the true human authority, and all the true human liberty, that ever has been; that He will prove the first to have proceeded from Him, that He will claim the last for our race as the reward of His agony and Death.

LECTURE VII.

THE SEALING OF THE TRIBES.

REV. VII.

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen; Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. And one of the

elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

PART of this passage is read as the Epistle on All Saints' Day. I have spoken to you of it formerly in connexion with that day. I know no verbal commentary which illustrates its meaning so well. But I shall now consider it as it bears on the general subject and purpose of the Apocalypse. The words "After these things" remind us of the vision we were considering last Sunday. Each of the four seals, when it was broken, had disclosed some form of power-of power splendid and victorious; of power preying upon itself; of power watching carefully over mere possessions and calculating for their increase; of power destroying both things and men. The breaking of the fifth seal had discovered the victims of power crying out for right; asking when it should be shown that power is the creature and minister of right. When the next seal was opened, the prophet felt the earth shaking, kingdoms falling into ruin, the great men of the earth crying to

the hills and mountains to cover them from the righteous Avenger, from the wrath of Him who sat on the throne, and of the Lamb.

Yes! from the wrath of the Lamb. For He is not presented to us in the visions of the Apocalypse as interposing to arrest the decrees of righteousness, but as executing and fulfilling them. The feeble and utterly bewildering notion-cruel as well as feeble, practically immoral as well as theoretically inconsistent, which has mixed itself with all mythologies, and has been transferred from them into Christian teachings-of a human benefactor whose mind is different from the mind of Him that sits on the throne-who seeks to avert from men the consequences of His righteous judgments-is altogether opposed to the doctrine of St. John the theologian. The Lamb is the helper of the creature, because He does the will of the Creator; because He fights with His armour against all the usurpers who prove that they are rebels against God by trampling upon man,

Is this convulsion, then, which is making earth and heaven tremble-the thrones of the dynasts who rule in the one, the thrones of the gods whom they worship as the props of their dominion in the other-is this convulsion really the commencement as the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains think—of an universal anarchy? He who believed that the Lamb was

opening the seals, he who had heard the cry from beneath the altar, knew that it could not be so. There was an universal anarchy if these kings, and great men, and chief captains, these gods on earth and in heaven, were the only supporters of order. But if they were themselves anarchs, if their disobedience to eternal laws had produced this earthquake, had made it inevitable, those laws would be asserted and brought to light by the events that caused the unfaithful rebels to turn pale and hide themselves.

I. The next revelation is of a divine order in the midst of this disorder: And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.' 'How foolish!' exclaims the sciolist, who wishes to be thought a man of science; four angels holding four winds; what ignorance of the laws of Nature!' Now this criticism, so far from being scientific, is merely the expression of a vulgar sensation which true science would teach us to distrust. How can it interfere with any law which governs the winds-whether we are acquainted with such a law or ignorant of it-that it should be administered by spiritual powers, living persons? If we resolutely associate the acts of such powers with caprice, if we suppose that it cannot be