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Library of the
JPale Divinity Scbool

The Books of
Ifranfc Cbamberlain porter
Winkley Professor of
Biblical Theology

rrrrrriTiTa'n-Trrrrrmi'iTiiiYlw

THE

BOOK OF REVELATION:

AN EXPOSITION; '
BASED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF PROF. STUART'S COMMENTABT,
AND DESIGNED TO FAMILIARIZE THOSE PRINCIPLES
TO THE MINDS OF NON-PROFESSIONAL
READERS.

ISRAEL P. WARREN, D. D.

— a del yevEodai kv ra^er — Rev. 1: 1.

FUNK & WAGNALLS,
NEW YORK 1886 LONDON
10 and 12 Dky Street 44 Fleet Street
All Rights Reserved.

PREFACE.

The publication of Professor Moses Stuart's Commen
tary on the Apocalypse in 1845 marked a new era in
biblical exposition in this country, especially in the
department of prophecy. Instead of the conjectural and
mystical methods of deducing the meaning of the sacred
books, which had long been in vogue, there was substi
tuted what may not invidiously be styled the method of
common sense. It was assumed that these books were
given for a practical purpose, some important end of
instruction, of admonition, or comfort, to those to whom
they were addressed ; that they were therefore designed
to be understood by them, and in fact were understood in
their essential import; and still further, that by the appli
cation of the well-known canons of interpretation which
are our guide to the meaning of all language in every
field of literature, we may understand them also.
Studied in the light of these principles, the Book of
Eevelation took on an almost totally new aspect. To
many minds it was nearly equivalent to adding a new
book to the Bible. That which had seemed fanciful, gro
tesque, and utterly inexplicable, lost its strange aspect
and became an intelligible and rational book, for the
practical use of the church. Not a few wild schemes of
anticipation as to the overthrow of Mohammedanism and
the Papacy, the literal end of the world, and the like,
3

4 PREFACE.
were shown to have no solid warrant in the word of God.
Instead of adding to the difficulties of Inspiration, as a
teacher of mankind in the things of life and godliness,
it was seen to be a true helper to the church in one of
the great exigencies of its history, " profitable for doc
trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness." In the preparation of this little book, the main portions
of which first appeared in the columns of the Christian
Mirror, the object of the writer has been to aid ordinary
readers in attaining those more rational, and, as is
believed, more truthful views of this part of the Sacred
Word. Many who saw them in those columns have
expressed a desire to have them in a more permanent
form, and at the risk of censure for presuming to under
stand this so-called mysterious book, I venture to issue
them anew.
It should be added that while in the main following the
exposition of Prof. Stuart, I have on some points taken
the liberty of differing from it. I have also carried fur
ther than he did his own principles in reference to what
he somewhat inconsistently denominated the remote
future. The reader will judge whether the reasons for
this, as given in loco, warrant me in so doing.
Portland, Me., Dec. 1, 1885.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION".
. PAGE
I. Popular impressions  9
II. The Key to the Book  14
" Things which must shortly come to pass "  15
Meaning of " shortly "  15
1. No warrant for evading this meaning  17
2. 2 Peter iii. 3 not contrary to it  18
3. Prophecy always fulfilled in its exact periods 18
4. The time declared to be at hand  19
5. The times meant in the seven epistles near. . 20
6. Chaps, vi.-xi. coincident with Matt, xxiv., xxv. 20
7. Chap. xvii. 10 fixes the time  21
III. Occasion and Intent of the Book  22
IV. Peculiarities of Manner and Style  30
1. Its meaning intended to be concealed from
enemies  31
2. Its meaning intended to be known by Chris
tians  38
(1) Its drapery derived from the Old Test. 38
(2 ) Its allusions to events in Jewish history 40
(3) Its imagery derived from Jewish
prophecy  42
(4) Its use of the Gematria  43
(5) Its author lived to an advanced age  44
3. How the latter did understand it  44
(1) That it referred to their persecutors. . . 45
(2) That the churches were to be victorious 47
(3) That they should have special rewards 49
THE REVELATION. I.
Pkefatobt.
The Title-Page  57
The Dedication  58

6 CONTENTS. pAhe
Motto  59
The Divine Titles  60
Vision of Christ the Revealer  60
II.
Messages to the Seven Churches.
Ephesus  67
Smyrna  68
Pergamum  69
Thyatira  70
Sardis  72
Philadelphia  .* 73
Laodicea  74
III.
The First Prophetic Book.
The Heavenly Session  78
The Book of the Future  86
The Slain Lamb  90
The Song of Redemption  91
The Opening of the Seals  94
The First Seal  96
The Second Seal  96
The Third Seal  97
The Fourth Seal  98
The Fifth Seal  99
The Sixth Seal  103
The First Trumpet  107
The Sealing of Believers  107
The Song of Deliverance  113
The Seventh Seal  115
The First Trumpet  1 17
The Second Trumpet  llg
The Third Trumpet  119
The Fourth Trumpet  120
The Woe Trumpets  121
The Fifth Trumpet  .'.121
The Sixth Trumpet  128
The Angel of the Second Book  133
The Measurement of the Temple  140
The Two Witnesses  146
Completion of the Sixth Trumpet  154
The Seventh Trumpet  ,.  156

CONTENTS. 7
IV.
The Second Prophetic Book. page
The Woman and the Dragon  163
The Conflict in Heaven  166
The Dragon's Wrath  168
The Two Beasts  169
The Beast from the Sea  170
The Beast from Hie Land  177
The Name of the Beast  181
Encouragements   184
1. The Faithful of the Former Persecution  186
2. The Spread of the Gospel  189
3. The Fall of their Persecutor  189
4. The Fate of Apostates  190
5. The Reward of Martyrs  191
6. The Harvest of the Earth  192
7. The Vintage of the Earth  193
The Seven Last Plagues  195
An Anticipatory Triumphal Song  196
Preparation . i  197
The First Vial  19S
The Second Vial  199
The Third Vial  199
The Fourth Vial  200
The Fifth Vial  200
The Sixth Vial  201
The Seventh Vial  204
The Punishment of the City  204
Explanatory  206
1. The Angel's Offer  207
2. The Scarlet Beast and its Rider  209
3. The Angel's Explanation  210
The Fall of Babylon  213
The First Herald  214
The Second Herald  215
The Third Herald  218
Response from the Saints  219
Response from the Elders and Living
Ones ,  220
Universal Triumphal Song  220
Proclamation of the Marriage Supper 222

8 CONTENTS. PAGE
Destruction of the Armies of the Beast  224
The Leader of the Christian Armies  226
The Battle of Armageddon  228
Constantine the Great  230
The Binding of Satan  239
The Reign of the Martyrs  245
1. Who they were  2J6
2. The Duration of their Reign  247
3. The Nature of their Reign  248
Gog and Magog. The Ottoman Empire  252
1. The Founding of that Empire  253
2. Why named Gog and Magog  255
3. Their wide-spread territories  256
4. Their number as the sand of the sea  256
5. Their possession of Palestine  256
6. Their capture of the beloved city  257
7. Their destruction by fire  257
The Judgment of the Dead  258
Not the judgment of the living  260
The connections of the passage  261
They are "the rest of the dead," i.e., persecutors. 262
Similar to the judgment in Daniel  263
Notes on the phraseology  265
The New Heavens and the New Earth  268
The New Jerusalem  275
V.
The Conclusion.

INTRODUCTION.

I. Popular Impressions.
There is one book of the Scriptures in regard
to which the attitude of the popular mind is, to
say the least, peculiar. It is the Book of Reve
lation. Nine persons out of every ten would
probably give it as their first impression that the
book is unintelligible. Very many would add
the belief that, being for the most part prophecy,
it was designed to be unintelligible until its mean
ing should be disclosed by its fulfillment. Hence
the inference that, with some exceptions, it is not
a profitable book for study, indeed, that for all
practical uses it might as well be excluded from
the volume of the Scriptures. Not a few even go
further than this, and admit a certain sort of
prejudice against it as a prolific source of wild
speculations hostile to truth, and destructive of
the peace and unity of the church.
Such impressions as these, however natural in
view of the way in which this book has been used,
cannot be deemed correct when held of that
which is truly the Word of God. For, in the na
il*

10 THE REVELATION.
ture of the case, that Word was given for the in
struction of men. It is necessarily implied that
it can be understood by them, and if so, that it
is their duty to read and understand it. For,
surely, it cannot be supposed that the Holy Spirit
would occupy himself in inditing words without
meaning — as they are if unintelligible — or with
out practical utility for the edification of his peo
ple. Much less can this be supposed of a work
which, by eminence, he was pleased to style a "Rev
elation," given to Christ by the Father expressly
to show unto his servants certain things, to which
was prefixed a special blessing on him that should
read and them that should hear and keep its say
ings (Chap. i. 3), and affixed a special curse upon
whosoever should add to, or take away from, its
words. Chap. xxii. 18, 19. These are, so to
speak, signet marks of the estimation in which its
Divine Author held this book, not vouchsafed to
any other, and which urge it with special empha
sis upon the attention and reverent faith of all
readers. The origin of these impressions, as of the great
difficulties attending any confident interpretation,
is to be found primarily in the peculiar method of
composition employed in this book. It is essen
tially a booh of pictures. Ordinary history is for
the most part plain narrative. Epistles are in the
varied diction of personal address, colloquial, hor-

INTRODUCTION. 11
tatory, and didactic. Psalms and prophecies are
generally poetry, with the artificial adornments of
rhythm, parallelism, alliteration, etc. The Reve
lation is in a method different from all of these.
Perhaps the nearest approach to it is in the par
ables of Christ. These are word-pictures. A
story is told, and the lesson is gathered from it as
a whole. In this book a scene is shown to the
eye of the apostle, and the meaning is to be de
rived from it. He does indeed use words in writ
ing it out, but the import is not to be found in
the words, but in the picture as a whole. They
are, so to speak, the paints emplo}Ted, and their
use is exhausted in making up the scene. Just
as in standing before some masterpiece of art, as
Rubens' "Descent from the Cross," we do not ask
what each color means in itself — the carmine, the
ochre, the ultra-marine, etc., — -but what the pict
ure which these make up means. The Revela
tion is a succession of such pictures. Every one
of its scenes might be put upon canvas ; indeed,
we once saw such a series in crayon, sketched
with marvelous effect by the late eminent artist,
Hammatt Billings. They are to be read very
much as we read the story delineated in Cole's
"Voyage of Life," or Hogarth's "Rake's Prog
ress." One scene follows another in regular or
der, each taking up the thought of the preceding

12 THE REVELATION.
and carrying it on to the completion ; the whole
constituting a record of the most impressive
character. In order to gather the intended meaning of
such a series of pictorial writings, it is evident
that we must have the key. It is not enough that
we can read the words. It is not enough that we
can put them together according to grammatical
rules, so as to make sense. Nay, a fruitful imag
ination may be able to group them in seemingly
fitting ways, so as to suggest many different
things. One might, without knowing the artist's
design, so read the Voyage of Life. He might
devise a meaning for the child in his boat, for the
star-crowned angel attending him, for the spark
ling waters of the river, the flowers on its sunny
banks, the shadowy palace of enchantment in
the sky above him, and so on through all the
delineations of the four great paintings. But he
could not be sure that this was the right meaning,
— that is, the artist's meaning, — unless he had the
artist's hey. Another in like ignorance might
read them in a different way, and display great in
genuity therein, perhaps develop a meaning of
much beauty and value, still the same doubt
would remain. In other words, guess-work is not
sufficient as a guide to the interpretation. A fer
tile imagination is not sufficient. Coincidences in

INTRODUCTION. 13
event, time, person, manner, or what not, are no
certain proof that the author's thought is attained.
The one thing indispensable is the author's hey.
With this, the kind of writing presented us in
the Revelation becomes as easy and as sure of in
terpretation as narrative itself. Standing before
Cole's paintings, you read the inscription placed
there by the artist, " The Voyage of Life." In a
moment the series becomes luminous with the
suggestive meaning. Childhood, youth, manhood,
old age, speak from the glowing canvas in almost
audible words. It may require a little study to
discern the uses of particular objects, the rock
here, the dark cloud there, the sad face of the
angel far off in the distance, etc. And yet keep
ing in mind the hey, and studying all with refer
ence to it, and harmoniously with it, you cannot
get far wrong. And every new discovery you
make will, by the very effort it has required of
you, add to the impressiveness of the pictures.
You will stand before them with profound emo
tion ; you will drink in their solemn lessons ; you
will be taught and admonished and incited to a
degree and with a permanence of effect which no
mere words, however skilfully uttered, could have
wrought. So, we venture to believe, with this Book of
Revelation. It is a great picture-gallery, hung
with scenes inspired by a Divine Artist, but

14 THE REVELATION.
sketched in word-colors by the apostle in Patmos
for the instruction of the church. Thus con
ceived of, it should seem to us one of the most
attractive portions of the sacred Word. We
ought to expect in it meanings most significant,
most impressive, most useful. As it is the last, it
should be to us the crown of all that blessed
Word given to make us "wise unto salvation."
If in point of fact it be not such to us, it must be
because we have missed the key to it. If com
mentators and theorists have made it such a waste
of conflicting interpretations, have speculated and
refined and forced its words to every sort of arbi
trary and fantastic use, it is because they have
not sought, or have failed to find and use, that
key. Traditional theories as to its meaning, or
preconceived ideas of what it ought to mean, have
been applied to it with the result of reaching al
most as many conclusions as writers, all different
from each other, none of them to be relied on as
the undoubted truth.
What, then, is the key ?
II. The Key.
If a book we had never before seen, and of
whose contents we were ignorant, were placed in
our hands, we should turn at once to the title-
page to ascertain its subject. If we found that
subject distinctly stated there, we should deem it

INTRODUCTION. 15
conclusive as to the import of the book. We
should not regard ourselves at liberty to assume
that it was designed to refer to something else
without clear and positive evidence to that effect.
If, for instance, the title-page declared it to be a
history of the American Revolution, we should
not think it reasonable to expect in it the history
of the late Rebellion, or the life of Napoleon III.
The language of the title-page we should inevita
bly regard as the hey to the booh.
Now the title-page of the Book of Revelation
gives us such a key. We marvel that it should
ever have been misapprehended: "The Revela
tion of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him,
to shew unto his servants
THINGS WHICH MUST SHORTLY COME TO PASS."
The word shortly is in the original iv rd^et -^-
"in a short" (time understood). It occurs also
in Luke xviii. 8; Acts xii. 7; xxii. 18; xxv. 4;
Rom. xvi. 20; Rev. xxii. 6. The corresponding
adverbs and adjectives occur some thirty-three
times more, and always with the same meaning.
They signify that the events to which they apply
are near in time. They are translated in the
various places, quickly, shortly, soon, hastily,
suddenly, speedily, swift. In Mark ix. 39, it is
lightly. In Acts xvii. 15, with all speed.
This phrase, then, unless we do absolute vio-

16 THE REVELATION.
lence to it, must determine the subject matter of
the book so far as time is concerned. The word
is not, indeed, precisely limited, and yet its import
is clear. It must refer to such things as in ordi
nary speech would be pronounced near at hand.
A few years, or on the scale with which we meas
ure the affairs of nations, two or three centuries,
at most, are all that can be reasonably claimed for
it. To make it cover several thousand years, or,
much more, the far reaching ages of the future,
wrests its fair meaning as much as the endeavor
to make a decade signify a millennium.
That this is the proper meaning of the phrase,
according to grammar and lexicon, is conceded by
all commentators. Had they not formed precon
ceived theories of what the book must refer to,
they would never have thought of questioning it.
When the angel commanded Peter in the prison,
"Arise up quichly " (Acts xii. 7), or when Paul
was directed in a trance to "get quichly out of
Jerusalem " (Acts xxii. 18), can there be any
doubt as to what time was intended? We ask
the reader to look at all the passages above men
tioned, and see if there be anything doubtful as
to this point. How is it, then, that various
writers stretch its import so as to make it cover
all the centuries from the apostle's day to the
present, nay, to embrace the yet far distant future
to the end of time ?

INTRODUCTION. 17
Swedenborg regards it as meaning certainly, a
sense derived from it only by some roundabout
inference. "The Apocalypse," says he, "was
given in the first century, and seventeen centuries
have now passed away ; from which it is manifest
that by 'shortly' is signified that which corre
sponds, which is certainly."
Lange makes it, "in swift succession," implying
that the events referred to will follow each other
rapidly. It is safe to say that such an interpreta
tion is supported by no other place in the New
Testament. But by far the most common way of evading
the simple meaning is to affirm that God uses the
words, not in the human, but in a divine sense.
Alford calls them " a prophetic formula common
with Him to whom a thousand years are as one
day, and used in order to teach us how short our
time and the time of this world is." Bloomfield :
" Measured by the language of Scripture, wherein
a thousand years are as one day, they may denote
anything of by no means speedy fulfillment."
In regard to this way of treating such expres
sions of time, I beg leave to say :
1. There is no warrant for it. The Scriptures
nowhere authorize it ; they give no example of a
resort to it. It is purely a human contrivance,
devised apparently under the stress of some the-

18 THE REVELATION.
ory for the purpose of making the text cover peri
ods of duration which else would be forbidden.
2. The passage relied on for its justification (2
Pet. iii. 8), teaches nothing of the sort. Peter
said there were scoffers who derided the promise
of Christ's coming (Parousia) because no sign of
it had yet appeared. The apostle's reply is that
delay does not disprove the certainty of that
event. An eternal being has time enough to
work in,. and does not need to be in haste. With
him " one day is as a thousand years, and a thou
sand years as one day." On the scale of eternity
both are alike points. The reason of God's delay
is not in himself or in his purposes ; he waits for
man's sake, because he is long-suffering, not will
ing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. Surely that is not saying
that he disregards all distinctions of time, and
when he speaks in human words, he does not
mean to be understood according to the known
sense of those words.
3. On the contrary, we find that prophecy,
when given in exact periods of time, is always
fulfilled in those exact periods. In Gen. vi. 3,
God told Noah that the days of men before the
flood came upon them should be one hundred
and twenty years ; did he not mean so many hu
man years ? In Gen. vii. 4, he said it should rain
forty days and nights ; did he mean forty thou-

INTRODUCTION. 19
sand years ? In Gen. xv. 13, it was predicted that
the posterity of Abraham should be bondmen in
Egypt four hundred and thirty years. In Gen.
xl. 1, seven years of plenty and seven of famine
are foretold. In Numbers xiv. 33, that Israel
should wander in the desert forty years. In Jo
nah iii. 4, that Nineveh should be overthrown in
forty days. In Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10, that Judah
should go into captivity seventy years. In Dan.
ix. 24, that Messiah should appear in seventy
"sevens," i.e., four hundred and ninety years.
Now apply in these cases the above assertion that
one day is equivalent to a thousand years, and
what absurdities would be apparent? Apply it
to the Saviour's promise to rise on the third day
from the grave, and how would it nullify the
most precious hopes of our salvation. What
right, then, has any man, — and I ask it with
some sense of abuse of God's word, — to play a
similar sophistry upon the " shortly " of Rev. i. 1,
and make it mean what it cannot mean ?
But there are other considerations which go to
confirm the simple meaning of this phrase. A
lock has commonly many wards, and the key that
is to open it will have corresponding peculiarities
of form in order to fit it. Many such correspond
ences are found in this book.
4. In Chapter i. 3, a special blessing is pro
nounced on him that reads and them that hear

20 THE REVELATION.
the words of this prophecy, "/or the time is at
hand," i.e., evidently, the time of its fulfilment.
So in Chapter xxii. 10, the writer is forbidden to
seal up the scroll, '¦'¦for the time is at hand."
Compare this with Dan. viii. 26, where the
prophet was commanded to shut up the vision,
for it was "for many days," i.e., the time of ful
fillment was distant ; hence the roll might be
sealed up, and laid aside for the present.
5. The prefatory messages addressed to the
seven churches had respect to the existing state of
those churches, and what they should experience
in the near future. This is too obvious to need
proof. Indeed, we are not aware that it is ever
denied by any except those who hold to the fan
tastic conceit that the seven churches, instead of
meaning the actual historic churches in the cities
named, are typical designations of seven succes
sive stages in the church universal, which are im
agined to have characteristics resembling those
here described. Yet the same expression is re
peatedly used in regard to them (Ch. ii. 5, 16 ; iii.
11, 20), and the threatening is acknowledged to
have been executed in each case within a few
score years of the time the prophecy was uttered.
6. There is ample reason to understand Chap
ters vi.-xi., as parallel in their import to Matt.
xxiv. and xxv., and as referring to the destruction
of the temple and city and nation of the Jews at

INTRODUCTION. 21
Jerusalem. The particular proof of this theory
may be adduced hereafter. If it be true, it har
monizes entirely with the meaning we claim for
the expression before us. If the Revelation was
written by John in the persecution under Nero,
about A.D. 68, that part of the fulfillment occurred
two years afterward, in A.D. 70.
7. In Chapter xvii. 10 there is a formal expla
nation by the angel of the meaning of the vision
of the Woman upon the scarlet-colored beast.
The woman represents (verse 18) the city of
Rome. She has had five kings, and one is; that
is, she is at present under the reign of the sixth.-
Now the Roman emperors were, in order, Julius
Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius,
Nero. This, to my mind, is conclusive as to the
time when the book was written, and to what, in
this part of it, it relates to, viz., the overthrow and
destruction of the persecuting imperial power of
Rome. This, too, we know, took place "quickly,"
i.e., within a few years from the time referred to.
Nero himself perished that very year, and in less
than two and a half centuries the imperial power
itself was wrested from pagan hands, and in the
person of Constantine became Christian.
Thus, tested in every way, by the natural force
of the language, by the unvarying usage of proph
ecy, and by the light shed upon it from history,
we have the most certain assurance of having

22 THE REVELATION.
found in the opening sentence of this book the
true hey to its meaning. It is not a book of in
explicable mystery ; it is not something reaching
over the whole range of the world's history, but
it is, as its own title page declares it to be, a reve
lation, a making known to the afflicted church of
God those things in his gracious and loving pur
poses which were then about to come to pass.
III. Occasion and Intent.
In order to appreciate fully the contents of a
book, it is important to know in what circum
stances and for what purpose it was written.
How much of the charm of the Pilgrim's Prog
ress would be lost if we had never heard of Bun-
yan in prison. How many of its characters and
conversations would be shorn of their peculiar
significance if we knew nothing of the state of
society and of religion in England • in the 17th
century. The same thing holds specially true of
the books of the Bible. Every one of them, so
far as we know, was written with reference to
some particular use of the time. History, song,
prophecy, genealogy, parable, and epistle, had
some immediate end in view. There are no gen
eral treatises, professedly composed for the in
struction of mankind at large and in every age.
All analogy, therefore, teaches us that if we
would understand the scope and the language of

INTRODUCTION. 23
this Book, of the Revelation, we should fix in
mind when and why it was given. To assume, as
is so often done, that it is a book of general pro
phetic history, called for by no present need, and
adapted to-no special present use of the churches,
is to suppose that true of this book which is not
true of any other in the sacred volume.
We have called attention to the key to the
meaning of the Revelation given in its title-page,
viz., that it was designed to show what must shortly
come to pass. Let us see what, as disclosed by
history, did shortly come to pass.
When the book was written, both its author
and the churches whom he addressed were suffer
ing severe persecution. This was equally true,
whether we regard it as written in the time of
Nero, about a.d. 68, or of Domitian, A.D. 96.
We shall assume, for reasons that will be appar
ent hereafter, that it was at the former date.
Now it is known to every reader that during the
whole period of nearly forty years after the death
of Christ to that time, the one great foe to Chris
tianity had been Judaism. It was Jewish malice
that instigated the crucifixion of our Lord, the im
prisonments and scourgings of the apostles, the
stoning of Stephen, the threatenings and slaugh
ter by Saul, the murder of James, and those inces
sant outbreaks of violence against the believers
recorded in the Acts. In Judea, in Asia Minor,

24 THE REVELATION.
in Macedonia and Greece and Rome, the story was
the same. It was Jews that withstood the preach-
ino- of the apostles, that entered malicious com
plaints against them to the authorities, that hired
false witnesses, that stirred up mobs, that laid
plots to assassinate them. Literally and fearfully
had they, as our Lord bade them, filled up the
measure of their fathers. They had become ripe
for destruction, and the dire denunciations of
Christ against them, their city and nation, were
just about to be executed. If this book was writ
ten in A.D. 68, two years only remained before
those denunciations, which were but the sum
ming up of all that had been threatened by all
the prophets from Moses down, would be fulfilled.
Only two years more would the churches need
to bear up under this incessant enmity; two
years only of divine forbearance might they en
joy who had been more merciless than the wild
beasts towards their countrymen, believers in the
Messiah they had rejected.
This retributive chastisement took place as had
been predicted. The devastation of Judea by
fire and sword, and the siege and destruction of
Jerusalem by the Roman armies, have stood for
eighteen centuries on the page of history as the
most fearful in the annals of human woe. Fam
ine, pestilence, and war, in a few short months,
destroyed not less than two millions of lives, and

INTRODUCTION. 25
erased from the earth what was perhaps the rich
est and most splendid city in the world. Jose
phus, who was himself a Jew in the service of
Rome, has left us an account of the whole trag
edy, as he knew it as an eye-witness, which no
one, even at this day, can peruse without a shud
der. We ask any of our readers who possess a
copy of his works, or can gain access to them, to
read the fifth and sixth books of his "Jewish
War," as the best possible commentary on our
Saviour's predictions in Matt, xxiv., and the
most instructive preparation for the study of
the similar predictions contained in this Book
of Revelation.
But the Jews were not the only persecutors of
the primitive church. In that bloody work they
were far outdone by the pagan emperors of Rome.
John himself was at this time in exile at Patmos,
under the decree of the reigning emperor. Chap
ter i. 9. In general, it had been the policy of
Rome, as the mistress of many nations with dif
ferent customs and religions, to be tolerant of all,
provided obedience was rendered to the imperial
government. Whenever a people submitted to
the Roman arms, their gods were adopted by the
senate into the Pantheon, and their worship de
clared a religio licita, i.e., a laivful religion. Such
had been the case with Judaism, and for a con
siderable time the Christians, being regarded
2

26 THE REVELATION.
merely as a Jewish sect, shared in the protection
accorded to the mother faith. It was due to the
personal malice of that most execrable of the Ro
man emperors, Nero, that this ancient policy of
toleration was abandoned. In the year A.D. 64,
that monarch, in one of his insane freaks of tyr
anny, set fire to his capital, and for three days
amused himself in Avitnessing the progress of the
conflagration, a catastrophe in which two-thirds
of the city was destroyed. This wanton outrage
excited such an odium and raised so many mur
murs that Nero was alarmed, and looked around
to find some objects on which he might fasten the
crime, and transfer the popular indignation from
himself. These he found in the Christians, who
were becoming quite numerous in Rome, and
who, not having received distinct recognition in
law, might be assailed with impunity. Charging
upon them the commission of the crime, he insti
gated a merciless persecution against them. He
caused them to be put to death by the sword and
by crucifixion ; to be thrown to wild beasts ; to
be sewn up in sacks and worried to death by sav
age dogs ; and even to be smeared with pitch and
set on fire as torches, to give light in the imperial
gardens. This terrible persecution continued
with unabated fury four years, until Nero himself
perished in a revolt, dying by his own hand
with the. aid of one of his slaves. This persecu-

INTRODUCTION. 27
tion was followed by others, under successive
emperors, for about two hundred and forty-two
years. In that period there were forty sovereigns
in all, some reigning but a few months. As a
whole, with a few exceptions, they were despots,
selfish, licentious, and cruel. Being by their of
fice heads of the pagan religion, — supreme pon
tiffs as well as emperors, — they were readily
incited by the priesthood, and the numerous
classes of artificers, tradesmen, courtesans, and
courtiers, who were interested in maintaining the
pagan worship, to regard the Christians as ene
mies of the public institutions, and especially of
the gods of Rome, and to punish them accord
ingly. Historians have commonly reckoned ten
of these periods of persecution in that space of
two and a half centuries. It is perhaps more
exactly true that while there were about that
number of special outbreaks of violence, the en
tire period was one of oppression and suffering
for the churches. The laws nearly always were
violent against them, and throughout the empire
they were at all times subject to the malignity,
the greed, and the fanaticism of the rulers. Vast
numbers suffered confiscation and banishment,
and almost as many perished by fire and sword
and wild beasts. The catacombs of Rome, which
were both burial places of the dead and hiding
places for the living, remain to this day as im-

28 THE REVELATION.
pressive witnesses of what in the inscrutable
wisdom of Providence was to be the direful ex
perience of the church in those martyr ages.
Such, then, were the things which, when the
apostle was commanded to write the Revelation,
were shortly to eome to pass. Persecution then
raging, and persecution lying before the church
along a bloody track of two hundred and forty
years — almost as long as from the landing of the
Pilgrims to this hour — was what God's people
had to look forward to, and prepare themselves
for. Surely it was an occasion worthy to be
made the theme of a new booh of divine counsels.
The churches needed to be warned of what was
coming, and strengthened to meet it. First of
all, they needed to know that their persecutors
should finally be overthrown. Apostate Jerusa
lem and idolatrous Rome had arrayed themselves
against the Lord they loved ; they should know
that the Lord had arrayed himself against them.
Next, they should be assured that those who
stood fast in their faith, even unto death, should
have a glorious reward in heaven, while those
who apostatized from the truth should have an
enhanced retribution of woe. With all these
should be mingled whatever would encourage
and confirm them, glorious visions of the Saviour
they served, of the heaven to which they were
going, of the martyrs on their thrones of glory,

INTRODUCTION. 29
of the loving sympathy and help of mighty
angels, and to crown all, of the church herself in
her perfected glory, a radiant city a thousand-fold
more resplendent than the Jerusalem of earth,—
arrayed in the white bridal robes of holiness, and
married in everlasting love to the Lamb. Corre
spondent with all these should be other visions, —
veiled for prudence' sake within a thin garb of
mystery, — of the characters and doom of their
persecutors ; the crafty old serpent, cruel and
bloody beasts, the encrimsoned harlot, symbol of
pagan impurity, all after bfi^^periods of triumph
baffled, cast down, destroyed by the avenging
wrath of heaven. Thus by marvelous visions, by
solemn warnings and glorious promises, was the
church to be made ready for her career of trial.
Thus did the Saviour throw his arms around his
people in advance of their sufferings, and draw
them by kindly warning and sympathy and prom
ise to the shelter of his loving bosom.
We have said that a state of things like this
was an occasion worthy of a new book of inspi
ration. Among all the books of the sacred vol
ume then existing, there was none that was fully
sufficient for so great a want. There were books
of history and worship, and now fulfilled prophe
cies relating to Israel and Judah, and there were
the Gospels and Epistles, but there was no Book
of Persecution. Jeremiah and Ezekiel had

30 THE REVELATION.
foretold the ruin of the oppressive monarchies of
Assyria and Babylon, and Daniel had portrayed
with graphic power the destruction of Epiphanes,
the persecuting tyrant of Syria. But valuable
as these might be, they were not enough for the
instruction and comfort of the church under a
double persecution a hundred-fold worse than all
God's ancient people ever suffered. A new emer
gency like this, then, one which would be a very
crisis of life or death to the church, demanded a
new provision of instruction to meet it. So mo
mentous in its disclosures of what was to be, so
impressive in its warnings, so inspiring in its
promises, so lofty in its delineations of the glory
and safety and eternal blessedness of God's faith
ful saints, it was worthy of the name by which it
was designated, The Revelation of Jesus
Christ, which God gave to him to show
unto his servants things which must
shortly come to pass.
IV. Peculiarities of Manner and Style.
If we have found in the declared scope of this
book a key to its contents, and the purpose for
which it was written, we may find" also a clue to
its peculiarities of composition, so unlike those of
theother books of the New Testament.
The " things " of special importance to the in
fant churches, which at that time were "shortly

INTRODUCTION. 31
to come to pass," were comprehended in that per
secution which, having already broken out under
Nero, was destined to extend over a period of two
and a half centuries, till the time of Constantine
the Great. I have stated the reasons for believ
ing that the object of this book was to comfort
and strengthen the churches under this persecu
tion, by predicting the destruction of their perse
cutors, the ultimate triumph of Christianity over
all its foes, and the blessed rewards that would
be conferred on the martyrs who should remain
faithful unto death.
With such a purpose in view, it is obvious, in
considering the circumstances of the case, that
two things were indispensable in its manner of
composition, viz., concealment of its meaning from
the enemies of the church, and a disclosure of
that meaning to it and its friends.
1. It must be written in such a way that its
meaning would be concealed from the persecuting
powers. To have written out in clear and ex
press terms a paper of such a purport as we
believe this to be, would have been an act of un
doubted treason against the imperial government
of Rome. To have predicted the overthrow of
its emperors, the defeat of their plans, the down
fall of the state religion and its splendid array of
temples, priests, and rites, and the conquest by
the hated sect of Nazarenes of the imperial

32 THE REVELATION.
throne and of the world, would have been taken
as an insult to Roman authority and Roman
pride, which could be expiated only by death.
To have had in possession such a document,
much more, to have read it in the public assem
blies, and to be known as making it the ground
of their common expectations and hopes, would
have made the entire Christian body criminal.
The highest offense known to Roman law was the
crimen Icesce majestatis — the crime of wounded
majesty. None was pursued with such relentless
fury ; none punished with such pitiless severity.
Nor could there have -been any successful con
cealment of such a book. In those degenerate
days of the empire, no trade was pursued more
industriously than that of^ informer (delator).
Emissaries and spies of the tyrants thronged
every province and every city, ready to report
whatever could be construed into an offense
against the emperor, and bring a reward for the
informer. False brethren and apostates would
have been found, who, for gain or personal safety
would have betrayed a secret of such magnitude
as this. In a word, the bare statement of the
case shows that if such a document as we have
supposed was to be written at all, it must be in
such a way as to be unintelligible to those whose
ruin it predicted. Suppose, during our late re
bellion, a well-formed plan had been laid to res-

INTRODUCTION. 33
cue our suffering soldiers from Libby Prison, and
a message was to be sent them announcing that
purpose, to strengthen their fortitude and secure
their co-operation in its execution, how obvious is
it that that communication must have been con
cealed from the enemy — written in cypher, or by
some other device made unintelligible, if it should
fall into their hands.
Hence, chiefly, as I regard it, the use of sym
bols and enigmatic utterances in this Book of
Revelation. We shall see presently something of
the nature and sources of these, and how remote
both were from the knowledge of the pagan Ro
mans of that day. In their pride of metropolitan
culture and position, the Romans looked down
with contempt on what they regarded the unin
telligible superstitions of the thousand sects
which filled the empire. It would, then, be noth
ing surprising nor improper if that contempt
should be taken advantage of to be made a screen
for so dangerous a book as this. Let it be shaped
in enigmatic forms ; let it make use of cabalistic
names and numbers ; of sealed scrolls, now to be
opened and read, now to be eaten ; let it be full
of visions of impossible beasts and locusts and
serpents, of dark shapes from Tartarus, and of
bright celestials coming like Homer's gods from
heaven to execute incomprehensible errands ; of
dirges over dead cities, and peans of victory over
2*

34 THE REVELATION.
phantom foes, — and it might well be assured
that even treason itself would be safe in such a
garb as this. Nay, there might be uses of such a
method for the church herself, in withholding
from those of her own members, who for want of
spiritual perception or discretion were not fit to
be trusted, so important secrets as these. There
were in all ancient religions mysteries, which were
fully known only to the initiated — the innermost
truths or rites of their faith — which were pru-
dentially withheld from those not qualified to
know them. So Christ, because of their lack of
spiritual capacity, taught the people only in par
ables, and Paul fed his spiritual children with
milk and not with meat, because they were not
able to bear it.
Such, then, as it appears to me, were, substan
tially, the reasons why this Book of Revelation
was written in the manner it was, — one which
from its example is frequently denominated the
" Apocalyptic style." And such, too, I take the
occasion to remark, are the only reasons I can
conceive of why prophecy in the Scriptures is
ever written enigmatically. It is a quite common
saying of writers that prophecy is not, as a rule,
to be understood until its meaning is disclosed by
the fulfillment. If by that remark were intended
only that its fulfillment is wont to show us vastly
more than we could gather from the terms of the

INTRODUCTION. 35
prophecy, we should readily assent. But to say
that we cannot know it at all — even the subject
matter to which it relates — until it is fulfilled, is
to our mind entirely unreasonable. If we cannot
understand the prophecy, we can never know
whether it is fulfilled or not. If the promise of a
coming Saviour had been uttered in an unknown
tongue — the tongue of angels and not of men —
the world could never have told whether Jesus
of Nazareth were" he or not. We must be able to
read the figures on a baggage check in order to
tell whether its corresponding check tallies with
it or not.
I appeal for the confirmation of this view to
the whole course of ancient prophecy. Often,
indeed, — especially in the primitive ages of the
world, — predictions were very faintly given, just
a few rays of the dawning light, and not the full-
orbed sun. Such were the first prophecies of a
coming Saviour to Eve, to Abraham, to Jacob,
and even to David. Yet in all these instances
the prophecy was designed to be understood as
far as it went. There is no reason to doubt • that
Jacob understood his prediction of the coming of
Shiloh, as truly as Isaiah that of his fifty-third
chapter. It did not tell him or the world as
much, but what it said was intelligible, and given
for the instruction of God's people. So the pre
diction of a flood, — could not the old world un-

36 THE REVELATION.
derstand it before the day that Noah entered into
the ark? God's messages to Pharaoh by Moses —
was their import purposely concealed from the
monarch? Take the wonderful predictions of
blessing and cursing given in Deuteronomy to
the people, as their future conduct should be,
were they all unmeaning? So, through the
books of the later prophets, with a single excep
tion in that of Daniel, where is the evidence of a
designed concealment of their import? On the
contrary, was it not the habitual reproach of God
to his wayward people, not that they had not un
derstood his words, but that they had not obeyed
them? "Since the day that your fathers came
forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I
have even sent unto you all my servants, the
prophets, daily rising up early and sending them,
yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their
ear, but hardened their neck; they did worse
than their fathers. Therefore, thou shalt speak
all these words unto them, but they will not
hearken unto thee ; thou shalt also call unto them,
but they will not answer thee." Jer. vii. 25-27.
And how severely did our Lord himself denounce
the Pharisees for their willful ignorance. " Had
ye believed — not, understood — Moses, ye would
have believed me, for he wrote of me." John v.'
46. And even to his own disciples, when he sat
at table with them in Emmaus, " O fools, and

INTRODUCTION. 37
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken ! "
I have mentioned a single exception in the
Book of Daniel. Here, in two instances, the
prophecies given were ordered not to be promul
gated till at or near the time of their fulfillment.
Chapter viii. 26; xii. 4. But even in these cases,
it was not because they were not intelligible. In
both, the series of visions were carefully and mi
nutely explained, so that they might be under
stood, and then both prophecy and explanation
were ordered to be sealed up, because the time
was "for many days." It is true that Daniel
says of one (Chapter viii. 27) that none under
stood it ; but he clearly means that beyond the
angelic interpretations there were unrevealed
things which it was given to none then to know.*
We have then, as it seems to us, a rational clew
to the design of the peculiar manner of the Rev
elation. The book was not intended for the use
of the enemies of the church, just as the pillar of
fire and cloud was not intended to be a guide and
defense to the pursuing oppressors of the He
brews. That pillar was for the protection of
God's people, and in like manner the mysterious
symbolism of the Revelation was for the protec
tion of the church. While it was impenetrable
* See Prof. Stuart on this subject, in his " Hints on Prophecy," pp. 47-63.

38 THE REVELATION.
to its enemies, it was at the same time a light and
a guide to the imperiled saints.
2. We have seen how the first of these pur
poses was accomplished ; let us now inquire con
cerning the second. In other words, what means
had the early Christians, for whom the Revelation
was first written, of penetrating its meaning ?
(1) Its drapery and scenery were to a very
large extent derived from the sacred institutions of
the Jews, which, while little known to the pagan
world, were entirely familiar to the Christians.
For a while, all the disciples were converted
Jews. Peter first opened the door for the admis
sion of Gentiles when he baptized the centurion
Cornelius, and his household. We do not know
the exact proportions of Hebrew and Gentile
converts in the churches at the time this book
was written, but nearly everywhere there were
enough of the former to give a coloring to Chris
tian ideas. Besides, it was the custom in all
churches, Jewish and Gentile alike, to read the
Old Testament in public worship, and listen to
its exposition, while its inspired songs and psalms
were, as now, made the vehicle of praise. Thus
the Mosaic institutions, in every part, became en
tirely familiar to all Christians, and all allusions
to their rites, doctrines, sacred persons, places,
and instrumentalities, would "be apprehended at
once.

INTRODUCTION. 39
Now we find that the apostle availed himself of
this source very largely, in selecting the costume
and phraseology of his descriptions. He begins
by mentioning an angel, as the medium through
which he received the revelation — a term which
to a Roman or Greek would signify any human
messenger, but which a Jew would recognize as a
superhuman spirit sent from heaven. When the
vision opens, he beholds a glorious Personage
clothed in priestly vestments, standing before a
golden, seven-branched candlestick. How in
stantly, taught by the Epistle to the Hebrews,
would be recognized our great High Priest, who
had entered within the vail. So throughout.
The faithful were promised that they should eat
of the hidden manna ; should have a white stone,
with a name written in it, an allusion to the
precious stones on the high priest's breastplate ;
should be made a pillar in the temple, like the
two which constituted the Beautiful Gate of the
temple at Jerusalem. Heaven itself is patterned
after the same edifice. The four living creatures
are the cherubic shapes that were put upon the
cover of the ark, and blazoned in needlework
upon the curtains and vail. Jesus is a bleeding
Lamb. The grand chorus singing responsive are
the sacred musicians answering each other in the
high worship of the Sabbath. "The redeemed
saints are sealed persons of the tribes of Israel.

40 THE REVELATION.
The angels with the sounding trumpets are the
priests that gave by trumpet the signal for the
movements of the camp in the wilderness. The
utter desolation of persecuting Jerusalem is seen
in the temple thrown open to public view, and the
arh exposed to the profane gaze of the multitude.
The song of the martyrs is the song of Moses
and the Lamb, in allusion to the pean of triumph
sung over Pharaoh on the shore of the Red Sea.
The temple filled with smoke was the Shehinah,
of cloud and of fire. The church in her glory is
the New Jerusalem — the tabernacle of God with
men. And this new city is the temple, with its
foundations, its gates, its outflowing living waters,
its exclusion of all unclean things, etc. Certainly
there could be no serious difficulty in Christians
understanding these manifold allusions. They
must know both that they were not to be taken
in strict literalness, and also what were the ideas
which they were intended to convey.
(2) The Jewish nation had a peculiar history
recorded with great particularity in their sacred
books, but comparatively little known to the
heathen world. One of the great treatises of
Josephus was an account of his nation composed
expressly to give the Romans some idea of the
antiquities, both religious and secular, of the peo
ple whose capital they had just destroyed. That
history of the nation was full of remarkable

INTRODUCTION. 41
events, some of them commemorated by monu
ments, the recollection of which was to the nation
what the Norman conquest, the Magna Charta,
the Reformation, etc., were to the English, or
Bunker Hill, the Declaration of Independence,
and Emancipation are to ourselves. Very many
of these were connected with the overthrow of
oppressors — the Egyptians, the Philistines, the
Canaanites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and,
in the time of the Maccabees, the Syrians. Here,
then, was an abundant and most fitting supply of
allusion and imagery under which to describe the
downfall of these new persecutors of God's peo
ple. Hence the designation of the " doctrine of
Balaam " ; " that woman Jezebel " ; the sealing
of the twelve tribes," although this subdivision
of the Hebrew people had long ceased to be as a
fact ; the plagues upon the land and the waters,
and the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars as
among the plagues of Egypt ; the designation of
Jerusalem as Sodom and Egypt, and Rome as
Babylon ; the drying up of the Euphrates to ad
mit an invading army, the prototype of which
was in the crossing of the Jordan into Canaan ;
the great battle of Armageddon, named after the
ancient fight at Megiddo, near the river Kishon
(Judges v. 19) ; the fall of Babylon, and the dirge
.over it in imitation of Isa. xlvii. and Ezek. xxvii. ;
the call of the fowls of heaven to the supper of

42 THE REVELATION.
the Lord, after Ezek. xxxix. 17-22. Every such
allusion in this book, unintelligible to those who
knew nothing of Hebrew history, would at once
be recognized by the Christians, and as they re
called the incidents from which they were taken,
would speak to them of the divine protection and
deliverance from their persecutors, as their fathers
were delivered from heathen oppressors in ancient
times. (3) In like manner the Old Testament con
tained a great body of prophetic imagery and phra
seology, the import of which had come to be as well
understood as the simplest utterances of prose.
Here was first the Theophany, God coming in the
clouds of heaven, a figure originating doubtless
in the divine manifestation at Sinai. Ex. xix.
16-20. Here were the horses of Zechariah (Zech.
i. 8), of different colors, and the two olive trees
and the two anointed witnesses (iv. 11, 14).
Here the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars,
the well-known symbol of the destruction of hos
tile cities and nations. (Compare Isa. xiii. 10-16,
xxiv. 23, xxxiv. 4, Ezek. xxxii. 7, etc.) Here
were David's man-child, that was to rule the na
tions (Ps. ii. 7, 9), and Ezekiel's measuring reed,
and new temple, and Daniel's beasts and vision
of judgment and resurrection of the martyrs,
Gog and Magog, and Michael and his angels fight
ing in heaven against the foes of God's people,

INTRODUCTION. 43
and the new heavens and new earth of Isaiah,
and the bride of the forty-fifth Psalm, and of the
Song of Songs. Can it be doubted that persons
instructed as the Jews were in their ancient
Scriptures, knew, at least in some good degree,
the import of all this prophetic imagery, and had
the best facilities for discerning its import when
put to a new use in this Judeo-Christian book ?
(4) There may be mentioned in this connection
that fanciful method of interpretation in vogue
among the Rabbis of Christ's day, which they
called Gfematria. It consisted in plays upon let
ters and numbers, and specially upon names of
persons. Our modern anagram resembles it in
part. According to this method, the word Nico-
laitan is supposed by some to have been invented
as a substitute for Balaamite, the word Nicolaus
in Greek signifying the same thing as Balaam in
Hebrew, viz., " conqueror of the people." So
the famous "number of the beast" was made up
after the regular Rabbinic rule, the letters in his
name being taken in their numerical value, and
then added together, making the sum six hundred
and sixty-six. The latter is a remarkable in
stance, showing how entirely this book was con
formed to well-known Jewish customs of that
day, and that the true method of interpreting it
is to be found in those customs. It is not to be
supposed, indeed, that these " mysteries " were fa-

44 THE REVELATION.
miliar to the unlearned, but they were known to
those skilled in the Scriptures, and as such con
stituted a fit method of securing the ends sought
in this book, of at once concealing the idea from
the enemies of the church, and making it known
to its teachers and those who could use it wisely.
(5) It should perhaps be added, as among the
means enjoyed by the primitive churches for the
understanding of this book, that its author lived
to a very advanced age. The date of his death is
not precisely known. It is conceded that it took
place under the emperor Trajan, who reigned
from A.D. 99 to 117. Taking it midway of those
dates, 108, and it would show that John sur
vived, after writing the book, forty years, if writ
ten in the time of Nero, or from twelve to fifteen
if written under Domitian. So long time, there
fore, the churches, at least in Asia, enjoyed the
advantages of his personal instructions. It can
not be doubted that he would explain, as far as
necessary, the meaning of this revelation as he
understood it, especially to those who were then
suffering, or were in constant peril under the per
secutions that raged about them. It would be an
exposition authoritative and reliable, while given
with a discretion that would not endanger those
who were strengthened and comforted by it.
3. What evidence have we, then, that the prim
itive churches did, in fact, understand this book,
and what their understanding of it was?

INTRODUCTION. 45
In answering this inquiry, it is to be borne in
mind that our materials for ascertaining the opin
ions of the earliest Christians upon any subject
are very scanty. How far the special messages to
the seven churches served to instruct and encour
age them or their more sorely tried brethren at
Rome, in the persecution by Nero, it is impossible
to say. It is known that prior to the siege of Je
rusalem, warned by the words of Christ in Matt.
xxiv. 16, the believers in Jerusalem fled from the
city, and found a safe refuge at Pella, beyond the
Jordan. They certainly understood the predic
tions of that discourse as having their primary
fulfillment, at least, in the events of "that day.
Our knowledge of the Roman persecutions,
from Domitian to Diocletian, is derived from the
histories of Eusebius (born about A.D. 270), Lac-
tan tius (about the same age), Augustine (born
354), and others. Some interesting facts are de
rived from the ancient inscriptions still extant in
the catacombs of Rome. From all these sources
we gather the following particulars as bearing
upon our present inquiry.
(1) In general, they understood that the por
tions of the book describing the beast from the
sea, with seven heads and ten horns, and his scar
let appareled rider (Chapters 13-19) referred to
the persecuting emperors of Rome previous to Con
stantine. It was from this that the early opinion

46 THE REVELATION.
arose that the persecutions of that period were just
ten in number, corresponding to the ten heads of
the beast, each one of which represented a king.
Rev. xvii. 12. A more careful study of the facts
shows that that distinct number cannot well be
made out, there having been many more periods
of violence than that ; indeed, the entire space of
almost two hundred and fifty years was one of
intolerance and severity, intended to suppress the
new and unlawful religion. But the popular enu
meration was none the less significant, as show
ing the understanding of this book. Mosheim
(Com. Vol. 1, p. 128) represents the following to
be the mode of reasoning prevailing in the early
churches : " Since by the woman whom John saw
is to be understood Rome, and by the ten horns
ten kings, there can be no doubt but that these
ten kings must be ten Roman emperors ; and
since the wars of these ten kings with the Lamb,
that is Christ, unquestionably signify their en
deavors, by means of laws and punishments, to
extirpate the Christians, and entirely abolish their
religion, it is evident that ten Roman emperors
would oppress and persecute Christ in the persons
of his disciples." Much more evidence of this
prevailing opinion might easily be adduced. Ire
naeus, himself a martyr under the emperor Seve
rus, reckoned up the letters in the mystical name
of the beast as spelling, in Greek, Lateinos, the

INTRODUCTION. 47
Latin, i. e., the Roman emperor. There is no
trace in that early day of the opinion which has
so much prevailed among modern commentators
that the Book of Revelation is designed to give a
synopsis of the history of the church through all
time. They regarded it as a book for them, de
scribing their own persecutions, and the conflicts
in which they were to suffer and to conquer.
(2) They gathered from this book that the
churches, under these persecutions, were to come
off victorious over their foes. Everywhere, in all
the annals of the martyrs and confessors, are ut
terances of hope, and anticipations of triumph.
In the catacombs at Rome, Jesus, as a slain lamb,
crowned and sceptered, was depicted upon the
walls, the emblem of victory. Very frequently
the monogram, comprising the first two letters of
his name, is shown, with the Alpha and Omega of
Rev. i. 11, which signify his eternity. The bind
ing of Satan, described in Rev. xx. 1-6, was un
derstood to signify Christ's triumph over the arch
enemy of the church. An early Christian seal
shows a cross, with Alpha and Omega on either
side, its foot resting on a writhing serpent, and
the legend S ALVS — salvation — underneath. A
monumental painting was set up by Constantine,
the first Christian emperor, in his new city of
Constantinople, for the express purpose of cele
brating the triumph of Christianity. It showed

48 THE REVELATION.
a portrait of himself with the cross over his head,
and under his feet Satan, in the form of a serpent,
falling headlong into the bottomless pit. " For,"
says Eusebius, "the sacred oracles in the books of
God's prophets have described him as a dragon
and a crooked serpent, and for this reason the
emperor thus publicly displayed a painted resem
blance (cera igne resoluta) of the dragon beneath
his own and his children's feet, stricken through
with a dart, and cast headlong into the depths of
the sea. In this manner he intended to represent
that concealed adversary of the human race, and
to indicate that he was consigned to the gulf of
perdition by virtue of the trophy of salvation
placed above his head." Here again, let us notice
in what a practical manner the early Christians
interpreted and applied this book. The binding
of Satan was not, to them, a mysterious event
that should happen in some far distant age of the
world, but one of their own time. As it was Sa
tan, the old dragon, that had stirred up the beast
and the false prophet to make war upon the
church, so when their power was overcome, and
Christianity itself gained the throne, it was the
binding of Satan, an event worthy to be cele
brated by a public monument in the street of the
new city, which was henceforth to bear the name
of the Christian emperor.

INTRODUCTION. 49
(3) But it was pre-eminently the rewards of
fidelity under persecution, — the blessedness of
the martyrs and confessors who suffered for
Christ's sake, which were taught by this book,
and which made the bloody amphitheater, the
cross, and the flames so radiant with the triumphs
of their faith.
They became familiar with the idea of a special
resurrection of the martyrs, designated as " the
first resurrection." This was in terms the teach
ing of Rev. xx. 4-6, and the phraseology there
used was such that they could not help applying
it to the sufferers from among themselves. The
persons seen in the vision were those who " were
beheaded for the witness of Jesus." The original
word translated "beheaded " is a verb made out of
the name of the Roman two-handed sword (pele-
kus~) which was the instrument usually employed
in decapitation. Thus the very word itself pointed
to a Roman execution.* Moreover they were
persons who had " not worshiped the beast, neither
his image, neither received his mark upon their
foreheads or in their hands." But the beast, as
we have shown, was to them a concealed name
for the Roman emperor, and his worship that
* We may be pardoned a familiar illustration which will more forcibly
show this. The Indian war club — a tomahawk — has been made into a
verb in the same manner. Ii", in the colonial days of New England, a
writer should have affirmed that he saw the remains of those that had been
tomahawked on such or such an occasion, the word itself would have dis
closed that they were victims of an Indian massacre.

50 THE REVELATION.
idolatrous homage which the laws required to
be paid to him and the imperial standard that
bore his effigy, which itself was but a part of that
great system of Pagan worship of which the em
peror was the head — the Pontifex Maximus.
They could not mistake, then, as to who was
meant by the promise of this blessed resurrection
of the martyrs. As little could they doubt its
general meaning. Every scholar knows that the
original word, dudo-Tao-a;, does not of itself signify
the resurrection of the body. It is simply the
living again, or as we commonly call it, the future
life. The word "first," also, very often signifies
foremost in rank, dignity, blessedness. In Luke
xv. 22, the " best robe " is literally the first robe.
The " chief rooms " at feasts, the " chief estates,"
being " chief " among the disciples, etc., are sim
ply the first rooms, first estates, being first. The
"first resurrection," then, interpreted by the cus
tomary phraseology of those times was simply a
peculiarly glorious and blessed life after death.
The stroke of the Roman pelekus, the flames
which consumed the mutilated body, were not as
their persecutors thought the end of them.
"Now we shall see," said the latter as the ashes
were cast into the Tiber or the Rhone, "if they
will rise again." Uhlhorn's Conflict, p. 296.
Nay, more, not only was it taught that the mar
tyrs attained at once a peculiarly blessed heavenly

INTRODUCTION. 51
reward, but its distinctive honor consisted in being
admitted to reign with Christ. " I saw thrones,
and they sat upon them, and judgment," i. e.,
judicial dignity and functions, " were given them,
and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand
years. This is the first resurrection." The same
thing had been said in the Epistles to the seven
churches. "He that overcometh — to him will I
give power over the nations, and he shall rule
them with a rod of iron — even as I received of
my Father." Chapter ii. 26, 27. " To him will
I grant to sit with me in my throne, even jis I
also" — the first Martyr ¦ — " overcame, and am
set down with my Father in his throne." Chap
ter iii. 21. Indeed, even Paul testifies that it had
passed into an adage — a common saying (koyof)
in the early churches, which he adds emphatically
is a true one, that "if we die with Christ, we shall
also live with him ; if we suffer, we shall also reign
with him." 2 Tim. ii. 12.
Now, that this was the way in which the perse
cuted infant churches understood and applied
this twentieth chapter — that it is not merely our
interpretation carried back and fathered upon
them — is a matter of the most positive historic
certainty. In his famous sixteenth chapter, Gib
bon says, " They inculcated with becoming dili
gence that the fire of martyrdom supplied every
defect and expiated every sin; that while the

52 THE REVELATION.
souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass
through a slow and painful purification, the tri
umphant sufferers entered into the immediate
fruition of eternal bliss, where, in the society of
the patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets,
they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assess
ors in the universal judgment of mankind." So
Mosheim (Com. I., p. 136): "It was conceived
that they were taken up directly into heaven, and
admitted to a share in the divine counsels and ad
ministration; that they sat as judges with Crod,
enjoying the highest marks of his favor, and pos
sessing influence sufficient to obtain from him
whatever they might make the object of their
prayers." Hence the " crown of martyrdom " became the
peculiar designation of this supreme honor ; to
attain their crown, a common euphemism for
death. Cyprian, describing the sufferings of the
victims, says, " Tortures overtook them, tortures
wherein the torturer ceases not, without escape of
condemnation, without the consolation of death ;
tortures which do not dismiss them speedily to
their crown, but rack them until they overthrow
their faith ; except perhaps that God in his mercy
removed one here and another there in the midst
of his torments, and so he attained his crown, not
by the full ending of his torture, but by the sud
denness of death."*
* Dhlhorn, " Conflict," p. 30G.

INTRODUCTION. 53
In his unique work on the Catacombs of Rome,
Withrow says : " The palm and crown are sym
bols that frequently occur, often in a very rude
form. Although common also to Jewish and pa
gan art, they have received in Christian symbol
ism a loftier significance than they ever possessed
before. They call to mind that great multitude
whom no man can number, with whom faith sees
the dear departed walk in white, bearing palms in
their hands " (p. 285). It was doubtless in ac
cordance with the same idea that early Christian
art surrounded the heads of the martyrs with the
aureole* — the crown of light — in token of their
attainment of the promised crown and throne
above. As a natural consequence of views like these,
we find among the primitive Christians a peculiar
homage paid to the martyrs, which in the later
centuries degenerated into the veneration, and
even the adoration, of relics. " What honor,"
exclaims Uhlhorn, "was shown to the martyrs
and confessors! The Christians embraced them
on their way to the place of execution, and kissed
their chains in the prisons. They were given as
honorable a burial as was possible, and no heed
was paid to the danger incurred in procuring this
for them. With diligent care their names and
the story of their martyrdom were recorded for a
* Generally represented in modern copies by the simple oval line, with
out rays.

54 THE REVELATION.
memorial. And if, perchance, the persecution
ceased for a while, and some returned from the
prisons or from exile, how jubilantly they were
greeted ! The Christians hastened to meet them,
crowded round them, embraced them with heart
felt affection, and hung on their necks with
kisses." p. 372.
Nay, — and here we come to the most remarka
ble fact of all — these anticipations of the pecu
liar honors and rewards of the martyrs grew at
length into " a passionate desire to attain them.
Men, women, and even children, eagerly sought
condemnation to the stake or to the wild beasts.
They boldly confessed themselves to be Chris
tians — nay, they voluntarily offered themselves
to the authorities, and solicited the glorious boon.
Sulpicius Severus says: " They rushed, vying with
each other, into the glorious struggles, and many
sought martyrdoms by glorious deaths more
eagerly than now they seek, with low ambitions,
even the episcopate." So, when Ignatius was
about to suffer, he wrote to his friends at Rome,
urging them not to fear in his behalf: "I be
seech you that you show not an unseasonable
goodwill towards me. Suffer me to be food for
the wild beasts, by whom I shall attain unto God.
For I am the wheat of God, and I shall be ground
by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be
found the pure bread of Christ."

INTRODUCTION. 55
But I have space to pursue the subject no fur
ther. What I have said will be sufficient, I trust,
to show how thoroughly practical to themselves
the Book of Revelation was made by the early
churches. To them it was not in its main scope
a book for the distant ages. There are things in
it — glimpses of matters which, as their terms
showed, stretched beyond the general range of the
book as stated on its title page, such as the bind
ing of Satan, the thousand years, Gog and Magog,
and a few others, about which they fell into as
fanciful errors as others since them have done,
but, with these exceptions, it was a message from
heaven of the most immediate practical value to
them. And I believe that if we would ascertain
its true meaning, as intended by its inspired Au
thor, we must go back to that day and study it in
the light of those times, the existing state of the
churches, their actual needs, and the wise and
loving purposes of the Lord, who in the martyr
fires of those first three centuries was preparing
the immovable foundations of that kingdom which
should extend over all the earth, and of whose
duration there should be no end.

THE REVELATION.

PREFATORY.
IT is one of the many disadvantages attending
the study of the Scriptures in our version, that
they are printed in a manner so different from
other books. The Revelation is not, so to
speak, a chapter or section of a large work called
the Bible, as one might infer from the way in
which it stands on the pages of the sacred volume.
It is strictly an independent book. It has what
in modern books would be a title-page, a dedica
tion, a motto condensing into a single paragraph
the subject of the work and its author — all pre
ceding the regular body of the work. First :
The Title-Page.
Chapter i. (1) The Revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave him to show unto his servants, even
the things which must shortly come to pass : and he
sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant
John; (2) who bare witness of the word of God, and
of the testimony of jesus christ, even of all things
that he saw. (3) blessed is he that readeth, and
they that hear the words of the prophecy, and
3* 57

58 the revelation.
KEEP THE THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN THEREIN: FOR THE
TIME IS AT HAND.*
It obviously consists of two parts, an announce
ment of the nature of the book, and a blessing
upon those who use it. It is generally held that
the words "he that readeth" and "they that
hear " refer to the official reader and members of
a congregation, showing that the book was in
tended for public use throughout the early
churches. This will suggest one of the reasons
why those portions that speak of the persecuting
authorities under whom Christians were suffering,
should be couched in enigmatic terms for conceal
ment from the uninitiated.
The Dedication
occupies the next three verses. This consists also
of two parts, a solemn benediction upon those to
whom the work was addressed, and a doxology of
praise to Him through whom salvation and exalta
tion to glory are bestowed.
Chapter i. (4) John to the seven churches which are
in Asia : Grace to you and peace, from him which is and
which was and which is to come ; and from the seven Spirits
which are before his throne ; (5) and from Jesus Christ, who
is the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the
ruler of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loveth us
and loosed us from our sins by his blood; (6) and he made
us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and his
Father; to him be the glory and the dominion forever and
ever. Amen.
*The text is that of the Kevised Version.

PREFATORY. 59
It is a question why seven churches only are
named in this dedication, when it is known that
there were more than these within the territory
named, and also that the work must have been
intended equally for all other churches which were
in similar circumstances of trial. The most prob
able reason is to be found in the peculiar habit of
the Jews of regarding seven as a symbolic num
ber standing for the whole, as seven days rounded
out the week. We shall find very frequent in
stances of this use of the word in this book. By
the seven Spirits, we are probably to understand
the Holy Spirit, in his " completeness and univer
sality of working." (Alford). See Chapter iv. 5.
The word " witness " means also " a martyr," and
was doubtless used to intimate to the suffering
saints that their Lord himself had gone before
them in the experience of persecution.
The seventh verse is a sort of
Motto,
or sub-title, which in modern books would be
printed on a page alone as giving a condensed
summary of the work.
Chapter i. C7) Behold, he cometh with the clouds ; and
every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him; and
all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him. Even so,
Amen. This is followed in verse eight by what is
equivalent to an autograph signature of the Lord

60 the revelation.
himself, announcing his divine titles and authenti
cating the whole with his own hand.
The Divine Titles.
Chapter i. (8) I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the
Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come,
the Almighty.
The first eight verses are thus prefatory, and
only at the ninth do we reach the proper com
mencement of the work.
Vision of Christ the Revealer.
Chapter i. (9) I John, your brother and partaker with
you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which
are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for
the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. (10) I was in
the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great
voice, as of a trumpet saying, (11) What thou seest, write
in a book, and send it to the seven churches; unto Ephesus,
and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira,
and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
(12) And I turned to see the voice which spake with me.
And having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks; (13)
and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of
man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt
about at the breasts with a golden girdle. (14) And his
head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow;
and his eyes were as aflame of fire; (15) and his feet like
unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace;
and his voice as the voice of many waters. (16) And he had
in his right hand seven stars : and out of his mouth pro
ceeded a sharp two-edged sword : and his countenance was
as the sun shineth in his strength. (17) And when I saw
him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right
hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last,

PREFATORY. 61
(18) and the Living one ; and I was dead, and behold, I am
alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of
Hades. (19) Write therefore the things which thou sawest,
and the things which are, and the things which shall come
to pass hereafter; (20) the mystery of the seven stars which
thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candle
sticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches : and the seven candlesticks are seven churches.
Ver. 9. The patience of Jesus Christ is the
suffering or patient endurance of persecution for
his sake. Compare James v. 11. — For the word,
is on account of the word, etc. — Ver. 10. The
Lord's Bay, usually understood of the " first day
of the week," as in 1 Cor. xv. 2. Some under
stand it, however, as " the day of the Lord," in 1
Cor. i. 8; v. 5; 2 Cor. i. 14; 1 Thess. v. 2; 2
Thess. ii. 2 ; 2 Pet. iii. 10, i.e., the period of the
Parousia, or second coming. In the latter sense
it would be most accordant with the scope of this
book. Just as Ezekiel was in vision taken by the
Spirit of God into a high mountain (Chapter xl.
2), so John was taken into the scenes of the com
ing Messianic period in which the great events
herein described were to be fulfilled. — As of a
trumpet, means loud and startling like a trumpet
note. — To see the voice, to see Him whose voice
it was. — ¦. Candlesticks, rather, lamps. The an
cients did not use candles. — 14. White, i.e., glis
tening. — 16. Two-edged sword. Probably this
was not visible, for it would make a very incon
gruous figure. The idea is that the words he

62 THE REVELATION.
spoke were piercing and irresistible, like the
stroke of a sword. — 18. Amen, in our common
version a word ejaculated by the apostle, expres
sive of his delight at the announcement. — Keys
of Hades — the underworld, to which all souls
were supposed to go at death. At his resurrec
tion Jesus had come from that world, and had
carried away its keys ; in other words, had abol
ished it, so that thenceforth his people should not
go thither, but ascend directly to the place he
had prepared for them, to be forever with him. —
19. The things which are, rather, what they are,
i.e., what the things which thou hast seen signify.
— Shall come to pass hereafter, rather, which shall
be after these. In other words, he was to write
down the vision already granted him, and its
meaning, and what was to occur immediately
after. Two, not three, classes of things are re
ferred to.
Such was the wonderful vision which broke
upon the enraptured gaze of the exiled apostle
on that rocky islet of Patmos. How admirably
fitting to the needs of the churches in that time
of trouble! To human view, the Master whom
they served had been in lowly condition. A Gal
ilean, a peasant, poor, without influential friends,
condemned by all the respectable of the land, ex
ecuted as a malefactor on a slave's gibbet — how
was it possible that some of these things should

PREFATORY. 63
not creep at times into their secret thoughts, and
prompt to the most painful misgivings. Was he
the Lord after all? Were they not throwing
their lives away for an impostor ? John himself,
indeed, could not forget that night on the moun
tain top in Csesarea Philippi, when the glorious
light of the transfiguration had made the mid
night as bright as noon; but even that was but a
vision fading in the dim distance of the past.
What a boon, then, to the oppressed churches,
such a revelation as this ! Let a new conception
of their Lord fill their minds after this. Behold
that majestic figure, in royal robes and golden
girdle, his hair like rays of light, his eyes like the
lightning flash, his face like the sun at midday,
his voice like the far-sounding waves of the sea !
In his open palm, symbolical both cf possession
and protection, he holds, like a starry circlet, his
churches. His voice, as a flaming sword, leaps
forth to execute his commands, and a voice, ma
jestic as the ocean, proclaims him the ever-living
Lord both of death and life. It was such a Be
ing, in fact, that they served. What was Nero,
what all earthly power and malice, in comparison
with him and his protection ? What had death
itself to terrify, when He who held the keys of
death and Hades in his possession was their
friend !
Nothing could be more timely than such a new

64 THE REVELATION.
revelation of the power and glory of the Re
deemer to the suffering infant churches. Can we
doubt that it is for their sakes primarily and
chiefly that he dictates the messages which fol
low ? Can we doubt that they will be messages
which his people can understand, summonses to
courage and brave endurance for his sake, assur
ances of his own presence in the darkest day and
the thickest storm, promises of victory even by
death over their foes, and inspirations of glorious
hope, when the martyrs' throne and crown shall
succeed the sword and the stake and the wild
beasts? What wonder is it that, as such disclos
ures break on the enraptured view of the apostle,
he should be impatient for their speedy fulfill
ment, and respond again and again, with ea
ger anticipation, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come
quickly ! "

II.
MESSAGES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES.
Before proceeding' to those general predictions
which related to all the churches, the Redeemer
addresses -a special message to each of the seven,
taking notice of its peculiar condition and spirit
ual wants, and administering special encourage
ment or admonition as it needed. These constitute
the well-known Epistles to the Seven Churches.
A careful analysis of these shows them to have
been constructed in a quite artificial manner.
Each consists of seven subdivisions similarly
arranged. 1. The superscription.
2. The title of the author, in each case taken
from one of the personal characteristics described
in the glorious vision of the Lord in the preced
ing chapter.
3. A solemn declaration of the state or charac
ter of each church as seen by his eye.
4. An expression of commendation or censure.
5. An exhortation to perseverance or penitence.
6. A special promise to " him that overcometh."
7. A command to hear what the Spirit saith to
each. 65

66 THE REVELATION.
It may be noticed, also, that in each instance
the exhortation to perseverance or to penitence is
enforced by motives derived from the title of the
Lord named in that instance. Thus, for Ephe
sus the title is, "He that walketh in the midst of
the seven golden candlesticks," and the admoni
tion, " I will move thy candlestick out of its
place." For Smyrna, " He which was dead, and
lived again." Promise, "Shall not be hurt of the
second death." For Pergamum, " He that hath
the sharp two-edged sword." Threatening, "I
will make war against them with the sword of my
mouth." For Thyatira, " Who hath his eyes like
a flame of fire." Admonition, " I am he which
searcheth the reins and hearts." For Sardis, "He
that hath the seven Spirits of God," implying
swift and all-penetrating omniscience. Warning,
" I will come as a thief." For Philadelphia, " He
that hath the key of David." Promise, "I have
set before thee a door opened." For Laodicea,
" The faithful and true Witness," i.e., in Greek,
martyr. Promise, " He shall sit down with me in
my throne, as I — • the first martyr — sit with my
Father in his throne."
If it be asked why this artificialness of style
and structure was employed, the answer is, be
cause it was in the method of prophetic language
of that time. Prophecy, both in the Old Testa
ment and in heathen writings, was nearly always

MESSAGES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 67
written in poetry. But the style of poetry then
was different from what it is now. We write it
in measured lines, each having a certain number
of feet, with regularly recurring accent, rhyming
terminations, etc. They used parallelism, the
members of sentences recurring in regular order,
in couplets or triplets, or combinations of coup
lets and triplets, sometimes by repetition of the
thought, sometimes by contrast, sometimes by am
plification, the successive clauses rising one above
another in the form of a climax, etc. Examples
of all these abound in the Psalms and the Proph
ets. The ultimate reason for this is, doubtless, in
the fact that it was pleasing to the taste, just as
an exquisite poem delights us more than the
same number of equally select words expressing
precisely the same thoughts, would do if written
as prose. It serves also as a valuable aid to mem
ory, just as the sweet hymns learned in our child
hood become engraven on our hearts, and remain
indelible there as long as life itself lasts.
Our space will permit us only a brief glance at
these seven messages.
Ephesus.
Chapter ii. (1) To the angel -of the church in Ephesus
write ;
These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his
right hand, he that walketh in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks: (2) I know thy works, and thy toil and pa
tience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try

68 THE REVELATION.
them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and
didst find them false; (3) and thou hast patience and didst
bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary. (4)
But I have lids against thee, that thou didst leave thy first
love. (5) Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,
and repent, and do the first works; or else I come to thee,
and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou
repent. (6) But this thou hast, that thou hatest the works
of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (7) He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree
of life, which is in the Paradise of God.
Ephesus was the capital of the province, and
her church probably the foremost of the seven.
All antiquity represents John himself to have
been its pastor. This church, with a single ex
ception, is commended. It had borne hardship
with patience; it had rejected false teachers; it
had been fruitful in Christian work ; and espe
cially it had refused to tolerate the " Nicolaitans,"
a class of people of obscure origin, but probably
a sort of ancient free-lovers, dissolute in doctrine
and practice. The exception, however, was a
grave one — the church had lost its first love, the
zeal and ardor with which it first espoused the
gospel. For this it was severely reproved and
threatened, if disobedient, with the loss of its
existence as a church.
Smyrna.
Chapter ii. (8) And to the angel of the church in
Smyrna write ;
These things saith the first and the last, which was dead,

MESSAGES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 69
and lived again : (9) I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty
(but thou art rich), and the blasphemy of them which say
they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of
Satan. (10) Fear not the things which thou art about to
suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into
prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribulation
ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee
the crown of life. (11) He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith to the churches. He that overcometh
shall not be hurt of the second death. i
Smyrna, forty miles north of Ephesus, is com
mended throughout. The church there had ap
parently suffered from persecution by the Jews —
called by our Lord "a synagogue of Satan," —
and was to suffer more for a period of " ten days,"
i.e., a very short time. It is noticeable that this
city, whose church was thus commended, has sur
vived during all the centuries to this day. It is
a large commercial seaport, with a population of
about 100,000.
Pergamum.
Chapter n. (12) And to the angel of the church in Per
gamum write ;
These things saith he that hath the sharp two-edged
sword: (13) I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan's
throne is: and thou boldest fast my name, and didst not
deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas my witness, my
faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwell
eth. (14) But I have a few things against thee, because
thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam, who
taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children
of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit
fornication. (15) So hast thou also some that hold the

70 THE REVELATION.
teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner. (16) Repent
therefore; or else I come to thee quickly, and I will make
war against them with the sword of my mouth. (17) He
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the
churches. To him that overcometh, to him will I give of
the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and
upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth
but he that receiveth it.
Pergamum lay still farther north, about sixty
miles from Smyrna. The language of the mes
sage implies that it was a hard place, "where
Satan's throne is." Violent persecution had
raged there against the church, in which the faith
ful Antipas suffered as a martyr. The church,
however, had stood firm, and held fast their Chris
tian name. Some among them had fallen in with
the loose practices of the heathen, after the exam
ple of Balaam (Compare Numbers xxv. 1-5 with
xxxi. 16) ; and some had yielded to Nicolaitanism,
and for these sins the church is severely censured
and commanded to repent.
Thyatira.
Chapter ii. (18) And to the angel of the church in Thy
atira write ;
These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like
a flame of fire, and his feet are like unto burnished brass:
(19) I know thy works, and thy love and faith and ministry
and patience, and that thy last works are more than the
first. (20) But I have this against thee, that thou sufferest
the woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess;
and she teacheth and seduceth my servants to commit for
nication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. (21) And I

MESSAGES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 71
gave her time that she should repent; and she willeth not
to repent of her fornication. (22) Behold, I do cast her
into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her
into great tribulation, except they repent of her works.
(23) And I will kill her children with death; and all the
churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins
and hearts: and I will give unto each one of you according
to your works. (24) But to you I say, to the rest that are
in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, which
know not the deep things of Satan, as they say; I cast upon
you none other burden. (25) Howbeit that which ye have,
hold fast till I come. (26) And he that overcometh, and he
that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give au
thority over the nations: (27) and he shall rule them with a
rod of iron, as the vessels of the. potter are broken to
shivers; as I also have received of my Father: (28) and I
will give him the morning star. (29) He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Thyatira was east of Pergamum, about thirty
miles. It was the home of Lydia, the purple
merchant of Philippi, who was one of Paul's first
converts in Macedonia. This church, too, was
more or less infected with a corruption similar to
those already named, and, most remarkably under
the leadership, apparently, of its pastor's wife.
The phrase, "the woman" (verse 20), is cor
rected by the best textual authority to "thy
wife," i.e., the wife of the " angel " of the church.
She is called Jezebel, not because that was her
name, but probably because her character and
conduct resembled that of the heathen wife of
Ahab (1 Kings xvi. 30-33; xxi. 5-25). She
might be called a second Jezebel. Licentious im-

72 THE REVELATION.
purities, which constituted so large a part of idol
atry, were among the most formidable sources of
corruption in the infant churches.
Sardis.
Chapter iii. (1) And to the angel of the church in Sar
dis write ;
These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God,
and the seven stars : I know thy works, that thou hast a
name that thou livest, and thou art dead. (2) Be thou
watchful, and stablish the things that remain, which were
ready to die: for I have found no works of thine fulfilled
before my God. (3) Remember therefore how thou hast re
ceived and didst hear; and keep it, and repent. If there
fore thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief, and thou
shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. (4) But
thou hast a few names in Sardis which did not defile their
garments : and they shall walk with me in white ; for they
are worthy. (5) He that overcometh shall thus be arrayed
in white garments; and I will in no wise blot his name out
of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my
Father, and before his angels. (6) He that hath an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Sardis was about forty miles south of Thyatira.
The condition of its church was not unlike that
of Ephesus — one of general coldness — but prob
ably aggravated by much positive wickedness.
The phrase, " a few names in Sardis," implies a
notoriously corrupt place. Still, Sardis put on a
good show, " having a name to live," though the
life of piety was nearly extinct. No church is
more sternly reproved than this.

messages to the seven churches. 73
Philadelphia.
Chapter hi. (7) And to the angel of the church in Phil
adelphia write ;
These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that
hath the key of David, he that openeth, and none shall
shut, and that shutteth, and nune openeth: (S) I know thy
works (behold I have set before thee a door opened, wliich
none can shut), that thou hast a little power, and didst keep
my word, and didst not deny my name. (9) Behold, I give
of the synagogue of Satan, of them which say they are
Jews and they are not, but do lie; behold I will make them
to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I
have loved thee. (10) Because thou didst keep the word of
toy patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial,
that huur which is to come upon the whole world, to try
them that dwell upon the earth. (11) Iconic quickly: hold
fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown.
(12) He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the
temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no more: and
I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of
the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh
down out of heaven from my God, and mine own new name.
(13) He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
to the churches.
Philadelphia, thirty miles southeast of Sardis,
receives almost entire approval. Her promised
reward was to be characteristic of her fidelity.
The church, amid prevalent backsliding, had kept
her faith, and showed that she had a measure of
spiritual strength. She should have, therefore,
an open door of usefulness in the cause of her
Lord. Her Jewish adversaries and troublers
should be compelled (verse 9) to acknowledge her
4

74 THE REVELATION.
truth, and see the proof of her acceptance with
God. The special promise was also added, that
in the great persecutions which were approaching
she should be "kept," — possibly shielded from
harm, or perhaps simply kept by the upholding
grace of Christ, so as to be " able to bear it."
Laodicea.
Chapter iii. (14) And to the angel of the church in
Laodicea write ;
These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true wit
ness, the beginning of the creation of God: (15) I know
thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou
wert cold or hot. (16) So because thou art lukewarm, and
neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.
(17) Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches,
and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art
the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and
naked: (18) I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by
fire that thou mayest become rich ; and white garments that
thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy na
kedness be not made manifest; and eyesalve to anoint thine
eyes, that thou mayest see. (19) As many as I love, I re
buke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. (20)
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my
voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup
with him, and he with me. (21) He that overcometh, I will
give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also
overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. (22)
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to
the churches.
Lastly, the church of Laodicea, fifty miles
southeast of Philadelphia, is severely reproved.
It had backslidden to such a degree as to become

MESSAGES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 75
absolutely offensive to the Lord, and yet was so
conceited as to fancy itself in a most thriving
spiritual condition. It was solemnly enjoined to
search itself, discern its true needs, and hasten to
attain the righteousness which humility and de
pendence on Christ alone could give.
Such was the state of these primitive Asiatic
churches — representatives, doubtless, of most
others at that day — as they stood on the eve of
the great struggle in which Christianity and Hea
thenism were to engage in deadly conflict for a
period of two and a half centuries. It was to be
a contest between Jesus, the crucified one, and
Rome, the crucifier. It was to be a great " temp
tation, which should come upon all the world —
the whole Roman empire — to try them that dwell
upon the earth." For such a struggle the churches
needed to rouse and prepare themselves. They
needed to gird on the whole armor of God, that
they might withstand in the evil day. They
needed the promises of the presence and uphold
ing power of the Lord, and of the glorious re
ward attending them if faithful in heaven. With
special messages like these addressed to each
church, they might be prepared to look upon the
unfolding scroll of prophecy, as it should open to
them in the rest of this book, and read the things
which in the permissive wisdom of the Lord were
"shortly to come to pass."

76 THE REVELATION.
Says the anonymous author of the English
"Parousia": " No one can fail to be struck with the indica
tions that an expected catastrophe is at hand.
To Ephesus it is said, 'I will come unto thee
quickly ' (Chap. ii. 5) ; to Smyrna, ' Thou shalt
have tribulation ten days ' (ii. 10) ; to Pergamum,
' I will come unto thee quickly ' (ii. 16) ; to Thy
atira, ' Hold fast till I come ' (ii. 25) ; to Sardis,
' I will come on thee as a thief ' (iii. 3) ; to Phil
adelphia, ' Behold, I come quickly ' (iii. 2) ; to
Laodicea, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock'
(iii. 20). It is impossible to conceive that these
urgent warnings had no special meaning to those
to whom they were addressed ; that they meant
no more to them than they do to us ; that they
refer to a consummation which has never yet
taken place. This would be to deprive the words
of all significance. What can be more evident
than that in these sharp, short, epigrammatic ut
terances, all is intensely urgent, pressing, vehe
ment, as if not a moment were to be lost, and
negligence or delay might be fatal? But how
could such passionate urgency be consistent with
a far-off consummation, which might come in
some distant period of time, which after eighteen
hundred years is still in the future? Why resort
to such an unnatural and unsatisfactory explana
tion, when we know that there was a predicted

MESSAGES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 77
and expected consummation which was to take
place in the days when these churches flourished ?
We therefore conclude that the period of recom
pense and retribution referred to in all these epis
tles to the churches was the approaching ' day of
the Lord' — the Parousia, which the Saviour de*
clared would take place before the passing away
of the generation which witnessed his miracles
and rejected his message."

III.
THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK.
The Heavenly Session.
Chapter iv. (1) After these things I saw, and behold, a
door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard, a
voice as of a trumpet speaking with me, one sayiug, Come
up hither, and I will shew thee the things which must come
to pass hereafter. (2) Straightway I was in the Spirit: and
behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting
upon the throne ; (3) and he that sat was to look upon like
a jasper stone and a sardius: and there was a rainbow round
about the throne, like an emerald to look upon. (4) And
round about the throne were four and twenty thrones: and
upon the thrones I saw four and twenty elders sitting, ar
rayed in white garments; and on their heads crowns of
gold. (5) And out of the throne proceed lightnings and
voices and thunders. And there were seven lamps of fire
burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of
God ; (6) and before the throne, as it were a glassy sea like
unto crystal; and in the midst of the throne, and round
about the throne, four living creatures full of eyes before
and behind. (7) And the first creature was like a lion, and
the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a
face as of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying
eagle. (8) And the four living creatures, having each one
of them six wings, are full of eyes round about and within:
and they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy,
holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, which was and which
is and which is to come. (9) And when the living creatures
78

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 79
shall give glory and honour and thanks to him that sitteth
on the throne, to him that liveth for ever and ever, (10) the
four and twenty elders shall fall down before him that sit
teth on the throne, and shall worship him that liveth for
ever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne,
saying, (11) Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to re
ceive the glory and the honour and the power: for thou
didst create all things, and because of thy will they wei'e,
and were created.
The apostle says he looked upward, and be
hold ! an opened door ; i.e., a seeming aperture in
the blue concave above him. It is not meant
that he saw the opening made, but only there was
an opening. The ancients, we must remember,
conceived of the sky as a solid- expanse, a firma
ment over-arching the earth. As he looked in
tently at this, behold ! a Voice, viz., the one which
he had heard at first, as described in Chapter i.
10, 11, which was loud, clear, and piercing, like
the blast of a trumpet. This Voice appears to
come down from above the sky, though the Per
son who speaks is not visible. As, however, it is
the same voice he has heard before, he knows it
must be from Him whom he saw at that time,
and who gave him the messages to the churches.
This Voice bids him come up thither, not person
ally, but in vision, to be shown the things which
were appointed to take place "after these things,"
i.e., after what had been mentioned -in those
epistles. Immediately he is " in the Spirit," or the state

80 THE REVELATION.
of prophetic ecstacy, and looking through the
opened sky he sees a Throne. Of its form and
appearance he says nothing. Oriental thrones
were of different shapes, sometimes an orna
mented arm-chair, as is often seen on the Nine-
vite sculptures ; sometimes a richly cushioned
divan, on which the monarch might either sit or
recline. An example of. the former may have
been seen in Solomon's great ivory throne, de
scribed in 1 Kings x. 18-20 ; and of the latter in
the throne of Queen Esther, called "the bed" in
Esther vii. 8. In the latter case it was probably
large enough for the king and queen both ; and
some such idea seems to be implied in Christ's
sitting "with his Father in his throne." Rev.
iii. 21. In the present case, the absence of all
description tends to enhance the sentiment of awe
and sublimity inspired by the august scene.
" Before the throne was a glassy sea like unto
crystal," i.e., a brilliant, transparent pavement
corresponding to those which are common in east
ern palaces. The writer remembers a visit to the
palace of the king of Holland, at the Hague, a
few years ago, where one of the most noticeable
features, as he entered the throne room, was the
magnificently polished floor, in which all objects
were reflected as in a mirror. These pavements
were often of marble, of inlaid or tesselated pat
terns, like the paved courts of the temple at Je-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 81
rusalem. See in Esther i. 6, the description of
the Persian palace — "the beds (divans) were of
gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and blue
and white and black marble."
The apostle first sees "upon the throne One
sitting." In the original there is no word to
designate the occupant of the throne ; as if the
sacred writer could not venture upon any term
worthy to stand as his representative. Our Eng
lish translators, to meet the grammatical need,
supplied, in italics, the word One. This " sitting
One " was in appearance " like a jasper stone and
a sardius," i.e., resplendent in colored radiance,
like those gems ; the jasper a variegated stone of
green, yellow, and purple, and the sardine, or
what we call the carnelian, of a bright red or
blood color. Surrounding and enveloping the
whole was an iris (rainbow) of emerald, i.e., in
which the green predominated. Thus the order
of the colors from the interior outwards was
nearly that of the hues of the rainbow, the
whole forming a spectacle of the most gorgeous
magnificence. Whether beyond this any special
ideas of the divine attributes were intended to be
suggested — the ruddy hues symbolizing justice
and severity, and the softer green ones mercy and
gentleness — is left to each reader to judge for
himself. Around and beneath the throne were, as the
4*

82 THE REVELATION.
common version has it, the " Four Beasts," a most
unfortunate translation. The original is, " Living
Ones," precisely as in Ezekiel's vision of the
" Living Creatures," Ezek. i. 5 — one of the most
obscure topics contained in the Bible. This ob
scurity, however, is believed to arise rather from
a want of familiarity with oriental conceptions
and modes of representing them, than from any
insuperable difficulties in the subject itself.
These Living Ones are described as four-winged
figures, having respectively the heads of a lion, a
calf or bullock, a man, and an eagle. They will
be recognized as very similar to the figures which
were placed on the cover of the sacred ark (Ex.
xxxvii. 8, 9), embroidered upon the curtains of
the tabernacle (Ex. xxxvi. 35), set as statues, and
carved upon the doors in the temple of Solomon
(1 Kings vi. 23, 32), and seen by Ezekiel at the
commencement of his prophetic visions (Ezek. i.
4, 25). A careful examination of these passages
will disclose some variations in them, but the
general features are much the same in all.
In endeavoring to discover the meaning of these
figures, it may help us to remember that something
very like to them are exceedingly common in the
antiquities of all the East. In the burial palaces
of Nineveh and Babylon, the most striking figures
are those of the great winged bulls and lions,
sculptured as statues, and graven on tablets.

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 83
Some of these join to the body of an ox the head
of a man, or of an eagle ; indeed, this fourfold
union of animal forms, under much variety of
detail, is everywhere apparent. So it was in
Egypt. The great sphinx near Cairo has the body
of a lion with a human head, and hundreds of
similar figures lined the avenues of approach to
the ancient temples of the gods.
There can be no doubt that these composite
figures were intended as symbols of the divine, at
tributes. The popular idea that they represent an
order of angels called cherubs (Hebrew, cheru
bim), is probably incorrect. If they were de
signed to represent any really existing beings,
their use would seem to have been forbidden by
the second commandment; certainly they could
have had no place among the temple furniture.
As symbolic figures only, representatives of ideas,
could the}r have been tolerated. Those ideas
may be intelligence, as suggested by the human
face ; strength and majesty by that of the lion ,
patience by that of the ox, and swiftness by that
of the eagle. In other words, to generalize the
idea, they stand as the recognized symbol of the
wisdom, power, eternity, and omniscience of God.
In the sculptures of Nineveh these composite
figures stand as guardians of the palace and of
the sovereign. The very word with which we
are familiar, "cherub" (lamb), is applied to

84 THE REVELATION.
them, derived from a root signifying to be strong.
" With the Chaldeo-Assyrians," saj^s Lenormant,
"from the tenth to the fifth century before our
era, the kirub, whose name is identical with the
Hebrew 'kerub,' was the winged bull with a hu
man head."
Taking this, then, as the approximate idea in
tended to be conveyed by this remarkable sym
bol, we have no great difficulty in discerning its
significance in the various places where it is
mentioned in the Scriptures. When God drove
Adam and Eve out of Eden for their sin, it is
said (Gen. iii. 24) that "he set the cherubim with
flaming sword, to keep the way of the tree of
life." That is, as we are inclined to think, not to
bar their return thither upon any possible condi
tions, but to guard it for them till the way should
be open through the blood of the atoning Lamb
of God. They were, in reality, therefore, sym
bols of mercy, not of wrath ; pledges to the sin
ning pair, and through them to all their descend
ants, that God would provide for them a way of
salvation. For this reason, apparently, golden
figures of these symbols were placed upon the
mercy-seat of the ark, and embroidered upon the
curtains of the tabernacle, and afterwards set in
carved statuary in the temple, to encourage wor
shipers with the promise of acceptance. So in
the vision of Ezekiel they appear as a vehicle

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 85
(merkabh) on which the divine glory was up
borne, the same idea being represented as in the
other cases, that the Lord was a God of mercy,
and that all his manifestations to men were for
the promotion of their salvation.
In this view of the nature of these mysterious
beings, we obtain a glimpse of the reason why
they were associated with the appearance of God
himself in heaven. Heretofore, in all the past
ages of the world they had been the symbols of
salvation promised; they are seen here as the
symbols of salvation bestowed. As such, they
are so closely identified with the redeemed that
they even participate in praise for redemption,
leading the elders and the saints in the "new
song, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," etc.
Chapter v. 9, 10.
The positions of these Living Ones were prob
ably on the four sides of the throne, one directly
in front, described as "in the midst of the throne,"
one on either side, and the fourth in the rear, all
probably looking outward. Nothing is said of
their bodies, but the usual opinion is that these
were of the form of the ox, and extended inward,
under and upholding the throne. Compare Ezek.
i. 23, 26.
In a circle around the throne, apparently on a
lower elevation, were twenty-four inferior thrones,
occupied by as many Elders, figures of saintly

86 THE REVELATION.
and venerable men, arrayed in the white robes of
holiness, and wearing golden crowns. They were,
doubtless, representatives of the universal church
of the redeemed — the number twenty-four being
derived from the twelve patriarchs and the twelve
apostles. Within this circle and directly before the throne
were seven burning Lamps, corresponding to the
seven-branched candlestick of the temple, sym
bolical of "the Seven Spirits of God"; i.e., says
Alford, " the Holy Spirit in his seven-fold work
ing ; in his enlightening and cheering, as well as
his purifying and consuming agency." Thus in
terpreted, and taking into view the Lamb, men
tioned in the next chapter, we have the Divine
Three, the Blessed Trinity.
The Book of the Future.
Chapter v. (1) And I saw in the right hand of him
that sat on the throne a book written within and. on the
back, close sealed with seven seals. (2) And I saw a strong
angel proclaiming with a great voice, Who is worthy to
open the book, and to'loose the seals thereof? (3) And no
one in the heaven, or nn the earth, or under the earth, was
able to open the book, or to look thereon. (4) And I wept
much, because no one was found worthy to open the book,
or to look thereon :
Gazing intently on the august scene disclosed
to him in heaven, the seer beholds in the right
hand of Him who sits upon the throne a Book —
the symbol of futurity. That it was held in his

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 87
right hand doubtless implies his absolute proprie
torship and control of the future, the sole sover
eignty of his providence over the things which
were about to come to pass.
By the "book ".we are to understand, of course,
a scroll, i.e., a long sheet of parchment, papyrus,
or other material used for writing, whose opposite
ends were rolled upon two sticks in such a way
that as one was unrolled the other was rolled up,
the two sticks being held in the two hands at such
a distance apart as to be convenient for reading
the columns on the space between them. Books
bound in our present manner — in many leaves,
Of which the edges on one hand are free, and on
the other fastened together — were scarcely known
in ancient times. This book was written on both
sides of the sheet; a method not usual except
when the amount of matter was very great.
Probably this particular was mentioned as sug
gesting the abounding fullness of the divine
purposes. The book was " sealed with seven seals," — the
number seven, as usual, denoting completeness, or
that it was thoroughly and effectively sealed. The
manner in which these were affixed, probably,
was that a seal was attached to each successive
rolling of the sheet. Beginning with the left
hand stick, suppose it rolled over once and then
fastened in that position by a string upon whose

88 THE REVELATION.
knot the wax of the seal was impressed; then
rolled again, and another string and seal applied
in a similar manner ; and so on through seven roll
ings, thus completing the length of the sheet.
Of course, when the book was opened the break
ing of each seal successively would permit only so
much of the scroll to be read as was held by that
seal, the entire scroll being accessible only when
the whole seven seals were loosed.
The view of this ample yet closely shut up vol
ume of the divine purposes excites in the mind of
the gazer the most intense interest. Whether its
meaning was self-suggested by the appearance of
the book, or was communicated by the Person
who was showing him the vision is not stated ; it
is evident, however, that its real character was
known to the apostle. Beneath those mystic seals
were recorded the destinies of the suffering
church of God; upon that involved scroll were
delineated the pains and woes — did they contain,
also, the deliverance and the victory? — of those
who were passing through the martyr fires of per
secution. ..for Christ's sake. We cannot wonder
that his desire to know the contents was very
great. As he gazes with intense solicitude, behold, a
proclamation is made ! A mighty angel, with a
voice which reaches through the universe, calls
for some one of sufficient worth — from his ex-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 89
alted rank, his great achievements, or his superla
tive merits — to be entrusted with the office of
penetrating and making known these secret coun
sels of the future respecting the church. No
audible response is made, but the statement fol
lows — as if after waiting for some one to offer
himself, or after search was made for some one, —
that " no man " (as it is in our version, but in the
original "no one") "in-heaven nor in earth, nor
under the earth " (Hades, the realm of the dead),
these three being the customary Scripture phrase
for the whole intelligent universe, was able to
open the book or to look upon its contents. This
occasions great grief to the apostle, as an appar
ent defeat of his hopes of learning about the
future. While lamenting this disappointment, one of
the elders informs him that the book will be
opened by the Lion of Judah, the Root-shoot of
David, the well-known terms which designate the
Messiah. At the same time he beholds, standing
in the open space before the throne, a symbolic
form representing the crucified Redeemer. Like
the four Living creatures, it is one of those com
posite figures made up of symbols suggesting dif
ferent ideas, the very incongruity of which shows
that they are not to be taken literally. We shall
find such figures abounding in this book. They
were in accordance with oriental usage, as we see

90 THE REVELATION.
so abundantly illustrated in the ancient sculp
tures of Egypt, Assyria, and India. Our severer
occidental and modern taste discards them, and
indeed finds it difficult even to understand them ;
hence one of the chief sources of perplexity in
our day in interpreting a book like this.
The Slain Lamb.
Chapter v. (5) And one of the elders saith unto me,
Weep not: behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah,
the Root of David, hath overcome, to open the book and
the seven seals thereof. (6) And I saw in the midst of the
throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of
the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain,
having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven
Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. (7) And he
came, and he taketh it out of the right hand of him that
sat on the throne. (8) And when he had taken the book,
the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell
down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden
bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
It is not certain whether this figure of the
Slain Lamb had the animal form throughout, or
whether the body except the head was of the hu
man form. The acts of taking the scroll and
breaking the seals seem necessarily to imply the
use of hands, which, with some other things,
would go to make the latter supposition most
probable. The seven horns and the seven eyes
are, of course, symbols of power and omniscience,
the latter being, as it were, swift angelic messen
gers penetrating to every corner of the earth.

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 91
The figure bears the marks of one slain, perhaps
the open wounds and trickling blood-drops caused
by the crown of thorns, and the piercing by the
soldier's spear.
The Lamb advances and receives the scroll
from the hands of the enthroned One ; after
which follows the heavenly song of redemption.
The Song of Redemption.
Chapter v. (8) And when he had taken the book, the
four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell
down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden
bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
(9) And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to
take the book, and to open the seals thereof : for thou wast
slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of
every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, (10) and
madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests ; and
they reign upon the earth. (11) And I saw, and I heard a
voice of many angels round about the throne and the living
creatures and the elders ; and the number of them was ten
thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
(12) saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb that
hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wis
dom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing.
(13) And every created thing which is in the heaven, and
on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all
things that are in them, heard I saying, Unto him that sit
teth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and
the honor, and the glory, and the dominion, for ever and
ever. (14) And the four living creatures said, Amen. And
the elders fell down and worshiped.
The songs which are scattered through this
book are among its most interesting features.

92 THE REVELATION.
Apart from the general idea that all God's works
are to be made occasions for praise, they serve,
dramatically, to enliven the composition and im
part variety. In the fifth chapter there is given
us what we may call the Song of Creation. The
four Living Ones, symbols of the divine attri
butes in the created universe, lead in the worship,
and the elders, representatives of the church,
follow responsively ascribing, " glory, and honor,
and power, for thou hast created all things and
for thy pleasure they are and were created." In
this chapter the chorus is wider, the song more
fervent. The Living Ones, as before, are the
leaders ; the elders, with harps and incense, the
symbol of the prayers of the saints, follow. They
sing "a new song " — new because later than the
ancient universal song of creation — saying,
" Thou art worthy to take the book and to open
the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast
redeemed us (the best manuscripts omit the word
ms, removing the supposed difficulty of the Liv
ing Creatures participating in this ascription), to
God 'by thy blood out of every kindred, and
tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us
(rather them, i.e., redeemed men) kings and
priests ; and we (rather they) reign on the earth."
Says Dean Alford, " The present tense of the
verb to reign is not to be rendered as a future,
but keeps its own meaning, the whole aspect and

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 93
reference of this heavenly vision being not future
but present ; the world and church as now exist
ing. Compare Eph. ii. 6. The church even now,
in Christ her head reigns on the earth ; all things
are being put under her feet as under his ; and
even if this meaning be questioned, we have her
kingly rank and office asserted in the present,
even in the midst of persecution and contempt."
The angelic hosts, in shining circles about the
throne and the Living Ones and the elders, join
in the new song with a seven-fold ascription of
praise and worship to the Lamb. Finally, " Every
creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and
under the earth, and such as are in the sea " —
a circumstantial enumeration embracing the entire
sentient universe — respond in equal and joint
adoration of Him that sat on the throne and of
the Lamb, to which again the Living Ones answer
" Amen " ; and the elders fall down and worship
in silent adoration.
It is impossible for the mind to conceive of
anything more sublime than this. These were
the honors paid to Him who had once been de
spised and rejected of men, and in whom many
affect still to see only a man like ourselves — the
most eminent individual, indeed, of the race, but
still one having a human nature only, to whom it
is as improper to offer real worship as to any
other finite creature. How cheering such a vision

94 THE REVELATION.
must have been to the apostle we can but imag
ine. If the Lord whom he served was thus wor
shiped in heaven, he was worthy of the highest
confidence of his people on earth. If it was his
church that was persecuted by Jew and pagan, it
was a persecution that need not be feared. The
representatives of that church were enthroned
within the innermost circles of heaven, nearest
the throne of God, and they might feel that the
sympathies and the help of all the holy universe
were forever theirs.
The Opening of the Seals.
Hitherto the contents of this book have been
chiefly preparatorj' ; we now come to what is
strictly prophetic. I may add, also, that here be
gin the real difficulties of interpretation. Up to
thh> point commentators, however greatly they
may differ as to the subsequent portions, are in
the main agreed.
Are there any reliable guides to our path as we
attempt to enter the obscure mazes before us ? It
would perhaps be presumptuous to say that there
are, much more to affirm that we can always ap
ply them with perfect assurance. We think,
however, that we may name three, which will
greatly aid us in our task, at least will be much
safer than that fanciful conjecture which has
seemed so often to be the only rule that was fol-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 95
lowed. The first is, the express declaration of
the first verse of the book that it was to relate to
'¦'¦things which must shortly eome to pass." The
second is, the analogy of other Scriptures of a sim
ilar character. It will be seen, as we go on, that
the apostle has directly or indirectly referred to
or imitated the language of many other of the
sacred writers, of which one conspicuous example
is the city of the New Jerusalem, so much resem
bling Ezekiel's vision of the new temple, and an
other the vision of the four horses in this chap
ter, similar to that in Zechariah, Chapter vi.
These earlier passages often throw much light on
the corresponding ones in this book. The third
is the actual history of the times covered by these
predictions. We shall endeavor, in the sugges
tions we make, to follow very carefully the indi
cations furnished us by these three guides.
Chapter vi. (1) And I saw when the Lamb opened one
of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living crea
tures saying as with a voice of thunder, Come.
Gazing still through the opened skies above
him, the seer beholds the Lamb breaking one of
the seals of the scroll, and at the same time one of
the Living Ones cries with a voice like thunder,
"Come!" The most reliable Greek manuscripts
omit the words added in our common version,
"and see." Various suggestions as to the import
of this command have been given. On the whole,

96 THE REVELATION.
we think the ancient one most probable, that it
was a summons to the apostle, as representing
the church below, to draw near and behold what
should be disclosed. This would be a most effec
tive mode of impressing on his mind the magni
tude of the events about to be shown.
The First Seal.
Chapter vi. (2) And I saw, and behold, a white horse,
and he that sat thereon had a bow ; and there was given
unto him a crown; and he came forth conquering, and to
conquer He looked, and behold, pictured on the open
scroll a white horse, bearing an armed warrior.
To him was given a crown in token of victories
won, and he dashed forward on his steed to
achieve yet more. We understand by this symbol
a victorious Leader of the Lord's host, implying
that the woes which are to be inflicted on his
enemies are to be marshaled and directed with
skill, and are to achieve the purpose for which
they are sent.
The Second Seal.
Chapter vi. (3) And when he opened the second seal, I
heard the second living creature saying, Come. (4) And
another horse came forth, a red horse : and to him that sat
thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, and that
they should slay one another: and there was given unto him
a grea-t sword.
The second seal is broken, and another call

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 97
from one of the Living Ones summons the apos
tle to look. On the second page of the scroll is
pictured a red horse (the color of blood) bearing
another rider. A commission is given to him " to
take peace from the land," and a mighty sword
with which to execute it. Plainly this is War,
divinely appointed, irresistible. We have here,
too, a first glimpse of the place where it was to
be, in the words, "the earth," or land. This ex
pression in the New Testament almost always
means '•'•the land, by eminence," i.e., the holy
land, the land of Palestine. The commission of
this armed horseman, to "take peace from the
land," would suggest to John's Christian readers
that Palestine was to be scourged with desolating
war. Our readers will please remember, unless
otherwise indicated, that such is the usual mean
ing of " the earth " in this book.
The Third Seal.
Chapter vi. (5) And when he opened the third seal, I
heard the third living creature saying, Come. And I saw,
and behold, a black horse; and he that sat thereon had a
balance in his hand. (6) And I heard as it were a voice in
the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A measure of
wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a
penny ; and the oil and the wine hurt thou not.
The third seal is broken like the others, and
the third page of the scroll shows a black horse,
whose rider holds aloft a balance for careful
5

98 THE REVELATION.
weighing. To aid in reading the meaning of this
symbol, a voice from among the Living Ones is
heard crying, "A choenix of wheat for a denarius,
and three chcenixes of barley for a denarius, and
the oil and the wine do not injure." A choenix
was a Greek measure of a little less than a quart.
A denarius (translated a penny) was equivalent
to about fourteen cents. It was the ordinary
price of a day's labor. Compare Matt. xx. 2.
Such a price for such a quantity of wheat or bar
ley would be enormously high, and suggests at
once the idea of Famine. The command not to
hurt the oil and wine, both of which were impor
tant articles of food in the East, seems to imply
a compassionate regard for those who were re
duced to so scanty a supply of bread. It may in
dicate also to the people the need of great care
and saving, that, so to speak, every olive and
every grape should be preserved from waste.
The color of this third horse, and the balances in
the hand of its rider, as if food was so precious
that it must be weighed out like gold, in like
manner suggest a state of famine.
The Fourth Seal.
Chapter vi. (7) And when he opened the fourth seal,
I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come.
(8) And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat
upon him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with
him. And there was given unto them authority over the

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 99
fourth part of the eai-th, to kill with sword, and with fam
ine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
The breaking of the fourth seal discloses a yet
more frightful scene. It is a pale horse, i. e., the
cadaverous hue of a corpse. His rider was Death
himself, and in his train followed the ghastly
hosts of Hades, the underworld of the dead. He,
too, had a commission given him, — " to kill with
sword (war), hunger (famine), death (pesti
lence)*, and wild beasts," the last a scourge which
was wont to come upon a land that had been
depopulated and turned into a wilderness. The
extent of this commission "was over the fourth
part of the land," — not the whole, for that would
be utter extermination. We have here a symbol
of those multiform woes, collectively and em
phatically called Death, which come upon a land
made to feel the horrors of subjugation by a mer
ciless enemy.
The Fifth Seal.
Chapter vi. (9) And when he opened the fifth seal, I
saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which
they held: (10) and they cried with a great voice, saying,
How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ?
(11) And there was given them to each one a white robe ;
and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a
* Compare the name that used to be given in Europe to the plague, " the
black death,"

100 THE revelation.
little time, until their fellow-servants also and their breth
ren, which should be killed even as they were, should be
fulfilled. At the opening of the fifth seal, the inviting
voice from the Living Ones to the seer is with
held, for each of them has called to him once in
succession. The scroll now shows him on its
mystic page a likeness of the great brazen altar
in the temple at Jerusalem, at the foot of which
were wont to be laid the dead bodies of the ani
mals that were to be offered there in sacrifice.
At the foot of this heavenly altar lay bleeding
the souls of the martyrs who had been slain for
their faith and their testimony for the truth.
These were crying for divine justice to be admin
istered upon the people of the land, for the aveng
ing of their deaths and the vindication of the
cause for which they had died. They were, how
ever, bidden to wait patiently a little while until
the full number of the martyrs should be com
pleted, and in the meantime were themselves ar
rayed in the white robes of holiness and kingly
dignity, in token of their own acceptance with
God. We have now got far enough on in this won
drous vision to begin to see the relation of the
parts to each other, and the significance of the
whole. We may here profitably bring in our
three guides to help us in its interpretation

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 101
What land, then, was it, which had been guilty
of persecuting the saints of the Lord — making
as it were holocausts of them on the altar of their
faith — and for the punishment of which were
impending over it God's devastating army, War,
Famine, and Death in a thousand hideous forms, —
a retribution in all its immeasurable horrors which
was then "shortly to come to pass"? Can there
be any doubt as to what the answer is ? — the
land of Palestine, the apostate nation which had
rejected and put to death their own Messiah, mur
dered his saints, and upon whom was now about
to come " all the righteous blood shed upon the
land, from the days of righteous Abel," and to
whom Christ himself had declared, "Verily I say
unto you, all these things shall come upon this
generation." Matt, xxiii. 36.
It is important to remember that the chief
source of all the prophecies respecting the coming
of the Lord and the fall of Jerusalem, is his own
great discourse on the mount of Olives. It is a
remarkable fact that while of the four evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke record this discourse
with more or less fullness, John, the only one who
personally heard it, seems to have wholly omitted
it. But what if it shall appear that instead of a
comparatively brief space devoted to it in his
Gospel, this evangelist has made it one of the two
chief themes of this book of the Revelation?

102 THE REVELATION.
Dean Alford remarks, " The close connection be
tween our Lord's prophetic discourse on the
mount of Olives and the line of apocalyptic proph
ecy cannot fail to have struck every student of
Scripture." Thus, Matt. xxiv. 7, predicts war,
famine, and pestilence, the parallels of which in
Rev. vi. 2-8, are the red, the black, and the pale
horses, with their riders. Matt. xxiv. 9, 10, de
scribe fierce enmities and persecutions ; Rev. vi.
9-11, the martyrs who were slain in those perse
cutions. Matt. xxvi. 29, 30, predict the celestial
phenomena that were customarily used by the
prophets to presage the destruction of wicked
cities and nations ; Rev. vi. 12, 13, give its exact
counterpart. Matt. xxiv. 21, tells of the "great
tribulation " which was to be visited upon the
land; Rev. vi. 15, 17, the wailings of those who
suffered under it. Matt. xxiv. 31, describes the
gathering of the elect out of the midst of those
woes; Rev. vii. 1-8, portray the sealing of the
servants of God, that they might not be hurt by
them (see Chap. ix. 4). Matt. xxv. 31, describes
Christ coming to assume his kingdom and throne,
and to judge all nations; Rev. xi. 15-18, announce
the same thing, and give the song of the elders in
view of the grand consummation. Thus each of
the seven seals in the latter book answers exactly
to a particular portion of the prophecy of the for
mer book, and both correspond with wonderful

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 103
fidelity to the events which we know from history
actually took place before the destruction of Je
rusalem. Here, then, we have all three of the
"guides" we specified as helpers in the interpre
tation of the book, agreeing in the application we
have given it. We do not see how any thought
ful and impartial mind can fail to assent to it as
the true one.
The Sixth Seal.
Chapter vi. (12) And I saw when he opened the sixth
seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun be
came black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon
became as' blood; (13) and the stars of the heaven fell
unto the earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs, when
she is shaken of a great wind. (14) And the heaven was
removed as a scroll when it is rolled up ; and every moun
tain and island were moved out of their places. (15) And
the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief cap
tains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and
freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of
the mountains; (16) and they say to the mountains and to
the rooks, Fall on u-5, and hide us from the face of him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
(17) for the great day of their wrath is come; and who is
able to stind?
At the opening of. the sixth seal there were dis
closed to the eyes of the gazing apostle those
dread phenomena — signs in heaven and on earth
— which the prophets were wont to use as pre
cursors of God's judgments on the enemies of his
people. The sun and moon are eclipsed ; an ap
palling star-shower occurs; dark thunder clouds

104 THE REVELATION.
in dreadful rolling masses snatch away the sky ;
and an earthquake displaces mountains and
islands from their solid foundations. We ask the
reader to take his Bible and turn to the following
passages in the prophets, to see what was the
usual way of describing the calamities which
were threatened upon the ancient enemies of
God's people. We will cite a single one as a
sample. Isa. xiii. 9-16, "Behold, the day of the
Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce
anger, to lay the land desolate : and he shall de
stroy the sinners out of it. For the stars of
heaven and the constellations thereof shall not
give their light : the sun shall be darkened in his
going forth, and the moon shall not cause her
light to shine. . . . Therefore I will shake the
heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her
place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in
the day of his fierce anger," etc. This is the
prophetic description of the fall of Babylon in
that night when Cyrus marched his troops
through the drained bed of the river into the city,
and Belshazzar, its impious monarch, was slain.
Compare Dan. v. 30. In Isa. xxiv. 1, 19-23, is a
prediction of the earlier devastation of Palestine
and Jerusalem by Sennacherib. In Isa. xxxiv.
4, 5, 9, 10, is a terrific prophecy of God's judg
ments on the land of Idumea. Let the reader
compare it with Rev. vi. 14 ; also with 2 Peter

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 105
iii. 10, 12, and say whether in view of such a pre
cedent it is presumptuous to understand both
these passages as in like manner pronouncing an
equal infliction upon Palestine and Jerusalem.
In Ezekiel xxxii. 7, 8, is a prediction of woe upon
Egypt. In Joel ii. 10, the description of a threat
ened plague of locusts. See also Ps. xlvi. 6 ; Na-
hum i. 6.
We cannot doubt that all this imagery was
symbolical, and was not designed to have a literal
fulfillment in a physical sense. And yet it is a
very curious and striking fact that Josephus, who
probably never heard of the Apocalypse, affirms
that supernatural events resembling these did oc
cur in great numbers immediately before the fall
of Jerusalem. " There was," he says, " a star re
sembling a sword, which stood over the city, and
a comet that continued a whole year." "At the
ninth hour of the night so great a light shone
around the altar and the holy house that it ap
peared to be bright daytime, which light lasted
half an hour." The great eastern gate of the
temple, which was of brass, so heavy that it took
twenty men to move it, and which was deeply
bolted into the solid stone floor, swung open of
its own accord in the night. Before sunset, one
day, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor
were seen running about in the clouds, as if be
sieging cities. The priests, as they went by night
5*

106 THE REVELATION.
into the inner court of the temple, "felt a quak
ing, and heard a great noise, and after that they
heard a sound as of a multitude saying, "Let us
remove hence!" How much of reality there
was in all these prodigies, and how much was the
product of excited imagination under the accu
mulation of horrors, no one can say; but they do
show how such things were coupled in men's
minds with the fatal hour of the city's destruc
tion, and of the divine judgments upon a people
who had become ripe for ruin.
The last three verses of this chapter describe
the terror which the anticipation of God's judg
ments awoke in the minds of the doomed inhabi
tants. The original word for "kings" was often
used in a wide sense to denote rulers of every
kind. The call upon the mountains and the
rocks to fall upon them is borrowed from Hosea
x. 8, where a similar prediction against apostate
Israel is recorded. This language, like the
"signs" in the heavens, is doubtless figurative,
designed simply as a vivid portrayal of the uni
versal terror, yet like that it did receive an appar
ently literal fulfillment of the most striking kind.
During the siege many hundreds fled into the
vast caverns underneath the city, whence the
stone had been quarried for building, and which
remain to this day. " The Romans," says Jose
phus, " found slain there above two thousand per-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 107
sons, partly by their own hands, and partly by
one another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine."
Besides the slain, many were taken captive there,
among them John and Simon, two of the leading
chiefs of the revolt against the Romans, and of
the most desperate fighters in the siege. They
had literally fled for refuge into the cavities of
the mountain and the rocks to hide themselves
from the swords of the infuriated victors. See
Josephus, War, Book 6, Chapter IX.
The Sealing.
Chapter vii. (1) After this I saw four angels standing
at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of
the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the
sea, or upon any tree. (2) And I saw another angel ascend
from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God : and
he cried with a great voice to the four angels, to whom it
was given to hurt the earth and the sea, (4) saying, Hurt
not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall
have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.
The terrific phenomena, described in the preced
ing chapter, indicated a tempest of divine wrath
that was about to come upon the guilty persecu
tors of the saints. We should naturally expect
to see the bursting and the ravages of this tem
pest upon the land in this chapter. Instead of
this it opens with a most suggestive picture, or
scene of mercy, — for we are to bear in mind that
these visions are what was seen written or de
picted on the seven-sealed scroll, accompanied

108 THE REVELATION.
sometimes by spoken words of explanation, and
interspersed with interludes of praise and song.
Four angels stand at the four corners of the
earth, i.e., the land of Palestine, holding in — as
one would rein back a furious steed that panted
for the race — the four winds of the land, i.e.,
those appointed for the devastation of the land,
that they should not blow upon the land or the
waters or the vegetation. Four winds imply all
the winds, or winds from every quarter. Com
pare Ezek. xxxvii. 9 ; vii. 2 ; xi. 4 ; Matt. xxiv. 31.
For some reason there is a temporary arrest and
postponement of the storm. For what reason,
and to effect what purpose ?
We find the answer in Matt. xxiv. 22, — " Ex
cept those days had been shortened, no flesh would
have been saved ; but for the elect's sake, those
days shall be shortened." Let it be remembered
that this book, in this portion of it, is regarded by
our best commentators as St. John's mode of re
porting Christ's great prediction on the mount of
Olives, or rather as an independent revelation
given to him of the same things, and therefore
parallel with it in its scope. The " tribulation "
coming upon the land, says Matthew, would be so
severe that but for God's merciful interposition to
abridge its duration, not a person would survive.
But there were in that guilty nation some good
men. Simeon and Anna and Joseph of Arima-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 109
thea and Zacharias and others of whom these
are representatives but whose names are now
unknown — "a remnant according to the election
of grace," as Paul calls them (Rom. xi. 5) — -were
devout persons. In a generation of unparalleled
wickedness there was a handful of God's saints,
the true spiritual Israel, whom God loved both
for their own and their fathers' sakes. These,
like righteous Lot, should not perish in the de
struction that was about to come. Besides these,
there were the Christian believers, — all of them
at this period Jews ; they too must be snatched
from the ruin that was to sweep over the devoted
nation. All these, the devout of the two dispen
sations, are in covenant with God as his own dear
children, and now the sheltering wing of his pro
tection shall be thrown over them. Hence his
strong angels are sent to hold in the impatient
and foaming wind-steeds of vengeance, till divine
mercy may provide for the safety of the elect.
To enhance the impressiveness of this interpo
sition of mercy, and to link it in grateful associa
tion with memorable deliverances in earlier times,
it is drawn up under the figure of a sealing. As
on that awful night when the chastising angel
was to go through the land of Egypt and destroy
the first-born of every home, the dash of blood
on the door-posts of the Hebrews was a seal to
notify him to pass over their houses (Ex. xii. 22,

110 THE REVELATION.
23), and as when God would bring destruction
upon Judah for its idolatry, he showed to Ezekiel
a messenger, with an ink-horn by his side, commis
sioned to go through Jerusalem, and set " a mark
upon the foreheads of the men that sighed and
cried for all the abominations that were done in
the midst of it," and a squadron of angels with
drawn swords to follow him, and slay every one,
old and young, that had not the mark (Ezek. ix.
4-6), so now, God's people should be sealed as a
token of protection under the impending storm.
It is hardly necessary to ask what this mark was.
Some commentators think it was baptism, the sign
of discipleship; others suggest still more fanciful
interpretations. Too much explanation of such
unimportant particulars, however, detracts from
the impressiveness of the description as a whole,
just as a too elaborate realism in interpreting
every point of costume or scenery in a picture
detracts from the general effect of the picture.
In this view of the nature of the scene that
follows, its import becomes very clear. An angel
bearing God's seal comes from the east, crying
with a loud voice that all the universe may hear,
God's purpose of mercy, bidding the angels of the
winds to withhold their fury, till the servants of
God are sealed. Why he comes from the east is
another unimportant touch of the description,
possibly so said because all who came into the

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. Ill
temple courts at Jerusalem, and approached be
fore the symbol of God's presence, had to enter
from the east.
Chapter vii. (4) And I heard the number of them which
were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed
out of every tribe of the children of Israel.
(5) Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand:
Of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand: Of the tribe of
Gad twelve thousand:
(6) Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand : Of the tribe
of Naphtali twelve thousand: Of the tribe of Manasseh
twelve thousand:
(7) Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand: Of the tribe
of Levi twelve thousand : Of the tribe of Issachar twelve
thousand :
(8) Of the tribe of Zebulon twelve thousand: Of the tribe
of Joseph twelve thousand: Of the tribe of Benjamin were
sealed twelve thousand.
The particulars of the sealing are related with
a formality and an exact specification of figures
which forbid of its being taken as a literal trans
action. In the apostle's time the tribal divisions
of Palestine and its inhabitants did not exist,
having been mostly obliterated by the sweeping
devastation of the Babylonian captivity. Still,
individual Jews carefully preserved their genea
logical records, and of course knew to what tribes
they belonged; so that the nation as a whole was
often designated as the "twelve tribes." Com
pare Matt. xxiv. 30 ; Acts xxvii. 4 ; James i. 1.
A close inspection of the list of the tribes here
given shows some peculiarities. Dan is wholly

112 THE REVELATION.
omitted, — why is unknown. It has been sug
gested that it was because this tribe, located in
the near neighborhood of the Philistines on the
sea coast, was early corrupted by them, and be
came wholly idolatrous, in consequence of which
it ceased to be mentioned as one of Jacob's family.
Ephraim is also omitted, perhaps because of its
great wickedness, it having been prominent in
the revolt of the ten tribes, and its chief city,
Samaria, having been the capital of the rival king
dom of Israel. Probably, the tribe of Joseph is
named in place of it, Joseph having been the
father of Ephraim and Manasseh, and of course
ancestor of both those tribes. To make out the
full number of twelve, the tribe of Levi is men
tioned, contrary to ancient usage. Levi was the
sacred tribe, to which no territorial domain was
assigned. It will be remembered that there were
in the fixed constitution of the Hebrews really
thirteen tribes; Levi not counted as one, and
Joseph subdivided into Ephraim and Manasseh,
counting as two.
Why the exact number of twelve thousand was
sealed from each tribe, and why the numbers
from all the tribes were equal, we cannot say.
Of course it cannot be supposed to represent the
actual number of the pious then to be found in
each. It has been conjectured, however, that the
whole number, one hundred and forty-four thou-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 11a
sand, may not differ very widely from the real
number of Christians dwelling in Palestine at
that time. Some years before this they were
stated to be "many thousands " (the original is
"many myriads," or ten thousand), Acts xxi. 20.
We do not suppose, however, that the figures
were meant to be taken literally. It is sufficient
for the general purposes of the representation to
show that there were many faithful followers of
the Lord, and that all these were carefully marked
by him as the objects of his loving care and safe
protection. " The foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, ' The Lord knoweth them
that are his.' "
The Song of Deliverance.
Chapter vii. (9) After these things I saw, and behold,
a great multitude, which no man could number, out of
every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in
white robes, and palms in their hands; (10) and they cvy
with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God which
sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb. (11) And all the
angels were standing round about the throne, and about the
elders and the four living creatures ; and they fell before
the throne on their faces, and worshiped God, s-iying, Amen :
(12) Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and
honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and
ever. Amen. (13) And one of the elders answered, saying
unto me, These which are arrayed in the white robes, who
are they, and whence came they? (14) And I say unto him,
My lord, thou knowest. And ho said to me, These are they
which come out of the great tribulation, and they washed

114 THE REVELATION.
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
(15) Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they
serve him day and night in his temple- and he that sitteth
on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them.
(16) They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
neither shall the sun strike .upon them, nor any heat:
(17) for the Lamb which is in the mid^t of the throne shall
be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of
waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from
their eyes.
When the sealing is completed, a song of praise
for the promised deliverance is heard throughout
heaven. It is the song of the Grentile martyrs, in
fraternal sympathy and joy offering thanksgiving
for their brethren of the twelve tribes. They are
of all nations and kindreds and people and
tongues. Their song is, " Salvation to our God,"
etc. Greek, The salvation, referring to the deliv
erance revealed in this scene for God's people.
It comes from Him that sitteth on the throne and
the Lamb. The angels and the elders, and the
Living Ones join in the seven-fold ascription.
And as those white-robed multitudes are now-
soon to be brought into view in the second part
of the book, the attention of the seer is particu
larly directed to them by the question, "Who
are these?" The explanation following leaves us
no doubt of their character, and gives us in the
beautiful language, quoted in part from Isaiah
xxv. 8; lviii. 11; lxv., the glorious rewards as
sured to all those who remain faithful in persecu
tion, and seal their fidelity with their blood.

the first prophetic book. 115
The Seventh Seal.
Chapter viii. (1) And when he opened the seventh seal,
there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half
an hour. (2) And I saw the seven angels which stand be
fore God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets.
(3) And another angel came and stood over the altar, hav
ing a golden censer; and there was given unto him much
incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the
saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
(4) And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the
saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. (5) And
the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of
the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed
thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
(6) And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets
prepared themselves to sound.
The preceding chapter shows us all things
ready for the execution of the divine judgments
upon the oppressors of the church. The fierce
winds of vengeance are held in by four mighty
angels until the elect of all the devoted tribes are
sealed for deliverance from the approaching ruin,
followed by a general song of praise to God for
his saving mercy. Everything, therefore, is pre
pared, and waiting only for the signal of the onset.
It is in this attitude of readiness and expecta
tion that the eighth chapter opens. For " half an
hour," i. e., a brief space, all heaven is shown in
silent awe waiting to see what shall be done.
To render the scene more impressive, and to
teach again that God's vindicatory interposition
in behalf of his people is vouchsafed to them in

116 THE REVELATION.
answer to their prayers, a preliminary symbol is
exhibited of those prayers with the answer re
turned to them. An angel-priest comes to the
heavenly altar with a golden censer. It must be
remembered that the celestial world opened to the
apostle's view was shown in likeness to the tem
ple at Jerusalem, which with its furniture and
services were declared to be "patterns of things
in the heavens." Heb. ix. 23. The angel fills his
censer with fire from the altar, and scatters upon
it "much incense"; then sets it upon the altar,
that the sweet fumes may ascend before God, as
an accompaniment of the prayers which the suf
fering saints had been offering for justice upon
their foes. Chapter vi. 10. See the manner of
burning incense in connection with prayer de
scribed in Luke i. 9, 10. The prayers of the mar
tyrs thus presented before God find acceptance.
The same censer of the angel, which had been the
vessel for the sacrificial fire, is filled at the altar
with punitive fire for the enemies. Compare
Matt. iii. 11. It is then hurled violently down
upon the guilty and doomed land, with a fearful
accompaniment of " voices and thunders " (i. e., of
loud, angry thunders) and lightnings and an
earthquake. And now for the onset ! The general cast of
the movement described is a military one. When
a commander is about to make a charge upon the

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 117
enemy, he often divides his army into several bat
talions, which march successively into action.
The signal for each to move is given by a trumpet.
So in this case. The winds, the lightnings, hail,
volcanic showers, a malignant blazing star, lo
custs from the pit, fire-breathing horsemen from
beyond the Euphrates, and earthquakes, make up
the seven-battalioned army of God that is now let
loose upon the fated nation. By this subdivision
of the last seal into seven successive parts, the
final catastrophe is rendered -far more effective,
the several acts rising in intensity in a climax to
the close.
The First Trumpet. ¦
Chapter vm. (7) And the first sounded, and there fol
lowed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast
upon the earth : and the third part of the earth was burnt
up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all
green grass was burnt up.
Like an advance corps of archers, the skies dis
charge first a terrific shower of lightning and hail,
the whole glaring with baleful crimson hues like
blood. With remarkable flexibility of imagery,
the figures here are taken from the ten plagues
once visited upon oppressing Egypt, thus not only
giving poetic effect, but bringing up in the most
suggestive manner the fate of the ancient enemies
of God's people. This artillery of the heavens,

118 THE REVELATIOK.
unlike the plague of Egypt (Ex. ix. 22-26), de
stroyed but the third part of the land, its trees
and its grass, leaving the other two parts to the
devastations of the woes which are to succeed.
This is one of those incidental touches which
show the artistic skill of the composition.
The Second Trumpet.
Chapter viii. (8) And the second angel sounded, and
as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into
the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
(9) and there died the third part of the creatures which
were in the sea, even they that had life; and the third part
of the ships was destroyed.
This, too, is in a general way patterned after
the second Egyptian plague, where the waters of
the Nile were turned to blood. Ex. vii. 19-25.
Here it is the sea only, but the immediate agent
is a new and striking one ; it is a burning moun
tain, i. e., a volcano, which vomits forth its floods
of molten lava into the waters. Whether this is
wholly an original conception of the writer, or
whether reports of such eruptions from the ever
active volcanoes of Hiera and Stromboli had
reached Palestine, we cannot say. The image,
however, either way, was sufficiently fearful, and
indicated that the divine judgments would be
visited upon both sea and land, so that there
could be no escape from them. Of course, the
turning of the waters into blood was in appear-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 119
ance only, causing it to take on the dark purple
hue which symbolized pestilence and death. So
in describing an eclipse, the prophetic way of rep
resentation was to say the moon was "turned
into blood." Acts ii. 20.
The Third .Trumpet.
Chapter vin. (10) And the third angel sounded, and
there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and
it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the foun
tains of the waters; (11) and the name of the star is called
Wormwood : and the third part of the waters became worm
wood; and many men died of the waters, because they
were made bitter.
There seems to be an intermingling of several
images in the description of this attack; first, a
lurid meteor from the skies, like some of those
which have been seen in recent star-showers, es
pecially in that of November, 1833, and which
among uncultivated people have ever been objects
of the greatest terror. Under a vivid personifi
cation this bore the name, "Wormwood," i. e., Bit
terness. It falls upon the streams and fountains
of the land, and turns them all into Marahs (com
pare Ex. xv. 23), so that the very waters, so
essential to life, become fatal poisons. Could
anything, in a land where fountains of water were
so precious, be more terrible than this ?

120 the revelation.
The Fourth Trumpet.
Chapter viii. (12) And the fourth angel sounded, and
the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of
the moon, and the third part of the stars ; that the third
part of them should be darkened, and the day should not
shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner.
The woes increase in severity ; the very sources
of day and light for man are attacked. The ob
scuration of the heavenly bodies is the well-known
prophetic symbol of the destruction of guilty
cities and nations, and was one of the " signs "
expressly named by our Lord of the immediate
overthrow of Jerusalem. Matt. xxiv. 29.
It is very important here to observe that it is
not good exegesis to attempt to find an independ
ent application for every minute particular in this
succession of imagery. This is believed to have
been one of the most common and prolific sources
of difficulty in the interpretation of the book.
Writers have vied with each other in trying to
find the most meaning in every word. The an
nals of mediaeval history have been ransacked to
discover persons or events, civil, military or re
ligious, to which they might be attributed, in the
hope of disclosing the hidden mystery of the
prophecy. It is as if one standing before a grand
painting should fix on the minute strokes of the
pencil used solely to give color and effect to the

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 121
main design, and expend his ingenuity in guess
ing what was the special meaning of the artist in
them. Taken as a whole, the symbolism here em
ployed seems very obvious, shadowing forth in
this impressive manner those fearful judgments
of distress, destruction, and death, which were
about to fall upon Palestine and its chief city.
The Woe Trumpets.
Chapter viii. (13) And I saw, and I heard an eagle, fly
ing in mid heaven, saying with a great voice, Woe, woe,
woe, for them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the
other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, who are
yet to sound.
Hitherto the trumpets have signalled for inflic
tions upon inanimate nature mostly, and upon
men only indirectly. The remaining three will
be directed upon the guilty persecutors them
selves. To prepare the mind for these, an eagle
(in our version, an angel) is represented as flying
through the heavenly sky, crying, "Woe, woe,
woe to the inhabitants of the land, for the trum
pet-blasts of the three angels who are yet to
sound ! " In accordance with this, those three are
usually designated as " the woe trumpets."
The Fifth Trumpet.
Chapter ix. (1) And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw
a star from heaven fallen unto the earth : and there was
given to him the key of the pit of the abyss. (2) And he
opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up a smoke
6

122 THE REVELATION.
out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun
and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the
pit. (3) And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the
earth; and power was given them, as the scorpions of the
earth have power. (4) And it was said unto them that they
should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green
thing, neither any tree, but only such men as have not the
seal of God on their foreheads. (5) And it was given them
that they should not kill them, but that they should be tor
mented five months: and their torment was as the torment
of a scorpion, when it striketh a man. (6) And in those
days men shall seek death, and shall in no wise find it; and
they shall desire to die, and death fleeth from them. (7)
And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses pre
pared for war ; and upon their heads as it were crowns like
unto gold, and their faces were as men's faces. (8) And
they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as
the teeth of lions. (9) And they had breastplates, as it were
breastplates of iron ; and the sound of their wings was as
the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to war.
(10) And they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings;
and in their tails is their power to hurt men five months.
(11) They have over them as king the angel of the abyss:
his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek tongue he
hath the name Apollyon.
(12) The first Woe is past: behold, there come yet two
Woes hereafter.
In predicting the calamities which were to
come upon Palestine immediately before the de
struction of Jerusalem, our Saviour had said,
" Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not
since the beginning of the world, no, nor ever
shall be." Supposing, as the best commentators
now do, that this portion of the Revelation was
designed to cover the same ground with Matt.

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 123
xxiv., the question arises, In what way could
its author most vividly set forth in picture or
symbol, — for this, as we have seen, is the char
acteristic method of this book, — the idea of this
unparalleled woe ?
To those familiar with the East there will at
once occur the visitation of locusts, which so often
desolate whole districts, bringing the entire popu
lation to the verge of starvation. The Hebrew
contains no less than ten words which apply to
this general class of insect pests, all of them sig
nificant of their characteristics, such as the hop
per, the eater, the rustler, from the sounds emitted
by their wings, the darkener, from the obscura
tions of the sky caused by their clouds, or in
general, the multitude, from their inconceivable
numbers. Instances, it is said, have occurred,
where a single flock of locusts covered an area of
five hundred miles in extent ! Our own western
country has of late had some similar experiences
from the ravages of grasshoppers, though proba
bly nothing equaling those of the East.
In selecting, then, a symbol of distress about
to come upon the apostate land of the Jews, noth
ing could be more striking than a visitation of
locusts. These had often been made the instru
ments of the divine chastisements upon wicked
nations. They were the eighth of the plagues of
Egypt, an ever significant example of the way in

124 THE REVELATION.
which God punished the foes of his ancient peo
ple. Ex. x. 14, 15. One of the most memorable
of these inflictions was that described by the
prophet Joel (Chap. i. 6 ; ii. 1-11).
The day of the Lord cometh,
For it is nigh at hand ;
A day of darkness and of gloominess,
A day of clouds and of thick darkness.
As the morning spread upon the mountains,
Cometh a great people and a strong ;
There hath never been the like,
Neither shall be any more after it,
To the years of many generations.
A fire devoureth before them,
And behind them a flame burneth.
The land is as the garden of Eden before them,
And behind them a desolate wilderness,
Yea, and nothing shall escape them.
The appearance of them is as horses,
And as horsemen so shall they run;
Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains
shall they leap,
Like the noise of a flame of Are that devoureth the
stubble,
As a strong people set in battle array.
Before their face the people shall be much pained,
All faces shall gather blackness.
They shall run like mighty men,
They shall climb the wall like men of war,
And they shall march every one on his ways,
And they shall not break their ranks,
Neither shall one thrust another ;
They shall walk every one in his path,
And when they fall upon the sword they shall not be
wounded.
They shall run to and fro in the city,

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 125
They shall run upon the wall,
They shall climb up upon the houses,
They shall enter in at the windows like a thief.
The earth shall quake before them,
The heavens shall tremble,
The sun and moon shall be dark,
And the stars shall withdraw their shining.
And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army,
For his camp is very great;
For he is strong that executeth his word.
For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible,
And who can abide it ?
But the locusts now threatened upon Palestine
shall be more terrible than those. The oriental
insects come from the sands of Arabia and the
South ; these shall be the very offspring of Hades.
An angel, blazing in light like a star, is sent down
with a key to open the bottomless volcanic prison
of the demons. From the smoke that issues
forth, like the lurid sulphurous vapors of Vesu
vius, swarm out the locusts of divine vengeance.
Unlike the stingless insect that feeds on herbage,
each locust is a scorpion, whose poison, not usu
ally fatal, inflicts the most excruciating pain.
Their very shape is as frightful as their venom.
Their powerful legs suggest the figure of a rear
ing and plunging war-horse as he rushes into the
charge. (The Italian name for the locust is cav-
aletta, the little steed). On their heads are crests
with streaming hair, like the plumed helmets of
the Grecian warriors; their faces are bold and

126 THE REVELATION.
truculent, with projecting teeth like lions ; their
armor is like iron breast-plates, and their clashing
wings, in flight, resemble the din of chariots rush
ing into battle. Behind them are long poison-
tipped tails, twisted as in the attitude of striking.
And to complete this wonderful picture, unlike
real locusts which "have no king" (Prov. xxx.
27), and whose movements seem to be guided by
chance or caprice, according to the direction of
the wind or the supplies of food, these infernal
locusts are marshaled under the orders of the
Prince of Hell, Apollyon, the Destroyer, so as to
make their attacks with system and concentration,
and the relentless fury of Satan himself!
To the ravages of such a winged cavalry
of the pit Palestine is to be surrendered five
months ! This specific time corresponds very
nearly to the period usually occupied by the an
nual visitations of locusts, and also to that in
which Palestine was being overrun by the con
quering army of Titus (from March to August,
a.d. 70). Their mission is not to hurt the grass,
nor trees, nor any green thing, but only those
men who have not been sealed as the friends of
God and his church. Was ever a more terrific
symbol of punishment conceived of or sketched
in human language ! We do not wonder that it
is said that during that doomed five months
" men should seek death and should not find it,

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 127
and should desire to die, and death should flee
from them." Of course, the locusts were imag
inary creatures, and it would miss the very object
in view to look for any literal objects correspond
ing to them, or even any definite and particular
tortures which may be supposed to be intended
by them. Doubtless they are made up in the
same general way as were so many monsters of
the heathen mythology, the griffin, the centaur,
the sphinx, the snaky head of Medusa, etc. ; i. e.,
by blending in one figure the symbols of various
qualities or characteristics. Even caricaturists
resort to the same principle when they show
men's heads on animal forms, and represent them
performing acts literally impossible, but symbol
ically highly suggestive.
The meaning, then, of this remarkable imagery
we take to be simply, as announced by Jesus him
self, that before and at the final downfall of the
city there should be throughout Palestine '¦'•great
tribulation, such as had not been since the begin
ning of the world to that time, no, nor ever shall
be." That it was, in that general sense, most
abundantly fulfilled, we have the amplest evi
dence in Josephus.

128 the revelation.
The Sixth Trumpet.
Chapter ix. (13) And the sixth angel sounded, and I
heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is
before God, (14) one saying to the sixth angel, which had
the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound at the
great river Euphrates. (15) And the four angels were
loosed, which had been prepared for the hour and day and
month and year, that tfoey should kill the third part of men.
(16) And tho number of the armies of the horsemen was
twice ten thousand times ten thousand: I heard the num
ber of them. (17) And thus I saw the horses in the vision,
and them that sat on them, having breastplates as of fire
and of hyacinth and of brimstone: and the heads of the
horses are as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths
proceedeth fire and smoke and brimstone. (18) By these
three plagues was the third part of men killed, by the fire
and tho smoke and the brimstone, which proceedeth out of
their mouths. (19) For the power of the horses is in their
mouth, and in their tails: for their tails are like unto
serpents, and have heads; and with them they do hurt.
(20) And the rest of mankind, which were not killed with
these plagues, repented not of the works of their hands,
that they should not worship devils, and the idols of gold,
and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood;
which cun neither see, nor hear, nor walk: (21) and they
repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of
their fornication, nor of their thefts.
This is the second woe-trumpet, and, as in the
preceding cases, foretells a still increased severity
of punishment, — the last one involving the tor
ture of men (verse 5), this, their death (verse 18).
It will be perceived that the whole series of trum
pets is arranged in a climax, ever advancing from
the less to the greater degree of suffering for the

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 129
guilty nation and people on whom was now to be
visited "all the righteous blood shed upon the
land." Matt, xxiii. 35.
We have seen that the source of the preceding
agent of woe was one of the natural objects
which had so often scourged the East, — locusts.
The same thing is true in this case. For many
centuries the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah
had been subjected to invasion and plunder by
the mighty nations of the East, especially As
syria and Babylon, — in other words, peoples be
yond the Euphrates. Over and over again did
these mixed peoples come in vast armies and
carry off booty and captives; and finally they
swept away the whole population, of Israel first
(2 Kings xvii. 6), and of Judah some one hun
dred thirty years later (2 Kings xxv.). These
visitations, as was notorious, were sent by God in
punishment for the sins of the two kingdoms, and
especially for the sin of idolatry, and all the
abominable practices connected with it.
We see, then, how impressive it must be to an
nounce another invasion upon the land by a
mighty army from beyond the Euphrates. Not a
literal invasion, just as the scourge of locusts was
not a literal one, but a denunciation of woe, such
as was caused by the actual invasions centuries
before. Indeed, the very terms of the descrip
tion would suggest that it was not literal, the
6*

130 THE REVELATION.
number of the horsemen, and the unnatural fig
ures and qualities of the horses showing that, like
the locusts, they were a symbolic host, imaging
forth resistless, hopeless destruction.
Upon the blast of the sixth trumpet, a voice is
heard from the golden altar of incense — imply
ing that it is in answer to the prayers which had
been offered there — commanding that the four
angels which are bound in (rather at) the great
river Euphrates should be let loose. The reader
will at once recall the four angels who held back ,
the winds (Chap. vii. 1) Here the angels them
selves are in chains, implying that these are not
God's good angels, waiting to do his will, but bad
angels, demons, who in their infernal hate are
eager to head the armies of a new invasion upon
the once favored land. They had repeatedly
done this before, but God in mercy had driven
them back, and forbidden their crossing the Eu
phrates again, till the time came for a new chas
tisement by their means. This is what is meant
by their being " prepared for an hour and a day
and a month and a year." The original is, " for
the hour, and the day," etc., the article being defi
nite and emphatic, and its repetition pointing to
some signal pre-appointed time, — whether shorter
or longer, an hour or a year, — when they would
be wanted for this purpose.' It is added that they
are let loose for the express purpose of destroying
a third part of the population of the land.

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 131
This army was to consist, not of infantry and
cavalry, as usual, but of cavalry alone. The Jews
had never been much accustomed to horses, —
indeed, they were peremptorily forbidden to
"multiply" them (Deut. xvii. 16), and when cap
tured from their enemies, they were generally
slaughtered (2 Sam. viii. 4). Solomon, in this
respect, as in many others, broke in upon the an
cient customs, and procured many horses; and yet
it may still be said that cavalry was not the usual
military arm of the Jews, and that in the hands
of their enemies it was an object of peculiar ter
ror. The Assyrians and Babylonians, on the
other hand, were expert horsemen, and their cav
alry especially numerous and powerful. The
buried sculptures of Nineveh and Babylon abound
in spirited representations of the war steeds of
their kings and nobles. To represent this army
of punishment, then, as composed wholly of horse
men, would be peculiarly terrific. Much more,
when their number was announced to the seer —
" two hundred thousand thousand " — i.e., two
hundred million ! Of course, no literal army ever
equaled that. Prof. Stuart suggests that it must
have exceeded one quarter of the whole popula
tion of the globe at that time.
But this is not all. As the locusts were not
such as were ever seen before, so with these horse
men. Their riders were clad in parti-colored ar-

132 ^ THE REVELATION.
mor — scarlet and purple and yellow — which in
the sunlight would gleam with lurid flashes. The
horses, with gnashing teeth and tossing lifanes,
would look like lions, and their hot breath like
emissions of lighted sulphur smoke, destaging
men with the pestilential fumes. Nay, this is not
enough. Not only do they kill with their teeth
and their breath, but their tails, too, are every
one Medusa heads, each hair a hissing, writhing
serpent, with poisonous fangs, striking at all who
come within their reach. Thus, whether they
advance or retreat, the onset of these demoniac
horses would be equally deadly. No wonder that
the third part of the people of the land, swept by
such an army under the lead of the very demons
of destruction, perished.
We repeat it, these were not symbols of a real
invasion from the East, but simply of woes which
the land should suffer, — woes as if such an inva
sion should take place. We shall endeavor pres
ently to show what the real source of this suffer
ing was, when we exhibit the fulfillment of this
whole series of trumpets.
What, now, will be the result of all these in
flictions? Will the guilty nation repent of its
sins, or will they, like their fathers in the days of
the wicked kings of Israel and Judah, persist in
their iniquities? We know the verdict of his
tory. No tragedy of the drama ever depicted

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 133
such a tale of crime and horror as the pages of
Josephus, in describing the last days of the guilty
city. So, too, reads the prophecy before us, writ
ten almost at the very time: "The rest of the
men — those that did not perish outright — re
pented not of the works of their hands, that they
should not worship devils, and idols of gold and
silver," etc. The cast of the description is doubt
less still modeled after the forms of their earlier
crimes, — for open and avowed idolat^ was
scarcely practiced in Judea at this time. As the
scourge from the East did not cure the idolatry
of their fathers, so this new scourge will not cure
theirs. "Neither repented they of their mur
ders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornica
tion, nor of their thefts." All these and many
more were crimes of that day. Josephus himself
declares that there never was so wicked a people
on the face of the earth as the Jews were at the
time of their final overthrow.
The Angel of the Second Book.
We are near the close of the catastrophe which
has been so long impending. The first six seals
of the scroll of prophecy have been opened, re
vealing to us the dread array of judgments Avhich
God had prepared for the persecutors of his peo
ple, the apostate' and blood-stained nation who
had crucified their Messiah, and had persecuted

134 the revelation.
his followers unto death. The seventh seal has
been broken, and of its seven subdivisions, six
parts have been fulfilled — four trumpets of dev
astation upon the land itself, and two woe-trum
pets upon its inhabitants. One trumpet alone re
mains; it must introduce the supreme scene of
all. All the righteous wrath of God, which sym
bol after symbol has threatened, is now to be
completed; all the hopes which so many inter
ventions and so many promises have inspired, are
to be consummated. The final hour has come,
and the mystery of God, — the secret purpose of
his protecting love for his church, — is about to
be finished !
And yet it is a hard thing, even for Divine Jus
tice, to do. The doomed nation was once God's
own dear people. "Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he a pleasant child ? for since I spake against
him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore
my bowels are troubled for him." Jer. xxxi. 20.
How can the divine Father pronounce upon a
child once so loved the sentence of utter destruc
tion ! What wonder that, unable, as it were, to
utter that doom in words, he should give it to the
seer in a little supplementary scroll by itself, not
sealed up, for it is his purpose to have it known,
and yet by vailing it in writing, sparing himself,
if we may so express it, the pain of the spoken
sentence ! What wonder that when the seven-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 135
fold voice of Justice uttered its thunders against
the guilty reprobate, the same relenting mercy
should forbid their words to be written down, but
kept in sealed and solemn silence ! And what
wonder that when at last the execution falls
(verse 19), the description is only in the vague
terms of storm and tempest and earthquake, sug
gesting all that is fearful, but leaving to the im
agination alone to depict the awful reality.
It is, we believe, in such general considerations
of the reluctance with which God, as a Father,
punishes the guilty, that we are to find the clew
to this and the eleventh chapters. The imagery
employed is the sublimest conceivable, and the
effect of the whole upon the reader most deeply
impressive. Chapter x. (1) And I saw another strong angel coming
down out of heaven, arrayed with a cloud ; and the rainbow
was upon his head, and his face was as the sun, and his
feet as pillars of fire ; (2) and he had in his hand a little
book open : and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his
left foot upon the earth; (3) and he cried with a great
voice, as a lion roareth: and when he cried, the seven thun
ders uttered their voices. (4) And when the seven thunders
uttered their voices, I was about to write : and I heard a
voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the
seven thunders uttered, and write them not. (5) And the
angel which I saw standing upon the sea and upon the
earth lifted up his right hand to heaven, (6) and sware by
him that liveth for ever and ever, who created the heaven
and the things that are therein, and the earth and the
things that are therein, and the sea and the things that are

136 THE REVELATION.
therein, that there shall be time no longer : (7) but in the
days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to
sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to
the good tidings which he declared to his servants the
prophets. (8) And the voice which I heard from heaven, I
heard tt again speaking with me, and saying, Go, take the
book which is open in the hand of the angel that standeth
upon the sea and upon the earth. (9) And I went unto the
angel, saying unto him that he should give me the little
book. And he saith unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and
it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be
sweet as honey. ( 10) And I took the little book out of the
angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet
as honey : and when I had eaten it, my belly was made bit
ter. (11) And they say unto me, Thou must prophesy again
over many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.
The position of the seer at the commencement
of this chapter seems to be changed from what it
had been. He had, in spirit, been in heaven ; he
is now apparently on the earth, since he repre
sents the angel as coming down from heaven.
This "mighty angel" is thought by most com
mentators to be the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
both from the description given of him (compare
Chapter i. 14-16), and from the fact that in Chap.
xi. 3, he calls the persons mentioned, " my wit
nesses." He also has the " little book " of proph
ecy, a prerogative which we are taught in Chap.
v. 5, belongs to Christ alone. The expression,
" clothed with a cloud," is one applicable only to
a divine being, having probably been first derived
from the mode of God's manifestation on Mount

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 137
Sinai. Ex. xix. 9, 16. Compare Ex. xxiv. 5 ;
Lev. xvi. 2; 2 Sam. xxii. 12; Ps. xcvii. 2; Matt.
xxiv. 30 ; xxvi. 64.
It has been much questioned what precisely
was represented by this open little book. Prof.
Stuart was inclined to make it the symbol of the
second portion of the Revelation, embraced in
Chaps, xii.-xix. There are obvious objections to
this, viz., why that portion of the prophecy — re
lating, as we suppose, to the chastisements ap
pointed for persecuting Rome — should be of
smaller importance and scope, as this diminutive
term implies, than the preceding portion, symbol
ized by the seven-sealed volume of Chap. v. 1 ;
why, also, this should be shown as open, i. e., un
sealed, as if already fully made .known to men.
We incline, therefore, to the view of Cowles, and
others, that this "little book represents only the
as yet unfulfilled portion of the first book, or
what is to be executed under the sounding of the
seventh trumpet, now just at hand. It is little
because containing only so small a fraction of the
whole ; it is open because the seventh seal under
which it comes has been broken, and the very
process of revealing its meaning is now going on.
The whole is as much as to say, "All but this has
now been accomplished. This is the very last
page, written out by itself because the most
weighty and appalling of all."

138 THE REVELATION.
This mighty angel plants one foot upon the sea
and the other upon the land, as implying supreme
dominion over both, i. e., over the whole earth,
and therefore having all the powers of the earth
waiting upon him to execute his commands. In
this sublime attitude he speaks with a voice which
reverberates from every part of the sky like sev
enfold thunders. What he said is doubtless that
which is recorded in verse 6, the report of the
words being suspended for a moment for the
mention of the response by the thunders. It is
a striking peculiarity of the representation that
these thundering echoes seem to repeat not only
the cry of the angel, but some independent voices
of their own, as if all the universe responded to
the words of divine justice, expressing satisfac
tion at the speedy fulfillment of its purpose.
These responses the prophet was about to write,
when a voice from heaven forbade. Let silence
rather than feeble human words suggest their
meaning. The all-penetrating voice of the angel-Messiah
proclaims, with an adjuration by the Creator of
the universe, that there shall be no longer delay.
When the seventh trumpet shall sound, God's
purpose as before revealed by the prophets re
specting the vindication of his church and the
punishment of its enemies shall be fulfilled.
Nearly all recent commentators agree in this as

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 139
the meaning of the passage, which indeed is obvi
ous on its very face. The idea that it is a procla
mation that time absolute — the further continu
ance of the world and of human life — is about
to cease, is wholly foreign to the connection, and
inconsistent with what follows, which shows a
long series of events in human history as yet to
occur. To emphasize the seer's reception of this proph
ecy, he is commanded to take the little book from
the angel and eat it; i. e., to carefully read and
consider its contents. This is in imitation of
Ezekiel 3 : 1-3, where the prophet was commanded
to eat the roll of prophecy, and with like effect.
Its sweetness and bitterness imply, of course, that
the contents of the book were in some respects
joyous, in others painful, — joyous, we may be
lieve, as an assurance of the speedy deliverance
of the suffering church ; painful, in that it was to
be obtained by the destruction of the city and
temple and nation which John loved as his own
with the fervent devotion which characterized all
Jews. There was then added an intimation that
though this catastrophe was so near, he must not
consider that his prophetic service was to be
closed by it. Jerusalem, though the first, was
not the only persecutor of the saints. Rome, too,
was no less guilty, and there was a vista of proph-

140 THE REVELATION.
ecy to open in disclosure of its overthrow and
retribution. " Thou must prophesy again before
(or concerning) many peoples and nations and
tongues and kings," a phrase suggesting with the
utmost accuracy the composite and heterogeneous
character of the great Roman Empire, at that
day the mistress of the world.
The Measurement of the Temple.
Chapter xi. (1) And there was given me a reed like
unto a rod : and one said, Rise, and measure the temple of
God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. - (2) And
the court which is without the temple leave without, and
measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations:
and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two
months. This chapter is universally conceded to be one
of the most difficult in the Apocalypse, not so
much, it is believed, from its language as from our
lack of a sufficiently minute acquaintance with
the historical events to which it seems to refer.
Our only trustworthy guide in seeking its mean
ing is to inquire carefully respecting the peculiar
prophetic imagery of the Jewish Scriptures, and
the occurrences connected with the siege and cap
ture of Jerusalem.
We assume that the temple and altar and court
here mentioned, and the city in which the two
witnesses prophesied, were the literal temple, etc.,
at Jerusalem. Such is a first principle of inter-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 141
pretation in all cases, unless something in the
connection forbids. Here there is nothing of that
kind ; on the contrary, that understanding of it is
in harmony with all that has gone before.
Throughout the symbolism of the seals and trump
ets we have been going steadily forward to the
great catastrophe predicted by our Lord in Matt.
xxiv. The preceding chapter's have brought us to
the very verge of that catastrophe, and everything
is prepared now for its immediate consummation.
Our first inquiry, then, is as to the meaning of
measuring, as a symbolic action. In Ezek. xl., of
which we are strongly reminded by its resem
blance to this place, it was used in describing the
construction of the ideal temple. Evidently that
use would be out of place here, for the temple is
already built, and we are looking rather for a
token of destruction. Generally, therefore, we
find that it is so signified in the denunciatory lan
guage of the prophets against wicked nations.
Thus, in Isa. xxviii. 17, " Judgment will I lay to
the line, and righteousness to the plummet : and
the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies," etc.
Ps. Ix. 6, " I will divide Shechem, and mete out the
valley of Succoth." 2 Kings xxi. 12, 13, " I am
bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah,
that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall
tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the
line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of

142 THE REVELATION.
Ahab." Amos vii. 8, 9, "Behold, I will set a
plumbline in the midst of my people Israel : and
the high places of Isaac shall be desolate," etc.
Lam. ii. 7, 8, " The Lord hath cast off his altar,
he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up
into the hand of the enemy the walls of her pal
aces : he hath stretched out a line, he hath not
withdrawn his hand from destroying, therefore he
made the rampart and the wall to lament." Isa.
xxxiv. 11, " He shall stretch out upon it — Idu
mea — the line of confusion, and the stones of
emptiness." It is clear, then, that prophetic use
generally makes the act of measuring with a line
or reed a symbol of chastisement. When the
Lord thus applies the unerring standard of recti
tude to a city, a land, or even to a people (com
pare 2 Sam. viii. 2), it is a sign that they are
found wanting in his sight, as Belshazzar was
when weighed in the balances, and doomed to
speedy destruction.
To a Jew, then, no more significant symbol
could be used to denote the utter apostasy and
certain doom of the nation than to behold the
angel-Messiah applying the test of righteousness
to the temple itself, meaning here the very holy
of holies, the sacred altar, and to those who pre
tended to worship God there. No language could
more impressively suggest the utter corruption,
wickedness, and apostasy of a people, when even

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 143
their most holy shrines were thus marked with
the token of God's condemnation. The plaintive
wail of Jeremiah over the devastation of the
earlier temple by Nebuchadnezzar would seem to
be heard again, "He hath stretched out a line —
or measure — upon his temple ; he hath abhorred
his sanctuary ; he hath given up into the hand of
the enemy the walls of her palaces."
Coupled with this direction to measure the
temple and the altar was the command to cast
out the outer court and not measure it, for it was
given to the Gentiles. This outer court, we
think, must be the well known exterior space
surrounding the inner courts of the women, of
Israel, and of the priests, and because open to
the admission of persons of every class, usually
called the court of the Gentiles. It extended
around three sides of the temple area, was paved
with marble, and at this date was covered along
the inner face of the inclosing walls with a beau
tiful portico. It was here that the traffic in
doves and the exchange of money, which our
Lord on two occasions so severely reprehended,
were carried on. Though a part of the sacred
edifice, it had been "given to the Gentiles," and
instead of the house of God was made a " house
of merchandise," — the scene of avarice and in
trigue, and every sort of selfish scheming. No
need of applying the measuring reed to this to

144 THE REVELATION.
test its character. Its crimes and corruptions
were notorious, as far as Jerusalem was known.
It had been " the court of the Gentiles " ; let it
be abandoned to them, and be no longer, even in
name, a part of the house of the Lord.
"And the holy city they shall tread under foot
forty and two months." The word trample fitly
expresses the insolent abuse which is practiced
upon a city and people by a cruel and exasperated
conqueror. The period of time here mentioned
accords almost literally with the duration of the
Roman invasion up to the capture of the city.
Nero appointed Vespasian general of the army
that was to attack Judea in the first part of Feb
ruary, A.D. 67, and the city was taken August 10,
A.d. 70, a space of almost exactly three and a
half years, or forty-two months, or twelve hun
dred sixty days. It is true that the Romans were
not all this time in the city itself; but they were
in the land, burning and plundering, and making
their way continuously towards that city, which,
being the capital, might naturally be named for
the entire province. This was in exact coinci
dence with what had been predicted by Christ
himself, " They shall fall by the edge of the sword,
and shall be led away captive into all nations, and
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles,
until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."
Luke xxi. 24. Besides, the city itself during that

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 145
period was actually in the possession of a fierce
horde of robbers — called by Josephus Zealots
and Idumeans, — the latter a Gentile race who
murdered and plundered at their will, inflicting
miseries on the helpless inhabitants without a
parallel in all the annals of war.
We find, thus, in the simple history of that
most tragic period a literal fulfillment of the
prophecy before us, which seems to disclose to us,
with little danger of mistake, its so called myste
rious meaning. It is substantially the view taken
of the passage by Meyer, Macdonald, and others
among distinguished recent commentators. Profs.
Stuart and Cowles give a somewhat different idea
of the measuring, supposing it to signify the pres
ervation of the sanctuary and the altar, not, how
ever, of the literal temple, for these were in fact
utterly demolished with the rest of the building,
but as representatives of the interior essence or
fundamental principles of the ancient religion,
which being the same in both systems were not
intended utterly to perish. They find, however,
the fulfillment of the passage at the same time
we have indicated, at the siege and capture of the
city, as they do also that of the prophesying
of the two witnesses described in the verses
following.

146 the revelation.
The Two Witnesses.
Chapter xi. (3) And I will give unto my two witnesses,
and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three
score days, clothed in sackcloth. (4) These are the two
olive trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the
Lord of the earth. (5) And if any man desireth to hurt
them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth
their enemies : and if any man shall desire to hurt them, in
this manner must he be killed. (6) These have the power
to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their
prophecy: and they have power over the waters to turn
them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague,
as often as they shall desire. (7) And when they shall have
finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of
the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them,
and kill them. (8) And their dead bodies lie in the street
of the great" city, which spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. (9) And from
among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do
men look upon their dead bodies three days and a half, and
suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. (10) And
they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and make
merry; and they shall send gifts one to another; because
these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.
(11) And after the three days and a half the breath of life
from God entered into them, and they stood upon their
feet; and great fear fell upon them which beheld them.
(12) And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto
them, Come up hither. And they went up into heaven in
the cloud ; and their enemies beheld them.
More difficult, if possible, than that of the
measurement of the temple, has been the inter
pretation of the ten verses of this chapter which
relate to the two witnesses. A bare list of the
guesses (for they have been nothing more) as to

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 147
what was meant by them, would fill pages. It
would be presumptuous for us, of course, in such
circumstances, to pretend to any certainty of
opinion on the subject ; we merely crave the lib
erty to present our guess also, leaving to our
readers to judge of it as it shall commend itself
to their good sense, or otherwise.
Glancing over the passage we gather the fol
lowing seven things which are said of these
witnesses : —
1. They are Christ's witnesses. Verse 3.
2. The period of their testimony is one thou
sand two hundred and sixty days, or three and
one-half years. (The ancients used to reckon
three hundred and sixty days to a year.)
3. They are clothed in sackcloth ; i. e., their
message is one of woe.
4. They correspond to the two olive trees and
the two candlesticks in Zech. iv. 11-14. Verse 4.
5. They have miraculous powers. Verses 5, 6.
6. They are martyred, and after death sub
jected to ignominy in the streets of Jerusalem.
Verses 7-10.
7. After three and one-half days they arise
from the dead, and visibly ascend to heaven.
The first question which presents itself is,
Were these witnesses literal or symbolical per
sons ? The former, we should say, unless some
thing in the connection forbids. Such is one of the

148 THE REVELATION.
first principles of interpretation. The language,
as a whole, looks as if real persons were intended.
Taken figuratively, as meaning, for instance, the
Old and New Testaments, as some have conjec
tured, the description seems incongruous and un
natural. Besides, a literal interpretation is in
keeping with that which we have hitherto advo
cated in the application of the prophecy. If the
retributive overthrow of apostate Jerusalem is
the subject matter under consideration, and now
immediately imminent, why should we not look
for these witnesses, their testimony, martyrdom,
and resurrection among the persons and events
which were crowded so thickly into that stupen
dous tragedy ?
What persons were there, then, at that time, to
which the seven things above mentioned could be
applied ?
One class only can we think of as answering
this inquiry, the apostles. They were expressly
appointed to be Christ's witnesses. Luke xxiv.
48; Acts i. 8, 22; ii. 32; iii. 15; v. 32; x. 39, 41,
xiii. 31 ; xxii. 15 ; xxvi. 16 ; 1 Pet. v. 1. They
had miraculous powers. Mark xvi. 17-20. They
all, with perhaps the exception of John, suffered
martyrdom. But the witnesses here mentioned were only
two in number. What two apostles, then, lived at
that time, and could have performed and suffered
what is here described ?

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 149
One of them can be readily and with the ut
most probability named, St. James, " the Lord's
brother" (Gal. i. 19). He is believed to have
been a younger son of Joseph and Mary (^Mark
vi. 3) ; was the first bishop of the church at
Jerusalem, and (Acts xv. 13) so eminent for his
piety and sanctity that he was commonly styled
"the Just." How faithfully he testified to his
countrymen in those degenerate times may be
seen in his epistle, Jas. iv. 5. He, too, especially
warned his people of the immediate coming
(Parousia) of the Lord to punish that wicked
generation. Jas. v. 7, 8. Josephus expressly
says that he was put to death by stoning, at the
instigation of the high priest Ananus (Ant. xx.
9, 1). Hegesippus, a Christian historian of the
second century, gives much fuller particulars of
his martyrdom, and declares that the Jews them
selves regarded the siege of the city as a punish
ment from heaven for putting to death so good a
man. See Alford, Vol. IV., pp. 97, 98.
The other witness, there is good reason to be
lieve, was St. Peter. We know that three years
after Paul's conversion Peter and James were
residing at Jerusalem, and apparently the only
apostles there. Gal. i. 19. Fourteen years after
ward the same thing was apparently true, except
that John was there also. This was as late as
A.D. 50, some twenty years after the ascension.

150 THE REVELATION.
Nothing subsequent is positively known of his
life or residence. Tradition reports him to have
labored for a time in the regions of the East, and
some have inferred from 1 Pet. v. 13, that his
first epistle was written from Babylon. It is well
known, also, that the Roman church claims that
Peter was the first bishop of Rome, and was mar
tyred there at the same time with Paul, by the
order of the emperor Nero. Most Protestant
scholars, however, reject this tradition, so far, at
least, as relates to his residence at Rome, though
conceding the probability that he suffered martyr
dom under Nero. Dean Alford, after discussing
the subject at length, comes to the following con
clusion: "That the apostle visited Rome, and
suffered martyrdom there, we would fain believe
as the testimony of Christian antiquity. It is
difficult to believe it, difficult to assign the time
so as to satisfy its requisitions ; but in the uncer
tainty which rests over all the later movements of
the great apostles, it would be presumptuous for
us to pronounce it impossible." Vol. IV., p. 131.
In other words, nothing positive is known on
the subject. Why the Roman church should
cling to the traditions which give it the honor of
having had him for its founder and martyr is ob
vious, but they can have little weight with Prot
estants. We know of nothing, therefore, to for
bid the probability that the last years of his life

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 151
were spent at Jerusalem, from which, he may
have addressed his second epistle to the Chris
tians of Palestine, in which, like James, he so
clearly announces the immediate coming of the
Lord (Chapter iii.), and exhorts believers to be
looking for and hastening it, that they may be
found of him without spot and blameless.
Assuming, then, for the moment, that the "two
witnesses " were the apostles James and Peter, we
see how admirably they correspond to the partic
ulars mentioned of them, at least so far as the
facts are known.
1. They were Christ's official witnesses.
2. They testified, i. e., preached the gospel,
and especially announced the immediate coming
of Christ, during the period of the Roman inva
sion and siege, which, as we have seen, lasted
three and one-half years.
3. They testified in sackcloth ; i. e., their mes
sage was one of reproof and woe.
4. They served to the church in those dark
days the same office of encouragement and
strength which was performed by Zerubbabel and
Joshua, the two anointed ones represented by the
candlesticks and olive trees of Zech. iv. 11-14.
5. They had miraculous powers, such as Elijah
had when sent to be the Lord's witness before
Ahab and Ahaziah (1 Kings xvii. 1 ; 2 Kings i.
10, 12), and Moses, when he bore God's message

152 THE REVELATION.
to Pharaoh; Ex. vii. 19, etc. In other words,
they should be to their generation what Elijah
and Moses were to theirs, and accredited by simi
lar attestations of divine power working through
them. It is not necessary to suppose that they
actually did call down fire from heaven, and did
turn waters into blood, like those earlier prophets,
but that they were furnished with credentials of
their divine mission as signal and unmistakable as
those prophets were.
6. They were martyred under the Roman au
thority, represented by the figure of the beast
from the bottomless pit. This character, is more
fully disclosed in Chapter thirteen ; he is men
tioned here by anticipation. The indignities
heaped upon their dead bodies for three and a half
days, the refusal to them of the sacred rites of
burial, and the rejoicing of the people of the
earth (i. e., of the land, viz., Palestine), that they
were thus rid of those who so constantly annoyed
them by their warnings and denunciations, — all
these are particulars of which no positive men
tion is made in history, but which are intrinsically
probable, and are wholly in keeping with the
awful scenes of violence and bloodshed that at
tended the siege and fall of the city.
7. There remains only the seventh particular, in
respect to which, as to the preceding, we have no
positive information. It is possible that a literal

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 153
resurrection and ascension of these martyred wit
nesses occurred. That no record of so stupendous
a miracle is left us, if it did occur, is not surpris
ing, for the events of those last hours of an expir
ing city no mortal pen could have recorded.
Josephus wrote as a Jew, a military officer in the
Roman army. He would be little likely to have
heard of it ; while in the city itself, spectator and
historian, actors and observers, all alike perished.
Even the resurrection and ascension of our Lord
himself found no place in secular history, and but
for the testimony of a few of his intimate friends,
the world would never have heard of it. On the
other hand, it may not be necessary to suppose in
the case of these witnesses a literal, visible ascen
sion. A heroic death, like that of Stephen, with
an eye fixed on the opening glories of heaven,
may have been sufficient to warrant the language
before us. Their enemies may have inflicted
temporal death, but the undaunted courage and
holy faith that could see Jesus on the right hand
of God waiting to receive his servant, may have
been like a visible resurrection and ascension in
the presence of all beholders.
Such, then, is our best conjecture as to the
meaning of these mysterious witnesses. We do
not ask any one to accept it as the true one.
There are gaps in the evidence which sustains it,
of which we are fully aware, and which we know
7*

154 THE REVELATION.
not how to fill. We can only say that of all the
theories we have ever read on the subject, we re
call none which do not seem to us less supported
by facts and less probable in itself than this.
Completion of the Sixth Trumpet.
Chapter xi. (13) And in that hour there was a great
earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell; and there
were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons: and
the rest were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of
heaven. (14) The second Woe is past: behold, the third Woe com
eth quickly.
The martyrdom and resurrection of these wit
nesses were accompanied (verse xiii.) by a great
earthquake, which destroyed a tenth part of the
city, and seven thousand men. Perhaps this is
not to be taken literally, but somewhat like the
catastrophes predicted under the second and third
trumpets (Chapter viii.). And yet it is a remark
able fact that something greatly resembling this
did literally happen in the siege, as described by
Josephus. On that fatal night when the Idu-
means were admitted into the city by the Zealots,
he says : " There broke out a prodigious storm
in the night, with the utmost violence and very
strong winds, with the largest showers of rain,
with continual lightnings, terrible thunderings,
and amazing concussions and bellowings of the
earth that was in an earthquake. These things

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 155
were a manifest indication that some destruction
was coming upon men, when the system of the
world was put into this disorder, and any one
would guess that these wonders foreshadowed
some grand calamities that were coming." The
Idumeans engaged in a general massacre, and
" the outer temple was all of it overflowed with
blood; and that day, as it came on, saw eight
thousand, five hundred dead bodies there." War,
iv. 4, 5 ; iv. 5, 1.
The effect of this awful catastrophe upon the
surviving multitude is briefly noted, — they "were
affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven."
There is no reason to infer that this was any
thing more than the consternation which reigned
throughout the fated city during this most terri
ble of all sieges. Every new event of horror
sent a new wave of fright through the struggling
mass, extorting new outcries and supplications to
God for mercy. So under Christ's ministry, the
displays of his miraculous power often filled the
multitudes with fear, and led them to " glorify
God," without implying any repentance for their
sins, or any sincere spiritual worship of him.
Compare Luke v. 26 ; xxiii. 47 ; Acts iv. 21.
So ends the second woe-trumpet, with its inter
ruptions and episodes, and we pass to the third
and last.

156 the revelation.
The Seventh Trumpet.
Chapter xi. (15) And the seventh angel sounded; and
there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The
kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord,
and of his Christ: and he shall reign for ever and ever.
(16) And the four and twenty elders, which sit before God
on their thrones, fell upon their faces, and worshiped God,
saying, (17) We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Al
mighty, which art and which wast; because thou hast
taken thy great power, and didst reign. (18) And the na
tions were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the
dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy
servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that
fear thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy
them that destroy the earth.
(19) And there was opened the temple of God that is in
heaven ; and there was seen in his ' temple the ark of his
covenant; and there followed lightnings, and voices, and
thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail.
Glancing through the first five verses we find
mention of the following things: —
1. The establishment of the new kingdom of
Christ, which shall continue forever.
2. The beginning of the judgment of the dead,
and the reward of the faithful prophets and
martyrs. 3. The destruction of the enemies and perse
cutors of the church.
4. The abolition of the Mosaic religious system,
and the opening of access to God through the one
mediation of Christ to all mankind.
5. The whole accompanied by the sublime

the first prophetic book. 157
physical phenomena which in the Jewish concep
tions were the tokens of God's coming to men to
rule over and to judge the world.
In other words, we have here described that
great event known as the second coming — the
Parousia — of the Lord, involving the destruction
of Jerusalem, and of the old dispensation, and
the establishment of the kingdom of heaven.
Let us look at the particulars specified therein.
1. The beginning of the "kingdom of heaven,"
— that mediatorial reign of Jesus Christ which is
to continue forever. "There were great voices
in heaven, saying, The kingdoms (the corrected
text reads hingdom, meaning not the several na
tionalities and governments, but the supreme do
minion) of this world are become the kingdoms
of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he [Christ]
shall reign forever and ever." This is in entire
accordance with all those passages which assert
that Christ had ascended to his throne, at the
right hand of the Father, where he was to reign
till he had put all enemies under his feet. Ps.
ii.; Dan. vii. 14; Mark xvi. 9; Eph. i. 20-23;
Phil. ii. 9-11; Heb. i. 3; viii. 1; x. 12; xii. 2, etc.
From that time also appeared the visible kingdom
of heaven among men, — the Christian church
emerging from the ruins of the old dispensation,
under which it had for a few years been sheltered,
and with which it had, to outward view, been

158 THE REVELATION.
confounded, now assuming its separate identity,
and going forward upon a career, at first of suf
fering and afterward of triumph, till in the per
son of Constantine, the first Christian emperor,
it became the mistress of the world. To this ef
fect was the song of the elders, of thanksgiving
to God, " Thou hast taken thy great power, and
hast reigned," — or as Stuart translates, — " hast
become king," — of course, meaning in the per
son of Christ, to whom he had given the king
dom. " And," they add, with evident allusion to
Ps. ii. 1, 5, 12, " the nations (i. e., Gentilesj were
angry, and thy wrath is come."
2. The destruction of the old dispensation, its
ritual, its laws, its altar and sacrifices, its temple,
and the sacred city which had once been honored
as the place where God had dwelt. All the ter
rific symbols of the preceding seals and trumpets
foreshadowed this awful result. The wrath had
come, the time for destroying them that destroyed
the land; verse 18. The minute description of
the final scene is withheld — it was probably
among those things uttered by the seven thunders
of God's wrath, which were ordered to be sealed
up, as if too fearful for any human ear. This, in
the customary Jewish phraseology, was the " end
of the world" or age (Matt. xxiv. 3), — the close
of "the world that now is," and the introduction
of " the world to come." It was the final fulfill-

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 159
ment of all those predictions of woe to the apos
tate church of the former dispensation which
had been uttered by all the prophets, from Moses,
who gave them the law, to Christ, whom as their
crowning act of rebellion they rejected and
crucified. 3. The judgment of the dead, and rewarding of
the faithful prophets and saints who had suffered
in the name of Christ. Judgment here means
vindication, such as was promised the martyrs in
Chapter vi. 10, 11. The passage is in exact cor
respondence with Matt. xvi. 27, 28, " The Son of
man shall come in the glory of his Father, with
his angels, and then shall he reward every man
according to his works. Verily I say unto you,
There be some standing here which shall not taste
of death till they see the Son of man coming in
his kingdom." It must be remembered that a
king was among the ancients a judge. When
Christ ascended to his throne and began to reign
as King, he began at the same time to execute
the office of Judge. The two are essential and
inseparable functions of the same supreme dignity.
That "judgment seat," before which all must
appear to receive the things done in the body
(2 Cor. v. 10), is the same throne of glory upon
which he reigns at the Father's right hand ; its
beginning and duration are coeval and co-eternal
with it.

160 THE REVELATION.
4. The opening of the temple of God in heaven.
By this we understand the free access henceforth
conferred on all believers, through the efficacy of
Christ's sole mediation, to the Father in heaven.
In other words, it is precisely the same great truth
so fully shown in Heb. vii. to x. God is no longer
unapproachable by men. The shekinah of his
presence is no more shut away in the inner shrine,
into which no man may enter ; the veil is rent;
the ark on which is the mercy seat is thrown open
to all who come to it in Christ's name. The gos
pel of salvation by faith for every penitent soul
is henceforth enthroned, and is to be proclaimed
through all the world to every creature.
5. All these sublime events clustering around
the destruction of this guilty city constituted that
great crisis in the religious status of mankind
which had been predicted, as destined to take
place at the coming (Parousia) of the Lord, and
were accompanied by that awe-inspiring symbol
ism with which that coming was always associated.
" There were lightnings and voices and thunder-
ings and an earthquake and great hail." We
need not ask whether all these literally occurred
in those last days of the siege — we know in fact
from Josephus that they did — but we see in them
more than this. They were the insignia of the
Divine Presence, the costume, so to speak, of the
coming. It is not, perhaps, unworthy of mention

THE FIRST PROPHETIC BOOK. 161
that the words, and "art to come," in the seven
teenth verse, are not found in the most ancient
manuscripts, and hence are omitted from the cor
rected text. Is it too much to infer from this
that the elders in their song of thanksgiving
recognize Christ as having come in these events,
and as being no longer him- who was to come ?
In the midst of this tempest of wrath and woe,
the curtain falls and closes up the view. Words
are not added to tell in detail the horrors of a
city's death. Had not the pen of a Jew — hinself
an eye-witness and an actor in the scenes he de
scribes — recorded them, we should never have
known what those horrors were. We invite such
of our readers as possess or have access to the
work of Josephus to read his History of the Jew
ish War, especially the fifth and sixth Books, and
let them serve as a commentary on these five
chapters of this prophecy. In silence ' and awe
the apostle leaves the last scene to the imagina
tion of his readers, and the first part of the Rev
elation is closed.

IV.
THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK.
The Jews were not the only persecutors of
Christianity. In the tenth year of the reign of
Nero (a.d. 64), a fire broke out in Rome, which
destroyed two-thirds of the city. Popular suspi
cion fell upon Nero himself as the author of this
calamity, and the murmurs of indignation became
so loud that the tyrant was alarmed, and looked
about for some way of escape from the odium.
The Christians were then becoming numerous in
Rome, and were already the objects of hatred to
the pagans. It was quite easy, therefore, for Nero
to accuse them of the crime and inflame still more
the popular animosity. Accordingly, he began
the most furious persecution against them, arrest
ing great numbers, and putting them to death, by
fire, by crucifixion, and every form of lingering
torment. It was in this persecution, as is believed,
that John was banished to Patmos and wrote this
book as a message of comfort and admonition to
the suffering churches. This persecution was the
first in a series of similar inflictions lasting two
hundred and fifty years to the reign of Constantine.
Having in the preceding chapters described the
162

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 163
judgments of God upon the hostile Jews, culmi
nating in the overthrow of their sacred temple
and city, the apostle receives furtlier disclosures
as to the purpose of God toward this still more
formidable persecutor, Rome. And to give a
clearer view of the origin and ruling spirit of the
persecution, he takes us back to the beginning
of Christianity, and with a few graphic touches
describes the birth of Christ himself, and the efforts
made by the great Adversary of the church for his
destruction.
The Woman and the Dragon.
Chapter xii. (1) And a great sign was seen in heaven;
a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, aiyl upon her head a crown of twelve stars; (2; and
she was with child : and she crieth out, travailing in birth,
and in pain to be delivered. (3) And there was seen
another sign in heaven; and behold, a great red dragon,
having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven
diadems. (4) And his tail draweth the third part of the
stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth : and the
dragon standeth before the woman which was about to be
delivered, that when she was delivered, he might devour her
child. (5) And she was delivered of a son, a man child,
who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron : and her
child was caught up unto God, and unto his throne. (6)
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a
place prepared of God, that there they may nourish her a
thousand two hundred and threescore days.
We are to suppose the apostle as still looking
upward, not probably through the " open door,"
as at first (Chap. iv. 1), but upon the sky, from

164 THE REVELATION.
whence the mighty angel came down in Chap. x.
1, 8. There appears to him a great wonder
(Chap. xii. 1), literally, sign or symbol, viz., a
woman invested with glorious splendor, like the
sun, standing on a silvery cloud of the luster of
the moon, and wearing upon her head a circlet of
twelve starry gems. She is the church of God
crowned with the names of her twelve tribes, as
the high priest wore the same names emblazoned
upon his jeweled breastplate. This idea of the
church as a woman, a bride, and a mother, was
quite common among the prophets, and would he
easily recognized by the readers of the book.
Compare, especially, Gal. iv. 26, where Paul
speaks of "Jerusalem — which is the mother of
us all."
Standing before the woman, in the half erect
attitude of the snake when about to strike, there
appeared another sign, a great bloody-hued dragon
or serpent, with seven heads — seven the number
of fulness and completeness — each head having
a crest, or " crown," perhaps like the hooded co
bras of the East, and bearing collectively ten
horns, apparently the three central heads two
each, and the others one. His tail, sweeping in
convolutions across the sky, dislodged the stars
over a third part — sixty degrees — of heaven.
What this terrific symbol meant is expressly
stated in verse 9, in language very clearly identi-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 165
fying him with the Tempter which deceived our
first parents, the ancient enemy of God and man.
His crimson hue betrays his malice and cruelty,
the crowns and horns his kingly dignity and
power, as the Prince of this world, and his pro
digious length the vast reach of his sway, through
the dominion of the Roman empire.
The dragon stands thus waiting for the birth of
the Messiah, the man-child that was to rule all
nations with an iron scepter. No person familiar
with Psalms ii. and ex. could doubt who was
meant by this man-child. As little could he hes
itate in referring the time here intended to the
endeavor of Herod to destroy the infant Jesus.
The murderous intent of the dragon was de
feated, and the child was caught up to God and
to his throne. A single line covers the whole life
and death and ascension of the Messiah, the pur
pose of the writer not being to give the details of
the history, but only to refer most concisely to
those events which disclosed the diabolical en
mity of Satan. The woman, the church of God,
fled into the wilderness, an allusion to the refuge
which the Christian believers found during the
last part of those bloody times at Pella, in the
wild region beyond the Jordan, where they abode
in entire safety during the three and a half years
— the one thousand two hundred sixty days — of
the war, which ended in the fall of Jerusalem.

166 the revelation.
The Conflict in Heaven.
Chapter xii. (7) And there was war in heaven : Michael
and his angels going forth to war with the dragon ; and the
dragon warred and his angels; (8) and they prevailed not,
neither was their place found any more in heaven. (9) And
the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is
called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world;
he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast
down with him. (10) And I heard a great voice in heaven,
saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the
kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accuseth
them before our God day and night. (11) And they over
came him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because
of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their
life even unto death. (12) Therefore rejoice, O heavens,
and ye that dwell in them. Woe for the earth and for the
sea: becausa the devil is gone down unto you, having great
wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.
The dragon, seeing his intention frustrated,
with desperate daring pursues the ascending Mes
siah even to heaven, but is there met at the
threshold by Michael, the guardian angel of the
church, with his associate angels. The word Mi
chael signifies "Who is like God?" and is the
name of "the great Prince who standeth fOr the
people of God." Dan. xii. 1. The Scriptures re
peatedly speak of guardian angels both of nations
and individuals. Compare Dan. x. 5-21, where
Gabriel represents himself as struggling with the
Prince, i. e., guardian angel, of Persia, to obtain
the deliverance of the Jews. He promises to

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 167
renew the struggle when the Prince of Greece
shall come. So in Jude 9, Michael is represented
as contending with Satan about the body of
Moses. All this was in accordance with the
peculiar ideas of the Jews, and becomes easy of
interpretation when read in the light of their
opinions. It was a symbolic and very picturesque
method of showing the hostility of Satan to the
church, and the methods to which he resorted to
effect its ruin.
In this supernal conflict Satan and his forces
are overthrown and cast out of heaven, and a song
of triumph is raised by the saints over his down
fall. The epithet, " accuser of our brethren," is
applied to him 'probably from the scene referred
to by Job, when this malignant spirit made his
false charges against the patriarch, a business
which he is represented as being constantly occu
pied with day and night. His temptations, how
ever, are defeated by the fidelity of the saints, and
by the steadfastness which triumphed even in
death. At the same time a wail of sympathy is
uttered for those still living for the woes impend
ing under the new persecution which he will
instigate, a persecution infuriated by the con
sciousness that his time is short.

168 the revelation.
The Dragon's Wrath.
Chapter xii. (13) And when the dragon saw that he
was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman which
brought for_th the man child. (14) And there were given to
the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she might
fly into the wilderness unto her place, where she is nourished
for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the
serpent. (15) And the serpent cast out of his mouth after
the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be*
carried away by the stream. (16) And the earth helped the .
woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up
the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. (17) And
the dragon waxed wroth with the woman, and went away to
make war with the rest of her seed, which keep tho com
mandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus: and
he stood upon the sand of the sea.
The symbols now return again to the woman
who had fled into the wilderness, the narrative
having been interrupted for a short time to de
scribe this celestial conflict and defeat. The time,
times, and half a time, i. e., three and a half years,
are the same period mentioned in verse 6. The
flood of waters ejected after her by the serpent
may be suggested by the supposed power of en
raged serpents to spit poison after their escaping
victims. The earth opening its mouth to swallow
up the flood probably refers to some providential
interposition for the relief of the persecuted.
Stuart suggests the approach of the Roman
armies, which arrested the violent assaults of the
Jews, and shut them up within their own walls.
The chapter then ends with a declaration of the

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 169
malice of Satan, and the instigation of the new
persecution against "the remnant of the woman's
seed," viz., those that had survived the hostility
"of the Jews. This new persecution is that of
Nero, and his successors, the emperors of pagan
Rome. The next chapter brings into view the agents
through whom the persecution is to be carried on.
The Two Beasts.
The twelfth chapter, as we have previously
stated, is prefatory to the second part of this
book, showing the origin and prime instigator of
the great Roman persecutions, which had already
begun their bloody work under Nero. The pres
ent chapter describes the agents through whom
that work would be carried on. It can scarcely
be doubted that the general conception is mod
eled after the visions of Daniel recorded in his
seventh chapter, which most commentators now
agree predicted a series of eastern monarchies, all
more or less hostile to the people of God, culmi
nating in the kingdom of Syria, and the "little
horn," Antiochus Epiphanes, who inflicted the
most ferocious cruelties upon the Jews as de
scribed in the apocryphal books of the Maccabees.
Nothing could be more natural or suggestive to
those who were familiar with that earlier proph
ecy and its fulfillment than the exhibition of this
8

170 THE REVELATION.
new persecutor under like symbols, sufficiently
varied to meet the differing circumstances of the
case, and yet with enough similarity to show the
same malicious designs and the same sure and
signal overthrow.
The Beast from the Sea.
Chapter xiii. (1) And I saw a beast coming up out of
the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns
ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy (2)
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his
feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth
of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his
throne, and great authority. (3) And I saw one of his heads
as though it had been smitten unto death; and his death-
stroke was healed: and the whole earth wondered after the
beast; (4) and they worshiped the dragon, because he gave
his authority unto the beast; and they worshiped the beast,
saying, Who is like unto the beast ? and who is able to make
war with him? (5; and there was given to him a mouth
speaking great things and blasphemies ; and there was given
to him authority to continue forty and two months. (6)
And he opened his mouth for blasphemies against God, to
blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, even them that
dwell in the heaven. (7) And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints, and to overcome them : and there
was given to him authority over every tribe and people and
tongue and nation. (8) And all that dwell on the earth
shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been
written in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain
from the foundation of the world. (9) If any man hath an
ear, let him ear. (10) If any man is for captivity, into cap
tivity he goeth : if any man shall kill with the sword, with
the sword must he be killed. Here is the patience and the
faith of the saints.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 171
Inasmuch as an angel formally explains in
-Chap. xvii. 7-18 the signification of " the beast,"
we may anticipatively refer to that explanation as
we look at this chapter.
The apostle is standing upon the shore of the
sea, because, says Stuart, he is now to see ob
jects terrestrial and actions done among men.
He beholds a terrific beast rising out of the sea ;
— the sea symbolizing, probably, as in Chap. xvii.
15, "peoples and multitudes and tongues and na
tions." That is, there arises among the world's
vast populations a power represented by this
beast. He, too, like the dragon whom he is to
serve, has seven crowned heads and ten horns,
symbols of imperial power. Those heads are
seven "kings," or emperors (Chap. xvii. 10), —
the original word standing interchangeably for
both; — they refer also to the seven mountains
which constitute his seat or abode; xvii. 9. The
horns are tributary or allied kings; xvii. 12.
Upon the heads are names of blasphemy, i. e.,
blasphemous titles. The body of the beast was
lithe and swift like a leopard ; his feet broad and
firm like those of a bear ; his mouth armed with
huge teeth like the mouth of a lion ; in other
words, he was endowed with the power of the
most terrific wild beasts known to men. This
monster is the servant of the dragon, the great
persecutor of God's people, receiving from him

172 THE REVELATION.
his power, his throne, and his world-wide author
ity. He is the Imperial monarchy of Rome.
One of his heads was wounded as if to death;
but his deadly wound was healed. This is evi
dently an enigmatical way of designating some
one of the Roman emperors. It seems to be one
of the instances so often occurring in the apos
tolic writings, in which the existing sovereign is
pointed to under some obscure appellation, be
cause of the hazard of mentioning him by name
(compare the " Man of Sin," and " That Wicked
One," in 2 Thess. ii.). He seems also referred to
in Chap. xvii. 8 as "the beast that was, and is not,
and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go
into perdition," i. e., was alive, then dead, after
ward came back from hades, and finally perished.
Also in Chap. xvii. 11, as " the beast that was,
and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the
seven." Who was meant by this ?
Some think Julius Cassar, the first of the
Csesars, who was slain by Brutus and his fellow
conspirators. This at first seemed a "deadly
wound " to the beast ; but Augustus succeeded
him, and established the monarchy firmly, so that
the deadly wound was healed. But how did
Julius come back from hades, and how was he
the eighth? And what necessity was there of re
ferring to him, now long dead, in a concealed
manner, or implying that it needed a " mind that,

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 173
had wisdom " (Chap. xvii. 9) to perceive the
meaning ?
Stuart, therefore, and others, think Nero was
intended. Certain heathen oracles had predicted
that Nero would be dangerously wounded, but
would recover, seize the imperial throne a second
time, and finally perish. Abundant evidence of
this singular prophesy, and of its general notori
ety throughout the empire, is shown in the writ
ings of Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, the Sibyl
line Oracles, Lactantius, and others. It is not
supposed that John, in using this prediction,
meant to be understood as indorsing it, but only
used a prevailing opinion as a suggestive, though
enigmatical way of hinting whom he meant. It
is as if he should say, " I mean him of whom it
was said that he should be assaulted and wounded,
but should escape and recover from his wound,
and afterward regain his throne." This designa
tion would fit into the verses of Chap, xvii., —
" him that was, and is not, and comes back from
hades, and afterward goes into perdition." Also
of the seven kings (or emperors) ; five, viz., Ju
lius Csesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and
Claudius, are fallen ; one, the sixth Nero, is, i. e.,
is now reigning, the seventh, Galba, is not yet,
and when he cometh he must continue a short
space (Galba reigned but seven months). Then,
if the prediction about Nero proved true, he

174 THE REVELATION.
would after his restoration be the eighth, though
also one of the seven, and finally go into perdi
tion, i. e., utterly perish. The fact, too, that Nero
was actually reigning when this book was written,
would be the best possible reason why John could .
not speak of him more openly, and why he should
suggest that the " mind that had wisdom " should
exert itself to discern the allusion.
It is not probable that absolute certainty will
ever be attained as to the correctness of this ex
planation. A passage, originally intended to be
obscure, and now still more shrouded in the dim
distance of antiquity, with allusions to circum
stances and opinions of which so little can now
be known, should not be expected to be perfectly
clear at this day. This much, however, can con
fidently be said, that the view above given is
consistent with itself, and far more reasonable
than any other with which we are acquainted.
The remainder of the description of this beast
entirely harmonizes with what we know of Nero.
That all the world wondered at the power and
magnificence of the emperor ; that it paid to him
divine homage, which virtually was to worship
the Devil that inspired and employed him, and
boasted of his invincible might, was only what is
attested by all the history of the time. That he
himself uttered great things and blasphemies, pro
claiming himself as God, assuming divine titles,

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 175
and commanding worship to be paid to his images,
is equally well known. That power was given
him to act (not continue, as our present version
has it), i. e., to do his will in persecuting the
church, forty and two months, or three and a half
years, accords almost literally with the actual du
ration of his persecutions. They began in the
latter part of the year a.d. 64, and ended with
the death of Nero on the 9th day of June, A.D.
68. Without insisting on the exact duration, it
is probable that the three and one-half years was
named because that was the time assigned by
Daniel (Chap. vii. 25) as the period of that ear
lier persecutor of the church, Antiochus Epiph-
anes, — an allusion which would strikingly sug
gest the same fate for this enemy that befell him.
Verses 7 and 8 show how wide was the sway of
this tyrant, and how extensive and abject the
homage which he received from all classes of peo
ple throughout the empire.
The fearful description of this monster closes
with a consolatory word. Let not the churches
wholly despair. Whoever has an ear, listen !
God will requite the persecutor that banishes the
saints into distant prisons and mines, and destroys
them by the sword. "He who sends into exile
shall himself be exiled; he who kills with the
sword shall be killed with the sword ! In this as
surance let the saints have patience and faith ! "

176 THE REVELATION.
How striking the fulfillment of these words in
the death of Nero ! When his troops and his
palace guards had revolted against him, he fled
out of the city, but could get no further than the
villa of his freedmen, four miles outside the walls.
There he heard that the Senate had just met and
decreed his death " in the ancient fashion " as a
public enemy. "Asking," says Merivale, "what
this phrase purported, he was told that the culprit
was stripped, his neck inserted in a forked stick,
and his body smitten with rods till death. Ter
rified at this announcement, he took two daggers
from his bosom, tried their edge, but again laid
them down, alleging that the moment was not yet
arrived. Again and again he tried to nerve him
self to the last effort, but it was not till the sound
of horses' hoofs was heard, and the messengers of
death were plainly closing upon him, that he
placed a weapon at his breast, and bade his slave
Epaphroditus drive it home. Another moment,
and it would have been too late. The centurion
and his soldiers burst into the room just in time
to receive his dying execrations. The corpse
was imperfectly consumed on the spot, and the
remains were left to the attendants, by some of
whom they were eventually laid in the Domitian
gardens on the Pincian."

the second prophetic book. 177
The Second Beast.
Chapter xiii. (11) And I saw another beast coming up
out of the earth ; and he had two horns like unto a lamb,
and he spake as a dragon. (12) And he exerciseth all the
authority of the first beast in his sight. And he maketh
the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first
beast, whose death stroke was healed. (13) And he doeth
great signs, that he should even make fire to come down out
of heaven upon the earth in the sight of men. (14) And he
deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by reason of tho
signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast;
saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should
make an image to the beast, who hath the stroke of the
sword, and lived. (15) And it was given unto him to give
breath to it, even to the image of the beast, that the image
of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as
should not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
(16) And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the
rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that there be
given them a mark on their right hand, or upon their fore
head ; (17) and that no man should be able to buy or to sell,
save he that hath the mark, even the name of the beast or
the number of his name.
The imperial monarchy of Rome, in the days of
its emperors, was twofold, civil and spiritual.
And these were in the closest alliance, church and
state being one in a unity of which the crowned
papacy of later ages was an almost exact copy.
The sovereign was not only Imperator (emperor),
but Pontifex Maximus (chief priest). The pagan
religio was a vast system of beliefs, of rites, and
of priestly orders, holding universal supremacy in
the empire. The hierarchy possessed great wealth
8*

178 THE REVELATION.
and social prestige ; the worship of the deities
was celebrated in beautiful temples with imposing
and costly ceremonies ; affairs of state, of military
service, of international intercourse, and of all
the occupations of private life, went on under the
constant guidance and sanctions of religion as
established by law. Indeed, the absolute unity
of the civil and spiritual powers in all the middle-
age monarchies of Europe, and in lands like
Russia, Great Britain, Spain, etc., to this day, not
only shows to us examples of what Rome was,
but is itself historically derived from that mode
of national life which was once universal among
men. And these two departments of the imperial
government were mutual supporters of each
other. The emperor, the senate, and all local
magistrates, were protectors and patrons of the
religious establishment. It was the most inex
piable of crimes to neglect or insult it, for it was
to dishonor the gods, and bring down their wrath
upon Rome. The hierarchy, in turn, were the de
fenders of the throne. Priests, augurs, sooth
sayers, vestal virgins, the very lowest acolytes of
the temples, made it their first duty, as it was
their interest, to honor the powers that were over
them. When the emperors, intoxicated by mad
vanity, aspired to be gods, it was the priests that
gave them the titles of " Divus " and " Augus-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 179
tus," and taught the people to worship their
images, and the soldiers to swear by the crowned
effigies on their standards. If these bloody
tyrants wore upon their heads "names of blas
phemy," it was the professed servants of the gods
that put them there.
When, therefore, Christianity with its lofty as
sumption of being the only true religion, and its
declaration that all heathen gods were false and
their worship a lie, began to take root and grow
in favor at Rome, it is not to be wondered at that
it encountered the deadliest hostility of the pagan
priesthood. And when the Arch-persecutor,
Satan, set himself to destroy the infant-church, he
found ready formed to his hand this vast enginery
of power to do his work with. Do we need, then,
to go farther to find the second Beast of verses
11-17? He comes up out of the earth instead of the
sea, possibly only to show a difference between
him and the first beast, having but two little lamb
like horns, as if most inoffensive, but a voice of
cunning and deceit, as crafty as a serpent (verse
11). He has no force of armies and navies of his
own, but he uses, when he has need of them, all
the powers of the empire. He causes, by his
teaching, and by a multitude of omens, incanta
tions, prodigies, and pretended miracles, the whole
nation, which- was then the whole world (Luke

180 THE REVELATION.
ii. 1 ; Acts xix. 27), to worship the first beast
"whose deadly wound was healed" (verse 12).
(See the well-known story about Nero described
heretofore). He performs by magic and leger
demain and spiritualism great wonders (compare
Acts viii. 9-11; xvi. 16; xix. 13-19), deluding
the people into adherence to the old idolatry, and
teaching them this new and most debasing em
peror-worship, and making it a capital offense to
refuse it (verses 13, 14, 15). Indeed, he makes
the adoration of the standards a mark of loyalty,
refusing the privileges of citizenship — the right
to traffic and pursue ordinary occupations — to
such as will not do this homage to their sovereign
(verses 16, 17). The Romans were accustomed
to brand their soldiers in the hand with a mark,
to indicate to what corps they belonged, as our
own men in the late war wore badges on their
breasts. Slaves were branded in their foreheads
with the initials of their masters. In India per
sons wear little dabs of paint, or something more
offensive, upon their foreheads, in token of being
devout worshipers of some god. Possibly allu
sion may be made to the analogous practice of
Christians receiving baptism, with the sign of the
cross.

the second prophetic book. 181
The Name of the Beast.
Chapter xm. (18) He that hath understanding, let him
count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a
man : and his number is Six hundred and sixty and six.
Thus far, then, the description of these two
beasts, representatives of the twofold perscuting
power of Rome, the throne and the hierarchy —
the state and the pagan church. We are sure
that the graphic skill and faithfulness of the de
lineation must strike every reader who is familiar
with the history of that epoch, and be itself the
most convincing proof of the true meaning of the
passage. But as if this were not enough — as if
to fix the designation without the possibility of
mistake, and so give the strongest ground for con
fidence when the downfall of these foes of the
church shall ,be announced, the apostle subjoins
another description, so peculiar in itself, so well
calculated to baffle the curiosity of dangerous
enemies, and yet so easily read by those familiar
with this mode of designation, as most perfectly
to serve the double purpose of concealing and
revealing the very name of him who was meant.
His name, says he, is Six hundred and sixty-six.
"Let him that hath understanding decipher it."
This way of computing names grew out of the
fact that in the ancient languages letters were
used both for letters and figures. Thus in Latin
the present year, is MDCCCLXXXV, the amount

182 THE REVELATION.
being the sum of the several letters added to
gether. Thus, M =1000
D = 500
C = 100
C = 100
C = 100
L = 50
X = 10
X = 10
X = 10
V = 5

MDCCCLXXXV = 1885
So says the apostle, the Beast's name amounts
to 666.
The first thing requisite to the solution is to
determine in what language it is to be sought.
The book being written in Greek suggests that
the name may be found in this. Irenaeus, one of
the early fathers, accordingly suggested the word
Lateinos, " the Latin," or Roman, which by the
rules of Greek numeration would make the num
ber thus, LATEINO s
30+1+300+5+10+50+70+200=666
This explanation fits the case, and is not alto
gether inapposite ; yet it seems a little unnatural
\

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 183
to call the emperor or the imperial power simply
" the Latin," to say nothing of the fact that at
this early period the Romans were hardly desig
nated as Latins, that term being applied simply
to the inhabitants of Latium, one of the small
ancient provinces of this part of Italy. Many
scholars, therefore, have preferred to look for the
name in Hebrew, which being a language almost
wholly unknown to the heathen, and yet familiar
to those who could read the Old Testament Scrip
tures, would better serve the purpose in view, to
conceal, and at the same time to reveal. Turn
ing to the Hebrew, therefore, we find that the
number is exactly found in the name Nero-
Cesar, i. e., Nero the emperor.
This spelling can easily be shown to the mere
English reader, thus : The 119th Psalm, in our
Bibles, is divided into twenty-two parts, to each
of which is prefixed one of the letters of the He
brew alphabet. When these letters were used as
figures, the first ten down to jod inclusive were
units; the next ten, to koph, were tens; the re
mainder, hundreds, etc. Now in Hebrew the
aforesaid name, — dropping the vowel points, —
would be N-R-O-N K-S-R, i. e., Nun-resh-vau-
nun koph-samech-resh, which, as any one can see
by referring to said Psalm, would be,
N RON K S R
50+200+6+50+100+60+200=666

184 THE REVELATION.
It should be added that Irenaeus says some
ancient manuscripts had the number 616. This
variation would be exactly accounted for by sup
posing the last N in Neron dropped, a mode of
spelling entirely proper, the difference being much
like that between a and an in the English article,
"This double coincidence," says Prof. Cowles,
" is of the sort which could not occur by chance
and without a foundation in truth one time in
ten thousand. It amounts, therefore, practically
to a demonstration."
Encouragements.
Appalling beyond conception to the Christians
in Asia and at Rome must have been the disclos
ures of the last chapter. Two ferocious beasts —
a sea-monster and a land-monster — combining all
hideous beastly forms, with heads and horns and
teeth and claws such as no actual beast ever had,
under the instigation and endowed with the in
fernal power of the great seven-headed, bloody-
hued serpent of the botttomless pit, to be let loose
upon the infant churches! And even when
translated out of the realm of symbol into plain,
naked fact — Imperial Rome, the mistress of the
world, her throne and her hierarchy, under whose
iron yoke the mightiest nations bowed submis
sively, and upon whom armed legions, mercenary
praetorian guards, dens of wild beasts, crosses and

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 185
dungeons and rnartyr-fires waited to enforce her
will, roused in bitter hostility against the poor,
humble, defenseless followers of Jesus, and a
voice from heaven itself proclaiming, " Unto her
it is given to make war with the saints and to over
come them!" How impossible for us in this age
of peaceful security, the fruit of many centuries
of victory over tyranny, to form any idea of what
such a message must have been to those who re
ceived it !
Why were they not utterly crushed by it?
Only because of the loving help of their Lord,
which he had promised should be sufficient for
their utmost need, and because of the encourage
ments subjoined to the announcement of the suf
fering. Those encouragements, sevenfold in
form, as is so much the wont of this book, are pre
sented in this chapter.
1. A view of the glory of those who had been
faithful under the former persecution. Verses 1-5.
2. Assurance of the universal spread of the
gospel. Verses 6, 7.
3. Prediction of the downfall of their perse
cutor. Verse 8.
4. The doom of those who should apostatize.
Verses 9-12.
5. The blessedness of those who should suffer.
Verse 13.
6. The gathering of the wicked to judgment.
Verses 14-16.

186 THE REVELATION.
7. Their terrible punishment. Verses 18-20.
These particulars follow each other rapidly, as
being a sort of summary, to be unfolded more at
length in the sequel.
1. The Faithful of the Former
Persecution.
Chapter xiv. (1) And I saw, and behold, the Lamb
standing on the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and
forty and four thousand, having his name, and the name of
his Father, written on their foreheads. (2) And I heard a
voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of a great thunder : and the voice which I heard teas
as the voice of harpers, harping with their harps: (3) and
they sing as it were a new song before the throne, and be
fore the four living creatures and the elders : and no man
could learn the song save the hundred and forty and four
thousand, even they that had been purchased out of the
earth. (4) These are they which were not defiled with
women ; for they are virgins. These are they which follow
the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were purchased
from among men, to be the firstfruits unto God and unto
the Lamb. (5) And in their mouth was found no lie: they
are without blemish.
That persecution was described in Chapters 6-
11. The apostle is shown the one hundred and
forty-four thousand who were sealed from among
the tribes of Israel, now gathered in glory upon
Mount Zion in the heavenly world, around the
throne of the Lamb whom they had served Our
version reads a Lamb, but the corrected one has
the Lamb. The literal Zion at Jerusalem was the

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 187
western eminence, about one hundred and twenty-
five feet higher than Mount Moriah, the site of
the temple. The former, was the ancient city of
David, upon which he built his palace (2 Sam. v.
9, 11) and erected a tent or tabernacle for the
worship of God, thus making Mount Zion both
the religious and political capital of the nation.
It was from this fact that in the earlier psalms,
written by David before the erection of the tem
ple, the name "Zion" became so identified with
the worship of Jehovah that it was made the sym
bol of the church both here and in heaven.
Compare Heb. xii. 22. Before the Roman subju
gation, also, Zion was the seat of the royal palace
of Herod, so that that eminence had always been
associated with the idea of the national sover
eignty. The symbol before us, then, suggests vic
tory for God's people over the foes that had op
pressed them, and a restoration to their national
glory under the scepter of the Son of David, their
royal Messiah. It is a consummation, however,
only in heaven, not to be confounded with those
anticipations of restored political power on earth
which all Jews were so fond of entertaining.
Not only are they victors over their enemies,
but they have attained high honor and joy. On
their foreheads they wear diadems upon which
are emblazoned both the names of Christ and of
his Father (so the amended text), like the golden

188 THE REVELATION.
frontlet upon the forehead of the high priest (Ex.'
xxviii. 38). With one voice they sing a new
song, loud, like the roar of the ocean, but soft
and sweet as the notes of the harp, a chorus
whose melody penetrates beyond the heavenly
world, and reaches even to the listener on earth.
The song is one which none can sing but they,
for no others can know the joy of faithful saints
who have triumphed over persecution and death.
They are clad in virgin robes, for they have never
yielded even in thought to the seductions of idol
atry, with all its nameless impurities, which have
in all ages made a part of idol worship. They
were in life the true followers of Christ, taking
up the cross, and going with him to ignominy and
to death. Therefore have they been redeemed
from among men ; selected and gathered out like
the choicest and heaviest wheat-ears of the field,
and made the first-fruits to God and the Lamb of
the grand harvest of the faithful. Sincere and
true in every thought and word, they now stand
in spotless glory before the throne of God. Such
was the first motive presented to the churches to
patience and fidelity under the assaults of this
new persecution. " See yonder on the heavenly
Zion those who have gone before you ! Be stead
fast like them, and you shall share in their glory."

the second prophetic book. 189
2. The Spread of the Gospel.
Chapter xiv. (6) And I saw another angel flying in
mid heaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim unto them
that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe
and tongue and people ; (7) and he saith with a great voice,
Fear God, and give him glory; for the hour of his judg
ment is come : and worship him that made the heaven and
the earth and sea and fountains of waters.
Meanwhile, let them not fear for the ultimate
result to Christianity itself. The angel flying
through mid-heaven, having the everlasting gos
pel to preach to every nation, and kindred, and
tongue, and people, and calling to the whole
earth to fear God and give to him glory, because
the hour of his judgment — that reign of the
Messiah as King and Judge wliich shall result in
the vindication of his people — has come, and
bidding them worship not the false gods of heath
enism, but the Creator himself, who made the
heaven and the earth, the sea and the fountains
of waters, let him be their assurance that the
beast shall have no power to stop the spread of
the good news of salvation among men. God
himself has sped it forth on its mission, and it
shall not stop till every nation has heard its
sound. Let this be a second encouragement to
fidelity.
3. The Fall of their Persecutor.
Chapter xrv. (8) And another, a second angel, fol
lowed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, which

190 the revelation.
hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath
of her fornication.
And what though their enemy is imperial
Rome, proud, self-confident, and cruel, as Baby
lon when Nebuchadnezzar enslaved and oppressed
their fathers? Yet Babylon, haughty as she was,
fell, and God's angel of retribution proclaims that
this new Babylon shall fall likewise — nay, in
God's purpose she "is fallen — is fallen" — the
repetition showing the certainty as if already past.
She enticed and compelled all nations to serve
her idols, pouring out with her imperial hand the
intoxicating wine of their licentious and impure
worship. Look at the buried ruins and the lonely
wastes upon the banks of the Euphrates, and see
what the great city which imitates that ancient
enemy of God's people shall be.
4. The Fate of Apostates.
Chapter xiv. (9) And another angel, a third, followed
them, saying with a great voice, If any man worshipeth the
beast and his image, and receiveth a mark on his forehead,
or upon his hand, (10) he also shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his
anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone
in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of
the Lamb: (11) and the smoke of their torment goeth up
forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night,
they that worship the beast and his image, and whoso re
ceiveth the mark of his name. (12) Here is the patience of
the saints, they that keep the commandments of God, and
the faith of Jesus.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 191
And besides these encouragements to fidelity,
listen to the doom appointed for those who are
unfaithful. " If any man worship the beast and
his image, and receive his mark, the token of sub
mission, in his forehead or in his hand (see Chap.
xiii. 16, 17), the same shall drink — not the sweet
wine of licentious pleasure — but the wine of the
wrath of God, which is poured out undiluted into
the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tor
mented with fire and brimstone in the presence of
the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb;
and as the lurid smoke ascended from the ashes
of Sodom on the morning after its conflagration,
so shall the smoke of the torment of apostates
rise up for ever and ever. And day and night
they shall have no cessation of these torments, —
they who worship the beast and his image, and
take upon them the mark of his name. Let this
awful penalty for apostasy be a motive for pa
tience on the part of the saints who keep God's
commandments and the faith of Jesus."
5. The Reward of Martyrs.
Chapter xiv. (13) And I heard a voice from heaven
saying, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord
from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest
from their labors ; for their works follow with them.
And now, like a strain of sweet music succeed
ing to these awful denunciations, comes the prom-

192 THE REVELATION.
ise of reward to those who die for their faith.
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord — in
his name and for his sake — for they cease forever
from their sorrows, and their deeds go on with
them to heaven, to bear witness of their fidelity,
and receive his approval ! " Let it be noted that
these words, which are so oft made expressive of
the hopes of those who live but little like the
martyrs, belong to those only who love Jesus
enough to die for him.
6. The Harvest of the Earth.
Chapter xiv. (14) And I saw, and behold, a white
cloud ; and on the cloud I saw one sitting like unto a son of
man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a
sharp sickle. (15) And another angel came out from the
temple, crying with a great voice to him that sat on the
cloud, Send forth thy sickle, and reap : for the hour to reap
is come; for the harvest of the earth is overripe. (16) And
he that sat on the cloud cast his sickle upon the earth; and
the earth was reaped.
There remains one motive more to inspire the
churches to hope and fortitude against their ter
rible enemy, and that is a revelation of what shall
be to the heathen subjects of the beast. The
third symbol foreshadowed the breaking of his
power ; what, lastly, shall be the fate of the mil
lions that constitute his realm, and give to him
his power? Two symbols are employed to show
this, — two, perhaps, to increase the impressive-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 193
ness of the prophecy, and perhaps also to round
out the number seven, the well-known emblem of
fullness and completeness.
There comes upon a resplendent cloud the
crowned Redeemer, having in his hand a sharp
sickle. We think it cannot be doubted that this
is one of those well-known "comings" of the
Lord for the punishment of the wicked, so often
predicted by the prophets, and by Christ himself.
Matt. xxiv. 30. The millions of the earth's pop
ulation stand before him like the innumerable
stalks of wheat in the harvest-fields. At the call
of the angel of justice he thrusts in his sickle,
and the earth is reaped. The origin of this sym
bol seems to be found in Joel iii. 13, where the
prophet cries, "Put ye in the sickle and reap, for
the harvest of the earth is ripe," — which the
connection shows is a call to gather the wicked of
the nations to judgment.
7. The Vintage of the Earth.
Chapter xtv. (17) And another angel came out from
the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
(18) And another angel came out from the altar, he that
hath power over fire ; and he called with a great voice to
him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth thy sharp
sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth ; for
her grapes are fully ripe. (19) And the angel cast his sickle
into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and
cast it into the winepress, the great winepress, of the wrath
of God. (20) And the winepress was trodden without the
9

194 THE REVELATION.
city, and there came out blood from the winepress, even
unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six
hundred furlongs.
A second symbol of retribution is also sug
gested by the same prophecy. " For the press is
full ; the fats overflow ; for the wickedness is
great." An angel issues from the temple of
heaven, i. e., from the divine presence, bearing
also a sharp sickle, or more appropriately a prun-
ing-knife ; and at the call of the angel of sacrifice
he gathers the grape harvest of the earth, and
brings it to the treading-press, the awful " wine
press of the wrath of God." "And the wine
press was trodden without the city, i. e., in the
open field, as the custom of the East is when the
vintage is very abundant, and the blood-red juice
flowed out a stream " up to the horses' bridles,"
i. e., as deep as a horse could wade in without
drowning, and spreading forth a thousand and
six hundred Roman stadia, i. e., two hundred
miles, equal to the whole breadth of Italy.
Such are the motives to fidelity held up to the
view of the imperiled church. We have no space
to comment upon their fitness or their awful im
port. Let the reader be reminded only that these
are words and symbols divinely given, and that,
too, through the medium of the most loving and
tender of all the apostles. Surely they teach us
that God, the protector of his people, is some-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 195
thing more than a mere sentimental Father of all,
the good and the wicked alike, and that there is a
meaning in his displeasure which all would do
well to ponder.
The Seven Last Plagues.
Chapter xv. (1) And I saw another sign in heaven,
great and marvelous, seven angels having seven plagues,
which are the last, for in them is finished the wrath of God.
As the retributive judgments sent upon perse
cuting Jerusalem for her crimes were exhibited
under the symbols of seven successive trumpets
(Chaps, viii.-xi.), so the like punishment to be
meted out to persecuting Rome is shown under
seven " plagues," represented in " another sign,"
i. e., prophetic symbol, " great and marvelous."
The word plague signifies literally a blow, hence
an infliction, a stroke of suffering. It was ap
plied to a malignant form of fever, which from
the suddenness and violence of its attack was
likened to a blow. Here it has the wider mean
ing of a stroke of chastisement. Thejr are named
the last plagues, because they will complete the
punishment that God will inflict on the enemies
of his church.
From the similarity of the subject, it might be
expected that there would be a considerable re
semblance in the modes of treatment in the two
cases. In one respect, however, there was a

196 THE REVELATION.
marked difference. Jerusalem was to be not only
chastised, but utterly destroyed. Rome was to
be chastised, her power broken, her glory as the
capital despoiled and transferred to a new city on
the Bosphorus, her religious establishment over
thrown, and the great instigator to persecution
chained and confined for a thousand years, but
the monarchy itself and the state were to survive.
It would, indeed, be a troubled existence, con
vulsed with dissensions within and exposed to in
vasion from without, until her flickering nation
ality should be suddenly extinguished by a new
race of persecutors from the old northern hive of
barbarism, the Turks. The symbols of her pun
ishment, therefore, vary somewhat from those of
the former case. They are pictures, not of sweep
ing, fiery destruction, but of ruin, humiliation,
and suffering. Jerusalem perishes amid " light
nings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earth
quake, and great hail." Rome is smitten with
-great plagues, her people slain, and herself, the
Imperial Queen of the Seven Hills, made deso
late, like Tyre, on her lonely fishing rock.
An Anticipatory Triumphal Song.
Chapter xv. (2) And I saw as it were a glassy sea min
gled with fire; and them that come victorious from the
beast, and from his image, and from the number of his
name, standing by the glassy sea, having harps of God.
(3) And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God,

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 197
and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are
thy works, O Lord God the Almighty; righteous and true
are thy ways, thou King of the ages. (4) Who shall not
fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name ? for thou only art holy;
for all the nations shall come and worship before thee; for
thy righteous acts have been made manifest.
The appearance of this dread array of angel
executioners is the signal for a triumphal song.
The transparent pavement which is before the
throne of God flashes with ruddy hues of wrath,
and the victors in the struggle with the beast,
seen in anticipation, stand upon it with heavenly
harps, lifting the anthem of praise. It is "the
song of Moses and the Lamb," i. e., a song of like
character with those, — the one when Moses and
all the host of Israel triumphed over the destruc
tion of Pharaoh in the Red sea (Ex. xv. 1-22) ;
the other when Jesus arose triumphant from the
grave, and ascended amid ttie rejoicings of angels
to his throne at the right hand of God. In view
of the manifested judgments of heaven upon the
foes of the church, they see all nations coming to
worship before God and yield themselves to his
scepter.
Preparation.
Chapter xv. (5) And after these things I saw, and the
temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was
opened: (6) and there came out from the temple the seven
angels that had the seven plagues, arrayed with precious
stone, pure and bright, and girt about their breasts with

198 THE REVELATION.
golden girdles. (7) And one of the four living creatures
gave unto the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the
wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. (8) And the
temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and
from his power; and none was able to enter into the temple,
till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be finished.
Chapter xvi. ( 1 ) And I heard a great voice out of the
temple, saying to the seven angels, Go ye, and pour out the
seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth.
And now the seven angels come forth from the
inmost shrine of the temple, the Holy of holies,
and prepare to do their office. They are clothed
in the white robes of justice, girded firmly about
them, as those who are to engage in stalwart work.
They receive from one of the Living Ones that
surround the throne " seven golden vials, full of
the wrath of the ever-living God." At the same
moment a dark cloud enveloping the shekinah of
Jehovah's presence fills all the temple courts, ex
cluding access to any who would intercede in be
half of the guilty persecutors until the work of
retribution shall be completed. Compare the pil
lar of cloud in which the Lord was wont to ap
pear in the ancient tabernacle, when about to
utter reproof or administer judgments to his peo
ple. Numb. xvi. 42.
The First Vial.
Chapter xvi. (2) And the first went, and poured out
his bowl into the earth; and it became a noisome and griev
ous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast,
and which worshiped his image.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 199
1. The first caused putrid and painful ulcers to
break out upon the persons of those who wor
shiped the beast. This was in imitation of the
boils and blains inflicted upon the Egyptians.
Ex. ix. 8-12.
The Second Vial.
Chapter xvi. (3) And the second poured out his bowl
into the sea; and it became blood as of a dead man; and
every living soul died, even the things that were in the sea.
2. The second turned the water of the sea into
blood, as the waters of the Nile. Ex. vii. 19-25.
The Third Vial.
Chapter xvi. (4) And the third poured out his bowl
into the rivers and the fountains of waters : and it became
blood. (5) And I heard the angel of the waters saying,
Righteous art thou, which art and which wast, thou Holy
One, because thou didst thus judge: (6) for they poured
out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast thou
given them to drink: they are worthy. (7) And I heard the
altar saying, Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and
righteous are thy judgments.
3. The third did the same with the fountains
and rivers, thus making two plagues of what was
one in Egypt. This was attended with an in
scription of praise from the angel who presides
over fountains, at the justice of God in giving
blood to drink to them who had shed the blood
of the saints and prophets of the Lord, to which
was added a response from the altar, in approval
of the sentiment.

200 the revelation.
The Fourth Vial.
Chapter xvi. (8) And the fourth poured out his bowl
upon the sun; and it was given unto it to scorch men with
fire. (9) And men were scorched with great heat: and they
blasphemed the name of the God which hath the power
over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
4. The fourth vial introduced a new infliction
derived from one of the phenomena of the eastern
deserts, the dreaded sirocco. The sun was made
to pour forth a scorching heat, as it were rays of
fire, which consumed the life and strength of men.
And it is added, to show the desperate perversity
of these enemies of God and how entirely they
merited their sufferings, that they only blasphemed
and persisted in their rejection of him, and in ad
hering to the false gods of their beloved idolatry.
The Fifth Vial.
Chapter xvi. (10) And the fifth poured out his bowl upon
the throne of the beast; and his kingdom was darkened;
and they gnawed their tongues for pain, (11) and they blas
phemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their
sores; and they repented not of their works.
5. The fifth vial returns again to the Egyptian
plagues, — one that was the severest of all next
to the death of the first-born, — the plague of
darkness. It was poured upon the seat (throne)
of the beast, i. e., his capital, Rome itself, and
thence apparently spread throughout the empire,
till the whole was "full of darkness." As the

the second prophetic book. 201
Egyptian darkness was one that could be felt
(Ex. x. 21), so this caused men to gnaw their
tongues from pain, or, as the original more exactly
signifies, from labor, weariness, vexation. And
they blasphemed God because of these toils, and
of their ulcers which still remained; the last im
plying that their woes were cumulative, each new
one not taking the place of a former, but adding
to the sum of the whole.
The Sixth Vial.
Chapter xvi. (12) And the sixth poured out his bowl
upon the great river, the river Euphrates; and the water
thereof was dried up, that the way might be made ready
for the kings that come from the sunrising. (13) And I 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, as it were frogs: (14) for
they are spirits of devils, working signs; which go forth
unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together
unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. (15)
(Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth,
and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see
his shame). (16) And they gathered them together into the
place which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon.
6. The sixth vial imitates not one of the Egyp
tian inflictions, but the .sixth of the woe-trumpets
sent upon Jerusalem (Chap. ix. 14). All who
are familiar with Roman history know that at
this time the most persistent and dreaded foes of
the empire were the Parthians, who lived east of
the Euphrates, a nation of expert horsemen,
9*

202 THE REVELATION.
famed for their skill in shooting backwards upon
an enemy while apparently fleeing before him.
To dry up the Euphrates was to remove the bar
rier which prevented these restless invaders — the
kings of the East — from pouring in like a flood
upon the empire. This terrific invasion awakens
alarm on the part of the dragon, the beast, and
the false prophet, the infernal trio which are en
gaged in making war upon God's saints, and stirs
them up to the most vigorous measures of self-
defense. Each of them sends forth a messenger
in hot haste to summon the whole empire to mus
ter its forces to resist the avenging instruments of
Jehovah. These three messengers are three un
clean, lying demons, — spirits endowed with magic
powers with which to work pretended miracles
for the support of the cause in which they are
engaged. They are pictured as issuing from the
mouths of the allied three, as an infernal inspira
tion to take possession of men ; in form like frogs,
which from their unclean habits and their vile
croakings were symbols of all that was repulsive.
Compare Milton's figure of Satan in Eden, when
tempting our first mother, sitting " squat like a
toad" at her ear. These lying spirits go forth
through all the empire, then co-extensive with all
the world, to rouse the powers of the world, civil
and spiritual, to the defense of idolatry, to re
sistance to the true religion, — in a word, to one
desperate, final attack upon God and his church.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 203
Here the seer pauses to interject a message of
admonition to his people (verse 15), to bid them
be alert and watchful for this divine interposition,
that their Lord, when he comes in his terrible
glory for their help, may not find them unpre
pared to meet him. Compare the repeated, earn
est warnings given in Matt. xxiv. and xxv., also
the epistles to the seven churches in Chaps, ii.
and iii. of this Book, calling upon Christians to
watch and be ready. How clearly also does this
demonstrate that the fulfillment of these prophe
cies was something then near at hand ; that they
were matters of immediate personal interest to
the churches of that day, conforming strictly to
the designation on the title-page of this book,
that it had to do with " things which must shortly
come to pass."
The message of the three lying spirits is suc
cessful, and the powers of heathenism are gath
ered in force to the final conflict. Most sugges
tively does the apostle add that the place where
they were assembled was the Hebrew Armaged
don, or with the Hebrew spelling, Har-Megedon,
i. e., Mount Megiddo. This was the fortified
town near the river Kishon, where was fought
the great battle between the Israelites, under
Deborah and Barak, and the Canaanites, under
Sisera, in which the latter were totally routed.
Judges v. 19. To say that the armies of the en-

204 THE REVELATION.
emy were assembled at Megiddo, of itself implies
that it will be defeated as the Canaanites were.
It is as if a French army for the attack of Eng
land should be said to be gathered at Waterloo.
Compare also Zech. xii. 11.
With this suggestion, the army of the beast is
left for the moment, while the fate of the capital
is made known.
The Seventh Vial.
As the execution of the events under the sev
enth seal was divided into seven parts (Chap. viii.
1, 2), so that under the seventh vial is divided
into two parts. The first is that which is visited
on the city of the beast — named symbolically
Babylon, which extends to Chap. xix. 10. The
second is visited upon the armies of the beast,
comprised in Chap. xix. 11-21.
The Punishment of the City.
Chapter xvi. (17) And the seventh poured out his bowl
upon the air; and there came forth a great voice Out of the
temple, from the throne, sayiug, It is done: (18) and there
were lightnings, and voices, and thunders ; and there was a
great earthquake, such as was not since there were men
upon the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty. (19)
And the great city was divided into three parts, and the
cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the great was re
membered in the sight of God, to give unto her the cup of
the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. (20) And every
island fled away, and the mountains were not found. (21)

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 205
And great hail, every stone about the weight of a talent,
cometh down out of heaven upon men : and men blasphemed
God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague
thereof is exceeding great.
The seventh vial is poured out into the air, the
birthplace of tempests, while a voice from heaven
proclaims, " It is done. The last vial of God's
displeasure is expended." Forthwith the skies
are filled with crashing thunders, and the ground
below tossed b}^ an earthquake such as the world
never saw before. The earth yawns beneath
Rome itself, splitting it into three parts ; and
elsewhere through the empire the capital cities of
the various provinces and tributary kingdoms are
thrown down. So God remembers Rome — the
new Babylon — in judgment. The islands and
mountains sink into the abyss beneath, and a
storm of pound-weight hailstones beats upon the
defenseless inhabitants.
We have space here only to remark that these
vials are a succession of symbols, seven in num
ber, signifying in general fullness of chastisement
for persecuting Rome. It would be contrary to
the very nature of this symbol-writing to attempt
to find an exact counterpart of every particular
in the actual history that ensued. The parable
of the prodigal son is a general picture of the
condition of a sinner who is a wanderer from
God; but it is a grave error in interpretation to

206 THE REVELATION.
attempt to find an exact application for every
minute act or circumstance related. Every artist
puts many things into his picture for the sake of
naturalness, to fill out and make lifelike the scene
as a whole. So here. The seven vials taken out
of their pictorial aspect, and translated into sim
ple narrative read : " Rome, her emperor and her
hierarchy, shall be brought down to ruin; her
people shall suffer a succession of direful calami
ties ; her strength at home shall be broken, and
her resources abroad, in her colonies, her prov
inces, and her tributaries shall be despoiled.
Thus shall she suffer the righteous reward for her
crimes against the people of God. The idols she
has served shall be contemptuously destroyed,
and the gospel of Christ, and the church which
has been so long persecuted, shall triumph over
heathenism, and ascend the throne of the world."
Explanatory.
It is a very remarkable fact that a composition
which so many assume to be sealed up from hu
man understanding, — which is both unintelligi
ble, and was designed to be until some supposed
time of fulfillment in the future, — is not only
named a Revelation, but has repeated interrup
tions for the professed purpose of explanation.
In Chapter vii. 13, one of the elders conde
scends to inform the apostle explicitly who were

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 207
meant by the saints in white robes. In xiii. 18,
pains are taken to tell the name of the beast, in a
cautious and technical way, indeed, but one that
could scarcely fail to be understood by a discern
ing Christian reader of that day. In xxi. 9, an
angel is sent to show more fully the heavenly
city, which had been just before mentioned (verse
2) as " the bride." So here, after the symbolical
woes of the seven vials, a whole chapter is ex-.
pressly devoted to an explanation, by one of the
seven angels, of their meaning. It is true that
the explanation itself has difficulties in it, since
there was the same necessity for caution in speak
ing of the existing government to which we have
before alluded. Probably, however, the difficulty
is much greater for us than for Christians of that
day. Surely, this much at least must be inferred,
that He who gave the contents of this book to
men designed that it should be understood by
them, and therefore that, with a reasonable de
gree of consideration and acquaintance with the
history and opinions of the times, its meaning
may be discerned.
1. The Angel's Offer.
Chapter xvii. (1) And there came one of the seven
angels that had the seven bowls, and spake with me, say
ing, Come hither, I will shew thee the judgment of the
great harlot that sitteth upon many waters ; (2) with whom
the kings of the earth committed fornication, and they that

208 THE REVELATION.
dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her
fornication. The angel-executioner now appointed to be an
interpreter, addresses the apostle with the pro
posal to show to him the judgment, i. e., God's
retributive chastisement, of the great harlot that
sat upon the many waters. Nothing was more
familiar to readers of the Old Testament than the
representation of idolatry under the name of har
lotry or adultery. The idea originated in the
fact that God had established his covenant with
the Jews, declaring himself in a peculiar sense
their God, and them in an equally peculiar sense
his people, a relation symbolized as a marriage.
To forsake him, therefore, and go after other
gods, was an offense similar to that committed by
an unfaithful wife against her husband. Hence,
in general, idolatry came to be designated as adul
tery, and any city or people who committed it as
a harlot. The term was thus applied to Nineveh
(Nahum iii. 3), to Tyre (Isa. xxiii. 17), and to
Babylon (Ezek. xxiii. 17). That there may be
no doubt whatever as to who is meant, the angel
(in verse 18) says expressly, she is " that great
city which reigneth over the kings of the earth."
In this sin all the tributary kingdoms of the em
pire are (verse 2) described as involved.

the second prophetic book. 209
2. The Scarlet Beast and its Rider.
Chapter xvii. (3) And he cu* ried me away in the Spirit
into a wilderness : and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-
colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven
heads and ten horns. (4) And the woman was arrayed in
purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone
and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abomi
nations, even the unclean things of her fornication, (5) and
upon her forehead a name written, mystery, Babylon the
great, the mother op the harlots and op the abom
inations of the earth. (6) And I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of
the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered
with a great wonder.
The scene chosen by the angel for the exhibi
tion was a wilderness (not the wilderness), as if
the spectacle was unfit to appear among the hab
itations of men. The wastes of the desert were
the proper place in which to find monsters like
this. Compare Isa. xiii. 21, 22; xxxiv. 13-15.
There is shown a woman riding upon a scarlet-
colored beast, i. e., of the hue of blood, bearing
blasphemous titles, and having seven heads and
ten horns; in other words, the same beast dis
closed in Chapter xiii. 1. Her riding upon him
may imply that the imperial power upheld the
prosperity and grandeur of the city. She was ar
rayed in sumptuous robes, and decked with costly
jewels betokening her riches, and carried in her
hand the golden bowl of wine which intoxicated
all who drank, — the seductive pleasures of idol

210 THE REVELATION.
worship. Her diadem bore a title characterized
as a " Mystery," i. e., showing that it had a secret
meaning underneath the apparent one. The title
was, "Babylon the Great, the Mother of
Harlots and Abominations of the Earth,"
— the secret meaning of which was Rome. The
woman had drank herself to intoxication with the
blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus.
3. The Angel's Explanation.
Chapter xvii. (7) And the angel said unto me, Where
fore didst thou wonder ? I will tell thee the mystery of the
woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the
seven heads and the ten horns. (8) The beast that thou
sawest was, and is not ; and is about to come up out of the
abyss, and to go into perdition. And they that dwell on the
earth shall wonder, they whose name hath not been written
in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when
they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, and
shall come. (9) Here is the mind which hath wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman
sitteth: (10) and they are seven kings; the five are fallen,
the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh,
he must continue a little while. (11) And the beast that
was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the
seven ; and he goeth into perdition. (12) And the ten horns
that thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no
kingdom as yet ; but they receive authority as kings, with
the beast, for one hour. (13) These have one mind, and
they give their power and authority unto the beast. ( 14)
These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall over
come them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and
they also shall overcome that are with him, called and chosen
and faithful. (15) And he saith unto me, The waters which
thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and mul-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 211
titudes, and nations, and tongues. (16) And the ten horns
which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the har
lot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat
her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire. (17) For God
did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one
mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the
words of God should be accomplished. (18) And the
woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which reigneth
over the kings of the earth.
The sight of this sickening monster filled the
mind of the apostle with amazement. The re
vealing angel seeing this, proceeds to explain the
vision. We have already, in connection with
Chapter xiii., stated what seems to be the best so
lution of the very enigmatical language which
follows. It is certainly a remarkble fact that a
report or prophecy should have prevailed, that
Nero after his death would revive, and claim the
throne anew, but finally perish in attempting to
gain it. For the sake of identifying him, there
fore, though without indorsing the report, John
may have referred to him as the " one that was
and is not, and is to come back from Hades, and
go into utter ruin," — a matter, he adds, which
would cause admiring wonder to all his subjects
except those whose names were registered in the
book of life.
Then come yet more open explanations, to
which the mind that had wisdom should attend.
The seven heads of the beast represented the
seven hills on which Rome was built. Of her

212 THE REVELATION.
first seven emperors, five were dead, viz., Julius
Csesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Clau
dius ; one, viz., Nero, is ; the seventh, Galba, will
follow Nero, but will continue but a short space,
viz., seven months. Nero — the beast of the two
lives — will be the eighth, but will perish. The
ten horns are ten tributary kingdoms — enumer
ated by Gibbon as Spain, Gaul, Britain, Illyricum,
Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt,
Africa. It is probable, however, that the word
ten is not designed to be an exact, but a round
number, about ten. These possess no kingdom
now, i. e., no independent sovereignty, but receive
power as kings, in other words, are allowed, in
accordance with the Roman custom, to have their
local or provincial governments in subordination
to the empire. This, however, is for one hour, —
in other words, a very short time, for soon Rome
herself will fall, and her power over them will be
broken. For the present they are loyal, and
freely contribute of their resources and strength
to the capital. They will join with it in hostility
to Christ, but shall be defeated.
Afterward, these tributary kingdoms (verse 16)
shall rebel against Rome, shall invade her terri
tory, despoil her riches, and devastate the capital
itself with fire and sword, — a prediction, as all
know, which was literally fulfilled in the later
days of the western empire. For under the over-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 213
ruling providence of God, they agree in yielding
the supreme power to the capital until God's pur
poses in regard to his people and his kingdom are
fulfilled. Finally, as if to complete the explanation, and
put all possible doubt to rest, it is added ex
pressly that the scarlet-arrayed harlot is the city
that rules the world. The mention of the name
Rome itself would not be more positive than this.
The Fall of Babylon.
In the construction of the regular drama, scenes
are often introduced called morce, " delays," for
the purpose of retarding the progress of the
events, to give time for transactions which must
be understood to have taken place but which can
not be brought into the representation; some
times, too, as in highly- wrought tragedies, to af
ford a relief from intense emotion, and prepare
the way for the final catastrophe. Such were
the choruses in the old Greek tragedies, and the
by-play of clowns in some of Shakespeare's mas
ter-pieces. Something similar to this, though of
a higher order, is frequently employed in this
highly dramatic Book of the Revelation. Most
commonly it is in the form of songs of praise in
view of disclosures already made, or of promises
for the future, which serve not only to hold back
the denouement, but also to awaken those senti-

214 THE REVELATION.
ments of hope and gratitude and courage so ap
propriate to the suffering churches in the ordeal
through which they were passing.
The present chapter seems to be of this nature.
The seven angels have poured out their vials of
wrath, and an angel interpreter has explained,
cautiously, but with much fullness, who the per
secuting harlot is that is about to receive her mer
ited chastisement. But while we gaze in instant
expectation of the fulfillment, another delay oc
curs which hightens the effect, though it retards
the end. Three messages from heaven are sent
with as many renewed assurances of the coming
doom. It is as if, with the curtain still down,
three heralds should pass in succession across the
stage, each proclaiming the certainty and the
completeness of the catastrophe which will be
reached in the impending scene.
The First Herald.
Chapter xviii. (1) After these things I saw another
angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority;
and the earth was lightened with his glory. (2) And he
cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon
the great, and is become a habitation of devils, and a hold of
every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hate
ful bird. (3) For by the wine of the wrath of her fornica
tion all the nations are fallen; and the kings of the earth
committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the
earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonness.
! First, a mighty angel descends from heaven

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 215
clad in such effulgence that the whole earth is
illuminated by it. He proclaims with a loud
voice, " Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen ! " —
the repetition of the word adding strong empha
sis, and the putting of it into the past tense show
ing its certainty, as if of a thing already done.
And further, as if recalling the picture of the
desolation of her ancient prototype sketched by
Isaiah (Chap. xiii. 19-22), he adds, "and' is be
come the habitation of demons, and the strong
hold of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every
impure and detestable bird." And then he re
cites her crime: "For all nations have partici
pated in her corrupting idolatries ; all kings have
been in alliance with her, and all the rich and
great of the empire have basked in the prosperity
she has conferred on her flatterers and minions."
The Second Herald.
Chapter xviii. (4) And I heard another voice from
heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye
have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive
not of her plagues: (5) for her sins have reached even unto
heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. (6) Ren
der unto her even as she rendered, and double unto her the
double according to her works: in the cup which she min
gled, mingle unto her double. (7) How much soever she
glorified herself, and waxed wanton, so much give her of
torment and mourning: for she saith in her heart, I sit a
queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourn
ing. (8) Therefore in one day shall her plagues come,
death, and mourning, and famine ; and she shall be utterly

216 THE REVELATION.
burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God which judged
her. (9) And the kings of the earth, who committed forni
cation and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail
over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning,
(10) standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying,
Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city ! for in
one hour is thy judgment come. (11) And the merchants
of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth
their merchandise any more; (12) merchandise of gold, and
silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and
purple, and silk, and scarlet; and all thyine wood, and
every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most pre
cious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; (13) and
cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frank
incense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and
cattle, and sheep ; and merchandise of horses and chariots
and slaves; and souls of men. (14) And the fruits which
thy soul lusted after are gone from thee, and all things that
were dainty and sumptuous are perished from thee, and
men shall find them no more at all. (15) The merchants of
these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar
off for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning; (16)
saying, Woe, woe, the great city, she that was arrayed in
fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and
precious stone and pearl! (17) for in one hour so great
riches is made desolate. And every shipmaster, and every
one that saileth any whither, and mariners, and as many as
gain their living by sea, stood afar off, (18) and cried out as
they looked upon the smoke of her burning, saying, What
city is like the great city? (19) And they cast dust on
their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe,
woe, the great city, wherein were made rich all that had
their ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in
one hour is she made desolate. (20) Rejoice over her, thou
heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets; for
God hath judged your judgment on her.
The second message is a voice from heaven u>

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 217
self, reverberating through the firmament, "Come
out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her
plagues." This, too, is modeled after similar
warnings addressed to God's people in the days of
the literal Babylon (Isa. xlviii. £0 ; Jer. 1. 8 ; li.
6, 9, 45) ; and its solemnity is hightened by the
reminder thus made of the doom which befell that
ancient enemy. Probably the original of the
whole was in Lot's summons to leave Sodom on
the morning of its destruction. Gen. xix. 12.
This entire apostrophe reaching to verse 19, is
in the highest degree poetic and impassioned.
Verses 11, 19, seem patterned after Ezekiel's de
scription of the lament for Tyre (Ezek. xxvii.),
another of the ancient foes of God's people. The
following notes of the verbal expressions em
ployed will be useful.
Verse 6. Render unto her ; apparently addressed
to the retributive angels who were to execute
the impending judgments upon the guilty city. —
Double to her; compare Isa. xl. 2; lxi. 7. — Ver.
7. How much, i. e. in the same degree. — Ver. 8.
Death; of her children ; in other words, she shall
be depopulated. — Ver. 9. The kings ; the allied
and tributary rulers of other countries which now
formed part of the Roman Empire. — Smoke of
her burning; compare Gen. xix. 28. — Ver. 10.
One hour, suddenly and unexpectedly. — Ver.
10

218 THE REVELATION.
11. Shall weep. The idea is that those in foreign
lands who trafficked with Rome, sending thither
the products of those lands, lament because she
could buy of them no longer. — Ver. 12. Thyine
wood ; timber of the citron tree, an aromatic ever
green highly prized for ornamental wood-work. —
Ver. 13. Slaves, — literally, bodies; an abbrevi
ated way of designating persons who were bought
and sold for purposes of manual labor. The next
phrase, souls of men, also means slaves in a more
general sense. Compare Ezek. xxvii. 13. This
enumeration of articles of merchandise closely
follows that given by the prophet in said chapter.
— Ver. 14. Thy soul. The address now, in the
ardor of composition, becomes personal. — Ver.
15. The merchants ; before it was the kings that
stood afar off. — Ver. 17. Shipmaster; because
so extensive a commerce occupied a great amount
of shipping. — Ver. 19. Her costliness ; her lav-
ishness in expenditure. With this verse ends the
lament. The next is a call to the holy universe
to rejoice in her downfall. — Hath judged; Her
act of condemning you has been tried and con
demned by him.
The Third Herald.
Chapter xviii. (21) And a strong angel took up a stone
as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying,
Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon, the great city, be
cast down, and shall be found no more at all. (22) And the

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 219
voice of harpers and minstrels and flute players and trump
eters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no crafts
man, of whatsoever craft, shall be found any more at all in
thee ; and the voice of a millstone shall be heard no more
at all in thee: (23) and the light of a lamp shall shine no
more at all in thee ; and the voice of the bridegroom and of
the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee : for thy mer
chants were the princes of the earth; for with thy sorcery
were all the nations deceived. And in her was found the
blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that have been
slain upon the earth.
The third message is sent by another angel, who
not only reiterates the prediction of ruin, but
emphasizes it by a most significant action ; hurl
ing a great millstone into the sea. Sorcery,
practices which benumbed the conscience and
seduced into idolatry.
Response from the Saints.
Chapter xix. (1) After these things I heard as it were
a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Halle
lujah; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong to our God:
(2) for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath
judged the great harlot, which did corrupt the earth with
her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his ser
vants at her hand. (3) And a second time they say, Halle
lujah. And her smoke goeth up for ever and ever.
To these repeated and emphatic declarations of
the full and near destruction of their persecutor,
the saints in glory respond with a song of thanks
giving — Ver. 1. Alleluia, the Greek form of the
word Hallelujah, which occurs so often in the
Psalms. It means, " Praise ye Jehovah ! " — Sal-

220 THE REVELATION.
v ation ; the deliverance of the church from her
enemies. — Ver. 2. Hath judged ; still spoken of
as past to highten the effect. — Ver. 3. Her smoke,
following, as before, the pattern of Gen. xix. 28.
— For ever ; expressing the idea of irrevocable
ruin.
Response from the Elders and
Living Ones.
Chapter xix. (4) And the four and twenty elders and
the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God that
sitteth on the throne, saying, Amen; Hallelujah.
In this song, the four Living Ones, as in Chap.
v. 9, participate.
Universal Triumphal Song.
Chapter xix. (5) And a voice came forth from the
throne, saying, Give praise to our God, all ye his servants,
ye that fear him, the small and the great. (6) And I heard
as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice
of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, say
ing, Hallelujah : for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reign
eth. (7) Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us
give the glory unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is
come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Then a voice from the Throne itself — undoubt
edly the voice of the Lamb, — calls upon the
entire holy Universe who serve God to join
therein. The use of the expression, " Our God,"
by the Lamb, is in accordance with Christ's words
in John xx. 17. — Ver. 6. As it were; resem-

THE second prophetic book. 221
bling. — Reigneth ; i. e., administers justice as
King and Judge. The two functions of supreme
power were joined in an ancient sovereign, and
his acts are often spoken of interchangeably as
laws, judgments, precepts, etc. See Ps. cxix. —
Ver. 7. Marriage; the time has come when, her
enemies being destroyed, the Lamb formally rec
ognizes his persecuted and long despised church,
and sets her in honor, as a bridegroom publicly
takes to himself his bride. The figure is a favor
ite one in the Old Testament, especially in the
Song of Solomon, and is henceforth used through
the remainder of this book to denote the safety,
the honor, and the happiness which will attend
the church when her sufferings are over. —
Ready ; i. e., by her faithfulness in enduring to
the end. She has come through her long period
of trial without a stain, in ever patient anticipa
tion of its glorious termination, and now the
Bridegroom is ready to receive her, to acknowl
edge her fidelity, and crown her as his own for
ever. And to show her in the greatest contrast
with the impure and gaudily arrayed harlot which
had corrupted the nations, it was granted to her
to be clad, i. e., to be manifested to all the uni
verse, "in fine linen bright and pure, which is the
righteousness of saints."

222 the revelation.
Proclamation of the Marriage Supper.
Chapter xix. (8) And it was given unto her that she
should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the
fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. (9) And he
saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are bidden to
the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me,
These are true words of God. (10) And I fell down before
his feet to worship him. And he saith unto me, See thou
do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy
brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God:
for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.
To carry out the figure more perfectly, the aus
picious event now so near should be celebrated
with a wedding feast, and the evangelist was com
manded to make proclamation of the honor and
felicity of those who should be admitted to it.
This was another word of cheer to those then suf
fering, and of encouragement to hold out to the
joyous consummation.
And to add yet more weight to his declaration,
the angel solemnly affirms that the message he
brings is not his own; his words are the very
words of God himself.
We cannot wonder that the apostle, on receiv
ing such a message from so august a personage,
fell at his feet with the intent to offer him adora
tion. His thought was instantly repelled by the
angel, who replied that he was a servant likewise;
one of those whose calling it was to testify of
Jesus, for all prophecy of the future is simply tes-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 223
timony concerning Jesus, his triumph over his
foes, and the establishment, supremacy, and glory
of his kingdom.
Glancing back, now, over the past five chap
ters, the question may suggest itself, why this
repetition, in so many ways, of the single idea
that persecuting Rome should be destroyed ? The
iteration seems almost wearisome. Can that be a
true interpretation which runs so narrow a round
of ideas as this? We reply; it may seem so to us,
in these modern days of peace and uneventful
ease, but it would not be such to those to whom
the apostle sent these messages all fresh from the
lips of the revealing angels. Let it only be re
membered what Rome then was, in the insolence
of her imperial power, with all the world prostrate
at her feet, and what the church then was, — little
bands of obscure and despised people scattered
here and there, without power or prestige, the
avowed followers of a Judsean peasant who had
suffered a slave's punishment for crime. To as
sure these poor people that they were to triumph
over Rome ; Jesus to vanquish Caesar; the hated
cross to supplant the eagles upon the imperial
standard ; the rich temples of Jupiter and Venus
and Bacchus to crumble into ruins before the ris
ing churches and basilicas consecrated to the
memory of the martyrs — to say this in a way to
be believed; to afford real consolation, and fur-

224 THE REVELATION.
nish the strong stimulus of courage and hope, and
so buoy the suffering saints over the bloody waves
of two and a half centuries, till the hour of de
liverance should come, — to do all this, surely,
required repetition, in every possible form of em
phasis, with all the confirmation of significant
gesture, and mighty voices, and solemn oaths. It
was to be, in fact, the greatest revolution that the
world ever saw, a revolution which, in the exist
ing state of things, was to mere human view
alike incredible and inconceivable. We have
only to bear this in mind to see that these varied
forms of utterance were needed, as they were ad
mirably adapted for the purpose in view, and to
find in them yet clearer evidence that our inter
pretation is a right one.
Destruction of the Armies of the Beast.
It will be remembered that the progress of
events as revealed to the apostle was suspended
to give room for the appearance of the angel sent
to explain the symbol of the scarlet-clad woman
(Chap, xvii.), and also for the dirge of the kings
and the merchants of the earth over the fall of
the mystical Babylon (Chap, xviii.). Meanwhile,
it is to be understood that the three unclean spirits
sent forth by the Dragon, the Beast and the False
Prophet, to stir up their tributary forces for the
last conflict with Christianity (Chap. xvi. 13),

the second prophetic BOOK. 225
have accomplished their mission, and gathered a
mighty host in the vale of Armageddon. The
prototype of this mustering of the enemies was in
the gathering of the Canaanite army under Sisera,
at Megiddo, by the river Kishon, where they were
utterly destroyed by Deborah and Barak. Judges
iv. The judgments of heaven have already been
poured upon Rome and her allies by the angels of
the seven vials, and now this last, most desperate
attack of all the auxiliary powers of idolatry
alone remains. It is to be remembered that the
persecution of the Christians was not confined to
Rome proper, or to the reign of Nero, but ex
tended throughout the empire, and for a period of
nearly or quite two hundred and fifty years, so
that looking upon it collectively as a whole, it
may well be described as a simultaneous assault
by the combined forces of the Pagan world. It
is the result of this great conflict which is depicted
in the last part of the nineteenth chapter and the
twentieth. It is divided as usual, into seven par
ticulars or scenes.
1. The capture of the beast and false prophet,
and their consignment to the lake of fire.
2. The slaughter of their entire army.
3. The seizure of the dragon, and his confine
ment in the abyss for one thousand years.
4. The special rewards conferred upon the mar
tyrs during that period.

226 the revelation.
5. The release of the dragon, his enlistment of
another army, viz., Gog and Magog, and their
overthrow. 6. The final doom of the dragon to the lake of
fire. 7. The judgment of the dead.
It seems scarcely necessary to remind our read
ers that these chapters comprise the most myste
rious and difficult portions of the whole Book.
We shall do our best at explaining them, but
shall not be in the least surprised to be told we
have failed. We shall address the common sense
of our readers, aided by their knowledge of early
and mediaeval histor3r, and will cheerfully abide
their judgment "whether these things are so."
We have first a magnificent description of
Christ as
The Leader of His Armies.
Chapter xix. (11) And I saw the heaven opened; and
behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon, called Faith
ful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and
make war. (12) And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon
his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written,
which no one knoweth but he himself. (13) And he is ar
rayed in a garment sprinkled with blood : and his name is
called, The Word of God. ( 14) And the armies which are
in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine
linen, white and pure. (15) And out of his mouth proceed
eth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations:
and he shall rule them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth
the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty
God. (16) And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a
name written, king of kings, and lord of lords.

THE second prophetic BOOK. 227
The Seer beholds heaven opened, and a white
war steed descending from it to the field of bat
tle. Upon it was One designated as "Faithful
and True," because he will execute the promises
and threatenings he has made both to his friends
and to his foes, whose contests and judgments
are just. From his eyes are emitted lightning-
gleams, and from his head depend the fillets
of many diadems. There was a marked differ
ence between an ancient crown and a diadem.
The former, generally a simple wreath of leaves
twisted about the head, or of gold twined with
them, was not in itself a badge of royalty but of
civic honor, success in battle, or in the games, or
of convivial pleasure, etc. The diadem, which
was a white fillet of linen worn on the head and
hanging in a graceful knot behind, was a mark of
imperial sovereignty, such as was displayed by
the monarchs of the East, from whom it was de
rived. When adorned with jewels, and gathered
in many folds, like a turban, it was the highest
emblem of dignity and power known among na
tions. On the jeweled frontlet of his diadems
Jesus has a title inscribed, the full import of
which he alone knows, — that name is the Logos
(Word) of God. Compare John i. 1, 14. Over
his vesture he wears the imperial mantle, not
of purple, as denoting mere civic rule, but of
crimson (dyed with blood), the symbol of war; a

228 THE revelation,
figure probably derived from Isa. lxiii. 1-3, where
the Messiah comes from Edom, his garments
stained with the blood of his enemies. This glo
rious Being is attended with the armies of heaven,
the hosts of angels, arrayed in shining white
and riding upon white horses, the emblem of pu
rity. This representation seems to accord with
Matt. xvi. 27; xxiv. 30; xxv. 31, where Christ
describes his own coming as King and Judge,
"in his glory, with all his holy angels." His
word of command is like a sharp sword, with
which he will smite the rebel nations, and rule
them with irresistible force ("a rod of iron."
See Psalm ii. 9). He treadeth the wine-press of
God's wrath against his enemies ; i. e., is the in
strument through whom the divine judgments
will be executed upon them. See Chap. xiv.
18-20. Upon the skirt of his robe, so as to be
conspicuous as he sits upon his horse, is the in
scription claiming for him supreme and univer
sal sovereignty, King of kings, and Lord of
lords. The Battle of Armageddon,
And now, in immediate anticipation of the
battle, a herald angel standing in the sun makes
proclamation to the carnivorous birds in all the
sky to come and feast themselves upon the dead,
the slain enemies of the King. It will be a great

THE second PROPHETIC BOOK. 229
feast spread for them by God ; let them come and
gorge themselves at their will. Dainty morsels
will be afforded them, — kings and chiliarchs and
braves, horses and their riders, nobles and vas
sals, small and great. Of course, this proclama
tion is to highten the effect. Similar calls were
often uttered by ancient warriors just before bat
tle. Compare 1 Sam. xvii. 46 ; Isa. xviii. 6 ; lvi.
9; Jer. vii. 33; xii. 9; especially Ezek. iv. 17-22.
And now all is ready, and the battle begins.
But — there is no battle ! Instantly the beast
and the false prophet are seized, and thrust alive
into the fiery lake of gehenna, and their vast
army are slain by the word of the victorious
King. The rapidity with which this is done is
most impressive. It is the act of the Leader
alone. The angels who attend him are merely
witnesses of his prowess; he needs not the aid of
one of them. He simply speaks, and it is done !
The mighty hosts who had assembled against him
disappear as by a single lightning stroke !
The import of all this, divested of the histor
ical symbols under which it is presented, is sim
ply that Paganism at Rome and throughout the
world, as a persecuting force arrayed against the
church of God, should be utterly destroyed. Of
course, it does not mean Rome as a city, nor the
people of Rome as such, nor even the civil gov
ernment of Rome itself considered. The real

230 THE REVELATION.
enemy which dwelt in Rome, and actuated her
people and her power, was heathenism, just as
the real enemy which clutched at our own na
tional life in the late rebellion was slavery.
We say that we fought the South and overcame
it, and reduced it to submission, but we mean
that we conquered slavery. We had no enmity
against the South as a part of our own country,
or against her people as American citizens; we
fought them only as made our foes by that fell
spirit of oppression which was hostile to all the
institutions and interests of a land of freedom.
So the real foe at Rome was its state religion,
which, under the instigation of Satan, made war
against the church of God; and the victory so
sublimely described in our text was achieved
when that foe was despoiled of its power, and all
its instruments and auxiliaries utterly destroyed.
If we ask, then, whether the prophecy, thus
understood, was in fact fulfilled, and when, the
answer of history is most signal and definite, — it
was, in the conversion of the Emperor Constantine
to Christianity, and his imperial decrees suppress
ing Paganism, and establishing Christianity as the
religion of the empire, A.D. 306-324.
Constantine the Great.
" Was that all ? " we fancy our readers exclaim
ing at the suggestion we venture to put forth as

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 231
to the real import of the great "Battle of Arma
geddon," described in Rev. xix. 11-21. After
preparations so vast, which had so long occupied
the counsels of heaven, and engaged the services
of the highest angels, — after the display of
Christ in his glory, going forth with the armies of
heaven to victory over the assembled forces of
the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, and
crushing them with so terrible a defeat, are we to
find the fulfillment of the whole simply in that
revolution wrought in the Roman Empire by the
Emperor Constantine ? An event wholly within
the range of human history, which was attended
with no imposing supernatural phenomena, no
disclosure of Christ and his angels amid the
clouds of the firmament, no conflagrations of the
heavens, and no mighty convulsions of the solid
earth; an event whose grandeur is to be seen
only in its moral significance, and its bearing
upon that invisible and spiritual kingdom of
heaven which had been founded in the cross of
Christ? The very statement will doubtless seem
to many its own refutation. Take away from
their fulfillment-the physical prodigies and signs
and wonders which prophetic inspiration used so
freely in its symbols, and, they will say, we have
no Apocalypse left. The denouement, which had
been looked for with so much solemn awe, is
emptied of its meaning, and both prophecy and
performance become stale, flat, and unprofitable.

232 THE REVELATION.
We will not stop here to dwell upon the seri
ous detriment to the principles of sound biblical
interpretation, which, as we cannot help thinking,
has resulted from this habit, so greatly fostered
by the millennial literature of our day, of expect
ing material and sensuous fulfillments of New
Testament prophecy. For the present, it is suffi
cient to say that the supposed estimate of the
real magnitude of the revolution effected by Con
stantine results from ignorance or a want of con
sideration of what that revolution was. Let us
endeavor in a few words to gain some just ideas
of it.
Rome, in the apostles' days, was the mistress
of the earth. From the shores of Spain and
Britain on the west to the Indus on the east, and
from Ethiopia in the south to Scythia on the
north, over all the nations, tribes, and tongues of
the known world, she held imperial sway. Her
legions garrisoned and guarded every stronghold;
her treasury was replenished with the revenues of
every land. One system of laws bound the whole
into a consolidated empire, at the head of which
was a single irresponsible will, a sovereign who
assumed the name and the prerogatives of the
Deity, and was worshiped as such by his subjects.
For two and a half centuries this mighty em
pire had set itself in deadly hostility to Chris
tianity. A succession of forty emperors, from

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 233
Nero to Diocletian, with some few exceptions,
wielded this power to crush the infant churches.
Even the upright Antonine and the philosophic
Aurelius, with no personal malice against the fol
lowers of Jesus, punished them as enemies of the
state, and disturbers of public order. The Pagan
religion, with a splendid array of priests, augurs,
soothsayers, and vestal virgins, with magnificent
temples and imposing rites of worship, the whole
made sacred and venerable by the traditions of
almost a thousand years, inspired the zeal of the
enemies of the church, while it gave its sanctions
to all the atrocities that were perpetrated in its
behalf. Wealth, aristocracy, fashion, art, ancient
custom, trade, -education, all the forces of society,
and over and above all the moral corruption
which grew up in, and was fostered by, heathen
ism, were alike hostile to a faith which tended to
revolutionize them all. Such was Rome in its
antagonism to Christianity. The prophetic sym
bol by which she was represented — frightful as
it was — but faintly imaged the reality — a huge
unearthly beast, with seven heads and ten horns,
and a body combining the strength and swiftness
of the leopard, the bear, and the lion, instigated
and guided by the great red dragon of hell !
Yet in one reign, by the will of one man, this
mighty enemy of Christ and the church was laid
low ! By a succession of decrees, breaking forth

234 THE REVELATION.
upon the astonished world like thunderbolts out
of the clear sky, persecution was suppressed,
Christians were granted perfect liberty of opinion
and worship, confiscated property was restored to
them, demolished churches rebuilt, Christianity
made the state religion, the cross inscribed on the
imperial standards and impressed on the imperial
coins, — in a word, the empire was made Chris
tian. Nay, more, Rome herself, the bloody city
of Nero and Domitian and Diocletian, the place
of the Mamertine prison and the imperial gar
dens, which had once been lighted with burning
Christians as torches, and the Coliseum, where
the wild beasts had been gorged with the flesh of
the martyrs, — Rome was abandoned of its em
peror, and given over to decay and the plunder
of the northern barbarians, and a new capital
built in the East on the beautiful Bosphorus,
which should ever after bear in its very name the
memory of the first Christian emperor, Constan
tine. And though he did not himself attempt to
extirpate heathenism by force, yet it was done
shortly after by his successors. The Pagan tem
ples were demolished, the heathen rites prohib
ited, and the whole vast system of superstition
on whose bloody altars so many thousands of
Christians had perished was by imperial edict to
tally suppressed.
Was not such a result as this worthy to be

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 235
styled " the victory of Armageddon " ? We beg
the reader to pause and reflect a little on its sig
nificance. By what less than the power of the
enthroned Redeemer, acting in and through this
human representative, could it have been accom
plished ? By what else was the revolution made
permanent in its effects, so that there was no fa
tal reaction from it ? President Edwards, one of
the most judicious of writers, sajrs, " This revo
lution was the greatest revolution and change in
the face of things that ever came to pass in the
world since the flood. Satan, the prince of dark
ness, that king and god of the heathen world, was
cast out. The roaring lion was conquered by the
Lamb of God in the strongest dominion that ever
he had, the Roman empire." (Work of Redemp
tion, Period III., part 2).
We regret our want of space to give an ade
quate sketch of this celebrated emperor. He was
born in the year 274, and upon the death of his
father he was proclaimed Csesar by the Roman
army, at York, in England, in 306. At that time
the empire was divided among six sovereigns,
who parcelled out its vast territories among them.
Dissensions arose among them, which led to a
long series of wars, from which Constantine fi
nally emerged, the conqueror of all. It was
while engaged with one of these, Maxentius, that
he saw the famous vision to which he attributed

236 THE REVELATION.
his ultimate conversion. " According to his own
account," says Uhlhorn, "he long considered to
which god he should turn for help, and prayed to
the supreme God, whom his father had worshiped
as god of the sun, to reveal to him who he was.
Then there appeared to him one day a wondrous
sign. When the sun was declining in the west,
he saw a bright cross upon the sun, and over it
the inscription, in letters of light, touto nika
(In this conquer). He was disturbed by the
vision, and not clear what its meaning might be;
but in the night Christ appeared to him, and
commanded him to make this cross his banner,
and then to go into battle with the certainty of
victory. In fulfillment of this prediction, Con
stantine had a banner prepared (the labarum)
bearing the cross and the monogram of Christ.
He himself set a cross on his helmet, and his
soldiers painted it upon their shields. Then he
led his army from victory to victory under the
banner of the cross, until in the bloody battle of
the Milvian Bridge the power of Maxentius was
entirely broken. Constantine entered Rome in
triumph, and soon the whole West acknowledged
his sway. In token of his gratitude for this re
sult, the emperor had a statue of himself set up
in Rome, carrying a cross in his hand, and bear
ing the inscription, " By this saving sign, the true
proof of valor, I have freed your city, and saved
it from the yoke of the tyrant."

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 237
The great decree of Constantine, by which he
made Christianity the religh :i of the empire, was
issued in the year 324, after he had, by the defeat
of Licinius, become sole monarch both of the
West and the East. The year following he con
vened a general council of the bishops and clergy,
to settle points of doctrine and practice in the
church. This was the famous council of Nice,
which first condemned the heresy of Arianism.
The emperor himself attended its sessions, and
gave the imperial sanction to its decrees. We
cannot refuse a quotation from Dean Stanley's
account of this renowned council, as presenting
most vividly the changes which had come upon
the condition both of the church and the empire.
" There were present the learned and the illit
erate, courtiers and peasants, old and young, aged
bishops on the verge of the grave, beardless dea
cons just entering on their office ; and it was an
assembly in which the difference between age and
youth was of more than ordinary significance, for
it coincided with a marked transition in the his
tory of the world. The new generation had been
brought up in peace and quiet. They could just
remember the joy diffused through the Christian
communities by the edict of toleration published
in their boyhood; but they had themselves suf
fered nothing. Not so the older and by far the
larger part of the assembly. They had lived

238 THE REVELATION.
through the last and worst of the persecutions,
and they now came like a regiment out of some
frightful siege or battle, decimated and mutilated
by the tortures or the hardships they had under
gone. There must have been some of the aged
inhabitants of Nicsea who remembered the death
of the two martyrs, Tryphon and Respicius, who
in the reign of Deems had been dragged through
the streets of the city, bleeding from their wounds,
in the depths of winter. There must be some
who retained from their grandfathers the recol
lection of that still earlier and more celebrated
persecution in Bithynia, recorded by Pliny in his
letter to Trajan. Most of the older members must
have lost a friend or a brother. Many still bore
the marks of their sufferings. Some uncovered
their sides and backs to show the wounds inflicted
by the instruments of' torture. On others were
the traces of that peculiar cruelty which distin
guished the last persecution, the loss of a right
eye, or the searing of the sinews of the leg to pre
vent their escape from working in the mines.
Both at the time and afterward it was on their
character as an army of confessors and martyrs,
quite as much as on their character as an (Ecu
menical Council, that their authority reposed. In
this respect, no other council could approach them,
and in the whole proceedings of the assembly, the
voice of an old confessor was received almost as
an oracle." Eastern Church, pp. 185, 186.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 239
Think of Nero burning Christians alive as
torches in his palace gardens, and then of Con
stantine presiding in such a council as this, and
see what Christ's victory over the Beast and the
False Prophet meant !
The Binding of Satan.
Chapter xx. (1) And I saw an angel coming down out
of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain
in his hand. (2) And he laid hold on the dragon, the old
serpent which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a
thousand years, (3) and cast him into the abyss, and shut
it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive-the nations
no more, until the thousand years should be finished: after
this he must be loosed for a little time.
In attempting to elucidate this exceedingly ob
scure subject, we ask our readers, first of all, to
disregard the chapter division by which this pas
sage is separated from what precedes. Every one
knows that there is no authority for these divis
ions in the original, and the influence of them is
often very detrimental to a clear understanding of
the sacred text, breaking apart what really should
be held in closest continuity. The present is a
marked example of this, very many writers taking
it for granted that this chapter begins a new sub
ject, whereas a careful consideration will clearly
show that it is strictly and intimately connected
with the overthrow of the enemies of the church,
given in the foregoing chapter. In other words,

240 THE REVELATION.
the seizure and binding of the Dragon was a part
of the great battle of Armageddon, in which the
conquering Messiah overcomes and destroys the
combined armies which had been gathered against
him. For, let it be remembered that the persecutions
which Rome had for two and a half centuries been
inflicting upon Christians were the Dragon's war
fare against the saints. See Ch. xii. 13, 17 ; xiii.
7; xvi. 13, 14. "The Dragon persecuted the
woman — the church — which brought forth the
man-child." " The Dragon was wroth, and went
to make war with the remnant of her seed." " It
was given to him," i. e., the beast, the Dragon's
agent, to whom he gave his power and throne
and great authority, — " to make war with the
saints and to overcome them." The three un
clean spirits like frogs, which came out of the
mouths of the Dragon and the Beast and the False
Prophet — the Dragon's instruments of cruelty —
went forth to gather the kings of the earth and of
the whole world to the battle of that great day of
God Almighty. And when, in Chap, xix., the
Messiah comes forth against that host, and gives
its flesh to the ravenous birds, and seizes the Beast
and False Prophet and thrusts them into the lake
of fire, it is the destruction of the Dragon's army,
his marshals and his troops. And it is now simply
the completion of the victory that a mighty angel

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 241
appears on the scene with his key and chain, and
lays hold on the commander of that army, the
Prince of Hell, who had created and instigated
it with his own devilish hate, and guided all its
movements for so many years, and binds and shuts
him up in prison. The verses preceding (in Ch.
xix.) are the Waterloo of this campaign ; these
are the St. Helena, where the arch enemy and
tyrant is put into a place of safety in which for a
thousand years, at least, he can wage war against
the church no more.
Such, clearly, is the connection of this event,
and from it we have the clew to its interpretation.
If persecution was the wicked thing which the
Dragon had been doing ; if the whole prophetic
narrative is the story of his deeds and his endeav
ors against the saints; if it is in this character
alone that he is shown, then, most certainly, to
bind him and shut him up, so that he can pursue
his murderous work no longer, is simply the sup
pression of persecution. And we know that pre
cisely this was what was done under Constantine.
Paganism was disarmed and despoiled. The
fagot, the rack, the bloody pincers, were snatched
from its cruel hand. Its dungeons were thrown
open, its wild beasts starved of their wonted
feasts on Christian flesh. Nay, more, the imperial
scepter itself passed into Christian hands. The
old bloody, barbarous Rome was left in her poi-
11

242 THE REVELATION.
sonous marshes by the Tiber, with the curse of
heaveu resting on her, and a new Rome, the capi
tal of a new Christian empire, planted in the
East, the national emblem of which was the
cross and the name of Jesus wrought into the
sacred monogram of the labarum, impressed on her
coins, and borne in triumph on the standards of
her invincible armies ! Was not this a binding of
the arch-persecutor ? So, for a thousand years
from that day, under the sway of this renowned
Christian empire of the East, what power was
there in all the world strong enough to assail the
church ? The barbarian tribes of the North did
indeed overrun old Rome, plundered its wealth,
and parceled out its territories, as John himself
predicted in this very book, — "the ten horns
shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate
and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her
with fire " (Chap. xvii. 16) ; but they had no
power to endanger Christianity, nay, here first
brought into contact with it, many of them re
ceived its divine teachings, and ultimately became
Christian nations. Contrast now all this, both in
the East and in the West, with what the empire
was when in the flush or its Pagan supremacy, its
scepter in the hands of Nero, and wielded to
crush the despised followers of Jesus, and can we
help saying that the Dragon was bound and shut
up in prison ?

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 243
It is a striking confirmation of this view, that,
at the time, both Constantine and the church
regarded the revolution which he wrought as the
fulfillment of this very chapter. Close by the
entrance to his palace in Constantinople he caused
to be set up an immense painting, in full view of
all who went out or came in, representing himself
with the cross over his head, and under his feet a
writhing serpent falling into the abyss. " For,"
says Eusebius, " the sacred oracles in the books
of God's prophets have described him as a dragon
and a crooked serpent ; and for this reason the
emperor thus publicly displayed a painting of the
dragon beneath his own and his children's feet,
stricken through with a dart, and cast headlong
into the depths of the sea. In this manner he
intended to represent that concealed adversary of
the human race, and to indicate that he was con
signed to the gulf of perdition by virtue of the
trophy of salvation placed above his head." (Life
of Const. 1. 40.)
Our readers will judge of the reasonableness of
this view of the passage before us, a view which,
we think, will be furthur confirmed by what will
hereafter be said of the matters standing in con
nection with it. That it differs, in toto, from the
usual view is freely acknowledged. The latter
makes it descriptive of a period of universal peace
and felicity to be attained in the future, lasting a

244 THE REVELATION.
thousand years, or an indefinitely long period,
that is to say, the Millennium, a word meaning " a
thousand years." But while we do not in the
least doubt that such a period of prosperity lies
before the church, as assured in all the predictions
of her latter-day glory, we cannot think that that
is the subject of this passage. In the first place,
it assumes that this chapter is wholly disconnected
with the preceding, introducing a new and totally
different subject. Secondly, it assumes that the
confinement of the Dragon or Satan implies the
cessation of all moral evil, which in the Scriptures
is so often attributed to his agency. But this,
too, is wholly to disregard the connection. The
passage manifestly speaks of the Dragon in refer
ence to the character he sustains in this book, and
that is solely that of a persecutor. Thirdly, it
represents great and innumerable nations of men
in the distant parts of the earth as still heathen
during the thousand years, which, if this period is
the church's latter-day glory, is wholly inconsis
tent with those prophecies which represent the
reign of Christ as absolutely universal. (Com
pare Ps. lxxii. 8, 11 ; Mai. i. 11, etc.) These, to
us, seem insuperable objections to the common
view. We do not see how they could ever have
been derived from a careful study of the passage
in its connections. The one which we prefer is in
consistency with those connections, and also with

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 245
the known facts of history, and the most reason
able view of the objects and methods of the Rev
elation itself. It is directly connected with that
great period of persecutions which was then just
beginning, and whose dark penumbra was shut
ting rapidly down over the apostle and the infant
churches. In a word, it was a view of the utmost
practical interest and importance to the churches
of that day, and therefore appropriately had a
place in the narrative of " those things which
must shortly come to pass."
The Reign of the Martyrs.
Chapter xx. (4) And I saw thrones, and they sat upon
them, and judgment was given unto them : and I saw the
souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of
Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshiped not
the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark
upon their forehead and upon their hand ; and they lived,
and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (5) The rest of
the dead lived not until the thousand years should be fin
ished. This is the first resurrection. (6) Blessed and holy
is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the
second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of
God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand
years. Probably no passage in the whole Bible ever
received so many different interpretations as these
three verses. They have been made to uphold
theories innumerable in respect to the future of
the saints and of our world. We shall not

246 THE REVELATION.
attempt to mention these, but proceed at once to
unfold that view which of all we have seen seems
to us most reasonable — a view which nearly coin
cides with the one presented by the eminent
evangelical interpreter of Germany, Prof. Heng
stenberg. This scholar .was one of the intimate
and much esteemed friends of the late Prof. Henry
B. Smith, who says of him, " More than any
other man in Germany he is like one of the
prophets of the Old Testament, warning, rebuk
ing, threatening in the name of the Lord. He is
striving with his whole might to stem the en
croachments and to repel the pretensions of
philosophy in Germany ; he is striving to save the
Old Testament for Germany as a book of divine
authority, and his cause wins ground."
1. Our first inquiry is, Who were these martyrs ?
Nor should there be any doubt as to the answer.
They were " the souls of them that were beheaded
for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God,
and such as worshiped not the beast, neither his
image, and received not the mark upon their
forehead or upon their hand." The words refer us
directly to chapter thirteen. They are those who
had, under penalty of death, refused to worship
the Roman emperor, or receive the tokens of con
formity to the heathen religion, of which he was
the head. In the original this distinctive idea is
more prominent than in our English dress. The

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 247
word "beheaded" (pepelekismenon) is derived
from the ax or hatchet (pelekus), which was the
Roman instrument of capital punishment, and
signifies literally, "those who were hatcheted."
So the early colonists of New England made a
verb out of the Indian war-club, the tomahawk.
If a writer of those times had said that in a given
conflict so many persons were tomahawked, no one
would have doubted that he meant to say, not
only that they were put to death, but that it was
done by Indians. So here, the persons seen were
those who had suffered from the Roman ax, or
who, if not actually put to death, had been
exposed to it for their fearless confession of Christ
and the word of God. How they can be made to
mean all Christians in all ages of the world,
according to the views of millenarians generally,
surpasses our comprehension.
2. The time of their reign. It was " a thous
and years " ; manifestly the same thousand years
as that during which Satan was bound. Nearly
all writers concede this. If what we have ad
vanced in the preceding pages is correct, that
period lay between Constantine, who put an end
to Roman persecution, and Othman I., who let
loose the horrors of Turkish perscution. That
period of a thousand years was one in which
Christianity, instead of being weak and assailed
by.hostile secular power, possessed the throne of

248 THE REVELATION.
the Roman world. In it the banner of the Cross
was triumphant between the Image of Cesar and
the Crescent of Mohammed. The celestial sign
emblazoned by Constantine on the labarum, and
set up over his imperial palace, had been fulfilled,
IN THIS THOTJ SHALT CONQUER.*
3. In this, then, we have a clew to the reigning
of the martyrs in heaven. For the comfort of the
persecuted churches, John was permitted to
assure them of a coming period of triumph over
their enemies, when the arch-persecutor should be
shut up in prison for a thousand years, when
Christ and his cross should occupy the throne of
the Csesars. "But what," his contemporaries
might ask him, " is there for us ? We shall not
live to see that good time ; the dungeon, the
stake, the ax, are our portion, what shall we have
therefore ? " Is it any wonder that in reply to
such an inquiry the apostle recalled the very same
question which he himself and his brother apostles
had put to Christ, and. the answer he had given
them, " In the regeneration, when the Son of man
shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
* Hengstenberg holds that the thousand years are past, but makes their
precise date somewhat different from this. He thinks the binding of
Satan occurred at the conversion of Charlemagne, in the year a.d. 800.
The thousand years, then, would reach to a.d. 1800, when military despo
tism and infidelity broke forth with desperate force, as Gog and Magog.
" It is such a conjunction as that of Napoleon and Apollyon." Apoe. II.,
page 369.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 249
Israel." Matt. xix. 28. That is, while Christ
shall reign in his church over his enemies on
earth, his faithful martyrs and confessors shall
feign with him in glory on thrones above. It
shall be a special reward for special fidelity.
Let us look at the passage in its details. The
apostle stands gazing into heaven, where he sees
thrones, persons sitting upon them, and judicial
(or royal, for ruling and judging are the same)
dignity given to them. As he gazes, the scene
thus outlined takes a more definite form and
import ; the persons sitting on the thrones are the
martyrs of the Roman persecutions. Instead of
having perished under the malice of their enemies,
he beholds them still living and reigning with
Christ, as he had promised. This, he says, is the
first resurrection. Not the act of rising, for no
such act is shown, but the resurrection state to
which they had already attained, and by means of
which it had become possible for them to be with
Christ, who at his ascension entered his resurrec
tion state. It is first, not in the order of time,
but of rank and blessedness, just as the uppermost
rooms at feasts were the first rooms ; the best
robe for the prodigal was the first robe ; Philippi,
the chief city of Macedonia, was the first city;
Paul, the chief of sinners, was the first of sinners,
etc. See, also, Matt. xx. 27 ; Mark vi. 21 ; x. 44 ;
Luke xix. 47 ; Acts xiii. 50 ; xxv. 2 ; xxviii. 7, 17.
11*

250 THE REVELATION.
He then adds, " Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first (highest) resurrection; on such
the second death (ver. 14) hath no power, but
they shall be priests of God and of Christ," i. e.,
admitted into their most intimate presence, " and
shall reign with him a thousand years." Of
course, we are not to infer that after that period
this honor is to cease. The thousand years are
named only to make this period of triumph coeval
with that of Satan's humiliation and confinement.
" But the rest of the dead lived not (again)
until the thousand years were finished." By the
rest must be meant those not included among the
martyrs ; i. e., those who did serve the beast and
worship his image, and receive his mark. They
did not live (the word again is unauthorized),
i. e., they did not have the life and blessedness of
the martyrs. Every one knows that the word to
live in the Scriptures often means to be blessed.
It is to have the everlasting life which alone
belongs to the saints. Till the thousand years
were finished does not mean that they then did so
live, but, as with the reign of the martyrs the
state spoken of extended through the period of
Satan's confinement. What happened to these
after that is stated further on, in verses 11-15.
This passage then, viewed in its connections,
seems to us most evidently to teach the well
known doctrine of peculiar dignity and happiness

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 251
bestowed upon those who laid down their lives
for the sake of Christ. This truth had been
taught by our Lord himself in the passage already
quoted (Matt. xix. 28), and was repeated in
various forms by the apostles. Paul declares that
it had become a proverbial saying (logos) among
the early Christians — a saying which he pro
nounces a true one — " If we be dead with Christ,
we shall also live with him ; if we suffer, we shall
also reign with him." 2 Tim. ii. 12. He says
that "we (all Christians) are the children of
God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God,
and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer
with him, that we may be also glorified together."
See also the special promise made by our Lord to
the seven churches, " To him will I give power
over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod
of iron ; as the vessels of a potter shall they be
broken to shivers, even as I received of my
Father " ; i. e., he shall share in my royal author
ity as predicted in the second Psalm. " To him
that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my
throne, even as I also overcame and am set down
with my Father in his throne." Rev. ii. 26, 27 ;
iii. 21.
The reign of the martyrs thus interpreted falls
into harmony with the great events with which it
stands connected in this book, and with the recog
nized teachings of the whole New Testament as to

252 THE REVELATION.
the rewards assured to those who should be faith
ful unto death. It presents a simple and natural
sense, free from the extravagances which attend
the usual millenarian theories. We cannot but
feel that it will commend itself to all unprejudiced
readers, as one eminently reasonable, and worthy
of acceptation as the true one.
Gog and Magog.
Chapter xx. (7) And when the thousand years are fin
ished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, (8) And shall
come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four cor
ners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together
to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
(9) And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and
compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved
city: and fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them.
(10) And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake
of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false
prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for
ever and ever. «•
After a thousand years, Satan should be loosed
from his confinement and go forth to collect
another army to institute a new warfare against
the saints. The name by which they are desig
nated is " Gog and Magog." Let us first see if
we can discover who were meant by them.
As usual in this book, the description of it com
prises seven particulars.
1. It was to appear one thousand years after
the binding of Satan,

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 253
2. Its designation was Gog and Magog.
3. It was to originate in distant regions, called
" the four quarters of the earth."
4. Its numbers were vast — as the sand of the
sea. 5. It should overrun the whole breadth of the
earth, or land.
6. It should encompass the camp of the saints
and the beloved city.
7. It should be destroyed by fire from heaven.
Can we find any power on the pages of history
answering to these seven particulars? Let us see.
We have shown, as we think, in former articles,
that the character in which Satan, or the Dragon,
is exhibited in this book is that of a persecutor;
i. e., an instigator of the hostile powers of the
earth against Christianity. This work he was
permitted to continue in Rome more than two
and a half centuries, from the commencement of the
persecutions under Nero, in A.D. 64, to Constan-
tine's degree of toleration in the West in 312, or
for the whole empire in 324. These decrees, with
the laws which enforced them, completely sup
pressed persecution, and were followed shortly
after by the substitution of Christianity for
Paganism, as the established religion of the
empire. We submit that this was the binding of
Satan. 1. Coming down one thousand years from that

254 THE REVELATION.
date, we behold the founding of a new antichris
tian, persecuting power, the Mohammedan Ottoman
Empire. The date of this event is assigned by
Gibbon and historians generally to the year 1325,
when Othman I., the first Sultan, invaded and
plundered the Christian province of Nicomedia,
and established his capital at Brusa. This was
exactly one thousand and two years from the issue
of the imperial decree of Constantine. From
Othman, the line of Turkish Sultans and the peo
ple themselves have been commonly styled Oth-
mans, or Ottomans. We must refer our readers
to the history of this empire in proof of its hos
tility to Christianity. It plundered, sold into
slavery, and murdered without stint the followers
of the cross. It has for more than three centuries
occupied the territories of the Eastern church,
and has exercised a pitiless despotism over them.
Christians, in the Mohammedan phrase, are " un
believing dogs," whom it is a service to Allah and
his Prophet to put to death. Within a few years
past the empire has been falling into decadence,
and is held in awe of the powerful nations of
Christendom. It is now known as "the sick
man," whose end may be reached at any moment.
But looking at it in its essential characteristics,
and as it has in fact been during its long career of
fanaticism and oppression, it may well be viewed
as the legitimate successor of Pagan Rome, a new

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 255
power stirred up by the persecuting Dragon
against the followers and the religion of Jesus
Christ. 2. Its name, " Grog and Magog." From Gen.
x. 2, we learn that Magog was the son of Japheth,
who with his brothers settled in the northern
regions of Europe and Asia, and became progeni
tors of the tribes known in general as Scythians.
In the days of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. xxxviii.
1), it appears that Grog was the ruler of that
people — probably the name being the common
title of its kings, like Pharaoh in Egypt, and
Caesar at Rome.*
One of those Scythian tribes in later times was
the Turks, who began to be heard of in Europe
about the sixth century, a horde of barbarians
who overran nearly all Asia, and at length, in the
fourteenth century, having meanwhile embraced
the tenets of Mohammedanism, founded as
already mentioned, the Ottoman empire. Histor
ically, therefore, it is as certain as any similar eth
nological fact, that the Turks were descendants
of ancient Magog. In what way, then, could they
be more naturally designated by a prophet writing
thirteen centuries before their time than by this
name of their ancestor and native land? Such
*In the cuneiform inscriptions at Babylon, " we find side by side with
Birighndri, a chief of Madai (Media), Sariti and Pariza, sons of Oa-a-gi,
a chief of the Saka (Scythians), whom Mr. Smith identifies with Gog."
Speaker's Com. Ezek. xxxviii 2.

256 THE REVELATION.
was the opinion of the learned Grotius, who
expressly says, "Per Gogum intelligenda domus
Ottomanicce quos primum in ex parte Asice se osten
dit." (By Gog is to be understood the Ottoman
family who first showed themselves in that part
of Asia.)
3. That the widespread territories of the Turks,
before they became fixed in their new empire in
Asia Minor, might be described as being in " the
four quarters of the earth," is too obvious to need
proof. In the time of the great Mogul empire of
Zingis Khan (about 1206), they covered nearly
all Asia and a large part of Europe. No phrase
would more graphically depict the vast extent of
their conquests than the one used by the apostle.
4. So, likewise, the assertion that their number
was "as the sand of the sea." A very common
epithet applied to these hordes of barbarians who
overran so large part of the world, and made
incursions so often into the more fertile countries
of the South, was that they were "innumerable."
5. That the invading Turks overran " the whole
breadth of the earth," or, as we suppose, the land,
i. e., Palestine, is too well known to require proof.
We have repeatedly noted this use of the word
earth, not only in this book, but frequently in the
other New Testament books. It is a use recog
nized by all commentators. It is equally true,
however, taken in its wider sense. The conquests

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 257
of the' Turks were so extensive that they might
with little exaggeration be described as covering
the whole breadth of the earth.
6. They surrounded "the beloved city" and
" the camp of the saints." By the former is to be
understood, of course, Jerusalem. It was taken
by the Turks under Sultan Selim I., in 1517, and
has been in their hands ever since. The latter, as
we think, was the fortified Christian capital, Con
stantinople itself, which after a prolonged and
most bloody siege, was taken by Mahomet II. , in
1460. Besides the slaughter of thousands in the
siege, great numbers of the captives were massa
cred or sold into perpetual slavery, the churches
were burned or converted into mosks, and the
city of the first Christian emperor made the capi
tal of Islam.
7. The end of this bloody persecutor was
announced in the words, "Fire came down from
God out of heaven and devoured them." If our
view as to the identity of this power is correct,
this part of the prediction is yet to be fulfilled.
The form of the infliction may be interpreted as
meaning that some sudden judgment shall put an
end to the empire, as if smitten by lightning; or
that its power shall be dissipated under the influ
ence of those spiritual truths and forces which
shall descend like the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. Or possibly, both may be included, as in

258 THE REVELATION.
the baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire,
which John the Baptist denounced upon Jerusa
lem, and which in both ways we know was so sig
nally fulfilled. We cannot doubt that this end of
the Ottoman power, in one form or the other, or
both, is now near at hand. Turkey is " the sick
man," and is constantly growing weaker. He
already exists only by the sufferance of the great
Christian powers, who have wrested from him the
old weapons of persecution* and will extinguish
him altogether if he attempts further outrage,
while missions and schools and the thousand influ
ences of Christian civilization are sapping his life-
forces, and preparing for a repetition of the revo
lution in old Rome, by which the persecutor him
self became a subject of the cross.
Here, then, are seven characteristic particulars
which indicate to us the power that was meant
by the apostle under the name " Gog and Magog."
Six of them we see fit most exactly to the empire
of the Turks, and the seventh gives every sign of
a fulfillment very speedily. What other theory
has been framed on this subject which combines
so many evidences of being the right one ?
The Judgment of the Dead.
Chapter xx. (11) And I saw a great white throne, and
him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
(12) And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 259
before the throne; and books were opened: and another
book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead
were judged out of the things which were written in the
books, according to their works. (13) And tlie sea gave up
the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up
the dead which were in them: and they were judged every
man according to their works. (14) And death and Hades
were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death,
even the lake of fire. (15) And if any was not found writ
ten in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
We have come to the last scene of the great
tragedy. Save a single class, all the persons and
characters which have figured in the warfare of
Satan against the church of God have been dis
posed of. The Roman Beast and False Prophet,
and all the forces gathered by them from the hea
then world, perished in the battle of Armageddon,
and were sent to their own place in the lake of
fire. Gog and Magog, who a thousand years later
took up the same role of hostility against the
saints, have been destroyed by fire from heaven.
Satan himself, the Arch-enemy who instigated the
whole, has been, so far as his power to persecute
went, finally vanquished, and sent to join his
instruments and victims in the lake of fire. The
martyrs and confessors, who under all assaults
held fast their fidelity, have ascended their
thrones, and are enjoying the special honors and
felicities of the first, i. e., the highest resurrection
life. All have passed from the stage but a single
class called the dead.
Who are these ? The answer is almost univer-

260 THE REVELATION.
sally assumed to be, all mankind. The passage
is taken to be a description of the general judg
ment, at which the whole family of man will stand
together to receive sentence at God's tribunal, at
the end of time. It will doubtless seem sheer pre
sumption even to question a belief so wide-spread
and deep-rooted in the minds of men. Still a few
inquiries may be pardoned.
1. How happens it that, if this is the descrip
tion of the general judgment, no mention is made
of the living as appearing in the great assemblage ?
Paul distinctly affirms that Christ "shall judge
the quick (the living) and the dead at his appear
ing and his kingdom" (2 Tim. iv. 1). And
Peter, " Who shall give account to him that is
ready to judge the quick and the dead " (1 Pet.
iv. 5). And in 1 Thess. iv. 15-17, express men
tion is made of those " which are alive and remain
to the coming of the Lord," and that these should
be caught up together with the risen dead to meet
the Lord in the air. Why is there no allusion to
these here ? On the face of it, this is a judgment
of the dead only. Four times are these men
tioned, as if by repetition to emphasize that fact.
" I saw the dead stand before God " — " the dead
were judged" — "the sea gave up the dead" —
" death and hell delivered up the dead," and "they
were judged every man according to their works."
Does it look as if this were the same transaction
described by Paul and Peter ?

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 261
2. What is there in the connections of this
passage to require it to be understood of the gen
eral judgment? The subject of the preceding
chapters had been persecution, — Jewish, Pagan,
and Mohammedan warfare against the church.
This up to the verse next preceding this passage
(xx. 10) had most clearly been the topic in view.
It had not been the character or conduct of man
kind at large. Why this abrupt transition to
something both in time and import far remote
from the matter in hand ?
It will, of course, be said that the topics of this
20th chapter are commonly understood as relat
ing, all of them, to the future, — the binding of
Satan, the reign of the martyrs, the irruption of
Gog and Magog, etc., and that the general judg
ment appropriately follows these. We cannot
here repeat what has been said to show the error
of this assumption. It is based upon the theory
that the book, contrary to its own most explicit
and oft-repeated declarations, is designed to be a
prophetic history of all time, rather than of events
near at hand, " things which must shortly come to
pass." We find it impossible to - ignore these
most clearly asserted facts as to the design and
scope of the Revelation, or to disregard them in
venturing to determine the meaning of a passage
so important as this.
The clew to the true import is, we think, to be
found in the verses preceding. In verse 5, it is

262 THE REVELATION.
said that " the rest of the dead lived not " during
the thousand years. These are such as were not
included among the martyrs and confessors who
"lived" during that period. It must follow,
therefore, that they were those who did " worship
the beast and his image, and did receive his mark
upon their foreheads or in their hands," in other
words, the heathen, and those who, though nomi
nally Christians, under the stress of persecution,
apostatized and yielded to the demands of idola
try. As before remarked, these remain undis
posed of. Those who had been put to death for
their fidelity have attained their reward, and are
reigning with Christ. The rest of the dead are
now to receive their trial and final award.
These exigencies of the passage have controlled
the views of some of the ablest scholars. One of
these was the great Grotius, who spoke of it as
describing the punishment of some antecedent to
the general judgment, as the glory of the martyrs
precedes that judgment (quorundam poena judi
cium illud ultimum antecedet, sicut martyrum gloria
antecedet idem judicium). Hengstenberg is yet
more explicit. " The dead can only be the ungod
ly dead. An unseasonable comparison of Matt.
xxv. 31-46, where we find the righteous and the
wicked united in one scene of judgment, has here
been productive of much confusion, and has led
to the dead being generally viewed as all the dead
without exception." And Parseus, " By the rest

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK.

263

of the dead are understood all others, the martyrs
and confessors excepted, who embraced not the
testimony of Jesus in all this time, but were
either professed enemies of Christ, as Jews and
Pagans without the church, or false Christians, or
anti-Christians in the church."
This judgment scene, then, is analogous to the
one described by Daniel. We give the two side
by side, both from the Revised Version :
EEV. XX. 11-14.
And I saw a great white
throne, and him that sat on
it, from whose face the earth
and the heaven fled away;
and there was found no place
for them. And I saw the
dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne;
and books were opened : and
another book was opened,
which is the book of life : and
the dead were judged out of
the things which were writ
ten in the books, according
to their works. And the sea
gave up the dead which were
in it; and death and Hades
gave up the dead which were
in them: and they were
judged every man according
to their works. And death
and Hades were cast into
the lake of fire. This is the
second death, even the lake
of fire.

DANIEL VII. 9-11.
I beheld till thrones were
placed, and One that was
Ancient of days did sit; his
raiment was white as snow,
and the hair of his head like
pure wool: his throne was
fiery flame, and the wheels
thereof burning fire. A fiery
stream issued and came forth
from before him: thousand
thousands ministered unto
him, and ten thousand times
ten thousand stood before
him: the judgment was set
and the books were opened.
I beheld at that time be
cause of the voice of the
great words which the horn
spake; I beheld even till the
beast was slain, and his body
destroyed, and he was given
to be burned with fire.

264 THE REVELATION.
Daniel's vision, like John's, had been that of a
great persecuting power, under the figure of a
hideous Beast, which made war with the saints,
and for a while prevailed against them. He was
at length arrested, brought to judgment for his
crimes, and cast into retributive fire. How nat
ural that the Apostle, who probably imitated the
prophet in representing this later persecutor under
the like figure of a beast, should continue the
parallel by depicting a similar judgment for the
punishment of him and his allies. Both of them
set forth in the most impressive imagery the
condemnation of these enemies of God and his
people, and their doom to everlasting fire.
Both are included, doubtless, in that great judi
cial administration of our Lord over the world
which extends to all beings and all events, but
are not precisely identical with it. Each is a
judgment of the ungodly, but neither is the gen
eral judgment. Of the former, Prof. Cowles says,
" The general final judgment is not in place here ;
would have no connection with the subject in
hand; is not indicated by anything said in the
context, or by the nature of the subject. On the
contrary, an allusion to God's providential judg
ments- upon guilty nations is in place here, pre
cisely so, being the very thing that such blasphe
mous hostility to his kingdom and people calls for
and should lead us to expect." If we have not

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 265
wholly mistaken the nature and intent of this lat
ter scene, the same remarks apply equally well to
this. A few notes on the phraseology of the passage
will be of service.
Ver. 11. White throne ; the white symboli
cal of purity. — Fled away; language expressive
of the infinite majesty of the Judge. It is often
taken as relating to the burning up of the heavens
and the earth at the so called " end of the world."
But the time referred to here does not, for the
reasons already mentioned, seem to us to be the
end of the world. The language is very similar
to that used elsewhere to describe the divine
greatness and glory. "He looketh upon the
earth and it trembleth ; he toucheth the hills and
they smoke." " At thy rebuke they (the moun
tains) fled, at the voice of thy thunder they
hasted away."
12. Books ; imagery derived from human
tribunals. The books contained the records of
the conduct of those who were to be judged. —
Book op life; i. e., of the living. It was the
register of these in distinction from those that
were dead. The purpose of this seems to be to
verify the righteousness of the sentence that was
passed upon the latter. It was to show that none
of them have their names in the list of God's
people ; hence, all who were not written in that
book were cast into the lake of fire.

266 THE REVELATION.
13. The sea. The ordinary way in which the
ancients spoke of the universe was, as " the heav
ens and earth and the regions under the earth,"
or Hades. Sometimes, as in chap. v. 13, there was
added the sea, especially when the place of the
dead was referred to. They had no difficulty of
conceiving of persons who died and were buried
on the land as descending to the underworld or
Hades ; but it was different with those who were
lost in the sea. They could have no burial in the
earth, and hence, according to heathen notions,
they could not reach that underworld, but were
obliged to wander as ghosts one hundred years.
Hence it became usual, when the object was to
include all mankind, to speak of those who were
in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the
sea. 14. Death and Hades ; the underworld and its
king. Compare 1 Cor. xv. 55 ; Rev. vi. 8. — The
second death, an expression the converse of
that applied to the saints, the "first resurrection."
Neither of them is so named as denoting the
order of time in which they occur, but as denoting
rank or degree. The first resurrection was the
highest resurrection ; so the second death was the
lowest, most dreadful death. These lost souls had
indeed been dead before their natural death ; like
those described by the apostle (1 Tim. v. 6),
" dead while they live."

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 267
So end the prophetic visions of the overthrow
and punishment of the enemies of the church.
Glancing over the preceding fifteen chapters, we
see them presenting a closely compacted narrative
in two parts, the first relating the doom of perse
cuting Judaism, the second that of persecuting
Rome, with brief supplemental mention of Gog
and Magog, by which we understand the persecu
ting empire of the Turks. It greatly confirms us
in this view that as an historic fact these three,
and these alone among the nations, have in reality
been the enemies of Christianity, who have
wielded the arm of secular power to destroy it.
We infer from the doom imposed upon Satan, as
the great Instigator of persecution, that he will
never be able to stir up this warfare again. This
being the case, the task, proposed to himself by
the apostle has been performed. The book so
understood has a unity and consistency of plan
worthy of the highest standards of literature.
Most of the difficulties which upon any other
view of it seem inexplicable disappear. The work
appears worthy of its object, viz., to comfort the
afflicted churches in the hour of their trial, and to
strengthen them to bear that trial, by the cer
tainty that the Saviour is holding them all the
while safely in his hand, and will give them at
last a glorious victory over all their enemies.
The two remaining chapters present an ideal

268 THE REVELATION.
picture of the church in the latter-day glory, when
the purposes of her Lord toward her are all ful
filled, and she stands in her perfected strength
and beauty as the object of his eternal delight.
The New Heaven and New Earth.
In seeking to ascertain the meaning of these
closing chapters, our first care, as it seems to us,
should be to bring them into close relation with
the declared purpose and scope of the book. If
these chapters stood wholly alone, and we had no
clew' to their import but the words themselves,
we might feel free to derive from them any mean
ing which those words, so gorgeous in their color
ing, would warrant. But they do not stand
alone ; they are an integral part of a book pro
fessedly composed to show to Christ's servants the
" things which must shortly come to pass." Nay,
more, the same fact is reasserted of these two
chapters specifically, " These sayings are faithful
and true, and the Lord God of the holy prophets
sent his angel to show unto his servants the things
which must shortly come to pass." (Verse 6.)
We cannot resist the conclusion, then, that they
fall within the same general design with the rest of
the book, viz., to comfort and encourage the per
secuted Christians by disclosing to them, not only
the overthrow of their enemies, but the glorious
rewards which should speedily be attained by
those that were faithful under their sufferings.

the second prophetic book. 269
Nor is it difficult to see in what way they
would serve this purpose. It is known to all
our readers that the great cathedral of Cologne,
which has been seven centuries in building, was
completed some five years since, and it is said
from the original plans of Steinbach, the designer,
which have recently been found after having been
lost several hundred years. Now suppose when
the work on this great structure was first begun,
the workmen had become discouraged at the mag
nitude of the task and their own insufficient skill
and resources. Suppose obstacles from without
impeded their progress, and the doleful predic
tions of croakers reiterated in their ears that the
task could never be completed. What then
would have been the effect if through the tele
scope of time those discouraged men could have
looked down the coming centuries, and seen ris
ing in glorious perspective the magnificent cathe
dral as it stands to-day in finished and peerless
beauty ! How would their hearts have kindled
with fresh zeal to labor for the completion of such
a work! What new ideas would it give them of
the skill of their master ! What assurance that
their labor would not be in vain, to know that
the resources of nations would be expended upon
it, and its completion should be crowned with the
presence of one of the most renowned emperors
of Europe !

270 THE REVELATION.
Such a prophetic picture, it seems to us, of the
church of God as she is to be in her ideal perfec
tion, is sketched in this closing portion of the
Revelation. It is, so to speak, the divine Archi
tect's plan of the edifice. When John wrote, the
church was small and weak. The power of the
mightiest monarch in the world was arrayed
against it. Its members were despised and ridi
culed. All that prestige which has been gained
by the growths and triumphs of eighteen centu
ries was as yet unknown. To .human view noth
ing could be more discouraging than the prospect
before Christianity at that time. Every maxim
of worldly wisdom forbade men to sacrifice their
lives for such a prospect ; every dictate of pru
dence urged them not to join a cause so desperate.
Who, then, can estimate the value to the church,
in such a crisis, of this divine vision of what, in
the plan and intent of her Lord, she was to be ?
Let us take, then, this leading idea of the passage,
and see what light it sheds upon the text.
Chaptbb xxi. (1) And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth : for the first heaven and the first earth are passed
away; and the sea is no more. (2) And I saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. (3) And I
heard a great voice out of tlie throne saying, Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with
them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall
be with them, and be their God: (4) and he shall wipe away
every tear from their eyes ; and death shall be no more ;

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 271
I either shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any
more : the first things are passed away. (5) And he that
sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
And he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true.
(6) And he said unto me. They are come to pass. I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will
give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of
life freely. (7) He that overcometh shall inherit these
things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. (8)
But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and
murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters,
and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth
with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.
Eight centuries before this, Isaiah, the " evan
gelical prophet," in his rapturous predictions of
the Messiah's times, had declared that the Lord
would " create new heavens and a new earth," in
comparison with which the former should " not
be remembered nor come into mind." (Isa. lxv.
17.) In that new world all tears should be wiped
away (Isa. xxv. 8) ; there should be no more
death, and no more sorrow nor crying (Isa. lxv.
19). A glance at the connections of this proph
ecy shows that he was speaking of Christianity as
the future light and glory of the earth. Says Mr.
Barnes, " There can be no doubt, I think, that
this refers to the times of the Messiah. It is
adapted not only to comfort the ancient afflicted
people of God, but it contains most important
and cheering truth in regard to the final preva
lence of true religion and the state of the world
when the gospel shall everywhere prevail."

272 THE REVELATION.
Now John says he saw that " new heaven and
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away." What could he have meant
by this, — what could the churches to whom he
wrote have understood by it, but that which
Isaiah had intended, and which was so familiar to
the hearts and hopes of all devout men, the good
time coming in the days of the triumph of the
gospel? How wholly without warrant the idea
that he meant a new material universe, or an
earth new-cast in the molds of geologic fires.
Just as, "if any man be in Christ he is a new
creature ; old things have passed away, and all
things have become new" (2 Cor. v. 17), so with
the world in which man lives. To us it seems no
more inconsistent to assert a total physical change
in the turning of a soul to Christ, than a like
physical change in the earth in the grand regen
eration which was to constitute its latter day
glory (Matt. xix. 28).
The apostle adds, further, " There was no more
sea." Only three verses before this he had
spoken of the sea as one of the places, along with
death and hell, which in the old earth had been
receptacles for the dead. The reason for this is,
doubtless, to be found in the fact that the ancients
generally had the idea that the burial in the earlh
of a deceased person was necessary in order that
his soul might enter into its rest in hades. Com-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 273
pare Eccl. vi. 5, where having "no burial" is
mentioned among the great calamities of human
experience. Those lost in the sea could have no
such burial, and of course must constitute a class
of the dead by themselves. Therefore, in that
new state of things, when death and hades were
abolished (1 Cor. xv. 54 ; 2 Tim. i. 10), the sea
also, in this sense, would be no more. It was a
mode of speaking, accordant with the conceptions
of those times, to describe, in the most impressive
way possible, Christ's victory over the universe of
evil. But the " new earth," following out the analogy
of the figure, must have a capital, a new Jerusa
lem, — not the old Canaanite city which David
captured, and which had so long been the scene
of changes and vicissitudes, of crimes and calam
ities innumerable, — but one of celestial origin,
and therefore coming down from God out of
heaven. This is the "Mount Zion, the city of
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem " (Heb.
xii. 22), in other words, the whole assembly of
God's redeemed people. It is a city beautiful
in holiness, arrayed as a bride adorned for her
husband. The personification of a city as a beau
tiful woman has been common in all nations ; and
in the Old Testament, especially, Jerusalem was
repeatedly characterized as a bride, married to
her Lord. See Ps. xiv. ; Isa. lxii. 5 ; Jer. iii. 14,
20, etc.

274 , THE REVELATION.
Jerusalem, as containing the temple, was the
dwelling-place of God. The very word shekinah,
which denoted the luminous cloud appearing over
the tabernacle and upon the mercy-seat of the ark
signifies habitation. So the New Jerusalem, the
church of God, will be his tabernacle among men,
and he will dwell with them and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall dwell with them
and be their God, and shall fulfill all those prorch
ises as to the abolition of pain, and tears, and
death, which he had uttered through the prophets.
Then follows a brief emphatic reassurance of
the reality of all this in the majestic words pro
ceeding from the Throne itself, " Behold, I make
all things new!" — coupled with a command to
the apostle to record what he had heard, because
they were true and faithful.
The true reading of the sixth verse is doubtful.
Some of the early manuscripts have, as in our
version, " It is done ! " meaning all that has been
predicted is fulfilled — it is so certain that it may
be spoken of as already accomplished. Others
omit "I am," and make the next two words the
subject of the verb, thus : — " And he said unto
me, I have become the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end," etc. That is, because of
my sufferings and exaltation I have been ap
pointed the King and rewarder of both the right
eous and the wicked; them who by their faith

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 275
and constancy overcame persecution, and those
who yielded and joined the enemies of my church,
— the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable
(referring to those who polluted themselves with
the abominations mentioned in Chap, xviii. 4),
the murderers, etc., — who shall have their part
with the Dragon, and the Beast, and all the forces
and allies of evil, in the lake of fire. This last
utterance carries us back to the doom pronounced
upon these enemies in the preceding chapters, and
shows that the subject still is as at the beginning
of the book, the rewards of the martyrs, and the
final overthrow and punishment of their enemies.
Such is a brief outline sketch of the glorious
city of the saints, the New Jerusalem. But the
subject is too inspiring to be left just there ; so
one of the angels is sent to show to the apostle
more fully its wonderful attractions. This, with
the appropriate closing words of warning, com
pletes the book.
The New Jerusalem.
This passage is an amplification of Chap. xxi.
2-5, containing the same matter in a fuller and
more expanded form. Its imagery and costume
are intensely Jewish ; so much so that it will be
impossible to appreciate them without a very
familiar knowledge of Jewish ideas, and espe
cially of the structure and uses of the temple in
Jerusalem.

276 THE REVELATION.
This edifice, at the time the apostle wrote, was
both the most magnificent and most holy build
ing in the world. It is often called the second
temple, — the first, built by Solomon, having been
destroyed at the captivity, and a new one erected
by Zerubbabel and the captives on their return
from Babylon, Ezra iii. 8. With more pro
priety it should be called the third, having been
almost wholly built anew by Herod the Great.
This able, but tyrannical prince, who had become
most obnoxious by his cruelties, sought to recover
the favor of the nation by rebuilding and adorn
ing Jerusalem and the temple. The latter was
undertaken some twenty years before the birth of
Christ, and after the death of Herod was contin
ued by his successors, who carried out the plans
of its founder, and made of it the richest and
most beautiful structure then known. It was
with reference to this work that the Jews said to
Christ : " Forty and six years was this temple in
building." (John ii. 20.)
It was this temple, as it then stood before the
destruction of Jerusalem, which evidently consti
tuted the formative idea of the vision before us.
To the Jewish thought, the temple was God's
earthly dwelling-place. In it Jehovah abode
among his people for a long time, giving visible
tokens of his presence by the supernatural light
which shone between the cherubim over the

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 277
sacred ark. That presence was at once the
pledge of his protection, the assurance of all
prosperity, and the source of the highest honor
possible to fallen man. Nay, it is expressly de
clared that the arrangements and services of the
sanctuary were "patterns of things in the heav
ens " (Heb. ix. 23) ; not in outward form, for the
latter are spiritual only, but so appointed as to be
impressive symbols of the truths pertaining to
redemption and salvation. It may be added that
the temple was, in the highest sense, Jerusalem.
The surrounding city existed for it ; its buildings
were the abodes of those who served in the tem
ple, or were in some way connected with its wor
ship. Tyre and Sidon were cities of foreign com
merce ; Alexandria, of schools and learning ;
Damascus, of the arts; but Jerusalem, of religion.
It was the holy city, the "city of the great King."
To a people, -therefore, trained to such concep
tions of the temple, nothing would convey so im
pressively the idea of the dignity, the holiness,
the glory, and the blessedness of Christ's perfected
church, as the representation of it under the fig
ure of a New Jerusalem, i. <?., a New Temple, com
ing down from God out of heaven to be the light
and joy of the whole earth. Indeed, the prece
dent for such a representation had been set by
Ezekiel, who, in his elaborate description of the
temple of the latter days, had predicted the glory

278 THE REVELATION.
and greatness of the church of the Messiah.
(Ezek. xl.-xlviii.)
Chapter xxi. (9) And there came one of the seven
angels who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the
seven last plagues; and he spake with me, saying, Come
hither, I will shew thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
(10) And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain
great and high, and shewed me the holy oity Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of
God: (11) her lightwas like unto a stone most precious, as
it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal: (12) having a wall
great and high; having twelve gates, and at the gates
twelve angels; and names written thereon, which are the
names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: (13)
on the east were three gates; and on the north three gates;
and on the south three gates ; and on the west three gates.
(14) And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and
on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
(15) And he that spake with me had for a measure a golden
reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the
wall thereof. (16) And the city lieth foursquare, and the
length thereof is as great as the breadth : and he measured
the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs: the length
and the breadth and the height thereof are equal. (17) And
he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four
cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, an angel,
(18) And the building of the wall thereof was jasper: and
the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass. (19) The
foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all
manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jas
per; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the
fourth, emerald; (20) the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sar-
dius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth,
topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the
twelfth, amethyst. (21) And the twelve gates were twelve
pearls; each one of the several gates was of Qne pearl: and

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 279
the street of the city was pure gold, as it werevtransparent
glass. (22) And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God
the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. (2.3 )
And the city hath no need of the sun, -neither of the moon,
to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and
the lamp thereof is the Lamb. (24) And the nations shall
walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth
do bring their glory into it. (25) And the gates thereof
shall in no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night
there) : (26) and they shall bring the glory and the honor
of the nations into it: (27) and there shall in no wise enter
into it any thing unclean, or he that maketh an abomina
tion and a lie: but only they which are written in the
Lamb's book of life. Chapter xxii. (1) And he shewed
me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out
of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the
street thereof. (2) And on this side of the river and on that
was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yield
ing its fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations. (3) And there shall be no
curse any more : and the throne of God and of the Lamb
shall be therein: and his servants shall do him service; (4)
and they shall see his face ; and his name shall be on their
foreheads. (5) And there shall be night no more; and they
need no light of lamp, neither light of sun ; for the Lord
God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and

Imitating the vision of Ezekiel, the apostle
was carried away in spirit to a great and high
mountain, from which, as by Moses from the sum
mit of Mount Pisgah, the entire holy land could
be seen. There he was shown the new city, efful
gent with divine glory, coming down from heaven
to earth. How, in view of this feature of the

280 THE REVELATION.
description, can it ever have been assumed that
the city was the abode of the blessed in heaven ?
In glancing over the details which follow, we
note, first, the peculiar form of the city. "It
lieth foursquare, — the length and the breadth
and the hight of it are equal." In other words, it
was an exact cube. This points us' at once to the
Holy of holies in the earthly temple. This was
an apartment in cubical form, of the dimensions
of twenty cubits each way. In Solomon's temple,
as in the tabernacle which preceded it, it con
tained the ark of the covenant with the figures
of the cherubim on its golden cover. These were
lost at the time of the captivity, and in the later
temples of Zerubbabel and Herod the apartment
is believed to have been entirely empty. The
Holy of holies was the special dwelling place, —
the Shekinah, for that is the meaning of the
word — of Jehovah. He was among men, yet
apart from them. He was too holy for sinners to
approach except through the mediation of the
high-priest. The vail of the temple was the sep
aration behind which no man except him might
pass and live. But under the gospel of Christ all
this is changed. The separating vail has been
rent away, and all believers have now direct and
free access to God himself. See the full exhibi
tion of this subject in Heb. ix. and x., especially
x. 19.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 281
It is this great and blessed truth of Christianity
which is shown in this form of the city. The
New Jerusalem is not a city which has a Holy of
holies in it, but is itself a Holy of holies. Hence
the apostle says, " I saw no temple in it for the
Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple
of it." The Divine Presence is no longer shut
away in inaccessible darkness, but fills the entire
abode of the saints. They are, henceforth, dwell
ers in that sanctuary with Christ himself. They
are all made priests unto God. Chaps, i. 6 ; v.
10 ; xx. 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 5. Their nearness to the
Lord is even greater than that which the high-
priest enjoyed, who could enter the inner shrine
but once a year. It is as if that apartment in
the temple at Jerusalem were enlarged so as to
take in all the city.
In harmony with this conception of the per
fected church being a Holy of holies, its dimen
sions are made to correspond with the vast num
ber of its members. It is 12,000 furlongs, or
1,500 miles in length, breadth and hight. In an
architectural point of view, such a temple-city
would be most incongruous. The very descrip
tion ought to show that the whole is symbol, and
not a real city, whether on earth or in heaven, in
which the righteous are to dwell. An actual city,
with houses 1,500 miles high, is inconceivable;
but as a symbol of the presence of God with his

282 THE REVELATION.
people, and of their priestly dignity, purity and
blessedness, it is both obvious and exceedingly
impressive. Like the temple at Jerusalem, this celestial city
was surrounded by a wall, 144 cubits, about 216
feet, high. Why this was so disproportionate to
the hight of the city itself has been a great puzzle
to commentators. The difficulty, as it seems to
us, arises from the attempt to bring the whole
into architectural symmetry as if an actual city
was intended. But symbols do not come under
this law. Their significance lies- simply in the
ideas they separately represent, not in their veri
similitude to any actually existing object. Wit
ness the description of the four Living Ones
(Chap. iv. 7); of the locusts (Chap. ix. 3-10) ;
of the beast (Chap. xiii. 1), etc. Two hundred
and sixteen feet was not far from the hight of the
temple wall at Jerusalem, measured from the deep
valleys which surrounded it on all sides but the
north. The idea seems to be simply that, except
in the dimensions of the Holy of holies, this new
sanctuary was like the temple.
Similar in design was the mention of the gates,
three on each side, corresponding to those in the
walls of Herod's edifice. Precisely how many
there were of the latter is not certain, but then-
aggregate number was very nearly that here
mentioned.

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 283
" The building of the wall," i. e., the materials
of which it was constructed, was of jasper, a
stone of variegated colors, purple and red, and
often striped with green or yellow. It rested on
" twelve foundations," i. e., not twelve layers one
above another around the city, but twelve sec
tions, each occupying the whole space between
two adjacent gates. One of these was a single
jasper stone, another a sapphire, a third a chal
cedony, etc. The prevailing colors of these
precious stones are supposed to have been as fol
lows : jasper, variegated red ; sapphire, sky blue ;
chalcedony, gray and pearly ; emerald, green ;
sardonyx, white tinted with red ; sardius, yellow
variegated ; chrysolite, transparent and golden ;
beryl, sea-green; topaz, wine-yellow; chrysopra-
sus, green and gold ; jacinth (hyacinth), red ;
amethyst, purple.
These massive and costly foundations corres
ponded to the substructure of hewn stones which
upheld the temple area, and many of which, of
immense size, some of them above forty feet in
length, are still visible in the walls at Jerusalem.
Each was inscribed with the name of one of the
apostles, signifying, probably, that Christ's church
is built upon the teaching and testimony of these
divinely ordained representatives of their Lord.
So the gates, consisting each of a single pearl,
bore the names of ^he twelve tribes of Israel;

284 THE REVELATION.
the whole, : — the foundations and the gates,—-
showing the unity of the church, the old and the
new builded together into a single edifice. Com
pare Eph. ii. 19-22.
One of the most notable features of Herod's
temple was the tesselated pavement of its courts,
which was laid with blocks of marble and other
stones of various colors. The corresponding item .
in the New Jerusalem is mentioned in verse 21.
" The street (pavement) of the city was pure
gold, as it were transparent glass," i. e., transpar
ent gold, a symbolic representation combining the
ideas of richness and spotless purity.
There was " no temple," or inclosed edifice con
taining the Holy of holies, the highest and most
sacred portion of the sanctuary, for, as shown pre
viously, the presence of God and the Lamb
filled the whole structure, making it all a Holy of
holies. This presence, corresponding to the
bright light of the Shekinah (compare 1 Kings
viii. 11 ; Ps. lxxx. 1 ; Zech. ii. 5), served instead
of the sun and the moon to flood the whole with
the effulgence of the divine glory.
The words " of them that are saved," in the
twenty-fourth verse, are not found in the best
manuscripts, leaving the passage to read, "and
the nations," — or the Gentiles, the word nearly
always having that signification, — " shall walk by
means of its light," the idea being that the New

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 285
Jerusalem shall shed abroad its light upon all the
nations of the earth, teaching them the knowl
edge of God and salvation. It is the same senti
ment that is so .beautifully expressed in Isa. Ix.
1-3. In consequence of this illumination, the
kings of the earth, converted to Christ, shall
bring their honors and their wealth as a grateful
tribute of praise to God, and to increase its
power in diffusing the gospel to all mankind.
Here we have again the same idea that is pre
sented in Isa. Ix. 6-16. This is one of the fea
tures of this magnificent description which seems
to show us very clearly that the place of the New
Jerusalem is not in heaven, but on earth ; for how
can the kings of the earth contribute to the glory
and honor of heaven ?
For this purpose, i. e., to furnish ever free
access to the gospel and salvation, the gates of
this temple-city shall stand ever open. So in Isa.
Ix. 11. This is in marked contrast with those of
the ancient temple, which were carefully shut
every evening. " There shall be no night there,"
i. e., no time when devout worshipers may not
approach most freely to God. Nor shall they
come merely to worship, but they shall bring
from all nations offerings of gratitude and praise.
Verse 26.
Just within the outer court, or " Court of the
Gentiles," at Jerusalem, a stone balustrade four

286 THE REVELATION.
and one-half feet high was built, surmounted at
intervals by pillars, bearing inscriptions in differ
ent languages, warning all who were not Israel
ites, and all unclean persons, from passing that
line on pain of death. This was called the soreg,
and is alluded to by the apostle Paul in Eph. ii.
14, as the " middle wall of partition," which had
under the old dispensation separated Jews and
Gentiles. An instance of the extreme vigilance
with which this barrier was. guarded is seen in
Acts xxi. 28, where for the supposed offense of
bringing Greeks into the temple, the Jews were
ready to murder Paul. So in the New Jerusalem,
" there shall in no wise enter into it anything that
defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination
or maketh a lie," — terms commonly used to
denote those who practiced idolatry, — " but they
which are written in the Lamb's book of life,"
i. e., true Israelites, the registered citizens of the
Messiah's kingdom. This is a mode of saying, in
consistency with the figure which is preserved
throughout, that those only can enter the spiritual
church of the Lord who have by regeneration
and spiritual cleansing obtained a rightful title to
do so. "The temple of the Lord is holy, which
temple ye are." 1 Cor. iii. 17 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16.
The water-supply of the ancient temple was one
of its most important characteristics. It is obvi
ous that the rites performed in it, — the slaugh-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 287
tering of the victims offered for sacrifice, and all
the numberless lustrations prescribed in the vari
ous services, — would require a large amount of
water for purposes of cleanliness even, as well as
for ceremony. To supply this, Solomon built the
great aqueduct, whose ruins still remain, together
with the immense pools at Bethlehem, and in the
valley west of Jerusalem. This aqueduct crossed
the Tyropoeon valley from Mt. Zion, and entered
the temple area about midway on its western side,
where the water was collected in a vast subterra
nean reservoir under the temple. The overflow,
together with the sewage produced in the rites,
which was conducted by conduits into recepta
cles beneath, flowed through a deep subterranean
channel into the valley of Kidron on the east, and
thence into the broader vale of Siloam on the
southeast, where it was utilized in irrigating the
extensive gardens planted there, which still, as in
ancient times, supply fresh vegetables in great
quantities and variety to the inhabitants of the
city. There are numerous tacit allusions to this
water-system in the Old Testament. Thus in Ps.
xlvi. 4, "There is a river the streams whereof
shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of
the tabernacles of the Most High" (Isa. xii. 3).
" With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells
(the subterranean cisterns) of salvation." This
was an important feature in Ezekiel's vision of the
mystical temple (Chap, xlvii. 1-12).

288 THE REVELATION. \
Carrying out, then, the parallel between the
earthly temple and the spiritual temple, the
church of the redeemed, the angel shows the
apostle a similar stream of water proceeding from
it. But as these comparisons are all from the less
to the greater, from the inferior to the superior,
the stream of the New Jerusalem, instead of
being in part unclean, is a pure river of living
water, never stagnant, ever flowing, clear as crys
tal, and "proceeding out of the throne of God
and the Lamb," i. e., out from under the sanctuary
where God dwelt (Chap. xxii. 1). "In the midst
of the street of it " seems to denote the middle of
the open court, where were cultivated, as in the
courts of oriental houses at this day, flowers and
ornamental shrubbery. "On either side of the
river," refers of course to the stream after it had
left the temple area, and begun its course down
the valley. In both, the court and the valley,
was cultivated the " tree of life " — probably a
tacit allusion to the tree so called in the garden of
Eden, access to which had been lost to the race
by their sin. These trees, unlike common garden
vegetation, had twelve fruitages, i. e., not so many
kinds of fruit, but so many crops or seasons for
bearing, one each month, — a figure denoting
abundance, — and the leaves thereof were "for
the healing of the nations." The import of this
figure can scarcely be doubted, — the grace of

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 289
God conveyed through his church is for the re
freshment and salvation of the world. The con
ception of the whole figure is very striking and
exceedingly suggestive, though to one not thor
oughly familiar with its local and Jewish features,
not a little obscure.
Verse 3. , "And there shall be no curse any
more." The best conception of this clause may
perhaps be obtained from the story of Achan and
his sin, in Joshua vii. That sin was a " curse " in
the camp of Israel, by reason of which God would
not dwell with them till it was put away (Josh.
vii. 12). To show, then, the safety and security
of the perfected church, it is assured that no
" curse " shall come into it ; nothing to provoke
the divine displeasure, or prevent his perpetual
dwelling among them. Instead of that, God's
own throne shall be in it, and his servants shall
serve him, and shall see his face, — denoting free
and open communion with him, — and his name
shall be in their foreheads, as it was upon the
frontlet of the high-priest when he went into the
Holy of holies. And there shall be no night
there ; and they need no candle, like the seven-
branched lamps of the golden candlestick, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them
light, and they shall reign, — enjoy kingly dignity
and honor — forever.
Such is the glorious picture with which the
13.

290 THE REVELATION.
exiled apostle concludes his prophetic message to
the seven churches of what was about to come to
pass. After long study of it, we can only repeat
what we have said before, that it seems to us to
be an ideal sketch of the church of God in its
highest and most perfect state; that which is
marked out for her in the plans of her Founder,
and which she is one day to attain on earth. And
because no terms known to John or his readers in
that age would have been sufficient for the descrip
tion in plain prosaic verity, the phraseology was
derived from what was the most sacred and glo
rious object known to them, the temple at Jerusa
lem. Not that the church was to be literally a
building, or a city, or a beautiful woman, the bride
of Christ, but that these objects, all centering in
Jerusalem and the temple, sp dear to all pious
hearts, were sources of language with which to
set forth in the most lively manner what, literally,
would have been inconceivable.
Suppose the little band of the Pilgrims in that
first terrible winter at Plymouth, when one-half
their number perished from cold and disease, and
were buried on Cole's Hill, their graves being
carefully smoothed down to conceal their fate
from the Indians, had, to cheer their despondency
and nerve them to new fortitude, received, through
angelic revelation to their beloved Elder Brew
ster, a vision of what the nation they were found-

THE SECOND PROPHETIC BOOK. 291
ing would be in 1885, — more than twenty-six
decades from that time. No literal terms would
have been sufficient for the description. Republic,
States, Union, Congress, President, — much more,
railroads, telegraphs, coal, petroleum, cotton, the
press, and many others, would have been words
without meaning. Even figures would have been
to their view as absurd as a city 1,500 miles high, —
three and a half millions of square miles of terri
tory, fifty millions of people, an annual bread
crop of 2,500 millions of bushels, a national debt
of 2,500 millions of dollars, etc., etc. Instead of
this, let the language have been derived from some
object known and dear to them in the beloved
England from which they were exiled, Let the
great city London, the palace of St. James, West
minster Hall, the renowned seat of justice, the
venerable Abbey where her kings were entombed,
the universities where their divines had studied,
and the like, all have been laid under contribu
tion to furnish ideals for the magnificent vision.
Then let these have been grouped with the skill
of a divine artist, and let it be named a "New
England," and there might have been thus con
veyed to the minds of the poor exiles some con
ceptions of the National Edifice God was about
to build, and the foundations of which they were
laying in their sufferings and tears. How bright
the vision ! How blessed the comfort ! So Dwight,

292 THE REVELATION.
in the dark days immediately succeeding the Rev
olution, sang his song of his country. We quote
imperfectly from memory, —
" As down a lone valley with cedars o'erspread,
From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed,
The clouds from the face of the sky had retired,
The winds ceased to murmur, the thunders expired ;
Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along,
And a voice as of angels enchantingly sung,
'Columbia! Columbia! to glory arise,
The Queen of the world, and the Child of the
Skies!'"

- THE CONCLUSION.
The closing portion of this book is exceedingly
impressive, as is suitable to a message of such
grandeur and solemnity. The Revelation of the
Lord's purpose toward his suffering saints, for
their own consolation and that of their brethren
who, in the dark days that are to come, filling up
two and a half centuries, are to experience the
hostility of his and their Adversary, is finished.
A ground of confidence and hope under those suf
ferings is laid for them of the most assuring
character. It remains that it shall be attested to
them by the strongest possible evidences of divine
authority, that it may be held sacredly inviolable
under the guaranty of the highest sanctions. The
person who speaks is still the angel, who through
out represents the Lord himself, and speaks in
his name.
Chapter xxii. (6) And he said unto me, These words
are faithful and true : and the Lord, the God of the spirits
of the prophets, sent his angel to shew unto his servants
the things which must shortly come to pass.
A formal declaration, repeated from that given
in the beginning, that the utterances embraced in
it are faithful, i.e., will be faithfully and certainly
293

294 THE REVELATION. J
fulfilled, and true ; and that they have been com
municated by the Lord, who was the God of the
spirits (for so it is in the original) of the holy
prophets, that have ever been employed to reveal
his word, in order to show to his people the things
which should shortly take place. That is, they
should shortly begin to take place. The word
does not shut us down to a single moment, as on
the other hand it does not allow a long postpone
ment of the execution. The events should enter
upon an immediate process of fulfillment, occupy
ing only just so much time as the fulfillment, in
its nature, should make necessary. Here again,
as in the outset, is a repeated declaration expressly
forbidding such interpretations as refer the lead
ing matters contained in it to periods yet far in
the future.
Chapter xxii. (7) And behold I come quickly. Blessed
is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book.
Then the Lord himself speaks — or perhaps the
angel who had been the medium of the revelation
speaks, by delegated authority, in his name,
" Behold, I come quickly," a repetition in another
form of the speediness of the fulfillment. Of
course, this does not mean a visible, bodily ap
proach, in the clouds of heaven, but a manifesta
tion of his presence and power in the performance
of what had been promised. It is just such a
coming as has taken place at innumerable times

THE CONCLUSION. 295
in the progress of the Messiah's kingdom, and
such as the church daily seeks in asking for
Christ's gracious interpositions in providence and
by the Holy Spirit in carrying forward that king
dom. To insist that his coming must be a physi
cal and visible one is to make the fulfillment of
the Revelation, in the times and ways expressly
in its own terms assigned for it, impossible.
Chapter xxii. (8) And I John am he that heard and
saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down
to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me
these things. (9) And he saith unto me, See thou do it not:
I am a fellow servant with thee and with thy brethren the
prophets, and with them which keep the words of this book;
worship God.
The apostle in these verses gives assurance
to the churches of the authenticity of the mes
sage. " It is I, John, who saw and heard these
things." As much as to say, "It is your own
spiritual father and shepherd, the apostle who
lived and labored with you so many years, and
whom you all know so well, that writes thus,
and he writes what he himself saw and heard."
Nay, more, he tells them in what manner he re
ceived the message. " I was so impressed by it
that I fell down to worship at the feet of the
angel, and should have done so had he not for
bidden it, saying that he was not the Lord, but a
fellow-servant like myself, and like the prophets
and all who obeyed God's word." Such an assur-

296 THE REVELATION.
ance that the message actually came from him, and
that it had impressed him so deeply, would go far
to induce the churches to accept it as genuine,
and worthy of the profoundest reverence.
Chapter xxii. (10) And he saith unto me, Seal not up
the words of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at
hand. (11) He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteous
ness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still:
and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and
he that is holy, let him be made holy still. (12) Behold, I
come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each
man according as his work is. (13) I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
(14) Blessed are they that wash their robes, th-.it they may
have the right to come to the tree of life, and may enter in
by the gates into the city. (15) Without are the dogs, and
the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and
the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.
(16) I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these
things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of
David, the bright, the morning star.
(17) And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he
that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst,
let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life
freely. (IS) I testify unto every man that heareth the words of
the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto them,
God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in
this book: (19j and if any man shall take away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his
part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which
are written in this book.
What now shall be done with the book itself?
In the similar prophecies of Daniel, which had chief
reference to the distant future, the prophet was

THE CONCLUSION. 297
directed not to publish the message, but to shut
or seal it up, for it was " for many days " (Chap.
viii. 26). It was not a matter of immediate prac
tical moment to the Jewish people at that time,
when they were exiles in Babylon ; it was designed
for consolation to those who should live at the
period of fulfillment, under Antiochus and other
oppressors, some hundreds of years later. Even
when Daniel himself sought more particular in
formation about the meaning he was told, " Go
thy way, Daniel ; for the words are closed up and
sealed till the time of the end." No practical
benefit would result from proclaiming it; "the
wicked would still do wickedly, and would not
understand the meaning" (Chap. xii. 9, 10). In
respect to the Revelation, however, the case was
different ; the time was " at hand " (verse 10),
therefore let it not be closed up. The Lamb had
opened the book of God's purposes (Chap. v. 5),
and let it remain open. Its consolations were
needed for present exigencies, under the present
and immediately following sufferings of God's
people. And if it were urged in reply that the sealing of
the book might possibly leave the way open for
the oppressors, whose doom was so fearfully pro
nounced in it, to cease their persecutions and
repent, as space was left under Daniel's prophe
cies, the angel replies, " No ! Too late ! God's

298 THE REVELATION.
forbearance is exhausted ! The unjust persecutor
of the innocent, let him go on in his chosen
career ! The filthy idolater, let him practice his
uncleanness still ! So, too, let the upright and
the pure remain unchanged. The Lord says, ' I
come immediately, with my rewards for all, to
give to every one according as his deeds shall be.' "
Compare Christ's similar prediction when he was
still in the flesh (Matt. xvi. 27, 28). Thus read
in its connection, it is very apparent that this
verse has no reference, as is often supposed, to
the fixity of character in the future state. That
fixity is no doubt an awful reality, but it is not
the truth which is affirmed here.
Then further assurances and exhortations fol
low. He who utters these woes and these prom
ises is the Alpha and the Omega, whose being
and kingdom are eternal. Blessed are his people
who are preparing themselves for citizenship in
the New Jerusalem. The best MSS., instead of
the words, "that do his commandments" (verse
14), read " who are washing their robes," an ex
pression more fully setting forth the idea of purity
received from the blood of Christ than of obedi
ence — that is of salvation by grace rather than
works, and so better contrasting with the impurity
which is kept without, the dogs, the sorcerers, etc.
Once more, then, an attestation even higher
than John's. The Lord speaks in person. " I,
13*

THE CONCLUSION. 299
Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify these things
to you in the churches. You know who I am —
looking backward, the promised Royal Son of
David; looking forward, the bright Star of the
morning, that ushers in the glorious day."
Then bursts forth the glad response ! The
kindled and rapt spirit of the prophet, and the
churches whom Christ has made his Bride, unite
in the joyous cry, " Come, Lord, be it as thou hast
promised ! And let those outside the church,
every one that hears her shout of welcome, echo
it back, ' Come ' ! Nay, if there be in all the
world one soul that thirsts for an interest in the
promises of the Lord, and is willing to accept his
offers, let him come and drink of the water of life
without money or cost ! "
The message is now completed, and nought
remains but to put upon it the stamp of inviola
bility. It is God's Revelation; let not man
dare to touch it, either by adding to or taking
away from it ! Upon the former shall, be laid all
the curses it contains ; from the latter shall be
taken all its promises ! Dread words ! was ever
writing or volume in human speech so accredited
to man as this !
Chapter xxn. (20) He which testifieth these things
saith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus.
And yet even once more the Divine Voice
echoes through the closing portals of heaven,

300 THE REVELATION.
affirming the speediness of the fulfillment, to
meet the joyous response of the apostle,
" Amen ! "
The apostolic benediction follows :
Chapter xxii. (21) The grace of the Lord Jesus be
with the saints. Amen.