This mark seems to be in effect a diabolical trading licence, the temptation and snare into which persons who at that critical moment will be rich, fall. Indeed, not mere poverty, but actual destitution appears to be the alternative for faithful souls, who in the sight of the unwise become for a little moment no better than children of fools, of base men, viler than the earth: " For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into.the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks." Yet blessed are they if cliffs of valleys be made to them humility, and caves selfdenial, and rocks a sure foundation.
But are not coming events already casting their shadows before? Glance at recent troubles in Ireland: mark boycot ting and its results. Look at home; at strikes and unions, so far as any terrorism resorted to is concerned. God in His mercy restrain men from misusing tremendous edge-tools, launching out on unfathomed waters, rehearsing and forestalling on a minor scale the last awful days. Man is a microcosm: a microcosm may be either a miniature heaven or a miniature hell.
18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.
For the special purpose in question, he "that hath under standing" excludes, I should surmise, most men, and very likely all women. For the masses Wisdom resides elsewhere, is an immediately practical grace, and is far more readily accessible. " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold."
"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."
" Multitude of years should teach wisdom."
" The month of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide."
"The Lord giveth wisdom: out of His mouth cometh know ledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous."
" Wisdom is better than rubies; and all things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence."
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding."
"The rod and reproof give wisdom."
"God giveth to a man that is good in His sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy."
" Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
" If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."
I must beware of scrutinizing any text of Holy Scripture as if it were a puzzle or a riddle. I must beware of making guesses at what is withheld from me. " Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
St. John himself, and touching his own future, was once contented to repeat his Lord's precise words without attempt at elucidation.
Whoever by loving submission turns intellectual poverty into voluntary spiritual poverty, has discovered a super-excellent philosopher's stone, apt to transmute ignorance into wisdom.
" Six hundred, threescore and six " is not universally set down as the indicative number: some read " six hundred and sixteen."
1. And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred, forty and four thousand, having His Father's Name written in their foreheads.
" Yet have I set My King: upon My holy hill of Sion."
" For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." This certainly blessed text, rich in comfort and promise (how ever to me obscure) seems here to receive an illustrative fulfil ment. The holy hill and holy city of Palestine were rejected, after the Jews' rejection of Messiah: yet now we behold the Lamb standing on a spot which His own Blood alone could purge from the crying blood-guilt of His crucifixion. How beautiful upon that mountain are those Feet which bring good tidings of good! For although this be a celestial and not any earthly Sion, surely after some super-sensual manner it still may be that Sion, whose gates the Lord loved more than ali the dwellings of Jacob.
Whatever angels or men bent on self-destruction may do or leave undone, yet God Almighty suffereth not, nor can suffer loss. The lightnings ever answer Him " Here we are," though Satan as lightning be fallen from heaven.
"An hundred, forty and four thousand " is the sum of those twelve twelve-thousands sealed (chap, vii.) out of the tribes of Israel. If in both chapters these be the same blessed persons, a double light is thus thrown on their beatitude: if they be different^ then with Solomon we see the Church " the Shulamite, as it were the company of two armies."
With Solomon, sounds a bold proposition f yet above Solo mon, need not be over-bold; for he at his highest and holiest could but belong to that company of prophets and kings who desired to see the things which Christians see.
"Having His Father's Name written in their foreheads" — or according to the Revised Version, " Having His Name, and the Name of His Father, written...." This inscription,
perhaps, discloses in what the sealing (chap, vii.) consisted; and so far may suggest that the two elect companies are in fact the same. It corresponds also in great measure with that promise to him that overcometh, in which the charge to the Church of Philadelphia culminates (chap. iii. 12).
2. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
3. And they sung as it were a new song before the Throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
The voice is (so to say) the saint's self, the harp is his pos session; the voice is what he had to train, the harping what he had to acquire: all that he has, and all that he is, make up his perpetual offering " before the Throne." To present this offering is his inexhaustible contentment, his rapture. Even on earth, who that sings or plays well on an instrument knows not the joy of waking music? Merely to listen often times moves to tears, to light-heartedness, to longings, to feel ings one would not or could not utter. What will it be in heaven to be singer, musician, listener; to be one voice in a harmony, yet as individually listened to, approved, commended, as if summoned to sing all alone in heaven's half-hour of silence?
Under one aspect hearing, although stirring and thrilling the heart depths, seems the least sensual of the five senses. Touch, taste, even smell, demand contact grosser or more subtle, as the case may be: sight, though eschewing contact, yet takes cognizance of what might be touched. Hearing is addressed by the intangible and invisible.
Heaven is revealed to earth as the home-land of music: of music, thus remote from what is gross or carnal; exhibiting like wise an incalculable range of variety, which rebukes and silences perverse suggestions of monotonous tedium in the final beatitude. If we desired a reassuring figure of variety, could we devise one more apt and more refined than music?
As the voice of an unclouded thundering; Unswayed by the changing moon and unswayed by the sun,
Circling round the rainbow of their perfect ring Twelve thousand times twelve thousand voices in unison Swell the triumph, swell the praise of Christ the King.
Where raiment is white of blood-steeped linen slowly spun, Where crowns are golden of Love's own largessing,
Where eternally the ecstasy is but begun, As the voice of many waters all saints sing.
Before, when the Living Creatures and the Elders sung a new song, the words of their anthem were set down (chap. v. 8 — 10: unless it be possible to understand that the Elders alone sang): while of this second, " as it were a new song," the words are not revealed; at least, if at all, not in this place. And as we are certified that no man but the singers themselves " which were redeemed from the earth " could learn this song, if we aspire to know somewhat of its meaning it seems our hopeful course to study reverently and copy affectionately the characteristics of the choice ones of her that bare them.
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 redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
5. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the Throne of God. Mother Church has appropriated this beatitude to her beloved Holy Innocents. On their Feast Day we behold the unspotted little souls, guiltless of actual sin, drooping for a moment with the drooping grace of a snowdrop, subdued for a moment with the subdued lustre of pearls. " Their Lord and Lover," Who gave His life in ransom of all lives, is exalt ing these babes to give their lives in ransom of His life. Speech was scarcely in their mouths, much less guile. On earth their feet could barely have trotted or tottered after a literal lamb. Thus Rachel beheld them, and weeping for her children refused to be comforted. " Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears." Who now beholds them sees them "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." Hath He gone up to glory? so have they: to dominion and power? so have they. Their grace is eternized, their lustre eternized; their feet rank with wings, their speech has become song. Alleluia!
Unspotted doves to wait on the one Dove; To whom Love saith, "Be with Me where I am,"
Nor know one word of all their song above, I know Love speaks to them, and even so
I think not to infringe obedience by considering how much of this blessedness, secured as it were by birthright (though none the less by grace) to innocence, may also permanently abide within the reach of penitence. To me, to most of us, the heritage of penitence is of more practical importance than the heritage of innocence.
Innocence we cannot recover, but purity and guilelessness we, by God's help, may; and if these graces have led the innocent to glory, us also they may yet lead to glory. Inno cence walks with God on earth, and follows Him in heaven: purity and guilelessness tread on earth in the steps of Jesus Christ; and they who follow Him to the gate of heaven will assuredly not be forbidden to follow Him through and within that gate.
Let us encourage ourselves. We may say either that we follow Him, or that He leads us; for the two propositions are practically the same. And if it is unimaginable that one who has followed Him below will not care to follow Him above, much more is it unimaginable — it were blasphemous to imagine that our Leader out of great tribulation will fail to lead us hereafter beside the waters of comfort.
Whatever else is conjecturable, this is certain: these hundred and forty and four thousand sanctified persons whom St. John beheld, were " first fruits " of the human family unto God and to the Lamb. And since, as St. Paul avers, " If the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy," it becomes clear that nothing unholy can find place in the final harvest-home.
I dare not then say simply, Penitence may: — I am driven to say with self-mistrust and trembling, Penitence imist> on pain of ultimate rejection, recover purity and guilelessness.
The leper Naaman
6. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
7. Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to
Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
An angel, as his title imports, is a messenger. If this be a literal winged Angel visibly traversing the local heaven, the prophecy appears hitherto unfulfilled. Meanwhile the Church has her own consecrated Gospel messengers, the Bishops, Priests, Deacons of the Apostolical Succession: and their mission in great measure assimilates them to this Angel.
Though their person is human, their vocation is superhuman: their home is heaven rather than earth. But no sluggish heaven of dreams and premature repose; heaven where they "fly" on a definite urgent errand, as the Archangel Gabriel flew swiftly (literally, "with weariness") on his embassy to Daniel. " In the midst of heaven " must their path be, in clining neither to the right hand nor to the left; without par tiality, without respect of persons, preaching the self-sime Divine Will and Word to all alike. As in matters of this world we say, " Bird's-eye view," because a bird poised aloft looks down upon, and so can estimate the point it aims at; so with an enhanced elevated meaning, let us say "Angel's-eye view" of those who watch for our souls, as they who must give account, and from a habitual heaven appraise earth. In heart and hand they carry the Everlasting Gospel, that word which passeth not away, though heaven and earth pass away; which word they proclaim, commanding all men everywhere to repent, and in Christ's stead beseeching them: " How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at My reproof: behold, I will pour out My Spirit unto you, I will make known My words unto you." For they know that it is the last time, and that the Judge standeth before the •door, even while they know not the day or the hour of His coming. They cry aloud to all people of all languages: He Who made all demands and will accept from all fear, glory, worship. He Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and the fountains of waters, He it is Who gives all blessings, Who gives, and Who can take away: " In Whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." They cry aloud, they spare not, they lift up the voice like a trumpet,.and show the people their transgression and theif sins. Yet must they not glory in themselves, but cultivate the temper of St. Paul when he wrote: " For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea,
woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me."
In functions spiritual the clergy occupy the heights, the laity the levels. Yet as the Church at large is " a royal priesthood," even the least and last of us may win something practical by contemplating an angelic preacher traversing heaven.
"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all."
" The everlasting Gospel " — unaltered, unalterable. To its immutability St. Paul bears witness: "Though we, or an.angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto yon, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." — A text for my times and for myself.
"For the hour of His judgment is come." — Yet notwith standing, and indeed therefore ("for"), men being summoned to fear God are further called upon to give Him glory; wor shipping Him as the Creator. The Lord's hand is not short ened that it cannot save: it is man's eleventh hour; Achan may yet appease Him in death Whom in life he provoked; the Thief extirpated from earth may yet sit down in Paradise.
O my God, regard man at his last chance; regard man setting himself to make his final choice; regard man in the poised balance which must dip. By Thy dear Son's last agony, by His giving up the Ghost, regard, regard man for whom He died, and suffer him not for ever to say Thee nay.
When the end of all things is at hand, it is a comfort to be reminded that heaven, earth, sea, fountains of waters, over whelmed as they are about to be by awful judgments, are yet all of them God's work, and therefore good. Let me not be more perverse than the clay, which saith not to the potter, Why hast thou made me thus?
8. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Some have thought to identify the site and structure of a local " Babylon." As to me, who can by no means identify them, I think not I need therefore miss my practical lesson from her greatness and her fall.
Wherefore fell she? The Angel declares, because of what she drd; not otherwise because of what she was. Let me (if I may) consider her as that World, which in some sort seems to form common ground, a point of contact, a link, a conductor, between flesh and devil.
Long ago Satan boasted to Christ's very Face that " all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them " were delivered unto him; nor did the Truth then and there give the lie to the father of lies. If, then, we may assume an ingredient of truth in the assertion, that element of truth supplies a clue to the fascination and domination of the world; a fascination which is deadly, a domination which is tyrannous. For Satan is the showman of her goodly show: he who can himself appear as an angel of light understands how to inflate her scale, tint her mists and bubbles with prismatic colours, hide her thorns under roses and her worms under silk. He can paint her face, and tire her head, and set her on a wall and at a window, as the goal of a vain race, and the prize of a vain victory. David, superb in his kingliness, made to himself instruments of music; and so has she her men singers and women singers, her brazen wind instruments and her hollow drums. She spreads a feast: first her best, afterwards that which is worse; apples of Sodom to follow forbidden fruit. And as to her cup, " all nations " have not unwarned drunk of it: " Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things." If this be true of earth's vintage, how ten fold true of the world's!
The City and Woman appear so indistinguishable in the Apocalyptic vision as to justify (I trust) my confusion of per sonification. Temptation, by a common instinct, seems to be personified as feminine: let us thence derive courage; the symbol itself insinuating that as woman is weaker than man, so temptation is never so strong as the individual assailed. " There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
We daughters of Eve may beyond her sons be kept humble by that common voice which makes temptation feminine.
Woman is a mighty power for good or for evil. She con strains though she cannot compel. Potential for evil, it be comes her to beware and forbear; potential for good, to spend herself and be spent for her brethren. In the Bible the, word tempt (or its derivatives) is used in a good or in an evil sense, according to the agent, or to the object aimed at.
The wisest of three wrote: " Women are strongest "; and said: " Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women."
" Babylon is fallen," saith the Angel: he saith not, Is cast down. Though she be cast down, yet is the impulse of her casting down in herself; she hath undermined herself. Sin is the essential destroyer: the sinner is self-destroyed. Drunken ness especially sets this truth as in a picture before our eyes; drunkenness being the example of a general rule, not its exception.
Taking physical corruption as the foul image of sin, we see how it consists not with stability, permanence; but dissolves, disintegrates its prey. It turns bone to dust, muscle as it were to pulp: we loathe to look upon it in a body; who shall bear to look upon it in a soul?
9. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10. The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; 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 ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
" I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading him self like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."
Before when we read of these beast and image worshippers they appeared, as David beheld their predecessors, flourishing and exalted. But alas! it is only as regards earth that such pass away and cannot be found: " in the presence of the holy angels, and in the Presence of the Lamb " they reappear; but tormented, smoking, without rest, without apparent help or hope.
Nor perhaps does it clearly transpire when it is that their interminable unrest begins: whether before, or consequent upon the decree of judgment. As later on we shall read of darkness pervading the kingdom of the beast, while apparently it continues as yet to be a kingdom; so now haply the rest lessness begins even before it writhes impotently amid the fire, brimstone, smoke.
This retribution is " in the Presence of the Lamb "; by which awful word I discern not whether there be implied the finishing sting of all agony, or some lessening of horror. Ytt is not " Depart from Me " a more overwhelming sentence than even this? To be "clean forgotten" seems a desperateness of forlornness.
" The wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation." — Indignation is ominous of justice: is His mercy clean gone for ever? We see not our tokens.
" They have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image." — Another worship there is carried on elsewhere, there is another company of worshippers of whom we read (chap. iv. 8), that " they rest not day and night." But (if having no power to study the original text, I may dwell on the wording of the translation) an absolute contrast is suggested by the two statements. Not to rest, is voluntary: to have no rest, is involuntary. The Beatified rest not from adoration, because adoration is the joy of their hearts, the breath of their nostrils: rest (could such a dispensation be conceived) would inflict on them the restlessness as it were of a pent-up con flagration; to keep silence from their good words would be not rest, but pain and grief to them. The accursed have and can have no rest, because they abide at enmity with Him by Whose grace there remaineth rest for His people.
12. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
That Presence indeed is everywhere; and all saints clad in patience, keeping the commandments, and cleaving to the faith, inhabit the all-embracing Presence. A shadowed life is no hardship to loving souls consciously abiding under the shadow of the Almighty; weary indeed would this world's land be without the shadow of that Great Rock!
Patience is an advanced grace. In children we try to fore stall reason by faith, and by early habit to constitute obedience their second nature; but patience we wish not to characterize them at the outset. Of course nothing contrary to patience can we desire for them at any period; but we remember that "tribulation worketh patience," and if we can we shelter our harmless little ones awhile from tribulation.
At this point of the Revelation, after so many Fatherly Lovingkindnesses and terrors of the Lord have been laid bare — for amid unfathomable mystery the great Love wherewith God loves us, and the tremendous woe from which He would fence us, stand out as clear as day — at this point, patience once more meets the pilgrim soul. All I have read, then, is to lead me up to patience: patience under ignorance, patience under fear, patience under hope deferred, patience so long as free will entails the terrific possibility of self-destruction; patience until (please God) my will freely, finally, indefectibly, becomes one with the Divine Will. Pending which beatific moment, it ought to be with each of us according to St. Paul's description: *' Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by Whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."
"Who is there among you of all His people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up."
13. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth- Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
In an earlier age the prophet Isaiah, speaking as in the Person of Christ, proclaimed comfort to the living faithful: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God;... to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.'' And now God Almighty Himself comforts the faithful dead. In deed I think both the former and the latter message may reverently and affectionately be delighted in as conveying hope and solace to living and dead together.
" The acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God," may (may they not?) be viewed as the period of the final supreme restitution of all things, as well as of the Gospel dispensation; the one sense not excluding but pre ceding the other. Good will be those tidings to the meek, which summon them to inherit and occupy the everlasting earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The broken-hearted will be bound up, when mourners are comforted never to mourn again. Liberty will come to light, the iron prison-door will stand ready to open of his own accord, while holy souls rejoicing in their beds, reach forward to regain their resurrec tion bodies. Then will ashes resume beauty, and the face of mourning shine, and praise obliterate reproach; even self-re proach. Already God's Acre abounds in trees of righteousness planted by Him, and waiting to spring up skywards to His glory. " Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? "
And now once more St. John hears, and we hear without any ambiguity, a Voice from heaven: " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." Blessed year after year, blessed century after century, blessed be the death what it may, whereby one by one the long not half-recorded series of the elect die in the Lord: martyrs on death-beds of torture, or in winding-sheets of flame; confessors upraised in loneliness against the world; virgins unflinching in self-oblation; workers wearing out inch by inch; the sick wrung by agony or burdened with long-drawn weariness; men suffering the more because strength holds out; women the more because weakness shrinks; children in their degree but spared foresight.
We understand at a glance that blessed it is for these, and such as these, to die "in the Lord."
Yea, and blessed also is it for these, and such as these, to live: life is their work-day, and their works will follow them. The slothful servant desires to rest without labour; the good and faithful servant after labour.
" Labours... works/' — There is such a thing as unpro ductive labour, strenuously to be eschewed on pain of having no " works " at the critical moment. " Wherefore do ye spend... your labour for that which satisfieth not?" Thus did the slothful servant in the Parable of the Talents: he hid his talent in the earth, although nought else would he do with it.
Labour not for the world: " I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great posses sions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun."
Labour not for the flesh: " All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled."
" But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation.... For God is not un righteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His Name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
Labour with and in God: " Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God." " Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."
So shall Christians render thanks for one another: " We give thanks to God always for you all,.... remembering with out ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
Lord, that afterwards we may rest, give us grace at once to labour; that at last works may follow us, enable us now to work Thy works Who sendest us, in the Strength of Jesus Christ, Whose Name we plead. Amen.
Without hazarding conjecture beyond my depth, the verse under consideration reminds me of the Manifestation of the Divine Trinity at our Lord's Baptism, and again (?) at His Transfiguration. Now " a Voice " speaks, as it were the Paternal Fountain-head of Blessing; and refers that Blessing to union with the Son, the Spouse of souls; finally, " the Spirit " ratines and seals all.
" The Spirit Itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, the joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." 14. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.
Both in chap. i. 13, ante, where the same words occur, and here, R.V. has a, not the " Son of Man ": in each instance, however, supplying the as an alternative marginal reading. As " the Son of Man " I adore my Lord as Head indeed of. the race, but as so separate from sinners that Him alone it befits to be constituted Judge of human-kind. As "a Son of Man " I worship Him as the Representative Man in Whose perfect Will all sanctified human wills concur, Whose righteous Acts all holy souls approve.
If reverently I may assume this "White Cloud" to be that awful Cloud which intimates the Presence of God the Holy Spirit, the Cloud apparently of the Transfiguration, the Cloud haply of the Ascension; then I behold the Two Comforters, the Two Advocates of mankind, now concurring in that supreme judgment to which mercy and justice have led up. Pauseless Intercession, groanings unutterable, dew of grace, inspirations of sanctity, have fulfilled their day, done their work, accomplished their mission. And this, whether souls have or have not responded to the saving call.
The done is done once and for ever. The undone remains undone and past doing. The eleventh hour of man's long working-day closes: that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath draws on. Let us not lose heart even while contem plating the end of all things as at hand: "If thou... call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord."
" For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
"On His Head a golden crown." — "We see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of •death, crowned with glory and honour." For love of us Christ once abased Himself to wear " a corruptible crown," the Crown of Thorns, that with Him we might eternally wear incorruptible crowns of glory. It seems a very simple, natural thing, yet does it foreshadow a mystery when we read of Ahasuerus: " The king loved Esther... and she obtained grace and favour in his sight... so that he set the royal crown upon her head."
Sharp though it be, our dear Lord holds a sickle, not a scythe: He mows not, but reaps. With a mower it is far otherwise; but the reaper embraces and draws to his bosom that good grain which he cuts down.
15. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with
a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
16. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.
" Another angel " does not perhaps carry us back to the preceding verse, but to one more remote: the last individual angel clearly mentioned was at ver. 9. But I take this opportunity of calling attention to my ignorance of, sometimes, a very critical point in the text on which I venture to meditate; and if in consequence I misrepresent the person of the speaker or the word spoken, I ask pardon for my involuntary error. Only should I have readers, let me remind them that what I write professes to be a surface study of an unfathom able depth: if it incites any to dive deeper than I attain to, it will so far have accomplished a worthy work. My sug gestions do not necessarily amount to beliefs; they may be no more than tentative thoughts compatible with acknow ledged ignorance.
Our Lord said: " Whoso shall swear by the temple, svveareth by it, and by Him that dwelleth therein." Whence it appears that this Angel came forth from the immediate Presence of God Almighty to utter his exhortation. Straight from that Presence he doubtless spake the Divine words and Will. And because concerning such a day and hour as this of the supreme harvest our Lord had once declared that not the Angels in heaven at that moment knew the prefixed period; this Angel by now announcing the time as come, suggests that accessions of knowledge are possible in the case of Angels; and thereby further suggests that man in consummated perfection made equal to the Angels, may like them remain open to the delight of increasing knowledge. I think a study of the final beatitude resembles so far a study of precious stones: the more we ponder on the heavenly beatitude, the wider seems to expand the field of ever-multiplying possibilities of bliss; similarly, to read even a little about jewels discloses how many different colours and shades of colour may vary and adorn gems which we commonly assume to be of one fixed colour; for the ruby need not be red, nor the sapphire blue, nor need the diamond be colourless. " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all."
"Thrust in Thy sickle"—" He... thrust in His sickle." — The Revised Version gives (and similarly at vers. 18, 19): " Send forth Thy sickle "— " He... cast His sickle." If this be the more accurate rendering, may it not convey a modified meaning? According to the Authorized Version we seem to behold the Divine Lord of the harvest reap. with His own Hand; whilst the Revised Version by treating the sickle rather as an agent than as a mere implement brings the passage into more obvious harmony both with one point in our Master's Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, and with the corresponding portion of His subsequent key to its meaning: "In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into My barn.... The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As there fore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather...."
" For the harvest of the earth is ripe " — or " over-ripe " according to the Revised Version, or " dried up " given there marginally as the literal Greek. Thus long hath God waited! So of old He spake unto Abram: "In the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." Meanwhile pious souls on both sides of the veil (it may be) call out of the deep: " As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the Living God: when shall I come and appear before God? "
That is a very wonderful rule (if it may be deemed a rule) which sweetly ordering both nature and grace, oftentimes for the moment appears to postpone the righteous to the wicked: so that the ninety-nine are left in the wilderness for the sake of one, and that one no more after all than contingently recover able. " If so be that he find it. -..."
Imperfectly good people may feel such postponement a keen trial; whether it befall them immediately by direct Providences, or mediately by (for instance) ruinous lifelong family sacrifices to save a vicious child. St. James has left an encouraging exhortation and a warning suited to such un finished Christians: " Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coining of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be con demned: behold, the Judge standeth before the door." And the spirit if not the letter of the Parable of the Prodigal Son invites them with the elder son to triumph over self: " And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living
with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."
" And the earth was reaped " — at last. Not as yet do we discern the unearthly reapers, the flying sickle; but we are forewarned of their imminence. If then by watching as well as by prayer we desire to make ready against the moment of their actual inevitable arrival, let us strive to rise above our natural and high above our present level: for the farthest view is from the loftiest standpoint. Doves at windows command a much wider horizon than moles on hillocks: whilst a mole who takes his ease or grubs inside a hillock, what chance has he of seeing?
17. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
18. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine cf the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
At first sight there seems a striking likeness, on further observation a marked distinction, between that reaping of the earth and this vintage of the clusters of her vine. In both cases the authoritative judicial sentence is pronounced as from the Temple; but the angel of the harvest invokes One Who 41 sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ": while the Angel of the vintage, apparently a minister of the Altar, calls upon a fellow Angel (for so the sequence of verses at least suggests), who sickle in hand has issued from the Temple, to execute his office.
Such a resemblance harmonizing with such a difference, suggests that though harvest and vintage are congruous figures, they yet are not here employed simply and absolutely as equivalents; whence arises a further suggestion: that the corn corresponds with the general human race, the vine with the Church. A like distinction, but in reverse order, seems at least conjecturable between the Servants in the Parable of the Talents and the Sheep and Goats in the Prophecy of the Doom {see St. Matt. xxv. 14 — 46).
Our Lord expressly claimed the Vine as a figure of the Church made one with and in Himself: "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." So in the Old Testament the Jewish Church, so far as comported with that dispensation, appears under the same symbol: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt.... Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine ": — " Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me? "
When our Lord employs the figure of corn it is (at least sometimes) without any restrictive stamp of unity: " The harvest truly is plenteous — "; "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." Even when He deigns to symbolize Himself by " a com of wheat," the characteristic stated is not simple expansion, but multiplica tion: "If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And though (blessed be His Holy Name) this much fruit is self-evidently His death-bought Church, it yet remains true that one obvious lesson from the corn is neither exclusion nor unity, but likeness. The function of each branch is to abide in the vine: the function of each grain in the ear is to do like the parent seed.
To return to our text, if I may thus consider it. He Who reaps the corn reaps it not from the Temple, but seated at large in the open firmament of heaven; that heaven which canopies the whole earth, the evil and the good, the just and the unjust. " The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." Every man, woman, child, must undergo the judgment: whence it ensues that every one, whatever the issue, was created sus ceptible of salvation; less than this St. Paul in the universal brotherhood of his zealous heart does surely not imply: " The righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man.according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in welldoing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;... in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." And perhaps I may without rashness notice how in this Apocalyptic vision the last word concerning earth's harvest is that it " was reaped "; nothing further do we here read of wheat or tares, barn or fire; reminding us of St. Paul's words to his Cor inthian converts: " What have I to do to judge them also that are without?... Them that are without God judgeth."
As to the vine, wide is the difference. The armed messenger of judgment comes forth from the Temple; and the exhorting Angel from as it were the very heart of the temple, the Altar if not the Fire of the Altar. From the days of Isaiah the elect vine was forewarned of the inevitable future reckoning, each intermediate judgment prefiguring that final judgment which is to be without appeal: " My Well-Beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.... What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste." And in the passage of the Apocalypse under consideration, now that the final judg ment is come (for so it seems to be), I suppose we may parallel the clusters of fully ripe grapes with the " wild grapes " of the former provocation; observing that at the utmost they apparently rank no higher than barren branches, both alike being doomed to severance from the root of their only life. Degenerate clusters, they have left their wine which cheereth God and man, and have made themselves like the vine of God's enemies whose "vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."
" Fully ^ripe." — Not (so far as either the translated text or the margin informs me) either dried up or over ripe: such excess befell the corn, as if this had been "made to wait on the vine. Even so the world is tolerated until the number of the elect be fulfilled.
19. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20, And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
As to the harvest we are told nothing further than that it was reaped; but plainly are we told what befalls the con demned clusters of this awful vine. So are all Christians warned of what awaits unworthy Christians: " If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the Blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace? For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto?vle, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."
These " clusters " are men, for they yield blood, and their winepress is the wrath of God. Such are they who once trod under foot the Son of God, that very Saviour Who for their sakes trod the winepress alone: now are they ground as it were to powder under His wrath Whom they outraged. They despised and rejected His saving Blood: now must their own be as dung on the face of the field. They went not forth unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach: now are they them selves crushed without the city. They did despite to the Spirit of grace; and now there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. " Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great."
God's righteous vengeance, even v» hen He maketh a way to His indignation and spareth not souls from death, is propor tioned, due, not in excess: the horses are bridled, the area is circumscribed.
1. And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous,
seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
Twice b fore (ch. xii.) St. John saw a " wonder "; or as the Revised Version in each instance translates the word, a " sign "; in heaven. First, when he beheld there " the King's Daughter " all glorious without as well as within, made indomitable in weakness. Secondly, when he beheld there a great red dragon, God's adversary and hers, at work yet baffled in his evil purpose. Now thirdly (if I may assume the Greek word still to be the same), when Seven Angels appear having the Seven last Plagues wherein is filled up the wrath of God.
Many points as I may miss, I perceive 'the marvel of " a woman " (for such is the figure, whatever may be the signification) appearing as the centre of such concurrent glories: I readily perceive the marvel of a rebel working wickedness and waging war in heaven itself. But angels being (so to say) natives of heaven, and St. John having already mentioned as present there ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, the third marvel seems not to consist in Seven Angels thence confronting us, but rather in their being the bearers of Seven Plagues. This is the third and last Seven of the Apocalypse, "for in them is filled up the wrath of God." The previous Sevens were the Seals and the Trumpets; and however the three series may have to be viewed in historical sequence, yet to any uninstructed reader they convey with one voice one reiterated warning to love righteousness and hate iniquity and flee from the wrath to come.
11 The wrath of God " admits of being filled up: nowhere do we read of His mercy being filled up. Equally, " seven last plagues " are here defined; but nowhere seven last blessings.
2. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over Ms image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
If I may venture to assume this sea to be the same as that which St. John originally beheld " before the Throne... of glass like unto crystal " (ch. iv. 6), a fresh point of glory has now been added to its former glory; or if not truly added, has yet been added so far as our knowledge is concerned.
The former vision magnified God as Creator. Of that vision the sea appeared pure, perfect, unbroken, unperturbed; it spread double against that overarching sky which is strong and as a molten looking-glass. Itself flawless, there could occur no flaw in its reflection of the firmament.
Now fire is added not to consume, but "mingled " with that sea to illuminate, flash, augment beauty; even as the fiery milky opal would not be half itself without its spark. For Redemption now excels Creation; and the fiery trial through which the elect have pressed after Christ, being past as a trial endures as a perpetual splendour. None but victors stand upon that sea " having the harps of God," for " he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David." "Awake, awake, utter a song: arise... and lead thy captivity captive."
Though the sea be "of glass mingled with fire," yet if we may regard it as in any sense equivalent to a sea of water thus mingled, we immediately recognize and revere two conspicu ous types of God the Holy Spirit; and we discern as in a glass darkly how it is His Presence, Gift, Grace, which sustains the Church universal. The Altar has clearly reappeared in the celestial Temple: now (if I may) I behold the Font also, that " womb of the morning," whence as Christ's members we derive the dew of immortal birth.
" 0 Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast
Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches. So is the great and wide sea."
An alternative reading (Revised Version) makes these more than conquerors stand not on but by the glassy sea; thus supply ing us with an additional thought by contrasting the Church Triumphant for evermore with sometime the Church Militant: " By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.... How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? "
3. And they sing the song1 of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints.
" Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all His house... And Moses verily was faithful in all His house, as a servant.... But Christ as a Son over His own house." Hence it appears how wide and not to be bridged over is the gulf between Son and servant; yet Christ setting aside that inequality is pleased to combine with Himself Moses His friend in a song of triumph, ennobling with transcendent significance Solomon's proverb: " A wise servant... shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren."
The heliotrope shoots up its head To clear the shadow of the wall: Down looks the Passion Flower,
Caressingly it droops its head, Its leaves, its tendrils, from the light: Because that lowlier flower
On earth long ages before Moses had had his triumph and his song of triumph when Israel stood safe on the further shore of the Red Sea: so that in heaven it is no new thing for him to sing unto the Lord because He hath triumphed gloriously. Throughout the Gospel, on the contrary, no trace appears of any triumph song " of the Lamb," unless it be that Hymn which He sang with His disciples while He stood on the brink of deep waters whose floods were presently to run over Him. Moses had said, " Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord," when a type of supreme salvation was about to be enacted; and Christ said, ".Be of good cheer; I have over come the world," when He was about with His own right hand and with His holy arm to get Himself the victory.
" Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the ages [margin, "nations"]. 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."
4. Who shalt not fear Thee, 0 Lord, and glorify Thy Name? for Thou only art Holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest.
O Lord God Almighty, All Holy, Whom we fear, Whom we trust, Whose Name we desire to glorify; Thou Who hast vouchsafed to constitute man not least amongst Thy marvellous works; on wings of grace enable us like Thine Angel of old to do wondrously, ascending spiritually from the rock of faith and altar of obedience in the flame of love. O King of saints, of nations, of the ages, Thou Whose ways are just and true; Thou Unapproachable Who callest us unto Thee, Thou Inimitable Who requirest us to become like unto Thee; grant us grace ever worshipping to follow Thee by justice and truth. In this age of probation prepare Thou generation after generation for the eternal ages of perfected sanctity; until the knowledge of Thy glory shall till the earth as the waters cover the sea, and all saints shall be co-extensive with all nations. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Co-Eternal Trinity in Unity, we plead the Merits of Jesus Christ. Amen.
5. And after that I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:
6. And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.
Surely this also is a time appointed, a solemn feast day. Because to the saints it is meat and drink to do the Will of God and to finish His work: if to do it, likewise to suffer it; if to finish it, likewise to behold it finished. " He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death."
Yet of old far different was that procession which the sweet Psalmist of Israel contemplated when he uplifted heart and voice in the Divine praises: " They have seen Thy goings, O God: even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary. The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels." Then the thousands of the chosen nation flocked up to the earthly Tabernacle of the Mercy Seat; now from the heavenly Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony emerge the minis ters of Judgment. Song, music, mirth, befitted that interlude of time: awe, silence, this prelude of eternity.
Farther than thought can see, by dint of will Strung up and strained and shooting like a star
At the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet (ch. xi. 15, 19), " the Temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His Temple the Ark of His Testament." Now once more "the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven was opened," but no word indicates that the Stronghold of Mercy and Comfort was again revealed to sight. There, doubtless, It abode; but hidden, it may be, as when the Cloudy Pillar of Fire turned unbroken darkness against Pharaoh and his host.
Pharaoh who in his hardheartedness made himself a type of all obstinate rebels: — " Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more.... And Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more."
"Clothed in pure and white linen" — in the Revised Version: "Arrayed with precious stone, pure and bright." — This latter translation, strange to my unlearned ears, set me to search whether I could find in the Authorized Version any other instance of an angel being described in so many words, and beyond question as clad in linen: I have failed to find one, and though this may merely prove my ignorance it suggests a thought.
In the Prophecy of Ezekiel (xxviii. 13, &c.) the King of Tyrus is twice designated by the word cherub, and in the same passage we read concerning him: " Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold." Robed in these or in such as these, including gold ("girded with golden girdles"), it may haply be that these seven angels came forth; themselves and their vestments alike in the flawless perfection of direct Divine workmanship, upright, unimpaired, as at the beginning. Even so was it with the first Tables of the Law: " The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables."
If thus we may deem of elect Angels, it leaves linen for the appropriate vestment of redeemed men. Christ wears it, for He is not ashamed to call us brethren; and after Him and with Him all saints wear it. Linen differs essentially from jewels inasmuch as it is a manufacture, needing human agency whereby to be steeped and bleached and wrought finely, and to have harshnesses and coarsenesses discarded from the web as this grows into beauty. God indeed provides the flax, the skill, the patience, and all else that comes into requisition; but still man it is who must sow and reap, steep and bleach, weave and finish that fine linen which is the righteousness of saints.
If Angels who inherit no weak points need girding for their work; how much more man who is made up of weak points, and who has for incitement to gird himself and run Christ's All-Holy Example: " Righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins." Truth is man's girdle, "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth "; gold the Angels': by faith man apprehends and cleaves to truth, and comparing faith with gold, St. Peter awards the preference to faith: " The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire."
Now the gold of that land we know is good, while what it may signify we know not; and well we know that man in his mortality ranks lower than angels. Yet weighing the preciousness of his allotted girdle here below, he may well lift up his heart unto the Lord, and thanking God take courage: " For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle."
7. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels
seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, Who liveth for ever and ever.
" Wisdom is justified of all her children."
Every celestial creature subserves the Will of its Creator, approves His decree, executes His behest, forwards His work. So faithfully do the elect reproduce His Image, that to fall into their hands becomes a fearful thing to any to whom it is fearful to fall into His hands. Point after point in this awful Reve lation presses home the conviction that, cost what it may, and to whom it may, God and His elect will in heaven be of one heart, and one mind, and one will. Implicitly it has been so in time, explicitly it will be so in eternity.
Man's perversity has made gold the occasion and instrument of so much sin, that no wonder it one day reappears as vials full of Divine wrath. Happy will he be at the last who with St. Peter has had neither silver nor gold, with St. Paul has coveted no man's gold; he miserable who made gold his hope, or against whom hire fraudulently kept back crieth.
Boundlessly overflowing with all good, All lovingkindness, all delights untold? Thy Love, of each created love the mould J
Heard of at Ephrata, found in the Wood, For ever One, the Same, and Manifold. Lord, give us grace to tremble with that dove
Whom Noah's hand pulled in and comforted: For we who much more hang upon Thy Love
8. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of
God, and from His power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.
When the Mosaic Tabernacle was finished and set up, "Then a Cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the Cloud abode thereon, and the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle." So likewise at the Dedication of Solomon's Temple: " It came to pass, when the priests were come out of the Holy Place, that the Cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister becau:e of the Cloud: for the Glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord."
If these two historical incidents may be viewed as prefiguring this of which we read in St. John's vision: "The Temple was filled with smoke from the Glory of God, and from His power; and no man was able to enter into the Temple.... ": then perhaps without rashness I may here think to discern a token of Christ being pleased in His own good time to fulfil and end His Mediatorial Kingdom, His perpetual Intercession. For not only (ver. 5) has "the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony " been opened, without the Ark of the Testament (so far as is stated) becoming visible; but that "no man" should be able to enter into the Temple suggests that Christ Himself has ceased or is nigh ceasing to appear in the Presence of God for incorrigible offenders; so that thenceforward, to quote St. Paul's phrase, God (as God) wills to be All in All.
That such a termination impends seems certain. That the point has been reached in St. John's Revelation appears conjecturable when, as now by looking forward, we mark one unbroken course of punitive judgments untempered by any answering sign of repentance. Of this we have an appalling type in the history of Joshua's war against the accursed nations: " It was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them." Yet first doubtless they had hardened them selves, according to the inspired Proverb: "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."
" A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down."
" Every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; after ward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under His feet. But when He saith, all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
"And the Temple was filled with smoke...." If this "Smoke" corresponds with the Ineffable Cloud of the Divine Presence, then we surmise here an intimation of the Double Procession of God the Holy Spirit, " Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son ": inasmuch as the Smoke proceeded from " the Glory of God " and from " His Power."
And one step further. If simultaneously with a plenary Effusion of the Holy Spirit the day of grace will terminate, we are thus reminded of that most awful declaration: "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."
Thank God, that when the Seven Plagues are over, the Temple shall be reopened to man: where Christ is, there shall
also His servant be. " When Thou hadst overcome the sharp ness of death: Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers."
1. And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
" Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send Mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come."
Seven offences had not sufficed to draw down this sevenfold judgment, nay, nor seventy times seven, had man but turned and said, I repent. For certainly God All-Holy proposeth not to any a higher standard than His own (see St. Matt, xviii. 21, 22).
Nor may I so frame my thoughts as to represent God as like the forgiving man: it is the forgiving man who faintly, feebly, inadequately, amid flaws and shortcomings is in his degree like God. The antitype determines the type, not this that. If such a distinction might seem purposeless, I come to perceive its purpose when (for instance) Divine Truths having first been confounded with heathen myths are interpreted as on a par with them; as if all alike symbolized various processes, phases, of nature. It is pious to contemplate autumn, winter, spring, summer, as emblematical of our dear Lord's death, burial, resurrection, ascended glory; but to treat these as if they were a parable of those, is to deny the faith.
2. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
O Lord, correct us, but with judgment; not in Thine anger, lest Thou bring us to nothing.
If Thou smite us, let it be with the sores of holy Job unto amendment and perfection: not with the sores of obstinate Egypt, or of reprobation. By pain bring back our pleasure.
3. And the second angel poured out Ms vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
If thou curse our blessings, let it be that losing less we may gain more; that in exchange for bitterness we may inherit sweetness, and for sterility fruit. By death instruct us unto life.
4. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
If Thou assure us not water nor give us bread, grant us grace by hungering and thirsting after righteousness to feast in famine, in destitution to have enough. By want enrich us.
5. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, 0 Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus.
6. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou that art the God of our health: that with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven our tongue may laud and magnify Thy Glorious Name, evermore praising Thee -and Thy Righteous ness. Be reproofs of instruction to us the way of life.
7. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord
God Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgments.
Grant us to be of one mind with Thine Angel of the Altar, and with Abraham Thy friend, who bear witness that the Judge of all the earth doech right. So may we trust Thee though Thou slay us. By Thy loving correction make us great.
8. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give Him glory.
Though the sun smite us by day and the moon by night, yet to us let the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings. Though Thou destroy our flesh, save our spirit. Be the seven times heated furnace of affliction our upper chamber wherein to adore the Son of God, and by repentance to glorify His Name. Walk with us in the fire, Good Lord.
10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
11. And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
Not unto us the outer darkness, not unto us the gnashing of teeth. Deliver us from penal darkness, from darkness which may be felt, from paralyzing darkness forbidding us to arise and go to our Father. Be our pangs schoolmasters to bring us to Christ.
12. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
If Thou change the elements by a kind of harmony making dry land where was water; bringing upon us evil, and not good as once by the Red Sea or the beloved Jordan, but gloom from the sun-rising and terror from afar, yet support us though Thou rescue us not. As to Thee, so to us, be darkness and light both alike.
13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
If all wickedness spread nets for our feet or set the battle in array against us, strengthen us to shake our head at the adversary and laugh him to scorn, although he work miracles and stir up the earth and the whole world, O Lord God, against Thee and Thine. Bring forth the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute us: say unto our soul, I am thy salvation. Out of weakness make us strong.
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.
Until Thou comest, kindle our desires to go forth to meet Thee, our watchfulness to rehearse Thy welcome. Be purity our veil, obedience our walk, Thyself our righteousness. Yea, be Thyself our all in all.
16. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Lord, to Whom the gathering of the people shall be, Lord Most Mighty, Me st Holy, Most Merciful j when summoned without appeal multitudes stand before Thee in the Valley of Decision, set us not on Thy Left Hand of rejection but on Thy Right Hand of acceptance. Turn not Thy Face from us poor men.
17. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the Throne, saying, It is done.
When an end is come, the end is come, the endless end, the end which is the final beginning; when every eye sees, and all kindreds of the earth wail, and the undone cannot be done, neither the done undone; be Thy word to each of us, Come. In us see of the travail of Thy Soul, and be satisfied.
18. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earth quake, and so great.
When earth is passing away with a great noise, and there is trembling in the field, in the host, and among all the people, and the earth quakes, so that it is a very great trembling; put us in the clift of Thy Rock, in the place by Thee, O Lord Thou Rock of Ages. Defer not for Thine own sake, O our God: for behold, Thou hast it by Thee.
19. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.
When woe is to them who have coveted an evil covetousness to their house, and the stone is crying out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber is answering it; and the mourners go about the streets because mankind is going to its long home, for good or for evil to its long home, for life or for death to its long home; then be our remembrance a sweet savour unto Thee, O God. Find Thou a ransom.
20. And every island fled away, and the mountains were
When all faileth save Thou, fail us not Thou; Thou Who never failest them that seek Thee. Lord, Lord, give us grace to seek and find Thee.
21. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven,
every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
Suffer us not to fall into desperateness, suffer us not to curse Thee and die. Suffer us not by despairing of mercy to forfeit mercy. Are we stronger than Thou? Nay, Good Lord. O be Thou our help in trouble, for vain is the help of man,
"A noisome and grievous sore."— Recalling the "boil breaking forth with blains upon man... throughout all the land of Egypt," which plague came in answer to ashes of the furnace sprinkled toward heaven by Moses, as though at that moment the provocation of earth went up visibly toward heaven. " A people that provoketh Me to anger continually to My Face.... These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that burneth all the day." But to St. John's vision no stated challenge from earth then and there calls down heaven's vengeance, which rather seems a pouring out of that wrath which human wickedness has treasured up unto itself against the day of wrath; which overflows and cannot but overflow at length; which can no longer be shut up with doors, or obscured in cloudy garment, or swaddled in thick darkness. "The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish Mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth."
Wilt thou laugh time away in music and mirth? Time hath days of pestilence, hath days of a sword, Hath days of hunger and thirst in desolate dearth.
Thrilled harp of heaven and oreathe full its organ's girth For joy of harvest and infinite reward,
" The sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man." — Fresh water too will be turned into blood; but of the sea alone is it said that it became " as the blood of a dead man," or that in it " every living soul died." Perhaps this prominent connection of the sea with death prepares us for its mysterious exclusion from the new heaven and new earth (ch. xxi. i).
" The rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood." — This seems at first sight almost identical with the corresponding Egyptian plague: " Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.... And he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river... and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.... And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river."
Yet a difference may be observed. In the case of Egypt the " fountains of waters " are not particularized; so that if the digging Egyptians succeeded in finding springs independent of the Nile, such springs may (so far as is stated) have gushed forth in intact purity, and have served instead of the transmuted waters.
St. John, on the contrary, beheld the springs and all the waters contaminated; so that the Angel of the waters extolling the Divine Equity names " blood " as the drink of those murderers. Whereupon another out of the Altar responds with like lauds. The Revised Version however translates as if not an Angel from the Altar but the Altar itself uttered praises: reminding us of our Lord's emphatic saying, " The stones would immediately cry out," — thus the very Altar, the stronghold of reconciliation, would at length condemn the ungodly.
" I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee."
" Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end: therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee."
" Upon the sun." — At the Fourth Trumpet the light of the sun was abridged (ch. viii. 12). At the Fourth Vial its heat is intensified so as to scorch yet not to consume. Combining in thought the two phases, we see in emblem the outer dark ness of hell no way lit up by the unquenchable fire, and that fire ever feeding upon without devouring its prey.
But the sun is earth's vivifier, benefactor, guardian, friend. Even so. It will not be otherwise, alas! with any lost soul which at length makes of Mercy an enemy.
Without pressing every word, I think these two prophecies may be harmonized as at least a dim allegory touching the mystery of Redemption.
The Sun oftentimes symbolizes Christ. Here in a figure we behold Christ by voluntary Self-abasement and Self-sacrifice first taking upon Himself the plagues due to us, before He suffers us to be touched by them. At the Fourth Trumpet the Sun itself is smitten. On the Sun itself the Fourth Vial of Wrath is poured out, or ever the wrath descends to mankind at large: yet is it the Sun and none other which at length smites. Of the elect we read elsewhere, but not here. Of the incorrigible we are reading, and their personal rankling raging hatred of God in Christ persists in venting blasphemy and abhorring repentance. Could they, would they repent, they might... yea, so surely as God Almighty is Faithful and True, they must up to and beyond the eleventh hour go home out of the horrible pit to Paradise. Thus did one Malefactor, but not (so far as is recorded) the other.
" And blasphemed... and they repented not to give Him glory." — Far below Achan, who through the grave and gate of temporal death was (please God!) delivered from death eternal: " Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me. And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have 1 done."
Yea; because impenitence is set before us to that very end that we should repent.]
O Loving Lord Jesus, Who revealest hell that we may flee to heaven, and lest we should loose hold on Thee warnest us that souls may fall away; Thou Who on the Cross didst love saint and sinner, and on Thy Throne of Intercession lovest saints and sinners still; there is nothing but Thy Love or some fruit of Thy Love which we can plead with Thee. Such I plead. Amen.
Well spake that soldier who being asked what he would do if he became too weak to cling to Christ, answered, " Then I will pray Him to cling to me."
" The seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of dark ness." — Prefigured but only faintly by the three days' darkness in Egypt: for at that time Moses was within reach, within hearing; Moses, type of Christ, still accessible to Pharaoh. Three days, and then presumably renewal of light. And as we expressly read: " Neither rose any from his place for three days " (in strong contrast with those blinded men of doomed Sodom who wearied themselves to find the door), it suggests that the door of repentance continued open: for considering that three days' darkness by way of a spiritual parab'e, and connecting it with our Lord's figurative declaration: " If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," we are invited humbly to hope that the Egyptian darkness was by no means necessarily outer darkness; but rather in the case of impressionable souls that it shut such up awhile in a corner of safety, affording them leisure to consider their ways and become wise; to purge themselves from such blindness as by misleading or misfollowing falls into the ditch; and to watch for the morning with eyes apt and anxious to see, should God of His bounty rekindle light and sight.
" They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed... because of their pains and their sores." — To harden heart and stiffen neck under any chastisement predisposes towards final virulence of misery and impotence of hatred. The consummated horrible end appears as if a scorpion hedged in by fire stung it self and could not die. " Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." The power of choice is limited to time: the consequences who shall limit?
Bitter it is to long for life and die; more bitter to.long for death and it cometh not. Christ in His boundless mercy preserve us through bitterness of life and from bitterness of death.
Bitterness that may turn to sweetness is better than sweetness that must turn to bitterness.
The lost must not shift their perdition off their own shoulders on to Satan's: their own load they must bear. Though the wretched persons of our text were subjects and confederates of the beast, yet they themselves gnawed their own tongues and plied their own tongues in blasphemy: themselves, not he.
Satan is guilty, and none the less each soul is guilty, of that same soul's death; guilt being like flame, capable of communi cation not of transference.
" And repented not of their deeds." — At the Fourth Vial, and now again at the Fifth, but not previously, impenitence is clearly alleged as one sin of those sinners. At the Fourth it seems characteristically a revolt of will against faith: " Men... blasphemed the Name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give Him glory." At the Fifth it seems characteristically a rebellion of flesh (the lower nature) against spirit: " They... blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." The result of such obduracy is differently stated in each case: first it refuses glory to God, thereby shut ting the door of heaven against man; afterwards it bereaves man of his last vestige of hope, even of the bare wish to amend.
" And even as they did not like to retain God in their know ledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.''
Hide not Thy Face from me, nor spurn me hence, Nor utterly despise me in my grief; Nor say me nay, who worship with the thief
Ah me! my penitence a fresh offence, Too tardy and too tepid and too brief. Lord, must I perish, I who look to Thee?
I look to Thee while Thou dost look on me, Thou Face to face with me and Eye to eye.
Euphrates flowed out of Eden, and (at least in its fountain head, if not after being parted into one of four) its first recorded use was to water Paradise. Its last recorded use is negative: to be dried up and afford a free passage.
Euphrates in Eden was congruous with sinless Adam: one watered, the other tilled, both obeyed.
Euphrates in the end of the world is congruous with many sons of Adam: both parched, both done away with.
Dost thou deplore the fate of high-born Euphrates? Deplore rather the fate of multitudes of higher born men. Deplore what thou hast made thyself: deprecate what thou mayest yet make thyself.
If the way to destruction lie open before me; from that way, Good Lord, deliver me.
Though they that be better than I destroy themselves; from self-destruction, Good Lord, deliver me.
From following a multitude to do evil, from apostasy, from depravity; Good Lord, deliver me.
From Thyself my Judge, to Thyself my Saviour, I appeal. Good Lord, deliver me. Amen.
" The kings of the east "—Revised Version: " The kings that come from the sun rising." — With whom, whatever their pur pose, the Wise Men from the east will rise up in the Judgment together.
"I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work."
"We must prevent the sun to give Thee thanks, and at the day spring pray unto Thee."
"Three unclean spirits like frogs... are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth." — Contemptible as well as formidable: "frogs; yea even in their kings' chambers." Long before, "the magicians... with their enchantments... brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt "—brought them up, but presumably lacked power to suppress them, for Moses it was who by intercession delivered Pharaoh from that plague.
The likeness of these unclean spirits to frogs recalls our Lord's mysterious declaration: " The unclean spirit... walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none." Now however, they seek not rest in a dry place, but go forth to stir up war.
Vile emissaries befit vile potentates. Are all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them to be mustered against God Almighty at the summons of three frogs? " The harvest of the river is her revenue; and she is a mart of nations. Be thou ashamed, O Zidon,"
" Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, He hath bid His guests. And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel. In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit."
Because these unclean spirits come "out of the mouth " of dragon, beast, false prophet, it should set me on my guard against all words whereby a pernicious tongue may offend. " Why boastest thou thyself, thou tyrant, that thou canst do mischief; whereas the goodness of God endureth yet daily? Thy tongue imagineth wickedness, and with lies thou cuttest like a sharp razor. Thou hast loved unrighteousness more than goodness, and to talk of lies more than righteousness. Thou hast loved to speak all words that may do hurt, O thou false tongue. Therefore shall God destroy thee for ever: He shall take thee, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling, and root thee out of the land of the living."
Lord, grant us grace to make Thy Goodness our trust: shutting our hearts against pride, our mouths against evil words, our ears against foul knowledge; and using Thy gifts to the promotion of Thy Glory and of man's salvation. For His Blessed sake in Whom we have all and are full and abound, Jesus Christ. Amen.
" Behold, I come as a thief." — This or a kindred expression our Blessed Master and after Him His Apostles and Evangelist? have employed repeatedly in reference to the Second Advent and ensuing Judgment Day. SS. Matthew and Luke record in great measure the same Divine words, although spoken (it seems) on two separate occasions: " Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this; that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians: " Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.... But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." St. Peter forewarns the Church Catholic: " But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night."
Still more striking is the likeness of our present text to part of our Lord's message to the Church in Sardis (ch. iii. 3, 4): " If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white."
Blessed indeed then is he that watcheth! he shall escape overwhelming shame: yea, much more, he shall abide in eternal fellowship with Christ.
Put not on his glories without care: — Clothe us as Thy lilies of a day, As the lilies thou accountest fair, Lilies of Thy making, Of Thy love partaking, Filling with free fragrance earth and air: Thou Who gatherest lilies, gather us and wear.
" Armageddon " — is, I see, interpreted " The destruction of the troops," and (on the same authority) is supposed to allude to the overthrow of Sisera and his hosts before Barak and his ten thousand (see Judges iv. 14, 15; v. 19 — 21).
" And the -seventh angel poured out his vial into the air." — I trust that since modern accuracy has not yet forbidden our speaking of sunrise and sunset, we may also venture on occasion to revive the Four Elements of my youth.
Three elements have in turn been smitten; earth by the first vial, water by the second and third, fire (the sun) by the fourth. Then recommencing the series; earth (perhaps, the world) by the fifth; water (Euphrates) by the sixth: but fire (if the dragon and the spirits of devils may be assumed to represent it) musters on the contrary its rebellious force apparently for a final effort; not recking that the kingdom and the battle and the great day are all alike " of God Almighty."
The seventh vial is poured out " into the air," that element which may be termed the vital breath both of man and of fire: and we are reminded of St. Paul's phrase: " The prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."
" And there came a great Voice out of the Temple of heaven." — I do not know whether I perceive or merely fancy a distinction. In previous passages (ch. xi. 19; xiv. 17; xv, 5) the Temple is spoken of as in heaven, the context having reference to God the Son, man's Redeemer and Judge. In this passage, "the Temple of heaven " (harmonizing with the words, " The heaven is My Throne ") might seem to speak of heaven at large as being itself that Temple; and to do so at this point of the Revelation because the imminent Judgment and consummation will affect much more than humankind only. The Revised Version, however, by omitting the words " of heaven " precludes any such notion.
"It is done." — "God requireth that which is past." Holy fear incites faith to humility, hope to prudence, love to obedience. Faith without humility presumes, hope without prudence misleads, love without obedience — there is no genuine love without obedience. " He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me," saith the Sole Fountain of Truth and Love.