new song has been sung in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, besides the isles of the sea; that is, it has been preached, either by a living, zealous ministry, or published in the different languages of the earth. And they sung, as it were, a new song. The people heard this as something new under the sun, as something that had never been heard of before; whereas, it was as old as Christianity, as old as from the days of Christ himself, who was its author. But superstition, bigotry, and ignorance, false systems of religion invented or corrupted by men, had banished it from the knowledge of the people, and usurped its place. But now those are driven back, and the true light shineth again, by means of the Reformation and the consequent spread of the gospel in all lands. But there are still dark places in the earth, even in Christendom; there are multitudes as ignorant of Christianity as the Pagans of Rome were, when it first made its appearance there! In truth, true gospel Christianity has received its severest treatment from the hands of Christians-such as bore the mark of the two-horned beast, and worshiped his image! The reason why there is so much delusion, such an amount of ignorance on the subject of religion, the prophet explains in the third verse: And no man could learn that song, but the hundred and forty-four thousand which were redeemed from the earth. In plain terms the prophet means just what Christ says, and his apostles have reïterated—that no man can learn, know and comprehend the gospel, but those who are redeemed by it—have experienced its power in converting and saving them from their sins. Such are the hundred and forty-four thousand, which does not imply a number at all, as I have before stated, but signifies equality in the Divine favor to all, of whatever name, or whatever nation, who fear God and work righteousness. The gospel was not given to man as a subject of speculation, but as matter of experience, a divine reality, a saving power; and the man who does not know it in this way is wholly ignorant of it; he

cannot learn this divine song in any other way than through this redeeming power.

It will be seen that I take this song, spoken of by the prophet, to signify the whole gospel scheme of salvation, with its saving power and the comfort and joy it imparts to the saints of the Most High; and that we may not deceive ourselves as to who and what those saints are we will hear the prophet's description of them as he gives it in the fourth and fifth verses.

The first feature in the character of the hundred and forty and four thousand is their utter rejection of all participation in the corruptions and defilements of the woman. The text does not convey the precise meaning of the prophet; it is evidently a mistranslation. It would be more consistent if it read "These are they which are not defiled with the woman."

By turning to the seventeenth chapter, second and fourth verses, the true meaning of the prophet will be seen. It is there shown that the defilement he speaks of was spiritualwith whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

These terms, expressive of debauchery, have reference to the corrupt and demoralizing doctrines taught by the Church of Rome. That church is symbolized here by the woman, having a golden cup in her hand full of abomination and filthiness of her fornication.

All Christendom, before the Reformation, was stupified and intoxicated with the contents of this cup, which the woman pressed to their lips; but the hundred and forty-four thousand, all those who had embraced the religion of the Reformation, rejected her cup, and would not partake of the abomination and filthiness which it contained. They are virgins, and they utterly discard the false doctrines and idolatrous worship, together with the vices allowed, authorized,

and sanctioned, by the church which this woman represents.* They kept themselves pure from her corruptions by following the Lamb, practicing his teachings, and looking for salvation by faith in his blood.

A very different religion from that the world had learned from Rome, which hid Christ from the eyes of the people, and taught them to look for salvation by the merit of saints and the worship of images. These, the prophet says, were redeemed from among men, and were the first fruits or early harvest unto God and the Lamb, which sprung from the seed that had been sowed by the Reformation. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

This is the brief but comprehensive description the prophet gives of the people of God. Where are they? Wherever they are found, and whatever name they may bear, they belong to the hundred and forty and four thousand; they are redeemed from amongst men.

In those two verses (the fourth and fifth) we have a perfect model of the Church of Christ, and a striking illustration of the virtues and graces which adorn and dignify it.

This fourteenth chapter brings us upon a new theater H where everything wears a new aspect. The old, ferocious scenes, in which dragons and many-headed beasts were conspicuous, are entirely changed. These have all disappeared, as wild beasts of the forest do at the approach of day. Angels now are the ministering spirits in the affairs of men. Quite a new influence is felt amongst the nations; they breathe easier, and man looks upon his fellow-man with a coufiding sympathy, which assures him that a happier day has risen upon the hopes and prospects of men. The reason

of all this is, Christianity is established in the earth. The people of God are no longer hunted, persecuted, and destroyed, for their faith in Christ; they now stand in triumph

* See the Sale of Indulgences by Tetzel, Sampson, and others.

with the Lamb upon mount Sion. The stake and the fire, the rack and torture of the Inquisition and edicts of despotic power, no longer assault and oppress the people of God.

The freedom which the Church of Christ now enjoys from all this tyranny and persecution is happily expressed in the sixth verse under the representation of an angel; not creeping on the earth with fear and apprehension, but flying in the midst of heaven, in the presence of all earthly power and dominion, proclaiming freely and boldly the everlasting gospel to all nations, people and tongues. This angel represents the numerous and various means, such as the public ministers of the gospel, bible, missionary, and tract societies, and every other means employed by the church to extend the knowledge of the gospel over the earth; and in this way it is eminently characteristic of the great revival and the wide diffusion of gospel religion which have distinguished the last hundred years of the church's history.

The sixth and seventh verses show precisely what was taught in the everlasting gospel which this angel promulgated.

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 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.

The great principle of gospel command, as announced by the angel, is, that men should fear God and give glory to him. This warning was necessary to correct the superstitious fear that men almost universally labored under of the power of the Pope and his interdicts, anathemas, and excommunications. Wherever the authority of the Romish Church extended, this dread of its power held the people in a stupefied state of mind, and in a condition of moral slavery, as unfriendly to religious and intellectual improvement generally

as intoxication is to the proper exercise of the rational faculties. The woman, as we have seen, had debauched all nations with the cup of her abominations.

It is evident that the people had been under this fear of the Pope to such an extent that all distinct recognition of God as the moral governor of the world was lost out of their minds. To correct this false fear and draw the people away from their superstitious error, this first command is announced by the angel: Fear God, and give glory to him. The second command is: And worship him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

Idolatrous worhip, in one form or another, is almost a necessary consequence of this ignorant and superstitious fear. Under its influence men are ever inclined to worship the creaturè more than the Creator. Angels or images, sticks or stones, or any sensible objects, present to them subjects of worship much more congenial with their degraded minds than the invisible God. The gods made by men's hands, and set up in the churches, private dwellings, or the public highways, are the objects of their highest veneration. Against all this idolatry the second warning of the angel is directed, but particularly against image worship, as being the most common form in which this idolatry was practiced by the Church of Rome.

The angel urges these commands by the solemn assurance that the hour of God's judgment is come. Men will no longer be excused in the practice of these degrading vices. Whatever excuse the days of their former ignorance might have furnished for their idolatrous worship, the light of the gospel now points out to every man the only true object of religious worship, and leaves him no alternative but the judgment of God if he now persists in degrading Christianity and dishonoring his Maker by worshiping saints and images.

The hour of his judgment is come, is equivalent to saying that a stricter accountability is now exacted of men, because