(k)

(m)

Thou hast done wonderful things. Thy counsels of old are FAITHFULNESS AND TRUTH. Isa. xxv. 1.

I am come to make thee (Daniel) understand what shall befall thy people in the latter day. I will show thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth. Dan. x. 14, 21.

(a) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the endingwhich is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Rev. i. 8.

I.

(c) Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. Rev. vii. 11, 12.

(d)

(f)

(g)

(h)

(i)

(k)

(1)

(m)

We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned. Rev. xi. 17.

Alleluia; for the LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT reigneth.-He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords. Rev. xix. 6, 16.

I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it. Rev.

xx. 11.

And he that sat upon the throne-said, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Rev. xxi. 6.

Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Rev. xxii. 12, 13.

-In the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength; for He bringeth down them that dwell on high. Isa. xxvi. 4, 5.

And the LORD (JEHOVAH) shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall be one LORD (JEHOVAH), and his name one. Zech. xiv. 9.

He held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever, &c. Dan. xii. 7.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OPENING OF THE SIXTH SEAL COMPARED WITH OTHER SCRIPTURES.

And I beheld, when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?-Rev. vi. 12-17.

THAT the Lord Jesus Christ shall come, and that all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him; and that every promise given to his redeemed, or to him that overcometh, shall be fulfilled, as the completion of them all, was seen and recorded by his Apostle John among the things that must be hereafter, are truths to which scriptural testimony has already been adduced.

The consummating judgments on all the nations and kindreds of the earth, and the coming of the kingdom of God and of his Christ, and of the glory that shall then be revealed, are so connected together in the oracles of the living God, that the same scriptures, frequently in the same verse, testify alike of both.

The Sixth Seal, which concludes with a vision of the saints in glory, commences with a description of the great

day of the wrath of the Lamb. In regard to both these themes alike, scripture has to be compared with scripture; and if due weight be given to the Divine authority, as set forth in the unerring word of God, it will be held to be as conclusive in the one case as in the other. Let, then, the reader judge for himself, as founding his faith on scripture alone, whether the record which John here bears, does not, on such a comparison, supply intrinsic evidence, obvious to sight, that the opening of the Sixth Seal is descriptive of that great day of the wrath of the Lamb, as this scripture designates it, in which all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, as this Scripture, too, gives expression to their wailing and their woe, their terrors and their testimony, when that day shall come.

In different visions of the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, or records of the things which John saw, written in order to show unto his servants things that must come to pass, the judgments that finally shall fall on his enemies and theirs are shown to them, as well as the kingdom and glory that are prepared as their inheritance. The latter are revealed part after part, and so also are the former. The wailing of all kindreds of the earth-the great day of the wrath of the Lamb-the coming of his wrath, and the destruction of the destroyers of the earth-the gathering of the vine of the earth, and the casting of it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God-the perdition of the worshipers of the beast and of his image-the battle of that great day of God Almighty-his true and righteous judg ments, by which the blood of his saints is avenged, and the world cleared of his enemies, and under which the beast and the false prophet, and the kings of the earth and of the whole world perish-the treading of the wine-press which is repeatedly shown-are not described in Scripture as different judgments which shall come to pass at different times, though, like the accomplished blessedness of the saints, as seen in the Book of Revelation, and the burden of single cities or countries, as written by the prophets, they be set forth in his Word in different visions. If the sayings of this Book be kept, the testimony is plain and the truth incontrovertible, that the day is the great day of the wrath of the Lamb, in which his consummating judgments shall be universally felt, and as universally acknowledged.

The structure of the Apocalypse rests not on any assump

tions. That authority which is infinitely the highest, and in opposition to which there is none, must here, in every believing mind, not vailed by any discordant theory, at once conclusively determine whether the awful scene disclosed on the opening of the Sixth Seal, be or be not identical with those final judgments on the kings and kingdoms of the world that now is. If, according to Scripture, the identity be complete, nothing that any man can "assume" or "presume" can be set against it, without substituting vain imaginations for that word which abideth forever, and from which not a jot or tittle shall pass away till all be fulfilled.

The Sixth Seal speaks for itself, at its fearful opening as well as in its glorious consummation. Of the one as of the other, many scriptures speak, as if echo answered to echo at its voice. And the identity of the judgment, written so often, may be seen, till figure answers to figure, and word to word, as in a glass face answers to face.

The following table shows, without any assumption or presumption, any private interpretation or intrusive fancy whatever, that the judgments which shall come upon the earth in the great day of the Lord, as defined by other scriptures, are precisely such as are delineated in the same terms on the opening of the Sixth Seal, or in the great day of the wrath of the Lamb. As containing solely the words, not which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, and forming the express and repeated testimony of the Lord God of the holy prophets, it shows how truth is elucidated as scripture is compared with scripture, spiritual things with spiritual, so that no man may by any means deceive those who make the Lord's own word the only ground and the only rule and regulation of their faith in believing, through the Spirit which inspired them, the things that are revealed.1

An attentive perusal and reperusal of this Table of texts, must show, wherever the unrestrained entrance of the word gives light, that in the Sixth Seal, as in the parallel testimonies of holy writ, the judgment there unfolded before the eye of faith is not, like many others, local or partial, but universal and complete. No one can see in it that the limits of the Roman empire bound it. It disclaims such bounds, and rejects such fetters. In the opening of the Sixth Seal there is a combination and concentration of 1 See Table IV., p.

94.

figures, or of facts, all expressly descriptive of the great day of the wrath of the Lamb, and all included in other prophetic delineations of the same day of the Lord, that, linking every word to kindred judgments and terrors of that day, are here alone concentrated. Every part of it is thus seen in scriptural light alone. In no other light can it be seen. It is vain for man to speak when the Lord hath spoken, and to set up fallacious assumptions against the word that never errs.

That the consummation decreed, which shall overflow with righteousness, is revealed in each of the visions quoted in the Table, the testimony in every instance shows. These scriptures, and many others, will afterward be more fully compared with other things recorded in the Book of Revelation, as prophetic history expands, till all things be finished, and every word be fulfilled. But not to advance a step where the reader does not feel that he rests on Scripture as on a rock, a few words from each of these separate visionsor things which the prophets saw-may show that, like the Sixth Seal, they testify both of the consummation, and of the succeeding kingdom of righteousness and peace.

It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.-And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, &c.-The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day; for the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, &c. Isa. ii. 2, 4, 11, 12. The moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Sion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.-He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. xxiv. 23; xxv. 7, 8.

It is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.-The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. xxxiv. 8; xxxv. 1.— Come all ye heathen.-The heavens and the earth shall shake; but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the