; they
were ' ' the first fruits unto God and to the
Lamb " (xiv, 4) ; they were without ' ' guile,"
with reference no doubt to John i, 47.
They were " virgins," having the true as
ceticism — freedom from ungodliness and
worldly lusts. There was reason for rejoic
ing to a Jew like John in the fact that, in
spite of the opposition of the rulers and
Herods among the chosen people to whom
had been committed the oracles of God,
and on the very spots of the crucifixion
and resurrection, so many of his former co
religionists had become disciples of Christ
and followed the Lamb whithersoever he
led them.
But the word of God is not bound, nor is
it the exclusive property of any race ; and
the seer immediately adds the vision of the
multitudes of " every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people," to whom "the
153

Revelation of Saint John
everlasting Gospel " was preached and
among whom it found adherents. The
fullness of the times had come, and Gentiles
might "fear God, and give glory to him,"
the one Creator of " heaven, and earth, and
the sea, and the fountains of waters."
One new feature is now introduced.
Babylon, which occupies so much of the
subsequent part pf the Apocalypse, is here
for the first time mentioned. Babylon, it
will be attempted to show, is not another
adversary, but an apostate Church which
has succumbed to adversaries and thereby
become a counterfeit and rival to Christian
ity. It is here brought upon the stage by
anticipation, and its doom foretold, to give
completer assurance of the coming victory
over all forms and results of sin and evil.
The age in which John lived was an age
of martyrdom. How severely this fact
tried "the patience " and faith of the early
Christians we know from hints in other
apostolical writings. Paul found it neces
sary to show to his brethren in Rome that
if they suffered with Christ it was that they
might be also glorified together with him.
Peter, too, comforts those whose faith was
being so sorely tried with the assurance
164

The Foes of the Kingdom
that the trial of their faith was ' ' more
precious than of gold that perisheth," and
would be ' ' found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."
And so John gives to the Church of his day
the glad tidings that, although God buries
his workmen, he carries on his work; that
they, if they died "in the Lord," should
"rest from their labors; " and that " their
works " should survive and go on winning
victories after their departure.
If it should be asked how or with what
weapons they were to overcome, John gives
the answer which is found so often in the
Book of Revelation that it is one of the keys
to unlock its mysteries — they overcome
' ' by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word
of their testimony" (Rev. xii, ii); by
which latter expression is meant, doubtless,
the Scriptures, as explained in the chapter
upon the two witnesses. That the two vis
ions which now follow, the harvest of the
world and the vintage scene, refer to these
two weapons of success furnishes an ex
planation of them so simple and easy that
it is strange they should have occasioned
so much difficulty to commentators.
The prophet Joel, from whose writings
155

Revelation of Saint John
these visions are drawn (Joel iii, 13), proba
bly among the earliest and certainly among
the greatest of the Hebrew seers, appears
to have been gifted with a foresight of the
future remarkable even for one of that ex
traordinary body of men. The final and
complete triumph of God's cause over all
opposing foes in and through Zion, and the
deliverance of the Church from all bondage,
oppression, and danger, preceded by a
plentiful outpouring of the Holy Spirit
upon all classes, ages, and conditions, stood
out before him as a certain and assured
fact. The details of the methods by which
this result was to be achieved were not re
vealed to him, nor is it surprising that,
being thus left to himself, he could con
ceive of no other instrumentalities than
those which in his experience of human
affairs had passed under his own observa
tion. This is not the only instance in
which the apostles of the New Testament,
while confirming the prophets of the Old
as to results, have discerned more clearly
the power of spiritual forces, and for swords
and carnal weapons and rods of iron have
substituted the more peaceful instrumen
talities of the sword of the Spirit, the breath
156

'The Foes of the Kingdom
of the Messiah's lips, and the staff of the
Good Shepherd.
The writer of the Revelation, expanding
and evangelizing the vision of Joel, saw ' ' a
white cloud, " and One ' ' like unto the Son of
man " sitting thereon, "having on his head
a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp
sickle." "Out of the temple" an angel
came and cried to him, "Thrust in thy sickle,
. . . for the harvest of the earth is ripe."
Whereupon he cast his sickle upon the earth,
and "the earth was reaped."
In these words surely a reference is to
be seen to the words of our Lord himself ut
tered in the hearing of John and recorded
in Matt, xxiv, 14, 30, 31 : " And this Gos
pel of the kingdom shall be preached in all
the world for a witness unto all nations ; and
then shall the end come. . . . And 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. "
This metaphor of the harvest as the re
sult of the sowing of God's word is one of
the most common to be found in the Scrip-
157

Revelation of Saint John
tures. "The sower soweth the word"
(Mark iv, 14), or "the word of the king
dom " (Matt, xiii, 19), or " the word which
by the Gospel is preached unto you " (i
Peter i, 25). " So is the kingdom of God,
as if a man should cast seed into the ground ;
and should sleep, and rise night and day,
and the seed should spring and grow up,
he knoweth not how. For the earth bring-
eth forth fruit of herself [that is, auto
matically and spontaneously]. . . . But
when the fruit is brought forth, immediately
he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest
is come " (Mark iv, 26-29).
That ' ' the word of God is quick and pow
erful" (Heb. iv, 12); that it has God's life
in it (John vi, 63) ; that it is the great weapon
of warfare, defensive and offensive, to the
Church and the believer ; that it is the in
corruptible seed by which men are born into
the kingdom (i Peter i, 23); that it is the
instrument whereby we are sanctified (John
xvii, 17), is the concurrent declaration of
the Scriptures themselves. That it is to be
preached by apostles, prophets, pastors, and
teachers is the commission binding on all :
" Go ye into all the world, and preach the
Gospel to every creature " (Mark xvi, 15).
168

The Foes of the Kingdom
This Bible is sufficient of itself, all other
things are only ancillary ; " in due season we
shall reap, if we faint not " (Gal. vi, 9). All
literature and art and culture and science
are but as " the grass " that " withereth,"
or "the flower" that "fadeth;" "but the
word of our God shall stand forever." And
the martyrs of the apostolical age had the
inspired assurance of John to console them,
that if they faithfully bore witness to the
word they might fall, but "their works"
would follow on after them. And in so
saying he is only reechoing the words
which he himself had heard from the Mas
ter, "One soweth, and another reapeth "
(John iv, 37). And John .shows how com
pletely he had gotten away from Jewish
narrowness and absorbed the Master's spirit,
in his recognition of the fact that the Bible
is for every nation and kindred and people.
The other instrumentality of victory put
within the reach of the Church, namely,
the all-sufficient "blood of the Lamb," is
beautifully illustrated in the vintage vision,
which has most needlessly perplexed com
mentators. An angel — not now the Son of man — is
seen coming ' ' out of the temple which is in
189

Revelation of Saint John
heaven" with a sharp sickle. Another
angel came out from the altar, who is de
scribed as having "power over fire" (the
same combination as is found in Isa. vi, 6),
and at his cry the sickle was thrust into the
earth, and the clusters of fully ripe grapes
gathered and cast ' ' into the great wine
press of the wrath of God."
It is hardly possible to read these words
without seeing in them a reference to Isa.
Ixiii, 1-6. By the great mass of believers
the words are interpreted as an allusion to
and a prophecy of the atoning work of
Christ. It certainly seems that the writer
of the Revelation so understood them, not
only from the connection of this -vintage
scene with the blood of the Lamb, but also
from Rev. xix, 1 1-16, where the same con
nection of the two themes, the "sharp
sword " issuing from the mouth of Christ,
that is, the word of God, and the ' ' vesture
dipped in blood," with the treading of the
wine press, is found.
Our belief in the plenary inspiration of
the writers of the Scriptures does not com
pel us to the conviction that they always
comprehended the full import of their mes
sage, or that all the particulars embraced
160

The Foes of the Kingdom
therein stood out clearly and plainly in their
minds. This is one of the instances in
which prophets and wise men desired to see
the things which we in the kingdom of
Christ see, but did not see them. Every
man in painting mental pictures must of
necessity use colors with which his own
mind is acquainted, and which he has ac
quired by experience and observation. And
Isaiah and the other prophets, in the age
and with the surroundings in the midst of
which they lived, had no other means of
conveying to the minds of men the true
revelations which were given to them of the
suffering and victorious Messiah than terms
such as they saw exemplified in the world
of history and in the men about them. Any
other terms would have been incomprehen
sible, and so have failed of their purpose to
help and inspirit. And the divinity of the
Bible is seen conspicuously in this — that the
framework in which its glorious pictures
were set is capable of expansion to the
times in which we live and the larger views
we have, without fracture or distortion.
The signs and symbols which by divine illu
mination were presented to them have come
down to us ; but we, with the clearer light
11 161

Revelation of Saint John
of the Sun of righteousness, can read intel
ligently what were hieroglyphics to them,
and, looking with unveiled face, can behold
therein the glory of God. That John, in
thus quoting from Isaiah, has Calvary and
Gethsemane in his thoughts is shown by his
specifying particularly that ' ' the wine press
was trodden without the city," bringing out
the truth, of which Heb. xiii, 12, is the -wit
ness, that " Jesus also, that he might sanc
tify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gate."
It is true that in the prophecy of Isaiah
there appears an element of vengeance and
wrath that does not comport with our ideas
of salvation and redemption, and even re
pels. The element is still there ; but the
New Testament teaches us that all that was
lonely, painful, agonizing in human re
demption was borne by the Christ for us.
We are " bought with a price," but he paid
it. He was "made a curse for us." He
' ' bare our sins in his own body on the tree,"
and by his " stripes " we are "healed."
However feeble may be the traces of vica-
riousness in nature, human life is full of it,
is built about it. All love is manifested in
vicarious suffering. Scarce any rise but
162

The Foes of the Kingdom
that some fall ; scarce any become rich but
that others become poor ; there is hardly a
smile or a laugh of joy for which some pain
is not felt or some tear not shed somewhere.
And, if God manifests his love by sending
' ' his Son to be the propitiation for our
sins," this is but an illustration of the truth,
as apparent in the spiritual world as in that
of nature, of the transmutation of forces;
the sum not being increased or diminished,
but the places and modes of manifestation
changing. The remainder of the vintage scene may
be easily explained, difficult as it has
seemed to most interpreters, by applying
the key which is put into our hands, if we
accept the solution offered above.
We must now for almost the first time
take up the prophecy of Ezekiel, which
from this place onward almost singly rules
the Apocalypse, and the careful study of
which will throw light upon what seems
most obscure.
We are told that ' ' blood came out of the
wine press, even unto the horse bridles, by
the space of a thousand and six hundred
furlongs." Turning to Ezekiel, we find that the last
163

Revelation of Saint John
chapters of that great prophecy are taken
up with a beautiful description, ideal and
figurative, doubtless, of the restored temple,
holy city, and land of the new Israel of
God. In the forty-seventh chapter of
Ezekiel the dimensions of this ideal land
are very carefully stated. The boundary
line of it was, on the north side, Hamath,
in latitude thirty-four degrees twenty min
utes, and, on the south, a line drawn from
Tamar, at the southern border of the Dead
Sea, to Kadesh, a brook emptying into the
Mediterranean. If, now, we measure on a
map the distance between these lines, we
shall find it to be two hundred miles, or six
teen hundred furlongs.
This whole space, comprehending all of
the Holy Land, was thus entirely cov
ered with the blood which flowed from the
wine press trodden by the Son of God.
Could there be a more complete statement
of the all-sufficiency of that atoning blood ?
It is the same truth presented to us here
which John has elsewhere in plainer prose
revealed to our faith : ' ' The blood of Jesus
Christ his Son cleanse th us from all sin."
And as if still further to verify the state
ment he tells us that the blood reached to
164

The Foes of the Kingdom
" the horse bridles." There is an allusion
in this to Zech. xiv, 20, where we are told
that in " the day of the Lord" there shall
be "upon the bells [or, as the margin has
it, ' upon the bridles '] of the horses. Holi
ness unto the Lord." The ideal land is not
only covered in its whole extent with the
atoning blood, but so deep is the stream
that it buries all beneath it, except where
upon the surface is displayed the significant
inscription, "Holiness unto the Lord."
Surely there is no lack in the provisions of
salvation. "Where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound: that as sin hath
reigned unto death, even so might grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal
life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."
Thus, then, in these beautiful visions is
it shown that the believer and the Church
are sufficiently armed for the encounter
with any antagonist, however furious or
formidable. We are supplied with "the
sword of the Spirit " and " the blood of the
Lamb." Whatever the tasks may be that
lie before us, having these, we have all
necessary equipment. Nothing shall be
able to harm us so long as we continue to
be followers of God. 166

Revelation of Saint John
If the harvest scene illustrates the extent
of divine grace, and is an emblem of the
living seed which, small in its beginnings,
grows into a great and widespreading tree
under whose branches all the nations of
earth may find shelter and rest, the vintage
scene illustrates the depth to which salva
tion penetrates. The whole extent of
human need is reached. Neither is there a
want anywhere which may not be satisfied.
And through the use of the divinely ap
pointed means the kingdom of Christ may
be brought to its ideal of perfection, in us
and in the whole Church, until God shall,
indeed, be all and in all.
166

PARTY
^be Counterfeit of tbe icing&om, or tbe
Jfalse Cburcb

The Counterfeit of the Kingdom

PART V
The Counterfeit of the Kingfdom, or the False
Church
The section of the Revelation which we
now reach, and which extends from chapter
XV to the close of chapter xix, may be
called the judgment section. There is a
striking parallelism between it and part iii,
or the vision of the trumpets, which sym
bolizes the methods through which the king
dom of Christ is furthered. As that section
divided itself into two parts — first, the nat
ural agencies which divine Providence em
ploys, and, next, the supernatural word —
so, also, this sets before us what may be
designated natural judgments, and then
those special visitations of divine justice
which await an apostate Christian or Church.
I. The Judgments of God. Vision of the
Vials. — The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters
need not detain us long, inasmuch as the
resemblance between them and the visions of
the trumpets is so great that much of what
might be said has already been anticipated.
Vials, or basins rather, were vessels used
in the Mosaic ritual as receptacles. The
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Revelation of Saint John
term is used here to designate the judg
ments which must fall on men if the warn
ings and messages symbolized by the
trumpets are unheeded. The Gospel, we
are told by St. Paul, may be a savor of
death unto death, as well as of life unto life.
The words of the Lord Jesus will either be
come spirit and life to us, or they will judge
us at the last day.
From ' ' the temple of the tabernacle of
the testimony" "seven angels " are seen
issuing forth with vials containing ' ' the
seven last plagues." The word for
" plague " is the same used in chapter xiii,
3. It was there applied to a temporary
wound which was quickly healed. Its con
nection here with the word " last" and with
the number "seven" indicates that the
wounds or blows are final and incurable.
The judgments are not corrective and
disciplinary, but retributive and irrevers
ible. The angels with the plagues issue from
the temple of the tabernacle of the testi
mony. This name is that which is ap
plied to the structure Moses erected in the
wilderness and which contained the ark of
the testimony. Its use here implies that
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
the judgments that follow are to be found
recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The old word is God's faithful witness,
bearing plain testimony to his righteous
ness and to his anger at sin and iniquity.
Still further, it was one of the four beasts,
or living creatures, who put the vials into
the hands of the angels ; and, as the four
beasts are supposed to be symbolical repre
sentations of the animate creation, the truth
declared would seem to be that these judg
ments come as natural providences, or by
the operation of laws which the divine
Being has stamped on his creation.
The plagues fall successively upon the
same places that are named in the parallel
vision of the trumpets — the first upon the
earth ; the second, upon the sea ; the third,
upon the rivers and fountains of waters ;
the fourth, upon the sun ; the fifth , upon
the throne of the beast, darkening his king
dom ; the sixth, upon the Euphrates.
It is very instructive to contrast these
judgments with the beautiful figures by
which John, in the last chapters of the Reve
lation, seeks to portray the glorious privi
leges and blessings of the perfected king
dom of Christ. 171

Revelation of Saint John
Thus, in opposition to the ' ' noisome and
grievous sore" that fell " upon the men
which had the mark of the beast," we have,
in chapter xxii, 2, the declaration that " the
leaves of the tree" of life " were for the
healing of the nations."
In opposition to "the sea" which "be
came as the blood of a dead man," we are
told, in chapter xxi, i, that "there was no
more sea."
As a contrast to " the rivers and foun
tains of waters" which "became blood,"
we are told in chapter xxii, i , of " the pure
river of the water of life, clear as crystal."
Over against " the sun " which " scorched
men with great heat," the statement is
made, in chapter xxi, 23, that " the city
had no need of the sun, neither of the
moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God
did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof." And, while judgment fell on the throne
of the beast, ' ' and his kingdom was full of
darkness, and they gnawed their tongues
for pain," we learn of the new city that
' ' the throne of God and of the Lamb shall
be in it; and his servants shall serve him."
' 'And there shall be no night there ; . . . for
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
the Lord God giveth them light : and they
shall reign forever and ever." There seems
to be in this a reminiscence of the plague
of darkness with which the Almighty visited
Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and which was
the last one before the final stroke of his
judgment upon the firstborn (Exod. x,.
21-23). The fifth trumpet was interpreted as a
prophecy of the blindness, both of heart and
mind, which comes upon men. when faith
declines and grace wanes. This interpreta
tion appears to be confirmed by the judgment
whicli the plague of the fifth vial inflicts.
The locality of the sixth plague is the
Euphrates. This river, as has been pre
viously said, was the boundary line between
civilization and barbarism. The mention
of it implies that the last conflict in which
the kingdom of Christ shall engage will be
waged to oppose an inroad or outburst of
barbarism. But as John presents this mat
ter with fuller details in chapter xx the
discussion of it will be postponed until that
part of the Revelation is reached.
One new feature, which is introduced for
the first time in connection with the sixth
vial, is the singular sentence, "That the
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Revelation of Saint John
way of the kings of the east might be pre
pared." The origin of this expression is to
be found in Isa. xii, 2 , to which it has doubt
less a reference . In that passage, "the right
eous man from the east " to whom is given
" rule over kings" is, undoubtedly, Cyrus,
whose advent and success are thus foretold.
And the meaning is that, as out of heathen
ism God raised up that marvelous man as
an instrument to accomplish his purposes
in the deliverance of his people, so there is
such fullness of resources in the reach of
divine power that in any emergency or peril
he is able to find, anywhere, means to rescue
his followers or his Ch-urch out of danger.
Moreover, the apostle saw coming "out
of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the
mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of
the false prophet " ' ' three unclean spirits
like frogs." Over against the divine
Trinity, the kingdom of darkness and sin
has its counterfeit trinity. Each of its com
ponent persons has its emissaries and mes
sengers. For the final conflict all these will
summon their entire resources. Behind all
attempts to foil and defeat the development
and perfection of the kingdom of Christ lie
these evil powers. But their efforts will be
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
futile; inevitable destruction and doom
await them ; and the inspired seer here
merely suggests the judgment of which
full particulars are to be subsequently given.
2. Babylon and its Doom. — No part of the
Apocalypse has given rise to so much con
troversy as that which now engages our at
tention ; and as, unhappily, the controver
sies have often originated in denominational
prejudices and intensifled denominational
bitterness, this section has been made a shib
boleth by which to test conflicting creeds.
Truth is, indeed, of paramount obligation.
We have no right to accept or reject inter
pretations of the Scriptures simply on the
ground that they accord with or are repug
nant to our beliefs. It is no part of our
prerogative to sit in judgment upon the
word of God or to force it to speak accord
ing to our mind. And nothing is ever really
consistent with love which is not consistent
with truth. If, however, the purpose of
this remarkable book is to set before us
those spiritual forces which work in the
heart of every individual, as well as in col
lective masses, there seems no valid reason
why we should in this part of it depart from
those general principles upon which it is
176

Revelation of Saint John
elsewhere framed, or seek for latent mean
ings when one which lies on the surface is
capable of explaining and harmonizing its
mysteries. Are we to understand by Babylon the
Church of Rome, or the Roman Empire,
or any specific body or association of men ,
religious or secular? Is the revelation here
given us an anticipatory epitome of history,
a foreshadowing of events that have already
transpired and are now recorded among the
annals of the race? Is it a prophecy the
fulfillment of which can be known only by
learned scholars acquainted with history,
upon whose information the wayfaring man
and the untutored disciple of Christ must
depend? Is it a portion of Holy Writ
whose best commentators must be found in
Gibbon and Hume and such like unbeliev
ers? Truly, then, Saul is " among the
prophets;" and this book is singular and
anomalous among the revelations of God,
whose purpose has ever been to make wise
the simple, who else would be cut off from
access to the sources of truth and light.
If any of the prophecies of this book can
be proven to find their exhaustive fulfill
ment in any particular and definite body,
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
individual, or event, so that when we have
identified the body or individual or event we
have reached the whole purpose of the
writer, then, of course, its value as inspira
tion ceases or, at least, is materially dimin
ished. It may have an archagological
interest as a record of past conditions, but
its influence upon the present and future
is somewhat like that of a fossil upon living
types. When the prophets of the old dispensa
tion uttered their denunciations of the
luxuries, the sensualism, the cruelty, the
gilded vices, or the coarser sins of the cities
and empires of the ancient world their pur
pose was not to vent vindictiveness against
conquerors under whose might the Israel of
God was oppressed and trampled down,
but to direct thought and attention. to a
spirit of evil, a principle of the kingdom of
darkness, which for a while found an em
bodiment therein, yet was not wholly com
prehended in it. The empires crumbled
into dust, the great capitals became masses
of decaying ruins, but the spirit which ani
mated them lived on, surviving their de
struction. Such was, doubtless, the design of this
12 177

Revelation of Saint John
Apocalyptic vision. Babylon is a symbol
of something that has its fulflllment again
and again, but is never exhausted in any
manifestation. The generations of men,
down to the close of time, must watch for
and be warned against the spirit which it
embodied, and every individual Christian,
as well as the Church at large, needs the
caution which is here given him against
such forms of it as are likely to tempt him
from the path of duty or safety.
Of all the hostile powers with which the
Hebrew people were brought into contact
and from whom they suffered Babylon
seems to have been the most dreaded, and
the animosity expressed toward it by the
prophets was emphatic and marked. Its
approaching doom evoked no sentiment of
pity, but was hailed with unmingled satis
faction. What there was about Babylon
which justified such exceptional fear and
dislike it is, perhaps, not possible for us fully
to understand, although we may attain some
appreciation of it.
Regarding Nineveh, we have reason to
conjecture that its peculiarity was intense
and supreme secularism. No temple has
been found amid its ruins that was not
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
merely the adjunct of a palace. The priest
was the servant of the king. All religious
instincts and institutions were simply tools
which the haughty monarch unscrupulously
used to carry out his cruel and ambitious
projects. Such a condition of things can
never endure long. It works its own de
struction, finding its cure within itself. It
was the demoralization resulting from a simi
lar condition which sapped the strength of
the Greek Empire of Byzantium and, by
isolating it from all allies or sympathy, led
to its overthrow.
In Egypt the spheres of the State and of
the Church maintained some independence
of each other. Vast as was the sovereignty
of the Pharaohs, it was not such as to en
croach upon or absorb the functions of the
priestly caste.
In Babylon, however, still another con
dition prevailed. Here the priesthood was
the ruling order; the religious element
dominated the secular. The palace was a
part of the temple. It is noticeable how
strongly in the prophetic descriptions of
Babylon the Chaldean element is empha
sized. It is styled ' ' the beauty of the
Chaldees' excellency," "the land of the
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Revelation of Saint John
Chaldeans," marking thus the supremacy
of that order of soothsayers, sorcerers, and
professors of magic and occult science.
Babylon was a theocracy, but the god who
ruled it was the prince of darkness, not Je
hovah. The Church governed the State,
but the Church was one that incarnated the
spirit of worldly-mindedness, not heavenly-
mindedness. So that, in an altogether pe
culiar and special sense, it was the rival and
counterfeit of the true Church of God,
giving exercise to the religious instincts of
men sufficient to satisfy conviction and
quiet conscience, while debasing them by
turning them into the channels of lust and
sensual gratification.
Yet, as a matter of fact, the domination
of Babylon proved less hurtful to the Jewish
nation than did the hostility of any other of
their great enemies. The form of world
liness which the Israelites encountered in
Egypt was such as almost to make them
forget their bondage in remembering the
enjoyments they had found there. Their
actual experience in Babylon during the
years of their captivity, the lessons they
learned and the comparisons they drew
when brought into personal relationship
ISO

The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
with its life, left no lingering love of idola
try and cured them forever of any desire to
worship its gods.
But the Babylon of the book of Revela
tion comprehends more than the Babylon
of the Hebrew prophets. The dangers
which beset the Christian would be far less
than they are if the Babylon of this world,
which opposes itself as a rival to the king
dom of Christ, had no fascinations beyond
those which the great city by the Euphrates
could offer. The wily enemy of mankind
is too subtle to depend upon any such
powers of attractiveness as were embodied
in the capital of the Chaldean Empire. And
in describing the counterfeit of the king
dom of Christ the writer of the Apocalypse
adds to his portrait of Babylon features
which are used by Ezekiel as characteristic
of another great capital. Tyre. Babylon
was never a center of commerce ; in no sense
could it be described as a city whose mer
chants were princes. The same is also true
of Rome, and is thus adverse to the opinion
that John meant to describe the city of the
Caesars and of the popes. His delineation
of Babylon would apply to Corinth or Car
thage in ancient times, and to Venice or
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Revela-don of Saint John
Amsterdam or London in more modern
days, with greater aptness than to the
metropolis on the Tiber. In this altera
tion of the emblem in which the -writer of
the Revelation indulges, in the blending^and
interweaving of details descriptive of both
the Babylon and the Tyre of the Old Tes
tament into the composite figure of the
Apocalyptic Babylon, in the transition
from Isaiah's sublimely ironical shout of
triumph over the metropolis by the Eu
phrates to Ezekiel's sad and pathetic dirge
over the fall of the commercial emporium
of Phoenicia, a clew is given us to the inter
pretation of his meaning.
The influence of Tyre upon the Hebrew
people and religion was always deleterious,
almost disastrous. The intercourse which
began in the magnificent Solomon's love
of show and splendid state and luxury, and
which was increased by the intermarriage
of the royal houses of Ahab and Jehoshaphat
with Tyrian princesses, was fruitful of
moral degeneration. From the spiritual
pesthouse upon the Mediterranean came,
first, Tyrian art, then, Tyrian wares, then,
Tyrian idols, and, then, the unbridled and
lawless sensualities for which Tyre was noto-
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
rious, until Baal had displaced the golden
calves set up by Jeroboam in Bethel and had
well-nigh overthrown the altars of Jehovah
in the city of the great King.
The Babylon which John saw and whose
rise and fall he predicts was one that em
braced in itself the unbounded pride, the
self-sufficingness, the love of sorceries and
dark arts of magic, along with the demoral
izing practices of a great mart of commerce
— a mongrel figure into which all forms of
evil and sin were woven.
The probability, therefore, is that John
meant to describe, not any individual or
definite city or Church, but the incarnation
of a spurious and apostate Christianity
which, assuming the appearance of the
true, is animated by principles wholly des
titute of and antagonistic to the power and
life of Christianity, and thus deludes only
to destroy.
This opinion derives confirmation from
the connection in which the section stands.
Up to this point the writer of the Revela
tion has been collecting his data, so to
speak, summing up the elementary forces,
friendly and hostile, which have to do with
the success or failure of the kingdom of
183

Revelation of Saint John
Christ. He has announced its fundamental
principles, the means by which it is to be
carried forward, the enemies which must
be encountered. It now remains for him
to show in a concrete form the results. At
the close of the Revelation he shows us the
result of success in that exquisite picture of
the ideal true Christianity. But before
doing this he also shows the result of fail
ure in the picture of the ideal false Chris
tianity. The antitheses between the two
are drawn out in sharp contrasts.
In chapter xxi, 9, it is said to him,
' ' Come hither, I will show thee the bride,
the Lamb's wife." Here (xvii, i) it is said
to him, "Come hither: I will show unto
thee the judgment of the great whore that
sitteth upon many waters."
In chapter xxi, 6, it is written, " He said
unto me. It is done." So here (chapter xvi,
1 7), when the seventh angel poured out his
vial a voice was heard crying, " It is done."
In chapter xii, where for the first time the
field of battle is described and the enumera
tion of the hostile forces is begun, religion
is presented to us under the figure of a
woman who has fled to the wilderness.
Since then the trial is supposed to have been
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
gone through with, the long war has been
fought, the varying moments of the strug
gle have been detailed, and we are now
brought to the summing up of the issue.
In chapter xxi, lo, John is carried away
' ' in the spirit to a great and high moun
tain," and there is shown him the woman
in the form of ' ' that great city, " ' ' the holy
city, new Jerusalem, coming down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband " (verse 2). Here
(xvii, 3 , 4) he is carried away ' ' in the spirit
into the wilderness, " and he sees the woman ;
but now she is sitting ' ' upon a scarlet-
colored beast, full of names of blas
phemy, . . . arrayed in purple and scarlet
color, and decked with gold." She has failed
in the conflict. She has not come victorious
out of the wilderness, as Christ did after
his temptation. She has made peace with
her enemies. She has joined with the
flesh, the world, and the devil. She is no
longer spotless and pure, ready for her
bridal with the Lamb, but has become a
harlot. Thus, once, Orpah and Ruth stood to
gether by the side of Naomi, while the
Holy Land beckoned them all toward it.
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Revelation of Saint John
Ruth chose that better part and, sheltered
beneath the hovering wings of the God of
Israel, found peace and rest and an eternal
portion with the saints; but Orpah loved
the blue hills of Moab and, though sadly
and reluctantly, turned back to idolatry and
oblivion and spiritual death.
Such a conflict awaits us all; and the
issue must be, either that happy one here
after to be more accurately described under
the figure of the New Jerusalem, or else that
alliance with the powers of darkness which
John records in the emblem of Babylon.
The details of the description given of
Babylon add further confirmation to the
explanation offered above. In chapters xii
and xiii the three great enemies of the
kingdom of Christ were enumerated — the
dragon and his emissaries, the two beasts.
In the present chapter (xvii) they are repre
sented as combined. The woman is seen
sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast. She
is arrayed in purple and scarlet, but not in
" fine linen," which is " the righteousness
of saints." She has in her hand a cup, but
instead of the sacramental blood of the
Lamb, it is full of ' ' abominations and filthi-
ness of her fornication." She is not " filled
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
with the Spirit," but "drunken with the
blood of the saints," for "she hath cast
down many wounded, yea, many strong
men have been slain by her " (Prov. vii, 26).
It will be remembered that, in the de
scription of the first wild beast, it is said
that when the deadly wound which it had
received was healed the whole world won
dered after it in astonishment at the recu
perative power which it exhibited. But,
at this vision of the woman allied with the
beast, with a commingling of the influence
of the second wild beast, even John him
self wondered with great wonder at a cor
ruption of religion so complete and yet so
enticing, a perversion so unexpected and
yet so alluring, a transformation so plausi
bly and artfully accomplished. There seems
to have been awakened in him something
of the perplexity he had experienced in
looking at the second wild beast, as if its
duplicity were a mystery of iniquity beyond
his power to fathom. Once one of the
psalmists wondered, as he tells us, at the
prosperity of the wicked, until he entered
the sanctuary and there saw their latter end
foreshadowed. So, likewise, was the mind
of John relieved by the angel who came to
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Revelation of Saint John
him and said, " I will tell thee the mystery
of the woman, and of the beast that car-
rieth her; " for as the curtain was lifted
the doom of Babylon was revealed to him
and the mystery was solved.
But, however plain the mystery was to
him, it is assuredly not equally so to us.
The explanation which suggests itself to us
the most readily is not necessarily the most
correct one ; indeed", the words, ' ' Here is
the mind which hath wisdom," seem to in
dicate otherwise and to force us to seek
some meaning deeper than that which is
most obvious. Although, therefore, the
expression, "The seven heads are seven
mountains, on which the woman sitteth,"
apparently identifies Babylon with Rome,
either imperial or papal, it would satisfy all
the conditions of the problem as well, and
be more in harmony with the principles on
which the Revelation is constructed, to in
terpret the expression as referring to the
great world empires which have successively
dominated the human race and cast their
shadows across the path of centuries, and in
which John saw the embodiment of the
world-principle, essentially and perpetually
antagonistic to the kingdom of Christ.
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
Of these world empires five had already
fallen — Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedo
nia, and the empire of Alexander's suc
cessors. The empire of Rome, which was
the one existent in John's days and the
most compact and formidable of them all,
was the sixth. " The other," he says, " is
not yet come; and when he cometh, he
must continue a short space." Of this dif
ficult passage many explanations have been
offered, but it cannot be said that they are
satisfactory. Whether John anticipated the
fall of the Roman Empire and the estab
lishment of another world empire to suc
ceed it for a brief period of time we are not
able to say.
It would not be any impeachment of the
inspiration of the apostles to admit that upon
matters relating to the time of our Lord's
coming they were not able to predict with
certainty. Christ himself said that ' ' of
that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not
the angels which are in heaven, neither the
Son, but the Father;" and we cannot con
cede that his disciples were more fully en
lightened than he. There are indications
that the apostles anticipated the personal
manifestation of the Master at a date earlier
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Revelation of Saint John
than has proven to be the fact, because,
looking through the ages, mountains ap
peared in their vision to blend into one
which we have found by experience to be
separated by valleys deep and wide.
But, inasmuch as it was revealed to John
that prior to the realization of the ideal
kingdom of Christ there is to be a decisive
conflict with the combined powers of evil,
as will be more fully discussed when we
shall have reached the twentieth chapter of
the book, may it not be that it is that final
embodiment of the world-principle which
he here foretells as the seventh antagonistic
kingdom ?
' ' And the beast that was, and is not,
even he is the eighth, and is of the seven,
and goeth into perdition." These words
seem to imply that this " eighth" is not a
separate and distinct empire, but is that
common principle of worldliness which finds
its embodiment in all the seven and yet is
distinct and separable from them. It is
both immanent in them and transcendental
to them.
And there is, perhaps, here an intended
and striking contrast between this e-vil prin
ciple and the divine Being with whom it
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
assumes to contest supremacy. It was said
of the Lord God Almighty, in the adora
tion of the living creatures (Rev. iv, 8),
that he " was, and is, and is to come." Of
this counterfeit principle of evil it must be
said, " It was, and is not." God is true,
real, the same to-day as yesterday and for
ever. He that hath received Christ's tes
timony can set his seal to this assured and
blessed certainty. Of the evil principle it
can only be said that it is always vanity,
falsehood, a lie. Its past is all a bitter re
membrance ; its future a shadow, a decep
tion, a dream ; and he that trusts it is a fool
mocked with illusions that are never real
ized and cheated with hopes that forever
disappoint. It is not likely that any world-kingdom
comparable in extent and power with those
which in ancient times subjugated mankind
will ever be seen again. Christianity de
velops and cultivates a spirit of individual
ism which is inimical to their recurrence.
Since the disappearance of the Roman Em
pire no successor to it has arisen. The
empires of Charlemagne and Napoleon were
narrow and petty in comparison with that
of the Cassars. Some such thought appears
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Revelation of Saint John
to have been in the mind of John when he
foretold that there shall be ' ' ten kings,
which have received no kingdom as yet_;
but receive power as kings one hour with
the beast."
But the spirit of evil which finds tem
porary embodiment in these worldly sov
ereignties does not disappear with their
overthrow. It incarnates itself in other
and more dangerous forms. There are
subtle and cunning manifestations of this
spirit which, by plausible and enticing imi
tations of the religion of Christ, do far more
than any worldly kingdom can to overthrow
true Christianity and substitute in its place
the counterfeit kingdom, the deadly rival
which is designated by the emblem of
Babylon. Without violating the spirit of charity,
and in fealty to the obligation of truth, it
must be confessed that the history of the
Church of Rome has too often furnished
just occasion for its identification with the
Babylon of the Apocalypse. Its worldli
ness, its unscrupulous alliances with kings
and princes to carry out its ambitious proj
ects, its disregard of moral obligations in
the pursuit of its policy, its ignoring of the
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The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
demands of justice, honor, truth and mercy,
its persistent struggle to achieve and main
tain temporal supremacy, its awful claim of
present and eternal mastery over the bodies,
minds, and souls of men, its luxury and
wantonness, its bloody spirit of persecution
on the one hand, and, on the other, the
duplicity, the false asceticism, the assump
tion of the appearance of the Lamb while
animated by the spirit of the dragon, the
substitution of its own codes and edicts and
ethics for the word of God, which have
specially characterized its religious orders
and confraternities, are sufficiently like the
adversary of true religion delineated by
St. John to excite thought and induce self-
examination. But it would be unjust to charge to the
account of systems imperfections and errors
which spring out of the inherent frailty of
human nature. And the spirit of evil
against which the apostle warns us has had
unhappily a range wider than pagan or
papal Rome or any organization yet wit
nessed on earth. If that Church has too
often carried upon her forehead the title,
" Mother of harlots," instead of the motto,
" Holiness unto the Lord," she has many a
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Revelation of Saint John
sister who must sit beside her as of kindred
spirit; and, if the one has been " Aholah,"
the other has been ' ' Aholibah. " If, among
her followers, she has numbered both some
of the purest saints who have trodden this
earth and some of the vilest sinners, and
these, too, in her loftiest places, she is not
alone in the distinction.
There have been individuals and Churches
calling themselves Christians and Protes
tants that, like veritable Messalinas, have
burned with incessant lust after every form
and fashion of worldliness, and whose
lovers, as Jeremiah says, have not had need
to weary themselves in seeking for them.
There is too much truth in the biting sar
casm of Heine : ' ' Christianity was once
based on blood ; it now rests on another
basis — money. Wafers of silver and gold
are the only ones that work miracles in
modern days." When the solemn services
of the holy sacraments lose their attraction
and are accounted dull and pale when com
pared with the brighter light of social
festivities ; when prayer meetings are
sparsely attended, while glittering parlors
are crowded with guests ; when the shout
ing of souls newly born into the kingdom is
194

The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
drowned by the ' ' chant to the sound of the
viol;" when grief over " the affliction of Jo
seph " is far less than the sorrow for the
loss of worldly prestige or patronage ; when
religion is used simply as an adjunct to the
social propensities or a synonym for liber
ality in promoting financial enterprises —
then there is need that we read again the
apocalyptic vision of Babylon, that we may
avert the doom that is certain otherwise to
come. Destruction must surely be the end
of those ' ' whose god is their belly, and
whose glory is their shame, who mind
earthly things." The vials of divine anger
must sooner or later empty their plagues
upon all such.
In the selection and introduction of Tyre
as the representative of a worldly Church
the apostle indicates the source from which
danger is to be apprehended. Tyre was a
mart of commerce. Upon her ships the
merchandise of the world was transported,
and it was sold in her markets. Her trade
extended to the ends of the earth, and by^
her mercantile transactions she was brought
into contact with the whole circle of known
nations. The close acquaintance and fel
lowship thereby wrought with all religions,
195

Revelation of Saint John
races, and customs produced its customary
result of lowering the standard of morals
and, under the specious plea of encouraging
liberalism of opinion, led to apathy toward
all religion; while, at the same time, the
increase of wealth, art, and refinement
created a love for luxury and worldly good.
Corrupted herself, she became in turn a
source of corruption to others, and her inter
course with Israel had a disastrous effect
upon the chosen people.
In this lies the peril of contact with the
world. It is the scene of conflict ; it may
be the field either of defeat or victory. The
Lord Jesus prayed, not that his disciples
should be taken out of the world, but that
they should be preserved from its evil.
We are placed in it that we may trans
form it. It is possible that all beauty, art,
wealth, culture, and commerce may be
sanctified and made to contribute to the
redemption of the world. Every thought
may be brought into captivity to the obedi
ence of Christ.
But it may, on the contrary, transform and
corrupt us. Without the aid of supematural
grace the influence of the world upon the
Christian is demoralizing and destructive.

The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
Whatever is without God is equally with
out hope. Art, for instance, separated from
its mission as an auxiliary to morals and re
ligion and made independent, becomes ar
tificial, and then degenerates into artifice.
The world, instead of being lifted to a
higher plane, drags the Christian to its own
level. It is remarkable that Paul, whose
facilities of observation were large and
powers of perception keen, when writing to
the Romans, the people of the eternal city,
whose one dream and ambition in all her
history had been power, commended the
Gospel of Christ as ' ' the power of God unto
salvation;" but, when writing to Corinth,
the busy center of commerce and merchan
dise, full of wealth, luxury, and corruption,
he presented as the only influence which
could correct these evils this profound truth :
" Know ye not that ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price : therefore
glorify God."
There has not been a period since the
days of John when the lesson which he
wished to enforce in this vision of apostate
and fallen Babylon was more important than
now. Between -the age of the apostles and
the times in which we live a stronger re-
197

Revelation of Saint John
semblance exists than between any epochs
in the annals of man. The rapid increase
of means of transportation by which the
ends of the earth are drawn together is
effecting that state of things which the con
solidation of the civilized world under the
control of the Roman Empire produced.
The boundaries between nations are being
effaced ; and their easy communication with
each other makes possible an exceptional
intermingling of languages, usages, moral
codes, and religion. There is the same tend
ency toward the denial of all supernatural
ism, on one side, and, at the opposite
extreme, toward an eclecticism which con
cedes some truth to all forms of religion,
while questioning the absolute truth of any,
as that with which the apostolic Church was
confronted. There is an excessive liberal
ism which, in its aversion to narrowness
and under the plea of enlightened culture,
would abandon all that specifically differ
entiates Christianity. But we will have
read the records of the ante-Nicene period
in vain if we have not learned from them that
an imperfect Christianity, while it does not
gain the world, does lose its own soul, and
that the regeneration of mankind keeps
198

The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
exact pace with the measure of spirituality
and purity which prevails in the Church of
Christ. Babylon, the counterfeit of the kingdom,
is doomed to inevitable destruction. Over
the sad end of a Church dominated by the
spirit of the world and which has finally
apostatized from Christ the worldly may say,
ill regretful lament, ' ' Alas, alas, that great
city;" the "merchants of the earth" may
' ' weep and mourn over her ; for no man buy-
eth their merchandise any more ; " but the
heavens rejoice. For Avhere there is per
manent alienation from God no real life can
survive : ' ' The voice of the bridegroom and
of the bride shall be heard no more at all in
thee." There can be no fruitful activity or
profitable labor, for ' ' the sound of a mill
stone shall be heard no more at all in thee."
There can be no inward illumination or safe
walking, for "the light of a candle shall
shine no more at all in thee."
3. Methods of Success Reiterated. — .After a
few words of exultant triumph over the fall
of Babylon, and the bright hopes for the
future of Christ's kingdom opened up
thereby, in which heaven and earth unite,
the apostle, before finally leaving the sub-
199

Revelation of Saint John
ject, points us again (in chapter xix) to the
weapons by which victory must be won.
Repeating what has been so often said by
him that the impression is made on us that
herein lies the central thought of the book,
but with a fullness of detail not previously
equaled and with a stress of emphasis which
guarantees the importance of the truth, he
asserts again that the conquering weapons
are "the blood of the Lamb" and "the
word of their testimony " (Rev. xii, 1 1 ; xix,
1 5). The cross and the Bible — these are
the means by which the world is to be over
come, these are the instruments through
which the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy
Ghost work, and with these the Christian
and the Church are sufficiently armed for
any conflict or adversary.
John saw '' heaven opened (verse 1 1), and
behold a white horse." Thus does the
Christ appear at the close of the conflict,
sitting upon the white horse of victory, just
as he appeared at the beginning when,
armed with the bow, "he went forth con
quering, and to conquer " (chap, -vi, 2). He
is described by the titles which he had at
tributed to himself in his letters to the seven
churches of Asia. He is here the ' ' Faithful
200

The Counterfeit of the Kingdom
and True ;" so had he written of himself to
Laodicea. ' ' In righteousness he doth
judge and make war; "to Philadelphia he
had called himself ' ' he that is holy, he that
is true." "His eyes were as a flame of
fire;" these very words he had written to
Thyatira. ' ' Out of his mouth proceedeth a
sharp sword;" to Pergamos he had spoken
of himself as the one having ' ' the sharp
sword." To Ephesus he had described him
self as the one that ' ' walketh in the midst
of the golden candlesticks [or churches] ; "
and here he is seen in company with the
armies of his followers. He had promised
Sardis that the faithful should walk with
him " in white;" here the saints with him
are " clothed in fine linen, white and clean."
To Smyrna he had said, ' ' I will give thee
a crown of life;" and here upon his head
are ' ' many crowns." He has a name which
all can read, "King of kings, and Lord of
lords," ruling (shepherding) the nations
with the iron staff of his power. But he
has also a name that no man knoweth ; for
he had himself said, " No man knoweth the
Son, but the Father." He is the Word of
God, the embodiment and utterance of the
Godhead's deepest thought and being, the
201

Revelation of Saint John
" brightness" of the Father's glory, " and
the express image of his person."
The weapons which he employs are dis
tinctly said to be the " sharp sword" that
goeth "out of his mouth," and the blood
by which he atoned for sin. The "sharp
sword "means, unquestionably, "the sword
of the Spirit," the word inspired by the
Spirit of truth, the Scriptures which testify
of him (John v, 39), the word by which we
are sanctified (John xvii, 17), the Bible of
revelation. By this word, "the breath of
his lips," he slays the wicked (Isa. xi, 4).
With this, " the spirit of his mouth," he
consumes the wicked one (2 Thess. ii, 8).
And the other weapon is his blood. He
is " clothed with a vesture dipped in blood."
' ' He treadeth the wine press of the fierce
ness and wrath of Almighty God." In no
way could the cross be more explicitly indi
cated. Lifted up from the earth upon it,
he draws all men unto himself. It is
"Christ crucified" who is the "power"
and " wisdom " of God. No weapons more
carnal than these does he employ; none
other do we need. By them the beast and
the false prophet are overcome,, and both
are " cast alive into a lake of fire."
202

PART VI
progressive Steps bs Mbfcb tbe "ffbeal
Iftingbom of Cbrist is to be 1Reali3eb

Progressive Steps

PART VI
Progfressive Steps by "Which the Ideal Kingdom
of Christ is to be Realized
The twentieth chapter of the Revelation
is one full of the most important matter.
It describes the stages through which the
kingdom of Christ must pass in order to at
tain its ideal state. The key to its solution
is to be found in a careful and close study of
the prophecy of Ezekiel, between which and
it so exact a parallelism exists that neither
can be understood without a comprehension
of the other. A just appreciation of this
fact would have precluded many of the
ingenious but untenable hypotheses which
have based themselves upon this section,
and will now serve to throw light upon what
seems obscure and almost undecipherable.
The Book of Ezekiel consists of two dis
tinct parts, the dividing line between which
is the siege and capture of Jerusalem. The
earlier part of the book is a record of the
many and gross idolatries and sins into
which Israel had been tempted and fallen.
The sum of these amounted to a spiritual
infidelity and adultery which justly deserved
206

Revelation of Saint John
the anger of Jehovah. And it was the sad
and painful task of the prophet to repeat the
solemn warnings with which he had been
intrusted of impending and terrible doom.
Succeeding this are denunciations by the
prophet of severe and crushing judgments
upon the surrounding nations, from whose
intercourse Israel has received deadly harm,
being corrupted by contact with them, both
in peace and war, and more especially in a
lowered spiritual life. This part of the
Book of Ezekiel comes to an end in chapter
xxxiii, 21, where the mournful announce
ment is made to the prophet that the pre
dicted blow had fallen : ' ' One that had es
caped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying.
The city is smitten." It was a conclusive
proof of his authority to be considered a
true prophet of God, but not less deplorable
on that account.
The remaining part of the book is taken
up with brighter themes. Out of the nettle,
danger, God has plucked the flower, safety.
The fall of Jerusalem, which seemed to in
volve its disappearance from history, is the
means of its salvation. The pages of the
prophet are bright with his predictions of
an Israel raised to a new and higher ideal,
206

Progressive Steps
and restored thereby to the favor of God.
The steps by which this happy condition is
to be brought about are successively un
folded .to us and occupy the book to its close.
The false shepherds (chapter xxxiv), the
unworthy and unfaithful rulers who, like
the thieves and hirelings of whom Jesus
spake (John x), fed themselves and cared
naught for the flock, are to be removed;
and God offers himself to be a shepherd to
Israel, searching his sheep, seeking them
out in the cloudy and dark day, binding up
that which was broken, and bringing again
that which was lost — a beautiful predictive
type of the Messiah, the good Shepherd who
laid down his life for the sheep.
In addition to this, the false prophets and
unsafe guides whom Israel had followed are
to be taken out of the way, and God prom
ises in their stead to put his Spirit within
Israel, cleansing them from all their filth-
iness and their idols and giving them a new
heart and a new spirit (xxxvi, 25-27). This
promise of spiritual regeneration is illus
trated by the vision of the valley of dry
bones (xxxvii, 1-14). At the word of the
prophet " the bones " which lay whitening
in the valley ' ' came together, bone to his
207

Revelation of Saint John
bone," assuming the form and appearing in
the likeness of men. But something more
than human preaching was required, for as
yet the forms were without life. Then the
"breath" of the Holy Spirit entered into
them, like the wind whose sound was heard
on the day of Pentecost, "and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding
great army " of actual and real men.
The first and closely foUo-wing result of
the spiritual resurrection thus -wrought by
the Holy Spirit was the reunion of Judah
and Ephraim (verses 15-28). These two
branches of Israel, unhappily disunited,
always suspicious of each other, often in
actual hostility, had by their division
brought reproach upon God's cause and had
subjected themselves to the disasters, op
pressions, and captivities which had marked
their history. Now the schism was to be
healed. They were to become one, so that
God could say again, "They shallbe my
people, and I will be their God." Then
shall follow a new era of unexampled peace,
prosperity, and productiveness. "David
my servant shall be king over them,"
"their prince forever." "My tabernacle
also shall be with them ; yea, I will be their
208

Progressive Steps
God, and they shall be my people. And
the heathen shall know that I the Lord do
sanctify Israel." The fulfillment of part of
this prophecy is distinctly declared by the
angel of God who announced to the Virgin
Mary concerning Christ (Luke i, 32), " The
Lord God shall give unto him the throne of
his father David : and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever ; and of his king
dom there shall be no end." Now it is a re
markable fact, of which use will hereafter be
made to clear up the mystery of one of the
obscurest parts of the Revelation of John,
that the reign of David and his descend
ants over the throne of Jerusalem was ex
actly one thousand years. In the year 1063
B. C. David was anointed king by Samuel
and won his first triumph in his memorable
overthrow of Goliath ; and in 63 B. C. Judea
became subject to Rome, and the royal su
premacy of David's line came to an end.*
The " scepter " then departed from Judah,
and the " lawgiver from between his feet."
Immediately following this remarkable
prophecy of Ezekiel is that concerning
"Gog, the land of Magog" (chapters
xxxviii, xxxix). He is instructed to say
* Dr. William Smith, New Testament History, p. 731.
14 209

Revelation of Saint John
to Gog, ' ' After many days thou shalt be
visited : in the latter years thou shalt come
into the land that is brought back from the
sword" (xxxviii, S); "Thou shalt ascend
and come like a storm " (xxxviii, 9) ; " Thou
shalt come up against my people of Israel"
(xxxviii, 16); nevertheless, in the thirty-
ninth chapter it is recorded, ' ' I am against
thee, O Gog" (xxxix, i); " Thou shalt fall
upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all
thy bands, and the people that is with thee :
I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of
every sort, and to the beasts of the field to
be devoured " (xxxix, 4) ; " Then shall they
[that is, Israel] know that I am the Lord
their God" (xxxix,, 28); "Neither will I
hide my face any more from them : for I
have poured out my Spirit upon the house
of Israel, saith the Lord God " (xxxix, 29).
Ezekiel closes his prophecies (chapters
xl-xlviii) ¦with his pictures of restored
Israel, its new ideal temple, and city, and
land. The lines of thought thus laid down by
the prophet of the Old Testament are so
closely followed by the author of the Apoca
lypse that there seems no other conclusion
left to us than that the parallelism of sub-
210

Progressive Steps
ject is intended to be as exact as is that of
language and imagery.
In the Apocalypse, too, "the faithful
city " (Isa. i, 21) has forfeited her faith and
' ' become an harlot. " The dire catastrophe
which the seer of the old dispensation saw
falling upon corrupt and apostate Jerusalem
has also fallen upon Babylon, the unfaithful
Church of the new. So, also, before the eyes
of the apostle, as well as those of the prophet,
there gleamed a vision of a restored Church,
pure and clean, descending from God out of
heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband.
How this vision is to be made real, how
that splendid city is to be brought into ex
istence of whose glories the eloquent figures
of the closing chapters inspire such lofty
conceptions, it remains for him to tell us,
in order that in all ages to come Christian
men may discern the paths along which they
must labor and the steps through which they
must ascend if their efforts are to be
crowned with favor and success.
How valuable a help the study of Ezekiel
affords us in the interpretation of the Apoca
lypse may be seen in the light which it
throws upon the subject of the ' ' thousand
years." The foundation of those theories
211

Revelation of Saint John
of a millennium which have taken such hold
upon the minds of men as to have per
ceptibly modified language and to have
made the word one of the commonplaces of
thought lies in the few verses which make
up the first half of the twentieth chapter.
There must be something peculiarly at
tractive about these theories and very much
in them accordant with our instinctive hopes,
since the paragraph in the text furnishes
but a narrow basis upon which to build a
superstructure so large. It is not easy,
moreo-ver, to understand why, in a book so
allegorical as is the Apocalypse, this para
graph should enjoy the exceptional dis
tinction of demanding a literal interpreta
tion, as would be the case if these theories
are admitted. Nevertheless, it is true that,
from very early ages in Christian history
until now, a belief in and expectation of a
personal and visible appearance and reign
upon earth of the Lord Je,sus Christ, inau
gurating with his saints a period, stretching
through a thousand years, of inconceivable
peace and prosperity, has been entertained
by many of his purest and most zealous fol
lowers, and has even been made the dis
tinguishing tenet of large bodies of men.
212

Progressive Steps
Whether these opinions are legitimately
based upon the text and how far a correct
exegesis compels us to accept them we must
now inquire, endeavoring in all fairness and
candor to so interpret the inspired words as
to make the various details of the para
graph consistent with each other and with
the rest of the sacred Scriptures.
Referring once more to the prophecy of
Ezekiel, we find the order of events there
described to be, first, a resurrection of
dry bones and a vivification of them into
men., then a united Church and people of
God, an undefined period of happy pros
perity, a restoration of the kingdom of
David, a combined assault upon this king
dom by hostile nations under the name of
Gog and Magog, and the complete and final
¦victory of the kingdom over them.
In the Apocalypse the same order is fol
lowed, with variation only in some details
of the picture. The only feature which
can be called new is that of the binding and
loosing of Satan ; and even this, by impli
cation, at least, is in Ezekiel. It is cer
tainly a reasonable presumption that the
same truths, whatever they are, were in
the mind both of the prophet and the
213

Revelation of Saint John
apostle, and were intended to be taught by
both. Now, if anything in the interpretation of
the Apocalypse may be relied on as valid
and beyond question it is that the reign of
Christ is not a future event, to be expected
at some day which has not yet dawned upon
earth, but is a present and existent fact.
That kingdom was inaugurated when the
Lord Jesus, having risen from the dead and
ascended to heaven, led captivity captive
and bestowed upon his followers the gift of
the Holy Spirit. When St. Paul in writing
to the Corinthians says, "He must reign,
till he hath put all enemies under his feet,"
surely the meaning is that he does now
reign and shall continue so to do until the
result is accomplished.
The mediatorial sovereignty of the Lord
Jesus Christ is, indeed, the one theme of
the whole book of Revelation. The con
summation and undisputed supremacy of
the kingdom has not been reached. It is in
its militant, not triumphant state. But im
perfection within and hostility without no
more affect the reality of its being, although
they may militate against its well-being,
than did treason within and war without
214

Progressive Steps
contravene the fact of the sovereignty of
David and his house over Judah. Into this
kingdom not a select number, but all the
true followers of Jesus are introduced.
They are " a royal priesthood." They are
"joint heirs with Christ." "We see not
yet," indeed, " all things put under him ; "
but we see Jesus ' ' crowned with glory and
honor;" and "he that sanctifieth and they
who are sanctified are all of one : for which
cause he is not ashamed to call them
brethren." Again, it may be accepted as almost an
axiom of interpretation that the resurrec
tion referred to in the words, ' ' They lived
and reigned with Christ," means a spiritual
change, and not a physical or bodily one.
It is synonymous with that epoch in the
Christian's life when he is delivered ' ' from
the power of darkness " and translated ' ' into
the kingdom of God's dear Son," that crisis
of spiritual existence which is called con
version or regeneration, when one is ' ' born
from above " and raised with Christ into
newness of life. The resurrection spoken
of is stated to be that of ' ' the souls of them
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus,
and for the word of God, and which had not
215

Revelation of Saint John
worshiped the beast, neither his image."
It is also called "the first resurrection,"
thus differentiating it from another and
subsequent resurrection of ' ' the rest of the
dead." This first resurrection, moreover,
exempts those who partake of it from the
power of " the second death," which is de
fined as the being ' ' cast into the lake of
fire." It separates them from " the rest of
the dead " — those who are dead "in tres
passes and sins," as they themselves once
were — who live not again until ' ' the thou
sand years" are finished.
We are now on sure ground. The mean
ing of this vision is that the mediatorial
kingdom of our Lord is to be established
on the earth, and that by the proper use of
those instrumentalities which have been
given into our hands, namely, the word of
God and the blood of the Lamb, it shall ad
vance in spite of all opposition and hin
drances, until all worldliness and false
prophetism shall be eliminated, until Christ
' ' shall have put down all rule and all au
thority and power," until " the kingdoms
of this world" shall become "the king
doms of our Lord, and of his Christ," and
' ' he shall have delivered up the kingdom
216

Progressive Steps
to God, even the Father," and the prayer
shall be fulfilled which daily ascends to the
throne of grace, " Thy kingdom come."
The millennium is now. We are living
in it. Its light shines but dimly, it is true,
but it will shine more and more until the
perfect day.
The period during which the saints shall
live and reign with Christ is stated to be
" a thousand years." Conjecture has been
rife as to why this number should be se
lected. Manifestly, here, at least, the year-
day theory, that which makes every day
mentioned in the book the symbol of a
year, breaks down. Otherwise, the period
would be too long; and none have been
found to maintain the opinion that the mil
lennium is to last three hundred and sixty-
five thousand years. Yet, to interpret the
expression literally, as if it meant exactly a
thousand of our years, would be to depart
entirely from the rule of the Apocalypse,
in which numbers are taken as symbols of
epochs, not as a measurement of duration.
There is no reason given why in this case
exception should be made to the constant
and unvarying use of days and months and
years in this book. 217

Revelation of Saint John
Here, again, reference to the book of
Ezekiel will dissolve the obscurity and pre
sent us with an explanation simple, con
sistent, and entirely in accordance with the
usage which elsewhere prevails in the
Apocalypse. In the description which Ezekiel gives of
the happy results which were to follow the
resurrection of the dry bones and the re
union of Israel, one of the particulars which
tenderly touched every Jewish heart was,
' ' David my servant shall be king over
them ; and they shall all have one shep
herd." Whether the prophet was himself
conscious of the full meaning of these words
or not, it is nevertheless the fact that it was
not in any merely earthly descendant of
David that this prediction was to be realized,
but in the Messiah, " great David's greater
Son." So, doubtless, the apostle of the
Apocalypse accepted it. And, inasmuch as
the sovereignty of David's house was, as has
previously been said, just one thousand
years, what more natural than that John
should see in this number the signature
and symbol of the reign of Christ? He
does not mean that the duration of that
reign shall be limited to a thousand years,
218

Progressive Steps
but that, be it longer or shorter, this num
ber is its symbol and emblem. Whatever
he mentions as taking place during the
thousand years is to be understood by us as
occurring during the progress of the media
torial kingdom of Christ from its commence
ment to its culmination. In the sight of
the divine Being the period between the
establishment of the kingdom and its com
plete and final triumph over all its foes, be
it longer or shorter, is the day of Christ, and
' ' one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day."
The moments or stages in the growth of
the kingdom are now to be specified.
I. Restraints upon the Power of Satan. —
There is one item in the revelation made to
John, and through him to us, which is pe
culiar to him. It is, indeed, implied in the
book of Ezekiel, but is not explicitly com
municated. This is the restraint which is
put upon the power of Satan. An angel is
seen to " come down from heaven, having
the key of the bottomless pit [the same
mentioned in chapter ix, i-i i] and a great
chain in his hand [see 2 Pet. ii, 4; Jude 6].
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old
serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and
219

Revelation of Saint John
bound him a thousand years. " ' ' When the
thousand years are expired, Satan shall be
loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to
deceive the nations;" but this loosing of
him, it is said, will be for only " a little
season" before his final destruction. As
the thousand years are a synonym for the
reign of Christ, the meaning is that during
the existent mediatorial sovereignty of
Christ Satan is debarred his full liberty.
His judgment has not, indeed, come, and
he still exists, but his activity is circum
scribed, and his power to hurt is limited and
curbed. It will be remembered that in the twelfth
chapter Satan was described under the em
blem of the dragon and his futile hostility
toward the woman was depicted. At the
close of the chapter we were told that ' ' the
dragon was wroth with the woman, and
went to make war with the remnant of her
seed." Since that time he has seemed to
disappear from mention and is directly al
luded to only occasionally. His place in
the drama of warfare has been taken by the
two wild beasts, his emissaries, in whom all
enmity against Christ and his followers has
been concentrated. Now that these have

Progressive Steps
been judged and consigned to their doom
and have in turn passed from the stage,
the apostle reverts to the evil one behind
and within them, whose subordinate agents
they were.
One of the noteworthy facts of the uni
verse brought to light mainly by this book
of Revelation, but fully corroborated by
other scriptures when attention is directed to
its quest, is the ambition of Satan to copy
and travesty the divine Being, both in
modes of manifestation and methods of
work. His abilities seem to lie, not in the
direction of originality, but of imitation.
He is not a creator or inventor, but a con
summate actor and a master of the art of
mimicry. As the Deity is revealed to us in
the triune personality of Father, Son, and
Spirit, so also there is a trinity of evil — the
dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.
And, again, during the continuance of
the mediatorial sovereignty of Christ estab
lished for the elimination of sin from the
universe the Father does not directly inter
pose, but has delivered all things into the
hands of the Son, and through him to the
Holy Spirit, whose instruments are the cross
and the Bible, and whose witnesses and me-
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Revelation of Saint John
morials are the two sacraments. In like
manner, there is an attempted imitation of
this on the part of Satan. His personal
agency in human affairs is confined within
narrow limits, not of his own will surely,
but by reason of him who hath subjected
him. Whatever influence his malignity and
deep-seated hatred of God can exert in order
to defeat the plans and purposes of redemp
tion is wielded mainly through his subordi
nates, the two wild beasts. He himself is
incarcerated in the abyss of darkness at the
will of his Master and Lord. He seems to
have been allowed personally to tempt
Christ ; but his arts were wasted, he lost the
field of battle, and must pay the penalty of
defeat. Referring to this, the Lord Jesus
said, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from
heaven ;" and again, " Now is the prince of
of this world cast out;" and again, "The
prince of this world is judged."
While, therefore, the opposition which
the Christian encounters, the temptations
which beset him, the evil against which he
must struggle proceed incipiently from the
great adversary, it is only the emissaries
and agents of the ruler of this world's
darkness whom he is called on personally
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to encounter. As God, in order to save
man, must become incarnate in human
flesh, so must Satan, in order to tempt,
embody himself in some earthly form.
The comforting assurance which Paul ad
ministered to the brethren of Corinth was,
' ' There hath no temptation taken you but
such as is common [that is, moderated] to
man." The work of the Lord Jesus Christ
extends some of its blessings to all the race
of mankind, to the disobedient as well as to
the faithful, and tempers the vicissitudes of
our mortal state to our capacity of enduring
them. It exempts us, though it did not
him, from exposure to Satan's unshackled
power. Satan himself is bound and shut
up in the pit. God's seal is on him, for he,
too, is the property of the divine Being.
And he deceives "the nations no more"
till the thousand years are fulfilled. Then
he is to be "loosed a little season," as we
shall see, prior to his overwhelming dis
comfiture and irretrievable defeat.
2 . Outpouring of the Holy Spirit under the
Emblem of Resurrection. — What has already,
in the interpretation of this part of the
Apocalypse, been said upon this question will
obviate the necessity for any long discussion
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Revelation of Saint- John
of it. Holding the prophecy of Ezekiel in
mind, we cannot but conclude that what
was meant to be taught by the resurrection
of the bones in the valley of vision is like
wise indicated by the expression, "They
lived and reigned with Christ." " This is
the first resurrection." As the resurrection
spoken of in Ezekiel was a striking emblem
of the power of the Holy Spirit to effect
spiritual regeneration, so are the words to
be taken here. The usage of describing re
generation by the emblem of a resurrection
is so common in the Scriptures that there is
no need to adduce illustrations of it. Nor
is there any need to dwell upon the analo
gies between the two or to draw out the im
portant lessons suggested thereby.
One truth, however, is so vital that it
must detain us a moment, namely, the ab
solute necessity for the supernatural agency
of the Holy Spirit in the inception of spirit
ual life. No one who believes in an actual
resurrection — that is, in one that is more
than figurative and spiritual, in a resurrec
tion which extends to man's complete being,
in a resurrection of the body, and not a
mere continuance of the life of the soul —
conceives that any natural agents in exist-
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ence, or, at least, within our knowledge,
are competent to produce it. The bodies
we have here are "terrestrial," brought
into and continued in existence by the
operation of natural laws. The body of the
resurrection, whatever its connection and
continuity with the present one, is confess
edly " a spiritual body." No forces within
the realm of nature are able to create life or
to restore it to that which has lost it. The
experience and observation of all the cen
turies fully establish this truth. Whether
our present bodies or souls come into exist
ence by traduction or direct creation is
another question ; but all Christians are
agreed that the resurrection of the body
must be effected by the direct action of God.
So, likewise, analogy would teach, must
it be with regeneration of the soul. That
change by which we are raised from the
death of sin to the life of God, that trans
formation by which we cease to be merely
citizens of earth and become citizens of
heaven, can be effected only by the direct
and supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit.
No material, earthly, or human forces are
sufficiently mighty to bring it to pass.
Plere God must specifically act — not as in
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Revelation of Saint John
other modes of his work, but by a distinct
exercise of power. Nor are we allowed to
conceive of entrance into the spiritual king
dom of God as the resultant of any process
of evolution or growth ; whatever prepara
tion is made for it, the spiritual life of the
soul begins in a special operation of the
Holy Spirit as specific and distinct as that
by which God ' ' breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life ; and man became a living
soul." The closing chapters of the sacred
Scriptures are in unison with the opening
ones of Genesis, and from the prelude to
the final "amen " there is one harmonious
melody. It must be remembered that John was a
witness to and a participant in the extraor
dinary effusion of the Holy Spirit on the
day of Pentecost. He speaks, therefore, of
that which he knew and testifies to that
which he had seen. While the results of
the transformation wrought in him are ap
parent to us, the fact of it was to him a mat
ter of consciousness. It is because he had
experienced the power of the Holy Spirit
that he declares the necessity for its exer
cise. And the stress laid upon this regen
erating agency of the Spirit in order that
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we may be made to live and reign with
Christ is no slight evidence that the man
who wrote the Apocalypse and he who re
corded the words of Christ, ' ' Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God," were one and the same person.
There is no warrant in Scripture for the
assumption that the descent of the Holy
Ghost upon the band of disciples in Jeru
salem was intended to be an anomalous
event and incapable of repetition. In the
form of manifestation possibly it was, and
in the accompanying signs ; but not in its
spirit and power. Our Lord plainly prom
ised to his disciples the abiding presence of
the Comforter to the end of the ages. But
that promise was and is conditional. The
Holy Ghost was not given until Jesus was
glorified, neither can he be now. The rec
ognition and reception of Christ as our
only hope and Saviour is the measure ac
cording to which the Spirit now imparts his
life. Nor can any definition or theory of
Christianity be accepted as correct in which
the atonement of Christ does not hold the
place of central principle. And in pro
portion as the crucified Christ is believed on
and accepted as the only name "given
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Revelation of Saint John
among men, whereby we must be saved,"
may richer and more abundant outpourings
of the Holy Spirit in his offices of regenera
tion and sanctification be expected.
3 . Union of Christian Believers. — There is
one particular and important item relating
to the coming of Messiah's kingdom which
is described with greater minuteness and
fullness of detail by Ezekiel than by the
writer of the Apocalypse. This is the unity
of the Church of God — a point upon which
the older prophet lays great stress. This
unity is set forth both as a direct result of
spiritual resurrection and as an essential ele
ment of preparation for the final conflict
with evil. By symbol and in word he
strongly emphasizes the declaration that, as
the sticks which he took became one stick
in his hand, so should Judah and Ephraim
be made one in God's hand. ' ' I will make
them one nation. . . . They shall be no
more two nations, neither shall they be
divided into two kingdoms any more at
all." All the Avounds of division shall be
closed and the scars of schism healed.
It cannot be said that this same truth is so
patent in the Revelation, but it is there by
justifiable inference. The fact that the
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saints live and reign with Christ implies
that the kingdom is a united one. The
union and fellowship of the saints with each
other, without division or alienation, is as
sumed. The obviousness of the truth was
sufficient reason for less explicitness of
statement. At any rate, if the apostle can
be accused of any omission here he made
ample amends in the prominence given to
the subject in the fourth gospel, in which he
records the prayer of our great High Priest,
' ' That they all may be one ; as thou.
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us : that the world may
believe that thou hast sent me."
The subject which thus opens out to us
is one of such absorbing interest as to de
mand ample consideration. If it be true,
as the words of the prophet and, indirectly,
of the apostle seem to indicate, that one re
sult of that spiritual quickening by the Holy
Spirit called conversion or regeneration is
to bring about union between all who call
themselves disciples of Christ, then that re
generation cannot be regarded as complete
or normal which does not produce fellow
ship with all other believers ; neither can
any Church be said to have attained a state in
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Revelation of Saint John
any great degree approaching its ideal which
is not in union with the whole Church of
Christ. And, in addition, any instrumen
talities we may employ in order to bring
about the conversion of the world must be
ineffectual, or, at least, greatly shorn of their
influence, until there exists in the Christian
world a unity which finds its example and the
source of its power in the divine nature.
Upon this important question there is
entire consentience of opinion among the
inspired evangelists and apostles of the New
Testament. They record their conviction
that Caiaphas was speaking as a true prophet
of God, however faulty his motives in so
doing, when he said that Jesus should die
in order to "gather together in one the
children of God that were scattered abroad."
Appreciating the immense loss of power
which had resulted from the schism be
tween Judah and Ephraim, a loss felt even
more severely in the moral than in the po
litical -v^orld, they strove with all their
might to prevent a like division between the
Jewish and Gentile converts to Christ. Nor
did they cease their efforts, although laying
themselves open to the imputation of incon
sistency, until finally the matter became
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one of life or death to Christianity. With
a tenacity which appears to us akin to ob
stinacy, they clung to the hope that the
Je-wish nation would accept Christ as Mes
siah and King, that the old Church Avould,
under the transforming power of the Holy
Spirit, merge into the new as the dawn
melts into the day, and that thus the con
tinuity of history would be preserved.
There can be no q-iiestion that the rejec
tion of Jesus as Saviour by his own people
was a serious disaster. It created a division
among those who believed in a living God,
a personal Providence, and broke the unity
of their testimony in the court of mankind.
It sent Christianity out to its work heavily
handicapped; and acute opponents, like
Celsus and Porphyry, were not slow to avail
themselves of the advantage it gave them.
Nor has the loss of power therefrom accru
ing been recovered to this day. The event
is sufficient justification for the wise con
servatism which marked the actions of the
apostles. As little room can there be now for ques
tion that the divided, distracted, segmen
tary condition of Christendom, with the
animosities, envies, sectarianism, undue
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Revelation of Saint John
exaltation of non-essentials, concentration
of efforts upon things of minor importance,
and cultivation of bigotry caused thereby,
operates as a most active factor in shearing
the religion of Christ of its legitimate in
fluence. Nor could increase of power
within and superiority to the world without
be brought about so quickly by any means
as by a unity of believers — such unity as the
New Testament inculcates. This state
ment in no degree conflicts with the uniform
declaration of the Scriptures that the word
of God and the blood of Christ are the two
all-important and all-sufficient agencies for
the furtherance of the kingdom ; it only
asserts that the Bible ahd the cross will
not have accomplished their purpose until
such unity shall have followed their accept
ance. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, no less
emphatically affirms with all his authority
the necessity of this union. A careful study
of his epistles will show that he di-vides the
religious history of the world into three dis
tinct periods — Judaism, Gentilism, and a
final period in which these shall be united.
First was Judaism, which began -with
Abraham, the pioneer and father of such
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as believe in a living, personal God. It
ran its course, fulfilled its mission, and had
attained what Paul calls ' ' the fullness of
times" when "God sent forth his Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, to
redeem them that were under the law."
The office of Judaism in the role of redemp
tion was to bear witness to the supernatural.
The Jew believed thoroughly in God as the
Creator, the Providence over nature, the
Ruler and Judge of mankind ; in God as a
person distinct from nature and supreme
over it. He fully recognized the obligation
of the commandment, ' ' The Lord our God
is one Lord ; and thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thine heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy might. " But he
exalted the supernatural so highly as to put
an impassable chasm between God and his
creatures. The immanent presence of God
in nature was lost sight of in the concep
tion of his transcendency over it. An in
carnation of the Deity and, above all, any
such contact of God with humanity as to
admit of the possibility of his suffering was
abhorrent to the mind of the Jew. And so
when Christ came to his own as the Word
"made fiesh"his own received him not.
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Revelation of Saint John
And, with his foot almost upon the throne
of the world, the Jew stumbled and fell.
Following this period, in Paul's concep
tion, was that of Gentilism, which has
also its peculiar mission, runs its destined
course, and has its times of fullness toward
which it tends (Rom. xi, 2 5). This was also
the conception of Christ himself ; for he had
said, ' ' Jerusalem shall be trodden down of
the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles
be fulfilled " (Luke xxi, 24).
The mission of the heathen Gentilism lay
in the sphere of nature and humanity. With
all the beauty, grace, order, motion, and
life of the world the Gentile was in sym
pathy. His defect was that he rose no
higher. The gods he believed in were
simply human and natural forces personified
and exalted. His need was to be impressed
vividly with the conception of the reality of
the supernatural and to recognize the
divine Being above and beyond man and
the world.
To meet the needs of all classes of hu
manity God has employed those two great
instrumentalities to which reference is so
constantly made in the Revelation of St.
John — on the one hand, the Bible, the
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written word, the sword of the Spirit, with
its intense realization of the presence and
power of God in nature and history ; on the
other, the cross, the blood of the Lamb,
with its rich testimony to the fact that
" God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever be-
lieveth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life."
It was Paul's confident and inspiring be
lief that when the fullness of the Gentiles
should have come there would be a union of
all believers in God ; ' ' and so all Israel
shall be saved." And this is the truth to
which the writer of the Apocalypse bears
witness in his vision of the saints who
"lived and reigned with Christ" in one
united and concordant kingdom.
If, then, the attainment of so desirable
and blessed a result as that of the consum
mation of Christ's kingdom upon earth is
contingent upon the unity of believers it
surely behooves the disciples of Christ to
labor more earnestly than ever before for
this unity. The magnitude of the result is
worth the sacrifices needed to gain it.
In what this unity shall consist, in what
sense believers are to be one, is a question
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Revelation of Saint John
upon which lawful difference of opinion
may be allowed, and it is to be settled only
by a sympathetic and careful study of the
Scriptures. But as to the mode of its at
tainment and as to what must precede its
realization the Bible is sufficiently precise
and explict. It will not be secured by a
conventional agreement to accept any com
mon and universal symbol, sacrament, or
organization; unity means something too
vital for that. It will not be founded upon
the basis of any past fact, upon any his
torical creed or institution or order of min
istry ; unity is something akin to life, and
life is progressive, anticipative, not retro
spective. The Jewish people were of one
common lineage, having the same fathers,
the same oracles, the same institutions, but
it was by no chain descending from past
times that they were held in unity ; as soon
as the hope of a future Messiah vanished
their past associations became a rope of
sand. The Lord Jesus Christ has himself most
plainly and authoritatively announced to
us the processes by which alone this unity
can be attained. In the ever memorable
words of his prayer as our great High
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Progressive Steps
Priest he said, " Sanctify them through
thy truth : thy word is truth," and then al
most immediately added, ' ' That they all
may be one." The unity which he an
ticipated and now desires is one that mUwSt
be preceded by sanctification. This is fully
in accordance with the prophecy of Ezekiel,
for the union by which Judah and Ephraim
were made one was preceded by the resur
rection to life which occurred when the dry
and withered bones had been breathed upon
by the Spirit. And, in the paragraph of
the Apocalypse now under consideration, it
was only after the souls of the witnesses
and followers of Jesus had been raised by
the first resurrection that they lived and
reigned with Christ. Nor can any unity
be real which is not preceded by a spiritual
resurrection from the death of sin into new
ness of life through the power of the Holy
Spirit. What is here said of unity as applied to
the body of believers is equally applicable
to each individual. The kingdom of Christ
does not reach its designed consummation
in the individual until the heart is united
to fear the name of the Lord. The exclu
sion or omission of any part of our composite
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Revelation of Saint John
nature from the sanctifying influences of the
Holy Spirit in so far mars the integrity and
concord of the kingdom and is below its ideal.
Entire sanctification is, as has been said by
John Fletcher, a constellation made up by
the union of all the graces in a glorious
galaxy. And St. Paul teaches us that it is
only when we shall ' ' come in the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son
of God," that we shall have attained " unto
a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ."
4. Final Triumph over the Carnal Mind, or
Barbarism. Emblem of Gog and Magog. —
With this glorious picture of the outpouring
of the Spirit and the complete union of the
Church of Christ in his mind, the apostle
passes on to the decisive conflict and crown
ing victory of the kingdom. "When the
thousand years are expired," he says,
"Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
and shall go out to deceive the nations."
It is worthy of note that the word which
is used by St. John for " expired " is the
same used in the fourth gospel in several
important and significant places, although
differently translated. It is found in the
prayer of Jesus (John xvii, 23) in connection
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with the thought of unity, as in the section
of the Revelation just considered, and is
there rendered "may be made perfect."
It is found in the same prayer (John xvii,
4), and is used by our Lord in speaking of
his active work upon earth, being there
translated "have finished." It is also re
corded by St. John as being one of our
Lord's exclamations while on the cross
(John xix, 30), and is there also rendered
"finished." From these uses of the word the infer
ence is very reasonable that it signifies, not
so much the termination of a period of du
ration, as the completion of a process. The
thousand years may be said to have expired,
not at the close of any number of years of
time, but whenever the ends for which the
kingdom of Christ is established are at
tained. Until those purposes are accom
plished the power of Satan is restrained and
he is not allowed to exercise the full measure
of his strength. He who makes " the
wrath of man " to praise him, while ' ' the re
mainder of wrath " he restrains, guards his
Church and his servants as " a garden in
closed." History and experience furnish many an
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Revelation of Saint John
example of the providence that shelters and
shields the infancy and immaturity of
Churches and believers until adult strength
has acquired power to resist. The storm
that bends the reed will not move the sturdy
oak ; and one ' ' rooted and grounded in
love " can withstand blasts that would be
disastrous to the growing and tender shoot.
All progress in human laws, in fact, tends
to surround the evil-disposed with increas
ing restraints, in order that the weak and
helpless and inexperienced may have an
equal chance to develop their individuality.
But at the expiration of this period, we
are told, Satan is allowed to go forth to de
ceive the nations. The writer of the Apoca
lypse describes the final assault of Satan
upon Christ's kingdom under the emblem,
so often quoted and so much misunder
stood, of Gog and Magog. In so doing he
draws again upon Ezekiel ; and if we wish
to ascertain the meaning of both the apostle
and the prophet we must revert to the cir
cumstances under which the prophecy was
originally given, and must, in this instance,
have recourse to history.
Not long prior to the time of Ezekiel
there had occurred a sudden and terrible
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irruption of barbarians into the civilized
parts of the world, which had caused wide
spread alarm and terror and shaken to its
base the fabric of society which had through
preceding centuries been laboriously built
up. An immense horde of Scythians, in
the rudest stage of savagery, without pity
or regard for class, sex, age, or condition,
with intense contempt for and hatred of
those arts of refinement which they were
incapable of appreciating, broke loose from
their primitive home and, sweeping down
through Asia, overwhelming cities and em
pires, threatened to destroy every vestige
of literature, order, and religion and to turn
the world back to chaos and anarchy.
Happily their onward course was arrested
before the injury they caused had become
irreparable. From this circumstance the
name Gog, which was that of the horde, be
came the symbol of barbarism, and was
used as such both by the prophet of the Old
Testament and the apostle of the Revelation.
The truth which is intended to be pre
sented is the possibility of an inroad of that
barbarism from which no age is free and
from which the most imminent peril to
Christianity is to be dreaded. There is in
16 241

Revelation of Saint John
every human being, however ci-vilized, a
germ of barbarism, a strain of savagery,
which though repressed by education, by
culture, or by law, is not destroyed by
them, and which under favoring con
ditions may become the ruling principle of
life. In every community of men there will
be found some who represent the highest
stage which the community has reached;
but there will be found some who remain in
the most rudimentary condition of barbar
ism. It is the struggle between these op
posing elements which makes the life of the
community. Gog and Magog do not represent heathen
ism, which is simply a lower form of re
ligion capable of being improved by the in
creased light of the Gospel. They represent
the spirit of barbarism, which opposes itself
to every form of religion, lurking as the dark
shadow which waits upon all civilization,
ready to manifest itself whenever the power
which hinders its manifestation relaxes its
vigilance. And unhappily there are, even
in civilized and Christian countries, institu
tions allowed to remain whose only result
is to foster the tendency toward barbarism,
whose purpose is to feed the lower sensual
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Progressive Steps
appetites and passions that are at war alike
with law, education, culture, and religion,
and between which and the kingdom of
Christ must be perpetual antagonism until
one or the other shall be exterminated. The
study of history will reveal the fact that
times occur in the life of nations when the
tendency to revert to barbarism asserts itself
m unusual strength, when the normal move
ment upward and onward is arrested, and
the forces which drag men downward pre
dominate temporarily.
It is such times and conditions of which
Satan avails himself to show his most malig
nant power. With all such tendencies he is
in closest alliance, and in the effort to in
tensify them finds his most congenial em
ployment. It is a mournful fact that the
impulse toward the higher and better is not
the only one to be found in man or in any
creature ; we must take into the account the
opposite fact of the tendency to revert to
lower and baser levels. Indeed, it is not
uncommon to notice that an unusual move
ment in one direction seems to originate an
almost equal one in the opposite. Nor can
there be any guarantee that the higher and
purer faculties shall assert their legitimate
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Revelation of Saint John
sway except in the promised guidance and
help of God. In individual experience,
even after long and faithful ser-vice and
growth, there will come at times sudden
suggestions and temptations which reveal
the existence of desires and passions we had
supposed extinct, but which have been kept
down only by God's grace and our unceas
ing watchfulness ; such also is the case with
the larger aggregations of men into com
munities and societies. And the price we
must pay for liberty is eternal vigilance.
The barbarian is, indeed, a man ; the es
sential elements of humanity lie in him as
in all men. But there are properties which
belong to the lowest states of society which
constitute a differential characteristic and
which disappear or, at least, become dor
mant when growth and culture take place.
The barbarian is an intense realist. He
dwells in the region of facts — such facts as
are discoverable by his physical nature
only. Of sentiment, of ideals, he knows
nothing and cares less. Such things as
these are spiritually discerned, and he is a
natural man only. Of that unseen ether
which lies around the bare and bald facts
of life, connecting them with the divine and
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Progressive Steps
eternal source of things, of those loftier
visions of the true, the beautiful, the good
which fill the mind of the cultured with in-
tensest delight, he has no conception. His
delights and employments are sensual and
low, and the end of all of his energies is to
gratify them. Arcadian simplicity fades
away with increased geographical and eth
nological knowledge.
The only forces which the barbarian ap
preciates, therefore, are the mechanical and
physical. With him might is right. Of
the power of spiritual forces he has the most
inadequate notions until he finds how weak
his cunning and artifice are in the presence
of civilization. Of that sacrifice and renun
ciation of self for the sake of love of which
the cross of Christ is the summit and crown
ing example and in which is the demonstra
tion of the power and wisdom of God he is
incapable of appreciation until the Holy
Spirit breaks the chain with which Satan
has bound him ; and then he ceases to be a
barbarian. Clovis spake the real feeling of
the savage, even when baptized, in exclaim
ing, ' ' Had I been there with my Franks
they should not have nailed Jesus to the
cross." 245

Revelation of Saint John
By profession the barbarian is a soldier.
He knows somewhat of the power of weap
ons of war and but little else. The me
chanical and industrial pursuits by which
society is bound together are objects of
scorn to him. He has profound contempt
for labor as beneath his pride. The aris
tocracy he admires is built on idleness and
bloodshed, not on toil or skill or honest
work. Barbarians divide themselves on national
lines alone. The broad humanity which
overlaps territorial boundaries, or a patriot
ism which can embrace all mankind and rec
ognize a universal brotherhood, the bar
barian is not able to comprehend, or else he
despises the notion as silly and puerile. He
has no consideration of any ties save those
of kinship, if, indeed, fully of these. All
within this limit may not be friends; but
certainly all without are enemies, for whose
welfare he need have no regard and whose
rights he does not recognize.
And because of these things the stage of
barbarism is politically that of socialism, of
that form of it in which the indi-vidual has
no value or right of independent thought or
action, except as the clan or tribe or com-
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Progressive Steps
munity may confer them. The discernment
of the real worth of man is the gift of the
religion of Jesus. In its teaching that the
blood of Christ has been shed for the re
demption of all mankind, that the manifes
tation of the Spirit has been given to every
one, and that, therefore, it is not allowed to
call any man common or unclean, it has
laid the only solid foundation upon which
true liberty, independence, self-respect, and
the highest enjoyments of life can be
based. How rife this spirit of barbarism is, even
in societies and States called civilized and
Christian, a moderate degree of observation
will prove. It is to be understood, of course,
that to say a tendency exists in mankind to
revert to barbarism is far from saying that
such a tendency is likely to predominate.
In pointing out the dangers which beset
civilization the Bible does by no means
countenance despondency or encourage
doubt as to the future of history. It indi
cates perils for the purpose of inciting us to
the use of the means which it suggests for
avoiding them. The spirit of the Bible is
one of most cheerful hope as to the outcome
of the conflict between good and evil ; and
247

Revelation of Saint John
nowhere is the tone of assurance stronger
than in the Revelation.
But we shall be very unwise if we shall
neglect to guard against those symptoms
of danger which are manifesting them
selves. The persistent attempts to reduce
literature and poetry and art to a barbaric
realism, dragging into light lusts and pas
sions which modesty, culture, and religion
hide from view; the disposition, which
seems to increase, to make the boundaries
of States and empires coincide with kinship
of race, and thus to limit men's interests
and aspirations to their own nationalities ;
the multiplication of armies and the con
version of kingdoms into camps, in which
every citizen must be a soldier ; the fearful
increase of destructive dynamitism and an
archy; the employment of the most ad
vanced science and education in the inven
tion and improvement of machines of war ;
the growth of that form of socialism which
denies all individualism of property, family,
and labor — these are indications of that
proneness to barbarism from which man
kind is not yet free, and from which it will
not be free until the world comes into the
enjoyment of the liberty of Christ.
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Progressive Steps
The keen eye of the apostle discerned,
even in the apparently secure age in which
he lived, the signs of coming perils and
dangers; and against these, men and
Churches of all ages have had to struggle.
The battle of Christ with Magog is part of
that conflict with the carnal man that rages
in the heart of every Christian, as well as
in the world at large. Happily, however,
we know from the pen of inspiration the
full measure of danger to be apprehended,
and may rest in the as,surance that Satan
has no other appliances of mischief in re
serve when these are exhausted.
It will be noted that the apostle says, in de
scribing the assault of Gog and Magog upon
the kingdom of Christ, " They went up on
the breadth of the earth, and compassed the
camp of the saints about, and the be
loved city." A distinction is made between
the "city," which symbolizes the Church,
and the circumjacent " camp," which is in
terposed as a bulwark between it and the
enemy, and which may be regarded as rep
resenting law, education, government, and
other conservative forces of the world.
There lies in this a thought characteristic
of the profound mind of the beloved apos-
249

Revelation of Saint John
tie. In a sense most true and deep. Chris
tians are " the salt of the earth." The in
terests of humanity are bound up with the
welfare of the kingdom. In fighting the
battles of God the Church is guarding the
welfare of mankind. The bark of Chris
tianity carries man and all his fortunes.
Barbarism is the common enemy of govern
ment and of religion, and in striving to
injure one strikes at the other. Gog and
Magog are antagonistic to the " city" and
the encircling " camp " alike. In resisting
the emissaries and allies of Satan Christian
ity is struggling for the benefit of civiliza
tion and safeguarding all earthly good,
even as its Master died not for his own na
tion only, but for all men dispersed over
the globe. For its own sake, if not out of
regard for religion, society should jealously
prohibit any infringement of divine law.
" Happy is that people, whose God is the
Lord." On the other hand, it is a matter of pro
foundest importance to the cause of religion
that it shall maintain the order and pros
perity of the community. No Christian can
be indifferent to the welfare of the State in
which he lives. As he dares not allow him-
250

Progressive Steps
self in his own personal experience to watch
without concern any indications of the
growth of the carnal mind, neither can he
be listless or apathetic when opinions de
structive to society are spreading abroad.
The attacks upon governments are but the
prelude to assaults upon religion. Again
and again has ' ' the earth helped the
woman," and resistance to lawlessness and
anarchy been preservative of the existence
of the Church. However far any estab
lished government may fall below the ideal,
it is yet better than none. " The powers
that be are ordained of God," although
Nero may wield the scepter. Forms of
government are subject to change and may
be altered in order to conform to higher
ideals; but the existence of government
itself is essential to the fulfillment of the
purposes of God.
But, however formidable the assault, the
apostle does not allow any fears of defeat to
eclipse his hope for the future. Victory,
however long deferred, is sure to come at
last to the Christian and to the Church.
"Be of good cheer," the Lord said; "I
have overcome the world." The weapons
he has put into our hands are amply suffi-
251

Revelation of Saint John
cient for our needs, nor are any agencies
necessary beyond those with which he has
supplied us.
' ' Fire came down from God out of heaven,
and devoured them." The "fire" here
is undoubtedly the fire of the Holy Ghost,
the baptism from above of which John the
Baptist spake when he said, " He [the
Christ] shall baptize you with the Holy
Ghost and with fire." There came, it may
be, to the apostle, when he wrote these
words, memories of an incident of his life
(Luke ix, 51-56). In his anger at the in
hospitable Samaritans, with a spirit of vin
dictiveness at the insult to his Master, he
had said, "Lord, wilt thou that we com
mand fire to come down from heaven, and
consume them, even as Elias did?" How
quickly followed the sharp rebuke of the
Lord Jesus, ' ' Ye know not what manner of
spirit ye are of." The weapons Christ uses
are not carnal, but spiritual. The fire
which is to devour Gog and Magog is the
Holy Spirit who descended upon the Church
at Pentecost. The destruction which awaits
them is that of their sins and animosity, not
of their persons , The Spirit of truth when
he comes reproves the world " of judg-
262

Progressive Steps
ment, because the prince of this world is
judged." And both the struggle and the victory
are for each individual believer, as well as
for the Church at large. "We know that
whosoever is born of God sinneth not ; but
he that is begotten of God keepeth himself,
and that wicked one toucheth him not."
"Ye are of God, little children, and have
overcome them : because greater is he that
is in you, than he that is in the world."
Thus the consummation to which the
apostolic seer looked forward is reached at
last. The Lamb into whose hands the do
minion of all things was committed has pre
vailed. He has ' ' put down all rule and
all authority and power." " He [that is,
God] hath put all things under his feet."
Principalities and powers are ' ' subject unto
him." He who was lifted up upon the
cross is now on the "great white throne."
The Father, he himself had said, gave him
"authority to execute judgment also, be
cause he is the Son of man." The time of
the fulfillment of this promise has come.
Death, " the last enemy," is destroyed.
The gates of Hades have no longer power
to resist the forces of the kingdom of Christ.
253

Revelation of Saint John
Nothing that is hostile to him can look upon
his face. Daniel's prophecy has been
brought to pass. " The iron, the clay, the
brass, the silver, and the gold " are " broken
to pieces together, " and become "like the
chaff of the summer threshing floors;" and
the wind has "carried them away," that no
place is " found for them." The kingdom
which the God of heaven has set up has
consumed all other kingdoms and stands for
ever (Dan. ii, 35, 44; vii, 13, 14).
But there is one thought developed in the
closing paragraph of chapter xx which de
serves a moment's consideration. It is that
in the relation which men and things sustain
to the Lord Jesus Christ lies the true test of
character and the standard of future, as well
as present judgment. " Set for the falland
rising again of many in Israel," through
him "the thoughts of many hearts" are
revealed (Luke ii, 34, 35). He is, as has
been aptly said, the touchstone of human
hearts. And it will be by the " inasmuch as
ye did " or " did it not " unto him that the
final sentence on men will be determined.
This truth is set forth in the expression,
" the book of life." " Whosoever was not
found written in the book of life was cast
2.54

Progressive Steps
into the lake of fire." In the prophecy of
Daniel, to which there is evidently refer
ence in this paragraph, mention is made of
"books" that " were opened." The writer
of the Apocalypse also alludes to the
' ' books " that ' ' were opened." But he adds
to this that " another book was opened,
which is the book of life;" and in chapter
xxi, 27, he calls it "the Lamb's book of
life." It is apparent that this additional
standard of judgment belongs to the New
Testament dispensation and is something
ha-ving relation to the specific work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has this in mind
in saying (i Cor. xvi, 22), "If any man
love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be
Anathema Maran-atha." The Saviour had
given a foreshadowing of the same truth in
telling his disciples, ' ' Whosoever therefore
shall confess me before men, him will I
confess also before my Father which is in
heaven." We hear an echo of this in the
epistle to Sardis (Rev. iii, 5): "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 con
fess his name before my Father, and before
his angels." The same truth is indicated
256

Revelation of Saint John
by John in his first epistle (i John v, 12):
' ' He that hath the Son hath life ; and he
that hath not the Son of God hath not life."
The character of men is not to be esti
mated solely by their actions, and to make
destiny depend upon them would hardly be
just. Every act, whether of word or deed,
has its own standard of judgment. That
which determines its quality as good or bad
is its fitness or unfitness to its designed end ;
in this consists its conformity with its ideal.
A moral agent has, however, another stand
ard of judgment. Goodness or badness in
his case is determined by the conformity of
his motives, purposes, and intentions with
his ideal, which is the fulfillment of the will
of his Creator. Not only what he does, but
why he does it, enters into the estimate of
his moral character. A perfect man would
be one in whom faith in the Son of God and
experimental knowledge of him are in
unison, one whose conduct springs out of a
living faith, and in whom a correct faith is
translated into actual and complete right
eousness of conduct.
It is a fact that upon the fundamental
principles of ethics the great religions of the
earth do not differ so much from each other
2B6

Progressive Steps
as presumption leads us to anticipate. This
agreement of the moral codes occasions sur
prise and even perplexity upon the first ap
preciation of the fact. But the explana
tion is simple and easy. These codes are
largely the result of observation upon the
established and permanent laws of the
universe, deductions frolm facts with which
testimony, reason, and consciousness make
men acquainted. The data being the same,
the conclusions reached are closely similar.
It is the motive power which they.bring
to bear upon men in order to induce them
to actual realization of and conformity to
their moral convictions that determines the
superiority or inferiority of religions. That
which constitutes the distinguishing char
acteristic of Christianity and gives it its
immense preeminence over all other forms
of religious belief is that it reveals to us
the cross of Christ as the greatest motive
power that can operate in human nature.
To depreciate or ignore the atonement is
to leave out the differentiating element of
the religion of Jesus. " He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life: and he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life •
but the wrath of God abideth on him "
17 257

Revelation of Saint John
(John iii, 36). " We must all be made man
ifest before the judgment seat of Christ ;
that each one may receive the things done
in the body " (2 Cor. v, 10, Revised Ver
sion). Wherever, indeed, the full revela
tion of the Lord Jesus Christ has not been
given to men they are to be judged by " the
law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness" (Rom. ii, 15). But
where the revelation has been made it is in
likeness to him that the test of character
lies. -And for the final determination of
destiny there must be, not only the books
of words and deeds, but also the " Lamb's
book of life." 258

PART vn-
Ube IFbeal of tbe TRingbom

The Ideal of the Kingdom

PART VII
The Ideal of the Kingdom
By these long steps has the holy apostle
brought us, through this wonderful record
of perils, conflicts, defeats, victories, judg
ments, and blessings, to the conclusion
toward which he has from the commence
ment been tending ; and in the two chap
ters which close the book he depicts the
ideal and perfect kingdom of Christ as it
appeared in his conception of it. As Eze
kiel in his lonely captivity by the Chebar
was comforted with anticipations of a new
Canaan and a new temple, wherein Israel,
purified by its sufferings and cleansed from
idolatry, should enjoy renewed and uninter
rupted communion with Jehovah, so was
the exiled apostle of Patmos gladdened with
a prophetic foresight of new heavens and
a new earth in which righteousness shall
dwell, not as a wayfarer or one that tarrieth
for a night, but as a permanent and eter
nal inhabitant. For the instruction of all
the generations to follow John presents
his inspired conception of what the king
dom of Christ in its purest and final form
261

Revelation of Saint John
is, whether it be conceived as existing in
the heart of an individual believer, or as
synonymous with the Church, the body of
believers. We are certainly not compelled, and it
may seriously be questioned whether we
are allowed, to interpret the concluding
chapters of the Apocalypse as a vision of
the future heaven which awaits the just, of
the glorified and celestial state of believers
who have passed through the trials of earth
and have entered into their final reward.
The probabilities are very strong that it is
rather the vision of a redeemed and purified
earth, the victory which shall result here
from the complete ascendancy of Christ,
which is presented to our faith and hope.
This interpretation of the vision would give
consistency and unity to the book. It would
account for the discrimination which is cer
tainly made between the "city" and the
nations which " walk in the light thereof,"
and also for the statement that the leaves of
the tree of life are ' ' for the healing of the
nations; " and it is confirmed by the fact
that in his first epistle, which was probably
written subsequently to the Apocalypse,
John declared that it had not been revealed
262

The Ideal of the Kingdom
or made manifest to him at that time what
we shall be when Christ shall be manifested
to us in his heavenly glory (i John iii, 2) —
a statement hardly to be reconciled with
truth if the vision of the Apocalypse is to
be taken as a revelation of the heavenly
state. The careful student will not fail to ob
serve that upon all questions relating to the
life beyond the grave the Bible preserves a
marked reticence; nor is there any more
impressive evidence of its divinity than
this. To gratify a curiosity which might
easily become morbid is no part of its ob
ject and might defeat its more practical
purpose. While, therefore, it shows us the
rent veil and opens the curtain sufficiently
to reveal to us a world lying beyond, it does
not allow us to penetrate further or uncover
to us the mysteries hidden therein. It is
enough for us to know that a way leads
from the holy place to the holy of holies,
and that Christ is that way, the life of the
world beyond as he is of this, and the truth
and reality of both alike. It is not certain
that a revelation to us of the glories of the
celestial state would realize to us the satis
faction we anticipated. Even were a reve-
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Revelation of Saint John
lation made to us in terms which we were
able to grasp and comprehend, that which
would be blissful to our glorified and trans
formed faculties might not seem so to our
earthly ones, and the revelation might be
come rather a stumbling-block than a stim
ulus. We know that the prophecies con
cerning the Messiah in the Old Testament
were not only obscure, but even seemed to
involve contradictions, which, however, his
advent in the flesh explained and recon
ciled. This may be the case also in regard
to the future state of the blessed. And God
is no less merciful, doubtless, in what he
withholds than in what he imparts.
It is the ideal kingdom of Christ here in
its perfect and completed form, and not the
glorified realm above, which John so ex
quisitely describes. The imagery he uses
to adumbrate it may be glowing, but it is
not beyond what may be gathered, though
in less poetic dress, from other parts of the
Scriptures. Even should it be conceded
that the picture is simply an ideal one, a
dream of beauty not meant to be realized,
in fact, something the attainment of which
lies beyond the possibilities of this mortal
life, still the presentation to us of the per-
264

The Ideal of the Kingdom
feet state can not be without its uses of
help and comfort.
But it was not the cast of John's mind to
be pleased with imagined fancies. It has
been well said (in Guesses at Truth) that ' ' in
character, in affection, the ideal is the only
real." It is not without reason that John
has so elaborately described the agencies
with which Christ has so amply endowed his
Church and his disciples, and which are suf
ficient, if rightly used, to reduce to actual
experience all that is portrayed as ideal.
In one of those graphic sketches which
connect the Apocalypse so closely with the
gospels John convinces us that it is fact,
and not fancy, which has been engaging his
pen. At the beginning of his ministry
upon earth Christ, we are told, was taken
to "an exceeding high mountain," whence
" all the kingdoms of the world, and the
glory of them," were shown him ; and Satan
said to him, ' ' All these things will I give
thee, if thou ¦wilt fall down and worship
me." From this temptation the Master re
coiled with indignant rebuke. Instead
thereof, he chose deliberately the path of
suffering and privation, the path that led
to the garden and the cross, to Gethsemane
266

Revelation of Saint John
and Calvary. With full appreciation of all
it involved, he took the cup put into hi?
hands by the Father. In the closing scenes
of the Apocalypse the battle is supposed to
have been fought, the conflict has ceased,
and now John himself stands, as Christ had
stood, upon "a great and high mountain;"
and, behold, there was shown him "that
great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending
out of heaven from God." The cross has
conquered, and the kingdoms of the earth
have become the possession of our Lord and
of his Christ. And he who himself over
came the world has given assurance to all
his followers, however humble, that they,
too, may be victors.
Theories of the Church and kingdom of
Christ, definitions of their nature and mis
sion, abound. Many have taken on them
to specify the notes or characteristic marks
by which the true Church may be identi
fied. It cannot, therefore, fail of interest
or profit to learn what the holy St. John,
the inspired apostle who leaned on the
bosom of Jesus, has to say of the tests by
which we may try the spirits to see whether
they are of God. Under the veil of figure
and metaphor, we have the profound and
266

The Ideal of the Kingdom
long-studied conviction of one who was
competent to decide, and to whom the wisest
of mankind may look up with reverence for
instruction. Nor need anyone have diffi
culty in determining for himself whether
the kingdom of Christ finds its realization
in his own soul, or long hesitate in identify
ing the true Church of Christ, which is
simply the kingdom of Christ ruling in
society. I. The Distinctive Features of the King
dom. — The first mark of the kingdom upon
which John lays stress is that it is super
natural in its origin. The holy city that he
saw descended " out of heaven from God."
It came "down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her hus
band." It is not the resultant of any proc
ess of development or growth from a prior
state. Whatever preparation may precede
and make ready a basis for its reception,
the kingdom itself is inaugurated by the di
rect and personal agency of the Holy Spirit.
Whatever instrumentalities the Holy Ghost
may use as his media, his is the undi^vided
quickening power. In this declaration the
writer of the Apocalypse and the author of
the fourth gospel are in agreement. It is
267

Revelation of Saint John
he who records the words of the Lord Jesus,
" Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God " (John iii, 5).
Another feature of this kingdom is that
its mission lies specifically in the realm of
divine things. It has "the glory of God."
The name of the city is, " The Lord is
there" (Ezek. xlviii, 35). Its God is its
glory. It is God's witness in nature and
to men of a power above and beyond nature
and man. There are natural means and
agencies endowed by the Creator to carry
forward earthly work ; but he has planted
the kingdom in the midst of mankind, and
its one great business is to testify of him.
For the doing of this work the Church is
accountable. In whatever other tasks the
Church may engage or whatever methods
it may employ in fulfilling its mission, its
one supreme office and distinct charac
teristic is to bear witness to a divine pres
ence and a divine power in the world. " In
his temple doth everyone speak of his
glory." All art, ritual, discipline, phi
lanthropy, and economies that do not direct
ly lead to God, and have not for their
purpose to emphasize the need, the pres-
268

The Ideal of the Kingdom
ence, and the inward experience of the su
pernatural, are aside from the purpose of
the kingdom and below its ideal.
A third mark of the kingdom is that it
has to do primarily with the religious facul
ties. As the distinction - between nature
and the supematural is permanent and inef
faceable, so the Church and the world can
never be made to coincide, however widely
the Church may be extended or however
thoroughly the world may be permeated by
the spirit of the Church. " The nations of
them which are saved shall walk in the
light" of the new Jerusalem, "the kings
of the earth do bring their glory and honor
into it; " but the distinction between it
and them exists and abides. It will be as
true in the last days as when our Lord first
spoke the words, ' ' My kingdom is not of
this world." However omnipotent and
omnipresent God may be in nature and the
universe, he can never be made identical
with them ; and, however thoroughly they
may be penetrated by his Spirit and come
to perfect accord with him, they can never
be so lifted up as to rival or supersede his
supremacy. And, although common life
and work may be sanctified by being done
269

Revelation of Saint John
in the spirit of Christ, and religious life
may flow out from the central source
through all the ordinary and natural chan
nels of our being, the religious and the sec
ular can never be made one. " Out of Zion
shall go forth the law, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem ; " but the discharge
of earthly duties and the reformation of
earthly conditions can never exhaust the
obligations of man. There will still remain
those relations to the supernatural of whose
existence and sovereignty it is the preemi
nent mission of the Church to testify. The
kingdom of God is "righteousness, and
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
2. The Central Principle of the Kingdom.
— The central figure in this kingdom is
Christ crucified. It is the Lamb around
whom all the imagery of the apostle's de
scription gathers. The light — luminary,
rather — of the kingdom was ' ' like unto a
stone most precious, even like a jasper
stone, clear as crystal." That this refers to
Christ seems probable from Rev. iv, 3,
where it is said that he that sat upon the
throne " was to look upon like a jasper and
a sardine stone," and is further confirmed
by Rev. xxi, 23, where the Lamb is said to
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The Ideal of the Kingdom
be "the light" of the city. Moreover, it is
said, "The first foundation was jasper,"
which is but confirmatory of what Peter had
said in the presence of .John to the ' ' rulers,
and elders, and scribes: " "This is the
stone which was set at nought of you build
ers, which is become the head of the corner.
Neither is there salvation in any other."
(Acts iv, II, 12.)
Still further, " The building of the wall
of it was of jasper." Christ crucified is the
defense and the bulwark of the kingdom.
The atonement of Christ is the most pow
erful argument the Church can use and
constitutes its strongest claim upon the rea
son and heart of men. It is " the power
of God, and the wisdom of God." It is
Christ crucified that makes the separation
between the kingdom and the circumjacent
world. It is not in its ethics that the dis
tinguishing peculiarity of Christianity lies,
but in the preaching of the cross. In the
opinion of John any other definition of
Christianity throws down Christianity's only
wall of safety and separation.
Yet there is no exclusiveness about the
kingdom. The city has three gates on each
of its four sides, facing the four quarters
271

Revelation of Saint John
of the globe, that all men may find ready
access. " Every several gate is of one
pearl" — that pearl of great price which
Christ said a man should be willing to sell
all that he has to buy, becoming eternally
rich by the exchange.
Nor is there any narrowness. Its length
and breadth and height exceed even those
large measurements which Ezekiel thought
to be ample enough for the ideal temple he
saw. " Whatsoever things are true, what
soever things are honest, whatsoever things
are just, whatsoever things are pure, what
soever things are lovely, whatsoever things
are of good report ; if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise" — all these
things belong legitimately to the kingdom.
The kings of the earth may ' ' bring their
glory and honor into it;" only that which
"defileth" or "worketh abomination" or
"maketh a lie" is excluded. When once
a man in the center of his being is rightly
adjusted to the Lamb of God, the center of
all being, he may unfold all his powers
and give exercise to every faculty of his
renewed nature safely, wisely, completely,
without fear of infringement upon any other
being or of going astray from his Creator.
272

The Ideal of the Kingdom
3. Negative Characteristics. — Not less re
markable is the negative side of the king
dom, the absence from it of many things
with which we are familiar. When an ideal
has been attained much that was necessary
in the process of attainment falls away as
obsolete ; the scaffolding which is used in
the erection of a building is removed when
the building is completed.
There is a noticeable avoidance in the
closing chapters of the Apocalypse of any
reference to the sacraments, to ritual, or to
such like means of grace. John saw " no
temple therein ; for the Lord God Almighty
and the Lamb are the temple of it."
' ' When that which is perfect is come, then
that which is in part shall be done away."
When the consummation of the kingdom
has been reached the relation of the soul to
its Creator shall not be through interme
diate agencies, but direct and intuitive.
There is no mention made of any special
priestly class, for the promise shall have its
complete fulfillment to all, " Ye are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood;"
and all life shall be a priestly work and
service. Nor is there any allusion to the prophetic
18 273

Revelation of Saint John
office as a separate function. "They need
no candle, neither light of the sun ; for the
Lord God giveth them light. " " The anoint
ing which ye have received of him abideth
in you, and ye need not that any man teach
you" (i John ii, 27). The prediction of
Jeremiah (Jer. xxxi, 34) has reached its
time of fulfillment : ' ' 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.'
Yet upon this point, more almost than
upon any other, it is of the utmost im
portance that we shall ' ' distinguish the
times." We must not assume, because
these aids and appliances are not needful
in the perfected state of the kingdom, that
they are not essential in the formative pe
riod, and thus, at great risk and with immi
nent peril, neglect or depreciate those
means of grace which the Creator has
deemed necessary for our present condition.
4. The Fruits and Results of the Kingdom.
— They in whom the kingdom rules shall
have access to the tree of life, that heavenly
wisdom of which Solomon says, "She is a
274

The Ideal of the Kingdom
tree of life to them that lay hold upon her :
and happy is everyone that retaineth her "
(Prov. iii, i8). " This is life eternal," One
greater than Solomon says, " that they
might know thee the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent " (John
xvii, 3). Their lives shall abound in fruit-
fulness. Their ministry shall be, like the
Lord's, " for the healing of the nations," a
remedy for all the spiritual and earthly
maladies of mankind.
The curse of sin shall be destroyed, ' ' and
there shall be no more curse." "Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the
law, being made a curse for us " (Gal. iii,
13). " The blood of Jesus Christ his Son
cleanseth us from all sin " (i John i, 7).
And walking ' ' in the light, as he is in the
light," and being "pure in heart," his fol
lowers shall " see God." " They shall see
his face; and his name shall be in their
foreheads." Thus with this sublime vision closes this
marvelous book. There is no truth re
vealed elsewhere in the sacred Scriptures
that may not be found in its pages. So
complete is it, indeed, that "if any man
275

Revelation of Saint John
shall add unto these things, God shall add
unto him the plagues that are written in
this book . " Nor is there any truth revealed
in this book which may not be found else
where in the Scriptures, so perfectly does
it harmonize with all di-vinely inspired truth.
Therefore, "if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God shall take away his part out of the
book of life, and out of the holy city, and
from the things which are -written in this
book." The Apocalypse of St. John fitly closes
the sacred canon ; for, drawing so much, as
it does, from all the rest of God's wonderful
book, it holds the truths derived therefrom
in a coherent union never to be dissolved
or broken. 276

IFnbey

Albigenses, 137.
Apocalypse. See Revelation.
Apostolic and present age, resemblance between, 198.
Asceticism and worldliness contrasted, 148-150.
Asceticism, prevalence and danger of, 138, 139.
Atonement, all-sufficiency of, 164, 165.
Babylon, destruction of, 199.
relation of Church and State in, 179-181.
Balaam, 147, 148.
Barbarism, characteristics of, 244-247.
possibility of reversion to, 74, 75, 243.
Beast, scarlet colored, i86-i88.
Bible, reticence of, 263.
Christ crucified, the central figure of Revelation, 270, 171.
Christian liberty, 272.
Christianity, antithesis between true and false, 184, 185.
Church and State, interdependence of, no, 249, 250.
Church, conquering weapons of the, no, 155, 202.
the ideal, 266, ff.
notes of the true, 266, ff.
separable from world, 269, 270.
supernatural origin of the, 267.
a witness to God, 268.
Church unity, 228, ff.
an apostolic hope, 230, 231.
how attained, 236, 237.
importance of, 232.
Daniel, prophecy of four beasts in, 115.
David, duration of dynasty of, 209.
277

Index
Dragon, the ; divine protection from, io8.
hostility of, to the church, 107.
Dry bones. See Ezekiel, vision of dry bones.
Emblem, of seal, 39-41.
of trumpet, 56, 57.
Epistles to seven churches of Asia, their lesson to us, 34.
Euphrates, reference to, in sixth trumpet, 72, 73.
Ezekiel, prophecy of, 163, 164, 205, ff.
vision of dry bones, 207, 208.
False prophet, marks of, 133.
False prophetism, second wild beast a symbol of, 126.
Fifth trumpet. See Trumpet fifth.
First trumpet. See Trumpet first.
Foi-ty-two, symbolism of, 19.
Fourth trumpet. See Trumpet fourth.
Gentilism, mission of, 234.
Gnosticism perilous to Christianity, 136.
God, knowledge of ; how obtained, 59-61.
Gog and Magog, 209, 240-243, 252, 253.
Harvest scene, meaning of, 157-159.
Holy Spirit, his work preceded by that of Christ, 141, 142
Individuality an outgrowth of Christianity, 134, 135.
Inspiration and human genius, 84.
Interpretation, principles of, 10.
reference to Old Testament necessary in, 13-16.
structure of book a guide to, 11-13.
Jewish ritual a key to emblems and symbols, 16.
Joel, prophecy of, 155-157.
Judaism, its office in the plan of redemption, 233.
Knowledge of God through his works and word, 59-61,
Lamb's book of life, 254, ff.
Lukewarmness, evils of, 69, 70.
Man and the earth, close connection between, 63, ^64.
Manichseism, 137.
Mediatorial sovereignty, 45, 46, 214.
Michael the archangel, 109.
Millennium, 211, 212, 217, 218.
278

Index
Mohammedanism illustrative of fifth trumpet, 70, 71.
Nicolaitanes, 136.
Nineveh, special characteristics of, 178, 179.
¦Numbers, importance of, 17.
Old Testament, its relation to the New, 93-95.
reference to it necessary in interpretation, 13-16.
Palestine, geographical seclusion of, 108, 109.
Paulicianism, 137.
Peculiarities distinguishing the Revelation, 9.
Plagues, the, 170.
Prophetical books, importance of study of, 14.
Purpose of the Revelation, 9.
Resurrection, spiritual, 224, 225.
Revelation, general purpose of the, 9.
limitations of the, 81, 82.
theme of the, 23.
unity of the, 22.
Roman Empire, policy of administration, 117, 118.
Rome, Church of, 192, 193.
Sacraments, absence of allusion to, 273.
Satan, his power restrained, 219.
loosing of, 238.
Sea, emblem of secular world, 113.
Seal, emblematic meaning of, 39-41.
loosing of, 44.
Sealed book, meaning of, 41, 42.
Sealed elect, 50-52.
Second trumpet. See Trumpet second.
Second wild beast, number of, 142-148.
Seven churches of Asia, spiritual condition of, 30.
Seven seals, opening of, 46.
Seven, symbolism of, 18.
Seventh trumpet. See Trumpet seventh.
Simon Magus, 136.
Six, symbolism of, 19.
Sixth trumpet. See Trumpet sixth.
Theme of the Revelation, 23.
279

Index
Third trumpet. See Trumpet third.
Three and a half, symbolism of, 19-22.
Tree of life, 274, 275.
True prophet, marks of, 129-131.
Trumpet, emblematic meaning of, 56, 57.
fifth, explanation of, 67-71.
first, explanation of, 65.
fourth, explanation of, 66.
second, explanation of, 65..
seventh, explanation of, 97.
sixth, explanation of, 72-76.
third, explanation of, 66.
Twelve, symbolism of, 18.
Twelve hundred and sixty, symbolism of, 19, 88, lOg.
Two witnesses, interpretation of, 79.
Tyre, deleterious influence upon religion, 182, 183.
emblem of commerce, 181, 182, 195, 196.
Unity of the church. See Church unity.
Vials, vision of, 169.
Victory, anticipation of, 150.
Vintage scene, meaning of, 159-165.
Witnesses, the two ; fulfilled in Law and Prophets, 87-92.
Woes, the three, 76.
World empires, 189.
recurrence of, impossible, 191.
World religions, agreement of moral codes, 256, 257.
Worldliness and asceticism contrasted, 148-150.
Worldliness, blasphemy of, 123, 124.
definition of, 120.
first wild beast, a symbol of, 112.
recuperative power of, 122. 280

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