CHAPTER IV.

The Revelator having noticed in a more special manner the hundred and forty-four thousand-the first fruits unto God and the Lamb-and the promulgation of the gospel throughout the world, the fall of Babylon, and the order of the harvest in the end of the world, he is now prepared to give us the sixth lesson in symbolic prophecy. This will take us through the fifteenth and sixteeth chapters.

This lesson opens with another great and very marvellous sign in heaven-the moral world; seven angels are seen in possession of the seven last plagues, which embrace all the wrath of God, and his judgments on his enemies. These seven denote the number and order of these judg ments. The sea of glass symbolizes the great fountain and broad waters of gospel truth, and is mingled with fire. The gospel is all along mingled with the awful threatenings and judgments of God, which must be experienced by the finally impenitent. Upon this foundation, and no other, will the saints stand, having, through his instrumentality, gained the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark and number.

By the harps of God, are meant their powers and faculties to sing in their immortal state. The harps of God, or harpers, are not mentioned only as connected with voices and singing. The saints stand upon this transparent sea, in their triumphant and immortal state, and sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. The song of Moses is that which he caused to be sung on the miraculous deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea, and ascribes great and marvellous works to the Lord God Almighty-comprehending all his great and noble acts towards the children of men. The song of the Lamb ascribes justice, righteousness, truth, reverence, fear, and glory to His holy name, for He is great, and greatly to be praised, and will cause all nations to come, and bow, and worship before Him, when his judgments shall be made manifest.

After this scene of beholding the company of the redeemed, and hearing their songs as they stood upon the crystal water of truth--which will be fulfilled before these plagues are finished-the Revelator has his attention directed to the source of these plagues, and their order, and accomplishment. He first beholds the temple [true church] of the tabernacle of testimony in the moral world opened, and the seven angels come out of the temple having the seven plagues, clothed in white linen, with their breasts girded with golden girdles. The white linen denotes their purity and righteousness; the golden girdles, the truth and word of their commission, bound to their hearts and breasts, which is the sacred repository of trust and moral purity.

All plagues and judgments come from the church, as we saw by the Two Witnesses; for it is in consequence of the church and the truth it possesses, that judgment is executed upon the wicked. Therefore, these seven angels are said to come out of the church, and one of the four beasts-one of those noticed under the seals which we

know was a symbol of the church-gave unto the seven angels, seven golden vials of the wrath of God. It was the fourth beast-or living creature, as it might be rendered that is here meant, that gave to the angels, these vials.

It will be recollected that the fourth beast symbolized the church during the reign of papacy, and these plagues commence in the history of this fourth beast, or stage of the church history.

We next discover the temple filled with smoke, or a cloud, 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. The temple thus filled with the cloud of God's glory and power, is after the resurrection, and when all the church are clothed with immortality, and are in their perfect and glorious state. No man, therefore, can enter into this glory and temple thus filled with God's presence, till after the plagues are poured out. When this is done, the church will be filled with the glory of God, and shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.

A voice is now heard from the church, saying to the angels, Go your ways and pour out the vials of God's wrath upon the earth. The first proceeded and poured out his vial upon the earth; and it resulted in a very of fensive, annoying, and grievous sore upon the men which had taken the mark of the beast and worshipped his image. It was out of the earth that the two horned beast arose. This expression, the earth, is used to distinguish the locality of certain prophetic events from what is called the sea. The sea symbolizes a great empire; and the Roman beast, or the first beast that had the wound by the sword and did live, arose out of the sea, or out of an empire already existing. The earth is the province of the two horned beast, and here is where the vials of God's judg

ments begin to manifest themselves, viz., England and Germany.

The sore that broke out, so offensive and grievous to this two horned beast, or those that had the mark and worshipped his image, was the outbreak and general revolt or dissent that took place in England and Germany from the established church and religion of these two branches of the Protestant beast. As I have remarked, it was as necessary for the real Church of Christ to separate from this Protestant beast, as it was from the рарасу; and when separate organizations began to be formed, and a cry for independence, for political and religious freedom rung through the province of this beast, it created a very grievous sore to all those who were allied to the established church, and were devoted to the worship of its image.

Every unbiased mind must concede, that the system of religious worship of the English and Lutheran churches, is indeed but an image; and that not so much of pure Christianity, as it is an image of papacy, and Christian Rome. The dissenters fought with spirit and bravery in this moral warfare, notwithstanding councils and national legislation had given their verdict against them, and they were subject to stripes, imprisonments, and in many intances banishment and death. It was a sore that annoyed them exceedingly, and many have been the adhesive compounds invented and applied by the national and established physicians to heal it, but all to no purpose; it has continued to spread till the whole system, or constitution, of this two horned beast is inflamed with it, and threatened with consumption and death.

It was the intention of these two churches to control the Christian reform, and as fast as the reformers broke from their necks the galling yoke of papal oppression, to fasten upon them another yoke but God had otherwise determined. He has pledged to his suffering people that he

will put upon them none other burden. The papal power is the last mentioned in prophecy, either in the Old or New Testaments, that should arise and exert universal dominion over the Church of God; consequently we see the wisdom and necessity of God-as soon as the time had come to break down the civil authority of the papal government, and end its tyrannical reign-in commencing thus early to stir up a spirit of successful revolt against this new and late oppressive beastly government.

All can see that it would have done no good to liberate the church from one oppressive government and fasten upon them another; therefore, the first vial is poured out on the earth-the territory of this Protestant beast—and there fell upon men stamped with the mark and image of this beast, a grievous sore, i. e., a political and religious revolt. God had in reserve this American continent, upon the soil of which the tree of liberty was at the appointed time to be planted, and grow as it has, and will, to the end of time, and be an asylum for the oppressed, and a rod of terror and consumption to the despots of Europe, and for aught we know, the whole world. We must remember that while these are vials of God's displeasure and judgments upon his enemies, they result, as all his judg ments have in every age of the world, in blessings to his people. God has called his church and people to liberty, and to resist even unto blood, the power of the Protestant beast, wherever it manifest itself, and undertakes now to encroach upon the rights, privileges, and freedom of his people.

The second messenger is called upon, and he empties his vial into the sea-the dominion of the papal beast-and the sea became as the blood of a dead man. This was a spirit of revolt and breaking up of the papal supremacy. The sea becoming like the blood of a dead man symbolizes the congealed and stagnant life of the papal authority,