'"WE have more established the prophetic word, to which ye do well giving heed as to light shining in a dark place while day may have shone, and a light-bearer have arisen in your hearts." - PETER.

The conquests of Napoleon as predicted in Revelation 16: 1- 11 changed the national face of Europe and provided the basis upon which the political trends of the Sixth Seal have since developed. He brought to an end the Holy Roman Empire, and laid the foundation for the termination of the temporal power of the Papacy (since restored by Mussolini of Italy) in 1870. To demonstrate his power, on December 2, 1804, in the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, Napoleon took the imperial crown from the hand of Pope Pius VII, whom he had summoned from Rome, and placed it on his head. This was to illustrate his supremacy over both political and religious authorities. This drawing by contemporary artist Jacques Louis David depicts Napoleon crowning himself emperor. Jacques David became court painter to Napoleon.

FOREWORD TO VOLUME FIVE

The original Edition of Eureka was divided into three volumes, so that the Author's Preface in what we have published as Volume Four should also be read in conjunction with the present Volume.

Since Eureka was first published, and since the death of its Author, world events have followed the pattern of prophecy as laid down in the Word, and ex-pounded by him in Elpis Israel, Eureka and other works. For example, the Middle East was wrested from Turkish power during the course of World War I, and the Empire as such terminated shortly afterwards. In these events the political Euphrates has continued to "dry up" in accordance with Rev. 16:12, and the 'way of the Kings out of the sun's rising" has been in course of "preparation". The Balfour Declaration inviting the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland, and establish therein a national home, opened the way for prophecies of the restoration to commence. And in other, equally dramatic events, the expositions of the Author have been remarkably vindicated. World War II saw the emergence of Soviet Russia as a world power, followed by the demand for the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel. The post-war world has witnessed the consolidation of these developments, including the division of Europe into two parts through which can be seen the formation of the two feet of the Image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream. Coinciding with that, the world has witnessed a tremendous advancement in the invention and manufacture of weapons of war of such destructive potentiality as to threaten the future of civilization, answering to the requirements of the demoniac agitation indicated by Revelation 16:14. It is surely of the highest significance that man-kind today has in its hands such forces of destruction as could render the earth uninhabitable if ever they were used to the fullest extent possible. For this is the very condition anticipated by The Apocalypse in Chapter 11:15: "And the nations were angry', and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth".

Never before have these words the significance that they have today!

Elsewhere the Lord told his Apostles: "Men's hearts will fail them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken . . . And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke21:26-28).

How important it is, in these closing days of the Gentiles, that The Apocalypse should be studied, in order that a better appreciation of things to come should be developed. Eureka is outstanding in providing a help to that end; and we esteem it an honour to be associated with the issuance of a new Edition of what must rate as the outstanding exposition of The Apocalypse available - particularly in view of the blessings pronounced by Christ upon those who read it with understanding (Rev. 1:3). As the Author of Eureka wrote:

"The Apocalypse was given to the end that the servants of Deity who are keeping their garments might be able to discern the signs of the times preceding the apocalypse of Christ; and the real nature of things extant in their several generations. No believer understanding this prophecy could be seduced into fellowship with the clerical institutions of this world; because he would see them in all their native deformity and sin".

It will be noticed by the discerning Reader, that the mammoth task that engaged the Author of Eureka, particularly in view of his limited resources, resulted in some of the last chapters of The Apocalypse being treated more scantily than the earlier ones. Where we have deemed it helpful we have added comments of our own in the form of footnotes to supplement those of the Author, and further information on these chapters (Chapter 17 onwards) can be obtained from the verse by verse exposition of the Book of Revelation in The christadelphian Expositor.

In his preface to the final volume of Eureka, the Author declared that it was only with the help of Yahweh that he was able to complete the task he set himself. We feel somewhat similar in regard to the publication of this new Edition. We have been plagued with problems in producing it, but gradually these have been overcome, and it is with great relief, profound thankfulness to Yahweh, and deep appreciation to those who have assisted us, that we are enabled at last to place this final Volume in the hands of the Reader. We trust that he derives the pleasure from reading it that it has been ours in re-examining it and preparing it for reprinting.

Logos Publications January, 1986

'CONTENTS

Foreword to Volume Five 5

CHAPTER XIV

THIRD GENERAL DIVISION

THE LITTLE OPEN SCROLL 9

TRANSLATION 11

REMARKS ON THE TRANSLATION 12

1. The Lamb on Mount Zion 14

2. The Sound of many Waters 20

3. The Harpers Harping with their Harps 23

4. The New Song 24

5. The Character of the First Fruits, or of the 144,000 28

6. The Angel-Proclamation in Midheaven 32

7, The Second Angel 45

8. The Third Angel 50

9.The Patience of the Saints

10.A Voice from the Heaven 58

11.The Reaping of the Earth's Harvest 64

12.The Vintage of the Earth 69

13.The Bridles of the Horses 72

14.Sixteen Hundred Furlongs 74

CHAPTER XV

TRANSLATION 78

1.The Sign in Heaven 78

2.The Glassy Sea 83

3.The Conquerors on the Glassy Sea 86

4.The Song of Moses 87

5.ThesongoftheLamb 91

6. After these Things" 93

7.The Seven Angels of the Nave 95

8.The Seven Golden Vials 97

9.The Nave filled with Smoke 99

10.No Entrance into the Nave till the End 102

CHAPTER XVI

THIRD AND FOURTH SECTIONS OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

TRANSLATION 105

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 109

THE SEVENTH TRUMPET, OR THIRD WOE

1. The Great Voice 108

2. TheFirstVial 114

3. The Second Vial 123

4. The Third Vial 128

5. The Fourth Vial 142

6. Historical Exposition 143

7. The Fifth Vial 153

8. Historical Exposition 154

9. Napoleon "the Great" a type of Christ, the Man of War 163

~0. The Image-Worshippers Blasphemous and Unrepentant 167

11. The Sixth Vial 174

PART I

1. The Outpouring of Wrath upon the Euphrates 175

2. The Commencement of the Sixth Vial 187

3. Historical Summary of the Drying-Up of the River 189

PART II

1. The Three Unclean Spirits 198

2. "Like to Frogs" 201

3. The going Forth of the Frog ~ Spirits 205

4. The First Phase of the Frog Sign 213

5. The Second Phase of the Frog Sign 217

6. The Third Phase of the Frog Sign 225

PART III

1. The Thief-like Advent 231

2. "Blessed He who watcheth" 240

PART IV

THE GATHERING INTO ARMAGEDDON 244

THE SEVENTH VIAL 259

1. The Air 261

2. "It is Done" 264

3. The Great Earthquake 266

4. The Great Hail 269

CHAPTER XVII

TRANSLATION 271

1. The Wilderness 273

2. The Great Harlot 274

3. The Wine of the Harlot's Fornication 276

4. The Scarlet-Coloured Beast 278

CHAPTER XVIII

DESTRUCTION OF THE GREAT HARLOT

TRANSLATION 284

1. The Descending Angel 285

2. The Descending Angel's Shout 287

3. Another Voice 287

4. "One Day" 290

5. Yahweh Elohim 291

6. The Consummation 292

7. The Survivors 294

8. The Shiplading 295

CHAPTER XIX

TRANSLATION 298

I. "After these things" ' 298

2. The HaIlelu-Yah Celebrations 299

TRANSLATION resumed 303

3. The Scene 304

4. The Time of the Scene 304

5. The Name Written 305

6. The Hosts of the Heaven 307

7. The White Horses 309

TRANSLATION resumed 311

8. Theone Angel 311

9. The Loud Voice 312

If). The Bird of Prey 313

II. The Lak o fFire 314

CHAPTER XX

TRANSLATION 319

I. The Descending Angel 320

2. The Key and Chain 320

3. The First Resurrection 324

4. The Rest of the Dead 329

5. The Great White Throne 331

CHAPTER XXI

TRANSLATION 333

I. The Former Heaven and Earth 334

2. The New Heaven and New Earth 337

3. No More Sea 339

4. The Holy City, New Jerusalem 341

5. The Glory of the Deity 344

6. The Great and High Wall 345

7. The Twelve Gates of Pearl 346

8. The Twelve Foundations 348

9. The Monuments of the City 350

10. The Kings of the Earth 352

CHAPTER XXII

TRANSLATION 354

1. The Water of Life 356

2. The Wood of Life 358

3. The Leaves of the Wood 360

4. No More Curse 362

5. CONCLUSION 364

The Apocalypse

Genesis is the Book of Beginnings; Revelation is the Book of Endings. Genesis tells us how it began; Revelation explains how it Will end. The Apocalypse, as With all of Christ's teaching, is rooted in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Its character is Hebrew. It has been assessed that Matthew, the Hebrew Gospel contains ninety-two quotations from and references to the Old Testament; the Epistle to the Hebrews has one hundred and two; but The Apocalypse has two hundred and eighty five. Christ thus endorsed the writings of Moses. He said to the Jews by the mouth of Abraham in parable: "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them; if they believe not Moses and the prophets neither will they believe though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16:29-31). Further, he declared: "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his words, how shall ye believe my words?" (John 5:47). Christ thus endorsed both Genesis and Revelation as Divinely inspired. An equal warning is given in the Law as in The Apocalypse, against those whose teaching weakens the point or significance of either. See Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Prov. 30:6; Rev. 22:19 - Publishers.

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Chapter 14

THIRD GENERAL DIVISION Vol.2p. 111

The Little Open Scroll

The Seventh Seal, Seventh Trumpet, Seventh Vial, and Seven Thunders, from the manifestation of Christ and his Brethren under the going forth of the Frog-like Unclean Spirit out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, in the third and last section of the Frog Sign, and third part of the Sixth Vial:- from this the initiation of "the manifestation of the Sons of the Deity" as the Lamb in the midst of the 144,000 redeemed from the earth; to the full establishment of the Millennial Throne and Kingdom of David, coeval with, and consequent upon, the utter destruction of Daniel's "dreadful and terrible" Fourth Beast, which comprehends as its constituents the Apocalyptic Beast of the Sea, Beast of the Earth, Image of the Beast, False Prophet, Scarlet-colored Beast, and the Drunken Babylonian Harlot, with all her Daughters and Abominations, "the Names and Denominations of Christendom:" and the subjection, but not extermination, of his first three, the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard, answering to the Apocalyptic Dragon, bound, and shut up in the abyss for a thousand years.

Apoc. 4:5; 5:5-14; 7:9-17; 10; 11:15-19; 13:10; 14; 15; 16:15-21; 17:14; 18; 19; 20:1-6, 11-15; 21:8.

TIME OF EVENTS

"The Time of the End," (Dan. 8.17, 11.40, 12.1 4) which commences from the Quadrennial Epoch, A.D. 1860-'4, and terminates A.D. 1904-08*.

* See note Vol.2, pp. 10-~~.

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THE SIXTH SPECIAL DIVISION OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET

ACT VI- SIXTH VIAL

PART 3

Apocalypse 16:15

While the Frog-like Spirits are working, ~ the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17,18) comes into the world "as a thief." He descends from heaven having great power - the key of the abyss and a great chain (Apoc. 18:1; 20:1) - for the work of killing with the sword them who destroy the earth; and of enlightening it with his glory (Apoc. 13:10; 11:18; 18:1). Having been clothed with a cloud (Apoc. 10:1; Heb. 12:1) of witnesses, he stands on Mount Zion in the midst of 144,000 - his companions and co-workers - the Mystical Son of Man, whose voice is as the voice of a multitude (Apoc. 14:1; Dan. 10:6) - as the sound of many waters (Apoc. 1:15). His head is encircled with the rainbow of the covenant; his face is as the sun, and his goings forth as pillars of fire. Thus prepared, he stands ready for action with his right foot upon the Sea-beast, and his left upon the Earth-beast, and a LITTLE OPEN SCROLL in his hand, upon which are inscribed, "the lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquakes, and great hail" - the Seven Thunders proceeding from the throne - to be ministered by those who are honored to take the Scroll, and to eat it up (Apoc. 10:9; 11:19; 4:5).

Now is the judgment of the nations - "the hour of judgment," in which they are invited to fear the Deity, and to give glory to him (Apoc. 14:6,7). Proclamation is made by the "One Body," now anointed and glorified, and of which the Lord Jesus is the Head, that "time shall be no longer." Daniel's 1260 time shall then terminate - and the finishing of the mystery of the Deity be apocalypsed (Apoc. 10:6,7). The glorified members of this Body sing a new song before the throne; and confidently aver, as the result of the events prefigured in the ensuing fourteenth chapter, that they shall reign as the kings and priests of Deity upon the earth (Apoc. 14:3; 5:9,10).

FOURTH PART OF SIXTH VIAL

Apocalypse 16:16

The Advent, or "Manifestation of the Sons of the Deity" (Rom. 8:19; 1 John 3:1,2) having transpired, the Angel of the Sixth Vial gathers the kings, or rulers, of the Earth-beast, and of the whole habitable, or Sea-beast, into the place styled in Hebrew, ARMAGEDDON. This gather-

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ing effected the events of the Seventh Vial (which are the Seven Thunders hurled by the Second and Third Angels against Babylon and the worshippers of the Beast and his Image; and the Harvest and Vintage of the Son of Man and the three angels exhibited in the fourteenth chapter) -finish the mystery, and the wrath of the Deity against mankind is stayed.

Chapter 14

DISSOLUTIONOF THE LAODICEAN STATE

TRANSLATION

1. "And I looked, and behold a Lamb stood upon the Mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty-four thousands, having the name of his Father, which had been written upon their foreheads.

2. And I heard a sound from the heaven as a sound of many waters, and as a sound of loud thunder.

And I heard a voice of harpers harping with their harps. 3. And they sing as it were a new song in the presence of the throne, and in the presence of the four living ones, and of the elders: and no one was able to learn the song, except the hundred forty-four thousands, who had been redeemed from the earth.

4. These are they who had not been contaminated with women; for they are virgins. These are the attendants upon the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These had been redeemed from among men, an offering of first fruits for the Deity and for the Lamb. 5. And in their mouth had been found no guile; for they are faultless in the presence of the throne of the Deity.

6. And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having aionian news to proclaim to them who dwell upon the earth, even every nation and tribe and tongue and people; 7. Saying with a loud voice, Fear the Deity, and give to him glory, for the hour of his judgment hath arrived; and do homage to him who hath made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.

8. And another angel wed, saying, Fallen, fallen hath Babylon the great city; because she hath made all nations drink of the wine of the raging of her fornication.

9. And a third angel followed them, saying, with a loud voice, If any one worship the Beast and his Image, and receive a sign upon his forehead, or upon his hand.

10. He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity, which hath been prepared without mixture in 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 until the aeons of aeons: and they have no respite day and night, who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receiveth the sign of his name.

12. Here is the patience of the saints; here they who keep the command-

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ments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus.

13. And I heard a voice from the heaven, saying to me, Write! Blessed the dead dying in the Lord from this time. Yea, saith the Spirit, in order that they may take rest from their labors; and their work he goes in aid of with them.

14. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like to a son of man, having upon his head a golden stephan, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

15. And another angel came out of the Nave, vociferating with a loud voice to him sitting upon the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap, because for thee hath arrived the hour of the reaping, for the harvest of the earth hath been ripened.

16. And he that is sitting upon the cloud cast his sickle upon the earth, and the earth was reaped.

17. And another angel came out from the Nave which is in the heaven, he having also a sharp sickle.

18. And another angel came out from the altar, having power over the fire, and he shouted with a great outcry to him having the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and cut off the clusters of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.

19. And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and cut off the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of the Deity.

20. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out from the winepress unto the bridles of the horses, for a thousand six hundred furlongs.

REMARKS ON THE TRANSLATION

By comparing the above with the Common Version the reader will see the difference for himself. I have found no benefit in the labors of the "recent editors" who have undertaken to mend the Greek text. They seem to think nothing of "taking away from the words of the book of this prophecy;" and of "adding" thereto - Ch. 22:18,19. We have examples of this editorial recklessness in the chapter before us. The first occurs in a note upon to onoma, "the name" in verse 1. "All the recent editors for to onoma, have to onoma autou kai to onoma. I recommend", says the revising editor of the Baptist New Version, "that this reading be followed and translated: his name and the name." But I have not followed the recommendation, because the proposed alteration is superfluous, and implies two names, the name of the Father and the name of the Lamb. But the name of the Father is also the name of the Lamb; and therefore the phrase, "the name," is doubtless correct, and certainly all sufficient.

Again, in Verse 2, on the words, "I heard the voice of harpers, " etc., a note runs thus, "instead of phonen eko usa, all the recent editions have he phone hen eko usa hos. I recommend that this reading be adopted and

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translated: the voice which I heard (was) as." Now this would imply that the voice of the harpers was as "the sound of great thunder" a noise not very creditable to their music! The recent editors err in supposing that phonen, used four times in the second verse, refers to the same voice or sound. This is not the fact. The sound of many waters, and the sound of loud thunder, are the sounds of acclamation and war; while the voice of harpers is the song of personal redemption, and future glory, when the war is over. I have therefore disregarded the decision of "the recent editors;" and maintained the distinction between the thundering and the harping, by dividing the second verse, and translating the phone of thunder "sound," and the phone of the singing harpers, "voice," in the sense of music and Song.

Again, "the recent editors" do not like the word dolos, "guile", in verse 5, but substitute the word pseuthos, "lie". A man that is guileless does not lie: but a man may not lie, and yet be full of deceit. The change may be more favorable to their morality; but I doubt not altogether unnecessary.

Again, "all the recent editors" cancel the words, enopion tou thronou tou Theou. "I recommend," says the reviser, "that this reading be adopted, and that the words, 'before the throne of God,' be omitted" from the fifth verse, so that with this editorial mutilation it would read, ~and in their mouth was found no lie; for they are faultless." But, where do they stand in this faultless condition? The recent editors have canceled the answer; I therefore restore it, and insert it in my translation; as, before, or "in the presence of the throne of the Deity," as represented in ch. 4:4.

In the sixth verse, I have left the word aionion untranslated. I have transferred it merely. The "aionian good news" will be the subject of exposition, when it will be seen that "everlasting" is not the word best suited to express its quality. We may find a better word when we see distinctly what the thing is; or "aioni an" being understood in its true sense may be suffered to remain.

Again, in verse 15, it reads, hoti elthe soi he hora tou therisai "because for thee hath arrived the hour of the reaping." The "recent editors" omit the word soi, for thee, though the order is addressed to a certain party. The hour of the reaping hath arrived. But by whom? Their recencies have struck out the answer in Suppressing the words "for thee". I have restored them; and the answer is "for thee, upon the cloud." And here we may dismiss "all the recent editors" as more of a pest than a blessing to the original Greek text of the revealing Spirit.

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1. The Lamb upon Mount Zion

"And I looked, and behold, a Lamb stood upon the Mount Zion, and with him 144,000, having the Name of his Father, which had been written upon their foreheads " - Verse l

All the events represented in this fourteenth chapter are in the future; for nothing having the least resemblance to them has ever been transacted upon the earth since the Deity gave the Apocalypse to Jesus Christ, who sent and signified it by his angel to John in Patmos. But, though all in that which is hereafter to become history, it is not unconnected with the things treated of in previous parts of the Apocalypse.

Thus, the Lamb and his 144,000 virgin-companions (Psa. 45:14), are represented in the first chapter by the Son of Man clothed with a garment of linen (Dan. 10:5) whose voice is as the sound of many waters, or the voice of a multitude (Dan. 10:6). They are the One sitting upon the throne, the New Throne in the opened heavens; and the four and twenty Elders in white raiment and golden stephans; and the Four Living Ones full of eyes, in the midst of the throne, and around it, exhibited in the fourth chapter. The 144,000 are exegetical of the symbolic Lamb whose personal chieftain, or Head, is Jesus Christ, "the Captain of their salvation," or the Deity manifested in flesh, justified by spirit (1 Tim. 3:16). He is the Lamb slain, and they are in him; and therefore constituents of the symbolic and mystical Lamb; an idea emblematically signified by the phrase, "with him 144,000". In other words, JESUS AND HIS BRETHREN "glorified together" (Rom. 8:17), are the Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the throne, or the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth into all the earth, represented by a Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes; that is, they are the Omnipotent and Omniscient Power in substantial and glorious manifestation, styled YAHWEH AIL-SHADDAI, "He who shall be the strength of the Mighty Ones, who was, and is, and is to come," and is superlatively holy - Ch. 4:5,8; 5:6; Psa. 50:1-6.

The wool with which the Lamb is clothed is of snowy whiteness -Isa. 1:18; Apoc. 1:14. Standing in the midst of 144,000, invested with "fine linen, clean and white," he is clothed with a pure and faultless multitude; which is his snowy fleece, washed and made white in the blood of the individual Lamb, Jesus-ch. 1:5:7:14. This Seven Horned and Seven Eyed Lamb-Multitude is the Mighty Angel descended from the heaven, clothed with a cloud; and holding in his hand a LITTLE OPEN SCROLL- Ch. 10:1. One thing, however, is particularly to be observed here, namely, that, though this cloud-invested angel, and the Lamb with the 144,000, symbolize the same multitude, they represent this multitude in different positions and stages of its career. In this fourteenth

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chapter, while on Mount Zion, the multitude is "in the heaven," having opened the door, entered therein, and set up the throne (ch. 4:1,2; Psa. 24:7; Dan. 2:44): but, in the tenth chapter (though without abandoning the seat of government) the almighty, cloud-invested, angel-Lamb and his companions, "come down from the heaven," and take up a position upon the earth and sea - verses 1,2,5,8. In other words, war has been declared against the Beast of the Earth, the Beast of the Sea, the Image of the Beast, and the False Prophet; that is, against all Europe, for the utter destruction of all its institutions, civil and ecclesiastical; and the subjugation of all its peoples, nations, tongues, and rulers, to the absolute sovereignty of David's Son and Lord (Psa. 110:1). The Lamb and his 144,000, "who follow him whithersoever he goes," engaged in this, 'the war of that great day of the all-powerful Deity" (ch. 16:14), are the cloud-invested angel in the territories of the enemy which they have invaded, and in which they are progressing as pillars of fire. " In this war-fare they are giving practical expression to the unwritten utterances of the Seven Thunders - unwritten in the tenth chapter; but illustrated in the fourteenth, from the eighth verse to the end.

The Lamb and 144,000 are the Nave of the Deity opened in the heaven in which is seen the Ark of his testimony (ch. 11:19). "Yahweh Ail-Shaddai is the Nave, even the Lamb-ho Kuriosho Theos hopan-tokrator, naos autes esti, kai to arnion (ch. 21:22). YAHWEH-AIL, or Kurios and SHADDAI. or Theos, constitute the Lamb. In other words, the Multitudinous Unity, indicated by Jesus in his prayer, that believers into him through the Apostolic word "may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be ONE IN US" (John 17:21). This unity is many individuals in One Body. This body when deified is the Nave, or Most Holy, as represented by the thrice uttered exclamation of the Four Living Ones, "Holy, holy, holy!!!" The Ark of the testimony is in this body when manifested in glory - "Christ the Head over all for the ecclesia, which is his body" (Eph. 1:22,23).

John saw the Lamb and his virgin companions, or Bride, standing upon Mount Zion. This is the platform, or standing-place, of their Body Politic, both as the Holy, and the Most Holy community. In the state previous td the advent of Christ, the Saints are the 144,000 in great tribulation, being subject to hunger and thirst, sun-stroke, and scorching heat - ch. 7:4,14,16. In this state of things they are subjected to the much tribulation," through which, Paul testifies, "we must enter into the kingdom of the Deity" (Acts 14:22). They are an election taken out from the nations, by obedience of faith, for His Name (Acts 15:14; Rom. 1:5): by which faith in "the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and the name of Jesus Christ," "they walk," and "are come to Mount Zion, and unto the City of the living God, the Heavenly

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Jerusalem" (2 Cor. 5:7; Acts 8:12; Heb. 12:22). Though scattered and dispersed, and natives of divers remote places, when viewed collectively they are regarded as being born in Zion; and constituting the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem; for the time being trodden under foot by the worshippers of the Beast. "Glorious things are spoken concerning Zion, the city of the Elohim" - ir hah-Elohim. Those who believe these glorious things, and are born of water, become citizens of Zion; so that when Yahweh writeth up the people, He will count that they were born there; for all His springs are in Zion, and He Himself will establish her (Psa. 87; Gal. 4:26; Apoc. 11:2).

But the time approaches when in a literal or unfigurative sense, "our feet shall stand within thy gates, 0 Jerusalem." This standing was represented to John in the standing of the Lamb and the 144,000 on Mount Zion, where are then "set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David" (Psa. 122:2-5). These "thrones of the House of David" belong to Zion, and nowhere else. They do not belong to the Seven Mountains, or Rome; but to the Holy Hill of Zion, which the Father styles His, in Psa. 2:6. These are the thrones in the heaven which John saw there after the door was opened - the twenty-four thrones circling about the central rainbowed throne, occupied by the Jasper and Sardine Stone, the twenty-four elders, and the four living ones (Apoc. 4:3,4,6: an emblematic illustration of the promise, "to him that over-cometh I will give to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame and sit with my Father on his throne (ch. 3:21). These thrones of the House of David belonging to Mount Zion are the thrones John refers to in ch. 20:4. "I saw thrones," says he, "and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of them who had been beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of the Deity, and who did no homage to the beast, nor to his image, and received not the sign upon their foreheads and upon their hands". These are the 144,000 on Mount Zion, who, having been raised from among the dead, and quickened, and had judgment given to them, occupy "thrones of judgment," and thenceforth "reign with Christ a thousand years." Among them are the twelve apostles, to whom the Lord Jesus in the days of his flesh, promised a joint possession with himself of thrones of the House of David. In answer to Peter who said, "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee: what therefore shall there be for us?" Jesus replied, "Ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. 19:27,28). Among these also will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets; and worthies from the east, and west, and north, and south; a

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great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues - all these stand before the throne and the Lamb, as the glorified 144,000, clothed with white robes; and when they rest from their labors, "with palms," instead of a two-edged sword, "in their hands" (Luke 13:28,29; Apoc. 7:9; Psa. 149:6).

The symbolic Lamb and 144,000 on Mount Zion are YAHWEH TZ~VAOTH, He who shall be hosts, of whom Isaiah prophesies in ch. 6, "I saw," saith he, "Adonai (the Spirit in plural manifestation-Lords) sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his robe-skirts filled the temple. Above it stood the Seraphim; each one had six wings; and one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, Yahweh Tz'vaoth; the whole earth is full of his glory". Adonai with robe-skirts filling the temple is the Spirit as the Lamb and the 144,000. These thousands are the skirts of the investing robe of "the King" YAHWEH TZ'VAOTH; and symbolized by the six-winged Seraphim, or four living ones full of eyes, described by John in ch. 4:6,7,8. That Adonai is One in plural manifestation, appears from the eighth verse. "I heard," saith Isaiah, the voice of Adonai, saying, Whom shall I send? and who will go for US?" In other words, Whom shall I, the Spirit, or the Father, send? Who will go for us, the plurality symbolized by the Seraph-skirts of the investing robe? The Spirit of Christ in the prophet answers, "Here am I; send me!" And He said "Go!" In the ninth and tenth verses is the message to be delivered to Israel. The delivery is noted in Matt. 13:13-15, and the Messenger is there found to be Jesus. He came, and was slain. He was "delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). Unto him, then, "the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the Kings of the Barth, unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us Kings and Priests for the Deity and his Father; to him be glory and dominion, for the aens of the aeons, Amen" (Apoc. 1:5-6). This is the ascription of Isaiah's Seraphim, of Ezekiel's Cherubim, and of John's four Living Ones, and therefore of the 144,000, to the Lamb for what he has done for them. The question, “Who will go for us?" has been graciously responded to by the loving self-sacrifice of Christ for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6-8). But for this voluntary and disinterested sacrifice, there would be no redemption; and therefore no Seraphic 144,000 hereafter on Mount Zion, or anywhere else. But, the redemption price has been paid, and all the Seals will be thoroughly unloosed. As certainly as the Lamb was slain, so surely will he appear on the Mount Zion, with the 144,000; when the moon of the political firmament shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when "He who shall be hosts" (Yahweh Tz'vaoth) shall reign on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his Ancients gloriously (Isa. 24:23).

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Much that ought to be said about the 144,000 has already appeared in Vol.11 ch. 7 § 5,6, to which the reader is referred. They are the "holy nation" the root of whose square is 12. The Name of the Lamb's Father is theirs; for they are said to have it. The Father's Name is representative of what He is - of His power, glory, substance, and character. The Anointed Jesus is now the apaugasma, or reflected splendor, of the glory of the Father; and the karakter, or exact likeness, of his hupostasis, or substance (Heb. 1:3). He is, therefore, "the Image of the Invisible Deity;" and occupies the rank of "first-born," or Chief, of "every creature" (Col. 1:15). Because of this, he is the impersonation, or embodiment, of the Father's Name. Isaiah speaks of him as this Name, in ch. 30:27: "the Name of Yahweh," saith he, "cometh from far, His anger burning, and the burden heavy; His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue as a devouring fire: and His breath as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity." Moses styles it, "the glorious and fearful name, aith Yahweh Elohekah - He who shall be thine Elohim, or Mighty Ones" (Deut. 28:58). Such is the Name that was written upon Jesus, when the Father "made him both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). In flashing, or photo-graphing, the power, glory, character, and very substance, of the Deity upon a body taken from among the dead, the Father's Name was written upon it; and the resurrected Jesus can now say, in every sense of the words, "I and the Father are One" - ego kai hopater hen esmen (John 10:30). This could not have been affirmed of him while dead. But the dead body was made to live again. It was thus restored to its former life; brought back to what it was before; and so fulfilling the word, saying, "Yahweh restoreth my soul" (Psa. 23:3). Being thus restored, he came into the position of those Paul styles, "the living who are left for the presence of the Lord;" that is, the remnant keeping the commandment of the Deity and the faith of Jesus, who are living when he comes as a thief. These, he says, "shall not sleep," or die. They are living persons such as Jesus was when restored to life; and like him, waiting for the same things to be wrought in them. The risen Jesus waited to be changed, or transformed, into what he was not on emerging from the tomb. The true believers, who hope not to die, knowing that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom, are also waiting to be changed or transformed into what they are not. The position of Jesus and this remnant is identical. He had not long to wait for his change. When it did come, it was "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" - quick as a flash of lightning. This was his reviving after he rose, and by which he was made Lord and Christ.

Such was the time of his transformation into "a quickening spirit;"

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and the operation by which the Father's Name was written, impressed, or flashed, upon him. It was his "NEW NAME," and identical with the Father's: not another name distinct from His. When this was flashed upon him, he became "The Blessed and Only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords." It is "a name which no man knows, but he himself;" that is, it declares what cannot be affirmed of any other man; namely, that He is the Invisible Eternal Power, in incorruptible and deathless manifestation, having absolute dominion in heaven and upon the earth - The Father's Image (1 Tim .6:15; Apoc .19:12,16; Matt. 28:18).

But the Eternal Spirit hath invited others to a participation with Jesus in the Father's Name. "He that hath an ear," saith he, "let him hear what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias; to him that overcometh, I will write upon him the Name of my Deity, and the Name of the city of my Deity, New Jerusalem, which descended out of the heaven from my Deity, and my New Name; which no one knows saving he that receives it" (Apoc. 2:17; 3:12). This has been explained in the first volume. I quote it here to remind the reader that saints, who walk in the truth, have the promise, that this "glorious and fearful name" shall be written upon them, as it hath been already written upon their Elder Brother, the Great Captain of their salvation.

The Name that shall be written has certain novelties connected with it. that entitle it to be called "New". The Name is now doctrinally sealed in the foreheads of the Deity's servants, who are also immersed into His name. As the result of the sealing they believe "the things of the kingdom of the Deity and of the Name of Jesus Christ." They have now "no more conscience of sins;" but "the answer of a good conscience towards the Deity," and the hope of a resurrection for eternal life in the king-dom. But, though they have put on the New Man, and are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, whatever their present spiritual conformity, they are not yet "like him" in power, glory', and substance. This is their hope, the realization of which will endow them with new qualities. Instead of being corruptible, ignominious, and weak of body, this will be changed, or transfigured, into a like form with the body of Christ's glory'. In the operation of this instantaneous transfiguration, the New Name of the Spirit is written upon them; so that that which in the state of tribulation is doctrinally written in their foreheads, is incorporated into their very substance by the Divine energy that sub-dues everything to itself (Phil. 3:21).

With this New Name of the Spirit, styled the Father's Name, the 144,000 will stand on Mount Zion. It is written upon them before they appear there. This is evident from the word gegrammenon, having been

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written. When was it written? Doctrinally, when sealed in their foreheads (ch. 7:3) in the great tribulation (verse 14); and corporeally, when "the dead, small and great," stand in the presence of the Deity, and are judged by what has been written, according to their works. Those who are found written in the Book of Life, receive their reward in the inscription of the New Name, which makes them like what Jesus Christ now is. All others are "cast into the lake of fire" with the Beast and False Prophet (ch. 11:18; 20:12-15; 14:9,10). Hence the standing before the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10-12; 2 Cor. 5:10; Gal. 6:7,8) precedes the standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion. The judgment of the household of Christ intervenes between the resurrection, and the ascending of Yahweh's Hill. This is evident from Psa. 24; where, in answer to the question, "Who shall go up into the Mountain of Yahweh? And who shall 'rise into' the place of his holiness?" - it says, "The innocent of hands and the pure of heart; who hath not lifted up his soul to vanity and hath not sworn to deceit". This implies previous scrutiny. All saints who rise, but whose moral qualities, on examination, are not found in accordance with the above, shall not "rise into the place of his holiness" - "yahkum bimkom kodsho;" which is Mount Zion. They shall not be permitted to stand there as constituents of the 144,000, who are the pure of heart, and in whose mouth no guile "had been found," heurethe.

2. The Sound of Many Waters

"And I heard a sound from the heaven as a sound of many waters, and as a sound of loud thunder."

"Many waters" are Apocalyptically defined as signifying "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." But of these there are two classes; the one class consisting of those upon which the Great Harlot sitteth; and whose body politic is symbolized by a Scarlet-colored Beast, full of Names of Blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns (ch. 17:1,15,3): and the other class, of the "great multitude" in the heaven, "which no man could number, out of, ek, all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in the presence of the Lamb, having been clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" (ch. 7:9). The sound of the many waters cannot proceed from the heaven, unless they be first in the heaven. The many waters of the heaven are the 144,000, giving utterance to their joy. Standing on Mount Zion with the Lamb, they are "in the place of Yahweh's holiness," which is "the heaven." John does not record, in this verse, what the many waters said. It was not necessary; for he had already made the record in ch. 7:10-12. The white robed multitude, having exchanged the

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sword of judgment for the palm of victory, shouted with a loud voice, saying, "The salvation be ascribed to him that sitteth upon the throne of our Deity, and to the Lamb! And all the angels stood in the circle of the throne (kuklo tou thronou) and of the elders, and of the four living ones, and they fell before the throne upon their face, and worshipped the Deity, saying, Amen! The blessing and the glory', and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honor, and the power, and the might, be to our Deity for the aeons of the aeons. Amen!"

The sound from the heaven was the voice of the 144,000 after they had got the victory over "the Beast," and over his "Image," and over his "sign," and over the "Number" of his Name; in other words, after they had conquered all Greek, Papal, and Protestant, Antichristendom. Their victorious attitude is indicated by their being palm-bearers -"they had palms in their hands". "Branches of palm-trees," says Daubuz, "are the symbol of joy after victory', attended with antecedent sufferings. By the Mosaical law, Lev. 23:40, they were used as a token of joy at the Feast of Tabernacles. And they were used upon any solemn occasion of joy, as after a victory or deliverance." In John 12:13, we have an illustration of the use of palm-branches on joyous occasions. The action of the multitude then, was, unconsciously to themselves, typical of the voice of the 144,000 on Mount Zion; when they shall greet the King of Israel, in their celebration of the great Feast of Tabernacles in the kingdom of the Deity, with the hosannas of victory'. In their joy, they sing the song of Moses the servant of the Deity and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are thy works, YAHWEH AlL-SHADDAI; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear thee, 0 Lord, and glorify thy Name? for it only is holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest"' (ch. 15:2-4). All nations shall come unto Jerusalem and worship before the King, Yahweh Tz'vaoth, and keep the Feast of Tabernacles; for Yahweh shall then be King over all the earth; in that day, there shall be One Yahweh and his Name one (Zech. 14:16,9).

'Palmam qui meruit ferat" - let him who is worthy bear the palm. This is the principle upon which the palms are put into the hands of the white-robed multitude represented by the symbolic number 144,000. Having gained the victory over themselves "by the power of God through faith," and over the world's corruptions, they are accounted worthy of standing with the Lamb on Zion; and of following him in all his warlike enterprises whithersoever he may will to go, in the great work of slaying the dreadful and terrible, and blasphemous, Fourth Beast, and of destroying his Body Politic, and giving it to the burning flame (Dan. 7:11). They cooperate in this work with great zeal and rejoicing

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Having fallen by thousands in the streets of Babylon, where their blood has been drunk to intoxication by her "pious," "venerable," and "reverend," monster of iniquity, when "judgment is given to them," they reward her even as she rewarded them, and double unto her twofold according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled, they fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow they retributively inflict upon her (Apoc. 18:6,7). And when the work is accomplished, and done so thoroughly, that Babylon can be found no more at all, they "rejoice over her," saying, "Praise ye Yah! Salvation, and glory, and honor. and power unto the Lord our God: for true and righteous are his judgments for he hath judged the Great Harlot, who did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Praise ye Yah! And the four and twenty elders, an:1 the four living ones fell down and worshipped the Deity who sat oil the throne, saying, Amen! Praise ye Yah!" Then, an approving voice responsive to this, issued from the throne occupied by David's Son and Lord, saying, "Praise our Deity, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great." Nor does this exhortation fall upon ears "dull of hearing" what the Spirit says: for John saith, "I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Praise ye Yah! for the Lord God the omnipotent hath prevailed. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb hath come, and his wife hath made herself ready" (Apoc. .19:1-7). I have here rendered the word ebasileuse, "prevailed," instead of "reigned." He reigns because enikese, "he has conquered;" and it is his conquest of Babylon the great multitude is celebrating. He reigns over Europe as the consequence of her destruction, in the consummation of which, "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David conquers" to the complete opening of the Scroll, and the loosing of its Seven Seals (ch. 5:5).

The sound John heard from heaven, was not only as proceeding from a great multitude; but also "as a sound of loud thunder." Thunder is the symbol of war. The "many waters" could not bear palms, and utter shouts of victory', unless previously engaged in war. Hence, their acclamations are styled "the sound of mighty thunderings;" or, as in the text, "as a sound of loud thunder." Before they could thunder forth, "Babylon hath fallen, hath fallen!" they will have to do the work of the second angel. Their shouts and acclamations are the echoes and reverberations of the thunder by which she is overthrown. The mighty thunderings of the 144,000, are not the impotent and meaningless "thundering applause" of a political meeting - the bellowings of the ignorant and

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fickle multitude. They are the potent utterances of those who have proved themselves almighty in battle; and to whom are committed the Seven Thunders which proceed out of the throne; that by these effective wars, the nations may be compelled to "wait for His law" (Isa. 42:4) who sits upon the throne. The thunder is styled "loud," because it consists of more than a single clap. It is a series of booming and crashing thun-derstorms, which, with the sound of the roaring hurricane, prostrate all the towering dominions of the earth. This "loud thunder" overthrows Babylon, torments the worshippers of the Beast with fire and brimstone, cuts down the harvest of the earth, and lops off the clusters of its vine. When all this is accomplished, the Dragon bound, the kingdom restored to Israel, and Jerusalem made a praise in the earth, the thronal lightnings will cease to flash, and the thunder to roll. The time will have then arrived, and not till then, for the going forth from heaven of “the sound as the sound of many waters, and as a sound of loud thunder."

3. The Harpers Harping With Their Harps

'And I heard a voice of harpers harping with their harps; and they sing as it were a New Song in the presence of the throne, and in the presence of the four living ones, and of the elders; and no one was able to learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth" - Ver. 2,3.

Mount Zion is still the scene of the vision. Instrumental and vocal music gladdens the hearts and ears of the performers. As the Spirit predicted in Psa. 87:7, so it comes to pass; for "as well the singers as the players upon instruments are there." "Every' one of them" has his harp; for he is himself a "harp of the Deity," and therefore an instrument of joy (Apoc. 5:8; 15:2). The harp is an instrument used in giving thanks, in rejoicing, and in praising. To "hang the harp upon the willows," indicates great tribulation and distress; as in the present state of Israel, whose "harp is turned to mourning, and their organ into the voice of them that weep." So when torment and sorrow come upon Babylon, and she is found no more, "the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in her." The absence of music shows that all joy has departed from a people; while its presence indicates the reverse.

A harper harping with his harp is a saint, who has been judged according to what is written, and rewarded according to his works, and thereby admitted into the glorious company of the redeemed. The first thing he does when he finds himself on the mount of Yahweh's holiness,

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is not to celebrate battles to be fought, and victories to be won; but to show forth the praises, the worthiness, and loving kindness of Him, who called him out from among the worshippers of the Beast, and placed him within "the Circle of the Throne." The Four Living Ones, and twenty four stephaned Elders, are all harpers who harp with their harps. This is positively affirmed in ch. 5:8. In symbolic style, put harps, and golden vials full of odors, into men's hands, and say, that "the odours are the prayers of the saints;" and it is equivalent to saying that the harps and golden vials are representative of the saints themselves. The Angels within the Circle of the Throne, although they prostrate themselves upon their faces, and in obedience to the decree in Psa. 97:7, worship David's Son and Lord; yet are they not harpers. They join with the harpers in myriads in the ascription of "worthiness to the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory', and blessing" (ch. 5:12): but they could take no part in singing the harpers' new song which they accompanied with their harps; for they have never learned it, and were they to study it ten thousand years, could never sing it truthfully. They are the angelic audience that listens with ravished ears to the Divine melody of the new oratorio. Never will such an extraordinary' choir have delighted so magnificent and dignified an assembly on the earth before. The birth of David's son was celebrated by the acclamation of a multitude of the heavenly host praising the Deity, and saying, "Glory to the Deity in the highest, over the earth peace, and good will towards men". Glorious, however, as this announcement was, the listeners to it were only a few simple shepherds; but in the approaching musical festival on Mount Zion, the performers will be not less than 144,000, immortals; who, like the Imperial President of the Festival, were once dead, but then are living for the aeons; while the listening and delighted audience, marshalled and convened by the King of glory', themselves illustrious and immortal, number "ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands" (ch .5:11). How gratified they will be in beholding the Royal Child, whose birth they celebrated over eighteen centuries before, enthroned by the Eternal Power, according to the words of Gabriel, in his father David's seat; and instead of a vile clamor for his crucifixion, in the very' place where he was condemned and put to death, songs of thanksgiving and praise, ascending in immortal strains to the Diety, from the innumerable multitude of the redeemed.

4. The New Song

"No one was able to learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth".

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The personal redemption of these thousands had been completed before they appeared on Mount Zion. They had recently emerged from the dust of death; and had passed through the ordeal of judgment; and being afterwards transformed, and made like to the King of Glory' by the quickening energy of his power, they were prepared truthfully to describe themselves in a song, which no one could possibly sing, who had not been the subject of the like condition.

The song they will sing on Zion is recorded in ch. 5:9. In this place, it says, "They sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the scroll, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain; and hast redeemed us for the Deity by thy blood out of every' kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us (the Four Living Ones full of eyes, and the twenty four elders) for our Deity kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." The Angels cannot sing this song. How could they address Jesus, and say to him, "thou hast redeemed us?" Neither can they sing, that they shall "reign upon the earth," for they assuredly never will. Nor can any of the worshippers of the Beast Sing this song; for they do not belong to the white robed multitude, whose garments are whitened in the blood of the Lamb: on the contrary', they are those whose names are not written in his scroll of life from the foundation of the world; and are robed in a scarlet colored vesture, dyed red in the blood of the saints. None such can "learn that song. "They have not been taught it by the Father, who hath given them over to their strong delusions. "No man cometh unto Me," saith Jesus, "except the Father who hath sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of the Deity. Every' man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me" (John 6:44). These can learn the song; for the Father teaches it to all His true disciples, when He writes His new name upon them; and they Sing it, when He plays upon them as His harps. "The dead know not any thing; and there is no knowledge in the grave" (Ecc. 9:5,10). Whence, then, can the 144,000 harps give forth the melody and sentiment of the song, but from the Eternal Spirit who "brings all things to their remembrance;" and this he does in writing the Father's Name in their foreheads. After he has developed them corporeally from the dust, he flashes upon them the knowledge of a previous state, together with the knowledge of what shall be hereafter. Thus they are taught and made conscious of a previous existence. But for the operation of the Eternal Spirit in writing his name upon their new cerebral organization, they would have no more consciousness of the past, or of any antecedents therein, than Adam when he first opened his eyes upon the light. Unless the Spirit impress upon them the knowledge, they would be con-

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scious only of what present sensation could impart - of this, and no more. Take, for example, a man, and call him Paul. Let him be the same Paul of whom we read in the Acts. Let him die, and become what he is (if we may say "he is," of one who has no existence). Of what was once called Paul there remains a few pounds of dust. And this is all that remains of the 144,000 not at present alive upon the earth. Hence, individually or personally they are all nonentities. Dust, though once a component of intelligent beings, retains no knowledge. "Can the dust praise thee can it declare thy truth?" There is no profit in dust for praise or truth, apart from the operation of the Eternal Spirit It retains no trace of former personal identity. From the few pounds of dust left to Paul the Creator could form a Lion. When he had given the creature life, would it have the consciousness of the apostle? Would it be able to sing the song of redemption? If personal identity resided in the dust as dust, it might; but the supposition is absurd: Of men, it is said, "the Deity remembereth that they are but flesh, a wind that passeth away, and COMETH NOT AGAIN". Where is the personal identity when flesh has thus passed away? All personality is dissolved. The mere natural man perceives the difficulty; and has therefore invented the clumsy theory of inherent immortality for the perpetuation of personal identity in a future state. He differs from the Spirit, and believes, that the dead know more than the living; and that they are now singing the song of redemption before the throne! But the Scripture shows clearly, that man has no immortal consciousness; and that if he do not understand the truth, he is as the beasts that perish (Psa. 49:12,20). What provision, then, has been provided by the Creator for the reproduction of the non-existent Paul and his companions in nothingness? The creation of 144,000 (not less, but number-less more) living bodies from the dust; and stamping upon their foreheads, as with a seal, what is already on record, not in the memory of disembodied souls, but in the mind of the Eternal Father. This is where the personal consciousness of the past comes from, the Father's Name written in the forehead, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God in fleshy tables of the heart (2 Cor. 3:3): 50 that whosoever is so written upon after creation from dust, is, in the creative operation, taught to sing the song of redemption by inspiration. The apostles who listened to the discourses of Jesus remembered little, and understood less; but the Eternal Spirit, who discoursed through Jesus, remedied this defect by afterwards bringing all things to their remembrance, opening their understandings and guiding them into all the truth (Luke 24:45; John 14:26; 16:13). In this operation, their consciousness of what Jesus really taught, was stamped or written upon the fleshy tablets of their hearts. What they had forgotten and did not understand, was not lost. It

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was retained in the Spirit's, in the Father's own mind, Who afterwards photographed in their foreheads what he had said. Suppose the apostles had all died with Jesus, and, like him, while dead, came to know nothing; and suppose after being dead, they were brought to life on the third day, where was their remembrance of all things to come from? When people fall into a trance they forget every thing, even the letters of the alphabet; and have to recover knowledge by the slow process of ordinary tuition. How total and complete, then, must be the oblivion of death; and how impossible the consciousness of the past, unless He who restores to life, also restamp or rewrite the "New Man," or "New Creature," formed by the Word in the old body of the present state, upon the new body of the future. And this He does; not by causing the newly created being to pass through the experience of the past again; but, by an instantaneous transfer of what exists in His own mind to theirs.

Eighteen hundred years ago, the Father-Spirit said, I am the way, the truth, the resurrection, and the life. He affirms this of Himself. The truth in a man by faith, is Christ in him. When the man dies the truth and its personal developments remain with the Father, while the man, as flesh, is "a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again". But, though it cometh not again, the truth in its particular personal identity, whether called by the name Paul, or any other name, does come again. The Father being the resurrection as well as the truth, reproduces from Himself the personally developed truth, named Paul in a former state. Here-produces it in a newly created body. In view of the statement affirmed by John the Baptizer, it is immaterial whether that body be made of the dust to which Paul is reduced, or of some other crude matter; for, if of stones the Deity can raise up children to Abraham (Matt. 3:9) He can as easy reproduce Paul from one kind of material as another. Paul sleeps "in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ". In this sense, he may be said to be "with Christ" even now. He sleeps in Christ the Resurrection - in Christ the Sun of Righteousness. When this Sun shines forth with healing in his beams, Paul and the 144,000 will be the embodied emanations of these beams. They will be hoi basileis ton apo anatolon heliou - the Kings which (are) risings from a Sun (Apoc. 16:12). They no longer sleep. Every individual is a rising the reproduction of a former character in a new body; the character, and not the body, constituting the personal identity. The body is of the earth, the writing upon it, from heaven. In the finishing of this, the body is transfigured in the twinkling of an eye; and from an earthy body, it is changed into the likeness of the Quickening Spirit, by which the redemption celebrated in the song is made complete.

Here is the acquisition of knowledge in the same way as the apostles

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acquired the power, or faculty, of setting forth the wonderful works of Deity in languages they knew nothing about. It will be a Pentecostian display of omnipotence - 144,000 "first fruits unto the Deity and the Lamb" newly created from the dust, singing the song of their redemption from the earth. They sing the song thus "learned" before their conflict with the Beast and his Image. This is intimated by the prophetic declaration "We shall reign on the earth." This they cannot do so long as the Beast of the Earth is unsubdued. Their reign as "kings and priests" is incompatible with the existence or ascendancy of the Latin Kingdom. If in the song they sing, they said, we do reign upon the earth, we should know that the scene on Mount Zion was not Pentecostian, and inaugural; but palm-bearing and victorious. As conquerors of the nations, they stand upon the crystal-sea before the throne, and sing the song of Moses and the Lamb (ch. 4:6; 15:2). They will then have subdued their enemies. But, on Mount Zion is their induction into office with right royal solemnity, preparatory to their executing the judgments assigned to the second and third angels, the reaping of the harvest and the treading of the wine-press.

5. The Character of the 144,090 Firstfrults

"These are they who had not been contaminated with women; for they are virgins. These are the attendants upon the Lamb whither-soever he goeth. These had been redeemed from among men, an offering of firs fruits for the Deity and for the Lamb. And in their mouth had been found no guile; for they are faultless in the presence of the throne of the Deity".

With what class of women had they not been defiled or contaminated? It must be remembered that amongst these 144,000 will be many women, perhaps one half the number of the redeemed. It cannot be, therefore, in a natural sense, that they were not so defiled. The whole company of the redeemed, men and women, are "virgins"; for they constitute the Lamb's gune, woman, or wife; whom Paul was solicitous, as far as he had to do with the presentation, to "present as a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:27). In what sense, then, is this chaste virgin company undefiled with women? Who are these women?

The only answer that can be given to this question is that they are the women of the Apocalypse. The worst kind of women - the Harlot daughters and Harlot Abominations of the Great Drunken Murderess, whom they style "the Mother of All Churches." The "Holy Apostolic Catholic Church", is the Harlot in chief; "with whom the kings of the earth," the Secular Rulers of European and American Antichristen-

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dom, "have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication". This is the Mother of the Harlot Family. Her daughters are the Churches of Europe "by law established;" such as, the Lutheran Harlot, the Anglo-Hibernian Harlot, the Caledonian Harlot, and the Helvetian Harlot' all of them, bearing "the Sign of the Beast," indicating their utter destitution of the faith and its obedience. Besides these principal harlots is an innumerable fry of Harlot abominations, all of them distinguished as the relations of the Roman Mother by the livery they wear. The sign of the Beast is upon them all. In the aggregate, they are an unbaptized ecclesiastical community, distinguished in its subdivisions by various 'names," Apocalyptically styled, "Names of Blasphemy," of which the Scarlet-colored dominion is said to be "full". These are styled by the sprinkled worshippers of the Beast, "the Names and Denominations of Christendom;" but the Apocalyptic title is the true one - "All the Abominations of the Earth," of which the Roman Harlot is the Mother. For what is Lutheranism, but German Latinism diluted with the un-scriptural speculations of an Augustinian monk? Or Calvinism, but Swiss, French, Dutch, English and Scotch Latinism, diluted with the traditions of the man who caused Servetus to be burned? These dilutions of the Latin superstition have been very useful in crippling the absolutism of the Romish Hierarchy. The world has been greatly benefited by the Protestant Rebellion; and by the multiplication and rivalries of the sects. But, though promotive of civil and religious liberty, their dogmas are God-dishonoring and gospel-nullifying blasphemies. Added to these are other "names," which, though repudiating baby-sprinkling and practicing immersion, are as much worshippers of the Beast as the rest. These immersed sects recognize the sprinkled sects as denominations of christians, showing that they do not know, or do not believe what the Scriptures teach as the one faith and one hope of the calling.'

Now, in prophetic style, all these sects of the Court of the Gentiles are termed "women," whose favors lead to death. They are strange Women, who flatter with their words; whose houses incline unto death and their paths unto the dead. Their lips drop as a honeycomb and their; mouths are smoother than oil; but their end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword. Their feet go down to death' and their steps take hold on Sheol. The 144,000 have no fellowship with these unchaste women. Having come to the understanding and belief of "the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and the name of Jesus Christ

they have obeyed the invitation. "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues" Having the faith to be healed, they obey the Apostolic command, "repent'

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and be every one of you immersed for the name of Jesus Christ into remission of sins" (Acts 2:38). By this process, they are separated from the worshippers of the Beast, and washed, sanctified, and justified from all the defilement contracted in their days of ignorance and unbelief (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Thenceforth, they are no more to be found dangling and toying with these disreputable Mistresses of the Clergy. Being espoused to Christ, they have no more spiritual association with the impure; but, as wise virgins, keep their lamps trimmed, and their lights burning, that when the Bridegroom appears, they may be admitted to "the marriage supper of the Lamb."

When seen on Mount Zion their redemption had been perfected. "These had been redeemed, egorasthesan, from among men". If the redemption had not been complete, they could not have sung the song of redemption. The price paid for their redemption was the blood of the Lamb, by which they are constituted aparche, "an offering of firstfruits" for Deity and for the Lamb. Under the Law of Moses, the firstfruits were the New Fruits of the harvest of the land, offered in the form of Two Loaves, called "the Bread of the Firstfruits," fifty days after the waving of a single sheaf of the firstfruits on the third day after the Pass-over. In the antitype, Jesus risen from among the dead, is "the wave-sheaf of the firstfruits; and the New Converts to the faith preached by the apostles, "The Bread of the Firstfruits". Of this there is evidence in 1 Cor. 15:20, where Paul says, "Christ is risen from among the dead, and become the firstfruits of them who have been sleeping;" and in James 1:18, addressing the true believers of his day, he says, "Of his own will the Father of Lights begat us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of Firstfruits of his creatures." By this we are informed, that all who are truly begotten by the Word of Truth are designed to be what Jesus became in being waved before the Father after leaving the house of the dead. The Word of Truth, or the Gospel, illuminates the understanding; so that when the enlightened are immersed into "Christ the Firstfruits," they are planted in the likeness of his death, in hope that they shall also be planted in the likeness of his resurrection; or become "firstfruits for the Deity and the Lamb" "the Bread of the Firstfruits," which can only be offered in the land promised to the Fathers, as indicated in the type (Lev. 23:9-21); and symbolically represented in this chapter of the Apocalypse.

In the type, the Pentecostian Firstfruits were waved in the form of Two Loaves, made from the fine flour of the new grain, and baked with leaven. This represented that the firstfruits would be taken from two classes leavened with the Truth - a loaf of the circumcision and a loaf of the uncircumcision; two loaves, but only one bread. This work began on

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the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus, on "the morrow of the Sabbath," which he spent in the tomb. Three thousand were then leavened with the Gospel of the Kingdom, to which they became obedient. These were of the circumcision. After this many more thousand Jews became obedient to the faith. The invitation to God's Kingdom and Glory was then extended to people of other nations, beginning at the household of Cornelius. Since then, a people for the Father's Name has been collecting, as they sing, "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation." The work is still progressing, but after such a manner as to show that there is little more can be done. The Jewish and Gentile Loaves are almost complete; and little remains, but for the High Priest after the order of Melchizedec to come, and make a Pentecostian wave-offering of them before the Father on the mountain of his holiness. When this is accomplished, a company of undefiled ones will have been developed, all of them like himself - Firstfruits, in whose mouth exists no guile, being faultless before the throne of God.

Thus qualified and thus prepared, the honor and glory are conferred upon them of being "the attendants upon the Lamb whithersoever he goes". And here it must be remembered, that the Lamb is a symbol 'having Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth into all the earth" - the symbol of almighty and omniscient power, which goes in aid of the operations of the 144,000. In judgment being given to Jesus and his Brethren, "the Saints of the Most High" (Dan. 12:22) almighty power is given to them to execute it. In ch 14:13, this power is styled "the Spirit". Whithersoever the Spirit goes ir all the earth to "execute the judgments written," they are ho ako/outhountes, the attendants upon him, as soldiers attend upon the Commander-in-Chief. The Spirit energizing the 144,000 makes them almighty. Whither the Spirit is to go in taking the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, they go; and turn not when they go: and when they go the noise of their wings is like the noise of great waters, as the Voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of a host (Ezek. 1:12,20-24; Dan. 7:27). The mission of the Spirit is not confined to Europe; but extends "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people;" to all of whom judgment is to go forth, that they may be taught to "Fear the Deity, and to give glory to Him". No power but that of the Spirit in terrible judicial manifestation can do this. "When the judgments of Yahweh are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness". This is the only argument man can comprehend. The world attributes mild measures to weakness and fear; and so long as it thinks principles and precepts cannot be enforced it treats them only with contempt: for "let favor be

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showed to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness". Hence, the necessity of the Divine arrangement which gives omnipotence to the righteous, and sends them forth to subdue all things to the will of Him who makes them invincible (Isa. 26:9,10).

The Lamb-Power invades the territories of the Beast and his Image: for their worshippers are said to be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; hence, as the 144,000 are his attendants, they are there also (verse 9,10). This is, if possible, still more evident from ch. 17:14,12; and 19:19; where the Beast and kings of the earth and their armies gather together to make war against the Lamb, and against his army, which is marshalled by "the called, the chosen, and faithful" 144,000, with him. The conflict, however terrible, is not doubtful. The Seven-Horned Lamb overcomes them in spite of all their improvements in artillery and the art of war; for he is the Almighty King of kings and Lord of lords, who smites the nations with the sword of his mouth, and rules them with a rod of iron. They can drive three hundred pound shot through iron armor-plates several inches thick; and discharge with great rapidity breech-loading rifles; but this outside force is not almighty. The shadow of the Spirit's power has greater resistance than armor plates of the greatest thickness. Cannon balls and rifle shot cannot penetrate it; while he can crumble into dust without a blow defenses of the hardest steel. The 144,000 firstfruits are themselves "spirit", on the principle laid down by Jesus, that that is spirit which is born of the Spirit. Being spirit, they are in the shadow of the Spirit's power - a polished shaft in His quiver, like the great Captain of their salvation. No projectile can reach them to hurt them. A storm of rifle bullets will fall before them like paper pellets from walls of granite. The artillery of the Beast's armies being thus rendered powerless, they have no defence against the tormenting fire and brimstone of the 144,000 of the Lamb. The Beast and deceiving False Prophet become captives; and those who sustained them by the sword, are made a sacrifice of with great slaughter (ch. 13:10) in the great Day of Retribution, when the Seven-Horned Lamb, with his invincible attendants, shall go forth into all the earth.

6. The Angel-Proclamation in Midheaven

"And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having aionian good news to proclaim to those who dwell upon the earth, even every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear the Deity, and give to him glory; for the Hour of his judgment hath arrived; and do homage to him who made the heaven, and the earth and sea and fountains of waters".

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Under the Mosaic Law, which is "the pattern of the things in the heavens," the Pentecostian Feast of Firstfruits of the third month was succeeded in the first day of the seventh month by the Memorial of the blowing of trumpets, a Sabbath of holy convocation - inviting to a holy rest and assembly. Between this Memorial and the offering of "an offering made by fire unto Yahweh," was an interval of ten days. This tenth day of the seventh month was yom hakkiphpurim, a Day of Coverings

- a day on which the sins of the past were being covered over by fiery expiation. In the English Version this is styled the Day of Atonement. But before this day of affliction, in which all who did not afflict them-selves on account of their transgressions, were to be cut off from Yahweh's people, the trumpets blew a memorial blast, to remind the people that the hour, or month, of the annual judgment and covering of sins had arrived.

The Sons of Aaron, the priests, were appointed to blow the trumpets in the day of their gladness, in their solemn days, over their burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of their peace offerings (Lev. 23:24; Num. 10:8,10).

The antitype of this arrangement is found in this fourteenth chapter

the Pentecost is celebrated in the inauguration of the Deity's kings and priests on Mount Zion - the Bread of the Firstfruits. Then comes the memorial proclamation through midheaven by these priests of the Deity, reminding the world that the hour of judicial retribution so long threatened has arrived; and inviting men to afflict their souls, in turning from their iniquities, to the reverential fear and worship of Him who made all things. When this proclamation has been made to the end of the world, the Jubilee Blast of the Day of Coverings, on the tenth day of the seventh month, is then blown - a Jubilee to Israel, proclaiming their return to their country, and consequent avengement upon all their enemies, who worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his sign in their foreheads, or in their hands. This is "the Day of Vengeance in the heart" of the Lamb, contemporary with "the Year of his redeemed" (Isa. 63:4); the works of which are detailed in Apoc. 14:8-11,14-20; 16:16-21; 17:14; 18; 19:1-3, 11-21; 20:1-4,14.

The Angel who makes the memorial proclamation is symbolical of the royal priests of the Meichizedec Household. The Mosaic type required that the silver trumpets be blown by priests of the High Priest's family. But the priesthood being changed the Aaronic priests are ineligible for the sounding of this proclamation in midheaven. Hence, the priestly trumpeters have to be provided from another source; and there is no other source of supply but the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus, whom he has made kings and priests for the Deity. The proclamation is there-

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fore made by as many of the 144,000 as the work to be performed may demand. Among these will be the apostle John, as the representative of a class. In the tenth chapter he tells us that after he had digested the little scroll of judgment, the Spirit told him that he "must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues, and kings". To do this he must rise from the dead, be judged, and quickened, when he will be fitted for the work. But it is too much for one man to accomplish in the short space allotted for the proclamation. Others of like qualifications wll therefore be associated with him in the work; so that it may be carried on in different countries at the same time. The apostles had their colaboring attendants and subordinates when they sounded the gospel trumpet in old time. In the new proclamation the same condition may obtain. Be this as it may, it is "those that escape," or the saved remnant, that are sent, as sounders of the Truth, to the nations that have not heard the fame nor seen the glory of Yahweh; and they shall declare His glory to the Gentiles (Isa. 66:19). This is the plurality represented by the Angel - one messenger emblematic of a multitude; as it is written in Psa. 68:11, "Adonai will give the word; those who bear the tidings are a great host."

The proclamation is to be made through "midheaven." This is "the Air" into which the judgments of the Seventh Vial are to be poured after the proclamation of the message, or word given, is finished. It is the political aerial of Babylon the Great, which, instead of being as now the highest heaven of the political world, will occupy a middle station between the worshippers of. the Beast, and the new throne established on Mount Zion. The Midheaven is the political firmament occupied by all the ranks, orders, and degrees, of the world rulers - the supreme and subordinate governors of those "many people, nations, and tongues" before whom John is to prophesy again. This will be an exceedingly interesting time when the clergy of all orders, "the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies," shall be confronted by the apostles and saints, and proved to be liars and impostors before the world. And richly do they deserve to be exposed to this "shame and contempt". They will no longer be permitted to deceive the hearts of the simple with good words and fair speeches with impunity. The sheep's clothing will be stripped off them, and the wolf undisguised will be revealed. High and pompous ecclesiastical titles will then be at a discount; and regarded only by those who come to obey the proclamation, as the tinsel bespanglement of vain and foolish men. The occupation of the clerical False Prophet of the world will be gone; for the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and Yahweh alone will come to be exalted in that day (Isaiah 2:17).

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The situation is illustrated by 1 Chron. 21:16, where it is stated that David saw the Angel of Yahweh standing between the earth and the heaven - in midheaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out, as he was just going to afflict Jerusalem with an impending judicial visitation. His position there was exhibited to David, that he might have time and occasion for obtaining the deliverance of the city from the wrath to come; so that the hovering of the Angel was to show, that there was room for escape on terms to be proposed, just as the Deity was going to inflict the punishment. So with the great host in midheaven on their proclamation of the good news. The destruction of Babylon, and the overthrow of the governments of the world, are decreed. Nothing can save them from abrogation and obliteration. The proclamation invites mankind to abandon these spiritual and temporal institutions, in commanding them to "Fear the Deity, and give glory to Him". It affords them time and opportunity for saving themselves from the impending calamities of the Hour of Divine judgment. If any transfer their al-legiance from their clerical and civil rulers to the Lamb-Power, they will doubtless be exempted from the fire and brimstone torment, which is to destroy the Beast and his False Prophet (ch. 19:20; 14:9,10): but if they refuse to abjure these authorities, the plagues written in this prophecy for their destruction will assuredly consume the rebellious.

The reader will not confound this angel flying through midheaven with that said also to fly through midheaven in ch. 8:13. The difference in their proclamations indicates a difference in the time, agents, and circumstances of the two. The proclamation of ch. 8 preceded the sounding of the fifth trumpet; and was made by those who were able to discern the signs of the times in which they lived; while that in the fourteenth is made by agents represented by John after their resurrection and inauguration as kings and priests for the Deity. There was only superlative "woe" proclaimed in the first; but in this remembrance of the Hour of Judgment, there is also an announcement of good news.

This good news is styled aionion, a word which I have not translated but only transferred. The Angel-Host has "aionian good news to proclaim". It is styled ajonian, I conceive, because it announces "things not seen" pertaining to the aion, or COURSE, during which all nations will be "blessed in Abraham and his Seed." This course is not to last for ever, but for a thousand years, styled in Dan. 7:12, "a season and a time". At the end of this Course of Centuries, the nations revolt, and judgment comes upon them to extermination (ch. 20:9). For this reason I do not translate the word in this text "everlasting," as in the English Version. The proclamation is the announcement of MILLENNIAL GOOD NEWS; namely, that the resurrection, immortalization, and inauguration, of

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the called, and chosen, and faithful firstfruits, have been accomplished by Jesus Christ; who, having returned in power and great glory, has set up the ancient throne of his father David on Mount Zion: that being established there, he invites the allegiance of all nations to himself, as King of the whole earth by the grace of his Eternal Father; who has appointed him to execute judgment and justice in the earth, and to rule the world in righteousness: that he is prepared to destroy the powers that corrupt and oppress the nations; and to wipe away tears from off all faces, and to take away the rebuke of his people, Israel, from off all the earth. That his purpose is to change the face of the world; and to enlighten mankind with the true knowledge from the rising to the setting sun. That, as mankind have been for a long series of ages in the bottomless abyss of ignorance and superstition, in commiseration of their helplessness, he invites them to hearken diligently unto him; and to come and buy wine and milk of him, without money and without price. That, if they will accept this invitation to the feast he has prepared for all peoples, they shall live under their own vines and fig-trees in peace, and none shall make them afraid. But if on the contrary, they determine still to worship the Beast and his Image, and to receive the Sign in their foreheads, or in their hands, then they shall be made to drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity which hath been prepared without mixture in 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.

A proclamation of this kind, made by such "ambassadors of Jesus Christ," and attested by signs and wonders of a character to establish their claims to the confidence and respect of the nations and their rulers, cannot fail of arresting attention as the all-absorbing topic of the day. The message itself, and the reception it meets with by the world-rulers of church and state, will doubtless eclipse and supersede all other news. The "leading journals" of Europe and America will be confounded; and seeing that the editorial staff of the world, like, "the spirituals" of the clerical kingdom, have no oil in their vessels, their leading articles upon this wonderful topic can only be the reflex of the darkness that covers the earth, and the gross darkness of the people. As folly and falsehood are their stock in trade, they will doubtless counsel rejection of the mes-sage, and hostility to all claims emanating from such questionable authority. As they live by trying to please the majority, they will trim their sails to catch the popular breeze. Their counsel will be a bridle in the jaws of the people causing them to err. The editors, the clergy, and the civil rulers, of the midheaven will be the ruin of society: so that under the guidance of their policy the armies of the nations will go forth as a

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whirlwind to scatter him (Hab. 3:14). It is not in human nature, much less in its political organization, to surrender power, wealth, and honor, at discretion. It does not part with these things without a struggle to retain them. On such a proclamation coming to the pope and "crowned heads" of Europe, from a Jew on Mount Zion, claiming to be Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, are they like to acknowledge him, to place their kingdoms at his disposal, and cast their crowns at his feet? We know certainly that they will not; for it is testified that all nations shall compass him about like bees; but they shall be quenched as the fire of thorns; for in the name of Yahweh he will destroy them (Psa. 118:10-12; Apoc. 19:19-21).

Seeing that it is the purpose of the Deity to give the nations to Jesus and his Brethren for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for their possession (Psa. 2:6-8; Apoc. 2:26) the proclamation, or prophesying again, to kings and nations, in the words, "Fear the Deity, and give honor to him," implies the surrender of all wealth, dominion, honor, and power under the whole heaven to them. Will the peoples of the American Continent be willing to do this; especially in view of the fact, that no unrighteous man will be permitted to hold the meanest office under their supremacy? What will they do with "the Monroe doc-trine" (*)then? Is the King of Israel to be interdicted from annexing Canada, Mexico, and the so-called United States to his dominions? Will he regard the screams of the American Eagle, or the roar of the British Lion? Not a whit. What are these powers to him before whom a fire goes, and burns up his enemies whose lightnings enlighten the world! At whose presence the earth trembles, and the hills thereof melt like wax!

Now as to the precise time after Christ's advent, and the justification of his household by Spirit, in which this proclamation through mid-heaven shall be made, it may be remarked, that it is immediately consequent upon the smiting of the Assyro-Gogian image upon the feet by the Stone-Power, and before the grinding of its metallic and clay fragments to powder (Dan. 2:34,35; Matt. 21:44). It will therefore be in the interval between the Armageddon overthrow of the Sixth Vial, and the outpouring of Divine wrath upon "the Air" of the Seventh. This interval

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* The Monroe Doctrine was formulated in 1823 by James Monroe, President of the U.S.A. In his presidential address to Congress he declared that there should be no further colonization in the western hemisphere and no intervention bv European governments in the affairs of independent American states. This policy sprang from the U.S. fear that the European powers would restore Spanish domination over the new republics of Latin America and that Russia would claim North America's Pacific coast. The USA for its part disclaimed any interference in Europe. The "doctrine" was often quoted to justify the views of later American isolationists. Since world war lithe Monroe Doctrine has been abandoned by USA which now actively intervenes in European affairs, whilst continuing to fear Russian infiltration in South America and elsewhere~Publishers.

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will be the period of this remarkable angel-proclamation. The Armageddon discomfiture of the belligerents in the land of Israel; that is, of the Lion-power of Sheba, Dedan and Tarshish, and of its antagonist the Assyro-Gogian confederacy of the North, at Bozrah and elsewhere (Ezek. 38:13,18-23; Isa. 63:1; Dan. 11:41-45) - will put Yahweh Tz'vaoth in possession of Jerusalem the Holy City, which he occupies as the Lamb with the 144,000. Standing thus upon Mount Zion, the Eternal Spirit, in multitudinous manifestation, is "in His dwelling place without fear, as dry heat impending lightning, as a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest" (Isa. 18:4). He is "still" as the calm and sultry atmosphere which precedes the tempest; and stands as the up-lifted ensign upon the mountains (Isa. 11:10,12); ready for the manifestation of those terrible judgments in the earth under the outpouring of which "the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" (Isa. 26:9). In this still dry heat of impending vengeance, the Pentecostian proclamation of liberty and return is made; after which "the great trumpet is blown" by Yahweh Tz'vaoth (Isa. 18:3; 27:13; Zech. 9:14); the Jubilee Trumpet of the judgment of the great day. The angel-proclamation in midheaven is this Pentecostian proclamation briefly preceding the Jubilee Trumpet of "the Day of Atonement," when the Eternal Spirit casts up accounts with the nations, and exacts from them the settlement that is due. The proclamation in midheaven is Pentecostian, not judicial and vengeful. It announces the approach of judgment as impending, not in actual manifestation; and therefore invites return to God as the condition of liberty, or escape from the wrath to come.

As to how long the period of proclamation will continue, it is not possible to speak with certainty. The work to be done indicates that it will not be an instantaneous operation. It is a work of "prophesying before many peoples and nations, and tongues, and kings." This will take time, and possibly years. The Deity is never in a hurry, but deliberate, effective, sure. We need not be surprised if ten years were consumed in the proclamation and the development of its results. Between the "memorial of blowing of trumpets" on the first day of the seventh month, and the Day of Atonement, there was an interval of ten days; after this pattern it may, therefore, be, that between the beginning of the proclamation in midheaven and the commencement of the Second Angel judgment upon Babylon (Ch. 14:3), there will be an interval of ten years. This would leave an "Hour," or month of years, that is, thirty years, for the judgment to sit in slaying the fourth beast of Daniel, and destroying his body-politic in the burning flame (ch. 7:11). These forty years after the manifestation of the Son of David and his mighty ones on Mount Zion, are the period of "the building again of the tabernacle of

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David, and of the setting up of its ruins, as it was in the days of old (Acts 15:16; Amos 9:11) the exodal period of the gathering together under one king of all the tribes of the House of Jacob (Mic. 7:15).

These forty years will be the most important and terrible of the world's history. They are the period of the world's transition from what it calls "self-government," to the government of Christ and his Brethren. The most noteworthy developments of this transition period are depicted in the fourteenth, part of the sixteenth and seventeenth, the eighteenth, nineteenth, and part of the twentieth chapters of the Apocalypse. They exhibit the setting up of the Kingdom of David by the Eloahh of the Heavens (Dan. 2:44): by which the kingdom is restored again to Israel (Acts 1:6). The work of these forty years was foreshadowed in the reign of David. His forty years' reign was to that of Solomon's peaceful administration over Israel and the Gentiles, as a judicial preparation; for before he could "reign over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt," these kingdoms had to be subdued by his father David. After the same pattern it will be with the greater than Solomon. Forty years of judgment are consumed in preparing the millennial reign of peace and righteousness; which, as the chapters indicated show, will not be introduced and established by clerical preaching, nor by "the benevolent institutions of the day," but by "judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries".

Solomon reigned over the whole twelve tribes from the decease of his father and predecessor. This, however, was not the case with David from the death of Saul. Solomon and David were types of the Christ, who was to descend from them after the flesh, in respect of his career as a hero and conqueror, and the Prince of Peace. "Yahweh", says Moses, "is a Man of war; Yahweh is His name" (Exod. 15:3). David's career was illustrative of that of the Man Yahweh, styled by Paul, "the Man Christ Jesus," as the founder of the reign of peace. Hence, as David reigned several years over Judah before he became the recognized sovereign of the whole nation; it behoves that his Son and Lord reign as King of Judah before he become monarch of all the tribes of Israel and kingdoms of the earth. This typical indication is sustained by the testimony in Zech. 12:7, that "Yahweh shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah." The victory of Bozrah will be fatal to Gentile supremacy in the land of Israel. In the day of this discomfiture its invaders will be beaten off by Yahweh from the channel of the river (Euphrates) unto the stream of Egypt (the Nile); after which he will gather them one by one from Assyria and Egypt to worship him in Jerusalem (Isa. 27:12,13).

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This gathering of Israelites of the tribe of Judah, "one of a city and two of a family" (Jer. 3:14) to Zion, will result from the angel proclamation in midheaven. Being fed by pastors according to Yahweh's own heart with knowledge and understanding, the veil will be removed from the minds of many, who will become willing (Psa. 110:3) to emigrate from among the nations and return to their fatherland. Yahweh, the Man of War, will bring them there - "I will bring you," saith He, "to Zion". He will do this by the influence of his victorious power. Having expelled the Anglo Indian Lion from the land, that power will probably receive with reverence the angel proclamation, and consent to place its marine at the disposal of "the Man Christ Jesus," styled in the English Version "the Lord of hosts". This, indeed, will certainly be the case. He will command the ships of Tarshish, and they will obey; for what is testified they do, is done in obedience to his will. The last chapter of Isaiah and the nineteenth verse, testifies of the angel proclamation to Tarshish, and the next verse records the result. The "sounders of the truth" are effective bowmen. Their words move the nations of Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal and Javan, to do the will of Yahweh, and to bring His people as an offering to Him in Jerusalem. Thus they "fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows," in the fleet ships of Tarshish, which convey the sons of Zion from far with their silver and gold, to the place where the Name of Yahweh is enthroned (Isa. 60:8,9; 18; Jer. 3:17).

Thus the Angel proclamation recruits the population of the little kingdom of Judah, which, in its beginning, is smaller than the little kingdom of Greece (Matt. 13:31,32). During this decade, the settlers in the midst of the land are "at rest, dwelling safely without walls, and having neither bars nor gates" (Ezek. 38:11,12);.and are in league with the wide-shadowing land beyond the rivers of Khush - "Sheba, Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish" - which holds a similar relation to the kingdom of Judah under the "greater than Solomon," that Tyre did in the days of Hiram to the kingdom of David's Son. The peoples of the British Isles afar off from Jerusalem, having accepted the proclamation, the government will have been transferred from the hands of sinners such as now possess it, to the Saints; so that the constitution of the United Kingdom will be no longer the old British, but "the law which goes forth from Zion" (Isa. 2:3). This will account for the harmony and concert of action between Israel and Britain in the latter days.

But a like result does not obtain in relation to all the powers to which the proclamation is addressed. Matthew 25:32 shows the separation of the nations into two classes in the day when the Son of Man shall come in his glory. This separation results from the conclusions at which they arrive with respect to the subject-matter of the proclamation. One

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class rejects the Aionian Good News, and refuses to fear Him who claims to be the God, or "Elohim of the whole earth" (Isa. 54:5), to give glory to him, and to do him homage. The other class of nations comes to an opposite decision, and without further controversy "wait for His law" (Isa. 42:4). Thus the proclamation in midheaven becomes the occasion of the division of the nations into sheep-nations and goat-nations. Of the latter class will certainly be those comprehended in the bodies politic symbolized by the Ten Horns, the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Dragon. I say certainly, for they are all represented Apocalyptically in actual warfare with the Lamb-Power. Thus, in ch. 17:14, the ten horns are said to make war with the Lamb; and in ch. 19:19-21, the Beast and the Kings of the Earth and their armies, oppose themselves in sanguinary conflict against him and his forces; the False Prophet goes into perdition with the Beast; and the Dragon is chained in the abyss (ch. 20:2,3), These are symbolical of the goat-nations of Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Russia. Ere this, Turkey will have been "dried up," and Holland, Denmark and Sweden, probably annexed to Germany or Russia, as part of the confederacy of Gog(*):. The sheep-nations will be separated from all these as the allies of the Shepherd of Israel. These he sets on his right hand with the lost sheep of the flock of Judah, which, as a repentant prodigal, will be returning to "the Great Shepherd of the Sheep." All of this fold he feeds, and gathers, and carries, and gently leads (Isa. 40:2), because they have become joined to him by faith, and are blessed in and with Abraham, his friend (Zech. 2:11; Gal. 3:8,9).

But the Holy One of Israel is not the Shepherd of the Goats. Their shepherd is the False Prophet of the Catholic world, who claims to be "the God of the Earth", successor of St. Peter, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. This Shepherd of the Goats is the lawless antagonist of the GREAT

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(*)This statement does not indicate a doubt in the mind of the author as to whether Gog is to be identified with Germany or Russia, but because he recognized that before Armageddon, Europe would be divided into two parts answering to the feet of the Image seen by Nebuchadnezzar. In Exposition of Daniel he wrote: "Now while the head, breast and arms, belly, thighs, legs and toes, have all existed, the Feet have not yet been formed; so that it has been hitherto impossible for the Colossal Image to stand erect, as Nebuchadnezzar saw it in his dream. It is, therefore, the mission of the Autocrat to form the feet and set up the image before the world in all its excellent brightness, and terribleness of form; that all men subject to the Kingdom of Babylon may worship the work of its creator's power... The imperial fabric will rest upon the Russo-Greek and Latin Feet and Toes

There are but two Legs, therefore there can be only two imperial divisions of the dominion in its latter-day or time-of-the-end manifestation .

In conformity with this prognostication, the postwar world has seen Europe divided into two parts, separated by the Iron Curtain: the nations of the Common Market in the west, and those of the Warsaw Pact in the east. This answers to the expectations of Brother Thomas, although the final formation is not yet complete. For example, England must retire from the Common Market, and Greece become more closely aligned with Russia. Today, students of the Prophetic word have the inestimable privilege of viewing the gradual formation of the feet of the Image. Brother Thomas saw Germany and Russia as dominant powers in the latter-day division of Europe, which, certainly, was not the case when he wrote Eureka, but is so today - publishers.

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SHEPHERD OFTHE SHEEP; and will be found stirring the goats up to the rejection of the angel-proclamation and to the declaration of war against the Chief of the flock, the house of Judah. The issue, however, will not be doubtful. The rejection of his proclamation by the goats and their shepherds, and their preparations for war, will arouse his indignation; as it is written in Zech. 10:3, "Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats". The when and the how, are ex-pounded in the succeeding sentences, saying, "For Yahweh Tz'vaoth (He who shall be hosts the Eternal Power) hath visited his flock, the House of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle. And they shall be as mighty men, who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them;" "and shall be seen over them".

The acceptance of the angel-proclamation by the British Isles will plant the Lamb-Power in all their dependencies. Sheba, Dedan, the Hindoo Tarshish, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, British North America, and the West Indies, will be "ends of the earth" and "isles afar off," from which the Gentiles shall come to the Great Shepherd and to whom they shall say, "Surly, our fathers have inherited lies, vanities, and things in which there is no profit" (Jer. 16:4,9). This honest renunciation of "the wisdom of our ancestors," then, by angel-proclaimers of the Truth, proved to be folly, will prepare them for a hearty co-operation with Judah, in slaying the Beast, and giving his body politic to the burning flame. The day of eternal doom will then have arrived for republics throughout the world. The fate of the United States, so-called, will depend upon the response they may return to the proclamation, which is sure to be announced throughout the Western Hemisphere. If they reject it, Judah and his allies in British America, as the forces of the Rainbowed Angel standing upon the earth and sea, whose progress is as pillars of fire, will be at hand to enforce obedience with the two-edged sword of Divine indignation. The only alternative in this unparalleled "time of trouble" for North and South America, will be submission or desolation. Annexation to the little kingdom of Judah, in accordance with the law proceeding from Zion, will be an indispensable condition, without which neither this, nor any other country, can obtain exemption from war, pestilence, famine, and desolation. We can hardly expect that the United States will transfer themselves to the dominion of Judah's Lion peaceably. If wise men were in place and power, they would doubt-less be prompt to "serve Yahweh with fear, to rejoice with trembling, and to kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and they perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little" (Psa. 2:11-12). But experience teaches, that wise and prudent men do not find their way into office, and where

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fools reign the people perish. The prospects of the country are dark and threatening; and it is much to be feared that model-republicans will not be disposed to accept their destiny until they have been broken with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

The judgment which succeeds the Pentecostian proclamation in mid-heaven is "national," and executed by Christ and the Saints. But before the proclamation begins there is also judgment. This, however, is not national, but "individual" - a judgment having relation to the ancient Apostolical proclamation. The Son of Man presides judicially at both these gatherings before him; and in each sitting there is his right hand, and his left. The right hand is synonymous with friendship, favor, alliance, peace, and reward; while the left is indicative of their opposites. Nations on the Son of Man's right hand are "joined to Yahweh as his people" - the subjects of his empire; while individuals on the King's right hand, are associates with him in the glory, honor, and power, of his dominion. They share with him in the throne, as exhibited in Apoc. 4.

But in the judgment of the King's household some will have to pass to the left, where "shame and contempt" await them. They arrive at this left hand after being "cast out" from the Divine presence "into the outer darkness, where are wailing and gnashing of teeth". This left hand is in the country occupied by the Goat nations, which, as the embodiment of all that is hostile to the kingdom prepared for the blessed of the Father, are styled by Jesus, "the Devil and his Angels". These are the same as Daniel's fourth Beast, which is styled Apocalyptically, "the Dragon, the Old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan". The fourteenth chapter, from the eighth verse to the eleventh inclusive, treats of the kolasin ajon ion, the aion-torment, decreed for the Devil and his adherents; and into which they are commanded to "depart", who are adjudged unfit to appear among the 144,000 with the Lamb on Mount Zion. Thus the future national judgment of the great day affords scope for the "sorer punishment" of those "wicked and slothful servants," who are unprofitable for the Master's use. Such is the fate of those who "come forth to a resurrection of condemnation", for neglecting to improve the talents entrusted to their care. The reader can avail himself of these hints concerning the right and left hands of the Great Shepherd, in aid of a 'spiritual understanding" of the twenty-fifth of Matthew; and of the relative position of the two classes indicated in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

In conclusion of this section it may be added, that the acceptance of the proclamation by the British "Isles afar off' - "the Mart of Nations"- places all the wealth of the British Empire at the disposal of the Lamb and his 144,000. These are the subject of the forty-fifth psalm, where

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they are treated of prophetically as a Divine and mighty king rejoicing with his bride and her companions. In the first chapter of Hebrews, Paul identifies this king with Christ Jesus, who has not yet been manifested in the circumstances set forth in the psalm. When the time arrives for the scene exhibited in Apoc. 19:11, he will, in the words of David, "Gird his sword upon his thigh with his glory and his majesty. And in his majesty he will ride prosperously because of truth and meekness, and righteousness: and his right hand will teach him terrible things. His arrows will be sharp in the heart of the King's enemies (the Goat-nations), whereby the people fall under him". When the union predicted between Christ and his Brethren hath ensued, and their throne established on Mount Zion, it is declared in the twelfth verse of the psalm, that "the Daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift". This shows that in the day when Christ shall make "the blessed of the Father" princes in all the earth (v.16), there will be a Merchant-Power among "the powers that be," to which the prophetic title of "the Daughter of Tyre" will be applicable. This can be no other than Britain, the mart of modern nations, which inherits the wealth and commerce of her ancient mother; who, after being forgotten seventy years, revived and sang as a harlot; and like her British Daughter, "committed fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth". The merchandise and revenue of the revived Tyrian Mother passed from her to Alexandria, Venice, Lisbon, and at length to Britannia; who holds on to them as her own peculiar and especial inheritance. She hopes to monopolize them as long as the sun and moon endure. Though this is objected to by other nations, and among these the United States, they have not the ability, and never will have, to divert them to their own ports and coffers. The decree of heaven is against them; for "the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto Zion, and the wealth of the nations shall come to her:" "for the nation and kingdom that will not serve the city of Yahweh, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel, shall perish, and be utterly wasted" (Isa. 60:5,11,12,14). Thus the commerce and riches of the world, instead of migrating westward, are to return to the Holy Land, where Tyre of old used to rejoice with Israel, when Solomon and Hiram were in league. And this will come to pass when Britain shall have exchanged her present rulers for "those who dwell before Yahweh" when the nations of the British Empire are ruled by the Lamb and his 144,000 on Mount Zion by the Eternal Power incarnate in Jesus and his Brethren "glorified together" (Rom. 8:17). Then, in the words of the prophet, "The merchandise and hire of Tyre shall be holiness to Yahweh; it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing" (Isa. 23:18). Thus, "the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just;" "for to the sinner God giveth travail, to

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gather and to heap up, that He may give to him that is good before God" (Prov. 13:22; Ecc. 2:26). How vast has been the travail through which the Daughter of Tyre has passed in hewing her way to her present greatness! What oceans of blood she has shed, what tears and groans she has extorted from her laboring and ill-fed millions devoted to the creation of wealth! It is gathered from all the face of the earth, and heaped up in store; but not for the capitalists, who pride themselves in its possession; nor for the impoverished multitudes, who as mere beasts of burden toil without cheer in its accumulation. No, it is for none of these; it is "for the just who dwell before Yahweh" "the poor in this world, rich in faith," then in possession of the kingdom promised to the obedient James 2:5.

7. The Second Angel

'And another angel followed, saying, Fallen, fallen hath Babylon, the Great City, because she hath made a// nations drink of the wine of the raging of her fornication" - Verse 8.

I have styled this angel "the Second," because the one that succeeds it is called "a third". The first angel, which must, of course, precede the second, is the messengerhood engaged in "drawing the bow," or sounding the good news of the aeon (aion) in mid-heaven, after the manifestation of the Son of Deity upon Mount Zion. The second angel is constituted of the party of action by which the Roman Question can alone be solved. The purpose of their mission is the overthrow of Babylon, whose fall is proclaimed in the aorist, or indefinite tense, epesen, epese, which declares the event without specifying the exact time. This, however, is certain, that the Roman Babylon will not fall until the proclamation in mid-heaven shall have been announced, saying, "Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached until the heaven (achri tou ouranou), and the Deity remembers her iniquities" (ch. 18:5). The people here addressed are the eight thousand Jews in Rome, and the tens of thousands in the kingdoms of the Beast; who, if they remain in her, are warned, that they will be treated as the enemies of the Great Shepherd of the Sheep.

The initiation of the second angel judgment is synchronous with the Seventh Vial, in the Outpouring of which "great Babylon comes in remembrance before the Deity, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath" (ch. 16:19). The effect of this is the fall from which she never recovers; and which is proclaimed by the second angel.

I have said, that the second angelhood is constituted of the party of action. This party solves all questions beyond the ability of human gov-

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emments to settle. It consists of the Spirit in co-operation with the Saints, who in ch. 18:8, is styled "the Lord God," or Yahweh Elohim; in ver. 20, "the Heaven," or "holy apostles and prophets;" and in ver. 4,6,7, "my people". The Saints, to whom judgment is given under the whole heaven, in command of the hosts of Judah and their allies, are the constituents of the second angel power. It is their mission to give torment and sorrow to Babylon in a double proportion to the cruelties she has inflicted upon them; and not to withdraw their hand until they have destroyed her from the earth.

The Babylon whose fall is proclaimed by the second angel, is the city consisting of ten parts, or kingdoms (ch. 11:13); whose Queen, as yet unwidowed, is the Mother of Harlots enthroned in Rome (ch. 17:5,18). This ch. 14:8, is the first place where the name occurs in the Apocalypse; but, as we have seen, not the first place where it is alluded to. In ch. 11:8, it is "styled spiritually Sodom and Egypt;" because its wickedness is equal to theirs; and the judgments decreed against it, as terrible and disastrous. She is as Sodom, for her fornication is raging; and as Egypt, for she has made all nations drink of its wine. Hence the plagues of the second angel in all the fierceness of the wrath of God.

The initiation of the second angel tormentation of the worshippers of the Beast and his Image is the inauguration of the day of revenges, when Yahweh whets his glittering sword, and His hand takes hold of judgment. It is the opening of the Hour of Judgment upon the rebellious Goats in which Yahweh, the Man of War, will render vengeance to His enemies, and reward them that hate Him. Some idea may be formed of this vengeful recompense from Deut. 32:42, in which He saith, "I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy". This will be "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time" (Dan. 12:1) -the antitype of the great Pentecostian Day of Atonement, in which the Trumpet of the Jubilee shall sound (Lev. 25:9). The second and third angels of this fourteenth chapter are the executors of "the judgment written" in this "great day of God Almighty" (ch. 16:14): a day in which an offering shall be made by fire to Yahweh unto the total and complete consumption of the Apocalyptic Beasts, which as the sin of the political world, shall be destroyed by fire and sword.

The Whole Burnt Offering of these Beasts is a grand condemnation in the flesh of the sin-powers. They are to be put to death by being slain with Yahweh's sword; and tormented with fire and brimstone in the burning lake, in the presence of the holy angels, or messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb, who kill and offer the sacrifice to the Eternal Power of the universe (ch. 14:10; 19:20,21).

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But this "day of vengeance" in which the Great Shepherd who is a priest upon his throne (Zech. 6:13) punishes the Goats, is also "the year of his redeemed" (Isa. 63:4). He is the redeemer of the two classes of mankind; these are first, "his brethren" whom he has taken out from the nations for his name (Acts 15:14): and secondly, the many nations who shall be joined to Him as his people (Zech. 2:11). Of this second class are the twelve tribes of the house of Jacob. The nation of Israel is to be the first-born, or chief son of the national family, being the beloved nation for the fathers' sake (Rom. 11:28). The first class are redeemed from the earth, and stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, and follow him in all his wars and enterprises "whithersoever he goeth". The redemption of the second class is the work of the Eternal Power through Christ and his brethren. "He saves the tents of Judah first," and strengthens Judah's house (Zech. 12:7;l0:7); and then saves the house of Joseph, or the ten tribes of the kingdom of Ephraim. This salvation or redemption of Jacob is developed in the Jubilee, when "the Great Trumpet is blown" against the Goats; and all Israelites are invited to "return every man to his possession."

The day of the second and third angels is "a time of trouble" to all nations - to Israel as well as the rest; but there is this difference with respect to them, expressed in the declaration to Daniel that "at that time thy people shall be delivered every one that shall be found written in the book". Daniel was an Israelite and a saint. Hence his people are Israelites and saints, both of which classes are delivered in "the time of the end;" "when Yahweh shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning" (Isa. 4:4). It is the day in which the captivity of Israel and Judah is to be brought against their own land, consequent upon the breaking of the yoke of the House of Esau from off their neck, that foreigners may no more serve themselves of them; but that they may serve Yahweh their Elohim, and David their king, whom the Eternal Power hath already raised up for them in raising up the crucified "King of the Jews" from the dead.

But this great national redemption is only arrived at through a terribly severe refining process. It is styled in Joel, "the day of Yahweh, great and very terrible; and who can abide it?" (ch. 2:11). The Goat-nations will be unable to abide it; and all the dross of Jacob will be consumed. All the rebels will be purged out of the great army of resurrected dry bones, now scattered and "very dry" in all the countries of their dispersion where they are politically entombed; but in the time of the second and third angels, passing under the rod of discipline in the Wilderness of the people (Ezek. 20:33-38; 37:1-14). The prophet Malachi asks the same question as Joel. "Who may abide," saith he, "the day of his

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coming? And who shall stand when he (the Messenger of the Covenant) appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto Yahweh an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto Yahweh, as in the days of old, and as in former years" (ch. 3:1-4).

This day so great and very terrible, is "the Hour of his Judgment" proclaimed by the first angel in midheaven. The judgments or plagues inflicted are styled "torment with fire and brimstone;" and those who are tormented, "them who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the sign of his name". They are the plagues which cause Babylon the great city to fall. She falls, because of her wickedness in church and state; and of her sanguinary and merciless oppression of the saints and witnesses of Jesus, and of all the Jews and others she has slain upon the earth (ch. 17:6; 18:24). Jeremiah contemplating the terribleness of these "latter days" says, "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth, that I will break his yoke (the yoke of Esau's house) from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of Jacob. But they shall serve Yahweh their Elohim, and David their king whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore, fear thou not, 0 my servant Jacob, saith Yahweh; neither be dismayed 0 Israel; for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith Yahweh, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee, in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished".

Nations are political organizations of men: to make a full end of such is to dissolve and abolish all national bodies founded and built up by the violence and craftiness of the wicked. A full end is to be made of all the nations whither Yahweh has scattered the Jews. This declaration is fatal to the independence and political existence of the United States, as well as that of all nationalities. The Second and Third Angels, which are identical with the Rainbowed Angel of the tenth chapter, in the great and terrible Day of Atonement, execute this Divine purpose of reducing mankind to a common and universal brotherhood; and of subjecting them to the imperial and regal sovereignty of Jesus and his Brethren. The Israelitish Nationality, however, is not destroyed. In this day of judgment, Israelites are "corrected in measure," and the rebellious among them destroyed: but a remnant will survive the refining process

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of this terrible day, and its constituents will every man return to his possessions in the land of the Holy One of Israel. Because, therefore, for the sake of his name, "all they that devour Jacob shall be devoured; and all his adversaries, every one of them shall go into captivity (ch 13~l0) and they that spoil him shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon him will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto Jacob and will heal him of his wounds; because they call Zion an Outcast saying This is Zion whom no man seeketh after In the latter days Israel shall consider it (Jer. 30).

Now the Lamb-Power as the Man of war Yahweh will do all this after the example of Joshua in his war upon the Canaanites; which illustrates the manner in which Yahweh fought in the day of battle (Zech 14:3). Christ Jesus, the King of the Jew', "with the 144 000 as the commanders of the armies of Israel are the HoIy Angels" and "the Lamb" in whose presence the worshippers of the beast and his Image are tormented in the lake of fire burning with brimstone As the prophet like unto Moses, he will serve these as the great law giver served Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan whose story is narrated in Deut. 3, 4. When He opens his eyes upon the house of Judah he will make the governors of Judah (the Saints) like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf and they shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left Judah will then be the sword, and the bow in the hand of the Lamb and the house of Joseph, the ten tribes of the old Ephraim kingdom His arrow which shall go forth as the lightning When this bow is drawn its arrows will be sharp in the heart of the king's enemies as ii is written to day do I declare that I will render double for thee when I have bent Judah for me filled the bow with Ephraim and raised up thy sons 0 Zion against thy sons, 0 Greece (the Goats) and made thee (the Lamb Power in Zion) as the sword of a mighty man And Yahweh shall be seen over them and His arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning and Adonai Yahweh shall blow with a trumpet, and shall go forth with the whirlwinds of the south. And Yahweh

Tz'vaoth shall defend them And Yahweh their Elohim shall save them in that day as the flock of his people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown lifted up as an ensign upon His land". "And they shall be as mighty men who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle and they shall fight because Yahweh is with them and they shall be as though I had not cast them off. And they of Ephraim shall be as a mighty man yea their children shall see it, and be glad. And I will hiss for them and gather them. And I will sow them among the people: arid they shall remember me in far countries: and they shall live with their children, and turn again. I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out

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of this terrible day, and its constituents will every man return to his possessions in the land of the Holy One of Israel. Because, therefore, for the sake of his name, "all they that devour Jacob shall be devoured; and all his adversaries, every one of them shall go into captivity (ch 13~l0) and they that spoil him shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon him will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto Jacob andl will heal him of his wounds; because they call Zion an Outcast saying This is Zion whom no man seeketh after In the latter days Israel shall consider it (Jer. 30).

Now the Lamb-Power as the Man of war Yahweh will do all this after the example of Joshua in his war upon the Canaanites; which illustrates the manner in which Yahweh fought in the day of battle (Zech 14:3). Christ Jesus, the King of the Jew', "with the 144 000 as the commanders of the armies of Israel are the HoIy Angels" and "the Lamb" in whose presence the worshippers of the beast and his Image are tormented in the lake of fire burning with brimstone As the prophet like unto Moses, he will serve these as the great law giver served Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan whose story is narrated in Deut. 3, 4. When He opens his eyes upon the house of Judah he will make the governors of Judah (the Saints) like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf and they shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left Judah will then be the sword, and the bow in the hand of the Lamb and the house of Joseph, the ten tribes of the old Ephraim kingdom His arrow which shall go forth as the lightning When this bow is drawn its arrows will be sharp in the heart of the king's enemies as ii is written to day do I declare that I will render double for thee when I have bent Judah for me filled the bow with Ephratm and raised up thy sons 0 Zion against thy sons, 0 Greece (the Goats) and made thee (the Lamb Power in Zion) as the sword of a mighty man And Yahweh shall be seen over them and His arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning and Adonai Yahweh shall blow with a trumpet, and shall go forth with the whirlwinds of the south. And Yahweh

Tz' vaoth shall defend them And Yahweh their Elohim shall save theni in that day as the flock of his people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown lifted up as an ensign upon His land". "And they shall be as mighty men who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle and they shall fight because Yahweh is with them and they shall be as though I had not cast them off. And they of Ephraim shall be as a mighty man yea their children shall see it, and be glad. And I will hiss for them and gather them. And I will sow them among the people: arid they shall remember me in far countries: and they shall live with their children, and turn again. I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out

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of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and room shall not be found for them" (Zech. 9, 10).

Thus, on returning home from their dispersion after they stand upon their feet as a great army, they will have to fight their way through all the countries of the house of Esau. In this Jubilee return, under the Second and Third Angels "the house of Jacob," says Obadiah, "shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph aflame, and the House of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau. For Saviours shall come up on Mount Zion (the Lamb with the 144,000) to judge the Mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Yahweh's".

In this way, Babylon and the Goat-nations are "made to drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity, prepared without mixture in the cup of his indignation." Esau will have had the dominion over Jacob long enough; and the time will now have arrived to prove to mankind "that there is a God that judgeth in the earth". Esau has lived by his sword, but not righteously. He crucified the king of Israel, persecuted and killed his brethren, corrupted the faith, trod under foot the Holy City forty and two months, and poured out the blood of Jacob like water upon the ground. But they who war against Zion and her sons "shall be as nothing, as a thing of naught". Therefore, "fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel: I will help thee, saith Yahweh, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains (or empires) and beat them small, and shalt make the hills (or smaller states) as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in Yahweh, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:11-16). This has never come to pass since it was recorded by the prophet; for hitherto Jacob has been under the heel of Esau, whose metallic Image stands unbroken upon its feet of iron and miry clay. The work of the Second and Third Angels is to grind to powder the various metals of which it is composed; and to do the work so effectually that no place be found for the things they represent (Dan. 2:35).

8. The Third Angel

"And a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any one worship the Beast and his Image, and receive a sign upon his forehead, and upon his hand: 1O. He also shall drink ofthe wine of the wrath of the Deity, which hath been prepared without mixture in 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.

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11. "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth until the aeons of aeons: and they have no respite day and night, who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receiveth the sign of his name

"And a third angel followed them;" that is, the two angels treated of in the sixth and seventh sections. His following them indicates, that Babylon the great city has fallen before the third angel-power proceeds to finish the plagues of the last stage of "the Hour of Judgment". In other words, the terrible overthrow predicted in the eighteenth chapter will be complete. Rome will be where Sodom and Gomorrah are, and for a like reason because of the filthy conversation and unlawful deeds of the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies, who are reserved unto a day of judgment to be punished (2 Pet. 2:6-9). There will then be no "Name of Blasphemy" or Papal Dynasty, enthroned upon the Seven Heads or mountains. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and deacons; St. Peter, basilicas, and churches, and monastic "dens of foul spirits and all unclean and hateful birds;" with all "the dainty and goodly things lusted after" by the beastly soul of the drunken harlot of the earth all these abominations will have departed; and, "as a great millstone cast into the sea", will all have subsided into the volcanic abyss to "be found no more at all". This glorious and complete destruction of the temporal and spiritual papal power will have been consummated by the Second Angel which proclaims the fall of Babylon. But something more is necessary than the destruction of the Papacy to the complete enlightening of the earth with the glory of the angel, who descends out of the heaven having great power (ch. 18:1). There still remain "the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her;" and "the merchants of the earth," who trade in the dainty and goodly things peculiar to the bazaars, dedicated by them to guardian saints, and which they call "churches". These kings and priests survive the Sodom over-throw of "the Eternal City". They still occupy their position "afar off" in the ten streets of the Great City; for after Rome has been "utterly burned with fire" by the power of the Lord God who judgeth her, they are said to stand afar off for fear of her torment, and to bewail and lament for her. "Alas, alas," they exclaim, "that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come" (v.4,10, 11-19). But the lamentations of her ecclesiastics are the most mournful and grievous, because the fall of the Papacy by the power of the Lamb, ruins their imposture and thievery throughout the world "the merchants, or great men, of the earth, by whose sorceries all the nations are deceived, shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise anymore" (v.11,23).

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Picture and footnote page 52 not copied

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This class of traffickers in the bodies and souls of men (and the sympathizers with the Papacy and "the Eternal City" are not the only class of traffickers in such wares) in the text under consideration, are the men "who worship the beast and his image, and receive a sign in their forehead, or upon their hand;" termed in verse 11, "the sign of his name". The calamity which befalls their "holy city" evidently fails to transfer their love and worship to the Lamb Power, or Stone of her destruction. They "weep and mourn over her," because her fall ruins their vested interests. Their mourning is not so much their love of the city and its body ecclesiastic, as of themselves. "Brother," said one priest to another, "what a profitable thing this fable of Jesus Christ has been to us!" This is the spirit of the craft - they weep and mourn, not because they discover that the Catholic superstition is a bald and wicked humbug; but because they can no longer utilize it to their own aggrandizement in wealth and power - "for no man buyeth their merchandise any more". This is the secret of their grief!

A common danger cements the union of the kings and princes of the late Babylon's dominion. The Drunken Harlot priesthood, the Eighth Head of the scarlet-colored Beast, and the Ten Horns, "have one mind, and give their power and strength unto the beast" in aid of the common cause. The Eighth Head is the Dictator of the confederacy, styled in ch. 20:2, "the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan". The Harlot Priesthood is the False Prophet of the situation, that works miracles before the Beast, and deceives them that had received the sign of the Beast, and them that worshipped his Image before it was destroyed by the judgments of the Second Angel (ch. 19:20). When '"christian nations" go to war, the clergy are always there to prophesy success; and to assure the combatants that the God of battles, who gives the victory, is on their side. True to their calling and character they will be the chaplains of the military establishments of the Beast in the field; and praying to their god of battles, and prophesying victory from their "sacred desks" and "altars" over the Israelitish Antichrist! As usual, they deceive the governments, and all who trust them. By their prophesyings they deceive the worshippers of the Beast, and harden their hearts for the capture and destruction to be inflicted on them by the Third Angel-power. The Beast and kings of the Goat-nations determine to make war against the King of the Jews, and to meet his forces in the field. It is not likely that they will attribute the recent overthrow of "the Eternal City" to power exerted by his will. They will no doubt consider it accidental, and but another phenomenon to be added to the overthrow of Pompeii and Herculaneum . The terrible catastrophe only inflames their wrath, and causes them to "make war upon the Lamb". The Napoleons, the Victor Emmanuels, the Francis Josephs, and the Alexanders,

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of the day, gather together their armies like swarms of bees, intending to scatter his troops with the whirlwind of their host(*) - "they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me; their rejoicing is as to devour the poor secretly" (Hab. 3:14). They will think to take him by surprise. But the Eternal Father is on his side; there will therefore be to him no cause of fear. Let the reader study Psa. 118, which treats of "the Stone which the builders refused", and he will find the nature of the situation under the third angel manifestation. "All nations compassed me about like bees;" but, as he inquires in the sixth verse, "what can man do unto me?" These armies will rush like the rushing of mighty waters, but "the Lamb shall overcome them" (Apoc. 17:14). "They shall be quenched as the fire of thorns; for by the name of Yahweh will I destroy them." By this Name they are "rebuked, and chased as the chaff of the mountains" before the wind, and like thistle-down before the whirlwind - by this Name, "the King of kings and Lord of lords," the ten horns are overcome. They are conquered by the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes; because he is the King Almighty; "and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful". Such disaster as this, saith the prophet, "is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that scatter us" (Isa. 17:12-14).

Thus in "the great day of God Almighty," by the invincible troops of the King of Israel, is the Beast and False-Prophet polity "taken and cast alive into a lake of fire". This third angel judgment, which, like the second, belongs to the plagues of the Seventh Vial, slays Daniel's fourth Beast, destroys its body politic, and gives him to the burning flame (ch. 7:11). By this process the Latin Catholic superstition is eradicated from the kingdoms of Western Europe, which by conquest "become the kingdoms of Yahweh, and of his Christ" (ch. 11:15). The third angel judgments, however, are not expended with this result. Their smoke continues to ascend eis ajonas ajonon, to cycles of cycles, or courses of time which constitute what is commonly styled "the Millennium," because it is a period of a thousand years' duration. The smoke of third angel "torment" continues to ascend to the "establishment of the economy of the fulness of the times", by which time there will be no more Latin and Greek Catholics, Protestants, and Moslems to be subdued. This will be a glorious and blessed consummation of "the war of

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(*) It is highly significant that the Papal doctrine of Antichrist identifies him with 'satan" who, the Papists claim will set himself up in Jerusalem as king, and attempt to rebuild the ancient Temple. This same doctrine is currently advanced by so-called protestants and evangelists such as Hal Lindsay, whose books advocating this theory have sold in their millions. The teaching of such men is preparing the religious world to join with the Papacy against Christ at his second coming. Christ, of course, will proclaim himself as King in Jerusalem, and announce his purpose to rebuild the Temple as a House of Prayer for all nations. This will be seen as a vindication of the prophetic anticipations of the Papal and Protestant doctrine of the Antichrist, so that they will, the more readily, join in military action against the one in Jerusalem in that day, as required by Rev. 17:14 -Publishers.

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the great day of God Almighty" in which Israel will have done valiantly (Num. 24:18); chasing their enemies who fall before them by the sword- five chasing a hundred, and a hundred of them putting ten thousand to flight (Lev. 26:8).

The purpose of the second and third angel-judgments is fourfold; first, to avenge the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus shed by the spiritual and temporal rulers of the Graeco-Latin nations; secondly, to render vengeance to the rebellious who refuse to obey the gospel announced in the First Angel-proclamation; thirdly, to develop the mercy decreed for Yahweh's land and the twelve tribes of Israel; and, fourthly, that all adversaries being subdued, the surviving population of the earth may rejoice as the reconciled people of the Holy One of Israel, in whom, and in his father Abraham, all the families of the earth are blessed. This fourfold purpose is indicated in Deut. 32, in the words, "To me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Yahweh shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone. See now that I, even I am He (the Promised Seed), and that there are none of elohim (Ahyim Elohim) with me; I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to the heavens (Apoc. 10:5,6), and say, I am the Living One of the Olahm (or Millennium). If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to thine enemies, and I will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows (the Ten Tribes) drunk with blood, and my sword (Judah) shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain, and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy". Therefore, "0 ye nations, his people, cause ye to rejoice; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful to his Land and to his people".

When these judgments of the Second and Third Angels are all exhausted, and the smoke of them consequently ceases to ascend, mankind will then come to know that "there is none like the AlL of Yeshurun (the Strength of Israel) riding the heavens in thy help, and with his majesty the clouds. The Elohim of the East elohai kedem, (Apoc. 16:12), a refuge, and underneath the Powers of Olahm (the Lamb with the 144,000). He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, Destroy! Then Israel shall dwell in safety alone. The Fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew." Then it may be truly said, "Happy art thou, 0 Israel; who is like unto thee, 0 people saved by Yahweh, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thine exaltation! Also thine enemies shall be proved liars to thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places" (Deut. 33:26-29).

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The "smoke" of verse 11 which ascends, is the symbol of the glory and power of Deity in burning operation against the worshippers of the Beast. Inch. 15:8, it is styled "smoke from the glory of Deity, and from His power". In this place, "the temple" is said to be "filled with" this smoke. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple (ch. 21:22). The smoke is, therefore, His wrath; and while it flames, "no one is able to enter into the nave;" for the nave is the Most Holy Heavenly State, in which the nations hang the trumpet in the hall, and practise war no more.

9. The Patience of the Saints

"Here is the patience of the saints; here, they who keep the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus" - Verse 12.

This is parallel with ch. 13:10, in a certain degree. In this text the words have reference to the subject-matter of "the patience and the faith;" while in verse 12, it indicates the persons themselves who are specially related to this patience and faith.

The word hode, rendered "here" is as if one should say en tode, that is, topo, in this place: ta hode, signifies the things here, that is, the things transacted in this place.

"He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity." Hence, in the third angel-judgment, "the Beast is taken, and with him the Pseudo prophet" (ch. 19:20). The things represented by these symbols constitute a power that has led the saints and witnesses captive, and killed them with the sword. Therefore, the power "that killeth with the sword, by the sword must be killed;" and that, too, by the sword wielded by the saints (Psa. 149:6-9). Hence, also, in that section of the third angel -judgment represented in the eleventh verse, and further illustrated in the sickle scenes from the fourteenth to the twentieth verses inclusive, the remnant of the hostile power of the blasphemers (ch. 16:21) is slain with the sword of the "Faithful and True One," the Commander-in-Chief, "who judges and makes war in righteousness" (ch. 19:11).

What, then, are the saints waiting for, and what do they believe in? In other words, what is their patience and faith as the Brethren of Christ? The answer is, that they believe in and are waiting for the slaying of Daniel's fourth Beast, the destruction of his body politic, and the giving of it to the burning flame; and for the giving of the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, to the people consisting of the saints of the Most High Ones (Dan. 7:11,27); and Apocalyptically exhibited in chs. 14,15.

In the twelfth verse, the "here" leaves the reader without question

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as to who these saints are. They are those who have the faith of Jesus. True, "The Mother of Harlots and of all the Abominations of the earth," the Harlots and Abominations themselves - Latins, Greeks, State-Church and Dissenting Protestants of every name and denomination of blasphemy in the Court of the Gentiles - all of them claim to have "the faith of Jesus!" Of this there is no doubt. It is easy to make claims, but not so easy to establish them. The text before us, however, determines the question against them all. They who keep the faith of Jesus are there declared to be those who "keep the commandments of the Deity" - the obedient. They are all of them the reverse of this. The spirit of obedience to the Divine laws is not in them. The only spirit that is their familiar spirit, is "the spirit that works in the children of disobedience", who "are by nature the children of wrath" (Eph. 2:2,3). The "christians of every name and denomination of Christendom," as the phrase is, are not the saints; for they neither "keep the commandments of the Deity", nor "the faith of Jesus". They are piously alien from them all. Their own published confession of themselves is true -they are, as they say, "miserable offenders, who have erred and strayed from the Almighty's ways; and have too much followed the devices and desires of their own hearts, and offended against His holy laws; having left undone those things which they ought to have done; and done those things which they ought not to have done; and there is no health in them." This is a "general confession" made every Sunday morning by the whole congregation of the Anglican State superstition throughout the British Isles, North America and the Indies; everywhere, in short, where Episcopalianism is found. The miserable offenders who thus stigmatize themselves as being utterly destitute of spiritual health, are recognized as good and orthodox christians by all their pious contemporaries, though somewhat too aristocratic and overbearing. In thus recognizing them they are partakers with them. Listen to the individual outpourings of State-Harlot adherents and Dissenting Earth-Abomination members, and the same vein of self-condemnation will be found to run through them all. They all place themselves in the category of miserable offenders in whom is no health. This being their own testimony concerning their "inward man," we have no right to dispute it. We accept it as the truth, and nothing but the truth. This confession, however, is utterly incompatible with the claim of being the "keepers of the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus". The keepers of these do not err and stray from the Father's ways like lost sheep, but they walk in His ways because they keep His commandments and the faith of Jesus; and being his sheep, "they know his voice, and a stranger they will not follow". No, "miserable offenders" have no identity with these; but are

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of them who worship the Beast and his Image, and receive the sign of his name the unhappy subjects of the judgments of third angel power

That crucial rhantists (besprinkled infant sprinklers) are in no way related to "the saints," is clear from their total ignorance of the signification of the things symbolized in ch. 13:1-10; 14:l~20. Their greatest luminary Rev. Mr. Elliott, gives nearly the whole of this fourteenth chapter the go by, and the little he does speculate upon, from ver. 1 to 5, he expounds as finding its accomplishment in the time and events of the Lutheran Rebellion! The saints are waiting for the things represented in the first eleven verses of this chapter; the besprinkled subjects of the sign of the Beast's name are not. Hence, "the patience" symbolized en hode topo, in this place, is not their patience. They are waiting to "go to heaven" in Transkyania, where there is neither time nor space! It takes the credulity of the Beast's worshippers to believe in a place of such ample dimensions as "heaven," where there is no space! But nothing is too absurd for the "patience" of them who keep not the faith of Jesus.

But in this vision of the first, second and third angels are brought to light the saints themselves. "Here," or in this place of the Apocalypse, are seen the saints in the execution of "the judgment written". This is equivalent to declaring that "the Holy Angels and the Lamb," of verse 10, are symbolical of Jesus and his brethren, and identical with the Lamb and 144,000 of the first verse. These at the head of their forces are the power symbolized by the second and third angels. They begin their career in "prophesying again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings," as the first angel making proclamation in midheaven; and they finish it in binding the Dragon, and celebrating their victory over the Beast, and over his Image, and over the sign and number of his name, standing upon the sea of glass, having the harps of the Deity (Apoc. 15:2). In all their career "the nations rage, and the kingdoms are moved; but He uttered his voice, and the earth melted". When their work of judgment is in progress, it will be said, "Come, behold the works of Yahweh, who hath set desolations in the earth. He is making wars to cease to the end of the earth; he will break the bow, and will cut the spear in sunder; and will burn the chariots in the fire. Be still, and know that I am Elohim. I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth. Yahweh Tz'vaoth (He who shall be hosts) is with us; a strong place for us is the Elohim of Jacob" (Psa. 46:6-11).

10. A Voice From the Heaven

"And I heard a voice from the heaven, saying to me, Write! Blessed the dead dying in the Lord from this time. Yea, saith the

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Spirit, in order that they may take rest from their labors; and their works he goeth in aid of with them" - Verse 13.

The principal emendation of this verse is the rendering of the word akolouthei, which in the common version is incorrectly translated in the plural, as if "their works" were the nominative to the verb. The "Bible Union" Version, and all its "authorities," have fallen into the same grammatical error. In their attempted exposition of the words "their works follow with them" they add, "as an attendant train; so speedy is their recognition and reward". They then call Milton's poetry to their aid, saying:

"Thy works and alms, and all thy good endeavor,

Stay'd not behind, nor in the grave were trod,"

or as it originally stood in MS.:

"Straight followed thee the path that saints have trod

But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,

Follow'd thee up to joy and bliss for ever."

This is the heathen fiction, poetically expressed, of "immortal souls" going up at corporeal death to joy and bliss; and their works and alms, and good endeavor, as an attendant train of witnesses, bespeaking for them a glorious welcome in the skies.

The Anglo-American Harlot in the United States, has omitted the words, "and their works do follow them," in its service for the burial of the dead; and it makes the blessedness of these to consist in resting from their labors in the grave! This idea is expressed by the word "for" instead of that" - Blessed are the dead; for they rest from their labors. Hence, as the grave was the horizon of their imagination, her bishops saw the impropriety of sending their "works and alms, and all their good endeavor" after them into the grave: they therefore cut the knot of difficulty by ignoring the words altogether!

The error in the translation is not for want of a grammatical knowledge of Greek; but because the translators when they render it correctly, can see no sense in it. In order, therefore, to make what they regarded sense, they repudiated the grammar, and gave to the verb in the singular, a noun plural for its nominative: by which process they are enabled to transmute it, as by the philosopher's stone, into "divinity" more Sound and precious than the gold that perishes!

But, let us turn from this theological trickery, and examine the difficulty by the light of the original. This is faithfully rendered in the words at the head of this section, to the exposition of which we shall now proceed in the order it suggests.

John, who was contemplating the smoking torment, which had now

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reached the period of its extinction at the commencement of the ajons of aions, commonly called "the Millennium" - "heard a voice from the heaven". We must bear in mind this particular time in connection with its events, when he heard the voice; for the hearing of it at this crisis was indicative of the time when the subjects referred to in the voice shall be blessed and rest from their labors.

It was a voice from the heaven; and considering that it respects the blessed of the Father, it is doubtless the voice of the Son of Man, sitting upon the throne of his glory after he had punished the Goats, and established the kingdom upon the ruin of theirs - "Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the State" (Matt. 25:34). When they do this, they rest from their judicial labors, and enjoy the blessing promised to the Saints.

John says, that this voice from the heaven was addressed to him -"saying unto me”. This does not please "the recent editors," nor the Bible Union annotators. They advise the omission. We would do better in rejecting the advice. For myself, I prefer to retain it; for John being by the voice told to write, and what to write, the voice said to him what he has written. And it was spoken to him as the representative of the "blessed" - of "them dying in the Lord;" for what is said to John is said also to his brethren in "the patience and faith of the Saints".

It was said to him, "Write!" He obeyed the command, and we have before us what he was told to write. "Blessed the dead dying in the Lord". These words specify a particular class of dead ones - a class of people, who while living believed the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ; and having been immersed into the Lord, were in the Lord;" and thenceforth continued to walk in him until death. When death Overshadowed them, they fell asleep in Jesus, or "died in the Lord". Hence, "the dead dying in the Lord" are the saints of all the ages and generations preceding the future advent of the Ancient of Days. The "justified by faith" before "the faith" came, are included among these (Luke 13:28). These are all "blessed" in inheriting the kingdom and glory to which they are called, or invited, by the gospel of their salvation.

But, when is Yahweh's body of dead ones "blessed?" Is it, as "theologians" teach, when they are deposited in graves? - when the worm is feeding upon them, and they are seeing corruption? Is this the time of blessedness? It may be to the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, but certainly not to the Saints. John, dramatically contemporary with the end of the third angel's mission, gives us a different reply. Referring to that crisis, he writes, aparti, "from now," or "from this time"

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It is the time indicated by Jesus in Matt. 16:27, saying, "The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then (topte, that is, afterwards) he shall reward every man according to his works". The time of blessedness is when the smoke has all cleared out of the temple; and the Saints have fully executed the judgment committed to them. The wrath of the Deity being all "filled up", "all the families of the earth are blessed in Abraham and his Seed" (Gen. 12:3; 22:18; Gal. 3:8). "From this time", the resurrected brethren of Jesus are blessed in the possession of the kingdom in abundant peace. The "war of the great day of God Almighty," with all its lightnings and "Seven Thunders" proceeding from the throne (ch. 4:5) will be hushed in millennial peace, when

"No strife shall rage, nor hostile feuds Disturb those peaceful years;

To ploughshares men shall beat their swords, To pruning-hooks their spears.

No longer hosts encount'ring hosts, Shall crowds of slain deplore;

They hang the trumpet in the hall, And practise war no more".

'Yea, saith the Spirit." These words are an endorsement of what "the voice from the heaven" said to John; as if the Spirit had said, "Yea; the First fruits unto the Deity and the Lamb, in whose mouth was found no guile, and who had died in the Lord in ages and generations passed, are 'blessed from this time,' when the Seventh Vial of wrath shall have been completely emptied, and the smoke of its judgments entirely cleared away". But, why is the Spirit thus specially introduced in this place? In the first place, to inform the reader what will result to the saints in their blessedness at this time - "in order that they may take rest from their labors;" and in the second place, to explain to him how it comes to pass, that these who come forth from among the dead "in the nether parts of the earth," where all are weak (Isa. 14:10) should prove so omnipotent in all their operations "and their works He goeth in aid of with them".

The saints are blessed at the time indicated, not simply because they rest, but to the end that they may take rest (hina anapausontai) from their labors. They are blessed in the inscription of the Father's Name upon their foreheads, by which they were "clothed upon by their house from heaven". This makes the earthy bodies with which they emerged from the nether parts of the earth, incorruptible, immortal, almighty, and spiritual. They are blessed in the possession of this "New Name" or Divine nature; and in having conferred upon them the honor and glory of "following the Lamb (or Spirit) whithersoever he goeth" in

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the evolution of all the works exhibited in this fourteenth chapter. They are thus "the blessed of the Father," being like what Jesus is now, and as the angels (1 John 3:2; Luke 20:36). They are thus made omnipotent, and like him, imbued with "an energy whereby they are able to subdue all things". They are blessed with these attributes of omnipotence that they may be able to create the sabbatism, and to take rest in "the sabbatism, that remains for the people of the Deity" (Heb. 4:9). This is the end set before them who are blessed; an end to the development of which vast and mighty "labors" will be required.

The labors of the Saints are world-wide. Mankind has no conception of them. They are labors whereby "every island shall flee away, and the mountains shall not be found" (Apoc. 16:20). These are the islands and mountains of the political earth - the kingdoms and empires of the world. All these are to become the kingdoms of the Eternal Spirit, and of his Anointed Body consisting of Jesus and his Brethren (ch. 11:15). Let the reader figure out for himself the work to be performed in render-ing them powerless, and bringing them into absolute subjection to "the King of the Jews," and he will be enabled to form a faint idea of "the works and labors of the Saints," to be performed before they take rest in the kingdom of the Deity. These islands and mountains, of which Great Britain, Russia, France, and such like, are examples, are maintained in political existence by vast naval and military power and resources; and the Continental Powers are so constituted, that they can conscript "the last man" for conflict in "the last ditch," before they will yield to temporal and spiritual annihilation. But the decree has gone forth, and is here Apocalyptically recorded against them. They must succumb, and "wait for his law". Their fleets must be surrendered, and their armies routed, slaughtered, and dispersed. Their hearts will be hardened like the heart of Pharaoh. "Yahweh hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked for the Day of Evil" (Prov. 16:4). Hence, He hath made the Powers that be for the day of evil, as "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction", in which He will make His power known (Rom. 9:22). Their hardened hearts will cause them to stand and resist, till they are broken to shivers as the vessels of a potter (Apoc. 2:27). It is Jesus and his brethren who have the glory of giving them this terrific overthrow, in the execution of their judicial labors upon Babylon, and the world-wide worshippers of the Beast and his Image. To reduce these islands and mountains to a submarine level - to overflow them with an unruffled and glassy sea; to make them as "a plain before Zerubbabel," and to develop "a great mountain thereon that shall fill the whole earth" (Dan. 2:35), these are the labors of the Saints, which will leave their mark upon the world for a thousand years; nor will they ever be forgotten, as

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long as the sun and moon shall shine upon the earth.

But their prowess is not exclusively of themselves. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise;" "The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works" (John 5:19; 14:10). Upon this principle "their works" are performed likewise. The Saints can do nothing of themselves; for it is "not by might nor by power," originating from men; "but by My Spirit, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth". The prowess of the saints is all attributable to the Spirit, which they will have become in being "justified by Spirit" after their appearance at "the tribunal of Christ" - "that which hath been born of spirit is Spirit" (John 3:6). The antithesis in Zech. 6:6, is between flesh and spirit. The "great mountain," which before Zerubbabel is to "become a plain," is the power of the old Adam, organized and concentrated in the powers represented in Nebuchadnezzar's Image. This is to be broken to pieces, and scattered as chaff, "not by the might and power" of mortal men, however effectively armed and disciplined; but by the Spirit incorporate in the Saints; and energizing the armies of Israel under their command; so that five Israelites, as so many Samsons, may chase a hundred, and a hundred put ten thousand to flight (Lev. 26:8).

In this exposition the reader will see in what sense it is said, "their works He goeth in aid of with them;" and he will also perceive, who it is that goeth in aid with them, and what noun likewise is the singular nominative to the verb akolouthei, in the third person singular of the present indicative. The Spirit goeth with them in aid of their works. Without the Spirit they could do nothing; but aided by the Spirit, there is nothing too difficult f6r them to accomplish. The Spirit is their akolouthos or "attendant", in whatever capacity the circumstances of the situation may require them to act. "He goeth with them," akolouthei met' auton, so that, as Ezekiel saw in his visions of the Elohim, "whither-soever the Spirit was to go, they went" without being turned aside from the execution of their purpose (ch. 1:12,20). Thus, it is not the works of piety and "supererogation" performed by "professors of religion," and the charitable of no profession, which "follow them up to joy and bliss for ever," and obtain for them "a speedy recognition and reward". This is a vain conceit of the carnal mind, which, in all its thinkings, is at variance with the truth. Nor does it mean, that they who die in the Lord in the Millennium are blessed in an especial sense, as compared with those who die in the Lord in the times of the Gentiles. Such is not the fact. More blessed are they who die in the Lord during his absence from earth; for though their tribulations are greater while living, the glory and honor will be greater in the kingdom; when their post-resurrec-

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tional labors, aided by the Spirit, shall have conquered for them therein, "the rest that remaineth for the people of God."

11. The Reaping of the Earth's Harvest

14. "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like to a Son ofMan, having upon his head a golden stephan, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

15. "And another angel came out of the nave, vociferating with a loud voice to him sitting upon the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap, because for thee hath arrived the hour of the reaping; for the harvest of the earth hath been ripened. 16. And he that is sitting upon the cloud, cast his sickle upon the earth, and the earth was reaped".

"And I looked," saith John. Previous to this his ears, not his eyes, had been addressed. He had just been listening to the "voice from the heaven," and the comment of the Spirit upon it. Having finished the writing of it in the book before him, he very naturally looked up, and thereupon perceived, that the scene had been changed. When he last wrote the words "I looked, and, behold," he introduced us to a scene upon Mount Zion, where the Lamb with the 144,000 are seen standing. This is a Pentecostian scene, an exhibition of First fruit. But, before Pentecost, comes the Passover in its fulfillment in the kingdom of the Deity (Luke 22:15-18). We had not been informed whether the Lamb and the 144,000 had entered Zion without a conflict, or as the result of a great disaster inflicted upon the enemy. The reader will perceive a remarkable transition from the subject treated of in the latter half of the thirteenth chapter to that of the beginning of the fourteenth. They are altogether different and unconnected. The former treats of the Name of the Beast, and the manner of its establishment in the earth; the latter, of the Name of the Father, and what it effects after its Apocalypse; but as to how it established itself in Zion, this fourteenth chapter has hitherto afforded us no information.

Before the Lamb can enter Zion with the 144,000, it will be necessary for him to expel the enemy. He comes to redeem Zion from the power of the foreigners, who have "come in like a flood", and afflicted her with "desolation and destruction, and the famine, and the sword". At this crisis of Zion's history, coeval with "darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the people," Yahweh inquires through the prophet, "What have I here that My people is taken away for naught? They who rule over them make them to howl, saith Yahweh; and My Name continually every day is blasphemed". "They have scattered Israel among

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the nations, and they have parted My land;" and "the king of the north hath planted the tents of his entrenched camp between the seas to the mountain of the glory of the Holy One" (Isa. 59:19; 52:5; Joel 3:2; Dan. 11:45).

Such are Zion's relations, domestic and foreign, social, civil, and spiritual, at the crisis immediately preceding the appearance of the Lamb and his company within her walls. Being assembled in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and having laid successful siege to Jerusalem, they rifle its houses, ravish its women, and send half of its population into captivity, many of whom they sell to the Greeks for slaves at the vilest prices (Zech. 14:2; Joel 3:3). This prostrates Jerusalem in the dust, and fastens bands around the neck of the captive daughter of Zion. The uncircumcised and the unclean, then in possession of Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Palestine, are in high feather over their success. This will be truly the day of Jacob's trouble, in which there will be none to help, nor

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any to uphold (Isa. 63:5; Jer. 30:7). But, Zion's extremity is her Redeemer's opportunity. "When," saith Moses, "he seeth that their power is gone, he will repent himself for his servants;" and saith Joel, "He will then be jealous for his land, and pity his people, who shall no more be made a reproach among the nations" (ch. 2:18,19; Deut. 32:36).

"The Harvest of the Earth," according to Joel, and John's angel that comes out of the nave, hath been ripened; "for their wickedness is great". The harvest is composed of vast multitudes of ripened wickedness in the plain, or valley of judgment, unconsciously awaiting a terrible overthrow. Joel in vision saw them all assembled there, as expressed in the words, "Multitudes, multitudes (hamonim, hamonim) in the valley of the judgment; for the Day of Yahweh is near in the valley of the judgment" (ch. 3:14). These hamonim are the hamon-gog of Ezekiel 39:11 - the multitude of Gog, which is buried in the valley of the judgment executed; and gives name to an adjacent city, called Hamonah, that is, Multitude. This and the preceding chapter of Ezekiel are parallel with Joel 3, and John's vision of the reaping. The prophet is indignant at their wickedness. He does not pray for their conversion, nor for their salvation; but for their sudden and complete overthrow, in the words, "Thither cause to come down with violence thy mighty ones, 0

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Yahweh!" Nor will Joel's prayer be in vain; for, referring to the same crisis, Zechariah says, "Yahweh Elohim shall come in, and all the Saints with thee" (ch. 14:5). This coming in to Jerusalem will be with violence, and a terrific outpouring of wrath upon the multitudes in arms. In the words of Ezek. 38:18, "Adonai Yahweh saith, my fury shall come up in My face: for in my jealousy and in the fire of My wrath have I spoken, surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel.... and all the men that are upon the face of the land shall shake AT MY PRESENCE, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the towers shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all my mountains saith Adonai Yahweh: every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him and upon his bands and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone". Thus, Yahweh goes forth and fights against these multitudes, as in the days of old (Zech.

14:3).

Such is the Harvest of the Earth, and its reaping. John looked, and beheld it in symbol. He saw "a white cloud"-a cloud of mighty ones habited in fine linen, white and clean, which represents the righteousness of them who are clothed with it (ch. 19:8,14). A cloud indicates a multitude; and such a cloud, when looked upon in reference to its intrinsic excellence, would look white to the eye of faith. "All the Saints with Yahweh Elohim" are "Yahweh's mighty ones," numerically represented by 144,000; these are the white cloud, or Cherub, upon which the Spirit rides (Psa. 18:10); or, in the language of the Apocalypse, "upon which one like to a Son of Man is sitting". Here the Spirit sits upon the white cloud; while, inch. 10, he is "clothed with a cloud". This tenth chapter is introductory to the fourteenth. The Ancient of Days must descend from heaven before he can be "clothed with a cloud," or ride upon a cloud, of Saints, now sleeping in the dust. Hence, the scene beheld represents events subsequent to the descent of Christ Jesus, and the resurrection and immortalization of the 144,000; and before they obtain possession of the Holy City. This is the epoch of the vision; and synchronizes with the concluding period of the Sixth Vial, and coeval with the gathering of the kings of the earth and their armies "into the place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon" (ch. 16:16).

The "one like the Son of Man" sits upon the cloud, "having upon his head a golden stephanos," rendered crown, but not a diadem. This indicates that he is the Generalissimo of the cloud of mighty ones; but not yet in possession of David's diadem, removed from David's house, when Zedekiah , the profane, wicked prince of Israel, was abased by

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Nebuchadnezzar (Ezek 21:26). The stephan indicates that he is going to compete for a prize, which he has not as yet acquired. If he had been seen with a diadem upon his head, it would have implied that he was the ruling monarch of one kingdom at least; or that such was his destiny. On the contrary, the scene before us exhibits him in the outset of his military career, whose course will be that of a strong man to run and win a race (Psa. 19:5). The prize set before him is, not one, but diademata polla, many diadems (ch. 19:12): and these he acquires by "the energy whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself". He transfers the diadem from the ten horns to his own head, when their kingdoms have become his by right of conquest. He is then seen sitting no longer on a cloud, but "upon a throne set in the heaven," the throne of his father David, which Yahweh Elohim hath given him (Ch. 4:2; Luke 1:31-33).

The sharp sickle in his hand is symbolical of his power to reap down the multitudes which have assembled on the valley or plain of their destruction. The sword called for throughout the mountains of Israel, their mutual slaughter, the pestilence, overflowing rain of hailstones, fire, and brimstone, the panic and blindness of the horses, and the madness of their riders (Zech. 12:4; 14:12-15) - all illustrate the sharp sickle cast upon the earth for its reaping at the appointed hour.

"And the earth was reaped" - the "Little Horn of the Goat; the King of Fierce Countenance is broken without hand; the Image of Nebuchadnezzar is smitten by the stone; the Gog Multitude is prostrate upon the mountains of Israel; the King of the North hath come to his end without anyone to help him; and Judah is delivered from the Assyrian by the Bethlehem-born Ruler of Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting (Micah 5:2-7; Dan. 11:45; 8:9,23,25; 2:34). This confederacy against the East is shivered to pieces as a potter's vessel, and Jerusalem is delivered. From henceforth she will be no more trod-den under-foot of the Gentiles; nor will the uncircumcised and unclean be permitted to enter. Zion hath now put on her strength; and Jerusalem her beautiful garments. She is no longer rebellious against her King, but blesses him as her Redeemer who hath come in the name of Yahweh. She had thrown open wide her gates, that the King of Glory, Yahweh Tz'vaoth, strong and mighty in battle, might enter in. Standing with his feet upon the Mount of Olives, he beholds the Pass over fill fllled in the kingdom - the Assyrian is slain, Zion is redeemed, and the Lamb with the 144,000 stand upon her holy mount: "Henceforth Jerusalem shall be holy, and no strangers shall pass through her any more" (Joel 3:17).

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12. The Vintage of the Earth

17. "And another angel came out from the Nave, which is in the heaven, he having also a sharp sickle. 18. And another angel came out from the Altar, having power over the fire, and he shouted with a great outcry to him having the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and cut off the clusters of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.

19. "And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and cut off the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of the Deity.

20 "And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out from the winepress unto the bridles of the horses for a thousand six hundred furlongs".

"And another angel came out of the Nave." This is the same form of expression as in the fifteenth verse. The word "another" in verse 15 implies, that the one sitting upon the cloud was an angel, or Messenger-Power, also. The angel of the seventeenth verse is, doubtless, identical with the symbolic Son of Man. This is to be inferred from the fact, that they both have possession, or command, of a sharp sickle. The power of the sickle is vested in the Commander-in-Chief, who executes, through his officers and brigades, the behests of the Supreme Power. In verse 17, the holder of the sickle is styled an angel; and "another" in relation to the one on the cloud, who reaps the harvest, because the situation of the sickling executive is changed.

Thus the symbolic Son of Man, "whose voice is as the sound of many waters" (ch. 1:13-16), sickled the harvest for the purpose of "opening a door," through which the mighty ones of the Spirit, the Elohim of Israel, might enter in the heaven, and set up a throne therein

ch. 4:1-2. In this work, or labor, they succeeded gloriously. They opened a door, entered amid the acclamations of the people, planted themselves on Mount Zion, and established the throne of the Deity, be-fore and around which they circle in faultless myriads (ch. 14:1,5). But, the other angel that sickles the vine of the earth comes out of the Nave "which is in the heaven". The angel power of the harvest and vintage belongs to the Nave, or temple, in most holy manifestation; but between the advent and the harvest, it is the Nave "which is not in the heaven;" while after the harvest and before the vintage it is "the Nave which is in the heaven", or "Air," where it will continue evermore.

The reaping of the harvest of the earth, which puts the saints in possession of "the City of the Great King," is only the beginning of national judgment. It is the smiting of the Babylonian Image upon its Russo-

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Gogian clayey feet by the stone-power. This shatters its homogeneity as a political organization under one imperial ruler. But though the continuity of its political elements is broken, the dynasties represented by the gold and the silver, the brass, the iron and the clay, of the image, do still exist; so that the work remaining for the mighty ones of the Spirit is that of reducing the broken fragments of the Image to the condition represented by the chaff of the summer threshing floors, which the wind carries away into nonentity (Dan. 2:35). This is the work of the vintage in its simplest illustration.

The harvest and the vintage of the earth are still further distinguished in Daniel's vision of the Four Beasts of the Great Sea, in ch. 7. First, there is the slaying of the Fourth Beast; a process, the beginning of which is the harvest; then, there is the destroying of his body in the burning flame; and the taking away of the dominion of the other three Beasts; which consummates "the judgments written", and constitutes the Vintage of the Earth, which the angel Son of Man with the sharp sickle is to gather and to tread without the city.

But, before this angel issues forth from the heaven, the proclamation of the aionian gospel is made through midheaven - verse 7. It announces, that "the Hour of the Judgment," or the time of the treading of the winepress by the angel is come. When these causes and its result are manifested, it is found that the political organization symbolized by "the Beast and the False Prophet," "the King of the Earth," and "the Ten Horns," making in the aggregate the Powers "within" and "without" the great city Babylon - refuse to comply with the demands; in evidence of which, "the Beast and the kings of the earth and" their armies, gather together to make war with the Lamb and them that are with him" (ch.19:19; 17:14).

Affairs having arrived at this crisis, the Deity determines to exercise forbearance no longer. This decision is evinced by another angel coming out of the temple from the altar, having power over fire (verse 18). The angel is said to come out "from the altar". He issues thence as the avenger of those whose blood had been poured out beneath it. Hence, the altar is symbolical of the apostles, prophets, and saints, and of all slain upon the earth, for the witness of Jesus, and the word of the Deity (ch. 17:6; 18:20,24;6:9,10; 20:4). All oft hese, accepted at the tribunal, are constituents of the avenging minister. They live again; and judgment being given unto them, they have "power over fire" - over that fire with which Babylon is utterly burned (ch. 18:8); that, into which the Beast and the False Prophet are cast alive (ch. 19:20); that, with which the worshippers of the Beast and his Image are tormented (ch. 14:10): that, which is mingled with the crystal sea; and that, the

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smoke of which ascendeth to the end of the "sixteen hundred furlongs". This is the "fire," or "wrath of the Deity poured out unmixed in the cup of His indignation," at their command. Their tribulations, sufferings and down-treading. have continued and accumulated for ages and generations; so that the cry for vengeance in the day when the Deity avenges his elect, is truthfully represented as the shout of a great outcry. The cry of Abel's blood, though faint as that of one man, was loud enough to reach the ear of Deity; hence the loudness of the cry proceeding from the angel of the altar, is not because the avenger is hard of hearing, but symbolical of the multitudes to be avenged - "a great multitude which no man can number;" "a great cloud of witnesses," of whom the world is not worthy (ch. 7:9; Heb. 12:1; 11:38).

But the Angelhood of the Altar, though possessing power over the fire, does not apply it to judicial purposes of its own accord. It appeals to the Angel of the Sickle, the Head of which is Christ the Lord. He being the Commander-in-Chief, all things await his mandate. Hence, the loud outcry must be understood, not as a command, but as an entreaty, that he would now "thrust in his sharp sickle, and "gather the clusters of the vine of the earth". Remembering their former sufferings in the flesh, which they endured without retaliation; and seeing that the day of vengeance has come, and that they are now in power, they long to begin the work of vindicating the truth, which cost many of them their lives, by overthrowing Babylon, destroying the Beast, and grinding to powder the broken fragments of the Image, so that these evil and accursed powers being abolished, they may enter upon "the rest that remaineth for the people of God", in which there is abundant peace so long as the sun and moon endure.

"The Vine of the Earth" is a phrase representative of the civil, military, and ecclesiastical, constitution of what is called "Christendom". The grapes of this vine are the nations clustered together into empires and kingdoms upon it. To gather the clusters of the vine is to cause the armies of the nations to assemble together for war, so that they may be cut off and trodden down. Wherever the trampling of them occurs, there is the winepress into which they are cast - "the great winepress of the wrath of the Deity".

The great outcry shouted forth by the Angel of the Altar is promptly responded to by the Angel of the Sickle, who puts his forces into motion against the enemy. The sickle he handles in the sanguinary vintage of the earth, is "the Remnant of Jacob" who are then "among the Gentiles in the midst of many peoples as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can de-

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liver. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the nations, such as they have not heard" (Micah 5:8,15). Such is the instrumentality of the Spirit in the down-treading of the wine press. Judah and Israel in their dispersion are handled by the King of the Jews as his sword, bow, arrow, battle-axe, sickle, fan, and so forth. "Behold," saith the Spirit in Isaiah 41:15, "I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth; thou, worm Jacob, shalt thresh the mountains (empires), and beat them small, and shalt make the hills (lesser states) as chaff. And thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; and thou shalt rejoice in Yahweh, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel". This has never come to pass since it was written. It will, however, assuredly be fulfilled, when He who hath been raised up "shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay" (v.25). And in Psa. 44 they say, "Thou art He, 0 Elohim, my King: command thou deliverances for Jacob. Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy Name will we tread them under that rise up against us". Then "the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked: so that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous: verily there is Elohim judging the earth" (Psa. 58:10,11). Jesus and his Brethren in command of the twelve tribes of Israel, are the Sickle of the Spirit by which he cuts off the vine of the earth, and treads its clusters in the great winepress of Divine wrath. Behold them all in battle array in ch. 19:11-16! There is the Faithful and True One, the Commander of the forces, who makes war in righteousness; His brethren in arms, who are "the called, and chosen and faithful;" and their hosts, the horses they ride, and the sharp sword of their warfare. These constitute the instrumentality symbolized in ch. 14 by the Angel of the Sickle who treads the winepress. This is evident from the fact that his mission is the same as theirs, which the reader may see by comparing verse 19 of this chapter with verse 15 of the former, where it is written "He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness of Mighty God". Thus, those who "go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall, tread down the wicked: for they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet in the day that I shall do, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth".

13. The Bridles of the Horses

The winepress of Divine wrath is trodden "without the City." That is, the fearful judgments to be manifested will not be confined to the Ten-Streeted Babylon, which is geographically bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, the English Channel, and the Atlantic. There are extensive regions beyond, or "without," these limits, equally

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obnoxious to the "fierceness and wrath of Almighty God". "Without the City" there is Germany, in its largest sense, styled by Ezekiel "Magog", upon which, saith Adonai Yahweh, "I will send a fire". This Magog, or land of Gog, will include Prussia, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Poland. "Without the City" also are "them that dwell carelessly in the isles", among whom the fire is to be sent also. These isles will include the dorninions of Great Britain, that may not obey the proclamation in midheaven commanding obedience to the King of Israel. "Without the City" also there are Canada and its sister provinces the United States, Mexico, all South America, the Chinese Empire, Central Asia, Persia, Arabia, Abyssinia, and Egypt. All these countries, which include what Daniel styles, "the Rest of the Beasts," in ch. 7:12, the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard, are all to be visited with "the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God;" which results in "taking away their dominion," though not in extinguishing their political existence, which continues "for a season and a time," or 1000 years. All these are "cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God," when, having destroyed the Great City of Ten Kingdoms, in its threefold dominion of the Seventh Vial, they are trodden in the judgments of the winepress "without the City"

The reader may easily conceive what an immense shedding of blood is implied by such a vintage as this. It is "the supper of the great God" prepared for the fowls of the heaven, who fill themselves with "the flesh of horses, and of them that sit upon them". The phrase "oceans of blood;" as expressive of the quantity shed in these extensive warlike operations of the Saints, or Angel of the Sickle, would hardly be an exaggeration. The blood which flows from the down-trodden armies of the nations, is represented as ascending to "the bridles of the horses for a thousand six hundred furlongs". This taken literally, would be about five feet deep, and two hundred miles long; but how broad we are left to imagine. But, as the literal is only symbolical of the real in this most ingeniously~devised prophecy, we need only inquire, what is signified by the phrase "came Out of the winepress even unto the bridles of their horses". The winepress judgments being identical with "the Supper of the Great God," which consummates the binding of the Dragon in the abyss, the terms of the one are expletive of the terms of the other. Hence, the more concise phrase, "the bridles of the horses," is interpreted by the words in ch. 19:18, "the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them" - of them that hold the bridle. Thus the word bridle comes to represent the rider of the horse. Blood does not flow from the horses only; but the fierceness of the wrath falls also upon the bridle-men, or "bridles," who govern and maneuver them in battle; it comes even unto them.

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The armies within and "without the city" have large cavalry contingents, in which the kings and mighty of the nations pride themselves greatly. The governments, however, "without the city" can bring more cavalry into the field than those within it. In the constitution of the Asiatic armies it so preponderates as to be a characteristic. This is illustrated in ch. 9:16. But "a horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver any by his great strength" (Psa. 33:17). This will be found to be true in the time of this terrible vintage. When Judah and Israel, as the Angel's Sickle, shall tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle, because Yahweh is with them, the riders on horses, the bridles, shall be ashamed (Zech. 10:5). "In that day, saith Yahweh, I will smite every horse with terror, and his rider with madness, . . . and every horse of the peoples with blindness" (ch. 12:4). "With thee, 0 Israel, I will break in pieces the horse and his rider" (Jer. 51:21): "and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother" (Hag. 2:22). What a terrible visitation will this be upon a cavalry force

- the horses all terror-stricken, and therefore wild and utterly unmanageable; rushing against and kicking each other in fury and blindness! This alone would be fearful; but the horror is increased by the multitude of mounted and dismounted bridlemen in the melee, being all smitten with madness; so that "the bridles of the horses" are useless in their hands. In this way, the fierceness and wrath of the Deity comes out even to the bridles of the horses. What is not consummated by this mutually destructive mass of infuriate flesh, Israel will be on hand to finish. As the fowis of the heaven, they will devour them; and their sword will be filled with their flesh.

14. Sixteen Hundred Furlongs

This "thousand six hundred furlongs" is a great Apocalyptic puzzle. Is it a measure of territorial surface, a measure of length without breadth and depth; or is it such a measure of length, representative of a measure of time? It cannot be taken in the sense of territorial measurement, because this would require a continuous line of cavalry two hundred miles long; and whether in single file, or broadly massed, cannot be told. Such an exposition would not be reasonable; nor is there anything in the prophets to justify it. The winepress is not a locality sixteen hundred furlongs in length; but the aggregate of the wrath of the Deity, affecting all the nations "without the city". Wherever there is a nation, kingdom, or republic, beyond the limits of "the Great Babylon," to be trodden down, there is the winepress, though it may be ten thousand furlongs from Jerusalem.

The question, then, in relation to the treading of the winepress is

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not where, but how long? How long is the smoke of the torment "from the glory of the Deity, and from his power" to ascend? In the eleventh verse the answer is eis ajonas aionon, unto aeons of aeons. This reminds one, that "it is the glory of the Deity to conceal a thing; but the honor of kings is to search out a matter". This answer, it is true, reveals the how long. It is to continue till the commencement of "the Economy of the fullness of times," commonly styled the Millennium: but still the question remains to be solved, How long from the reaping of the harvest of the earth by the Son of Man upon the white cloud, which puts the saints in possession of Mount Zion, and the end of the judgments when the Millennial Economy begins? The answer before us is "a thousand six hundred furlongs" off; that is,. a time of this length is the square of the time to be occupied in the execution of the judgment given, or committed, to the saints.

This principle of the square, traditionally incorporated in Masonry, is a specialty of revelation, from the Aaronic breastplate of judgment, to "the city that lieth foursquare". The measure of its wall, which is 144 cubits is the square of 12, obtained by multiplying 12 by itself- 12>( 12 = 144. The like treatment applied to the sixteen hundred furlongs will show that they are the square of forty. Thus, the division of 1600 without a remainder gives 40; and 40 multiplied by 40 gives 1600 - 40 x 40

1600. Here, then, is the answer in figures. The treading of the winepress by the saints in command of the armies of Israel will continue by the space of forty years, at the end of which will be reached the fulfilment of the Jubilee in the kingdom of the Deity, when every Israelite shall return to his possession and to his family (Lev. 25:9,10).

This forty years is the period of Israel's Second Exodus, in which "it shall come to pass that the Adon (Lord) shall add his hand to redeem a second time the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. They shall fly (as a bird of prey) upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; and they shall spoil them of the east ("without the city") together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt" (Isa.11:11,14,16).

It is clear from this testimony, that the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel in our future is to be after the example of their ancient migration from Egypt under Moses; when "Yahweh led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, to make Himself an everlasting

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and a glorious name (Isa. 63:12-14). Ezekiel testifies to the same thing, and cites the Exodus from Egypt, as the similitude of the manner of their deliverance from the long dispersion of the past. "As I live, saith Adonai Yahweh, I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith Adonai Yahweh" (chapter 20:33-36).

But, do the prophets testify to the how long, as well as to the manner, of Israel's second exodus, or returning from the lands of their enemies to their own possession? Let us see. The spirit of Christ in Micah caused him to place on record in ch. 7:14, the supplication following: "Feed Thy people with Thy rod, the flock of Thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood (or forest of nations), in the midst of Carmel; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old". This is a petition praying, in effect, for the restoration of the kingdom to Israel; for their return from their present long dispersion in "the land of the enemy;" for their re-establishment as a powerful and independent nation in the holy land; for the subjugation of all kingdoms and nations to the laws and ordinances of their king. To perform this great work will require considerable time, and a great manifestation of almighty power. It consumed forty years of days "in the days of old," or "a thousand six hundred furlongs" of time, from the institution of the Passover in Egypt to its celebration in the Valley of Achor under Joshua; which was its typical fulfillment in the kingdom of God (Josh. 5:6,10). These were "the days of the coming out of ihe land of Egypt" into the land of Canaan; in which Yahweh fed His people with the rod, and purged out the rebels among them, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness - the days of the corning out, in which He made use of the twelve tribes as His soldiery in His wars against the Amalekites, Amorites, and so forth, as recorded in the earliest records of the nation.

Understanding these things, the reader will perceive the meaning of the words of the oracle delivered to the prophet in answer to his petition. The Eternal Spirit replied, saying to him as the petitioner for Israel, "According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things". That is, as the coming out of Egypt consumed forty years; so, in causing Israel to feed in Bashan and Gilead, I will consume forty years in the marvelous works whereby it shall be effected. Thus it is that Micah testifies to the length of the period Apocalyptically represented by the sixteen hundred furlongs. These are the square of forty; and this is the number of years during which the saints will be executing the judgment written, as symbolized, not only in this fourteenth chapter, but also in the sixteenth, from the seventeenth

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verse to the end; in the whole of the eighteenth and nineteenth, and the twentieth to the fourth verse inclusive. These forty years are included in Daniel's "Time of the End," which is the period of transformation and transition, styled by Jesus "the Regeneration" (Matt. 19:28); and by Peter, "the times of the Restitution of all things, which the Deity hatli spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets ap' ajonos, from the aion"; or beginning of the course of things instituted through Moses (Acts 3:21). In these forty years the present constitution of the world is abolished. At the end of them there will be no armies and navies. These destructive agents will cease to exist. The vintage will have cut them off, and disbanded them as useless and demoralizing encumbrances upon society. War will be studied no more; and a general disarmament, which is now impossible, will be enforced by the all-conquering "King of the Jews," then become "the Light of the Gentiles, and the salvation of the Father to the ends of the earth" (Isa. 49:6). Babylon will have fallen with its Papacy and all the powers, temporal and spiritual, which now sustain it. They will all have "licked the dust like a serpent;" and the Deity will have performed the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham which he swore to the fathers from the days of old (Mic. 7:20).

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Division Of The Time Period From

Christ's Return To The Millennium

* Christ returns in a Jubilee year (see Heb. 11:3; Lev. 25:8-11; Isa. 6~:l-3).

* The Millennium commences -50 years later (Ezek. 40:1; cp. Lev. 25:8-11).

* This period divided into:

1. 10 years' personal and national judgment culminating at Armageddon.

(Based on the ten days from the sounding of the trumpet on the 1st of the 7th month to the Day of Atonement-See Lev. 23:23-32; 1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 15:8).

2 40 Years' restoration and rebuilding of Israel (Mic. 7:15-20).

This period divided into the Conversion of Judah (Zech. 12:7-14), and the ultimatum to the nations (Psa. 2:10-12; Isa. 14:32; Rev. 10:11; 14:7-10); a suggested period of 10 years.

3. Thirty years subjection of Catholic countries (Rev. 14:8-10;17:l2-14) and restoration of all the tribes.

THE MILLENNIUM comprises one thousand years of peace

(Rev. 20:6). It will commence when all nations have been brought into

subjection to Christ, and Israel has been completely restored. The

Temple in Jerusalem will then be opened for worship for the first time

(Ezekiel 43). - Publishers.

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CHAPTER 15

III. THE LITTLE OPEN SCROLL DIVISION

The Seventh Seal. Seventh Trumpet, Seventh Vial, and Seven Thunders from the manifestation of Christ and his Brethren as the Lamb in the midst of the 144,000 redeemed from the earth, to the full establishment of the Millennial Throne and Kingdom of David upon the utter destruction of Daniel's dreadful and terrible Fourth Beast; and the subjection of the first three, or the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard.

TIME OF EVENTS

The Little Open Scroll belongs to the Days of the Voice of the Seventh Trumpet, which are inclusive of "the Time of the End". From A.D. 1792 to the end of the "thousand and six hundred furlongs", or 40 years; A.D. 1908, or thereabouts. The events of this chapter are parallel with the Seventh Trumpet*.

TRANSLATION

1. And I saw another sign in the heaven, great and marvelous, Seven Angels having the Seven Last Plagues, for in them is filled up the wrath of the Deity.

2. And I saw as it were a glassy sea which had been mingled with fire; and the conquerors of the beast, and of his image, and of his sign, and of the number of his name, standing upon the glassy sea, having harps of the Deity.

3. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of the Deity, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, 0 Lord the Omnipotent Deity; just and true thy ways 0 King of the Saints! 4. Who shall not fear thee, 0 Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art absolutely pure (hosios):

for all the nations shall come, and do homage before thee; because thy righteous judgments (dikajomata) have been made manifest.

5. And after all these things I saw and behold, the Nave of the Tabernacle of the Testimony had been opened in the heaven.

6. And the Seven Angels having the Seven Plagues came out from the Nave, having been clothed in linen, pure and bright, and girded around the breasts with golden girdles.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

* For the chronology see comment Vol. 2p. 10.

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7. And one of the four living ones gave to the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of the Deity who lives for the aions of the aions.

8. And the Nave was full of smoke from the glory of the Deity and from his power: and no one was able to enter into the Nave until the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

1. The Sign in Heaven

"I saw another sign in the heaven, great and marvelous, Seven Angels having the Seven Last Plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of the Deity" - Verse 1.

This fifteenth chapter is introductory to the sixteenth and following chapters to the twentieth in part inclusive. It treats of the beginning and the ending of the Seventh Trumpet, which is "the last trumpet", the complete sounding of which finishes "the Mystery of the Deity as he hath declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets" (ch. 10:7).

The chapter begins with the announcement of "another sign in the heaven". The former sign in the heaven was that of the "angel who came out of the Nave which is in the heaven, having a sharp sickle". The latter was seen first, but was not therefore first in execution. The mission of the Angel of the Sickle is the concluding scene of the Seventh Vial, which is itself a part of this "great and marvelous" sign. The first verse of this fifteenth chapter carries us back to events, which began to transpire at the expiration of "the Second Woe" (ch. 11:14): in other words, to the epoch of the First French Revolution, which broke out 1260 years after the Justinian Epoch, A.D. 529-'33: and signalized the termination of that long and sanguinary period.

The sign John saw was a sevenfold wonder, having a beginning and an ending, with "great and marvellous" intermediate developments. It was a sign that signified nothing but wrath to them who were the subjects of its plagues. These, as appears from the second verse, and from the whole of the sixteenth chapter, and so forth, are the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, and the people of the sign and number of his name, with the Mohammedans of the Dragon territory - the Catholic, Mohammedan, and Protestant peoples of Continental Europe.

John saw the Sign "in the heaven" - in the heaven of Antichristendom: for a portion of its wrath was poured out upon "the Sun," and a portion upon "the throne of the Beast," and a portion upon "the Air" (ch. 16:8,10,17). The governments of the world and their armies were to be primarily the subjects of its seven-fold sanguinary visitation; which, of course, would inflict much misery and oppression upon the peoples who had to bear the burdens of the wars.

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The sevenfold apportionment of the judicial wrath of the sign, is symbolized by "Seven Angels" - "the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth into all the earth"; and therefore angels: and operating through human agents in the execution of the purpose of Him by whom they are sent forth and employed. Hence, the armies of a power inflicting wrath upon peoples are Yahweh's sword, or "angel" - a messenger for evil to those who are tormented by it. Thus the French armies under the first Napoleon, were an angel-power of this "sign in the heavens" - a vial out of which Divine wrath was poured upon "the earth," "the rivers and fountains of waters," "the sun," and upon "the throne of the beast," while the saints, when they appear upon the scene to execute their mission, are also angels pouring out their vial, the Seventh; but Apocalyptically contradistinguished from the others, as "the Holy Angels" (ch.14:10).

The seven angels of this great and marvelous sign - "great and marvelous" because of the magnitude, and extraordinary character of the events it prefigures - are said to have "the seven last plagues" The "plagues" are a series of calamities and disasters affecting those who are the enemies of Israel and the Saints, and Witnesses, with whose blood they have intoxicated themselves. The plagues are great, but they are not reformatory; for the Operation of them causes them to blaspheme the Name of the Deity, which hath power over them (ch. 16:9,21).

They are styled the last plagues, and the reason why they are so called is given in the words, "for in them is filled up the wrath of the Deity". This testimony shows us, that His wrath is not infinite, or end-less. It has its limits, and beyond them it will not pass. As far as premillennial peoples are concerned, it will not transcend the limit of the "thousand six hundred furlongs", the Aion of Judgment, or the end of Micah's forty years. This is the period of the wrath in its great and marvelous manifestation. It begins with the House of Jacob, and ends with the deliverance of Israel, and the destruction of the House of Esau, of which no remnant is left (Obad. 17,18,21). The House of Jacob is the House of the Deity; of which the Saints, whose head is Christ, are the imperial and sovereign order. In all the "times of the Gentiles" the saints are a mixed community, in which are found fish of all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent. The good are answerable to the "few who are chosen, 'and find eternal life (Matt. 20:16; 7:14): while the bad and indifferent are those who "begin in the Spirit" and end in the flesh - those who at the outset of their career seemed to "run well," but were hindered from a "patient continuance in well-doing," or "obeying the truth," in being "bewitched" by the sorcery of designing knaves, who "by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple" (Gal. 3:1,3,7;

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Rom. 16:18). In our generation, as in that of the apostles, the ecciesia or general assembly of the many, who are called, is composed of these heterogeneous materials. It has been thus in all generations before and since Satan, in the days of Job, mingled with the Sons of the Deity when they presented themselves in the Divine presence (Job 1:6). The satanic

element has ever been among them with its "depths as they speak" (ch 2:24), corrupting and perverting the weak. In the wisdom of the Deity Satan has been permitted to practice, and to deceive the hearts of the simple, who are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim 3:7) without judicial interference. The Satanic element in an ecclesia is always prompt and vivacious for mischief. If it fears to attack openly the most prominent advocate of the truth, it has recourse to underhanded and secret influences. Handling the word of the Deity deceitfully, deceiving, and being deceived" are its characteristics. While inspired with personal hatreds, it affects zeal destroying it, or making it of none effect by the traditions of its monstrous ignorance and folly Yet the Judge of the living and the dead" is profoundly silent save in the word of his law and testimony. There are reasons for this The truth as it is in Jesus is entrusted to the ecclesia, or House of the Deity, which is the Pillar and foundation support of the truth . The members of this house are held responsible and accountable for their relations to this, as a treasure committed to them to be contended for earnestly, and to be upheld at all hazards in their day and generation. This house being furnished with vessels of' all sorts, some to honor and some to dishonor, the truth receives a characteristic treatment at the hands of each sort The vessels fitted to capture and destruction set forth traditions, or heresies which nullify the Word If men speak or write upon the things of the Spirit, they are commanded to do so as oracles of the Deity;" and if they disobey this injunction is because "there is no light in them " Nevertheless, they will give utterance to their folly. This cannot be helped, Fools will be fools come what may. From these premises it is inevitable that, as Paul says, "there must be heresies among you" They are permitted to exist , though not approved. Their existence arouses the flagging energies of sterling and faithful men, "who are able to teach others" (2 Tim. 2:2). It sets them to contending more earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 2), which manifests them as the approved, who are grounded and settled in the faith, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel (1 Cor. 11:19; Col. 1:23).

This manifestation of the approved after this process is one reason why Yahweh keeps silence, and permits Satan to continue their Operations among the Sons of the Deity, without any present judicial interfer-

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ence. There is also another very good reason for present non-intervention, and this is, because He has appointed a set time, styled by that in-fallible and incomparable exponent of the truth the Lord Jesus, "a Day of Judgment," hemera kriseos (Matt. 12:36); and by the no less accurate Paul, "THE DAY when the Deity shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to the gospel" Paul preached: "therefore," saith he, "judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come; who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness' and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts;" and "who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and kingdom" (Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Tim. 4:1) and styled by the earnest and faithful Peter, "the Day of Inspection", hemera episkopes (1 Pet. 2:12) "the time that the judgment begins at the house of the Deity" (ch. 4:17); when, as James testifies, the saints shall be judged by the law of liberty (ch 2:12)

These are two all-sufficient reasons why the Satan should be Providentially tolerated among the sons of the Deity, until the Ancient of Days come. Now is the day of salvation," says Paul; but this, in effect, the Satan denies. He turns it into a day of judgment, saying, that there is no other day of judgment for the saints than this. Satan, of course, exceedingly dislikes the idea of being judged, and rewarded according to his works. He does not approve of the doctrine of eternal life based upon an inspection of faith and practice after resurrection. He demands resurrection with immortality, not resurrection unto eternal life. He wants to spring out of the dust immortal, and no questions asked; for he knows very well, that neither his faith rior his practice will bear the light. Be this, however, as it may, his pleasure and satisfaction will not be consulted. Inspection and its consequences begin at the house of the Christ: and Satan, who had received the one talent, and was afraid of the truth, and hid it in the earth, is purged Out as a wicked and slothful servant from among the sons of the Deity; and cast into the darkness of the outer world, where weeping and gnashing of teeth are the order of both day and night (Matt. 25:14-30; Apoc. 14:11).

This day of inspection is "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of the Deity; who will render to every one according to his deeds" (Rom. 2:5,6). It is a day in which He will separate the satanic goats from the sheep who have heard his voice, and done the Father's will. Those slothful, unprofitable, and wicked professors are "cast into the lake of fire burning with brimstone," in which are destroyed the beast and the false prophet, by that portion of the last plagues which is executed by the Second and Third Angels, who have power over fire. In other words, the judgment given to the approved, who enter into the joy of their Lord, affords scope in the execution of it

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upon the Diabolos and Satan of the world, for the punishment also of the unprofitable servants of the house of the Deity; who are "condemned with the world" to the calamities of the last plagues, which to them will be "a sorer punishment" than to the adversaries at large (Heb.10:26-30).

The judgment predetermined for the Diabolos and his angels, or for the slaying and destroying of Daniel's Fourth Beast, is all comprehended in the Seven Last Plagues, styled in the seventh verse of this chapter, "seven golden vials full of the wrath of the Deity." The territory of the Fourth Beast's dominion, upon which is developed the "fiery indignation which devours the adversaries," is the symbolical "lake of fire;" and when an actual wrathful conflagration, burning with the Divine anger, it is to pur to ajonion, the Aion-Fire, "prepared for the Diabolos and his angels," into which the unprofitable and slothful of the Ecclesia, or One Body, are ordered to depart, and into which, therefore, they "go away" to suffer Aion-torments in the symbolic period of 'a thousand six hundred furlongs". By the end of these forty years, "the tormentors" will have exacted all that is due (Matt. 18:34; Apoc. 14:10). In paying this their carcasses will have fallen in the wilderness, the victims of death a second time. "This is the Second Death: and whosoever" upon inspection, is "not found written in the Book of Life is cast into the lake of fire" (Apoc. 20:14,15): and thus "his name is blotted out" and unconfessed before the Father and the angels" (Apoc. 3:5).

Thus the satanic element of the One Body is purged out, or separated and destroyed. Its separation precedes the reaping of the harvest of the earth; and its tormentation and destruction are synchronous with the infliction of "torment and sorrow" upon Babylon the Great, and the treading of the winepress in the vintage of the earth. Their torment is eis ajonas aionon, and therefore aionian. It does not transcend this limit, because the wrath of the Deity is then all exhausted. Nevertheless, its effects abide upon them - "they shall not see life; but the wrath of the Deity abideth on them" (John 3:36).

2. The Glassy Sea

"And I saw as it were a glassy sea, which had been mingled with fire" - Verse 2.

The Apocalyptic sea is that aggregation of "many waters" Out of which the Beast having seven heads and ten horns arose (ch. 13:1); and upon which the Drunken Harlot-Mother of all the Gentile "Churches" sits (ch. 17:1,5,15). This sea of nations encircling the Mediterranean, or "Great Sea," is Apocalyptically exhibited in two states - in a state of

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storm; and in a state of transparent calm. When John stood upon its shore, and saw the Beast arise, it was in an uproarious and tempestuous agitation (Dan. 7:2). The dominions of the House of Esau, who lives by his sword (Gen. 27:40), do not arise in times of tranquillity and calm; these times ensue only when the tumult and tempest of war are hushed; and then the conqueror can stand upon it, and sing the song of victory. Dominions, in a world like this, can only be founded, and maintained by 'fire and brimstone". In the days of old, they were established by the sword, the spear, the battle-axe, and bow; but in modern times, victory is said to be on the side of the heaviest artillery; that is, where "the fire burning with brimstone" rages with the greatest intensity. Yahweh Tz'vaoth, in the days of Joshua, established His kingdom in the Holy Land, by the sword of Israel, strengthened by His judgments poured out upon the helpless inhabitants of the country: so also it is to be in the day of Jesus, called "the Day of his power;" the kingdom is to be established in the same country by "fire burning with brimstone" in the hands of Israel, commanded by the Saints; and strengthened with the Eternal Power, "who rideth upon the heaven in their help" (Deut. 33:26).

In the English Version, the text before us reads, "a sea of glass mingled with fire". In the original it is not a substantive, but an adjective, as hyalinen, glassy, that is, smooth and transparent; from hyalos, a transparent Stone, soft kind of crystal; also glass. "Mingled with fire" is also objectionable. This rendering represents the conquerors as stand-ing upon it, and singing the song of victory, while the fire is flashing in consuming flames from the sea. This would be to sing the song of victory before the victory is won! The Saints do not perpetrate such an anachronism as this. Flames of fire burning with brimstone were not flash-ing like lightning and with the roar of "the Seven Thunders," when John looked, and saw the Divine harpists standing victorious upon the sea. All this had passed away, and the sea which had been thus convulsed, and commingled with the lightnings and thunderings proceeding from the throne (ch. 4:5), was now "glassy like to crystal" (ch. 4:6). This is clearly indicated in the word memigmenen agreeing with thalassan, sea. Memigmenen, is the perfect participle passive, and signifies an action past: as, having been mingled, or which had been mingled. A sea lashed into fury by the four winds of the heaven, and the bursting flames of the Seven Lamps of fire, which are the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth from the throne into all the earth (ch. 4:5; 5:6), is not a "glassy sea". A sea of Mediterranean nations, commingled with armies of valiant and lion-like Israelites, one of whom, like Samson of old, shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight (Deut. 32:30), commanded by the 144,000, and executing the tormenting judgments of the Second

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and Third Angels, upon Babylon and its Beast, and Image, and Mark, and number of its Name; and upon the dominions outlying, or "without the city," until the end of the Sixteen Hundred Furlongs of time - is a sea commingled with fire burning with brimstone; in other words, it is a "Lake of Fire"; in which, while "the war of that great day of the Almighty Deity" is in continuance, the Beast and his False Prophet, and the ejected wicked, slothful, and unprofitable servants of the One-Talent class of saints, are all being scorched and tormented in the presence of the Holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: who shall tread these wicked as ashes under the soles of their feet (Mal. 4:3), which are then "as pillars of fire" "burning in a furnace" (Apoc. 10:1; 1:15). This is vengeance in the day of vengeance, affording a practical illustration of Paul's saying, that "the Deity is a consuming fire"; and that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31; 12:29). But, how different the condition of the called, and chosen, and faithful saints of the two-and-five-talent class at this time! In the day of His vengeance there are among the nations wailing, blaspheming, and gnashing of teeth; but, on the other hand, "the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily there is Elohim judging in the earth" (Psa. 58:10-11).

The sea had been mingled with fire, by the Angel from the altar that had power over fire; but the wrath had now ceased to burn. The smoke from the glory of the Deity, and from his power, no longer filled the Nave, so that now the conquerors were able to enter into the peaceable possession and enjoyment of the kingdom, to stand upon the glassy sea, and to "rest from their labours". There was now, at the end of the forty vears. "before the throne a glassy sea like unto crystal". Henceforth, the sea remains at rest, perfectly calm, and smooth as glass. "The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isa. 57:20). Such a sea as this is neither "glassy," nor "like to crvstal". There is no transparency about it. Its waters are dark and muddy; and no light can penetrate below its stormy surface. But, when the lightnings, and thunderings, and voices, which proceed from the throne on Mount Zion, where stand the Lamb and the 144,000, shall have done their work, the wicked, whom Yahweh hath made for the day of evil (Prov. 16:4), in all their temporal and spiritual organizations, as symbolized by the Beast, his Image, his Sign, and the number of his Name, will all have been purged from its waters; the mire and dirt will all have subsided in the abyss, and its surface will be unruffled and crystal-line for a thousand years.

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3. The Conquerors on the Glassy Sea

"And I saw the conquerors of the beast, and of his image, and of his sign, and of the number of his name, standing upon the glassy sea, having harps of the Deity".

The seven last plagues, in which has been filled up the wrath of the Deity, having by the end of the one thousand six hundred furlongs, or forty years of Micah, clarified the sea, and taught the inhabitants of the world righteousness (Isa. 26:9), the time will have arrived for the celebration of the FEAST OF TABERNACLES in the kingdom of the Deity. The present constitution of Antichristendom in church and state, with all blasphemous dissenting "abominations," in the time of this great feast will have no existence. They will all have been previously abolished as "lies, vanity, and things in which there is no profit" (Jer. 16:19), by the victorious saints, who in the time of the feast possess "the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven" (Dan. 7:27). Not one rival dominion exists to dispute with them the sovereignty of the world; which henceforth is ruled in righteousness by them who had learned righteousness in faith and practice, in a previous state of tribulation and reproach. These are now the victors, standing triumphantly upon the arena of their conquests. In the days of their "patience," they kept the works of the Spirit to the end; in reward for which, they now receive authority over the nations, and power to rule them with a rod of iron (Apoc. 2:26,27). The sea, no longer mingled with fire, upon which they stand victorious, is a sea of peaceful nations, which have "beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks;" and abandoned forever the study of the most effectual means by which they can ruin and destroy one another. "Glory to the Deity in the highest heavens, over the earth peace, and goodwill among men, is now the order of the day. The glassy sea of nations is now irradiated with the glory of Yahweh, which shines through its translucent waters to its utmost bounds and lowest depths. Its nations are now "blessed in Abraham and his Seed," having been previously "justified by faith;" and "joined to Yahweh for a people to Him" (Gal. 3:8; Zech. 2:11). The twelve tribes of Jacob are no longer dispersed in the lands of their enemies. Not one of them is left a wanderer among the nations (Deut. 30:4); but all have returned to their possessions and rejoice before Yahweh their Elohim (Lev. 23:40). The nations, now enlightened, also rejoice with them; because their engraftment into their own olive tree has proved to be life from the dead to the world (Deut. 32:43; Rom.11:15).

"The stone which the builders refused hath become the Head of the

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Corner". He stands with his brethren on this glassy sea, which extends, as an immense plain, from before the throne on Mount Zion. "This is the day which Yahweh hath made; we will rejoice, and be glad in it;" "from now will His Name be blessed, even for the Olahm; from the rising of the sun to his going down the Name of Yahweh be praised: for He is exalted above all the nations; and His glory above the heavens" (Psa. 113; 117); Jesus and his Brethren "glorified together" (Rom. 8:17), are the conquerors, who, by the Spirit's aid and co-operation, have subdued the world, and possess it as their own. They are "a multitude which no man can number, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands" (Apoc. 7:9-17). Their square is 144,000. The "palms," the symbol of victory, connect them with the Feast of Tabernacles, in the celebration of which they rejoice, and are glad, as the harps of the Deity. What a glorious orchestra they will be, when established over the nations as their immortal and sovereign rulers, they shall celebrate their triumph in the songs of Moses and the Lamb! In that day, they will say, "Praise ye Yahweh, proclaim His Name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His Name is exalted. Sing unto Yahweh; for He hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth. Cry out, and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee" (Isa. 12:4-6).

4. The Song of Moses

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of the Deity".

The following is the song of Moses, which was sung by Moses and the Israelites, standing by the Red Sea, through which they had just passed; and which they now surveyed with feelings of triumph, as the tomb of Pharaoh's host. It is a memorial of the nation's deliverance from the Egyptians, and prophetic of its future salvation under the lead of the prophet like unto Moses, and the Saints.

The translation of king James' bishops, I have "diligently compared" with the original, and "revised;" it will be found, I think, an improvement upon the Common Version. I have transferred the titles of the ETERNAL POWER; and translated them in the bracketed spaces following. Thus they sang, saying:

1. "I will sing to YAHWEH, (He who shall be) for He is greatly exalted:

The horse and His rider he hath cast into the sea.

2. YAH (an abbreviated form of Yahweh) is my strength and my song

And He hath become my salvation!

He is my AlL (Strength, or Power), and Him will I extol;

My fathers' ELOHIM (MIGHTY ONES), and Him will I exalt.

3. YAHWER is a Man of war; YAHWEH is His name.

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4. Pharaoh's chariots and hosts He cast into the sea; His chosen captains also He drowned in the Red Sea.

5. The roaring billows covered them; They went down to the bottom as a stone.

6. Thy right hand, 0 YAHWEH, is glorious in power; Thy right hand, 0 YAHWEH, hath crushed the foe.

7. And in the greatness of Thine excellency, Thou hast overthrown Thine adversaries! Thou sentest forth Thy burning anger, It shall consume them as stubble.

8. And by the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were heaped up The floods stood erect as a heap;

The depths congealed in the midst of the sea.

9. The enemy said ,I will pursue; I will overtake;

I will divide the spoil;

My lust shall be satisfied upon them:

I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.

10. Thou didst blow with Thy spirit, the sea covered them; They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

11 Who is like unto Thee among the mighty ones (Ailim), YAIIWEH! Who like Thee glorious in holiness,

Terrible, worthy of praises, doing wonders?

12. Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand, The earth swallowed them up.

13. Thou hast led forth in Thy goodness the people whom Thou hast redeemed;

Thou hast conducted in Thy might to the habitation of Thy holiness.

14. Peoples shall hear; and they shall tremble; Terror seized the inhabitants of Palestina.

15. Then the Dukes of Edom shall be affrighted; Trembling shall seize the mighty ones of Moab; All the inhabitants of Canaan shall be dissolved.

16. There shall fall upon them terror and dread;

By the greatness of Thy power they shall be still as a stone;

Until, 0 YAIIWEH Thy people pass over;

Until the people whom Thou hast purchased pass over.

17. Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them, In the mountain of Thy inheritance;

The place, 0 YAWWEH. Thou hast made for thee to dwell in;

The holy place, 0 ADONAI (noun plural, Lords) Thy hands have established.

18. YAHWEH shall reign for the Olahm (the Hidden Period) and beyond.

And Miriam the Prophetess Aaron's sister with a chorus of

women, answered Moses and the Israelites, saying,

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21. 'Sing ye to YAHWEH, for He is grandly exalted;

The horse and his rider He hath cast into the sea" (Exod. 15:1-8,21).

Such is the song of Moses, admirable for the boldness of its imagery, the sublimity of its sentiments, and the dignity of its style, which was sung by the Hebrew people standing upon the shore of Edom's sea. They were now a people saved by Yahweh - a national salvation, coeval with the signal overthrow of their enemies, and the destruction of their power. They had just put on Moses, having been all baptized into him in the cloud and in the sea (1 Cor. 10:2). They now constituted the One Body of Moses, and the Firstborn Son of Yahweh (Exod. 4:22; Zech. 3:2; Jude 9): and when they arrived at Sinai, fifty days after the institution of the Passover, they became the kingdom of the Deity (Exod. 19:5,6,8). These events signalize the katabole tou kosmou, or '"foundation of the world;" to which frequent reference is made in the New Testament, in connection with the prepositions pro, before, and apo, from, since, etc. (Matt. 25:34; 13:35; Luke 11:50; Jhn. 17:24). They also signalize the beginning of the Aion, or Olahm, or COURSE OF TIME, the duration of which was hidden from all but the Father, who reserved the precise year of its termination as a secret with Himself (Mark 13:32; M(itt. 24:36). The MOSAIC AJON was a Course of Time identical with the continuance of the MOSAIC KOSMOS, or Order of Things. The beginning of the one was the beginning of the other, and synchronical with the singing of this beautiful prophetic ode.

But, at that stage of their history the Israelites could only sing the song of Moses. They could sing it commemoratively and prophetically-commemoratively, of their deliverance, and the destruction of the Egyptian army; and prophetically, of that still future and greater deliverance awaiting them in the time of Jacob's trouble; and of that grander and more marvelous overthrow of Babylon and the Beast, by the Lamb and those who accompany him whithersoever he goes. The song celebrative of these victories over the system of nations "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt" - "the song of the Lamb" - they could not sing. No man can sing the song of Moses, who is not a member of the Mosaic Body; nor can any one sing the song of the Lamb, unless he be a citizen of the Commonwealth of Israel, is one of the conquerors of the Beast, his Image, his Sign, and the Number of his name, and these have been already vanquished and destroyed. True, he can repeat the words; but he cannot sing the words as expressive of the agents and the events that have come to pass; and this is the sense in which songs are Apocalyptically sung. This song celebrates the Name bestowed upon himself by the ETERNAL FATHER in his interview by his angel with Moses at the bush. Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, said he, on that occasion, I will be who I will be;

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EHYEH I will be; and in the third person, Yah, or Yahweh, He shall be. "Thou shalt say to the children of Israel, YAHWEH Elohim of your fathers, etc., hath sent me to you: this is my Name for the Olahm, and this my Memorial for a generation of the race" (Exod. 3:14,15). "Extol him that rideth upon the heavens," said David, "by his name YAH" (Psa. 68:4). This Moses has done in this ode, saying, "YAH is my strength and my song, and He hath become my salvation! He is my AlL, and Him will I extol; my father's ELOHIM, and Him will I exalt. YAHWEH is a Man of War; YAHWEH is His Name".

The great prophetic subject of this song is YAHWEH as a Man of War- that Man of War to be manifested, who shall stand a conqueror upon "the glassy sea like to crystal;" when as the Spirit of Christ in Zech. 14:9, testifies, "YAHWEH shall be for King over all the earth; in that day there shall be ONE YAHWEH, and his Name one". This Man of War is that symbolic Son of Man seen by John, in Apoc. 1:13-16; and that Mighty Angel he speaks of in ch. 10:1; and the Son of Man upon the white cloud, in ch. 14:14; and the Word of the Deity and his celestial brethren in arms, in ch. 19:13, 14; and the Lamb with the 144,000, who constitute the bride. In other words, He is the One Body glorified, the head of which is Christ Jesus, whose head is the Eternal Father (1 Cor. 11:3). This personification of Jesus and his brethren as constituting ONE MAN is illustrated in Exod. 4:22, where the whole multitude of Israel, of which the adults were estimated at 600,000 (Exod. 12:37) is styled the Son and First-born of Yahweh. The "He who shall be" promised to Abraham 430 years "before the foundation of the world;" and prophesied of to Moses in the "Memorial" apocalypsed at the bush, is the Eternal, by his power, incorporate and manifest, first in Jesus of Nazareth, and hereafter in his resurrected, accepted, and quickened brethren, "glorified together with him". "These all as one glorified body are the "ONE YAHWEH" manifested in "One Name," which, enthroned in Jerusalem, is "king over all the earth" (Jer. 3:17).

"YAR is my AlL, and my father's ELOHIM," says Moses and the Israelites: that is, the ETERNAL INVISIBLE SPIRIT (Jhn. 4:24), who made all things by His power (Gen. 1:2), even YAR is "the strength of Israel" (1 Sam. 15:29); manifested in the ELOHIM, or incorruptible and immortal angels, who made themselves visible to Abraham and Jacob, "and who do his commandments;" "his ministers who do his pleasure" (Psa. 103:20,21), whether that pleasure be to fit up the earth for the indwelling of mankind, as related in Genesis; or to execute judgment upon Egypt, and the cities of the plain - the invisible YAH~SPIRIT working everything by His power through oft-times visible ELORISTIC SPIRITS. The Invisible One, "whom no man hath seen," visibly manifested in them to

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Adam in Eden's Garden; to Lot in Sodom; to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to Moses, Joshua, Aaron, Hur, and seventy of the Elders of Israel (Exod. 24:10,11,13,17); to David; to Mary, the mother of Jesus; and in many other instances not necessary to mention here. This is the doctrine of GOD-MANIFESTATION expressed by Moses in his song - a manifestation of ONE through MANY. But Moses did not confine himself simply to what existed. His words were prophetic of a FUTURE SPIRIT-MANIFESTATION; for he adds, "Yahweh is a Man of War." But Samuel says, that "the strength of Israel is not a man". Moses and Samuel, however, are not at variance; but were contemplating the YAH-SPIRIT in different periods of manifestation. The strength of Israel was "not a man" until "manifested in the flesh" in the days of Jesus. The Man Christ Jesus was the YAH-SPIRIT manifested Adamically; that is, in our nature; but he has not yet been manifested as "a Man of War". These facts indicate that Moses in his song was referring to YAH'S manifestation, as Apocalyptically exhibited in the scene of ch. 19:11-16, where he appears as a Man of War in the midst of His "called, and chosen, and faithful" brethren in arms; who, with their invincible chief, are the Yahweh-Spirit Conquerors, standing victorious upon the glassy sea.

This song of Moses will be sung by the victorious saints, when the Spirit's omnipotence aiding them shall have led forth in His goodness the people whom He hath redeemed; and shall have conducted them in His might to the habitation of His holiness. He will then have brought them in, and planted them in the mountain of His inheritance; the place He will have made to dwell in: the holy place for His ADONIM (Lords), which He will then have established. The Beast and his Image being destroyed in the marvelous work of "the restitution of all things" pertain-ing to the Kingdom and Throne of David; the Twelve Tribes of Israel being all restored, and graffed into their own Olive Tree, and established as the mightiest and most glorious of the nations, by the military prowess of Christ and his brethren; the regenerated nation and its immortal rulers will then be able, in the full prophetic import of the song, to sing it as marvelously accomplished in the then established constitution of the world. Therefore, YAWEH gloriously incorporate in his newly-developed and glorified ELOHISTIC FAMILY shall reign for the Millennial Olahm and beyond (ch. 5:9,10; 20:4-6; 21:23-27).

5. The Song of the Lamb "And they sing the song of the Lamb".

When the Anointing Spirit in the mystical body of Moses gave the song celebrative of the destruction of Pharaoh's host it was only in connexion

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with the typical Lamb of the Passover they had so recently eaten, and whose blood was upon the door-posts and lintels of the houses they had left in Egypt. But when the same song comes to be sung by the saints in connexion with the song of the Lamb, the Lamb of the Deity himself, who beareth the sin of the world, is a conspicuous personage of the choir. It is the song of "the seven spirits of the Deity," incorporate in Jesus and his brethren "glorified together," and which had been "sent forth into all the earth" (ch. 5:6). The Anointing Spirit omnipotently manifested in the One Body, or "Man of War," sanctified by the sprinkled blood of the true paschal Lamb "Yahweh Elohim Almighty" (ch. 21:22) stands the conqueror upon the glassy sea, and sings the song of Moses, the servant of the Deity ("faithful in all his house" - Heb. 3:5), and the song of the Lamb, saying,

Great and marvelous Thy works, 0 YAHWEH Elohim almighty;

Just and true Thy ways, 0 King of the Saints;

Who shall not fear Thee, 0 Yahweh, and glorify Thy NAME?

For Thou only art absolutely pure:

For all the nations shall come, and do homage before Thee;

Because Thy righteous judgments have been made manifest.

Yea verily; the works of YARWER Elohim in that great day of his wrath will be grand and marvelous. The kingdoms and empires of Europe and Asia will have been swept from the arena, as the chaff of the summer threshing floor. The popular sovereignties and universal suffrages of the Western Hemisphere will have reached a "destiny" so "manifest" that none will fail to see, that they are the mere devices of Satan for the perpetuation of his rule. "The kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdoms of YAHWEH and of His Christ, " personal and mystical; and as Moses sang, "YAHWEH shall reign for the Olahm and beyond;" or as the same is rendered in Apoc. 11:15, "He shall reign for the Aions of the Aions" - in the common version 'for ever and ever". He will have judged "among the nations, which will have been filled with corpses" (Psa. 110:6); and in so doing, "marvellous deeds will have been shown to Israel; by whose prowess the nations will have been confounded, and caused to lick the dust like a serpent" (Mic. 7:15-17).

Then, when the newly-developed and glorified ELORIM stand victorious upon the glassy sea, all the earth "blessed in Abraham and his Seed" will make a joyful noise to the ELOHIM, sing forth the honor of YAHWEH'S Name, and make His praise glorious. Having by terrible deeds in righteousness, styled in the song of the Lamb, dikaiomata, "righteous judgments," stilled the noise of the seas, the roar of their waves, "the tumult of the peoples," this glorious NAME will have become the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are far off from Zion beyond

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the sea. These will all then fear YAHWEH, the strength of Israel, and "the glory in the midst of Jerusalem," and glorify His NAME. His works will have been terrible for the manifestation of the greatness of His power, by which His enemies will confess themselves subdued. Therefore "all the earth," enlightened by His glory (Apoc. 18:1) shall do homage to Him, shall sing to Him and to His NAME; for He will judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth (Psa. 65; 66, 67).

6. "After these Things"

"And after these things 1 saw, and behold the Nave of the Tabernacle of the Testimony had been opened in the heaven"

Verse 5.

"These things" is a phrase directing attention to the subject most recently treated of; "those things" to something more remote. Had the phrase those things been used, it would have referred us to the "Seven Angels having the Seven Last Plagues" mentioned in the first verse. After those things would have led to the conclusion, that the Nave of the Tabernacle was not opened until after all the wrath of the Deity contained in the Seven Vials was exhausted. This would have been equivalent to saying, that the Christ will not come, and the saints will not be raised, until the end of the outpouring of the Seventh Vial; and if neither of these events transpire until then, it is manifest that judgment will not be given to the saints at all; and that the destruction of the Beast and his Image must be looked for, if at all, by some other means! But opposed to this is the revelation that Christ comes in the Sixth Vial period; and that when he comes the 144,000 are seen with him on Mount Zion; so that they must have lived again (ch. 20:4), and been judged, and "clothed upon" in the interval between his coming and his appearance there. After they are manifested as "the approved," then judgment is given to them, that they may execute it upon the Beast and his Image; in the last portion of the Sixth, and in the whole of the period of the Seventh Vial

"After these things," then, does not signify after the end of the Seventh and last Vial. He does not tell us in these words, the exact time of the opening of the Nave of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in the heaven. He simply affirms that, after the music of the harps and voices of the glorious choir upon the glassy sea, had ceased its ravishing harmony, his attention was diverted from sound to sight; and that he perceived that the Nave, or MOST HOLY "had been opened," or manifested. The tense of the word enoige leaves the precise time of the opening indefinite. This fifth verse is an Apocalyptic annunciation, that the long-ex-pected and much-desired ANCIENT OF DAYS had made his appearance in

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the heaven. The event of this verse is parallel with the Lamb and the 144,000 standing on Mount Zion, and with the epoch of Ch. 16:15. It announces that the manifestation of the Most Holy of the Tabernacle is during the period of the "great and marvellous sign in the heaven;" but at what precise moment of the Sign-Period he appears in the midst of his holy brethren, no data are given in this chapter to determine.

The "Tabernacle" is one thing; the "Nave of the Tabernacle" is another: they are both, however, significative of a society of people, and a state of things to them pertaining. The Tabernacle, styled "His Tabernacle" in ch. 13:6 is the Holy, consisting of the saints in their present mixed and imperfect condition, blasphemed, and trodden under foot of the Gentiles. They are in their generations, "the Tabernacle of the Testimony," because they bear witness by the Word for Jesus and the faith. The Nave of the Tabernacle is the MOST HOLY. It consists of the One Body freed from every thing that defiles. The head of it is in the MOST HOLY AND ETERNAL FATHER, manifested in flesh, justified by Spirit, and styled JESUS CHRIST; and the members of it are his brethren "glorified together" with him. The Most Holy Nave consists only of "the approved,"

styled in ch. 17:14, "the called, chosen, and faithful," whose angel-measure is 144 cubits (ch. 21:17). No man that defileth can in any wise enter into it; but they only whose names have been written in the book of the life of the Lamb (ch. 21:27).

This important moral difference between the Tabernacle and the Nave is based upon the scrutiny of character which obtains, when "the dead are judged out of the things written in the books, according to their works" (ch. 20:12). This judicial scrutiny and award is in "the time of the dead" (ch. 11:18) which intervenes between the advent of the Ancient of Days and the appearance of the Lamb on Mount Zion with the 144,000. Those members of the Tabernacle, "who walk after the flesh," and who work lies, are purged out, as unworthy of being "clothed in pure and white linen, and girded with golden girdles"; for the Nave, or Most Holy Heavenly, is composed only of those "in whose mouth is found no guile; and who are faultless before the throne of the Deity". The judicial scrutiny finds them guileless; and they are accounted worthy to obtain the Resurrection-Aion, and equality with the Angel-Elohim, who have preceded them (Luke 20:33-36). Thus, their moral excellence as Christians is made the basis of their promotion to honor and glory; and to material or substantial identity with the Holiest of All.

When we arrive at the next chapter we shall be particularly in-formed what the things are, that must successively transpire in the development of this great and marvellous sign in the heaven, before the Nave is opened, or manifested therein.

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7. The Seven Angels of the Nave

"And the Seven Angels having the Seven Plagues came out from the Nave, having been clothed in linen pure and bright, and girded around the breasts with golden girdles" - Verse 6.

The Seven Angels coming out from the Nave indicates that they are the Seven Elohistic constituents of the Nave "sent forth into all the earth". Before they issue forth thence as the Elohim, they are said to have been clothed and girded. The English Version omits to specify the tense or time of the verb: enthethumenoi, is the perfect participle passive; and so isperiezosmenoi, the former signifying, having been clothed in; and the latter, having been girded about. This implies, that there was a time in which they neither clothed, nor girded the Elohim. The unclothed and ungirded condition is characteristic of the dead; and also of those who come from the grave, and are condemned by "the Judge of the living and the dead", to walk naked, and be exposed to shame (ch. 16:15). These Seven Angels when clothed and girded, represent the two-and five-talent classes of the saints to whom will have been adjudged an entrance into the joy of their Lord (Matt. 25:21,23). Sentence of approval having been pronounced upon them, they are then "clothed upon with their house which is from heaven;" that "the mortal," or that which came forth from the grave, "might be swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. 5:2-4). Now, the Spirit gives this life that swallows up mortality, because of righteousness. It is an element of "the reward" bestowed in "the time of the dead" in recompense for that righteousness, which is fulfilled in them who walk after the Spirit, or in the Truth. The apostle assures such, that He who raised up the Christ will also quicken their mortal bodies" by His spirit (Rom. 8:4,10,11). Righteousness re-warded with incorruptibility and life is symbolized by "fine linen pure and bright", "white robes", and "walking with the Spirit in white, because worthy" (ch. 3:4,18; 4:4; 7:9,13,14; 19:8,14). This being the raiment with which the Seven Angels had been specially clothed, it is indicated, that they came to represent the approved saints, to whom authority and power were afterwards given, that they might go forth from the Nave, and "execute the judgment written" in all the earth.

The approved saints of the Nave are constituted aggebi, or angels," by being "SENT FORTH;" angelos signifying "one sent, a messenger," etc. The saints of the Nave have a mission to perform, which the powers that be cannot be made to accomplish; and they go forth into all the earth, clothed, girded, and accompanied by the Spirit, to execute it. Hence, whatever is done by them, or their presence, is said to be transacted "in the presence of the Holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb," or Spirit (ch. 14:10). Symbolically, they are seven in

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number. This represents the omnipotence of the Spirit, and the unknown, but complete number of the agents employed in the execution of "the judgment written" - a definite being put for an unrevealed, and therefore not defined, number; a "great multitude which no man can number" (ch. 7:9).

"Having been girded around the breasts with golden girdles". On becoming constituents of the Nave by being "quickened," the Saints, or Elohistic elements of the Seven Angels are not only "clothed in linen pure and bright" by which their mortality is swallowed up of life; but, before they go forth to enter upon "their labors," they are perizoned, or girded about, with golden zones, or girths. This girding transpires at the instant of their clothing. It is an element of their quickening. Like Daniel, after speech and consciousness had been restored to him, the imperation salutes their ears, "be strong, yea, be strong;" that is, be girded with great strength. Daniel tells us, that on hearing this, the effect immediately followed the word; upon which he said, "Let my Adon (lord) speak; for thou hast strengthened me" (Dan. 10:19).

It is evident, that something more is necessary for men, who go forth to plague, and conquer such a strong world of nations, as that by which the earth is now grasped, than an indestructible nature. They need to be girded with almighty power; and with righteousness and faithfulness: that being faithful and true, they may be enabled "in righteousness to judge and make war" (ch. 19:11).

To gird is to make strong; and in the case of these Seven Angels, to strengthen them with all things necessary for the consummation of their mission. Included in the angelic seven is JESUS, "the Angel of the Covenant," and the CHIEF of these angel-lords and kings (ch. 17:14). Hence, as they are made "like him" (1 Jhn. 3:2), what is testified of him is, all things being equal, applicable also to his brethren. Hence, the Spirit of Christ in David saith to the Father, "Thou hast girded me with strength for the war" (Psa. 18:39) for "the war of that great day of the almighty DEITY" (ch. 16:14) which is especially the war of the Seven Angels against "the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable". They are the Deity-Manifestation; hence, the strength or power with which they are girded is almighty. Jesus and his brethren of the Nave, therefore, are the Apocalyptic YAR-ELOHISTIC element of the Seven Angels girded with almighty power.

But further, the almightiness with which they are girded in being quickened, is not the only quality of their girdles. Their mission is, in the execution of judgment, to teach the inhabitants of the world righteousness; that they may be induced to abandon the lies, and unprofitable vanities, by which the blind leaders of the Roman, Protestant, and other

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forms of "strong delusion," now hold them in superstitious bondage. Mere deathless almightiness cannot effect such moral results It might destroy without limit; but could neither enlighten, nor regenerate. Hence, it behooves the Seven Angel Elohistic constituents to be girded with more qualities than incorruptibility, life, and almighty power. The Spirit of Christ in Isaiah 11:5, informs us, what else the Chief they are like shall be girded with, saying, "righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins;" so that "with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and contend with equity for the oppressed of the earth". These admirable qualities of righteousness and faithfulness, superadded to their immortality and omnipotence, will make them incomparable men of war; and competent not only for the conquest, but the regeneration of mankind.

We may see now why the zones with which they are girded are styled golden. All the gold of the Apocalyptic temple and City of holiness, is symbolical of excellent and glorious qualities. "The Almighty," said Eliphaz to Job, "shall be thy gold". Whatever, therefore, possesses almighty characteristics is golden. The Seven Angels being symbolical Elohistic sub-divisions of the Son of Man similitude, they are like him, "girt about the breast with a golden girdle". They who become constituents of the Most Holy, are they who have bought gold of the Spirit, "gold tried in the fire," by which they have become rich; and are adorned with golden stephans, and golden girdles. Their intellectual, moral, and physical qualities, are manifestations of the Eternal Father's; Who thus equips them with infallible and invincible ability, to cause mankind to do His will upon earth, as it is done in heaven.

8. The Seven Golden Vials

"And One of the Four Living Ones gave to the Seven Angels, Seven Golden Vials full of the wrath of the Deity, who lives for the Aions of the A ions" - Verse 7

The Four Living Ones full of eyes are representative of the Spirit manifestly encamped in the saints, as when they were anointed therewith in the Apostolic age, and the time immediately succeeding it. So long as the Stars of the Seven Golden Lightstands continued to shine, the Four Living Ones, as the encampment of the Spirit, occupy a place among the Apocalyptic symbols; but so soon as the lightstands of the Spirit are "removed out of their place" in the midst of the saints, the Symbolic Four Living Ones disappear from the scene. The last place they are observed in the history of the past, is in the period of the fourth seal (ch. 6:7). They are seen in ch. 7:11; but that is in a scene chronologi-

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cally parallel with their appearance in this fifteenth chapter. They are not introduced into chapters eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen. There are reasons for this which need not detain us here; but there is a reason for their reappearance in this chapter, which it is my business to produce.

Of course, I shall not be expected to point out, which of the four living ones it was, that presented the Seven Golden Vials to the Seven Angels, seeing that it was not revealed to John. The Spirit has deemed it sufficient to inform us, that it was "one of the four". Its reappearance indicates, that in the period of the "great and marvellous sign in the heaven," without defining the exact time of the period, the Spirit is found again encamping on earth in the midst of the saints, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah (the Lamb slain) in the midst of the 144,000. When the war of the great day of the almighty Deity is fought out, the Four Living Ones appear no more in the prophecy. They join in the celebration of the praise of the Deity, YAHWEH ELOHIM, "who liveth for the Aions of the Aions," being "He who was to come" - ch. 19:4; but after this, peace being gloriously established, their military organization is dispensed with.

The only potentate that can effectually empower angels to pour out exhaustingly the wrath of the Deity upon mankind, is the Deity himself. The Living One, incorporate in the saints, gives judgment to the Seven Angels; which, to show their relation to the saints in judicial operation, are represented as receiving the golden vials of wrath from "ONE of the Four Living Ones," which indubitably represent the saints (ch. 5:8-10).

The wrath of the Seven Golden Vials is not poured out in all its details by the Saints. The sixteenth chapter shows this. It shows that five vials are entirely exhausted, and much of the sixth, before the "One of the Four Living Ones," Christ and the Kings of the East, appear upon the scene.

The word of Yahweh to Zerubbabel, was "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit" (Zech. 4:6). The Spirit is the girder, or strengthener, whether it be Cyrus (Isa. 45:5), Alexander, Constantine, Alaric, Attila, Genseric, the British power, Napoleon, or the Saints. The British upon the sea, and the French upon the land, were girded in their operations against the worshippers of the Beast and his Image in the first five vial-periods, on the same principle that Cyrus was girded by the Spirit for the overthrow of the dominion of Babylon; and for the punishment of the worshippers of Bel. The Four Living Ones, and the Seven Angels, apart from the Spirit who energizes them, areas nothing. The wrathful power of the "great and marvellous sign in the heaven," is "golden," because just, and true, and faithful. This is supreme and

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righteous; its agents are subordinate, and not necessarily pure and holy.

The power being the same seven-spirit power, though the agents employed are diverse, in the outpouring of all the seven vials, these are all said to be given to the Seven Angels; although the saints do not come upon the arena till toward the close of the sixth vial-period. The saints and the Twelve Tribes of Israel at this crisis, become the agents by whom the Spirit consummates the fullness of the Divine wrath upon the world. Their operations are limited to the "thousand six hundred furlongs", or last forty years of the "great and marvellous sign in the heaven;" that is, to the concluding portion of the sixth, and the whole of the seventh, vial; which includes the Seven thunders, whose utterances were not written (ch. 10:4.)

In the events of the first four seals, the Spirit may be said to have been a party personally engaged in the contest with the pagan Roman power. Hence, the Four Living Ones, the symbols of His presence with the Saints, militant against Rome, are seen in the prophecy of those seals. But, when His presence was withdrawn from the holy encampment because of apostasy, the symbols are withdrawn likewise; and the developments of the Apocalypse are evolved through ordinary agents in the absence of the supernatural. But, the time arrives toward the end of the "great and marvellous sign in the heaven," for the conflict to be renewed, and determined, in the presence of the Spirit; it is therefore for this reason that "one of the Four Living Ones" is reproduced upon the arena; and is represented as giving the seven golden vials to the Seven Angels.

9. The Nave Filled with Smoke

"And the Nave was full of smoke from the glory of the Deity, and from his power".

The Nave, or Most Holy Place, of the Mosaic Tabernacle, which was "the figure of the true," "which the Lord pitches, and not man" (Heb. 9:24; 8:2), was the enclosure containing the Ark of the Testimony, the Cherubim, and the smoking and flaming Glory of the Deity. In the true Holies which the Lord pitches, similar arrangements obtain. The tabernacle Moses erected was built of wood, curtains, gold, and so forth; but the building the Lord erects is raised up of living and enlightened beings, created in his own image, and after his own intellectual and moral likeness (1 Cor. 3:9,16; Eph .2:20,22; Heb. 3:2). These are the heavenlies in Christ" (Eph. 1:3)). The first is the heavenly, or the holy body, consisting of "the faithful in Christ Jesus," in the times preceding the advent of the Ancient of Days. The second is the most holy

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heavenly body, constituted of all who shall be accounted worthy to pass through the Vail, into incorruptibility and deathlessness; by being clothed upon with the "fine linen pure and bright;" and girded around the breast with the "golden girdle". Thus, we have the ONE BOD in two states - as it is before the Ancient of Days comes; and as it will be after that appearing.

In the One Body as it will be are the Four Cherubic Living Ones, and the glory and power of the Deity. The body in its Nave, or Most Holy, constitution, is the Deity in Manifestation; "the Living One for the Aions of the Aions" - verse 7; from whom the wrath of the seven vials issues forth to its consummation. This Divine and glorified body is "full of smoke", because it is full of burning anger and indignation; and its breath like a stream of brimstone in fiery conflagration (Isaiah 30:27,33). Its feet are as "pillars of fire;" its wrath smokes unappeasably until everything is destroyed that would obstruct, or hinder the development of the purpose of the Eternal Power; which is, "to gather together under one head," the Christ, all "principalities, authorities, powers, and lordships," "the things in the heavens;" and all peoples and nations and languages, "things upon the earth" (Eph. 1:9,10; Dan. 7:14,27). Where smoke is, there is fire; and in the case before us, the fire that burns with indignation is in the Seven Spirits, or glory and almighty power of the Deity, with which the One Body is girded around the breast with a golden girdle (ch. 1:13). The Nave is full of smoke till the wrath of the Seven Vials is all exhausted. The Nave at the present time is invisible. The Eternal Father, the Seven Spirits of Deity and the Anointed Jesus, are the present known constituents of the Most Holy. When the veil of the flesh, which now obtains between the Nave, and the Tabernacle of faithful mortals, shall be done away, "the approved" will enter into the Most Holy, and be incorporated with it. By this its bulk, but not its power or glory, will be increased. The agents will be multiplied, through whom the burning wrath will be made to smoke. But, until the admission of "the approved" to incorporation with the Most Holy Nave, its smoke is made to fume through other agents.

The language of him who was anointed the Holy of Holies (Dan. 9:24) is, "All power in heaven and upon earth hath been given to me" (Matt. 28:18); and, referring to his departure from the earth, he said to his apostles and disciples, "I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again" (John 14:2,3). Some seventy years after this declaration, the ETERNAL FATHER, who had bestowed upon him universal power, revealed to him the scheme of its progressive development whereby the "place" promised should be "prepared". This scheme is THE APOCALYPSE (ch. 1:1), the developments of which, till the

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Holy of Holies comes again, are all manifestations of Divine power through "the Powers that be". The supervisor, director and developer of this power is the Lord Jesus Christ, "he that liveth and was dead, and is living for the Aions of the Aions" - and is therefore now "the Lord the Spirit". He stirred up Alaric, Attila, Genseric, and Odoacer; and girded them for their mission against the earth, the sea, the rivers, and fountains of waters, and the sun, moon, and stars, of the western Roman Catholic world. He caused the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman dominion, to pass from the degenerate Greeks to the more vigorous, and less superstitious and blasphemous, Ottomans. He raised his witnesses from political death, and placed them in the heaven, where they demolished the Bourbon kingdom; and, as the earnest of what is coming upon a grander scale, abolished the superstition and dominion of the Papacy in France. Having punished the royal family, nobility, priests and people of France by the Terrorists, for putting his witnesses to death, he commenced the outpouring of the Seven Golden Vials of Divine wrath. He girded the French with power to give the worshippers of the beast "blood to drink," to "scorch them with fire", and to fill the Papal Kingdom with darkness; and so manifest was this, that the first Napoleon could say, "the hand of God leads my armies". None could successfully withstand them till their mission was accomplished. While they were in full career upon the Continent of Europe, he made the British power invincible upon the sea; so that "it became as the blood of a corpse". All these things did the Lord Jesus Christ by his subordinate powers; so that, upon the principle that what one doth by his agents he doth by himself, he being the Most Holy or Nave, the Seven Angels or Spirits went forth from him "to pour out the vials of the wrath of Deity upon the earth". This they continue to do through "the powers that be," until the time arrives for him to reap in person; and to visit all the powers with a retribution that shall abolish them from the earth. His personal executive intervention changes the situation. The powers that be, instead of being executors of wrath upon one another in their wars, are all equally exposed to judgment by a new and Divine power marvelously set up in their midst. The Nave will then have been transferred from the heavens in which it has long been concealed from human ken, to Mount Zion, where it appears as the "Perfect Man," having attained to "the measure of the Angel" (ch. 21:17; Eph. 4:13). Henceforth, the Seven Spirits go forth with this Man who has been clothed and girded goldenly by them. His voice is then as the sound of many waters, his eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet like brass glowing in a furnace. Such is the almighty power that Smokes with indignation unappeasable, to the end of the "thousand six hundred furlongs;" which marks the end of the Seven-Vial period,

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and of the "great and marvellous sign in the heaven". When the indignation ceases in the annihilation of the temporal and spiritual "powers that be," and in the submission of the peoples and languages, and nations to Christ and his Brethren, the Seven Angels will have accomplished their mission; and the smoke from the glory and power of the Deity will cease to ascend. The tormenting exercise of power by the Holy Angels and the Lamb will no longer maintain the combustion of the fiery lake; and the tumult of the world will subside into the undisturbed tranquillity of the Aions of the Aions-the Day of Christ, in which the place prepared will be inherited by the "blessed".

10. No Entrance into the Nave till the End

"No one was able to enter into the Nave until the Seven Plagues of the Seven Angels were fulfilled" Verse 8.

I have already remarked, that the Nave not only consists of the ONE BODY "clothed" and "girded" with the Seven Spirits of the Deity in 'the time of the dead" at Christ's appearing; but, that it represents the Most Holy Kosmos, or Constitution of Things, upon earth, styled by the apostle, "oikonomia tou pleromatos ton kairon," the "Economy of the fullness of the times" (Eph. 1:10).

An economy, or dispensation, the former being compounded of two words signifying house and law, signifies the management of a community, whether it be a household, a kingdom, or an empire; hence, in general, administration, management, government - the public economy of the State. The State to be founded by the ELOAHH of the Heavens, who clothes the Saints with fine linen pure and bright, and girds them around the breasts with golden girdles, for their cooperative performance of the work, is "the kingdom which is to come to the daughter of Jerusalem" - "the first dominion which comes to Zion;" in the setting up and establishment of which, halting, and exiled, and afflicted, Israel, in all her tribes, is being gathered, and made a strong nation, for Yahweh to reign oyer thenceforth even during the Olahm (Mic 4:7,8). This kingdom, with its secondary dominion, which is coextensive with "the whole heaven" (Dan. 7:27), must first be established before it can be entered upon administratively by any one. "The end of the matter" was declared to Daniel, as consisting in all dominions, or rulers, serving and obeying the Most High. This universal submission of nations and dominions to the King of Israel, is the result of the entire exhaustion of the Seven Plagues of the Seven Angels; or the conclusion of the judgment given to the Saints to execute under the whole heaven. The Saints themselves cannot "enter into rest from their labors" (ch.

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14:13) until "their labors" are finished; and as to the world of nations while those labors are in progress, "they have no rest day nor night" from the operation of the smoking plagues, whereby they are being tormented.

But when the judgment is over; when the wrath of the Deity is all filled up; when the great and marvellous sign has passed away from the heaven; when the end of the "thousand six hundred furlongs" "time of the end" hath been reached; when smoke no longer fills the Nave from the glory and power of the Deity - after the forty years of Micah are all in the past; and the kingdom hath been restored to Israel; what will then obtain, and be the economy of this fullness of the times? The Millennial Day of Christ will have come; the strong nations, recently so terribly rebuked, will be awaiting their conqueror's law; and the Saints resting from their judicial military labors, are henceforth blessed with the peaceable and glorious possession of the kingdom, without a disturbing element within or from without, to ruffle the glassy sea, over which is extended, for a thousand years, their righteous and almighty rule. Then their wars shall have ceased to the ends of the earth (Psa. 46 and 47), and they are exalted over the subject nations; then the new law will be proclaimed from Zion and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem (Mic. 4:2). By this law, "a New Heaven and a New Earth" is created, in which Jerusalem is created a rejoicing, and her people a joy. Israel is admitted into the bond of the covenant, the truth and the mercy sworn to their fathers Abraham and Jacob from the days of old. Henceforth the voice of weeping will be heard no more in Jerusalem, nor the voice of crying. Longevity will bless her citizens, whose lives shall be enduring as a tree; and they shall long enjoy the work of their hands. Peace will be ex-tended to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like a flowing stream. The Bride the Lamb's wife will be there, as the Queen arrayed in the gold of Ophir, whose beauty will be greatly desired by the King, and her favor entreated by the rich among the peoples (Mic. 7:20; Isa. 65:17-24; Psa. 46).

Such will be the blessedness of the Firstborn of the nations. The brilliant and precious living stones of fair colors, the immortal constituents of the Bride, will be kings and priests in all the earth. The nations, freed from the dominion of thieves and robbers, and enlightened in the truth, which they will heartily believe, will be permitted to enter into the covenant of the Most Holy; and thus to be joined to Yahweh, and to become his people in fellowship with Israel. One economy, or administration, will rule the world in righteousness, all of whose nations, being justified by faith, will be blessed in and with faithful Abraham, as the gospel of the kingdom preached to him has long declared. There will

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then exist a world of enlightened nations, ruled by the ONE BODY in perfect harmony with the truth, or word then proclaimed from Jerusalem. This is "the world to come;" the future constitution of things upon the habitable, which no one is able to enter into until the Seven Plagues of the Seven Angels are fulfilled" (Isa. 54:11-13; Zech. 2:11; Gal. 3:7-9).

Diagram page 104 of the resettlement of the twelve tribes not shown

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Jerusalem of the Millennium will comprise a Temple-city the House of prayer for all nations situated in the Holy Oblation (Ezek 48 10) This will comprise the centre of Christ's theocratic rule. However, the Temple will not be opened for service until the Millennium commences, and Ezekiel 40:1-2 implies that this will be fifty years (a Jubilee) after the Lord's return. Until then it would appear the conditions outlined in Rev. 22:11 will remain (see Rev. 15:8). Further exposition relating to the House of Prayer for all nations of the Age to come, and the form of worship to be conducted therein can be obtained from consulting The Temple of Ezekiel's Prophecy by H. Sulley; and Divine Worship in The Age to Come, both of which are available from Logos Publications, 9 West Beach Rd., West Beach, South Australia 5024 - Publishers.

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CHAPTER 16

THIRD AND FOURTH SECTIONS OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

The Seventh Trumpet, or Third Woe, comprehending the Seven Vials, or Last Plagues, in which is filled up the wrath of the Deity.

ACT III. SEVENTH TRUMPET OR THIRD WOE

Apoc. 11:14; 8:13; 16; 18; 19; 20:1,3.

The judgments of this last woe extend to the end of the Seventh Seal, or victory of the Saints over the Beast, his Image, his Mark, and Number of his Name (Apoc. 15:2). In the days of the voice of this woe when its calamities shall be complete, the Mystery of the Deity will be finished, as He hath declared the glad tidings to His servants the prophets (Apoc. 10:7). The Eloah of the heavens will then have set up the kingdom (Dan. 2:44) promised to them that obey him (Jam. 2:5); so that the kingdoms of this world will all have become Yahweh's and His Anointed's (Apoc. 11:15), who reigns for the Aions of the Aions.

But before this glorious and blessed consummation, Yahweh Ail Shaddai, the Ancient of Days, comes in (Zech. 14:5) upon the world as a thief in the night (Apoc. 16:15). This is indispensable, because it is his personal mission to accomplish it (Isa. 40:10). At his coming the nations will be in a state of anger among themselves, with distress and perplexity; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the habitable (Luke 21:25).

In the midst of this the saints are raised from among the dead to their own judicial scrutiny; after which all of them who are approved and chosen are recognized by the Lamb as constituents of the 144,000, and follow him whithersoever he goes (Apoc. 14:1-4). Being approved, judgment is given to them for execution upon many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings (Apoc .10:11; Psa. 149:6 9; Apoc .14:10) in rendering of which there issue from them lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail, every stone being about the weight of a talent (Apoc. 11:19; 16:21).

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TRANSLATION OF CHAPTER 16

1. And I heard a great voice from the Nave, saying to the Seven Angels, Go forth and pour out the vials of the wrath of the Deity into the earth.

2. And the first went forth, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the Beast, and who do homage to his Image.

3. And the second angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as of a corpse, and every living soul died in the sea.

4. And the third angel poured out his vial into the rivers, and into the fountains of the waters; and there was blood.

5. And I heard from the Angel of the waters saying, Righteous, 0 Lord, art thou, who art, and who wast and who art coming, because thou hast decreed these things;

6. For they have 'poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and to them thou hast given blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7. And I heard from another out of the Altar, saying, Yea, 0 Lord, the almighty Deity, true and righteous are thy judgments.

8. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and it was given to him to scorch the men with fire.

9. And the men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of the Deity who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him.

10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the throne of the Beast; and it was his kingdom which had been darkened; and they did gnaw their tongues from the anguish, and blasphemed the Deity of the heaven because of their pains, and because of their ulcers; and they repented not of their works.

12. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river the Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the kings who are from a sun's risings, might be prepared.

13. And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three Unclean Spirits like to Frogs; (for they are Spirits of Drmons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty.

15. BEHOLD, I COME AS A THEIF Blessed is he who is watching, and keeping his garments, that he may not walk naked, and they may see his shame.

16. And he gathered them together into the place which is called Hebraistically, Armageddon.

17. And the seventh angel poured out his vial upon the Air; and there came forth a great voice from the Nave of the Heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

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, such an earthquake so great.

19. And the Great City came into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell; and Babylon the Great was called to mind before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.

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20. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

21. And a great hall as of a talent's weight descended out of the heaven upon the men; and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail: for the plague thereof is exceedingly great.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

The events of this sixteenth chapter are participants with those of the thirteenth verse of chapter eleven. The woeful calamity last noted there is the Reign of Terror in which "the remnant were aifrighted, and gave glory to the Deity of the heaven", The terror was preceded by the abolition of all titles of distinction; and by the conversion of the tenth kingdom of Babylon into the FRENCH DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL REPUBLIC. This was the "great earthquake," or political revolution, which made the earth to tremble 1260 years after the giving of the Saints into the hand of the ecclesiastical element of the Little Horn (Dan. 7:25), and the shocks and vibrations of which continued to be felt from A.D. 1790 to 1820, an "hour" of thirty years, reaching to the end of Daniel's 1290 years; and to the beginning of the Sixth Vial, which contains "that determined" to be poured out upon the desolator of the Holy Land (Dan. 9:27).

"The second woe hath passed away, behold the third woe comes quickly". It is not necessary to wait for the entire exhaustion of a period, or Series of events, before we may hope to find the commencement of a new period and another series. Thus, the second vial begins about the same time as the first, but in different sections of the habitable; and continues pouring out parallel or concurrently, with the third, fourth, and fifth vials. So also it may be with the termination of the second woe, and the beginning of the third, if ch. 11:14 is to be read as the sequence of verse 13. But, I rather understand, that this thirteenth verse of the eleventh chapter is the opening of the third woe; and not the conclusion of the second. This is my most recent conviction. Hence, I should read ch. 11:12 and 14 in succession; as, "And they ascended into the heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them. The second woe hath passed away; behold, the third woe comes quickly. And in that hour there was a great earthquake," and so forth. This order of exposition based upon this arrangement of verses affords space for the synchronous beginning of the third woe and first vial; and the previous development of the "Great Voice," by which they were introduced.

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THE SEVENTH TRUMPET, OR THIRD WOE

1. The Great Voice

"And I heard a great voice from the Nave, saying to the Seven Angels, Go forth, and pour out the vials of the wrath of the Deity into the earth" - verse 1.

The Seven Angels previous to the appearing of the Ancient of Days, as already shown, are the Seven Spirits of the Deity operating instrumentally through "the Powers that be". Now, what John sees and hears in vision, is a dramatic representation of what is to be transacted in the moves of the pieces upon the board by the HAND that manipulates them. The Powers are so many chessmen upon the great Babylonian chessboard, whose policy and movements do not originate from themselves, but "from the Nave;" whence issue the impulses which cause them to utter great voices, and to make moves, which are often disastrous, and even fatal to themselves; but which in no wise disturbs or impedes, but judiciously secures the final success of the incomparable Player in the Nave, who manipulates the game. Hence, when John "heard a great voice from the Nave" seventeen centuries before the beginning of the third woe, he heard an utterance symbolically prophetic of a declaration, proclamation, or manifesto, which should lead to the development of the events of the seven vials. The great voice he heard was evidently symbolical of this, because the words of the great voice were a command to the Seven Angels, and therefore to the Powers, to go forth and begin the work of pouring Out the wrath of the Deity into the earth.

That which was represented to John as issuing from the Nave, the Most Holy Lord Jesus Christ caused to issue from the Powers, and therefore from himself, in that great voice they unitedly proclaimed, and sent forth from PILLNITZ,(*) July 27th, 1790. This was coeval with the

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* Since Eureka was first published the Russian Revolution has also dramatically changed the course of world history in accordance with Bible prophecy. It developed out of the French Revolution. The latter gave national endorsement to the spirit of revolt that Inconsequence spread rapidly throughout Europe. In 1845 this was given further impetus through the teaching of Karl Marx which stimulated agitations and uprisings throughout the Continent, and ultimately, during world war 1, gave birth to the Russian Revolution.

The two Revolutions followed exactly the same course. As noted in Eureka above, after the fall of the French Monarchy, and the subsequent moderate government that replaced it, an extreme revolutionary government ruthlessly grasped power in France. The crowned heads of Europe were horrified and frightened by its excesses, particularly in the guillotining of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (Jan. 1793). They feared that the propaganda of the revolutionaries, as well as the force of their arms, would spread the spirit of revolt beyond its borders, and they took steps to prevent this. within France, the deposed nobility stimulated the peasants of La Vendee and other districts to a (continued bottom page 109)

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earliest shocks of the "great earthquake". The famous treaty of this date prepared for the invasion of France. The Powers regarded the cause of the French king, then threatened by the revolution, as their own. In the declaration of Pilnitz, they required that he should be free to go wherever he pleased, that is, to join their standard; that he should be replaced on his throne, that the Assembly should be dissolved, and that the princes of the Holy Roman empire having possessions in Alsace, should be reestablished in their feudal rights. In case of refusal they menaced France with war, in which all the Powers would concur who had guaranteed the French monarchy.

This great voice only irritated the Assembly and people of France. They demanded by what right the princes of Europe combined to interfere in their government; by what right they gave orders to a great people, and imposed conditions upon it; and since the sovereigns appealed from them to force, they prepared themselves for resistance. The frontiers were put in a state of defence, 100,000 of the national guards were levied, and they waited with assurance the attacks of the kings, well convinced that the French people, animated by the Spirit of the Revolution, "the Spirit of life from the Deity," and within their own frontiers, would be invincible.

Under the patronage of the Pillnitz Coalition, "the Emigration" was making alarming progress. The two brothers of Louis XVI, the prince of Conde and the Duke of Bourbon, had protested against the king's acceptance of the Constitution, as he had no power to alienate' the rights of the ancient monarchy. This protest soon circulated through France, and

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counter-revolution. these peasants, like the nobility, were deeply religious and strongly monarchist in sympathy, and took up arms against the Revolution in those areas

The Pinitz, Austria, coalition (officially proclaimed on 27 Aug 1791) was a grouping of European Powers that combined with the object of invading France, and restoring the Monarchy. with invasion from without and civil war within, it seemed impossible that the French Republic could survive. Its armies lacked trained officers, as most of these had been imprisoned executed or had fled the country. Yet the Republican Government showed no signs of giving in under the pressure exerted by the circle of its enemies Instead the mobs surged out of Paris, armed with the most ill assorted collection of weapons, and proceeded to fight the well drilled troops of the Monarchist countries and the counterrevolutionary bands of France for the preservation of their new won liberties. Napoleon's army leaders were men taken out of normal life and projected by circumstances and need into leading the army. And they did so with outstanding success.

Precisely, and significantly, the same things happened in Bolshevik Russia. In l9l8 Moscow was enclosed in a ring of steel, and the country under its tottering authority was reduced to about 500 miles in each direction. It seemed quite obvious that the Revolution was doomed, but deserters joined up again, sailors from the fleet turned themselves into infantry, and the workers marched out in ragged bands to give battle to the whole civilized world and the 'White Russians who opposed the Reds as a counterrevolution. The military leaders of the Russian Revolution, like those of the French Revolution, were quite untrained for the task before them, but they succeeded and established the Communist Government in Moscow to change the course of world history. Both Germany's troops and those of Russia's previous allies, such as Great Britain, France and America sup-ported the anti-revolutionary forces, but failed to change the course of history in their favour because it was decreed of God that the Revolution should succeed. In Russia the world witnessed a repetition of the course of events symbolized in Rev. 11:12-13; since then "the remnant have been affrighted----Publishers

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produced a great effect upon their partisans. The officers left the army, the nobles abandoned their chateaux, and whole companies deserted, to enroll themselves in the anti-revolutionary regiments on the frontiers. Those who refused to emigrate were threatened with being degraded to the class of the people, when the nobility should return victorious. The Emigration was styled "External France," and was formed in the Austrian Low Countries, and in the neighboring electorates. The Counter-Revolution was openly prepared at Brussels, at Worms, and at Coblentz, not only under the protection of Foreign Courts, but even with their assistance. This fact identifies "the emigration" with the operation of the "Great Voice;" through the emissaries of which in the interior of France, it was enabled to combat the Revolution in its camp, and to foment civil war.

In preparing the situation for the outpouring of the First Vial, there were the European Coalition of the diademed horns, the Kings of the Earth, and the Image of the Beast; together with the Emigrant Nobility and non-juring Priests beyond the frontiers: also the Revolution, with its priestly and royalist enemies within the country. The refractory ecclesiastics lost no opportunity of exciting a diversion which might prove useful to the emigrants. "The priests, and more especially the bishops," says the Marquis de Ferrieres, "employed all the resources of fanaticism, to rouse the lower classes, both in town and country, against the civil constitution of the clergy," which was fatal to the dominion of the Pope in France. The bishops commanded the priests no longer to celebrate what they call "divine service" in the same churches with the constitutional clergy, lest the people should confound the two modes of worship, and the two orders of priesthood. "Independently," he adds, "of the circular letters addressed to the curates, instructions designed for the people were distributed through the country. In these it was stated that it was not allowable for any one to receive the sacraments from the hands of the constitutional priests, who were designated as intruders; that all who participated in them became guilty, by their mere presence, of mortal sin; that those who were married by the intruder should not be regarded as married; that they would draw down a curse upon themselves and their children; that no one was to hold communication with them, nor with those who had separated themselves from the church; that the municipal officers who installed them became apostates like themselves; that even at the moment of installation, the ringers of the bells and the sacristans were to abandon their duty. These fanatical addresses produced the effect expected by the bishops, and religious dissension broke out in all quarters".

The revolt of the disaffected popish faction occurred chiefly in the

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departments of Calvados, or Gevaudan, and of La Vendee. These provinces were not much disposed to welcome the Revolution, because the middle and more intelligent class was far from numerous there; and the populace, or ignorant multitude, were blindly devoted to the clergy and nobility, upon whom they depended. Such a population as this had to be prepared, therefore, for a severe visitation of the wrath of the first vial. This preparation was effected by the opposing forces brought to bear upon them. The Emigration without, and the refractory ecclesiastics within, operating upon a brutal and superstitious multitude, was perceived by the Legislative Assembly to be a danger for the Revolution, which required to be crushed out by the most vigorous appliances. It decreed, that all Frenchmen assembled beyond the frontiers found to be embodied on Jan. 1, 1792, should be treated as conspirators, and become liable to the punishment of death, and confiscation of property for the benefit of the nation: while the refractory priests were commanded to take the oath of citizenship, under pain of being deprived of their pensions, and of being declared suspected of revolt against the law.

But Louis XVI was unwilling to sanction any measures taken against the Emigrant Noblesse, protected by the Powers; and the seditious priests, their allies, throughout the land. He therefore, vetoed the decrees against them. By this use of his prerogative in their favor, he came to be regarded by the people as the accomplice of the enemies of the Revolution. The rejected decrees were not replaced by others. The Assembly, however, dispatched a message to the king by Vaublanc, saying, "Sire, scarcely had the Assembly cast its eyes on the situation of the realm, when it perceived that the troubles which still agitate it have their source in the criminal attempts of the French Emigrants. Their audacity is supported by the German Princes. These hostile preparations, these threats of invasion, require armaments which absorb immense sums, which the nation would have poured with joy into the hands of its creditors.

"It is for you, Sire, to put an end to them, it is for you to hold, in addressing foreign powers, the language which becomes the sovereign of the French people! Tell them, that every country that continues preparations against France, must be numbered among her enemies; that we will religiously regard our oath of attempting no conquests; that we offer to live with them in brotherly neighborhood, and to grant them the inviolable friendship of a free and powerful people; that we will respect their laws, their customs, and their constitutions; but that we require in return that ours should be respected! Tell them, lastly, that if the princes of Germany continue to countenance preparations directed against the French, the French will carry into their country, not fire and sword, but

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liberty! It is for them to calculate what may be the consequence of this awakening of the nations!"

In consequence of this message, the king yielded to the general wish. He notified the German princes to cause all hostile meetings and dispositions of the French emigrants to cease in their States, or he would regard them as enemies; and wrote to the emperor of Germany to interpose his authority, as head of the empire, to avert the evils which any longer obstinacy on the part of some of the Germanic Body might occasion.

The steps taken by Louis XVI relative to the princes of the empire, were supported by military preparations. Three armies were formed under the command of Rochambeau, of Luckner, and of La Fayette. On the other hand, Austria gave orders to marshal Bender to defend the Elector of Treves if he were attacked, and ratified the conclusions of the Diet of Ratisbon. These demanded the restoration of the possessionary princes; the Diet refused to allow that they should be indemnified in money for the loss of their rights; and left to France the choice only of the re-establishment of feudality in Alsace, or war. These two resolutions of the cabinet of Vienna were of a very hostile nature. Her troops marched upon the French frontiers, and proved clearly that France was not to trust to her inaction. Fifty thousand men were stationed in the Low Countries; six thousand were posted in the Brisgaw, and thirty thousand were dispatched from Bohemia. This formidable army of observation could at a moment's notice, be rendered an army of attack.

The Assembly felt that there was an urgent necessity of compelling the Emperor to decide. They regarded the emigrants as his instruments. They were desirous of anticipating this dangerous league of sovereigns, and of preventing it from having time to prepare itself. They therefore required the emperor to explain before Feb.10, 1792, in a clear and precise manner, his real intentions with regard to France, whose situation was daily becoming more and more dangerous. The answers of prince Kaunitz to the explanations demanded were by no means satisfactory. He even refused to treat directly, and the baron of Cobentzel was charged with replying that Austria refused to depart from the conditions she had imposed. The re-establishment of the monarchy on the basis of the royal sitting of June 23, the restoration of the property of the clergy, of the lands of Alsace with all their rights to the German princes, and of Avignon and the Venaissin territory to the Pope, such was the ultimatum, or among the last echoes of the "Great Voice," which brought about the outpouring of the first of the Seven Vials. All possibility of agreement was at an end, and the maintenance of peace was no longer to be expected. All that now remained to be decided on was whether to

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wait for commence the war.

This question was determined April20, 1792. Louis XVI, attended by all his ministers, presented himself before the Assembly on that day, and caused General Dumourier, then minister of war, to make report on the political situation of France. He concluded his recital of grievances by advising war against Austria. The king then proposed a declaration of war, which was received by the National Assembly with a deep and silent emotion. After the king had retired, they determined to meet in the evening, when the war was resolved on almost unanimously. Thus was begun with the chief of the confederate powers, that war which lasted a quarter of a century, which confirmed the Revolution triumphantly, and which changed the whole face of Europe.

By this historical sketch, the reader enlightened in the knowledge of the Deity with spiritual understanding, will be enabled to perceive the working of the Seven Spirits on all the agents of the situation, on the Powers, the emigrants, the refractory priests, the French king, political parties in the Assembly, the clubs, and the populace, to bring on a crisis in which there would be found scope for the outpouring of wrath upon the worshippers of the Beast's Image, and upon the men who had the

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Louis XVI announces the declaration of war against the coalition to the acclaim of

the deputies.

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Beast's Sign. The sketch illustrates, not only the "great voice", or note of preparation for war, but what the Seven Angel-Spirits did in obedience to the command, "Go forth!" They issued "from the Nave," July 27, 1790; and reached the crisis predetermined, April20, 1792, a period of twenty-one months. This was a short period, but pregnant with events, which after seventy-five years, are still in process of development(*).

2. Act I - The First Vial

"And the first angel went forth, and poured out his vial upon the earth: and there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image" Verse 2.

This first angel is the only one of the seven of whom it is individually testified that "he went fortli". They all went forth together, and formed the situation. They did not successively go forth from the Nave, when the time came for each to pour out. If they had, a distinct situation would have required to be created for each; whereas all seven being represented as going forth together, it was only necessary to say of the first "he went forth" as the co-operative work of the twenty-one months laid a foundation, broad and deep. for the combined operation of the first five; and the successive out pouring of the sixth and seventh.

The first angel poured ou# the wrath committed to him "upon the earth". This arena of Divine indignation is expounded in the text by the words, "upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image"; that is, upon the papal populations of Europe; and upon those of the same section of the Continent, who, although not constitutionally papal, are signed with the papal institutions of infant rhantism, which in violation of Scriptures, reason, and philology, they blasphemously style, "christian baptism!" As the first angel sounded his trumpet against the earth before it was planted with the modern kingdoms of Europe, or Ten Horns, to bring them into position as elements of the new papal constitution of the West (ch. 8:7); so the angel of the first vial pours out his portion of wrath upon the same arena considerably extended. He begins with France, the Tenth of the Great City, as the most murderous of the horns in their co-operation with the Papacy in its wars against the

witnesses and saints of Jesus. His visitations

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(*) reference to "seventy-five years" is derived from the time periods of Daniel 12. From 1260 to1335 is 75. It is significant that the epoch of 75 years from 1792 reaches to 1867 when the papacy was in sharp decline. The termination of its termination temporal power took place about 1870-publishers~

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descended grievously upon all the departments of that country; but with the greatest intensity upon those sections of it, where their blood had been most abundantly shed. France became an altar of sacrifice to which beasts were brought for slaughter that had devoured and oppressed the saints. The "great voice" brought them thither from all parts of "the Holy Roman Empire," and from Naples, Piedmont, Spain, Russia, and Prussia; in short, there remained no other states neutral than Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. All these peoples, on hearing of the ignominious decapitation of Louis XVI., by the republicans, proceeded to the invasion of France with forces amounting to 355,000 horse and foot; by which they flattered themselves they would sweep the Revolution from "the earth;" and re-establish the old regime.

In the words of an orator of the Convention, "the Republic was nothing more than a great city besieged; France was nothing more than one vast camp". It soon had forty armies, and twelve hundred thousand soldiers; with which to combat the invading hosts, and to suppress the almost general rising of the departments, sixty of which were in open insurrection. But, having completely organized their immense armies, and planned their new system of tactics, their forces were rendered tremendously formidable. They subdued the insurrection, and in the

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The execution of the King on the Place de la Revolution on 21 January 1793.

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memorable campaign of 1793-'4, carried the war into the territories of their invaders. At the end of this, they had been victorious in twenty-nine battles, and in more than one hundred less decisive engagements. They had taken a hundred and fifty-two cities and towns, and 3,800 pieces of cannon; ninety standards, and 70,000 muskets; they had killed 80,000 of their enemies, and taken 90,000 prisoners: and at length annexed Belgium and Holland to France.

'And there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image". In the natural body, an ulcer is an open, running sore, resulting from local inflammation, or constitutional irritations more or less intense. In its formation, it is attended with heat, redness, pain, and swelling, which result in a solution of the continuity of the part, or an open sore; which often, if malignant, eats away the flesh, and lays bare the bones.

Such is the figure used in the text illustrative of the effect of the hot, fiery, painful, and swelling indignation of the Deity poured out from the vial of the first angel upon the men of the Body Politic, to which the Sign and Image of the Beast belong. In the first epoch of the French Revolution, it became the subject of a high degree of irritation, which progressed rapidly into an intense and burning inflammation, which ulcerously destroyed the organic constitution of the State. No great popular revolution has ever been accomplished, nor ever will be, without the infliction of misery, and the commission of excess which makes humanity shudder. This misery and excess in all their ramifications and operations in relation primarily to the French people, and secondarily, to those other people whom they invaded, and among whom they introduced their disorganizing, and sanguinary revolutionary policy, is represented by the "grievous and malignant ulcer" of our text. The history of the period from May 5, 1789, to the August 4, of the same year, a short period of three months, is full of the most important transactions; and showing that had the Revolution not been opposed by the French Court, nobility, and clergy, all interested in maintaining abuses in church and state, it would have been less prompt and less complete. Each refusal by these to yield to the demands of the Revolution, became for it the occasion of new successes, it overthrew intrigue, resisted authority, triumphed over force, and by August 4, the whole edifice of absolute monarchy in "the Tenth of the Great City" had been shaken by the mismanagement of its supporters. The 17th of June, by a memorable decree of the Commons, annihilated the three orders, and changed the States General into the National Assembly . The royal sitting of the 23rd of June, at which Louis XVI. quashed all its resolutions and imperiously, but ineffectually, commanded the Orders to resume their original

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position, the moral influence of the crown was lost. The 14th of July, the date of the destruction of the Bastille, terminated its material power; the Assembly inherited the one, and the people the other; finally, the 4th of August, when all privileges were abolished by "a Saint Bartholomew of abuses," the first epoch of the Revolution was completed; an epoch conspicuously detached from the others, in which the seat of power was displaced, and all the preliminary changes were effected.

The epoch which followed is that in which the new order of things is discussed and established, and in which the Assembly, after having been destructive, became constituent. This assembly terminated its own existence, September 29, 1791. It accomplished in two years "the greatest revolution which a single generation of mankind ever witnessed". In the midst of its labors it put down despotism and anarchy, by defeating the intrigues of the court, the high clergy, and nobility, and maintaining the subordination of the people. But its successors, the National Legislative Assembly, did not apply itself in the consolidation of the work already done; and the Revolution, which was Divinely commissioned to subvert the monarchy under its auspices entered upon its republican phase, in which the "grievous and malignant ulcer" broke forth in all the hideousness of carnage and corruption.

Under the National Constituent Assembly, the shocks of the "great earthquake" had abolished all privileged orders; declared the possessions of the Catholic Church national property, and sold it for the use of the State: abolished tithes; ordained the civil constitution of the clergy, by which they were made independent of the Pope, and dependent upon the State; and abolished all titles, armorial bearings, liveries, and orders of chivalry; so that vanity lost its privileges as power had already done. These radical organic changes caused the high clergy to declare war against the Revolution; the nobility to emigrate; and foreign powers to abandon the struggle of kings against each other, and to begin, in alliance with the emigrant priests and nobility without, and the refractory ecclesiastics within, the struggle of kings with the awakening peoples of the world Thus it was, that during this epoch, the parties separated more and more, and that the two classes, the noblesse and clergy, the

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The three orders of the States General consisted of the Clergy (the First Estate), the Nobility (the Second Estate) and the Bourgeoisie, town wage earners and peasants (the Third Estate). By tradition the voting was by Estates. so the Clergy and Nobility by combining were able to dominate proceedings and deprive the Third Estate of any power. On June 17th 1789, the Third Estate, determined to enforce the principle of voting by deputies instead of Estates, voted to take the name National Assembly, declaring themselves to be a body representing the whole nation. when King (Louis XVI) attempted to check further developments by closing the Assembly Hall, the deputies reassembled on the Tennis Court and took an oath to resist dissolution until a constitution had been obtained. The King's will being defied, the revolution had begun. The Bourgeoisie had seized control. For further information and illustrations relating to the States General. see Vol.3, pp.290-

291.

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enemies of the Revolution, prepared the elements of civil and foreign war, which when in operation were "a grievous and malignant ulcer" upon all who suffered from them.

Louis XVI had attempted to escape to the frontiers, but was recaptured and brought back to Paris; and provisionally suspended by the Assembly (*). Tbe terrible republican party now began to appear upon the stage. Their agency was necessary to the fall of "the Tenth of the City," Babylon the Great. The Court, the aristocrats, and the constitutionalists, were all in favor of monarchy, absolute or limited; therefore, to effect the fall decreed, it was necessary that a party should be developed, whose irrepressible passion should be a leveling hatred to everything savoring of the craft of kings. This party was the republican, which until the flight of the king, had no substantive existence, or no pretext for manifesting itself. It now began to struggle for itself under its own banner. Its strength was in the clubs of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, and in the mob. The republicans considered Louis XVI. as a private citizen, since he fled, and demanded a substitute for him. They were, however, the minority in the Constituent Assembly, and therefore failed; but when this was superseded by the Legislative Assembly, they found themselves in the majority. Among them were Danton, Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Favre d'Eglantine, St. Just, and the Robespierres, names suggestive of the malignancy of the ulcer about through them to break out upon the men who worship the Image of the Beast and have his Sign.

As previously stated, France declared war against Austria, April 20, 1792. It was determined to invade Belgium. Scarcely had the French met the enemy than a panic terror seized the troops. The cry through all the ranks was, Sauve qui peut! The Jacobins accused the counter-revolutionists, who did not attempt to conceal their joy, of having occasioned the rout by raising the cry. It was thought that the Court was acting in concert with the Austrians and their emigrant allies; and that there was a secret committee which maintained a treasonable correspondence with the enemy. Public distrust was therefore now at its height. The state of the Constitution was acquiring daily more and more a revolutionary aspect. The king counted no longer upon anything but on the state of Europe, he therefore dispatched an emissary on a secret mission to the Coalition.

The influence of the Jacobins now became enormous. The populace was in the greatest agitation. Eight thousand armed petitioners waited upon the Assembly. They complained of the inactivity of their armies, and insisted upon the cause being discovered; and that if it

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(*) See comments and illustrations Vol.3 p. 330.

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proceeded from the executive power, they required that it should be annihilated.

From the Assembly, their numbers having increased to thirty thousand, they marched to the king's palace. As they were demolishing the doors with axes, Louis XVI. ordered them to be opened. The stormy wave rushed in, and demanded his sanction to certain decrees he had vetoed, and the appointment of new ministers. But he refused their petitions; and for this time, they were persuaded to retire.

Soon after this, the Assembly proclaimed that the country was in danger. The indispensable measures of defence it decreed carried to its height the excitation of the revolutionary frenzy. On July 25, 1792, the Duke of Brunswick put the army of Europe in motion for the invasion of France, the suppression of the Revolution, and the punishment of the republicans. He published "a great voice," or manifesto in the name of the emperor of Germany and king of Prussia. Russia and England, though they secretly approved the attacks of the European Coalition, had not yet cooperated in them. The duke reproached those who had usurped the reins of administration in France with having troubled its good order, and overthrown its legitimate government. He declared that the Allied Sovereigns had taken up arms in order to put an end to anarchy in France, to arrest the attacks upon the altar and the throne, to render to the king the security and the liberty of which he had been deprived, and to put him in a situation for exercising his legitimate author-ty. In consequence, he declared the national guards and authorities responsible for all these disorders, until the arrival of the troops of the coalition. He summoned them to return to their ancient fidelity. He said that the inhabitants of the towns which ventured to defend themselves should be punished immediately as rebels, according to the rigor of war, and their houses demolished or burnt: that if the city of Paris did not re-store the king to his full liberty, or refused to render him the respect due to him, the Allied Princes rendered personally responsible for such failure on their heads, to be judged by military law, without hope of pardon, all the members of the National Legislative Assembly, of the department, of the district, of the municipality, and of the national guard; that if the palace were forced, or insulted, the Allied Potentates would take an exemplary and memorable vengeance, by giving up Paris to plunder, and to total destruction. He promised, on the contrary, that he would engage to employ the good offices of the confederate princes with Louis XVI., in favor of the inhabitants of Paris, and obtain for them the pardon of their errors and offenses, if they promptly obeyed the orders of the coalition.

This "great voice" roused the spirit of the whole nation; and more

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than anything else hastened the fall of the throne, and opposed the success of the coalition. There was but one wish, one cry of resistance from one end of France to the other. The popular party, which was thus forced, as it were, to triumph, saw no other means than that of annulling the monarchy, and in order to annul it, to depose the king. His dethronement was discussed in the clubs. Forty-seven sections of Paris declared that if the resolution of dethronement were not pronounced by the Assembly that very day, the tocsin should be sounded at midnight, the drums should beat the generale, and the palace should be attacked on the 10th of August.

The Court had put itself into a state of defence, and the king hoped to reestablish himself entirely. The palace was defended in the best manner. But the king was very melancholy; and upon a review of the troops, found by the cries, Vive la nation! Down with the Veto! Down with the Traitor! that disaffection was widely diffused among them. While the review was in progress, the insurgents were advancing in several columns upon the Tuileries. They demanded the dethronement of the king. He was informed that they were everywhere successful; that the national guards were not to be trusted, and that the royal family would expose itself to infallible ruin, if its members did not place themselves in the midst of the Legislative Assembly. This they reluctantly consented to do; and after much difficulty arrived there unharmed amid the abuse, threats, and vociferations of the multitude.

After the king's departure the palace was forced, and the Swiss guards massacred. Shouts of victory reached the Assembly; and the fate of the monarchy was decided. The multitude and its chiefs had the entire power, and were determined to exert it. The Assembly found itself constrained to yield. It was ordered to convoke a National Convention, to dismiss the ministers, and to suspend the authority of the king, who was transferred to the Temple as a prisoner, by the all-powerful commune, under the pretext that it was impossible otherwise to be sure of his person. The party now ordered the demolition of all the statues of its kings, and of all the emblems of royalty. The 10th of August divided France into two parties, of which the one was attached to monarchy, while the other desired a republic. Danton was at the head of the republicans; and his advice in the present danger of the country, was to '"frighten the royalists". He wished to repress his enemies by means of terror. A great number of persons were imprisoned on the ground of their rank, their opinions, or their conduct. These were mainly selected from the clergy and the nobility. The capture of Verdun by the enemy caused Paris to fancy him at its gates. The Commune seized this moment of alarm to execute its terrible design. The cannon was fired, the tocsin sounded,

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the barriers were closed, and the massacres of the 2nd of September began.

The prisoners shut up at the Carmelites, at the Abbey, at La Force, the Conciergerie, etc., were butchered during three days, by a band of about three hundred murderers, under the orders and in the pay of the Commune. These men, inspired by a silent fanaticism, seemed less the ministers of vengeance, than the performers of a labor to be done; they massacred without fury, but without remorse - with all the confidence of fanatics, and the obedience of hangmen. The Assembly wished to put a stop to this operation of the "nervous and malignant ulcer" upon the worshippers of the Beast's Image, but could not. The ministry was as impotent as the Assembly. The terrible Commune alone was all-powerful, and directed everything. The soldiers who guarded the prisoners durst not resist the Avengers, and suffered them to do their work of death; the populace looked on as indifferent spectators or accomplices; and the rest of the citizens dared not even venture to discover their horror.

The National Convention met Sept.24, 1792. In its first sitting it abolished royalty, and proclaimed the Republic, by acclamation; and on the following day it was ordered that all public acts should be dated from "the first year of the French Republic". Such were the salutary effects of the transient successes of the Austrian and Prussian armies, and of the ill-judged manifestoes, or "Great Voice," by which they were preceded. They only exasperated a people they were intended to intimidate. They hastened the fall of that throne which they came to support, and consolidated that power which they intended to crush. Their object was to re-establish a monarchy their efforts gave birth to a republic.

From the moment of the fall of this Tenth Monarchy of the Great City, two powerful parties enterd the arena, namely, the Girondists and the Mountainists; and these parties divided the Convention, and by their violent and sanguinary struggles for the ascendancy, aggravated the "grievous and malignant ulcer" which was consuming the quivering flesh of the Image-Body in France. They attacked each other with the utmost inveteracy. None, however, of the measures of the Girondists succeeded. The Mountainists (*) profited ably by their want of the most ordinary prudence; and extended their views to the destruction of the Gironde, as well as to that of Louis XVI., whose condemnation to the guillotine was demanded as a security for liberty. The latter was decreed by the Convention, and executed January 21, 1793; two months nearly before the termination of the 1260 years, from Justinian's institution of the Bishop of Rome, ecclesiastical lord paramount of the Great City.

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~(*)See footnote Vol 3p. 331.

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The consequences of this tragical event intensified the malignancy of the ulcer in regard to France, and scarcely less so to all Europe, being man-ifested in a fierce and devouring tyranny, and an almost universal war.

The despotism of the multitude under Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, under the name of the Republic of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" - was now the Sovereign authority. An inevitable result of their access to power was the civil war in La Vendee. This country, backed by the sea and the Loire, traversed by few roads, and covered with villages, hamlets, and castlewards, had maintained its ancient state of feudal existence. In La Vendee there was neither education nor civilization. The peasantry had acquired no other ideas than those communicated to it by the priests, or "men having the sign of the beast," and

understood nothing of a revolution which was the result of opinions and wants altogether unknown to their situation. The nobles and priests, finding themselves a strong party in La Vendee, did not emigrate. This region and the new France that had arisen, had nothing in common but their language. It was certain, therefore, that the "grievous and malignant ulcer" would break out with terrible effect upon its priest-ridden population; which revolted, and brought upon their country the terrible visitation of the merciless revolutionary tribunal.

After the 2nd of June, the Girondists, who had not yet been guillotined, extended the flame of civil war; so that sixty out of the eighty-three departments of France, were in insurrection against the Convention. The situation of the Republic could not now be worse. It had to put an end to civil wars, to repair the disasters of the army, and to repel the whole of Europe; yet the bold men at the head of it were not intimidated at their situation. At the suggestion of Danton, they took their great and last oath, that they would die or annihilate the tyrants. After this the tide of events began to turn in favor of the Convention, which soon became everywhere victorious. The Committee of Public Safety, thinking, not without cause, that its enemies, although subdued, were not disposed to submission, adopted a terrible system of extermination, to prevent their recovering themselves. They sent twelve columns, known by the name of the Infernal Columns, to scour the country with fire and sword, to explore the woods, to carry off those who were collected together, and to spread terror throughout the Vendean country of the Image-worshippers of the Beast. The Committee, now the great power in the republic, abandoned itself to the most terrible executions. Armies destroy only on the field of battle: it is a different thing with parties who, in violent situations, fearing that the struggle may be renewed even after victory, fortify themselves against new attempts by the most inexorable rigor. By this they increased the grievousness and malignancy of the ulcer,

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from which the hemorrhage was copious and incessant. They established an entirely NEW ERA as compared with that founded on the legislation of Justinian. In place of the Catholic calendar they substituted that of the republican, for the week of seven days, the decade of ten making every tenth day the day of rest, instead of Sunday. The New Era' was dated from Sept.22, 1792, the epoch of the foundation of the Republic. The Catholic worship of the Beast's Image was abolished in 1793. Gobet, constitutional bishop of Paris, proceeded in full procession to the Convention, and declared that the religion he had taught so long was, in every respect, a piece of priest-craft, which had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. The gold and silver plate of the Romish bazaars was seized; and the bazaars themselves, in most districts of France, were closed against priests and worshippers; the bells were broken and cast into cannon, and the whole ecclesiastical establishment worthily destroyed. Thus was righteously avenged upon "the men who had the sign of the beast, and the worshippers of his image," the terrible cruelties and massacres of St. Bartholomew's and of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, inflicted by the kings of the House of Bourbon, and the priests of Rome. The "grievous and malignant ulcer" was the Deity's way of doing justice to the slain. It was the first installment of wrath to be poured out upon the blasphemers of "his name, and tabernacle, - them who dwell in the heaven". It was a signal inception of the Third Woe, which awaits its consummation, when the Seventh Angel shall have ceased to sound.

3. Act II - The Second Vial

"And the Second Angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as it were ofa corpse; and every living soul died in the sea" Verse 3.

The Seven Spirits of the Deity had all gone forth from the Nave on a mission of Divine wrath upon the inhabitants of the Apocalyptic earth (ch. 8:13). While the first angel was operating in France, the other six

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Picture of penny not shown

The French Revolution advanced British domination of the seas as its navy successfully waged war with France and

Spain. The British blockade of Napoleonic Europe caused international shipping to stagnate as required by the Second Vial. This penny, issued 1797 commemorates that "Britain rules the waves" Publishers.

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were not idle spectators of the flesh-devouring phenomena of the "grievous and malignant ulcer". Had the six been inoperative elsewhere, the other powers of the Great City would have left France to perish of the ulcer, while they maintained a strict neutrality, and confined themselves exclusively to their own internal affairs. But this, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in harmony with the Apocalyptic program, is preparing things for their appointed and predetermined end, would not allow. They had to adopt a policy that would implicate them in the dire and woeful calamities of the time. All the powers of antichristendom were guilty before Heaven - they had all, in the 1260 years of the Papacy that had passed since its institution by Justinian, "committed fornication with her;" and their populations had all "been made drunk with the wine of her fornication" (ch.17:2; 18:3): why, then, should they not be made to "drink the wine of the wrath of the Deity poured un-mixed in the cup of his indignation", as well as the same class of worshippers of the Beast's Image in the Gallic Tenth of the Great City? No reason to the contrary can be adduced: and therefore, the Seven Spirits of the Deity were all engaged with the several powers of the earth and habitable in preparing a situation, which in due time and order, would bring them all under the operation of the wrath decreed against them.

While the wrath of the first angel-period of the third woe, or seventh trumpet, was generating and developing the grievous and malignant ulcer in the body politic of the Great City, the Seven Spirits were operating upon the British Power, and preparing it for the work of wrath upon the Apocalyptic sea; which, in this place, is representative of all the countries of "Babylon the Great" accessible to ships of war(*).

The pouring out of the vial into the sea, indicates that a maritime war would commence with the outpouring; and that, as the sea was to "become blood as it were of a corpse," the war would be of unparalleled severity. To become blood as it were of a corpse, was also indicative that no hostile navies could ride the waves, except the ships of the power used as the agent of the Seven Spirits: That all naval life and activity would become stagnant, as the blood of a corpse, which is incapable of circulating, as during life, through the arterial and venous channels of the body. All the war ships of the Great City found at sea would be destroyed by the potential minister of wrath; or compelled to take refuge

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(*) The Apocalyptic "Sea" is the territory beyond the confines of the Apocalyptic "Earth", i.e. Europe, of the First Vial. This portion of the literal Earth's surface includes the literal seas where the battles described in this section took place. The triumph of Britain on the sea confined Napoleon's conquests to Europe. Nelson in The Victory in 1799 defeated the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, and in 1798 destroyed the French fleet off Aboukir, called the 13attle of the Nile. with Britain ruling the sea, and Napoleon virtually controlling Europe, international trade by sea stagnated as prophetically symbolized by the outpouring of the 2nd Vial. The illustration opposite depicts Nelson's flagship, The Victory, in action raking the Salvador del Mundo - Publishers.

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beyond his reach, or to shut themselves up and not to venture out to sea. The ocean being thus cleared of the war ships belonging to the Powers of Babylon the Great, every sea-faring living soul was, to all intents and purposes of war, dead. When "Britannia ruled the waves" there was no living soul afloat to fire a gun to her dismay. The French upon the land, and the British upon the sea, were the contemporary agents of the Seven Spirits for the tormentation of the worshippers of the Beast's Image in the second, third, fourth, and fifth vials of the sanguinary and scorching wrath of the avenger.

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Picture of Nelsons flagship not shown

The battle of Trafalgar over, the damaged Victory, Nelsons Flagship is towed toward Gibraltar his defeat of the combined French and Spanish fleets was the decisive event in the lolng naval war that secured the supremacy of the British navy for over one hundred years, though Nelson was mortally wounded on the eve of victory. The British victories on the sea made the French Navy fearful of engaging the British in battle. Napoleon made preparation to invade England and assembled his army at Calais to do so. However, the Admirals of the French fleet invariably reported that the wind was against their ships successfully engaging the British. However, Robert Fulton of America proposed to Napoleon the construction of a submarine and of a steam warship which would not be dependent upon the wind; but his proposal was turned down by the French naval officials. By the Irony of fate, when General Bonaparte was being conveyed by the British warship H.M.S. Northumberland as a captive to the island of St. Helena, a long trail of dense smoke was seen to be pouring from an approaching vessel which appeared to be provided with "a sort of chimney". The Emperor asked an attendant British naval lieutenant what it was and was told that it was "The Fulton of thirtyeight tons, the world's first Steam warship." Humanly speaking, if Napoleon had listened to Fulton, he may have been able to successfully invade Britain, but the design of prophecy did not permit it - Publishers.

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The portion of wrath committed to the Angel of the Sea began to be poured out in Holland on the landing of the British there, Feb.26, 1793. It continued to pour concurrently with the third, fourth and fifth vials, for twenty years, with no intermission save the brief and deceptive peace of Amiens in 1802.

The author of Modern Europe in writing of this period says, "In the grand drama that was at this time acting on the theatre of the world, all the powers of Europe were unhappily called to sustain a part: but France was unquestionably the prime actor, and her history must therefore be allowed to take the precedence of that of every other country. We may now be allowed to say, that it had been happy for England, and for the Continental States also, had she stood aloof at this awful crisis, as a mere spectator of the horrid tragedy, occupying an attitude of self-defence. Secure in her insulated situation and garrisoned by her wooden walls,(*) she might have bid defiance to the volcano, and remained secure amid the tempest. It was her policy also to remain at peace; but unhappily at this time, the sympathies of the different parties in England were so powerfully excited by the state of things upon the Continent, that the dictates of sound reason could no longer be heard; and the wickedness of the ruling party in France was certainly calculated to awaken the horror of men in an extraordinary degree: the consequence was that the original friends of the Revolution became mute; the once sacred name of liberty itself became offensive; the alarmists rose suddenly in number and force; clamors and indignation sprang up in every quarter: and amid the wild uproar of false terrors and of virtuous sympathy, the nation was plunged headlong into a state of war".

Thus the Seven Spirits of the Deity, ordinarily styled "Providence, operated upon parties in France and England for the development of the predetermined wrath of the Second Vial. No doubt England and the Continental States would have escaped the awful castigation of the vials, if she had stood aloof; for without her subsidies of many millions sterling, they could not have equipped and brought their armies into the field, to have fought the battles of the third, fourth, and fifth vials, through which they were to drink blood, be terribly scorched with fire, and to gnaw their tongues for pain. If she had stood aloof, the war and mercantile navies of Denmark, Holland, France, and Spain would not have been annihilated; she would not have lost her hundreds of thousands in the continental wars against the French and their allies; and she would not now be groaning under taxation, and a national debt that will never be paid. But she could not stand aloof. Her inevitable de-

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(*) A reference to the warships of the time which were constructed of timber and provided the main defence of the British Isles - Publishers.

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stiny was to play the part in the terrible tragedy of the vials which the wisdom of Deity had assigned her, and for which she had been prepared. Nations cannot do what they please, any more than individuals. The great manager of the world's theatre is the Lord Jesus Christ, whose dramatic program is the Apocalypse or Revelation given to him by the Father; the nations and powers are mere performers played off by him against one another for the denouement of the plot Divinely conceived. He creates war and makes peace; and without his permission "the powers that be" can do neither. He would not allow his judgments upon the men of the Beast's Sign, and the worshippers of his Image to be stopped, or interrupted even, for the comfort and commercial prosperity of England, and her Harlot Church, and nation of sectarian abominations. He paid no regard to their stereotyped petition of "Give peace in our time, 0 Lord!" He paid no respect to the twenty-six episcopal hypocrites in the upper house of Parliament, who prayed for peace, and voted for war. Such a nation had to be punished, as well as their brother-hypocrites and blasphemers upon the Continent. England, therefore could not stand aloof; but was compelled by inexorable necessity to send her children to the shambles, and to share in their miseries she was instrumental in inflicting upon the world.

The words, "the sea became blood as it were of a corpse; and every living soul in the sea died," are amplified and somewhat expounded in the language of the Second Trumpet prophecy. In this, the sea became blood; the creatures that were in the sea, and had life, died; and the ships were destroyed. All this resulted from the great Genseric Mountain burning with fire, being cast into the same sea as the contents of the Second Vial. The consequences were similar, but upon a grander scale. The Vandal power destroyed the power and commerce of Rome from the sea; and afflicted its maritime provinces with sanguinary incursions. A like result ensued through the agency of Britain, which annihilated the maritime power, commerce, and colonies of the countries of "Babylon the Great". The following summary will be suggestive to the reader of the extent and severity of the wrath of this vial. In 1793, the greater part of the French fleet at Toulon was destroyed by Lord Hood; in June, 1794, followed Lord Howe's great victory over the French off Ushant; then the taking of Corsica, and nearly all the smaller Spanish and French West Indian Islands; after this, in 1795, Lord Bridport's naval victory, and the capture of the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch; likewise, Soon after, the capture of a French and Dutch fleet sent to retake it; then, in 1797, the victory over the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, and that off Camperdown over the Dutch; then, in succession, Lord Nelson's three great victories of the Nile in 1798, of Copenhagen in

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1801, and of Trafalgar in 1805. In this long naval war, extending from1793 to 1815, it appears from James' Naval History that there were destroyed altogether near 200 ships of the line, between 300 and 400 frigates, and an almost incalculable number of smaller vessels of war and ships of commerce. As Dr. Keith remarks, the whole history of the world does not present such a period of naval war, destruction, and bloodshed. In the figurative language of the prophecy "the sea became blood as it were of a corpse".

It will be unnecessary for me to follow the British in their descents upon Holland, the maritime provinces of France and Italy; and their campaigns in Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and so forth. These all belong to the wrath of the second vial, consummated by the famous battle of Waterloo. The reader can consult the copious histories extant of these things, as illustrations of our subject, and of the meaning of the words, "our God is a consuming fire".

4. Act III. The Third Vial

"And the Third Angel poured out his vial into the rivers, and into the fountains of the waters: and there was blood.

'And I heard from the Angel of the Waters, saying, Righteous, O Lord, art thou, who art, and who wast, and who art coming, because thou hast decreed these things! For they have poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given to them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard from another out of the Altar, saying, Yea, 0 Lord, the Almighty Deity, true and righteous are thy judgments" - Verses 4-7.

Next in order of commencement was this third vial. The arena of conflict was a country of mountains and rivers, inhabited by the posterity of thieves and murderers, whose crimes nothing could expiate but draughts of human gore. The judgments of this vial upon the Great City are parallel with those of the third trumpet upon the Catholic world, before the constitutional institution of the Papacy by Justinian. The first four trumpets punished the Catholic west for its apostasy and crimes; the first five vials, the same region, for the sanguinary cruelty of its populations and rulers in their wars upon the saints and prophets of the Deity. Hence the parallel in the order and similitude of the judgments.

The 10th of April, 1796, is the date of the commencement of the outpouring of the wrath upon the fountains of waters. It is celebrated by the battle of Monte Notte, the first of the victories of Napoleon Buonaparte. When he joined the army of Italy before the battle, he addressed it, saying, "Soldiers, you are hungry and naked. The republic

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owes you much, but she has not the means to acquit herself of her debts. The patience with which you support your hardships among these barren rocks is admirable, but it cannot procure you glory. I am come to lead you into the most fertile plains that the sun beholds. Rich provinces, opulent towns, all shall be at your disposal. Soldiers! with such a prospect before you, can you fail in courage and constancy?"

In consequence of this success, the French were placed on that side of the Alps which slopes towards Lombardy, and where the rivers from these mountains flow down to join the Po. Napoleon, who soon convinced the world that he was a Man of Destiny, by the victory of Monte Notte and its immediate consequences, opened a highway from France, through the kingdom of Sardinia, into the Austrian possessions in Italy. The Austrian power was at that time the pillar and support of the temporal and spiritual power of the Pope in Italy the strong defence of the Papal States against the overwhelming inundation of the revolution, which in France had plucked up the Latin superstition by the roots. The decree of the French Directory was on record for the total ruin of the Pope and of his power, both spiritual and temporal; but this feat could not be executed while the British ruled the sea; and her allies, the Aust-

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nans, occupied Lombardy; and their confederates the Italian Duchies, Venice and Naples. These image-worshipping powers had therefore to be laid low in the dust, ere the Sans Culottes could reach the Pope to give him a foretaste of what awaits him in the current epoch. Hence the reason why the third vial judgments occupy their position in the prophecy. The fifth vial could not be reached until the work to be done in the third and fourth was thoroughly performed. Napoleon Buonaparte, a youth of twenty-six, and a small and ill-appointed army of hungry Sans Culottes, constituted the contemptible force with which the Seven Spirits of Deity commenced the enterprise of cutting up the formidable, well-disciplined, numerous, and ably-commanded armies of the Beast; of scattering them like chaff before the tempest; and of rolling off his Image-protecting power beyond the passes of the Tyrol.

In the course of a brief campaign of scarcely a month, what history terms "fortune" placed "her favorite" in full possession of the desired road to Italy. He had gained three battles over vastly superior forces, who lost 25,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners; he had taken eighty pieces of cannon, and twenty-one stand of colors; reduced the Austrian army to inaction; and almost annihilated that of Sardinia; whose Savoyard King, one of the most distinguished in Europe, found himself at the feet of one, who for a time had power, in the emphatic phrase of Scripture, "to bind kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron".

Though the passage of great rivers is one of the most critical in modern warfare, Napoleon "subtlety outwitted the Austrian commander; and with great secrecy and celerity, enabled him safely to transport the French army across the Po, fifty miles below Valeggio, where he had induced Beaulieu to believe he would attempt the passage. He pushed on from thence, and encountered the Austrians at Lodi, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, through which flows the Adda. Having effected "the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi," the Austrians gave way before the victorious republicans; and without any further attempt to protect Milan, the ancient capital of Lombardy, retreated to the strong fortress of Mantua, till he could effect a junction with 80,000 reinforcements under Wurmser, who had been ordered from the Rhine to his assistance.

While the rivers and lakes became blood by sanguinary conflicts in the field, the measures resorted to by the archducal government to turn the tide of battle in favor of the Two-Horned Beast, were of a character befitting the worshippers of his Image. Processions were made, relics of the dead were exposed for popular veneration, and ceremonies resorted to, which the Latin superstition prescribed as an appeal to heaven in

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great national calamities. But the saints and saintesses of the Image-Aerial were both deaf and impotent shadows, from whom, of course, no succor could come for the deliverance of the fools that worshipped them. The Beast's Italian archducal government found that its guardian saints were no defence in time of trouble; it determined, therefore, to retreat, and leave Milan to its fate. Neither joy nor sorrow signalized its departure all thoughts being pre-occupied upon what was to happen next.

The French occupied Milan, which received them with great show of republican joy. This did not disarm the purpose of Buonaparte, who imposed a requisition of twenty millions of lives. All the public funds were turned into the French military chest; and the church plate experienced the same fate. While Lombardy suffered much, the neighboring countries were not spared. Writing of this crisis, the historian remarks of these, "the Italian states stood like a brotherhood of old trees, decayed at heart and root, but still making some show of branches and leaves, until the French invasion rushed down, like the whirlwind which lays them prostrate". Before Buonaparte released his hold upon them he despoiled them all.

His headquarters, May 24, were at Lodi. He was soon informed that Pavia, with all the surrounding districts, in his rear, were in full insurrection. The Italians were disgusted at the spoliations of money and works of art, they had been subjected to; and with the open indignities thrown upon the places and objects of their superstition, as well as on the persons and character of their priests. About thirty thousand insurgents were in arms. Buonaparte lost no time in giving them blood to drink. The village of Benasco was taken by storm, the inhabitants put to the sword, and the place plundered and burned. He blew open the gates of Pavia with his cannon, dispersed the insurgents, and put their leaders to death. He menaced with fire and sword, all who in future should become insurgent; a threat which he made good soon after upon the inhabitants of Lago, which was taken by storm, pillaged, burned, and the men put to the sword.

Having suppressed the insurrection by these severity’s, he proceeded still further to weaken the Austrians, before he executed the threatened vengeance of the Republic on the Pope. The only places held by them in Italy were the citadel of Milan, and the fortress of Mantua; Beaulieu having been compelled to retire within the frontiers of Tyrol. The defection of the king of Naples, who drew off sixty thousand troops, still further dispirited the Austrians. Fresh bodies of Germans, however, were arriving, and blackening the mountains of the Tyrol with their threatening masses. But before they were ready to discharge their

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thunderbolts, the storm was thickening around the devoted head of the Pontiff. Being located among the rivers and fountains of waters, it was not possible for him to escape the Outpouring wrath of the third vial. His waters had to become blood. Farrara and Bologna, which belonged to him, were occupied by the French. Four hundred papalians and a cardinal were made prisoners. Alarmed at the approaching danger, the government of the False Prophet authorized the Spanish ambassador to treat for an armistice. Rome, it was true, was an enemy whom the rulers of France both hated and despised, but with Wurmser collecting his hosts in the Tyrol, the moment was then inopportune for the prosecution of their well-merited resentment. Nevertheless, the "Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Heads" was compelled to purchase the armistice at a severe rate. Twenty one million of francs in specie, with large contributions in forage and military stores, the cession of Ancona, Bologna, and Farrara, not forgetting one hundred of the finest pictures, statues, and similar objects of art, were the price of a respite which was not of long duration.

The plan of the French Directory for the campaign of 1796, was of a gigantic character, and menaced Austria with nothing short of total destruction. Moreau and Jourdan, with seventy-five thousand men each, were to press forward from the Rhine, and from the Sambre and Meuse, until they should be in a position to communicate with Buonaparte through the Tyrol. The part entrusted to Napoleon was completely executed. Moreau almost touched with his right flank the passes of the Tyrol; but the defeat of Jourdan compelled Moreau to retire. The fate of Austria was postponed, till the outpouring of the fourth vial; and the conflict was now renewed for the recovery of Lombardy.

Wurmser with eighty thousand men, at length began his march from Trent to the relief of Mantua, invested by the French, whose forces, dispersed in towns and villages on the Adige and Chiese, did not amount to half that number. He ordered his right wing under Quasdonowich to direct its march for Brescia; and his left under Melas to descend on both banks of the Adige at once, and manoeuvre on Verona; while he marched southward by the left bank of Lago di Guarda with the centre to relieve Mantua. The acuteness of Buonaparte soon perceived Wurmser's error on this disposition and dislocation of his forces. The march assigned to Quasdonowich's division made it impossible for the centre and left wing to afford it any support, or even to have intelligence of its motions or fate. Napoleon determined to overpower it. To do this he raised the siege of Mantua at a great sacrifice of material, and rushed with a superior force against Quasdonowich. In all his combinations he succeeded to admiration. Wurmser was defeated at all points, and

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nearly made prisoner. With great difficulty he reached Trent, from which he had so lately sallied forth with such confidence of victory. He had lost one-half of his fine army among "the rivers and fountains of waters," with the only consolation that he had thrown supplies into the city of Virgil. Thus "Destiny" gave them blood to drink; and, in their courses, fought against them on every side.

Wurmser was reinforced by twenty thousand men, by which he was enabled to resume the offensive, but with no better success. He stationed twenty thousand with Davidowich at Roveredo; while he pushed on towards Mantua with thirty thousand. Buonaparte waited until the distance between Wurmser and Davidowich was sufficiently increased to prevent mutual support. On September 4 he poured down his thunder upon Davidowich in the battle of Roveredo. The impetuosity of the French shattered him to shivers as a potter's vessel; and drove the wrecks of his host through one of the chief defiles of the Tyrol, whither they were not pursued.

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The Rivers And Fountains of Waters

The third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters and they became blood (Rev 16 4) The great rivers of Europe the Rhone, Rhine, Danube, Po etc., rise in Switzerland and North Italy and are fed by the melting snows of the Alps. This became the region of the Napoleonic wars turning the area into blood, fulfilling the typology of the third vial. The sketch above is from Apocalypse and History. - Publishers.

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Having disposed of Davidowich and his army, he began operations upon Wurmser himself, still further weakened by a detachment sent against Kilmaine. Buonaparte left Trent, and by rapid marches, over twenty leagues in two days, precipitated his host upon the astonished Austrian, who imagined him to be in the far-off recesses of the Tyrol. Wurmser, and the military chest, nearly fell into the hands of the French. An almost general dispersion of his troops ensued. Wurmser fled to Vicenza, where he collected about sixteen thousand men, Out of the sixty thousand, with whom, scarce a week before, he had commenced the campaign. With this remnant constantly decreasing through severe combats, he got into Mantua, within the walls of which he was finally blockaded on September 15, with a garrison increased by twenty-six thousand men; among whom the woes of the third vial appeared in a more hideous form than when inflicted by the sword alone. Early in October, nine thousand of these were in hospital. In the six months' siege, the garrison lost twenty-seven thousand men by disease and the numerous and bloody sallies which took place.

But before the surrender, which put an end to the Austrian war in Italy, Buonaparte had yet to combat, for the fourth time, on the same ground, with new forces sent by the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth for the recovery of his Italian territories. By order of its Aulic Council two armies were assembled under Quasdonowich and Alvinzi. They commenced Operations the beginning of October 1796. "Destiny" allowed the Austrians some encouraging opportunities at first; but, not being sufficiently acquainted with the value of time in military movements, and of connexion and co-operation between their separate divisions, they failed to secure a favorable issue to the campaign. Hence, their opening prospects only deceived them, and lured them on to the ensanguined plains, where more copious draughts of blood were prepared for them to drink.

Secrecy and celerity are the soul of enterprise. Buonaparte combined them in his slaughterous struggles with Alvinzi, who lost eight thousand men in the three sanguinary battles of Arcola. Onho esomenos found, which reading hasp juli and the Tyrol; but retaining Bassano and Trent, the French were removed from "the fountains of waters," the mountains, through which access is gained to the hereditary dominions of Austria. The failure of Alvinzi to relieve Mantua, compelled Wurmser to surrender to the French, with his garrison of twenty thousand men. This decisive event put an end to the Beast's Operations in Italy, and afforded leisure to Buonaparte to turn his arms against his Image.

As we have seen, an armistice was purchased by the Pope, through the Spanish minister. He afterwards sent two plenipotentiaries to Paris

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to treat of a definitive peace. The conditions were destructive, degrading, and, in his opinion, impious; and he declared them totally inadmissible; and in prospect of Alvinzi's invasion, resolved to make common cause with the House of Austria, and have recourse to military force, which the Roman See had disused for so many years. The arming of the Pope's government, whose military force had long been the subject of ridicule, was the opposition of age and decrepitude to the youthful vigor of the unrivaled conqueror of five Austrian armies. Yet the measures of the Image-Power indicated no little energy. Pope Sextus brought back to Rome an installment of sixteen millions of stipulated tribute on its way to Buonaparte's military chest; he took every measure to increase his army, and by the voluntary exertions of the Roman nobles, actually raised it to forty thousand men. The utmost pains were taken by the clergy to give the expected war the character of a crusade, and to excite the fierce spirit of the peasantry of the Appennine "fountains of waters "who were doubly disposed to hate the French, as foreigners and as heretics. He also endeavored to form a close alliance with the King of Naples, who promised in secret to cover Rome. with an army of thirty thousand men. Little reliance was, indeed, to be placed in the good faith of the Court of Naples; but the Pope was compared, by the French envoy, to a man who, in the act of falling, would grasp for support at a hook of red-hot iron.

Having ruined the hosts of Alvinzi, Napoleon was now at leisure to execute the Directory's purpose of crushing the power, such as it was, of the Beast's Image, commonly termed, "the Holy See". To this end he sent his forces into the territories of the Church Multitudes of fanatical peasants obeyed the sound of the clerical tocsin. The Pope's army being taken in the rear, fled in every direction after a short resistance. A few hundreds were killed, among whom were several monks, who, holding the crucifix, or "sign of the beast," in their hand, had placed themselves in the ranks to encourage the soldiers. Faenza was taken by storm; and next day, three thousand of the Papalians in front of Ancona, commanded by the Pope's general-in-chief, Colli, were made prisoners without firing a shot.

Resistance was unavailing. The False Prophet in vain solicited his subjects to rise against the second Alaric, who was approaching "the holy city". They remained as deaf to his exhortations as "the blessed virgin, and apostles Peter and Paul," who had of old been the fabled protectors of the Mother City of the Latin World in a like emergency. All Was dismay and confusion in Peter's patrimony, so called; and nothing less was expected by the French priests hiding in the city from Jacobin vengeance, than to be slain by the republican troops between the horns

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of the altar at which they had taken refuge. But, though this fate would only have been rewarding them according to their works, policy caused Buonaparte not only to restrain his soldiers, but to direct the Italian convents to afford them board and lodging at twelve shillings and sixpence sterling a month per priest: for which they were to receive masses ad valorem! thus assigning the convents' payment for their hospitality in the same coin with which they themselves compensated the deluded people for their hard-earned contributions to the spiritual treasury.

The Neapolitan Court made no movement in defence of the Image of the Beast. The Pope therefore abandoned the proposed flight to Naples, which he judged equally unavailing with resistance; and decided on the humiliating alternative of unqualified submission to the will of the conqueror.

From considerations of policy, Buonaparte admitted the Pope to a treaty, by which he purchased such a political existence as was left him, at the highest rate which he had the least chance of discharging. He was compelled to cede Avignon and its territories; to resign the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna; the occupation of Ancona; and to pay thirty millions of lives in specie or valuable effects, such as paintings, manuscripts, and objects of art. Thus Rome was, for the present, completely subjugated, and made to drink the wrath of the third vial, because she was richly deserving of the visitation.

But "the Angel of the Waters" had not yet exhausted the wrath of the third vial upon the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth, in giving its populations of "the rivers and fountains of waters" blood to drink. The Aulic Council sent a sixth Austrian army under the Archduke Charles to renew the contest on the Italo-German frontier. Buonaparte took the field in March, 1797. The stars in their courses still fought against the Austrians. Pushed in every direction, they sustained every day additional and more severe losses. In a space of scarce twenty days, he had defeated the Austrians in ten combats, in which Prince Charles had lost a fourth of his army; and now found himself incapable of covering Vienna from the attack of the invincible Napoleon. He retreated with hasty marches towards the capital of the Beast, to fight for the existence, it might be, of his brother's throne, under its walls. But the terror, grief, and confusion of the Court and people, opposed this daring resolution. The wrath against the throne of Vienna was reserved for the fourth vial. The alternative of treaty was adopted by the Beast; and granted by Buonaparte, to the great disgust of the Directory, who argued, that it would have cost him but another victory to have blotted the most constant and powerful enemy of the French Republic from the map of Europe; or at least to confine her to her hereditary states in Germany

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Napoleon's policy prevailed, and the treaty of Leoben definitively altered in that of Campo Formio, established peace between France and Austria for a time(*)

The day of judgment had now arrived for the Republic of Venice. While Napoleon was driving back the archduke towards the throne of the Beast, an insurrection was secretly organized by the Venetians, which broke out against the French in blood and massacre. By the appearance of an Austrian force from the Tyrol, they supposed that the fortunes of Buonaparte had at length found a check. But the awakening from this pleasing dream was equally sudden and terrible. News arrived of peaceful preliminaries between France and Austria. The Venetian Senate was lost in stupor and consternation. It dispatched agents to deprecate the wrath of Buonaparte, who declared he would "prove an Attila to Venice". When he heard of the massacres, his indignation rose to the highest pitch; and on May 3, 1797, he declared war against Venice, which sealed forever the fate of the winged lion of Saint Mark.

But, notwithstanding these judicial "plagues," the terrible wrath of the third vial was still unexhausted. The second vial was concurrently developing the blood as of a corpse; and the time had now come for the Man of Destiny to contribute his agency in aggravating its intensity upon the sea. Under pretense of invading England, immense preparations were made, the real purpose of which was a descent upon Egypt, the first object of which was the destruction of the power of the Mamelukes; and then, by establishing the French power there, and in Palestine, to subvert the dominion of the Turks in Constantinople, and of the British in India. The power of the Mamelukes, who styled their destroyer "the king of fire," was completely broken; upper and lower Egypt were conquered; fire and sword were carried into the Holy Land; an army of eighteen thousand Turks, landed by the British in Egypt, was annihilated; but Buonaparte, after all this success, instead of being in India or Constantinople, had lost his fleet by the battle of Aboukir, and was shut up with the wreck of his army in Egypt, unable to receive reinforcements because of the ships of Britain; and, for the same cause, unable to withdraw the remnant from its critical and desperate situation.

While the countries of the sea were thus becoming "blood as it were of a corpse," the third angel was still pouring out wrath upon "the rivers

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* Between 1796 and 1797 Napoleon won twenty six battles in twelve months. His successes made

him a revolutionary hero and stimulated France then depressed by economic discontent and political frustration. At Campo Formio peace was signed between France and Austria (October 1797).Austria ceded Belgium and Lombardy to France and obtained Istria, Dalmatia and Venice. By a secret agreement Austria agreed to the future cession of the left bank of the Rhine from Basle to Andernach, and the free nagivation of the Rhine in return for French help to acquire the archishoprics of Salzburg and part of Bavaria. At that time Austria was the dominant Germanic State, and the Emperor was styled the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Publishers.

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and fountains of waters," whereby blood was given them to drink. During the time Buonaparte was shut up in Egypt by the British fleet, war had broken out again between the French Republic and its enemies. The English had taken possession of the Dutch fleet, and landed an army of Russians and British in Holland; Austria had renewed the conflict on the sources of the Rhine, the Danube, and the Po; and had undertaken, with the aid of sixty thousand Russians under Suwarrow, to reconquer Italy, and to deliver the Pope. All this caused terrible carnage of the worshippers of the Beast's Image in Switzerland and in all the North of Italy. The kingdom of Naples had been turned into the Parthenopean Republic; and the kings of Naples and Piedmont reduced to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia for their respective territories. But the renewal of the war infused hope into the hearts of all the adherents of the old order of things; and no little apprehension into them who had committed themselves in the support of the new. Blood flowed in torrents upon the rivers of Italy, and the fountains of Switzerland, of the Alps and Apennines. This field of battle was immense; and an erroneous idea then prevalent, that the key to the plain was in the mountain; and that, because heights are important on a field of battle of a few leagues, it was concluded that the power which was master of the Alps must be master of the Continent - this mistaken opinion determined the blind instruments of Divine wrath upon one another, to select for their shambles the locality indicated in the phrase "rivers and fountains of waters". The six campaigns of Napoleon had shed blood immensely; but sufficient had not been poured out proportionate to the crimes of the hosts and populations subject to the judgments. The terrible campaign of "the invincible Suwarrow," as far as the issue of the war was concerned, was a useless destruction of multitudes; a destruction, however, that answered its judicial end. Austria recovered Italy for a few months; and Suwarrow's host was miserably wasted among inaccessible rocks. The work of Buonaparte in Italy was undone; and the old de spotism of the Two-Horned Beast seemed to have re-established itself beyond the power of the French to shake it.

But the worshippers of the Beast's Image had not even yet drank sufficiently of the cup of Divine indignation. A file of newspapers transmitted to Buonaparte by Sir Sydney Smith, informed him of all the disasters that had befallen the French in Italy. He resolved, therefore, to risk capture by the British cruisers, and to leave Egypt for Paris. He left his army with Kieber and Dessaix, which was afterwards obliged to surrender to the British, and by them relanded in France, where Napoleon had safely arrived some time before. Soon after his return to Paris, a Cromwellian turn of the revolutionary wheel made him First Consul, by

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which he became "the head and the sword" of the Republic, Nov. 19th 1799.

Disappointed in the hope of peace with England, he proceeded to renewed efforts against Austria in Italy. This second was one of the most important campaigns of his life. With the strictest secrecy he made preparation of the renewal of the fortune of France, now united to his own. Though he assembled his forces with great publicity at Dijon as an army of reserve, which he reviewed on the 7th of May, 1800, its real destination was successfully concealed from the Austrians, whom it was in-tended to surprise; and attack in the rear. He set forward from Geneva on the 8th, to cross the Alps by St. Bernard, with sixty thousand men; while twenty thousand more were detached from General Moreau's force, by way of St. Gothard, as his left wing. The route was pronounced to be "barely possible". But the boundless and desolate scope of snow and sky had no terrors for the first consul and his army. Each soldier carried his sixty or seventy pounds weight; the artillery was dragged by a hundred men to each gun; and the carriages, in pieces, lashed upon the backs of mules. All difficulties were overcome; and on the 16th, the vanguard took possession of Aosta, a village of Piedmont.

Having passed fort Bard by Strategem, and rested his army at Ivrea; and having deceived the Austrians as to his route, he pushed on to Milan unmolested, and entered that city June 2. He now issued a proclamation to his troops in which he declared, that the result he expected from their efforts was "cloudless glory and solid peace".

The Sanguinary battle of Montebello being fought, and the Austrians defeated, that of MARENGO soon followed, between thirty thousand French and forty thousand Austrians. The immediate stake was the possession of Italy; and destruction to the party which should sustain defeat. After several hours fighting, the day seemed entirely against the French; but when the victory appeared within the grasp of the Austrian commander, Melas, then eighty years of age, his strength failed entirely, and he was obliged to leave the field. General Zach was left to complete it. At this critical moment, Dessaix, who had just re-turned from Egypt, rushed forward, and charged the enemy, wearied with fighting the whole day; Dessaix was killed; Zach was made prisoner, and his troops forced back at all points with immense loss. Their disaster was complete. Melas capitulated to Buonaparte, who permitted him to retire behind Mantua; being satisfied with the glory of having regained in the affairs of Montebello and of Marengo, almost all the loss sustained by the French in the disastrous campaign of 1799. After an absence of two months he returned to Paris, where he was regarded as "the Sun of France;" where all was gloom when he was hid from her - when

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he appeared, light and serenity were restored.

Vanquished at Marengo, and then defeated in Germany by Moreau, the Austrians sued for peace. On Jan. 8, 1801, the French Republic, and the Aulic Council of the Beast at Vienna, concluded the treaty of Luneville. This marks the termination of the third vial. Those readers who have not access to history, will, in this sketch, find such an outline as will enable them to discern the verification of the prophecy in the awful calamities of the recent past. But, intensely calamitous as they were, there was not a judgment of them all that was not richly merited by all upon which it fell. Pope, Kaiser, kings, and peoples are the representatives of a system of power, dyed red with the blood of men, of whom the world is not worthy. The third vial "gave them blood to drink," which they could in no wise evade. "Thou art righteous, 0 Lord," said the Angel of the Waters in the hearing of John, "because thou hast decreed these things" plagues, or judgments. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil". They forget the day of recompense. But the Lord God Almighty does not forget. The sentence of the third vial was on record seventeen hundred years before its execution; and in the hands of all who had a copy of the Scriptures. Those who shed the blood of Christ's Brethren, and oppress them in any way, must sooner or later be brought to judgment for the crime. "Whoso," said he, "shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depths of the sea". Illustrative of this is the cause assigned for the judgments of the third vial. "The rivers and fountains of waters" had offended the little ones who believed, in shedding "the blood of saints and prophets;" not the prophets of the Old Testament; these were slain by the Jews, who atoned for the crime in the destruction of their State (Matt. 23:34-39); but "the two prophets," "who had power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they willed;" and who were hurt by their enemies in all the 1260 years of their days of the prophecy; and at length conquered and killed by the Beast of the Sea, at the instigation of its Name of Blasphemy enthroned as the Beast's Image upon the Seven Hills. For slaying these, who flourished contemporarily with the fiercest days of the Lion-Mouth of the Apocalyptic Babylon, the carnage of the third vial befell the countries where they mostly dwelt. The approval ex-pressed by the Angel of the Waters, is responded to by another voice heard by John, proceeding from "the Altar". The words of the seventh verse are represented as issuing thence, for the same reason that the Angel of ch. 14:18, is seen coming out from the altar, having power over

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fire. It is, because all slain for the witness of Jesus, being in him, the Altar, are regarded Apocalyptically as partakers with the altar, and under the altar; and as all the judgments upon the worshippers of the Beast's Image are on their account, the words, "Even so, Lord God al-mighty, true and righteous are thy judgments", are represented as proceeding thence.

In conclusion, it may be noted in passing from the exposition of the prophecy of the third vial, that the fifth verse of this chapter reproduces the formula of the Divine manifestation, previously announced in ch. 1:4,8; and 11:17 ho hon kai ho hen kai ho erchomenos. But the "recent editors" of the original text tell us that, in the text before us, hoer-chomenos, He who is coming, is superseded in some manuscripts, by ho osios, the Holy One, which some of them prefer. Beza reads ho esomenos, He who shall be; which is followed in the English Version. Upon this reading, Wordsworth says, "In no codex that I know is ho esomenos found, which reading has passed into the English Version from Beza's recensiori". It may be true, that there is no such reading extant; and that there never was such a reading as Beza's: the correctness, however, of hoer-chomenos, inch. 1:4,8; and 11:17, is not disputed. "He who is coming" and "He who shall be," are equivalent phrases; which "the Holy One" is not. No good reason can be adduced why "the Holy One" should be substituted for the prophetic announcement, that YAHWEH the almighty Elohim, who is and who was, is coming, or shall be, here again. In my translation, I have restored the ho erchomenos to what, I conceive to be, its proper place. "He who is coming" is exceed-ingly appropriate in this fifth verse; inasmuch as the third vial, in the outpouring of its wrath, was a sign to those who witnessed its terrible judgments, that the coming, announced in the fifteenth verse, was steadily and surely approaching. The reader can therefore adopt my rendering, or that of the Common Version, which is essentially the same.

It may be further remarked here, that in regard to ch. 11:17, all the recent editors cancel the words, kai ho erchomenos, on the authority of A.B.C. ,(*)certain manuscripts of the fifth and seventh centuries; their omission is therefore recommended by the annotator of the new Baptist Version. I have no other objection to this, than that the Apocalypse when given, was a prophecy of things afterwards to transpire, preparatory to, and introductory of, the thief like and glorious manifestation of

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~(*)Various letters and numbers have been used as abbreviations for ancient Bible manuseripts.

A.B.C. are as follows:

A = Codex Alexandrinus in the British Museum.

B Codex Vaticanus at Rome.

C = Codex Ephraemi Rescip~x in Paris - Publishers.

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Him "who is coming". The Divine formula, therefore, where introduced, as much required the words "and who is coming," as the words "who is and who was," in order to keep constantly before the minds of "the servants of the Deity" in all intermediate ages and generations, the great truth, until it shall be verified in the visible apocalypse of hoer-chomenos, THE COMING ONE. In the times of the A.B.C. manuscripts, the appearing of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was deemed a pestilent heresy by the party in place and power; who had no scruples about altering and omitting words and phrases, if it suited their purpose. This being the fact, the testimony of their manuscripts is questionable. It is true, that inch. 11:17, the omission would seem warranted by the reason given for thanksgiving - "because thou hast taken thy great power and reigned;" which implies, that the almighty Elohim had come, and that therefore, after this event, to affirm that he is coming, would be anachronistic and inappropriate. This is true, still, for the reason given, I conclude, that the words were a part of the prophecy originally delivered to John, and ought not therefore to be omitted.

5. Act Iv The Fourth Vial

"And the Fourth Angel poured out his vial upon the SUN; and it was given to him to scorch the men with fire. And the men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of the Deity who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him" - verses 8, 9.

The judgments or plagues of the Fourth Trumpet smote so as to darken a third part of the sun, moon and stars; so that for a third part of the day, and of the night, there was no light. This has been expounded in my second volume, and needs only to be referred to by way of reminding the reader, that the sun, moon and stars were there interpreted of the Imperial Catholic Constitution of the Western Third of the Roman Empire; which was superseded in Rome, by the Seventh Head, or Gothic kingly form of government; after the fall of which, Rome's political day and night continued darkened two hundred and forty years, when it again shone forth imperially, as the capital of "THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE," founded by Charlemagne. The crowning of this conqueror by the Pope in Rome "emperor of the West," terminated the Sun's ternary eclipse; dark spots have since crossed its disc, but with the exception of these, the Imperial Sun of the Two-Horned Beast's Image empire, has been subjected to no darkening, worthy of Apocalyptic notice, till the epoch of the fourth and fifth vials, which have special reference thereto.

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(*) This appears in the third volume of this Edition commencing on pg. 68.

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The Sun, then, of the fourth vial is the Imperial and Regal Sovereignty of European Antichristendom. The Pope, the Emperor, and the Kings, are the official terms indicative of the Sun in its shining forth upon the nations. To pour out wrath upon this sun, so that the out-pourer should scorch with fire the men who have the sign of the Beast, and who worship his Image, is to develop terrible disasters specially affecting in their consequences the power of these potentates.

"It was given to him to scorch the men with fire". I doubt not, that this form of words was intended to indicate, that there would be a remarkable and distinguished personage concerned in the terrible operation of scorching "the men," who are characterized as blasphemers of the Deity's Name, "with fire," whose heat was predicted to be "great". We shall find that this scorcher of men, was the same whom the Egyptian Mamelukes termed "the King of Fire". His theory was, that Providence was on the side of the heaviest artillery: this, however, depends upon its being "given to him" who scorches with it, to handle it judiciously. It was so given to Napoleon Buonaparte, who, until his mission was performed, surpassed all his contemporaries in the use of it. He was truly a scorcher of blasphemers with great heat.

6. Historical Exposition

Though the pacification of the European Continent in 1802, drove England into a momentary peace, the wrath of the Second vial still continued pouring out upon the sea. During the war with England, the navy of France was almost entirely ruined. Three hundred and forty vessels had been taken or destroyed, and almost all her colonies had fallen into the hands of the English. Nevertheless, during the short peace with England, Napoleon fitted out an expedition of forty thousand men, which he embarked for St. Domingo to reduce the island to submission. The enterprise was disastrous in the extreme. Unable to conquer in fair and open fight, the French had recourse to barbarities worse then ever before stained the annals of any people pretending to be civilized. After a doubtful and desperate struggle the French were expelled; and the expedition "became blood as of a corpse," terminating, as it deserved, in defeat and disgrace.

War was renewed between France and England May 18, 1803, by which the wrath upon the sea was continued and increased.

On the 18th of May, 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor; and, as he had restored popery to liberty in France, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius VII., took a journey to Paris for the purpose of placing the crown of Charlemagne upon the head of one, whom the old blasphemer styled, "our dearest son in Christ, Napoleon, the emperor of the

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French". This was practically an insult of the most galling character to the House of Austria; which, as Imperial Secular Chief of the Sun of Europe, claimed to be the legitimate successor of Charlemagne.

On the 26th May, 1805, he received the iron crown of Italy, of which therefore he was now king, greatly also to the disgust of Austria.

While these things were transacting, Napoleon had resumed with much zeal the preparation of a maritime expedition against England. At the opening of the year 1805, a flotilla of two thousand small vessels, manned by sixteen thousand sailors, capable of carrying an army of a hundred and sixty thousand men, nine thousand horse, and a numerous artillery, was assembled in the ports of Boulogne, Etables, Vimereux, Ambleteuse and Calais. It was at this portentous moment, when the vulture was ready to pounce upon his prey, that Napoleon was roused from his recovery by the startling announcement that all the forces of the Austrian monarchy to the number of two hundred and twenty thousand men, were in motion; and that a treaty had been signed on the 11th of April between Russia and England, in which they bound themselves to use their utmost exertions for forming a general league of the States of Europe, for the purpose of putting a stop to the encroachments of the French government, and the securing of the independence of the different states. Two Russian armies were also preparing to join the Austrians, consequent upon this third coalition organized by England against France.

The wrath of the fourth vial now began to descend upon the Sun. Napoleon, to whom it was given to scorch with fire, abandoned the invasion of England, and marched for the Rhine, which he crossed on the 1st of October with an army of a hundred and sixty thousand men. By a series of bold maneuvers and successful actions, ninety thousand men under General Mack were cut off from the Austrian territories so completely, that by the middle of October he was entirely surrounded in Ulm with thirty thousand men. Being summoned to capitulate, he thought it best to comply; and his whole force, with all his artillery, magazines, etc., surrendered themselves prisoners of war.

Vienna, the place of the Mouth of the Two Horned Beast (ch. 16:13), was now the object before Napoleon. The Austrians had been joined by the Russians; but they were not Strong enough to retard his advance. The alarm at Vienna was extreme. The emperor Francis retired with all his court into Moravia, while the greater part of the nobility sought an asylum in Hungary. The inhabitants in general patiently awaited the conqueror, who entered the city on the 13th of November.

The French, with trifling loss to themselves, captured sixty thousand prisoners on their victorious march to Vienna. Without halt-

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mg, the advance-guard crossed the Danube, and pushed on to encounter the Russians in Moravia, where the main body consisted of about fifty thousand, under the emperor Alexander, and twenty-five thousand Austrians, under the emperor Francis. The French under the emperor Napoleon, who was his own general-in-chief, amounted to between seventy and eighty thousand. This battle of the three emperors was fought Dec. 2, 1805, on the plain of AUSTERLITZ, on the direct road from Vienna to Olmutz. The engagement began at sunrise and continued with the most scorching effect, "full of variety and sanguinary in the extreme," until evening. On the following day the French advanced; when the Austrian emperor proposed an armistice, the terms of which being so humiliating, the emperor of Russia refused to become a party to it; and commenced a retreat in his own way. In addressing his soldiers on the day after the battle, Napoleon said, "An army of a hundred thousand, commanded by the emperors of Russia and Austria, has been in less than four hours cut to pieces and dispersed: they who have escaped your swords have perished in the lakes. Forty stand of colors, the standards of the imperial Russian guards, a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, twenty generals, and more than thirty thousand prisoners, are the result of this for ever glorious day. Their infantry so vaunted, and so superior in numbers, has been unable to resist your Onset; and henceforth you have no rivals to dread. Thus, in two months, this third coalition has been vanquished and dispersed." This was truly "scorching the men with great heat".

The peace of Presburg followed the victories of Ulm and Auster-litz, and was signed Dec.26. The House of Austria, which had lost its foreign possessions, Belgium and the Milanese, was now further curtailed of some of its German territories. Among its alienation’s, it ceded part of the territory of Passau, and all its possessions in Swabia, Bres-gau, and Ortenau, to the electorates of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, which were transformed into kingdoms. The treaty of Presburg completed the humiliation of the Austrian dynasty of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth an abasement began by the treaty of Campo Formio, and continued by that of Luneville, under the third vial; all of which was preparatory to the consummation under the fifth. On his return to Paris, Napoleon, "the King of Fire" and "Man of Destiny," became the object of such universal admiration, that he was himself stunned by the general enthusiasm and intoxicated by his fortunes. He was now Napoleon "THE GREAT," and the Senate decreed him a triumphal monument.

Such was the notable commencement of the outpouring of the wrath of Deity from the fourth vial "upon the sun" of the so-called "HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE". The efforts of Napoleon were henceforth di-

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rected to extend his dominions over the Continent of Europe. He invaded the kingdom of Naples, and on March 30, 1806, established his brother Joseph there as King of the Two Sicilies. Shortly after he transformed the United Provinces of Holland into a kingdom, and filled its throne with his brother Louis. All republics were abolished, save that of Switzerland, of which he declared himself the Mediator, and he finished the organization of his new military empire, by placing the Germanic Body dependent on himself. On July 12, 1806, fourteen provinces on the south and west of Germany were united in "the Confederation of the Rhine," and Napoleon was recognized as their Protector. On Aug. 1st, they notified to the Diet of Ratisbon their separation from the Germanic Body; the Germano-Roman empire itself ceased to exist; and Francis II., abdicating the title, now adopted that of "EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA".

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Man of destiny. He was given a commission to ravage Catholic Europe (Rev. 16:4-11), and so long as he limited his conquests to that area amazing successes attended his arms, but as soon as he moved outside of that area (his campaigns in Egypt, the Middle East and in Russia) disaster and defeat plagued him. he surrendered himself to the English, and is depicted above on the Bellerophon being conveyed to Torbay to await the decision of the British Government. He was banished to Elba - Pub1ishers.

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The march of Napoleonic rapacity, and encroachment upon the rights and liberties of the worshippers of the Beast's Image, gave rise to a fourth coalition, by which the wrath of the fourth vial continued to be poured out upon the sun

While Austria and Russia were engaged in confronting the power of France, Prussia maintained a cautious neutrality. But alarmed now by the increase of the French empire, and encouraged by the fine condition of her troops, Prussia joined in a league with Russia to expel the French from Germany. Apocalyptically speaking, "every living soul in the sea" was now dead. The British arms had little employment. The number of ships and vessels of war in commission was truly enormous, being no less than seven hundred and twenty. The marine of France was

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Europe Before Napoleon The Germanic Empire, the Holy Roman Empire It lasted for almost 1000 years

(a Millennium of trouble) and was terminated by Napoleon in 1806 this area was ravaged by war. The Temporal power

of the Papacy was taken from it in 1870 - Pub-

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almost annihilated, and the shattered remains of its fleets were shut up in its harbors, not daring to venture beyond the jurisdiction of the batteries. The British navy was employed in blockading the hostile ports, and nothing of importance took place on the ocean.

The state of public affairs throughout the Continent of Europe at this eventful crisis was "without a parallel in history". The submission and creation of kingdoms were become simple operations with which the world was beginning to become familiarized. An edict from Paris was all that was necessary to create a king, and furnish him with a kingdom. The promise of the annexation of Swedish Pomerania, Weigmar,

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and Hanover to his dominions, had tempted Frederick William III of Prussia to desert "the Cause of Sovereigns," and to lend himself to the imperial king-making projects of this terrible "king of Fire". But when his Prussian Majesty learned authentically the projected infraction of the existing engagements of France with Prussia, Frederick William's resentment became extreme. The tide of opinion at Berlin ran strongly in favor of war. On the 1st of October, the Prussian ambassador demanded that the French army without delay repass the Rhine; that the northern Germanic Confederation be established; and that certain places be separated from the Confederation of the Rhine. But to these requisitions Napoleon did not deign to reply, but advanced at the head of his troops with rapid steps, and approached the frontier of Upper Saxony before Prussia could possibly receive any aid from her ally the emperor of Russia.

At this moment of rashness and passion Prussia seemed almost to exult in the idea of entering alone into a contest with France; of whose mission to "scorch the men" of the Two-Horned Beast "with fire," she was not yet able to perceive. Early in October, 1806, the whole collected force of the Prussians exceeded a hundred and twenty thousand men. The French were nearly of equal strength, but under very superior command. The two armies seemed to assume an attitude of mutual defiance. Napoleon by his manoeuvres succeeded in turning the left of the Prussians, and in cutting off all communication with their magazines, by which he was enabled to occupy in force the heights of JENA, which had been deemed impracticable for artillery.

On the 13th of October, the action commenced, two hours after day break, and quickly became general, exhibiting for some time equal skill and bravery; but a fierce cavalry assault under Murat, at once decided the fortune of this memorable day. Universal consternation ensued; and in the rout multitudes were slaughtered, and a still greater number made prisoners. The entire loss did not fall short of sixty thousand men, of whom twenty thousand were killed and wounded; while that of the French was below five thousand. The rapid successes of the French, and the accumulated and scorching misfortunes of the Prussians, are without precedent in military history. Napoleon immediately took possession of Potsdam and Berlin, where he levied vast contributions, and sent the sword of Frederick the Great as a trophy to Paris. One after another, the different corps of the Prussian army were obliged to surrender; so that in little more than a month, the French had taken no less than one hundred and forty thousand prisoners, two hundred and fifty standards, and about forty-eight hundred pieces of cannon, of which eight hundred were taken in the field, and about four thousand were found in Berlin, and the fortresses which had capitulated.

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After this dreadful scorching defeat at Jena, the king retired to Konigsburg, where he employed himself actively in collecting the scattered and feeble remains of his once formidable force. The French having made themselves masters of Silesia, the immense barrier which seemed to have wholly separated France from Russia, was now broken down; and the emperor Alexander resolved to make a grand effort to protect his own dominions, as well as to support the throne of Prussia and the independence of Europe. This resolution guaranteed the continuance of the outpouring of the scorching wrath of the fourth vial upon the sun, until the "King of Fire" should have run his course. In pursuance of this determination, an immense force was being collected in different parts of the Russian empire, and began to move towards the frontier.

The respective strength of France and Russia was now to be put to a scorching and decisive trial. The battle of Eylau on February 7, 1807, and that of Friedland, on June 14, removed the mysterious veil with which the operation on the Vistula had been covered by the contradictory assertions of the hostile parties. The battle of Eylau, though very sanguinary, was indecisive; while that of FRIEDLAND equaled those of Austerlitz and Jena; nor were its consequences less hostile to the independence of the potentates of Europe. The Russians were "scorched with great heat". The fire of thirty pieces of cannon inflicted upon them dreadful loss; thousands were driven by bayonet-charges into the river Alle, where they found their death; and the streets of Friedland were covered with the dead. The defeat was total, and the carnage terrible, from fifteen to eighteen thousand being left dead upon the battle-field. This was wrath upon the Sovereign Sun, which scorched all under it with fire. The Russians recrossed the Niemen with a loss of forty thousand men, having in the space of eleven days, lost no less than twenty-seven generals and eighteen hundred and forty-eight officers killed or wounded. In their disastrous retreat they lost a great part of their artillery, and almost all their magazines and ammunition on a line of one hundred and twenty miles in extent.

These fiery results caused the Czar and the king of Prussia to seek an interview with Napoleon to treat of peace, which was consequently concluded at Tilsit, July 7,1807. By this fatal war, the Prussian monarchy lost nearly the half of its territory and of its subjects, with more than half of its revenues; and Russia saw herself deprived of her extensive barrier against the dangerous and domineering power of France.

Freed by the peace of Tilsit from all apprehensions in the north, Napoleon was now at leisure to prepare, by his operations upon the Sun of the European Peninsula, for the scorching with fire of the worship-

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pers of the Beast's Image, subject to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese Court voluntarily migrated to Rio Janeiro, in Brazil, in consequence of Napoleon's declaration, endorsed by a French army marching on Lisbon, that "the House of Braganza should cease to reign."

A treaty had been concluded between the "egregious" king-maker, Napoleon, and Charles IV. of Spain, the object of which was a partition of the kingdom of Portugal. By a secret convention, French troops were to be admitted into Spain, and others assembled at Bayonne, to assist in the conquest of Portugal. Thus it was given under this fourth vial for Spain to be placed at the disposal of him, who was to "scorch with fire the men" who worshipped the Beast's Image, both in Portugal and Spain.

Under the pretext, therefore, of invading Portugal, attacking Gibraltar, and sharing the spoil with "His Most Catholic Majesty," the Corsican king-breaker, as well as king-maker, ingeniously contrived to introduce into the strong places, and most commanding positions of Spain, a hundred thousand men; and into Portugal, twenty thousand. In this manner, the revolutionary volcano had secretly and silently col-lected its convulsing and destructive forces; which began to pour forth its scorching streams of fire in March 1808. A report of the intended emigration of the royal family to Mexico, was the immediate occasion of the insurrection of the people. In the midst of this effervescence, Charles IV. abdicated the throne in favor of his son, the prince of Asturias, who succeeded him as Ferdinand VII. His friends and allies for the spoliation of Portugal, entered Madrid in support of his authority; by which friendly intervention, they found themselves to the number of sixty thousand, in full possession of the capital.

But the most extraordinary instance of political infatuation on record, had yet to be developed. The two kings of Spain, with the whole of the royal family, and some of the principal grandees, were allured by pretexts full of illusions to migrate to Bayonne; the station which the PROTECTOR of Germany and the MEDIATOR of Switzerland had fixed upon for the more convenient accomplishment of his designs upon the Sun of the Peninsula. This rash and indiscreet step was followed by terrible commotions throughout the country, and particularly in Madrid, where the most terrible disorders, excited by the priests and monks, prevailed. Everything indicated a dreadful explosion, which ensued on the 2nd of May. Volleys of grapeshot and charges of cavalry "scorched" the populace "with great heat;" who, though cleared from the streets, continued their attack upon the French from the windows of the houses; the doors were then broken open, and all who were found in arms were put to the sword.

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The crisis had now arrived when "the king of fire" deemed it no longer necessary to dissemble his designs "upon the Sun". At first he pretended a wish to restore Charles IV. to the throne; but perceiving Madrid to be in a ferment, and having the two kings in his power, he obliged them both to sign a formal abdication, and the infants Don Carlos and Don Antonio renounced all claim to the succession. This self-sacrifice effected, Napoleon proceeded to fill the vacant throne with a king that should do all his will. On the 25th of May, therefore, he issued a decree, declaring the throne of Spain vacant by the voluntary abdication of the reigning family, and ordering an assembly of prelates, grandees, etc., to be held at Bayonne, for the purpose of fixing the basis of a new government. A commission was also established for secularizing the lands of the church; which, as it vitally affected the covetousness of the priests of the Virgin Goddess, stirred up the exasperation of the public they controlled, indescribably. The result of the convention at Bayonne was, that, on the 6th of June, 1808, Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain upon his brother Joseph, who abdicated his kingdom of Naples in favor of Joachim Murat, who had married the sister of the wonderful man!

Such was the state of affairs in Spain, preparatory to his Operations "to whom it was given to scorch the" Spaniards and Portuguese "with fire". The renunciation of the crown in favor of Napoleon was the signal for a general insurrection. The patriotic flame burst forth in Asturia, whence it spread into Gallicia, and into several districts of Leon. A declaration of war was formally published by the assembly at Oviedo, which also sent deputies to request the assistance of heretical England against the infidel French! The request was immediately acceded to, and every possible assistance in arms, munitions, and men, were lavished in support of the adherents of the Inquisition, and worship of the Image of the Beast!

The scorching operation now began in all the intensity of "great heat". The success of the insurgent Spaniards during June and July were important and "brilliant;" while the losses of the French were greater than they had ever been in so short a period since the accession of Napoleon to the imperial throne. They now considered themselves to be fully adequate to their expulsion; which a little time, however, convinced them was a fatal delusion. They seemed to decline the aid of the British forces in the north; and recommended in preference an expedition to Portugal, a suggestion to which England acceded.

The French, in the two months under generals Murat, Dupont, Moncey, and La Febvre, had lost about fifty thousand men; and by the victory of Vimeira, and the convention of Cintra, they were expelled by

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the British from Portugal; who also captured the Russian fleet in the Tagus.

The new king Joseph, after a brief residence of seven days in Madrid, found it necessary to retire precipitately towards France, not forgetting to carry off with him the crown jewels, and other valuables of the palace This state of affairs determined Napoleon to enter Spain, and to conduct the war in person. On the 2nd of December, after defeating three native armies, he reached Madrid; which was now a horrible scene of confusion, being in the power of an ungovernable rabble. The city was surrendered on the 4th; and having reduced its affairs to order, he hastened to try to cut off the retreat of the English army under Sir John Moore, who was falling back upon Corunna. On arriving at Astorga, he found that the expected prey had eluded his grasp; he therefore turned over to his generals the further operations against it, and soon after returned to France.

Though I shall now proceed to the exposition of the fifth vial, the reader must bear in mind, that the wrath of the fourth vial is not exhausted. Like that of the second, the fourth continues its concurrent operation, until that "powerful and extraordinary mortal, Napoleon," is securely caged upon the rock of St. Helena.

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Europe at the height of Napoleons power. The Holy Roman Empire has been brought to an end after a millennium of misrule the map of Europe redrawn and the Emperor's nominees set in power Napoleon remarkably fulfilled the prophecies of the first five vials (Rev 16) Publishers.

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7. Act V The Fifth Vial

"And the Fifth Angel poured out his vial upon the THRONE OF THE BEAST; and it was his kingdom which had been darkened; and they did gnaw their tongues with the anguish, and blasphemed the Deity of the heaven because of their pains, and because of their ulcers; and they repented not of their works" - Verse 10.

The subject of the outpouring of the fifth angel's vial of wrath, was "the Throne of the Beast." After giving the reader this information, it is added, that "it was his kingdom which had been darkened" - egeneto he basileia autou eskotomene: which was in effect saying, that the work of the preceding vials consummated in the fifth, had darkened the kingdom of the Beast.

The kingdom of the Beast was coextensive with the "Holy Roman Empire," and the countries of the Apocalyptic Babylon, as symbolized by the Beast of the Earth, and the Beast of the Sea; whose populations all worshipped the Image of the Beast, enthroned upon the Seven Mountains. The spiritual authority is superior to the temporal in dignity, if not in material power; but, where the spiritual and temporal are united, and its decrees obeyed by all peoples and rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, the throne it occupies is emphatically "the throne" of such a dominion. The kingdom of the Beast had many thrones occupied by secular potentates, none of whom had any legitimate spiritual jurisdiction. Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Naples, and so forth, had no authority in Rome and the Papal States; while in all these countries, the Old Man of the Seven Hills made kings and peoples tremble at his frown.

At the crisis of the fifth vial, only one thing remained, for the complete darkening of the political organization of which this throne was the chief, and that was, the obliteration of it from among the kingdoms of the world. When this should be accomplished, there would then be no throne to shed forth the sunlight of its glory upon the kingdom of the Beast. The Bourbon kings of France, and Spain; the kings of Portugal, of Naples, of Sardinia, of Italy, were all wiped out; and the Holy Romano-German empire dissolved. All these old things had passed away; and all things had become new; in relation to which, the Pontifical Throne was a deformity and a curse. While therefore, the new things flourished in glory and power, this relic of an effete barbarism was decreed of Heaven to be wrathfully precipitated into darkness; and there to remain, until the reaction of unrepentant wickedness should cause its emergence from the shadow of death, in preparation for a second and final catastrophe at the hand of Christ and the Saints.

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8. Historical Exposition

The peace of Tilsit had completely extended the new Frank domination over the Continent of Europe. By the judgments of the fourth vial thus far developed, Prussia was reduced by one-half; the two kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemburg were erected as a barrier against Austria; and the two feudatory kingdoms of Saxony and Westphalia, as a counterpoise to Prussia. Russia remained the only power untouched, though scathed. The Man of Destiny followed more and more the steps of Charlemagne. He had caused on the day of his coronation, the crown, the sword, and the sceptre of Charlemagne to be carried before him. But, unlike Charlemagne, who went to Rome to be crowned by the

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Europe after Napoleon. The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) re-drew the map of Europe Once again. The defunct Holy Roman Empire was superseded by the Geman Confederation, and Austria received territories in N. Italy. Minor adjustments took place until the Great war of 1818-19 - Publishers.

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Pope, he caused the Pope to come to him in Paris, not to crown, but to consecrate his dynasty in the estimation of the worshippers of the Beast's Image; and modeled his new states upon the vast empire of that conqueror. The object of the resurrected and ascended witnesses of the Revolution of 1789, had been to destroy the Beast and his Image, in the re-establishment of the liberty of peoples; it had made citizens, and changed Europe into republics -.a state of things in no way typical of the future permanent results of the postresurrectional labors of the Saints, when under the command of "the Prince of princes," they shall have finished and rested from their labors. The work of the Revolution was simply transitional. The subversion of the ancient political order by

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a republican policy, prepared the way for what followed. Napoleon established a new military hierarchy, turned citizens into vassals, and transferred republics into fiefs. Potent and energetic as he was, and appearing upon the stage after a shock that had shaken the world to its centre and perfectly paralyzed it, he was enabled for a season to arrange it as he pleased. Thus the "great empire" grew up, with a civil discipline at home, which rendered France as obsequious as an army; and abroad, with its secondary kingdoms, its confederate states, its grand fiefs,and its supreme chief, "emperor," "mediator," "protector," and "king;" a perfect type of that greater and more glorious empire to be established by the Lord Jesus and his Brethren, as the result of "the war of the great day of the almighty Deity," which pervades the period of the seventh vial. Napoleon no longer experienced any resistance, and his commands were obeyed from one extremity of the European Continent to the other. The imperial power was at this moment at its maximum; and England, which had then eleven hundred vessels of war, was the only power that resisted his will.

At this crisis, as if to manifest his contempt, and to mark his defiance of all the potentates of Europe, Napoleon gave an extraordinary proof of confidence in the plenitude of his power, in the publication of the following decree, which signalized the approaching outpouring of the Fifth Vial, dated May 1808. "Whereas the temporal sovereign of Rome has refused to make war against England, and the interest of the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile power; and whereas the donation of Charlemagne, our illustrious predecessor, of the countries which form the Holy See, was for the good of Christianity, and not for that of the enemies of our holy religion: We therefore decree, that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata and Camerino, be forever united to the kingdom of Italy: to which kingdom all cardinal prelates and natives of these districts are commanded to return by the 5th of June, on pain of confiscation of goods". This singular and salutary exercise of despotic power called forth a declaration from the Pope in which he maintained the rights of his See, and earnestly protested against the intended spoliation. This, however, did not prevent the entry of a French army, which took possession of all the strong places in the ecclesiastical territories. And this was followed by the annexation of Parma, Placentia, and Tuscany to the French empire; so that the kingdom of Italy was now guarded on every side by the empire.

After the lapse of some months, the Pope's protest was enforced by a sentence of excommunication against the authors and instruments of the act of spoliation. This was productive of new violence on the part of Napoleon, his "most dear son in Christ!" In 1809, the wrath of the fifth

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vial at length descended upon "the throne" itself. Its pontifical occupant, the Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Heads of the Beast-Dominion, was arrested by his order, and brought as a captive to Avignon, in fulfillment of the saying, "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity" (ch. 13:10). But this was not all. A provisional government was established in the ecclesiastical states; the Inquisition was abolished; many temporal and spiritual abuses were abrogated; and various civil and judicial reforms were introduced. Rome itself, wonder-fully improved and embellished in the hands of the Great Emperor, was degraded by decree from a sovereign to a subject rank. It was declared to be the second city of the New Empire; and empowered to send seven members to the Legislative Body; and a deputation, arriving from thence at Paris, presented an address of homage, to which Napoleon replied in style and language of an emperor of the West.

We have seen already that in the outpouring of the wrath of the third vial its plagues reached even to Rome; and that the papal states were transformed into the Roman Republic, in February 1798, when the Pope's temporal reign was declared to be at an end. On that occasion, the French ambassador wrote to general Buonaparte, "the payment of thirty millions (of francs) stipulated by the Treaty of Tolentino, has totally exhausted this old carcass; we are making it consume by a slow fire". It was on the 15th of February, while seated on his throne, and receiving the congratulatory worship of his cardinals. that the Pope was arrested by the French military, the ring of his marriage with the Romish Church torn from his finger; his palace rifled, and himself carried prisoner into France, where he died in August, 1799. All the territorial possessions of the church and monasteries were confiscated; all the sacerdotal vestments of the Pope and Cardinals were burnt; and the Pope's library, museum, furniture, and jewels, pillaged. This was a making of the Mother City "desolate and naked, eating her flesh, and burning her with fire;" not by the ten horns, however, but by the Revolution, as an earnest of what is yet to follow, at the hands of the Saints. But Rome was still the sovereign city of a Roman State, though it had lost its imperialism. But even this was soon after restored to her. Buonaparte's absence in Egypt, and the temporary success of the allies under the "invincible Suwarrow," enabled the worshippers of the Beast's Image to elect a new pope, Pius VII.' March 13, 1800; and to repair for a time, the ruin of the papal throne. Buonaparte's usurpation, and his restoration of Romanism in France, excited the hopes of the Pope, with whom he made a concordat in 1801. But they proved quickly delusive. "The designs of Napoleon," says Ranke, "were now (in 1805) revealed. The Constituent Assembly had endeavored to emancipate it-

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self entirely from the pope. The Directory wished to annihilate his authority. Buonaparte's notion was to retain him, but in a state of absolute subjection; to make him a tool of his own boundless ambition". After a while he was permitted to return to Rome. But, on his resistance to Napoleon's views, there followed in 1809, the outpouring of the wrath of the fifth vial upon the throne, originally given to him by the Dragon (ch. 13:3), in consequence of which the Roman State was abolished, and there was neither republic nor kingdom upon the Seven Hills.

The occasion of this disaster to the Pope was his sympathy with heretical England, then campaigning against the French in Spain, a diversion to their arms, which afforded Austria another opportunity of trying to restore the shattered fortunes of the Beast's kingdom. This obstinate and determined champion of the Image, seized the opportunity of Napoleon's absence and that of his army in Spain, and determined to make one more powerful effort for the reestablishment of the old order of the European world. A hundred and fifty thousand worshippers of the Beast's Image were marched into the field of blood and fire, and began the campaign in the spring of 1809. The Tyrolese rose in rebellion; king Jerome Buonaparte was expelled by the Westphalians; Italy was wavering, and Prussia was only waiting a reverse in the fortunes of the Great Emperor once more to take up arms. The campaign of the fifth vial commenced on the 18th of April. On the 22nd, the French and Austrians met in long and obstinate conflict at Eckmuhl. The slaughter was great, and the darkness of night alone rescued the Austro-Beast's forces from ruin. After this, Napoleon advanced rapidly upon Vienna, the city of the Beast's Dragonic Mouth (ch. 13:11; 16:13), the Imperial Aulic Council - into which, on the 10th May, he once more entered as a conqueror. As Napoleon used to say, "the hand of God leads my armies . This was true; they were so led, until the mission marked out for him Apocalyptically was accomplished. On the 5th of July, the Austrians stationed at WAGRAM, were surprised and disconcerted by the appearance of the whole French army in order of battle. Next day at sunrise, the contest began, and continued till night. The result of the re-newal of the battle was the dispersion and almost ruin of the Austrian armies, and the reduction of the Pope's Protector to a forlorn and hopeless condition. Austria sued for peace, which was granted, and signed at the palace of Schoenbrunn, the headquarters of Napoleon.

This notable opening of the campaign of the fifth vial by the conquest of the fifth coalition, was the military occasion of the issuing of his decrees from Schoenbrunn and Vienna for the humbling and spoliation of the Romish Mother and her Pope; which he had been threatening to do from the time of his triumphant entry into Berlin, in November,

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1806. At this crisis he had an interview with the Papal Nuncio at Dresden in the Cabinet of Frederick the Great; and alluding to the refusal of Pius VII to exclude the English from the Papal States, and to declare war against them, in spite of flattery, coaxing, intimidation, and the most fearful threats, he said, as related in M.D'Hausonville's work, L'Eglise Romaine et le Premier Empire:

"The Pope is a holy man, who is made to believe all that they (Napoleon's enemies) think fit to tell him. They have presented to him my demands under a false light, just as Cardinal Gonsalvi did; and thus the good Pope gets angry, and says he will let himself be killed rather than yield. Who wants to kill him? good Heavens! But if he does not do as I would have him, most assuredly I shall take from him the temporal domain of Rome, but I shall always respect him as Head of the Church. There is no necessity for the Pope to be the Sovereign of Rome. The holiest Popes were not so. I shall make him an excellent allowance -3,OOO,OOOf. a year - that he may suitably represent his office. I shall place at Rome a King or a senator, and I shall cut up his states into so many duchies. What I want is that the Pope shall accede to the Confederation, and that he shall be the friend of my friend and the enemy of my enemies. I am the protector of the Church, and the Pope must be with me if he wishes to remain a sovereign; and certainly he may continue to be so if he acts as I wish him, because I have never intended, as he has been told, to take away from him the sovereignty of Rome. To come to the point, I have sent for you to tell you to quit Dresden in three days, and to signify peremptorily to the Pope that he must enter into the Confederation".

The Bishop replied:

"Your Majesty will permit me to repeat what I have already said, that the Pope being the common Father of the Faithful, cannot separate from some to attach himself to others; and that his ministry being a ministry of peace, he cannot make war on anybody, nor declare himself the enemy of anyone whatever without failing in his duties and compromising his sacred character".

The Emperor said:

"But I do not want him to make war on any one. I want him to shut his ports against the English, and to exclude them from his States, and that, as he is not able to defend his ports and his fortresses, he shall give them to me to defend. People have lost their heads at Rome. There are no longer any great men there, as in the time of Leo X. Ganganelli would not have acted so. How can the Pope imagine that I will consent to have between my Kingdom of Italy and that of Naples ports and fort-

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resses which, in time of war, may be occupied by the English, and may endanger the security of my States and my people? I want to be secure in my own house, for the whole of Italy belongs to me by right of conquest. The Pope has not crowned me as King, but as Emperor of France, and I succeed, not to the rights of Kings, but to those of Charlemagne. If I allow Sovereigns to be in Italy, it is not that they should favour my enemies and give me cause of disquiet. I want you to tell all that to the Pope, and explain to him his real interests. I had better intentions with regard to the Pope. I should have carried them out, and may yet do so; but he prefers being miserable and obstinate. If you are fortunate enough to persuade him, you do him a great service. I warn you, however, that all must be settled by the 1st of January, (it was then the 12th of November). Either the Pope will consent, and in that case will lose nothing, or he will refuse, and in this case I shall take his States from him. Excommunications are no longer in fashion, and my soldiers will not refuse to march whithersoever I bid them. Remember Charles V., who kept the Pope prisoner, and had prayers said for him at Madrid. I will do the same if I am driven to it. The Pope should not forget that I have raised up the altars in France; that I have restored religion; that I protect it in Germany, and that I shall continue to do so. Almost the whole of Catholicity is under my sceptre. The hand of God leads my armies, and this apparently is what displeases the Pope. He wants to cross me in every way. In Italy, in France, I have done much for the bishops and the priests. Everybody is content; but Rome is angry. It is not the Pope's fault; it is Antonelli's, and that other Cardinal he brought with him to Paris-how do you call him? Oh, aye! -Di Pietro. Di Pietrois an obstinate theologian who has no political views. The Pope complains of his poverty, and that he has not wherewith to go on. It is his own fault. I have paid (and more than I ought) the expenses of the first passage of my troops. I would have paid the second, the third - all the rest; but he wants to quarrel. Well, then, let them do so. I shall pay nothing more. Let the Pope only do as I would have him, and he shall be paid for the past and for the future".

Yes, Rome was angry, and the Pope persisted in his refusal. It is true, that excommunication’s were out of fashion; but angry and imbecile Rome, upon whom all experience is lost, still had faith in folly. Pius VII. hurled his mimic thunder against the emperor on June 10, 1809: but the Papal Jupiter had lost all his thunderbolts, so that the only party injured was his lying and blaspheming self. It was received with ridicule, and an order for his arrest. He was carried off prisoner to Savona, where he was detained nearly two years. While there he conceded the main point required by Napoleon, as stated in a Brief, bearing date Aug. 5,

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1811, the preliminary condition of which was his separation for ever from Rome. On the approach of a British fleet, he was removed from Savona, Jan. 1812, to Fontainbleau. The Archiepiscopal palace of Paris had been repaired for his reception; for it was Napoleon's policy and intention to fix him and the Papal See in that abode: so that he could have "the False Prophet" (ch. 16:13; 19:20) then no longer the Image of the Beast, under his own eye and restraint in the New Capital of Catholicity. But, the sudden and wonderful overthrow of Napoleon's power prevented the establishment of his purpose. In 1814, "Catholicity having deserted him," says De Pradt, "four heretical kings (Russia, Prussia, England, and Sweden) bore the Pope back to Rome".

Thus as the result of the terrible plagues of these vials the kingdom of the Beast was darkened, but not destroyed. The power of Napoleon, the Scorcher of the Beast, began to wane after he had executed the divine purpose of blotting out his Roman throne. He had divorced Josephine, and allied himself to the sanguinary and heaven-cursed pope-protecting house of Austria, by marriage with Maria Louisa, in March, 1810; and now, in 1812, with the Anglo-Spanish war upon his hands, he proceeded to precipitate the armies of Europe upon the Magogian empire of Rosh, Meshech and Tobl. In alliance with Prussia and Austria, which engaged to assist him with very considerable forces, he began the fatal invasion of Gog's dominion with a mighty host of six hundred thousand men. On the 17th of August, after a furious contest at Smolensko, the Russians retired from the city, which they left to the French burning and in ruins On the 7th of September the two armies, the Russian of two hundred and twenty thousand, and the French of a hundred thousand, met at Borodino. Seventy thousand Russians, and forty thousand French, killed and wounded, lay upon the field. Moscow, the capital of Meschecb, was evacuated by order of its governor, Rostopchin; and two hundred thousand human beings, of both sexes, and of every age, became wanderers, preparatory to its conflagration. Napoleon arrived at the Kremlin, and was now at the zenith of his fortune. Fire burst forth in every direction. In speaking of it, he said, "this terrible conflagration ruined every thing. I was prepared for all but this:

it was unforeseen; for who would have thought that a nation would have set its capital on fire? It was a spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of flame; mountains of red rolling flames, like immense waves of the sea, alternately bursting forth, and elevating themselves to skies of fire, and then sinking into the ocean of flame below. Oh, it was the most grand, the most sublime, and most terrific sight the world ever beheld!"

His retreat from Moscow was most disastrous. The wrath of the

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fourth and fifth vials descended upon the hosts drawn from the nations worshipping the Beast's Image with terrible effect. They perished by thousands from cold, famine, pestilence, and war; so that, according to Segur, only a sixth part recrossed the Russian frontier. He had lost an army, the most formidable, perhaps, that any nation had ever brought into the field. The wars of modern Europe had furnished no instance of so extensive and complete a destruction; nor ever will again until Gog himself shall fall upon the mountains of Israel under the outpouring of the wrath of the sixth vial: nor does history record any event like it since Xerxes' invasion of Greece, B.C. 481.

This terrible destruction of the hosts led by Napoleon, was followed by the invasion of France by the British, who had expelled his armies from Portugal and Spain: and by the Russians, Prussians, and Swedes forming a sixth coalition for the restoration of the ancient order of things. The die was now cast; and the tide of events was turned The priests, the men having "the Sign of the Beast in their right hand" (ch 13:16) secretly conspired against him since his rupture with the Blasphemer of the Seven Hills: and the humiliated dynasties aspired to restore themselves. Negotiation had been tried, but failed; so that nothing but the outpouring of more wrath could determine the result. Deprived of the support of the people, who, in 1814, were mere spectators of the last act of the drama, Napoleon stood alone against the world with a handful of veteran soldier, aided by his genius, which had lost nothing of its audacity and vigor. He had to contend with the grand allied army of three hundred and eighty thousand men, marching from the north and east under Schwartzenberg by way of Switzerland Blucher by way

of Frankfort; and Bernadotte, by way of Belgium all aiming to concentrate upon Paris. Napoleon dexterously placed himself between Blucher and Schwartzenberg; he flew from one army to another and beat them both in Succession. His combinations were so powerful, his activity so great, and his manoeuvres so certain, that he appeared on the point of entirely disorganizing these formidable armies, and by the annihilation of them to put an end to the coalition.

But if he conquered wherever he was present himself, the enemy gained ground wherever he was absent. He was badly and treacherously supported by his generals. At length Paris, the only capital of the Continent which had not be en invaded during the awful outpouring of these terrible vials, now beheld the hosts of all Europe entering upon its plains, and on the point of undergoing the common humiliation It capitulated in the absence of Napoleon, March 31st, 1814, just 1260 years after the settlement of Italy by Justinian's Pragmatic Sanction A.D. 554. Eleven days after, perceiving that further resistance was'

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fruitless, he surrendered, and he renounced for himself and his children the thrones of France and Italy; and on the 20th of April, withdrew from the Continent to his little principality of Elba.

But, the worshippers of the Beast's Image, assembled in congress at Vienna, soon found, that between this minister of heaven's wrath upon blasphemers, and them, there could be neither truce nor peace. The astounding fact was communicated to them by Talleyrand, that the Exile of Elba had returned to France; that the Bourbon they had set up for king had fled; and that Napoleon was reinstated on the throne! They roared every one with the laughter of demons at the news; their merriment, however, did not last long - the event was too pregnant of mischief to be sported with. They threatened him with public vengeance as the enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world. All Europe now

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Map showing the chief places of importance in Napoleon's life and the routes he followed in the course of his campaigns. Remarkable success attended his arms so long as be limited his depredations to Roman Catholic countries, and chiefly those of the Holy Roman Empire (Central pe), but disaster befell him outside those areas. He failed in the Middle East and in Russia. In 1812 he invaded Russia, but although he reached Moscow he was forced to retreat in midwinter through devastated countryside, and only one-sixth of his Grand army survived. His forces thus depleted he was compelled to capitulate when France was invaded by a European coalition in 1814. He was banished to Elba, but the following year, encouraged by news of French discontent under the restored Bourbon monarchy, he secretly left the island, and was received with jubilation throughout France. This led to war, and to waterloo where he was decisively defeated. He was detained on the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he died on 5th May 1821 - Publishers.

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rang with preparations for war. Napoleon offered them peace, and to abide by the treaty of Paris; but his offers were disregarded; the Seven Spirits of the Deity had not energized him for peace; but to scorch the men of the Beast with fire: they had not yet had enough of this; therefore their hearts were hardened, and Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, in a seventh and last coalition, decided again to try the arbitrament of fire and sword.

The result of this appeal was the victory of Waterloo, June18, 1815. The loss on both sides was immense; and all concerned "were scorched with great heat". It was the last battle of him to whom "it was given to scorch the men" obnoxious to Divine wrath for their blasphemies and evil deeds, "with fire". Perceiving that he was no longer the object of public confidence, he declared his conviction that his political life was terminated, and again abdicated the imperial crown on the 22nd of June. Having issued a farewell addressed to the army, he left Paris on the 29th for Rochefort, intending to embark for the United States; but being unable to elude the vigilance of the English cruisers, and apprehensive of falling into the hands of the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, whom he had so dreadfully "scorched", he surrendered to the British on the 15th of July, and claimed their protection. The island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic was assigned to him as his future residence by the Allied Powers. This was the sinking of "the sun of France" into the darkness of the shadow of death. His energetic protest against it was unheeded. He arrived there in safety in the fall of 1815; and, after a rest, from his thundering and scathing labors, of over five years, he expired on the 5th of May, 1821.

9. Napoleon "the Great" a Type of Christ the Man of War:

or the Events of the Hour, a Type of the Hour of Judgment

'And the same hour there was a great earthquake" (ch. 11:13). This "same hour" is characterized as that in which the Two Tormenting Prophets, having risen from three lunar days and a half of years of political death, ascended to the possession of terrific power in the government, or heaven, in the sight of their enemies. The three days and a half, and the 1260 days of their sackcloth prophesying, styled inch. 11:6, hen hemerais auton tes propheteias in their days of the prophecy, both ended together. The common terminus of these two periods was A.D. 1789-'90; and signalized the commencement of the "same hour," or twelfth part of "a time," equal to thirty years. These ended with the beginning of the outpouring of the sixth vial, and the death of the "Man of Destiny," who had figured so gigantically in the ministration of the wrath of

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the third, fourth and fifth vials. As the Hour began with the ending of one prophetic period, so it ended with the termination of another-the 1290 days of Dan. 12:11. It was an hour of judgment upon the Beast, to "slay it, and to give its body" politic to "the burning flame;" but not the hour. Between "a" or "an," and "the", there is all the difference existing between type and antitype, shadow and substance. Napoleon, "the most gigantic being of modern times," was a man of destiny, but not the Man of Destiny; who is indeed yet to appear, and before whose almightiness the gigantic proportions of Napoleon's glory and renown will shrink into the dwarfish insignificance of a babe. Still, as compared with other mortals, "this extraordinary man, whose name for twice seven years had filled the world with wonder and amazement," was a giant of immense proportions, contending for universal monarchy, which, for a moment, in the Beast's territory, he may be said to have realized. He was the man of the hour, whose tormenting pains and ulcers caused their victims to "gnaw their tongues," as the earnest, or installment, of that more terrible torment that awaits them in "the Hour of Judgment," in the presence of the Lamb (ch. 14:10,11).

The Hour of Judgment, in which "the Man of War" celebrated by Moses in his song, develops himself as the Man of Destiny, is characterized in its incipiency, by the preparation of a people to whom judgment may be given. This preparation, which is antitypical of that in 1789-'90, and at the termination also of a symbolic period of 1260 days, consists in a resurrection and ascension process. This resurrection and ascension are greater than the resurrection and ascension of the two tormenting prophets; for the antitype and substance are always grander and more intrinsically important than type and shadow. The earth is to be made to cast out, or bring forth, literally, the feeble; but poetically, the dead - aretz rephaim tapil (Isa. 26:19). These feeble ones all appear before the bema, or tribunal of justice; not before the thronos, throne or seat of dominion: and there, having been previously made capable of so doing, by the impressment of their identity, they every one give account of themselves to Christ, "the Judge of the living and dead". The approved among them being accepted as "holy, and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight," are arrayed in the symbolical "fine linen pure and bright" - that is, what Paul terms in Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:54 and 2 Cor. 5:4, to thneton, "the mortal" is quickened in the twinkling of an eye; and in this momentary operation, raised from corruption to incorruption; from dishonor to glory; from weakness or feebleness to power; from earthiness to spirituality: so that, being clothed upon with the house from heaven, "THE MORTAL" is "swallowed up of the life" - hina katapothe to thneton hupo tes zoes. The life-power which descends upon

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it, permeates it in all its substance; so that "the corruptible" becomes incorruptible, and "the mortal" becomes immortal; and the raising of the "building from the Deity, the house not made with hands," is complete.

The people thus prepared, the Firstfruits redeemed from among men for the Deity and the Lamb, in whose mouth was found no guile, stand faultless before the throne of dominion, and become sharers in it. They ascend to power, and in the prophetic vision are seen standing upon Mount Zion with the Father's Name impressed upon their foreheads (ch. 14:1-5). As for the rest of the feeble earthborns, they are deemed unworthy to be raised to "glory, honor, incorruptibility, and life". Their record is unclean. They are convicted liars, hypocrites, deceivers, and seducers, who have "held the truth in unrighteousness;" and walked faithlessly in the prejudices and conceits of their corrupt nature. Having thus, and in many other ways, proved themselves enemies of the cross of Christ, and sowers to their flesh, they are sentenced to reap according to their sowing. They are repudiated by the Man of Destiny, who indignantly expels them from his presence as unworthy to share with him in the throne of his glory.

Having thus separated the wheat from the chaff, and gathered the former into his barn, he confers upon his accepted brethren the honor of co-operating with him in the execution of "the judgment written;" and of accompanying him whithersoever he goes in the work, not merely of casting a dark shadow over the kingdom and throne of the Beast, as under the fifth vial; but of effectually and finally slaying the Beast, and destroying his body, and giving it to the burning flame (Dan. 7:11). Napoleon's work in his hour, assisted by his talented generals, was the type, or shadow cast before, of the work yet to be performed by Christ, the Man of War, and his brethren in arms, upon the same Beast, under the Seventh Vial, and in the terrible hour of his judgments. Napoleon and his marshals at the head of the French, was the shadowy representation in real life of the scene exhibited in ch. 19 of this prophecy, where Christ, the Faithful and True Warrior, is seen with his Brethren at the head of the Jewish white horse (Zech. 10:3), making righteous judicial war upon the same enemies, the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, that Napoleon scorched so effectively. And further, when his work was consummated, where among the Powers was the Papacy? It was nowhere. For about six years, the Papacy had no place in the Napoleonic Empire; neither in the antitypical dominion of Jesus and his Brethren will such a curse and blasphemy be tolerated. Napoleon effected a temporary abolition of it, and deprived Rome of its sovereignty for a while; but Christ Jesus, the king-breaker and king-maker of the fu-ture judicial hour, will abolish it forever, and sink Rome in the un-

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fathomable abyss of fire, to be "found no more at all".

Seven thunders, styled "Coalitions," were organized against the French by the Powers of the world. These, however, were not the Seven Thunders whose utterances John was commanded not to write. The former were only the shadows of the future coalitions that will be formed against the King of the Jews, for the like purpose for which they were formed against the Emperor of the French, as being "the enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, and hostile to its civil and social relations". Napoleon and Jesus Christ are both chargeable with this hostility. The tranquillity of the Beast and his Image, and the perpetuity of their dynastic, civil, and social, institutions and relations, are doubtless highly desirable to all who profit by them. But, it is contrary to the Divine purpose that the wicked be at peace. The Deity hath decreed that there is no peace for them. It is only to the righteous that abundance of peace is promised. He therefore raised up Napoleon, and strengthened him by His power; and hath raised and exalted Jesus, and made him strong; and will send him again into the world under the sixth vial, to take peace far away from the worshippers of the Beast's Image; and to destroy them and their institutions, by "the energy whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself". Coalition after coalition will, doubtless, be formed against him; but, they will only serve, as under the third, fourth and fifth, vials, to bring their hosts up to the field of slaughter; that they may be "tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb".

I cannot suppose, that these resemblances between Napoleon's Hour, and Christ's Hour, of judgment, can be accidental. I am persuaded rather, that they are designed, and that the one series is pre-figurative of the other. Cyrus, in his conquest of Babylon, restoration of Judah, and laying the foundation of the temple, was a type of Christ in future and similar undertakings: Constantine "the Great" in the conquest of the "great red dragon," whom he ejected from the heaven; and in his deliverance of the church from his sanguinary power, was also a type of Christ in his yet future work of slaying the Scarlet-colored Beast, delivering his downtrodden people, binding the Dragon, and shutting him in the abyss: and I am satisfied, that Napoleon "the Great" should be associated with them in their typical relation to him. The parallel between Napoleon and Christ is still further remarkable in this, that they both were plebeian and poor in their beginning; and commanded by their wonderful works the attention and admiration of man-kind. They were both friends of Israel, and enemies of their oppressors; Christ was born to be a king, and therefore a military commander, which Napoleon became by extraordinary ability and success. They

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both entered upon their career in youth, to the confusion of the wise and prudent. Christ is the Mediator of the Commonwealth of Israel; Napoleon was the legally constituted Mediator of the Helvetic Common-wealth. Napoleon was king of Italy, emperor of Europe, and "Protector of the Church;" Christ is King of Israel, the destined Emperor of the world, and Protector of the Faithful in all future time. Napoleon abolished the ancient dynasties, gave their thrones to his brothers and relations, and darkened the kingdom and throne of the Beast; Christ will abolish all dynasties, will give their thrones to his Brethren, and de-stroy finally the same kingdom and throne: Napoleon suppressed the Papacy; Christ will destroy it, and leave not a wreck behind. In fine, I know not how the reader may view these things, but for myself, I see in the transformation of Europe under the first, third, fourth, and fifth vials; and in the military development, constitution, and triumph of the Napoleonic empire, a shadowy representation in real life of the approaching transformation of the world; and of the military development, dynastic constitution, and victorious establishment of the kingdom and empire of Christ and his Brethren, by the concluding judgments of the sixth, and all the plagues of the seventh, vials. There is an universal monarchy in these vials, whose judgments are not only destructive, but formative; and whose sovereignty will command and compel the obedience of all peoples, nations, languages, and rulers, to earth's utmost bounds (Dan. 7:14,27; Psa. 2:8,9). "Hitherto is the end of the matter:" and a glorious consummation it will be.

10. The Papal Image-Worshippers Blasphemous and Unrepentant

"And they gnawed their tongues for the pain; and blasphemed the Name of the Deity, who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him, And they blasphemed the Deity of the heaven because of their pains, and because of their ulcers; and they repented not of their works" - Verses 8,11.

The intense sufferings of the Beast's Image-worshippers under the outpouring of the wrath of the fourth and fifth vials, is forcibly expressed by the saying, "they gnawed their tongues for the pain". Illustrative of their great misery, Sir Walter Scott's account is appropriate. "The French army," says he, "was poured into some foreign country by forced marches; without any previous arrangement of stores or magazines for their maintenance; and with the purpose of maintaining them solely at the expense of the inhabitants. This species of war was carried on at the least possible expense to his (Napoleon's) treasury; but at the greatest possible expenditure of human life, and the incalculable

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increase of human misery". "The officers gave the soldiers authority to secure supplies by what way; called la maraude, or plunder. When marching through a thinly peopled country, or when the natives and peasants offered resistance, then the soldiers became irritated at the danger they sometimes incurred in collecting provisions. Relentless and reckless, besides indulging in every species of violence, they increased their own distresses by destroying what they could not use. Famine and sickness were not long in visiting an army which traversed by forced marches a country exhausted of provisions. These stern attendants followed the French columns as they straggled on. Without hospitals and without magazines, every straggler who could not regain his ranks fell a victim to hunger, to weather, to weariness, or the vengeance of an incensed peasantry. In this manner the French army suffered woes, which till these tremendous wars had never been the lot of troops in hostilities carried on between civilized nations".

As a specimen of the sufferings of non-combatant inhabitants of the Beast's territory on the actual scene of hostilities, the following extracts, borrowed by certain writers from official Reports, published by a committee in London, descriptive of the calamities consequent upon the campaign of Leipsic in 1813, may suffice. In a letter from the city of Leipsic, dated Nov. 1813, and addressed to the British Nation, the writers say:

"We have before our eyes many thousands of the adjacent villages and hamlets landed proprietors, farmers, ecclesiastics, schoolmasters, and artisans of every description - who were some weeks since in circumstances more or less easy, but now without a home, stripped of their all, and with their families perishing of hunger. All around is one wide waste. The numerous villages and hamlets are almost all entirely or partially reduced to ashes".

Again; - "The destruction and distress which marked the countries through which the French army fled from the bloody fields of Leipsic were altogether indescribable. Dead bodies covered the roads. Half consumed French soldiers were found in the ruins of the villages destroyed by the flames. Whole districts were depopulated by disease. For a month after the retreat no human being, no domestic animal, no poultry, nay, not even a sparrow was to be met with: only ravens in abundance were to be seen, feeding on corpses".

And again: - "On the borders of Silesia seventy villages have been almost entirely destroyed". "In Upper Lusatia the whole tract between Bautzen and Galitz, which has been repeatedly traversed by the marches and counter-marches of the armies, is reduced to a desert".

"At Hamburg 50,000 inhabitants, or perhaps, even 70,000, have

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left, and in part been driven from their homes; destitute of all means, and literally starving for want of the common necessaries of life. From the hospitals and infirmaries old and weak persons were driven in herds out of the Altona gate. Some having been long unaccustomed to the air, and exposed half naked to a cold of 190F, turned mad".

Such were the "pains" and "ulcers" which tormented the inhabitants of all the countries of Papal and Protestant Europe, as they became in turn the scene of warfare. They were certainly terrific, and calculated to make the subjects of them "gnaw their tongues for the pain;" and, contemplated from a humanitarian standpoint, greatly to be deplored. But when it is remembered, that they were worshippers of an imaginary ghost of a dead woman, they called "the Virgin Mary, and Holy Mother of God;" were Protestant Blasphemers of the Deity's Name; and the representatives of those who hunted from their homes their "heretical" friends and neighbors whom they burned to death, or drove from the haunts of men, to perish in the woods by hundreds, yea, by thousands, of hunger, nakedness, and cold - when we remember this, we can but say, that they were rightly served; and respond with the voice from the Altar, "Even so, 0 Lord the almighty Deity, true and righteous are thy judgments!"

'It was the kingdom of the Beast which was darkened" - egeneto he basileia autou eskotomene. Darkened, but not destroyed; for it still exists, and awaits the manifestation of the Ancient of Days to destroy it with "the brightness of his presence" (2Thess. 2:8). The darkness which had overshadowed the Beast's kingdom was dispelled by the events of 1814. The treaty of Paris, which deprived Napoleon of the throne; and that of Vienna of 1815, which reconstituted Europe - afforded "the Holy Alliance" and its sympathizers, an opportunity of showing whether they had learned wisdom and true holiness, by the scorching experience they had passed through. But they soon showed that they had learned nothing in that direction. Wise powers would have argued from the past, that "the Deity of the heaven, who had power over these plagues", must be highly incensed, incensed in the ratio of the severity of the plagues, against Greeks, Latins, and Protestants, represented in the Holy Alliance, by Russia, Austria, and Prussia; and that it behooved them to reform from that system of error so signally condemned by the plagues they had been subjected to' But their legislation evinced that they were as great fools as ever, and as much devoted to the lies and unprofitable vanities of their ancestors, as they were before the calamities and disasters of the past twenty-five years were inaugurated by the resurrection and ascension of the two tormenting prophets, whose scorching representative they had recently dethroned.

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"They blasphemed the Name of the Deity of the heaven". They gave expression to their blasphemy in their deeds. They committed the most blasphemous act against his Name in their power, in re-establishing upon the Seven Heads, or Mountains, "the Name of Blasphemy." They delivered the Pope from captivity; and restored to him his pontifical throne and kingdom, which had cost so much human blood and misery to darken. He had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing of his blasphemy. In his proclamation from Cezena, May 5, 1814, a little before reentering Rome, he characterized himself and his office by the papal title of "the Vicar of the Deity upon earth". The acts following this re-assertion of the old impiety were in blasphemous harmony with it. A few days after the proclamation, he crowned at Ancona, with all the sanctimoniousness of superstition, a "miraculous image of the Virgin," the duplicate of that at Rome, as the guardian and saviour of Ancona; and de-creed its festival, and connected a plenary indulgence with its worship. The Name of the Deity for salvation was superseded as of old, by the merits of the saints of the Romish calendar, and of the phantasm, styled by the worshippers of the image, "the Blessed Mary always a Virgin". Bible Societies were special objects of papal wrath. They were declared to be tares in the midst of wheat, and wolves in the guise of lambs; while the scriptures themselves circulated by them, unaccompanied by Romish explanations, were denounced by Leo XII in 1824, as poisonous pastures, and the gospel rather of the devil than of the Deity. And in 1825, he published a Bull of Jubilee, promising to exhibit Christ's cradle, as an attraction to the pilgrimage; and with authoritative instructions to the pilgrims to call upon the Virgin Mary, as the great advocate for sinners, on that day of grace and mercy.

"And they repented not of their works" - hou metanoesan, they changed not their old mode of thinking, feeling, and acting in regard to the worship and institutions of the Beast's Image. The judgments of the Deity are intended to alienate men from their iniquities, and to incline them to better things; and when they come to be executed by the saints, the world will learn righteousness (Isa. 26:9): in the absence, however, of such righteous executors of wrath, there is no hope of the world's re-pentance, but it will go on to transgress more and more, till the cup of its iniquity overflows.

We have seen in the ninth chapter of this work, that the first and second woes, executed by the Saracens and Euphrateans upon the Greek division of the Apostasy, though they were of intense severity, worked no repentance in the Latins. They beheld anism enthroned in the City of the Great Constantine; and the Trinitarian Superstition he had vindicated by the sword in conflict with the Dragon, tram-

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THE MEETNG OF BLUCHER (PRUSSIA) AND WELLINGTON (BRITAIN) AT WATERLOO, 1815

At waterloo the Prussians did not arrive until Napoleon at the head of the French and Wellington in charge of the British had been engaged for more than five hours. Their appearance, however, settled Napoleon's doom, for, as fresh troops, they were able to continue an unrelenting pursuit when Wellington's forces were too exhausted to advance further. The famous meeting of the Allied commanders occurred near the farm of La Belle Alliance on the road to Charleroi, whither the French hosts fled in utter disorder. This sealed Napoleon's fate. He was banished to the island of St. Helene, where he died Pub-hers.

SUMMARY OF NAPOLEON'S WARFARE

Napoleon's policies were anti-papal, and in many ways he sought to embarrass the Pope. In 1814, however, Napoleon was defeated, and in April of that year, banished to Elba, whilst Louis XVIII was placed on the throne of France. Meanwhile, in March of that year, the Pope was liberated and again entered Rome (from where he had been previously banished), and "paid his humble thanks to St. Peter". On 1st March 1815, Napoleon, having escaped, landed in France, and was enthusiastically received by the French He again organized an army against the European coalition but was ultimately defeated at Waterloo on 18th June. The Congress of Vienna met to redraw the map of Europe The victors Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria----together with defeated France, balanced power and territory in Europe with the aim of preventing war, but often at the expense of the national affinities of the peoples affected. The main territorial adjustments were: France lost little, except the Rhineland to Prussia which also gained some of Saxony the defunct Holy Roman Empire (destroyed by Napoleon) was superseded by the German Confederation headed by Austria; and Austria received territories in north Italy. Poland was divided between Austria, Russia and Prussia; and the Papal States were restored in Italy. An important change took place in 1870 with the termination of the Papal temporal power, and the establishment of the Second Reich by Germany. Nevertheless, the essential provisions of the treaty lasted for almost a century, until disturbed by World War I - Publishers.

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pled in the dust by the Moslem; yet in all this, they did not perceive the Deity's repudiation of Catholicism; or, if they did, they would not be instructed and corrected by it. Thus, "the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues," the Latin Catholics of the West, "repented not of the works of their hands" (ch. 9:20,21).

From the killing of the Eastern Third by the capture of Constantinople, to the resettlement of Europe by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, three hundred and sixty-two years had elapsed; and notwithstanding the terrible plagues of the past twenty-five years, the Latins, both Romish and Protestant, showed themselves to be as unrepentant of their "works" as ever. These works and deeds are recited in ch. 9:20,21; such as idols or images of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which their hands had made, as representatives of the demons, ta daimonia, the "disembodied spirits," they worshipped as guardians, intercessors, ministers of grace, and mediators between Christ and men. The deeds of "the men who had the sign of the beast in their right hand, and in their foreheads," and who served as priests of these idols, vulgarly styled "the clergy", and of which they repented not, were murders, sorceries, fornication, thefts. And the people were like their priests. They continued to uphold and sanction all these abominations with the blindest veneration and devotion, till the exhausted patience of the Deity gave place, in 1796, to the terrible outpouring of the third vial, at the hand of his servant Napoleon, who, as "his servant Nebuchadnezzar" on a former occasion, gave the worshippers of images "blood to drink", and "scorched them with great heat". But, the events of the third, fourth and fifth vials have not brought the idolators to repentance; so as to cast their idols which they have made to worship, to the moles and to the bats (Isa. 2:20); and to abandon their murders, and their sorceries, and their fornication, and their thefts. We have seen how that the restored Pontiff evinced his incurable stupidity and idolatry in "solemnly crowning" a Madonna at Ancona, for incorrigible fools to worship. Demons and their images again became the fashionable objects of adoration. They repented not from these; but, in the words of Ranke, "the restored governments of Southern Europe repented of their former insubordination to Rome. They thought they had thus unchained the tempest by which themselves had been overthrown; and beheld in the Pope their natural ally." Thus, they failed to see the truth; that, instead of this, it was their fellowship with Rome in its villanies, superstitions, and blasphemies, that brought upon them all the evil by which they had been so dreadfully scorched. In France, the infatuated and demented Bourbons, after their restoration, dedicated their kingdom most especially to the disembodied nonentity, or demon, they call the Virgin Mary, as its patroness;

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they introduced those thieves and murderers, the Jesuits, whose society Pope Clement XIV declared to be a public nuisance; and in his Bull dissolving it, says, that "he who endeavored to let it loose upon society would be chargeable with high treason against the common interests and happiness of his species". Of this treason the Bourbons were guilty; and by their oppression of antipapalists, showed that the murderous spirit of their ancestor Charles IX, of St. Bartholomew renown, was not yet extinct in them. But, the seed of evil doers is doomed to confusion and contempt. The indignation of the Deity descended upon their incorrigible dynasty, in 1830, and in 1848. The revolution of the former year abolished the elder branch; and the more remarkable one of the latter date, the younger branch of the Capets; to make room for the developments of the Second Napoleonic Empire, whose mission is, not like Napoleon "the Great's", to darken the kingdom of the Beast and his Image, but to create by its policy such a situation as is prefigured in ch. 16:13,14, preparatory to the thief--like coming of the great Napoleon's antitype, YAHWEH TZ'VAOTH, who will resume his work, and refuse peace to the world until the Beast is slain, and his body destroyed; and, with his False Prophet whom he upholds, is given to the burning flame, never more to insult the habitable with their accursed presence.

In Spain, also, "they repented not of their works". Ferdinand, when restored to the throne, re-established both the Jesuits, and the popish "Hell", styled the Inquisition; and "heretics" were again murdered at the burning stake. The subsequent civil wars, and continually recurring insurrections there, sufficiently indicate the indignation of heaven; and, as an earnest of what is to come, is measurably retributive of the blood of the innocent shed by the "reverend" assassins and thieves of Rome.

In Sardinia the King, to whose tender mercies the Waldenses were made over by the treaty of Vienna, for no other reason than because they were Antipapists, revoked their privileges, and multiplied vexations and oppressions upon them. In after years, the king of Sardinia was defeated at Novara, and died an exile in a foreign land; and his son, Victor Emmanuel, now reigns king of Italy, a confederate of the Revolution, and a terror to the Pope.

In Austria, so terribly "scorched with fire, " they repented not. By concordat with Rome, they assumed their former relationship to the 'Name of Blasphemy" on the Seven Hills. The Austrian kingdom of Lombardo-Venetia, being adjacent to the Pope's temporal kingdom, the Austrian Government became the pillar and support of the papal throne - an alliance always fatal, and full of misfortune, to the power so connected. In Austria, the Jesuits became as active as ever in propagating popery, with all its lies and blasphemies. Thus, when the Jesuit Sor-

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GROUND PLAN OF BABYLON

The symbolism of the 6th and 7th vials is based upon the historical conquest of Babylon by Cyrus and his army (significantly, the elite of the Persian army was given the title of The immortals because when one was slain in battle, his place was instantly filled by another). The River Euphrates ran under the protective walls of the city and through its centre, and its fortifications were considered to be of such strength as to defy the might of any conqueror (Dan. 4:30). However, Cyrus diverted the water of the river which dried up the channel that flowed through the city, and along the dry bed his forces were led to dramatically occupy and overthrow it. The fall of Babylon was unexpected, and its citizens were engaged in "a night of pleasure" which, however, turned 'into fear" (Isa. 21:4). The circumstances are described in Daniel 5. The latter-day "drying Euphrates", or receding empire of Turkey is a most significant sign of the times. World War I witnessed the King of the South (Britain in occupation of Egypt Dan. 11:40) "push" at the Turkish power so successfully as to drive it out of the Middle East. This enabled the Balfour Declaration in support of a National Home for the Jews to be implemented, and ultimately the nation of Israel to be established. This was in fulfillment of Bible prophecy and was a complete vindication of the prognostication made in Elpis Israel pp.441,442(14th Edition). As anticipated by him, the British power at first assisted the restoration ot the Jewish people but subsequently "proved to be inefficient" (Elpis Israel p.444). Meanwhile, the "drying up" of the political Euphrates in the Middle East, has permitted the "way to be prepared" that the resurrected and glorified saints will take in their attack upon Babylon the Great (see Rev. 16:19), for Israel will be the channel of their conquests. That "preparation" is taking place in the latter-day revival of Israel -Publishers.

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peoples of the empire to which the natural river belongs. This, in the rainy season, overflows its banks; which, by analogy, represents the armies of Assyria crossing the river for the invasion of adjacent countries.

When the Ninevite Dynasty was abolished, Assyria was annexed to Babylon. The Euphrates then became a river of Babylon. It flowed into and through this great city and province. For this reason, as Babylon is introduced into the Apocalypse as symbolical of the Fourth Beast, whose dominion migrated from Babylon to Rome and Constantinople, so the Euphrates is also introduced there; for a figurative Babylon without a figurative Euphrates, would be in violation of the analogy and fitness of things. Babylon of old was a city and empire, with the Euphrates flowing through the latter into the former; so, Apocalyptically, the Great City of Babylon is OLD ROME and its Ten Kingdoms, with its political Euphrates flowing up to the Danube, and confining upon Hungary, the Austrian empire, the Adriatic and Greece; with "NEW ROME", or Constantinople, also built on Seven Hills, for the centre of its population, the great majority of which, though Antipapal, is "Catholic". Thus, the political Euphrates flows right into the city; and, at the opening of this sixth vial, in addition to the populations inhabiting the countries through which the natural Euphrates meanders its way to the Persian Gulf, there were reckoned among its waters, the peoples of Egypt, Algiers, Asia Minor, Greece, Roumelia, Albania, Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and certain islands of the sea.

The Ottoman Power being "the Great River Euphrates" of the symbolical Babylon, we have a subject before us capable of receiving, and as its sanguinary and earth-destroying history proves, well deserving, the indignation and wrath of Deity. As the fourth of the Euphratean Angels (ch. 9:15) loosed against the Greek Catholic division of the Babylonian Apostasy, it has judicially and terrifically executed its mission. In performing the part allotted to it, it has repaid justice the debt incurred by the demon-worshipping and idolatrous Greek Catholics, who, when they reigned in Constantinople, were more wicked, and less tolerant of truly good men, than the Turks. The Osmanlis are not idolators. Their zeal was great against all such; hence their Contempt of Catholics, both Greek and Latin, and their greater tolerance of Protestants. Still, the Euphratean is only a Sin-Power, well and heavily laden with its own peculiar offenses. One of its greatest offenses consists in the treatment Yahweh's land, and people Israel, have experienced at its hand. As the modern representative of the Little-Horn-of-the-Goat power, it has "parted his land" "for gain" (Joel3 :2; Dan. 11:39); and ruling over Israel, has made them to howl; so that His name continually

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every day is blasphemed (Isa. 52:5). No man likes his property to be laid Waste, and his slaves to be abused. Of both these counts the Constantinopolitan Little Horn has been so intensely guilty in regard to Yahweh's inheritance, that it has acquired the Scriptural epithet of Shomaim, THE DESOLATOR (Dan. 9:27). It is true that appearances Would seem to justify the conclusion of some, that the Deity has ceased to take any interest in the land of Palestine, and in the natural Israel. But let such remember the Words of Christ, who says, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge true judgment". The appearance of things is not their real nature. It is the testimony of the prophets, that "Yahweh will be jealous for His land, and pity his people; . . . and will no more make them a reproach among the nations" (Joel 2:18,19). But they still are a reproach among the nations: it is therefore evident that the Divine jealousy for the land, and pity for the people in reproach are things pertaining to a future situation of the world's affairs. Hence, the political Euphrates standing in this antagonism to Deity, it is for this, and not because of its severity upon the Greeks, that the wasting wrath of the sixth vial is poured out upon it.

"And the waters thereof were dried up" - The effect of the Outpouring of the vial is to dry up "the water" of the political Euphrates. The Euphrates being a political channel, the water flowing therein must be political also. Waters Apocalyptically signify "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (ch. 17:15); but, in the text before us, it is not waters but "water", in the singular. The prophecy, then, doth not signify a drying up of population. The Euphrates represents a power of the Apocalyptic Babylon; and as the name is indicative of water flowing in a certain channel, "water must signify the power of the Euphratean empire, expressed, as governments ordinarily express it, by force and arms.

There is one other place, and one only, in the Apocalypse, where water is used in the singular; as, inch. 12:15, in the words, "the Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the Woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood". In this place "water" signifies power incorporated in armies, Sent forth from government to sweep away, as by a flood, the objects of its displeasure. Hence, the water of the Great River Euphrates, in like manner, represents the military power of the Ottoman empire; which is dissipated by a process of evaporation, a drying up; a gradual exhaustion, so as at last to leave the channel of the river in the heart of the Great City, empty; and devoid of all power to impede, or interfere with operations developing in the south-eastern recesses of the empire.

"That the way of the Kings who are out of a Sun's rising, might be prepared". This is the exact rendering of hena hetoimasthe he hothos ton

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basileon ton apo anatolon heliou - which is the received text; and, though objected to by some commentators, who can see nothing in it but the natural sun-rising, is no doubt perfectly correct. The military and political power of the Ottoman empire was to be dried up by the wrath of the Sixth Vial, that the way for a certain class of kings might be cleared of all hindrances and impediments to their enterprize in its be-ginning.

The reader will note, that in this sixteenth chapter there are two suns introduced into the prophecy; and that both of them are symbolic, but of different things. The first is the Sun of Europe, upon which was poured out the wrath of the fourth vial: the other Sun, on the contrary, is not the subject of wrath; but one which rises above the world's horizon, some time during the period of the sixth vial. During the five preceding vials and much even of the sixth, He is below that horizon concealed from view, and we know, that before the sun rises it is dark- "darkness covers the earth" (Isa. 60:2) - and that it is while he is rising that the darkness is receding; and the objects upon the earth gradually become visible.

Further, it may be remarked, that the Sun of this twelfth verse, is the illustrious personage of the fifteenth, who says, "Behold, I come as a thief". No one, I believe, doubts, that the subject of this thief-like manifestation is THE ANCIENT OF DAYS - He whom the ETERNAL FATHER by his power, "made both Lord and Christ", when he transformed the risen, earthborn, body of Gethsemane, into a life-engendering Spirit. This being beyond dispute, we have next to consider certain testimonies concerning him.

In the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, we are informed, that at a time when darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, Yahweh shall arise upon Zion; that His glory shall be seen upon her; and that kings shall come to the brightness of her rising. Here, Yahweh is the Light arising who sheds forth brightness, which, among other objects previously enveloped in gross darkness, brings Zion into view. She is seen "rising" before it can be said she is risen. Her coming into view is progressive, as objects come into view in the dawn. Hence she is a rising ot this Rising Light, which shines her out of darkness, the gross darkness of Mohammedan, or other Gentile, down-treading, into his marvellous brightness, as by his rising it becomes developed.

"His glory shall be seen upon Zion". Whose glory? The glory of the Redeemer, who comes to Zion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Isa. 59:20; Rom. 11:26). The glory which shall be seen there, is figuratively exhibited in Apoc. 14:1, as "the Lamb on Mount Zion with 144,000" Sons of his Father, whom He had "redeemed from the earth"

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from among all peoples; and from the very dust thereof.

In the period of Zion's rising out of present darkness into future light and glory, she is manifested as the metropolis, or Mother City, of a rising world, styled in the English Version, "the world to come;" but in the original, he oikoumene he mellousa, the future inhabited (earth) or, habitable. This New Constitution of Things, which was the great burden of Paul's discourse, (Heb. 2:5) will comprise the "NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH" to be created by the Eternal Spirit, through Christ Jesus arid his Brethren, in the development of which, He will "create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Isa. 65:17) - a New Government, and a New civil, ecclesiastical, and social Organization of the nations of the earth. Concerning this new government, or "Economy of the fullness of the times (Eph. 1:10), it is written in Psa. 19:1-6, "The heavens declare the glory of AlL (the Invisible Power), and the work of his hands the firmament shews. Day unto day will utter speech; and night unto night will shew knowledge. There is no language, nor any words, where their voice is not heard. Their line hath gone out in all the earth; and their words to the ends of the world. In them he hath set a tabernacle for the Sun; who as a Bridegroom coming out of his covering or place where he was hid from view), will rejoice as a mighty man to run a course. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unto the ends thereof; and there is nothing hidden from his heat".

This Sun is the great illuminator, who "enlightens the earth with his glory" (Apoc. 10:1; 18:1; 21:23); and who, in the days of his flesh, said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the Light (or Sun) of the world" - a Light which shone into the darkness, but was not comprehended by it (John 9:5; 1:5). It is this "Great Light;" once seen by them "who sat in the region and shadow of death", which is styled in Mal. 4:2, "THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS," who arises with genial influences upon all who fear the Name of Yahweh Elohim; but with intensely scorching effect also upon the wicked who serve him not.

But who are "the Kings out of a Sun's risings?" Some say, they are the Jews returning from the East; others, eastern potentates in general; others change kings to "king," and explain it of Christ, as "King from the East;" others expound it as kings coming from the East to take part, as actors and sufferers, in the slaughters of the great day of slaughter; and lastly, it is said, that the Kings from the East signify "Christian Preachers," or the Clergy commissioned from Christ the Sun of Righteousness, for whose missionary operations an opening is made by drying up' the power of Babylon for opposing the truth; and who are called kings, from their zeal in ruling both themselves and the church!

But none of these "orthodox" replies to the question throw any

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light upon the subject. Time and space are too precious to be occupied in stating objections to them, or in arguing against them. The shorter and more satisfactory course will be to ignore them altogether; and to present an answer that cannot be Scripturally gainsaid.

If we understand what "the risings of a sun" are, we shall perceive who are "the Kings" that proceed therefrom. The word anatole rendered "rising", is derived from the verb anatello, "to rise,to cause to rise, to spring up". All that springs up out of the earth is caused to rise by the power of the sun acting upon the seeds therein. Every thing therefore brought up from beneath, or from darkness, into view is "a rising of the sun". Hence, "as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so Adonai Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations" (Isa. 61:11). The earth brings forth, and the garden causes to spring forth, as the result of the sun's power so that the earthborn products of the garden, are the sun's risings. After this analogy, the Sun of Righteousness, who rises only once to set no more, causes righteousness to spring forth from the earth, in causing righteous men to spring forth from the grave; who, when "clothed upon with their house from heaven," will praise him before all the nations. The righteousness first pours down from heaven, then the earth opens, salvation is brought forth, and salvation and righteousness spring up together (Isa. 45:8): thus "truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven" (Psa. 85:11).

The Wings of the sun are his rays or beams. It is with these potent radiations that he causes things to spring forth from the earth. But, all he causes to spring forth are not good risings. Some are very noxious, poisonous weeds, which are not healed of their evil qualities by the brightness of his shining. Hence, his natural risings are some good and some bad, according to the seeds in embryo. Nor do the best and choicest of his risings spring forth in their perfection. They spring forth with bodies altogether unlike the bodies they will be, when clothed in the brilliance of their flowering glories. When they spring forth, these risings of the sun are only distinguishable from weeds by a well practised observer. As Paul indicates, they spring forth "not that body that shall be. . . but the Deity giveth a body that pleaseth him, and to every seed his own body".

So, after this analogy, are the risings of the Sun of Righteousness out of, or from which proceed "the Kings," whose way is prepared by the drying up of the political and military power of the Ottoman empire. The rays of his power shine forth with creating and formative energy. Men and women are created in the earth, and projected from it. At this

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stage of the wondrous operation, they have "not the bodies that shall be;" but "come forth" (John 6:29), With bodies corruptible, without honor, weak, soulish, and earthy; for, that which is, "out of the earth, is earthy," ek ges choikos. Each one is the Sun's rising, because the Sun of Righteousness is "the resurrection" (John 11:25); and so long as he is below the horizon, there can be no springing forth. But those people who have sprung forth into existence, "must all," both good and bad, "be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things through the body, according to what he hath done, whether good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10). That which makes manifest is light (Eph. 5:13). The light thrown upon the case of each individual is his account of himself to the Deity; "for we shall" not only "all stand before the judgment seat of Christ;" but "every one of us shall give account of himself to the Deity" (Rom. 14:10,12). This self-rendered account manifests the character of the reporter, and determines his case for better or worse. If he be approved by "the Judge of the living and the dead," he is recognized as "the blessed of his Father," and being quickened, is authorized to "inherit the kingdom prepared for" such as he; to sit with him in his throne; and to exercise power over the nations (Matt. 25:34; Apoc. 2:26; 3:21). Now, he that inherits a kingdom, sits upon a throne, and rules nations, is "a king;" and such a king, who was once dead, and sprung forth from the earth by the power of the Sun of Righteousness; and was selected from a crowd of people newly born of the earth, is "a king from, or out of, a Sun's risings".

But, though there is "healing in the wings of the Sun of Righteousness," all are not healed who spring forth from earth, by the potency of his formative and life-imparting beams. "Many," saith Daniel, "dust of the ground, shall awake from sleeping; some for living ones of the Olahm (the Millennium) and some for the objects of reproach and contempt of the Olahm" (ch. 12:2): an arrangement in the resurrection-state endorsed by Christ, who, in John 5:28, saith, "the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs (mnemeios 'retained in memory' there) shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth; they who have done the good things, for a resurrection of life; but they who have practised the evil, for a resurrection of condemnation." All these whose destinies are so diverse, are "risings of the Sun;" but, we see, that they do not all attain to the kingdom; for none can possess this, who, having come forth", are condemned. The condemnation leaves them corruptible, without honor, weak, soulish, and earthy; and such, Paul testifies, in 1 Cor. 15:50, "cannot inherit the kingdom of the Deity". They are repudiated by the Judge; and consigned to a common fate with the Beast and the False Prophet; who are subjected to the sword and burning

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flame by "the Kings" "chosen" "out of the risings of the Sun;" to prepare whose way, the wrath of the sixth vial is drying up the power of the Euphratean Ottoman Dynasty of the Goat's Little Horn.

"The Kings," then, are the sanctified ones, "the called and chosen and faithful," of whom Christ Jesus is the Imperial Chief, and therefore styled, "KING of kings" (Apoc. 17:14; 19:16; 1 Tim. 6:15). They are the same, who, at the outset of their arduous, glorious, and ultimately victorious, career, sing the new song in which, addressing the Great Captain of their redemption who leads them to glory (Heb. 2:10), they say, "thou hast made us for our Deity kings and priests; and we shall reign as kings (basileusomen) upon the earth" (Ch. 5:10). They begin their career under this sixth vial, and "turn not" from "the way," he hothos, (Ezek. 1:9,12,17) opened to them by the drying up of the Buphratean Power, until they have taken the Great City Babylon; and possessed themselves of all its thrones (Apoc. 20:4; 11:15; Dan. 7:9,18,27). The consummation of their "way" will be, that "the kingdoms of the world become our Lord's and his Christ's; and he shall reign king (basileusei) for the Aions of the Aions".

Whither the Spirit is to go they go, and they turn not when they go. These kings go their way, every one straight forward; for "their feet are straight feet," and consequently there is no deviousness in their way. "They accompany the Lamb whithersoever he goeth;" and his purpose is not crooked. His way is into the midst of the Great City, where, after the example of Cyrus, his prototype in the capture of Babylon, and the deliverance of the Jews, he hurls the Papal Belshatzar from his throne, and seizes upon his dominion for himself.

Cyrus, and the "sanctified ones," his Medes and Persians, were typical of Christ and his Kings in "the way prepared," through the drying up of "the Great River Euphrates" by the sixth vial. Cyrus was named by Deity, and mentioned by name, about one hundred and sixty years before the capture of Babylon. His name and office are both representative as well as his mission. The name given was Coresh, which some interpret by the word sun; on the ground that the Greek writers affirm that the name in Persian signified the sun. Gesenius says, they were correct. But, should we go to pagan Greeks and Persians to learn the meaning of a Hebrew name conferred upon a man whom the God of Israel intended to raise up to accomplish a work upon Babylon, which was to find its an-titype over 2400 years after? My answer is, no. Coresh in Hebrew does not signify the sun, which is there represented by shemesh. Coresh is a proper name compounded of caph, like, and yoraish, the participle of yarash, which signifies, to seize, to take possession of, to occupy, mostly by force. Hence, Yoraish comes to signify one who takes possession of

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his inheritance by conquest. This definition of Cyrus' Hebrew name accords with the facts of his history. The Deity had predetermined, that he should inherit the Babylonish Empire, which included the Holy Land; and that he should take possession of it by conquest. He therefore made Yoraish a part of his name; and, as he intended his career to be typical of His own Son's, Whom he hath constituted "the Heir of all things" terrestrial; and who is also to acquire possession of his inheritance by conquest; he added the letter caph, and condensing the three syllables into two, named him Coresh, or Koraish, signifying Like the Heir.

Now, let the reader note What occurred before Cyrus and Darius, with their "sanctified ones" (Isa. 13:3), the kings of the north, could take possession of Babylon. It was necessary, that "the Great River Euphrates," which flowed into and through the city, "should be dried up; that the way of Yahweh's Anointed Shepherd and his flock, might be prepared" (Isa. 44:25; 45:1). "A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up;" "I will dry up her great river eth-yammah; and make her springs dry" (Jer. 50:38; 51:36). This was literally accomplished by Cyrus, who turned the Euphrates from its course; left the channel of the river dry; marched his troops along the dried way in the night into the very heart of Babylon; and, coming upon the king and nobles "as a thief," put them without discrimination, or mercy, to the sword.

Such was the practical representation of the entrance into the Apocalyptic Babylon by Yahweh's Anointed Shepherd, the all-conquering Heir of the World, and the Kings, whom he will have raised to consubstantiality with himself (1 John 3:2), and constituted his co-operators, and companions in arms. He has been, so to speak, besieging Babylon, and inflicting upon her all the miseries of a besieged city, by the forces engaged in the execution of the plagues of the first five vials; but, as in the typical operations of Cyrus, "the sanctified ones" of the Eternal Spirit have not come into the possession of the Apocalyptic Babylon by direct assaults. The Divine purpose required that the European Babylon should be entered by a coup de main, or unexpected attack. Cyrus entered thus. Since the commencement of the sixth vial, Christ Jesus has been, by his agents, drying up the Great River of Babylon, the Ottoman power; which, undried, would have been an inconvenience, and an embarrassment, in the development of those judicial household-arrangements, which must precede the manifestation of "the kings of the Sun's risings", to the world. Before the outpour of this vial, the Ottoman was a power, overshadowing Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Syria, in great force. It could have concentrated its armies upon any of these provinces in great numbers; and with powerful and embarrassing effect, upon any un-warlike crowd that might be convened for the purposes of

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judgment, organization, and legislation, the necessary preparation for all great enterprises in a world like this. It is true, that the Deity could destroy them all, however numerous and powerful, as He did the army of Sennacherib, in the reign of Hezekiah: there is here no question about what He could do; He can do what He pleases: but it is not according to His revealed plan of operations in the work of manifesting His sons, to have that judicial and preparatory work interrupted by battle, and the burial of a host of corpses. To prevent this embarrassing inconvenience, He deemed it necessary to dry up from those countries the overflowing power of "the Desolator" - to diminish it, and hold it in check by other jealous powers whose mutual distrust should reduce "the Sick Man" to a nullity.

But, shall it be said, that the wrath of the sixth vial was designed to dry up the great Turkish power, in order to put in its place a stronger and greater power, the Muscovite, before the coming of Christ and the manifestation of his Kings? The sixth vial is in part to remove Gentile Power to a convenient distance - to diminish, not to increase it, in the region of Sinai, and Teman, and Mount Paran (Hab. 3:3; Deut. 33:2): but, to substitute the Russian in Constantinople for the Turk; and to give the Czar dominion over the Ottoman empire before Christ comes; would render nugatory the drying up process of the past forty-eight years. My present conviction therefore, is, that the gathering together of the national armies against Jerusalem (Zech. 14:2) is after the appearance of Christ in the South; that is, in Teman; where he begins his career as "THE KING OF THE SOUTH(*) Dan. 11:40); and before he appears upon Mount Zion. Hence, we have not to wait the advance of the Russian Gog against Constantinople, and his overflowing and passing over, and

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(*)Christ is properly described as the King of the South because he will first invade Egypt before moving north to Jerusalem against the assembled armies of the Russian Gog Moreover as by that time Gog will have occupied Constantinople he can be aligned with the him of Daniel 11 40 for the "him" is identified with the "king (neither north or south) of v 36 that is the ruler of Constantinople. The term "King of the South of Daniel 11 invariably denotes a foreign power in occupation of Egypt. In 1829, Mehemet Ah established his authority there and thereby became a King of the South" as correctly interpreted in Elpis Israel p 417 He proceeded to push at him the power in occupation of Constantinople that is Turkey and which then dominated the whole of the Middle East. His "push" would have succeeded but for the intervention of England, Russia, Prussia and Austria which powers ordered him back into Egypt The Author of Elpis Israel saw this as a temporary fulfillment of Daniel 11 40 (see p 418) But the complete fulfillment of the push of the King of the South was by Britain in 1917 when Turkey was driven from the Middle East and the way opened for the Jews to return and the nation of Israel being revived That push witnessed such an outstanding fulfillment of Bible prophecy as being without doubt the fulfillment required The next event as listed by that prophecy is the attack of the King of the North against him that is, against Turkey. Russia will occupy Constantinople to become identified as the Dragon power of the last days. From there he will invade the glorious land and drive south to Egypt (Dan 11 40 43). But "tidings out of the east and north troubling him, he will leave an occupying force in Egypt, and move north against Jerusalem (v.45). Meanwhile, Christ will invade Egypt, and so become the King of the South in the sense mentioned in Eureka above (Isa. 19). As such, he will "push" against the power in occupation of Constantinople but who then will be in Jerusalem. So the prophecy will be finally fulfilled Publishers.

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stretching forth his power over Egypt, and the Holy Land. This will certainly come to pass; but it will all be consequent upon, not antecedent to, the appearing of Christ in Teman. The Great Euphratean Ottoman Power is not dried up to prepare the way of the greater power of Gog; but, "that the way of the Kings out of the Sun's rising might be prepared".

2. The Commencement of the Sixth Vial

It is written in Dan. 9:27, "and because of an overspreading of abominations (there shall be) a desolating, even to destruction; and that determined shall be poured out upon the DESOLATOR". The subject of this desolation by successive abominations, begun by the old Roman power, is the Holy Land. It is to continue under the tramp of the Desolator to the consummation; and "until that determined" against the desolating power, by whatever name it may be known at the consummation, shall be "poured out upon" him.

The Desolator is unquestionably the Little Horn of the Goat, which, in the days of Constantine, transferred its residence and Court to Constantinople, while its Senate continued to hold its sittings in Rome. In the days of Jesus and the apostles, Rome was the residence of Caesar and his Court, as well as of the Senate. It was then the exclusive capital of the Little Horn of the Goat; but, in the subsequent division of the Roman empire into the Greek and Latin empires, Rome became in the days of Charlemagne, the capital of the Little Horn, having "Eyes like the eyes of a man, and a Mouth speaking very great things" (Dan. 7:8,20); while Constantinople continued the sole capital of the Little Horn of the Goat (Dan. 8:9).

Of this Little Horn of the Goat While its empire was as yet undivided, and the seat of its government not yet transferred from Rome, it was predicted, that he would "magnify himself against the Prince of the Host" of Israel; this he did in condemning and crucifying the Lord of Glory; and furthermore, "by him the Daily should be taken away, and the place of his sanctuary cast down;" and that he should "destroy wonderfully, and prosper, and practise, and should destroy mighty ones, and the people of the Holy ones". It is this power that Daniel refers to when he says, in ch. 9:26, "and the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city (Jerusalem), and the holy" or temple. The people was "the host given against the Daily" (ch. 8:12) by the Nahgid, or prince, who sent them to destroy the city of the murderers of the Son of God (Matt. 22:7). When this people encompassed Jerusalem, and "cast a trench about her, and kept her in on every side," it was given to

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that generation as a sign, that her destruction was imminent; and in warning his disciples of what was predetermined against Judah's commonwealth, Jesus referred to this prophecy of Daniel, saying, as it stands in Matt. 24:15, "when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place ("where it ought not" - Mark 13:14) whoso readeth, let him understand - then let them that be in Judea flee into the mountains", and so forth, "for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the State to this time, no, nor ever shall be;" that is, upon Judah. This prediction was fulfilled about A.D. 70.

This was the first of the series of abominations of desolation that overspread the Holy Land. Its existence there was signalized by the abolition of the Jewish State; the taking away or suppression of the Daily Sacrifice; the ruin of the city; the burning of the temple to the ground; and the scattering of the power of the people of the Holy Ones. The Daily, or continual, evening and morning sacrifice, was taken away to make room for this series of abominations, of which the principal have been the pagan Roman, the Greek Catholic, and the Mohammedan; all of them constituents of the Little Horn of the Goat; so long as these abominations overspread the land of Israel in power, the power of the people of the Holy Ones will be in a scattered state: that is, they will prevail until the consummation, "and that determined shall be poured out upon the DESOLATOR."

But, what marks the consummation? That which is expressed in the words, "when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the people of the Holy Ones" (Dan. 12:7). At the time of this writing, February, 1868, this "consummation devoutly to be wished," has not arrived. How many weeks, or months, or years beyond the current year of the time appointed, yet remain to be consumed in waiting I know not; but, it would seem impossible that it can be long. Of this, however, we may be certain, that the consummation, as signalized by the coming of Christ, will transpire under the outpouring of the wrath of this sixth vial. This is plainly and clearly revealed in this sixteenth chapter. The consummation is also indicated by the phrase, "that determined shall be poured out upon the Desolator". This would seem to declare, that the consummation will be when all determined against the Desolator shall have been poured out. But, how long is this outpouring to last? Who can tell? When did the outpouring begin? This is the question to be determined now.

It is written in Dan. 12:11, "and when the Daily hath been removed, even for to set up an abomination of desolation (there shall be) a thousand two hundred and ninety days". Here is a long period without

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any other beginning indicated than that of its setting up. Its continuance is stated at 1290 years. This is the whole length of time during which the abomination was to prevail upon the land of Israel without beginning to dry up; in other Words, when the 1290 ended, the drying up process would commence; but, as to the exact number of years that would be consumed in the progressive outpouring of "that determined" before the consummation would be reached, we are not informed; of this, how-ever, we may be assured, that the outpouring of "that determined" upon the Desolator of the Holy Land, will not have reached its consummation, until Gog falls upon the mountains of Israel in the war of ARAMGEDDON; which is the great climacteric of the sixth vial.

The period of the sixth vial, the wrathful contents of which are "that determined upon the Desolator", is not included in the 1290 years of the last desolating abomination of the series. The end of these terrible years connects with the beginning of the sixth vial; because there was to be a desolating by the ascendant abomination, until that .determined should come to be "poured out upon the Desolator". Now, what is the fact in regard to the abomination in the ascendant? It is, that the power en-throned in Constantinople, the Little Horn of the Goat, in the spasmodic grasp of Greek, Saracen, Latin, and Turk, summarily expressed in the terms Catholic and Mohammedan, has been the Desolating Abomination of the Holy Land for 1290 years, ending in 1820-'3. The condition of the country between the reign of Adrian, A.D. 137, and the beginning of the reign of Justinian, A.D. 527, was as prosperous as any other province of the Roman empire; but, a change of fortune ensued in the epoch of his reign, A.D. 529-'33, which was signalized by a desolating war between the empires of Persia and Constantinople, in which the Euphratean countries, including Palestine, were the seat of conflict. A peace was made in 533, which proved only a suspension of arms. The war was renewed in 540, and thenceforth continued its destructive course for twenty years. For 1290 years, wasting and desolation progressed with ruinous effect; especially since the adherents of Mohammed made Syria and Palestine (both included in the land promised to Abraham and his Seed) their battle-ground with the Greeks and Latins. The Ottoman Turks possessed themselves of Constantinople under the sixth trumpet, in 1453; and they will be expelled from it under the sixth vial, when "that determined" shall have had its full effect upon them. They were, as Mohammedans, identified with the 1290 years of desolating abomination for a long series of ages and generations; hence, being found in occupation of the Holy Land, and filling the throne of the Little Horn of the Goat, or Dragon, at the end of the 1290 years, they have become obnoxious to the wrath, which has reduced their power to the

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nullity we behold in 1868. If, then, we have correctly located the beginning of the 1290 years, in the epoch 529-'33, the termination of the period will be 1820-'23, which is signalized by the commencement of the sixth vial, or of "that determined upon the Desolator".

In concluding this section, I may add, that Dan. 12:11, has given the commentators much trouble. The Daily Sacrifice was taken away A.D. 70. As the passage stands in the English Version, it would seem that the 1290 should begin there. This would bring the end of the period in 1360, the very midnight of abominations making desolate. Not being able to work out the arithmetic in that line they have turned "the Daily" into a figure of the Romish Apostasy, or sanctuary to be cleansed, and so forth. We need not, however, trace out their theories, and consume time and space in arguments against them. It may suffice to remark, that the obscurity of the text is referable to the loose rendering of the word maiaith, and the tense of the verb husar. The former is translated "from the time;" but Gesenius, without particular reference to this text, gives more than in the time when", as a good rendering. In our text, more than from the time would be the exact signification, in the sense of when or after. The other word husar is in the perfect, not the future sense, as in the C.V. - maiaith husar hathtamid, after the Daily has been removed. It was removed to make way for the over-spreading of abominations of desolation; but how long after its removal to the beginning of the particular abomination that was to continue 1290, it gives no information. The beginning of the period would be known by those who should be able to perceive the Opening of the sixth vial at its termination, and from thence reckoning back 1290 years. It had a contemporary beginning with the 1260, ending in the fall of "the tenth of the great city," and resurrection of the Witnesses, 1790-'93; and with the 1335 of Dan. 12:12, ending 1868. If the Justinian epoch 529-'33, be not the correct beginning of these periods, I know not what other historical epochs can have any reasonable claims to be true.

3. Historical Summary of the Drying Up of the "Great River Euphrates"

Tillinghast, a commentator who wrote over 200 years ago, and quoted in Elliott's notes, in exposition of this vial says, "By the river Euphrates we are to understand the Ottoman or Turkish empire. It is called the great river because of the multitude of people and nations therein. The people who at the present time are of all others accounted the greatest are the Turks; who therefore, and no other, are here to be understood; especially as the Euphrates in Apoc. 9, under the sounding

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of the sixth trumpet, by general consent of expositors, has reference to the Turkish power".

The revolutionary wars of Europe, which had darkened the kingdom of the Beast, and scorched the worshippers of his Image with great heat, had passed away without seriously injuring the power of the Turks. It is true, that under the operation of the second vial, the French had conquered Egypt in 1798; but they were expelled by the British in 1801, who gave up the country to the Sultan; so that the political state of the Little Horn of the Goat's dominion became as before. This was so manifest that a Protestant writer in the year after, in speculating upon this vial, expressed his wonder how the prophecy was to be fulfilled; and a dominion, still so mighty in arms and population, could be wasted and dried up. "By what means," says he, "the Turkish empire shall be reduced to this helpless state (an empire formerly distinguished for its enthusiastic loyalty, ferocity and valor; and which is even at this day -1802 - as populous as any other upon earth, the Chinese excepted), is not intimated in this verse; and will perhaps remain concealed until the events themselves shall remove the veil However, this is certain, from the evident purport of the text, that a very extraordinary indifference or disaffection in the people to the government must take place to fulfil this part of the prophecy".

Affairs continued generally prosperous with the Turks till the commencement of 1820. "That year", it has been remarked, "the Ottoman empire, by unwonted good fortune, found itself freed at once from foreign war and domestic rebellion". But before the year was closed, the scene was wonderfully changed; and causes of exhaustion and distress were then introduced, which have continued their incessant operation, until at length the mighty empire of the Osmanlis, which used to make the heart of Babylon to faint, and her knees to tremble, has passed into a proverb as "the Sick Man," (*)soon to give up the ghost, and to leave the fragments of his estate to others.

The first cause that operated thus, was, as had been surmised, internal revolt and insurrection. The terminal epoch of the 1290 was now on hand. In the summer of 1820, Ah Pasha of Yanina asserted his independence; and by his revolt, the Greek insurrection, which had been for some time silently progressing, was precipitated. The inhabitants of the Greek islands called in their merchant ships; and in November, the

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~(*)In the early 1830's Russia had implemented the policy that the maintenance of a weak Turkey was safer than the creation of new strong independent states in the Balkans, but by 1841 she had abandoned her policy of bolstering up Turkey and became convinced that the Turkish Empire would soon break up. Tsar Nicholas I referred to Turkey as "the sick man of Europe", and expressed the opinion that his possessions should be shared to avoid war when he finally expired -

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Suliote Greeks returned to their country from the Ionian islands, and raised the standard of revolt against the Sultan, in alliance with Ah Pasha, their former oppressor. In February, 1821, Chourshid Pasha of Tripolizza, having marched from thence against Yanina, leaving the Morea almost destitute of Turkish troops, the Moreote Greeks broke out into insurrection, which quickly extended to the Aegean Isles and districts of Northern Greece, Epirus, and Thessaly; while, at the same time, the standard of revolt was raised also in the trans-Danubian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.

The progress and successful issue of the Greek insurrection is well known. This result was favored by an eruption of the Persians into the Asiatic provinces of Turkey in 1821 and 1822, when the Turks were subjected to heavy loss. The Greeks held the country in the Morea, while the Turks were shut up in the fortresses; and a Turkoman army of 30,000, that entered to reconquer it, having been destroyed in detail in1823, the freedom of the Peninsula was nearly completed by the insurgents. The insular Greeks were attended by almost uniform success in their maritime encounters with superior Turkish and Egyptian fleets, especially in their victorious engagements of September, 1824, in which the Turks lost twelve frigates, twenty brigs, and more than eighty transports. At length the sympathies of the European Babylon were awakened in their behalf, by the dreadful massacres perpetrated by the Turks, who spared neither men, women, nor children, in their terrible and remorseless warfare. In the Morea, Ibrahim Pasha being successful in reaching Patras, indulged in the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, and in the commission of irreparable and wanton devastation, by destroying the olive-trees and vineyards, and other productions of the soil. At this crisis, the tide of success seemed to be turned in favor of the Turks by Ibrahim's Egyptian government, which had almost completed the reconquest of the Morea. But, the decree of Heaven was against the Euphratean power; and the prophecy which the Greeks could not accomplish singlehanded, England, France, and Russia, in contravention of all their principles of policy, interposed to fulfil. Their friendly mediation between the belligerents being obstinately and persistently rejected by the Sultan, they determined to put a stop to his butcheries by force. They sent a fleet of twenty-six sail to Navarino, where they found the Turco-Egyptian armament of seventy sail drawn up in order of battle to receive them. The allies sought to avoid a conflict by friendly conference with the Turkish admiral; but the messenger was wantonly put to death, and a shot of defiance sent booming at the Asia, an English ship of the line. The salutation was promptly returned, and in a little time the action became general. The bloody and destructive bat-

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Picture of Gen Allenby in Jerusalem not shown

General Allenby walking through the Jaffa Gate Jerusalem after taking possession of the city in 1917.

THE DRYING EUPHRATES

The Author of Eureka died March 5th 1871, and so did not live to see the fulfillment of many of his prognostications based on Bib]e prophecy. The continued "drying" of he political Euphrates has been even more dramatic and significant since his days. At the height of its power, the Turkish Empire extended deep into Europe, occupied part of southern Russia, dominated the Middle Fast, ruled over Egypt and extended into North Africa. But gradually the Empire receded. In 1820 Greece rebelled, and in 1827 obtained its independence. In 1828, war with Russia was followed by granting autonomy to Moldavia, Wallachia and Serbia. In 1829 France occupied Algers in North Africa. In 1832 Egypt revolted under Mehemet Ah, and would have obtained its independence but for the intervention of Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia as outlined above. In 1842 Algiers was annexed by France. In 1853 the Crimean war between Turkey and Russia seriously weakened the former. A peace was patched up, but war again broke out between these two powers in 1871. In 1881 France annexed Tunis. In 1882 Britain was reluctantly compelled to occupy Egypt having purchased a controlling interest in the Suez Canal (opened in 1869). In 1897 Turkey was further weakened by the Greco-Turkish war. In 1908, Austria~Hungary annexed Boznia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria claimed her independence. In l911,Italy occupied Tripoli. In 1912-13, the Balkan War reduced Turkish territorial interests in Europe to a limited zone around Constantinople and Adrianople. In the Great War of 1914-18 Turkey unexpectedly declared war on Britain. The Allied forces attacked Turkey through Gallipoli, but on the eve of success were compelled to withdraw. They regrouped in Egypt, and under General Allenby attacked Turkey through the Middle East. Jerusalem was taken without a shot being fire and as a consequence of its defeat, Turkey lost Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon etc., and had her European territory farther reduced to Constantinople. The proclamation of the Balfour Declaration by Britain opened the doors of Israel's ancient territory to Jewish exiles, and so "the way" began to be prepared for the "Kings out of a Sun's rising" to move against Babylon the Great when the time is ripe. The anticipations of the Author of Eureka as outlined therein, and in Elpis Israel were remarkably being fulfilled and Bible prophecy leading to the return of Christ, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God was vindicated in the events taking place. Particularly in the return of Jews to the land and the revival of the nation of Israel (see Psa. 102:13,16,18; Ezek. 37:21-22).

Following World War I, Mustapha Kemal Pasha, known better as Kemal Ataturk, instituted a military reform in Turkey. Constantinople was renamed Istanbul; and the capital transferred to Ankara. In 1923 the Empire was terminated, and Turkey became a Republic. In 1924 the Caliphate was abolished, and in a series of laws over the next few years, the nation was Westernised. Today, the might of Soviet Russia rests heavily upon the borders of Turkey, and its demise, according to Bible prophecy, is only a matter of time - Publishers.

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TURKEY TODAY limited to Asia Minor & Istanbul (Constantinople).

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tle raged for four hours, and the scene of wreck and devastation was such as has been rarely witnessed. Sixty-two of the seventy Turkish vessels were burnt, sunk, or driven on shore complete wrecks. On board of the two line of battle ships, each with a crew of 850 men, there were killed, in one ship, 650, and in the other 400. The loss of the English and French was 118 killed and 341 wounded. Thus, in 1827, Greece was saved, and erected into a kingdom under the protection of the Allies; and by the destruction of the Turkish fleet, the way was prepared for other disasters, which quickly followed upon the devoted empire.

But, the Greek insurrection and foreign intervention simply would have still left the Ottoman empire a great and strong current of water. Its evaporation was to be expedited by the fatuous and suicidal policy of its Sultan, Mahmoud. This imperial reformer of the state perceiving that his haughty, tumultuous Janizaries, once the terror of the nations, were incapable any longer of contending with the order, discipline, and weapons of modern tactics, determined to subject them to a new military system. But to such an innovation they resolved not to submit. Finding, therefore, the hope of reforming, and thereby rescuscitating the Turkish military power, vain, the Sultan determined to destroy those troops whose ancestors had been to the Porte its chief arm of victory. While the Greek insurrection was in progress, he assembled 30,000 of them in Constantinople; and, on July 15, 1826, caused them to be surrounded in the square of the Etmeidan, and massacred by discharges of grapeshot; and on their retreating to their barracks, the barracks were set on fire, and the cannonading was continued against them the whole night following, until there remained no more victims or fuel for the one and the other. "The morning," says Mr. Walsh, "presented a frightful scene of burning ruins slaked in blood; - a huge mass of mangled flesh and smoking ashes".

To this destruction of its own power was added a most disastrous foreign war excited by its own infatuation; so true is it, Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat - "whom the Deity wills to perish he first infatuates". The Sultan appealed to the fanaticism of the Mohammedan population against Russia; and, in April, 1828, Russian "orthodoxy" being thus insulted, appealed to arms in vindication of its honor. Prince Paskewitch pressed on from the Caucasian frontier to Erzeroum; while Count Diebitch, with varied success, in the campaign of 1829 took the entrenched camp of Schumla on the Danube; crossed the Balkan; entered Adrianople; and, in spite of the unfurling of the Prophet's Banner against him, threatened the immediate investment of Constantinople. But, the time, if ever, had not come for the transfer of the Little Horn of the Goat's capital, to the Autocrat of all the Russias. The diplomatic

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"Daemons" therefore of the other powers interposed their "good", but really jealous, offices, and peace was made. It was a peace, however, by the articles of which "the drying up of the Great River Euphrates" was greatly advanced. The treaty secured emancipation from the Ottoman yoke to the Catholic principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia under the guardianship mishmar, of the Russian Gog (Ezek. 38:7). The independence of Servia was also assured, and no Turk permitted to reside north of the Danube. But, this was not all the drying up of Turkish power at this period. In this same year, 1829, the French government landed an army of 40,000 on the African coast, and having defeated an equal force of Turks and Arabs, captured Algiers; and converted the Turkish province into a colony of France; thus, another of the sources of "the water of the Great River Euphrates" was "dried up".

Again, very soon after the termination of the war against Russia, Mehemet Ah, the Pasha of the Egyptian province of the Little Horn of the Goat, asserted his independence of the Sultan. He attacked and conquered the Turks in Syria and the Holy Land, in the three great battles of Hems, of Nezib, and of Iconium, in 1832 and 1833. He now aspired to the throne of the Sultan, and in 1838 advanced as far as Smyrna on his march to Constantinople. "Man proposes, but God disposes". The wrath of the sixth vial was to dry up, not to invigorate and renovate, "the water" or power, of "the Great River Euphrates". Had Mehemet Ah been allowed to depose the Sultan, and to set himself upon his throne, the Ottoman empire would have been vastly strengthened: Providence, therefore, caused the diplomatic "Daemons" of the Great City Babylon to interfere, that they might unconsciously "establish the vision". Russia, Austria, Prussia and England, weary of the war between the Pasha and the Sultan, interfered, and ordered Mehemet Ah to return to Egypt. They then proceeded to regulate the affairs of the East in accordance with their own policy. They ordered the Pasha to surrender Syria and the Holy Land to the Sultan, and to restore to him the Turkish fleet which had revolted during the war. Mehemet Ah refused to do either, contending that these countries were his by right of conquest for ever, and the fleet as the spoils of war. The four powers, however, (France was not consulted in this affair), were not to be trifled with. They were willing that the Egyptian Pashalic should be hereditary in his family; but resolved that he should only be Pasha of Syria for life. But even this was contrary to the Divine arrangement; his heart was therefore hardened against such an accommodation, and he refused to yield. The result was that the Allied Fleet bombarded the cities of the Syrian sea-board, and took possession of St. Jean d'Acre. They again offered him "all that part of Syria, extending from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of Tiberias, to-

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gether with the province of Acre for life," if he would restore the Turkish fleet. But this offer did not suit the Deity; he was therefore still hardened to refuse, and to maintain what he considered his rights. Seeing that negotiation availed nothing, they proceeded in the autumn of 1840, to compel the Egyptians to evacuate the Promised Land, and determined that he should not have it at all; and threatened furthermore, that if he did not restore the fleet in ten days, they would make Alexandria too hot for his continuance there. Such a conclusion being in harmony with the Divine purpose, he was led to comply. He evacuated the country, and surrendered the ships within the time; thus he was forced back within the limits of his Turco-Egyptian Pashalic, which he was allowed to retain as the hereditary inheritance of his family under the suzerainty of the Porte; while Syria and the Holy Land to the shores of the Red Sea, were restored to the Constantinopolitan jurisdiction, which is more nominal than real in all the land.

To the operation of political and military causes in the drying up of the Great River, may be noted in addition, the depopulating judgments of the Deity himself. In the great Syrian earthquake of 1822, the walls of Aleppo, the capital, were thrown down, and 14,000 buried in the ruins; and at Antioch, and other towns and villages in the province, the sufferings and loss of life were in proportion. In 1821 the cholera broke out at Bussora, and carried off some 16,000 persons - near a fourth of its population: then ascending the Tigris to Bagdad, swept away a third of its inhabitants: and then, in 1822, advanced into Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, with a like fearful mortality everywhere attending it. At the same time, the plague was in its usual way Wasting the Turkish population; and besides it, other extraordinary and mysterious epidemics. The cities of Mecca and Bagdad, more especially, were fearfully desolated. In the Bombay Gazette, of August, 1831, the report is given that Mecca and Medina had been completely depopulated by a dreadful disease, the nature of which was unknown. It broke out among the Mohammedan pilgrims, 50,000 of whom it carried off, including the governor of the Holy City of the Mussulmans. In Bagdad also, the ancient capital of the Caliphs, 50,000 of the inhabitants perished by the plague. To the horrors of disease were here added the desolation of the flood and of the sword. The missionaries stationed there thus narrate the terrible story:

"The plague prevailing to a fearful extent among the inhabitants, part of them attempted to escape into the country: but they were arrested by a sudden inundation of the Tigris, by which numbers perished; and the rest were driven back into the city. When at length it pleased God to stay the hand of the destroying angel, it was found that out of 80,000 human beings not more than 25,000 survived". The judgment of the sword then

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followed. "The plague had scarce ceased, and the waters subsided, when troops arrived in the name of the Sultan to depose the Pasha; and fierce and bloody contests succeeded". In another letter bearing date, Bagdad, April 23, 1831, they say, "Surely every principle of desolation is operating in the midst of the Ottoman empire; plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars. The Pasha's palace is left open, without a soul to take care of anything. His stud of beautiful Arab horses are running about the streets. Inquire what you will, the answer is, The City is desolate". With regard even to Constantinople, the chaplain of the British Embassy resident there from 1821 to 1831, thus writes, "Within the last twenty years Constantinople has lost more than half its population. Two conflagrations happened while I was there, and destroyed 15,000 houses. The Russian and Greek wars were a constant drain upon the Janizaries of the capital. The silent operation of the plague is continually active, though not always alarming. It will be no exaggeration to say that, within the period mentioned, from 300,000 to 400,000 have been prematurely swept away in this one city in Europe, by causes which were not operating in any other - conflagration, pestilence, and civil commotion".

Admitting, then, that "the Great River Euphrates" is the symbol of the Ottoman Power to whose empire it belongs, who can doubt that its water has been drying up during all the past forty-eight years; and that therefore we are assuredly contemporary with the outpouring of the sixth vial, in the course of which Christ reappears upon the earth? It is evident, that nothing supports the feeble remains of the once mighty power of Turkey, figuratively and proverbially styled "the Sick Man," but the Policy of the Antichristian Powers, founded upon their mutual jealousies and ambitions. The declared intention of France and England to maintain the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire is evidence of its inability to defend itself against the strong.(*) Its recent conflict in the little island of Candia illustrates its feebleness, and the shriveled condition of its power. The judgments of the sixth vial have made it the weakest of all the powers, except, perhaps, the other Sick Man of Rome. These two sick men, the representatives of the Two Little Horns, have both fallen upon evil times together; and both bid fair to "give up the ghost" in the same epoch. They have both in times past made the world to tremble; and now, in the righteous retributions of the Deity, they are made to tremble before the world. They have both been made sick, and made to lie at the gates of death, in the interest of the

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(*)The policy of Britain and France was maintained until the Great War of 1914-18. Turkey then turned on her previous allies and declared war against them. This resulted in a further "drying up" process. Publishers.

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Saints, who are to supersede them in all the earth. The power of the Sick Man of Constantinople is to the power of the Sick Man(*) of Rome, and his family of kings, as the Great River Euphrates to the Great City of Babylon. Christ and his Brethren, the Cyrus and Sanctified Ones of the 19th century, are the Divinely predetermined captors of this city. They are to enter it "as a thief", and to seize upon its thrones; but to enable them to do this with all the facility the situation may require, the Great River Euphrates has been dried up, and the way of the kings of the Resurrection-Sun duly prepared in all the region of "THE SOUTH".

PART II

1. The Three Unclean Spirits

"And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast, and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three unclean spirits like to Frogs (for they are spirits of Demons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty".

A mouth is Apocalyptically a symbol of government, through which the political organization of which it is the executive, gives expression to its policy. In this remarkable text, three such mouths are indicated, as first, the Mouth of the Dragon Polity; second, the Mouth of the Beast Polity; and third, the Mouth of the False Prophet Polity. THE Mouth OF THE DRAGON is termed in ch. 12:15, the mouth of the Serpent; and in v. 16, the mouth of the Dragon: one and the same mouth, because the Serpent and Dragon indicate the same polity - sin imperially manifested in the flesh: the symbolical Devil and Satan; and enthroned in CONSTANTINOPLE.

THE Mouth OF THE BEAST is identical with the mouth of the Beast of

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(*) The final volume of Eureka was published in 1868 just prior to the termination of the temporal power of the Papacy in 1870. This later was brought about by the revolutionary policy of Garibaldi in Italy, as a result of which, the Papacy was stripped of all political power, the Papal States were abolished, and the Pope reduced to "a prisoner of the Vatican" as he styled himself. This partly fulfilled the prophetic requirements of Rev. 17:16. However, the temporal power was restored by Mussolini in the Lateran Treaty of 1929 which proclaimed the Pope once more as the "temporal ruler of Vatican City" which then became an independent sovereign state. Since then the temporal power of the Papacy has been greatly enhanced until today the Pope exercises considerable influence throughout the world both politically and ecclesiastically. This is in accordance with the requirements of The Apocalypse as expounded in Eureka, for at the epoch of the destruction of the Papacy at the hands of Christ and the saints, it is described as triumphantly riding the beast to which the ten horns have surrendered their power (Rev. 17:3,12.17). Current events are in accordance with this prophecy The Publishers.

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the Earth, which speaks as a dragon (ch. 13:11); and which appears in ch. 17, as the imperial scarlet-colored supporter of the Mother of Harlots, having an Eighth Head. This mouth has been for a long time enthroned in VIENNA; but in the days of Charlemagne, who founded the dominion, the seat of its secular dominion was Aix-le-Chapelle at present included in Prussian territory.

THE Mouth OF THE FALSE PROPHET is identical with the Lion Mouth of Ch. 13:2,5,6. This is the Mouth which speaks "great things and blasphemies". It is the Mouth also of the Image (ch. 13:15) the Two-Horned Ecclesiastical element of the European Polity, headed up in the Papal Dynasty, and enthroned in ROME.

Out of these three several political centers, three unclean spirits go forth whose resemblance is like to Frogs. There were not three unclean spirits out of each mouth; but only one out of each, making three in all. The unclean spirits are "spirits of Daemons". Of the number of the daemons, no hint is given whether they are many or few. Half a dozen or more daemons operating upon the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, only excite the outflow of an unclean spirit from each, which is characterized by a symbol, representative of the power whose wonder-working daemon causes the mouth to speak. The Spirit of the Dragon, the Spirit of the Beast, and the Spirit of the False Prophet are "unclean", or unholy; and in their operation after the advent, directed against that which is holy and true, even against "the Deity who is Almighty". They are the spirits which cause the Beast and the kings of the Earth and their armies to gather together to make war against him that then sits on the white horse, and against his army (ch. 19:11,19; 17:14). The spirits themselves are sanguinary and warlike policies, through which the governments indicated breathe out threatenings and slaughters against their adversaries. These policies are generated in the minds of cabinets by the diplomatic influences therein developed. The influence that gains the ascendant affirms the policy that rules, and becomes the spirit of the executive or mouth. When it speaks it proclaims war, and puts in operation all the machinery necessary to carry it into effect.

In the English Version these spirits are termed "the spirits of devils". This is inaccurate, and arises from the translators erroneously Supposing that daemons and "devils" were the same things. The phrase is pneumata daimonon, spirits of daemons. These Apocalyptic entities are political daemons; that have to do with politics, civil and ecclesiastical. It is true, they may be diabobi, devils, as Judas was (John 6:70) but all devils are not daemons. The daemons of this prophecy are official person-ages engaged in doing or working out, signs, wonders, or remarkable events, poiounta semeia; all tending, in their combined operation, to the

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development of the situation termed "the war of that great day of the Deity who is Almighty".

The Greeks, in their system of superstition, made a distinction between theoi, gods and daimones, da"mons. Over all there was Zeus, their king and father. The daemons were gods of an inferior order, yet an aerial race, occupying the third rank in their heavens. They were regarded as possessing wonderful intelligence; and in consequence of their middle position in the air, acting as interpreters and mediators between the superior gods and men. "The whole daemonial race", says Socrates, "is between God and mortals, acting as interpreters or messengers to both. Through this race passes all divination, and the art of the priests; for God mingles not directly with the human race, but through these daemons is ever carried on the intercourse between the gods and men, both when awake and when asleep". Plato says, that in the reign of Saturn the daemons were the political governors of mankind, ruling men as man rules the inferior animals. "Saturn knowing," said he "how that human nature, in the absolute self-control of human affairs, can never avoid being filled with violence and unrighteousness, appointed as rulers and magistrates to our cities, not men, but beings of a divine and nobler race, namely, the Daemons. We do not constitute oxen as rulers over oxen, nor goats over goats, but we ourselves retain the dominion; the same thing did the Deity, because he was a lover of men. He appointed over us a better race than ourselves, namely, the Daemons"

This exhibition of daemons excludes all idea of their being devils. But this teaching of Socrates and Plato, styled by Paul "the wisdom of the world", is made foolish by the Gospel; nevertheless, its fiction was convenient for symbolical representation of political analogies. Illus, the governments of the world and their high agents and officials, are a system of power, ordered, or arranged, by the Deity. They occupy a position in "the Air" (ch. 16:17), or political firmament, intermediate between Him and mankind in general. They are therefore Daemons, a superior order of agents to the common herd; though often intellectually and morally inferior to many among the humblest of mankind. In unfigurative language, kings, cabinets, councils, conferences, ambassadors, ministers of state, and such like, are the Daemons of the prophecy in hand. They are not to be confounded with ta daimonia, the da.monia of ch. 9:20. The fictitious ghosts of the Virgin-goddess, and of all the other saint-gods and saint-goddesses of the Romish superstition, are the daemonials, answering to the daemons of the pagan Greeks; but the daemons of ch. 16:14, are real official men, such as the Sultari, the Austrian and French emperors, the pope, and their political representatives.

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2. "Like to Frogs"

This is the only place in the Apocalypse where "frogs" are introduced. They are produced here by way of illustrating the character of the spirits that, in the period of the sixth vial, would issue forth from the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, governments to all the rulers of the earth and habitable; and in a parallel series with the series of events by which the power of the Euphratean Ottoman empire is drying up. There can be no doubt that the wrath of the sixth vial is and has been for the past forty-eight years drying up this power. This is not to be gainsaid. It is an event, a sign-event, too notorious and palpable to be disputed. On the supposition that the reader is not one of "the hypocrites, who cannot discern the signs of the times" (Matt. 16:3); but is an intelligent observer and reader of current history - I would ask him, what power has been the most officious, suggestive, active, intriguing, and meddlesome, in all the political questions that have agitated the world, during the past twenty years; and amid the greatest professions of peace and progress, has, in that period, caused the most wars, and the greatest apprehensions of more? To this inquiry, but one answer can be given; and that is, the imperialized French democratic, termed "the Second Empire". This is a remarkable and leading feature of the times. French imperial policy is the moving and formative spirit of the situation; and when brought to bear upon Constantinople, Vienna, and Rome, political results are developed, or "unclean spirits go forth," in which the hand of French diplomacy is plainly to be seen - the spirits exhibit froggy characteristics.

Such is the great and undeniable political fact, which is as much the subject of the prophecy of the sixth vial, as the drying up of the Ottoman power, and the coming of Christ. It was shown to John, that in the sixth vial period there would be a power of no little influence, whose symbol was the Frog. If then it can be established that the Frogs are armorially representative of the French power, we shall have a harmony between historical and present facts and the prophecy as one of the great signs of the times, which no sane and candid observer will venture to neglect or dispute. The testimony to establish this is as follows:

1. Montfaucon, in his Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise, p. 4, plate 6, gives a Frog as one of the monuments of the French king, Child-eric; thus writing respecting it, "3. Another medal representing a frog, which was also an Egyptian symbol". This was found A.D. 1623, at St. Brice, near Tournay, with other things belonging to Childeric. Re reigned A.D. 456. That is, before the Franks acknowledged the Roman Bishop.

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2. In the "Monde Primitif compare avec le Monde Moderne," par M. Court de Gebelin, Paris, 1781, the author thus writes, p.181, "Nous venons de voir que les Armoiries de la Guyenne sont un leopard, celles de Celts (surtout les Belgiques) etoient un lion, et celles des Francs un crapaud. le crapaud designe les marais dont sortirent les Francs". And again, on p.195, "La Cosmographie de Munster (50.2) nous a transmit un fait tres remarquable dans ce genre. Marcomir, Roi des Francs, ayant penetre de la Westphalie dans le Tongre, vit en songe une figure a trois tetes, 1' une de lion, l'autre d'aigle, Ia troisieme de crapaud. Ii con-sulta la dessus, ajoute on, un celebre druide de la contree, appele Al Runus; et celuici l'assura que cette figure designoit les trois puissances qui aurojent regne successivement sur les Gauls; les Celts dont le sym-bole etoit le lion, les Romains designes par l'aigle, et les Francs par le crapaud, a cause de leur marais".( t)

Medal of Frog found in the tomb of Childeric I

(not copied)

3. In the sixth century, 46 of the prophecies of Nostra Damus (p.251) translated by Garencieres of London, 1672, occur the following lines:

~njuste sera un exile envoye Par pestilence aux confins de non seigle; Response au rouge le fera desvoye, Roi retirant a la Rane et a l'aigle.

On which, Garencieres observes: "by the eagle he meaneth the emperor; and by the frog, the king of France; for, before he took the fleur de luce, the French bore three frogs".

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(t )The following translation will serve for those who do not understand French. In M. Courte de Gebelin's work, styled The Primitive World compared with the Modern World, he says, "The armorial hearings of Guyenne are a leopard; those of the Cells - especially of the Belgians - are a lion; and of the French a frog. The Frog represents the marshes whence the French originated". And again, "The Cosmography of Munster has transmitted to us a very remarkable fact of this kind. Marcomir, a king of the French, having penetrated from westphalia into Tongres, saw in a dream a figure with three heads, the one of a lion, the other of an eagle, and the third of a frog. He consulted there, it is added, a celebrated druid of the country, named Al Runus; who assured him that this figure represented the three powers which had reigned successively over the Gauls; the Celts whose symbol was the lion; the Romans designated by the eagle, and the Francs by the frog, because of their marshes".

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4. In Pynson's edition of Fabyan's Chronicle, at the beginning of the account of Pharamond - the first king of the Franks who reigned at Treves about A.D. 420- there is a shield of arms bearing three frogs, (p.37, Ellis' edit.); with the words beneath,

(This is the Olde Armys of France). (not copied)

The banner underneath, having upon it the three frogs, is from ancient tapestry in the cathedral of Rheims, representing battle scenes of Clovis, who is said to have been baptized there after his conversion to

Romanism.

The Banner of Clovis.

The next engraving is from the Franciscan church at Innsbruck; where is a row of tall bronze figures, twenty-three in number, representing principally the most distinguished personages of the House of Austria; the armor and costumes being those chiefly of the 16th century, and the workmanship excellent. Among them is Clovis, king of France,

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and on his shield three fleur de lis and three frogs, with the words under-neath, "CIodouus der i Christenlich kunig von Frankreich;" that is, Clovis the first Christian king of France.

Armorial Shield of Clovis (not shown)

1. Uptonus de Militari Officio, p.155, states that three frogs were the old arms of France, without specifying what race of kings.

2. Professor Schott supposes the three frogs to have been distinctly the original arms of the Bourbons; bourbe signifying mud. This may have been the case. When their family became the dynasty of France, they probably assumed the frogs as their arms, being kings of the Franks, whose symbol it had been so long. The Bourbons arose out of the mud which is natural to frogs, and by the revolution of 1848 are deep in the mud again!

3. Typoticus, p.75, gives as the device on a coin of Louis VI, the last French king before Hugh Capet, the first of the Bourbons, a frog with the inscription Mihi terra lacusque, land and water are mine, i.e. I am amphibious.

4. In the Encyclop~dia Metropolitana, on Heraldry, it is stated that "Paulus Emilius blazons the arms of France, argent three diadems gules;" others say, they bear 'three toads,' sable in a field vert-ap. Gwil-lim, c. 1. which, if ever they did, it must have been before the existence of the present rules".

Such is the testimony I have to offer in the case before us. The con-

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viction produced on my mind is, that the Frogs in the prophecy are the symbol of the French democratic power. It will be seen from the armorial shield of Clovis, that the frogs and the lilies were both used as Symbols. They are both indigenous to wet, or marshy, lands, and therefore very fit emblems of the French, who came originally from the marshes of Westphalia. But on the shield of Pharamond, so far back as A.D. 420, the frogs without the lilies appear in the armorial bearings of the Franks; and in the medal of Childeric I. there is no lily, but the frog only. It would therefore seem from this, that the lilies were not the original arms, but superadded many years after; and at length adopted by the Bourbons as the symbol of their race in its dominion over the frogs. These, then, represent the nation, and the lilies, or fleur de lis, the ruling dynasty. Now, if the apostle had said, "I saw three unclean spirits 'like lilies' come out of the Mouths," he would have intimated by such a similitude that the French Bourbons were the cause of the "unclean spirits" issuing forth from the Sultan, the Emperor, and the Roman Prophet. But he does not say this; he says they were like frogs. The truth, then, is obvious. In A.D. 96, when John was an exile in Patmos, the Franks were savages in an untamed country, living by hunting and fishing like American Indians. But the Holy Spirit revealed to him that this people would play a conspicuous part in the affairs of nations; and, foreseeing by what symbol they would represent themselves, He symbolized their nation by it, and styled them "Frogs". He informed him, that under the sixth vial their influence would be remarkably apparent. That the Frog-nation would have much to do with the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet; in fact, that so intimate and direct would their dealings be with them, that its effect would be perceived in the warlike tendency and influence of the measures proceeding from the Sultan, the Emperor, and the Pope; who, being so completely entangled in the complications created by the policy of the Frog-power, would in their endeavors to extricate themselves, involve the whole habitable in war, which would end in the destruction of the Two-horned Beast, and the False Prophet and in the subjugation of the surviving horns to the new Imperial dominion of the kings of the Sun's risings, whose way is prepared by the drying up of the Great River Euphrates.

3. The Going Forth of the Frog-spirits

The restoration of the Bourbons by foreign bayonets, in 1815, was a heavy blow and great discouragement, but not destructive, of the revolutionary spirit of 1789. A power had organized itself under the title of "the Holy Alliance," consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who bound themselves by a treaty at Paris, the real object of which was to

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maintain despotic and arbitrary power, in church and state, and to support each other against any revolutionary movement among their own subjects. They regarded themselves as delegated by Providence to govern three branches of one and the same Christian nation, of which the Divine Being, under His three characters, was the sole real Sovereign. This was a sort of anticipatory division of the great city into three parts

Greek Catholic under Russia; Latin Catholic under Austria and the Pope; and Protestant under Prussia. Having made this arrangement, they declared their readiness to receive into their holy alliance all the powers (the Ten Horns of the Beast) who should solemnly avow what they styled, "the sacred principles" that had dictated it.(t)

All this was very discouraging to The Revolution, which was not dead, though dethroned, but slumbering; and gathering new explosive force for another effort against the enemy. It made itself heard and felt again in Spain and Portugal, to the great disgust of the French Bour-bons. In Naples also, through the intrigues of the Carbonari (*), it was giving effect to constitutional principles. This alarmed the Austrian, who dreaded the propagation of revolutionary ideas which threatened to undermine the stability of his power in Italy. In 1821, the "Holy Alliance" held a consultation upon Naples at Troppau, whence in the arrogance of power, they summoned its king to meet them at Laybach, as if he had been one of their vassals or subjects. He obeyed. They dictated the invasion of his kingdom by Austrian troops. He consented. The revolutionary parliament was dissolved, the old despotism restored, and Fer-

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(t)The "holy alliance" was an agreement signed by the crowned heads of Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1815. They pledged themselves to conduct policy on "Christian" principles and to uphold the existing social and territorial order in Europe, in particular the legitimacy of the Bourbons in France and Spain. Ultimately it was signed by every European prince except the prince regent. later George IV. of England (for constitutional reasons), the Pope (for religious reasons), and the sultan of Turkey (who was not a "christian" prince). With the fall of Napoleon. the House of Bourbon through Louis XVIII was restored to the throne of France, but was later (1830) superseded by Napoleon III. The "holy alliance" became the symbol of reaction, the reaction dominated by Metternich of Austria, by which he repressed the revolution in Italy. The "Monroe Doctrine" (the policy of President Monroe of America to keep apart from any European involvement) was, in part. an outgrowth of fear of this European reactionary behavior. The revolutions of 1848 effectively destroyed this orgy. but the spirit of the original "holy alliance" continued as a model of conduct for the Tsars Publishers.

(*)The Carbonari was the name adopted by secret societies in Italy. The actual name derived from the Italian carbonaro, meaning charcoal maker, in which occupation many were engaged. From this trade and also from the crucifixion of Christ. they adopted a system of mystical rites and symbolism. They were politically motivated advocating liberal, nationalist reforms. They were opposed to the conservative regimes imposed on Italy after the Council of Vienna (1815). and were a model for the Young Italy Movement. They were involved in the overthrow of French power in Naples, conspired against the Bourbon Government, stimulated the Neapolitan revolution of 1820. the disturbances in the Papal States of the same year and the Piedmontese revolution of 1821. They were finally crushed by Austria and their membership dispersed, many perishing or languishing in Austrian dungeons. There was also an active branch of the society in France, most of whom, after 1830, gave allegiance to the Government of Louise Philippe. and ceased to be of any further importance. - Publishers

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dinand became a mere satrap to execute the orders issued from the Viennese Mouth of the Beast.

The revolutionary condition of things in Spain and Portugal was beheld by the Russian Autocrat with disgust and indignation, and caused him to convene a congress at Verona, in which it was determined to use the French Bourbons for the restoration of the old regime in Spain. In 1832, duc d'Angouleme invaded the country with 70,000 men, who took possession of Madrid, garrisoned all its principal fortresses, and virtu-ally reduced Ferdinand to vassalage under the "Holy Alliance".

But the artful policy of these powerful confederates against constitutional freedom, and the happiness of mankind was doomed to a rude and potent shock in 1830. In the words of Journal des Debats, "it seemed that the volcano which closed in 1815 was beginning to emit flames againt". The first Napoleon spoke truly when he said that the princes of the House of Bourbon were all imbecilles. Their subserviency to the "Holy Alliance," and the decline of French influence in Europe, disgusted all parties with their rule. The revolution rose against the government, and routed it at the barricades. Charles X, the representative of the Elder Branch of the Bourbons, fled to England, and Louis Phillippe was accepted as the "Citizen King of the French", in his stead. But, though there was more of the principles of '89 in this dynasty, it was still Bourbon. The fleur de lis was still the master of the situation; and, as time has proved, not the power to execute the mission of the Frogs. The younger branch of the Bourbons reigned eighteen years, in which various revolutionary attempts were made to destroy its citizen representative. In all this period the French had as much constitutional liberty, perhaps more, than they knew how to enjoy. Property was protected, life was safe, and ample scope afforded for money making, and profitable investment of capital; all of which, in all countries, affords much satisfaction to the middle classes, the bourgoisie, who imagine that the world was made for their especial profit and convenience. This, however, is a great mistake. The Bourbon kings had helped to dry up the Great River Euphrates; and the time had come in 1848 to direct French influence and power towards other objects. To elaborate these, it was necessary to remove the Bourbon Lilies and to bring a more revolutionary agency upon the stage The Bourbons forgot nothing and learned nothing. Their sympathies were all with the stagnant past by

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t The defeat of Napoleon I in 1814 was followed by his banishment to Elba, however in the following year he escaped and returned to France Raising another army, Europe was again involved in war which terminated in his decisive defeat at Waterloo in June 1815 He was banished to the island of St. Helena where he died on 5th May 1821 "The volcano which closed in 1815" relates to Napoleon I. In 1848, Napoleon III was elected President of France Care must be exercised not to confuse the two Napoleons Publishers

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the malaria of which they had become "imbecile". The spirit of the age is "the Spirit of life from the Deity that entered into the two unburied dead prophets" (ch. 11:9-11 - in 1789). This is a restless, revolutionary, progressive, spirit, essentially hostile to the papacy, priestcraft, and all the governments that sustain them. This spirit was widely diffused among the people of Europe in 1848 (§) but intensely active in France, Italy, and Germany. In France especially, the volcanic fires broke out for the third time with a fury, which all the strength and policy of half a dozen forms of government during a period of sixty years, had failed to quench. In this "wonderful year," the throne of the "Citizen King," which had been set up by a ruse played off by Lafayette upon the revolutionists of 1830, was leveled to the ground; and the fleur de lis indignantly trampled in the dust. There was a general rising of the people throughout Europe against the governments which oppressed them; and every throne tottered to its foundation. In France, the kingly form of government was utterly repudiated; and the DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL REPUBLIC upon the basis of "Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality," established in its stead. Here was a revival of the Republic of 1793, founded upon the fall of the Bourbons, and subverted, or perverted, by Napoleon I. The battle was fought by the workmen in the streets of Paris; the victory was theirs: it was the victory of THE FROGS over the FLEUR DELIS. The dynasty represented by this flower was abolished; and the marsh people resumed their original Westphalian right of choosing the most notable frog among them for their ruler. But for four months their government and National Assembly were only provisional. During this time, it was practically the parliament and executive of the democracy

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(§) 1848 is described as "the year of revolutions". The influence of the French Revolution with its cry of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity was felt throughout all Continental nations. Rioting and revolution swept most of the main cities of Europe. In that year, Karl Mar':: issued his Manifesto of The Communist Party. By voice and pen he endeavored to stimulate the spirit of revolution. Re declared that "insurrection is an art", and taught: "The principal rule of this art is that an audacious and determined offensive must be waged The national records of 1848 reveal how extensive was this effect. But it was premature; the time was not ripe according to the purpose of Yahweh, and in the main the revolutions were quelled. Only that of Garibaldi was then successful; and it resulted in the removal of the temporal power of the Papacy in 1870. However the Marxist principles of revolution erupted again in the Russian revolution of 1917. This was anticipated by John Thomas from his study of Bible prophecy. In the same year as Karl Marx wrote his Manifesto, John Thomas commenced Elpis Israel. Both expositions are revolutionary: the former aiming to overcome the tyranny of Gentile rule by the power of the flesh; the latter seeing the Spirit Word as being ultimately efficacious to that end. John Thomas clearly discerned the influence the teaching of Karl Marx would have upon the course of history. In Elpis Israel p.373(l4th Ed.) he wrote: "The hopes of the democracy throughout Europe were inflamed; and 'the earth' began to tremble until in 1848 every throne was shaken to its foundation. The events of this wonderful year are too recent to require to be chronicled in this place. It will be enough to say that the democracy broke loose, and commenced a movement, which, though it has been restrained to prevent it progressing too rapidly, cannot be suppressed until.... the dominion of the ten-horned beast be taken away". The movement stimulated by Karl Marx was repressed for the time being; but in 1917 it broke out with greater virulence in Russia to ultimately sweep the world as at present. The influence of socialism and communism today governs every government under the sun; it has brought Russia to the fore-front of the nations as required by prophecy: a remarkable sign of the times - Publishers.

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throughout Europe. Under the influence of their favor Germany, Italy, and Hungary, become insurgent. The earth shook on every side. Urged on by its democracy, Sardinia attacked the Austro-Italian element of the Little Horn; and provoked by the treachery of its Papal Eyes and Mouth, the democracy of Rome became insurrectionary, and so alarmed him, that he fled for safety to the kingdom of Naples. But Sardinia was not successful. By the defeat at Novara, the Austrian became paramount in Italy. This alarmed the Parisian Frogs, who did not wish the False Prophet to be reinstated in Rome under Austrian protection. They determined, therefore, although Rome was in possession of a sister Democratic and Social Republic, to seize upon the Seven Hills and to get the pope into their own keeping. Hence, they drove out Mazzini and Garibaldi with their adherents; abolished the Roman Republic; and re-established the Pope. By this move, they got possession of Rome, and the Frog-power became an element in the policy of the Beast of the Earth and his Prophet; so that any spirit going forth from their Mouths would have resemblance to the Frogs, whose policy might originate, or give it shape.

Thus began the French occupation of Rome in 1849. They occupied it, not out of love to the Pope but as a check upon Austna and Italy

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Picture not shown

Suppression of the revolutionaries in Vienna, October 1848. Cobbles have been used to make the barricades. Useful because they enabled revolutionaries to create instant defences. Similar risings were suppressed in Paris, Berlin, Milan, Mantua and other prominent centres throughout Catholic Europe.

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Austria and the Papacy, by concordat, ~ are one horn with two capitals. The spiritual authority of the Pope is above the authority of the emperor in all the Austrian empire, until the Concordat is repealed; and the natural ally and protector of the Pope is his Austrian "Apostolic Majesty".( t) The Frog-power in Rome is a nuisance, tolerated there because it can-not be expelled. If the Frog-power had not intervened in 1849, Rome and Italy would have been subject to the Little Horn with Eyes; and the current of events turned into a different channel. The Austro-Papal dominion would have been strong in 1867; and not as it is now, almost ready to give up the ghost. It has been the working of the Frog-power for nearly twenty years past, that has developed what we know to exist in Italy and the Roman States. The "unclean spirit going forth" from the Viennese Mouth, and the "unclean spirit going forth" from the Roman Mouth, in all that period, have been spirits in political shape "like to Frogs".

By a vote of six millions, the plebiscite of the Frogs, the nephew of their great emperor was elected PRESIDENT of the Democratic and Social Republic. Having nearly served out his time, President Louis Napoleon determined to "save society" by slaying some two thousand people in the streets of Paris, sending numbers into exile, and making himself EMPEROR OF THE FROGS. Having accomplished this feat, he appealed to universal suffrage to sanctify this usurpation, and copious bloodshedding for the good of the social constitution. By aid of the machinery employed, and the prestige of his uncle's name, the Frogs accepted him as their emperor; and he now sits among the powers, in spite of the "Holy Alliance", and in defiance of the treaty of Vienna, as the "Mysterious Man of Destiny," the arbiter of Europe; the smiles of whose countenance is peace, and his frowns the thundercloud of war.

In regard to the Sultan*, the revolution that placed the Frogs in power was more to his advantage than otherwise. Under Charles X and

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($) Since this was written, the Concordat has been abolished.

A "Concordat" is a treaty between the Papacy and a temporal power concerning ecclesiastical affairs. In 1929 a Concordat called the, Lateran Treaty, was signed between Mussolini of Italy and the Papacy. By it the temporal power of the Papacy was restored, and independence granted the Vatican. This paved the way for the international political activity of the Pope and Papacy today

- Publishers.

(+) This refers to Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria from 1848 to 1916, and powerful supported of the Papacy (hence the title). It was his nephew, the Achduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne, who was assassinated, with his wife, on a ceremonial visit to Sarajevo (Yugoslavia). thus commencing a chain of events which precipitated the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914. This war witnessed the fall of Jerusalem to allied forces, and the Russian Revolution: decisive prophetic anticipated events of history Publishers.

* The Sultan was the leader of the Muslim community. During the continuance of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the Sultinate was established in Constantinople. The revolution of Kemal Ataturk following the First World War brought the Caliphate to an end, and in 1924 the office and title were abolished Publishers.

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Louis Phillippe, the French had assisted in drying him up; but since the fall of the Bourbons, the Frogs, in concert with England, had assured him of their support in case of attack from Russia; and had declared their policy in the Eastern Question to be, the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. In 1850, I remarked, that "this assurance was certain, sooner or later, to bring on a war between the Porte and the Autocrat. If the Sultan had been left to himself, being weak? he would have yielded, and so have avoided the chance of war; but being energized by France and England, two strong military and naval powers, the Sultan feels himself a match for Russia, and prepared to assume a bold and warlike attitude". And so it came to pass in 1854; when, inspired by the policy of the Frog-power, the "unclean spirit issued from" the Sultan-Mouth of the Constantinopolitan Dragon, in a declaration of war against Russia, and an attack upon Sevastopol by the French and English forces.

Thus, by the revolution began in February, 1848, the Frogs were developed, and assumed the position marked out for them in the prophecy of the Sixth Vial. They were not to stand alone. If they had been destined to operate by themselves the prophecy would probably have read, "I saw three unclean spirits like to Frogs go forth unto the kings of the earth," and so forth. Had it read thus, our observation would have confined to Paris, where the Frogs are imperially enthroned; and

Diagram pg 211 not shown

This Diagram is from The Apocalypse and History obtainable from the office of The Christadeiphian, 404 Shaftmoor Lane, Birmingham, ~.K. See also The World Atlas of

Revolutions, p.48. - Publishers.

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We should have Watched for the going forth of the three unclean spirits from that city. Or, had the words, "like to Frogs", been omitted altogether, we should then have had no evidence to show, that the French were any more related to the "unclean spirits" than the Swedes or Hindoos. But, there the words are most ingeniously inserted; so that it may be perceived, that in the thirteenth verse, four leading political organizations, the French, the Constantinopolitan, the Viennese, and the Roman, are made the principal co-operating agencies in the work of developing the situation of the fourteenth verse. The working of these four powers, the French, Ottoman, Austrian, and Papal, in their political transactions with "the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, contemporaneously with the "dried up" condition of the Turkish power, is the GREAT SIGN MANIFESTED IN THE HEAVEN, that the Son of man is about stealthily to come in; and to resume the mission interrupted by his assumption to the right hand of Power (Matt. 24:30; Isa. 49:4-6). It is a sign of the times so manifest, that all who take interest in current events, not only can, but do see it. They see that the Ottoman Power is a Sick Man, with only two Strong friends, France and England, who stand guard at the door of his house to prevent assassins from breaking in, and plundering him of all that remains of his estate. They see also, that, for the past twenty years, there has been no great political question mooted among the powers, whether in regard to Italy, the "Holy Places," Austria, the Poles, Mexico, Rome, Denmark, or Luxenbourg, but that the French emperor has been the great agitator of the situation. All this they see, and wonder at. They term him a mysterious man, the arbiter of Europe, a man of destiny; and some regard him, ridiculously enough, as the Antichrist. Nevertheless, they fail to see the great signification of the great sign they observe; or indeed, to comprehend that it is a sign at all.

Observation and reflection during the twenty years of the development of this remarkable Frog-Sign, have confirmed me in the conviction, that the exposition I originated in my lectures in Britain in 1848-50, and afterwards in Elpis Israel, was substantially correct. It could not then be proved that the sign was to spread itself over twenty years; though it might have been conjectured, that it would continue in manifestation until the thieflike coming of the Ancient of Days. We are now at this writing, in the spring of 1868, near the last months of 1260 years, during which the saints were sentenced to involuntary subjection to the Little Horn with Eyes and Mouth; and the Frog Sign is still in manifestation. My present conviction is, that the Frogs will continue to work even after the Ancient of Days comes, and until the gathering into Armageddon; and that their working is a Providential element of the means to be

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employed, in bringing the armies of the Dragon, the Beast, the Ten Horns and their False Prophets, into collision with the King of the Jews, and the kings of His rising. But this being in the near future, we shall not have long to wait to know the truth of the matter.(*)

The Frog-Sign, interpreted by events, divides itself into sectional developments; first, the operation of the Frogs upon the Constantinopolitan Dragon; then, their operation upon the Austrian Beast; and third, their operation upon the Roman Prophet. These operations began at successive periods in the order they occupy in the prophecy; but though commencing at different times, the first operation is not finished when the second begins; but the first and second in their effects continue in contemporaneous operation with the third; so that when the Ancient of Days comes, the whole three will be brought to bear against him with all their accumulated force.

4. The First Phase of the Frog-Sign

The most notable illustration of the working of the Frogs in their developing of the unclean spirit from the Mouth of the Dragon, is seen in the serneia, signs, wonders, or events, they originated and worked out, in regard to the "Holy Places of Jerusalem," as against the rival pretensions of Russia. Their policy in respect of these, brought the Autocrat into a threatening attitude against the Sultan to whom they belong; or rather, who has present possession of them; for they belong exclusively to the King of the Jews, who is coming to set aside all claimants by appropriating them himself But in advance of this decision the Frog Emperor, ignoring the secular supremacy of the Austnan Apostolic Majesty of Vienna in things pertaining to Latinism in the East as the Eldest Son of the Church claimed supremacy over the Holy Places, and to have the right, therefore of putting them in repair Against this unwarrantable pretension the Russian Tzar as the Orthodox Head of the Greek Catholic Church protested and threatened the Sultan with war, if he yielded to the claims of France As the Frogs or the Russians prevailed at Constantinople a firman was granted revoked, and granted again. endowing the Frog-Power with preferential rights in ecclesiastical affairs connected with the Holy Shrines. Having carried its point in Constantinople, the Frog-Power endeavored to maintain the advantage gained there by negotiating at St. Petersburg; but its instructions to the French minister were not of a nature to facilitate a settlement. The effect of Frog-diplomacy there is seen in the fact, that when

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(*)Fortunately, for the present generation, ~the set time to favour Zion" (Psa. 102:13) has not yet Come; so that the Author's anticipations were premature. This is to the advantage of those living today (2 Peter 3:13-15) - Publishers.

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the Prince-Bishop Daniel returned from St. Petersburg to Montenegro, he descended, without previous notice, from his mountains upon the Turkish garrison at Zabijak, and in the night slaughtered all he found there. Thus the war that followed was a Russo~Montenegnn experiment against Turkey, remotely and unintentionally excited by the Frogs. The fire thus kindled excited the wrathfulness of Austria against the Sultan. Count Leiningen was sent from Vienna in great haste as the bearer of a threatening message, demanding the termination of hostilities against Montenegro. The Sultan obeyed orders and things were replaced as before, to the chagrin of Russia who had excited it. The Autocrat had hoped that a general war would ensue between the Turkish government and the provinces of the empire. His Bessarabian troops were ready to enter the Moldo-Wallachian provinces, and the Sevastopol fleet was equipped for Constantinople. The pacific termination, therefore, of the struggle greatly annoyed Russia, which then demanded the independence of Montenegro, which, if granted, would have been equivalent to a transfer of its mountain fastness from Turkey to Russia, as there can be no real independence for a horde.

Scarcely had the Sultan yielded obedience to Austria in the affair of Montenegro, than quite an avalanche of insolence descended from Russia upon the unfortunate Sick Man of Constantinople. Prince-Admiral Mentschikoff, Minister of Marine, Governor of Finland, and a relative of the Autocrat, arrived at Constantinople, unexpectedly to the Sultan and his Divan, but not to the Greek population of the city. He appeared there as the alter ego, or other self, of the Autocrat. He was surrounded by a brilliant escort of rear-admirals, generals, aides-de-camp, and many other distinguished persons. He was met at Topana by all the officers of the embassy on horseback, by all Russian subjects and protégées. Men in full uniform, loaded with orders, gold and diamonds, the ambassador in an open carriage, and surrounded by his staff, advanced toward the palace of the embassy, which he reached with difficulty, owing to the dense crowd of Greeks. This show of popularity was obtained by promises and money. The promises had reference to their obtaining the mosque of St. Sophia, built by Justinian, for the Greek Catholic worship, while whispers were adroitly circulated in their ears about the restoration of the Byzantine empire.

The sudden apparition of quasi Russian Majesty in the City of Constantinople excited the surprise of "the Great Powers". The object of Mentschikoff's mission was to check Turkey, and to humiliate and bind her to Russia. To effect this, demands were made directly antagonistic and subversive of the firm an granted to the Frog-Power in favor of the jurisdiction of the Papal Church, and of French influence in the Holy

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Land. ultimatum after ultimatum followed in quick succession; at length the Russians crossed the truth with the intention of locating in Constantinople, if nothing untoward prevented. This brought things to the crisis in the prophecy; and the "unclean spirit," in unmistakable verisimilitude to the anti-Russian policy of the Frogs, "went forth from the Mouth of the Dragon, "in a declaration of war against Russia; and an endeavor, sustained by France and England, to gather other powers into the conflict for the preservation of the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire, and the limitation of Russian ambition. Thus commenced the Crimean war(*) in 1854. Sardinia joined England, France, and Turkey, through the influence of the Frogs; but Austria and Prussia refused to depart from their position of "armed neutrality". Sevastopol and the Russian fleet were destroyed. The Tzar Nicholas suddenly died; soon after which the Frog-Power proposed a treaty of peace, which was discussed, and agreed to at Paris in 1856. Thus ended the Crimean war, which had threatened to become wide as the great city itself. The Frogs excited it by their policy in regard to Latinism and the “Holy Shrines;" and they quenched it when they found its continuance inconvenient. Turkey lost no territory, and "independence" she had none to lose.

From the foregoing illustration of the Frog-Sign in relation to the Mouth of the Dragon, it will hardly be regarded as presumption to say that the exposition I have given is the only true one that can be given. Nc other writer on the Apocalypse ever caught a glimpse of its signification. Mr. Elliott, who revised his State Church Exposition of the Apocalypse. in the time of the origination of the Frog-Sign, and therein devoted forty-one octavo pages to "the Three Frogs;" although he admits that the Frogs were the original symbol of the French power; and republishes from French, German, and English sources, the heraldic illustrations I have transferred to these pages; yet he sees nothing particular in it. He says he hopes that it may "not be England's sad fate to act the part of the chief secular power employed by the three Spirits to head their gathering of the world's powers to the last great anti-gospel war of Armageddon. Rather perhaps France, 'the eldest son of the church,' may be the country called to that bad preeminence. Signs have not been wanting ever since the peace of Paris (in 1814) of the strong unvarying tendencies of France towards such a position in its foreign p~icy and proceedings

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(*) The Crimean War was fought between Britain and France on one side, and Russia on the other. The "bone of contention" was basically Turkey and the control of the holy sites in and around Jerusalem, and particularly the occupancy of the Church of Nativity. The Author of Eureka believed that the future of those so-called "ho]y places" will contribute to the descent of Russia into the Holy Land in conjunction, or with the blessing, of the Papacy. The iritial success of the attack will cause them to boast, "Aha, even the ancient high places are ours ill possession" (Ezek. 36:2) - Publishers.

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Much more may such be the anticipation of reflective men, after the extraordinary expedition of the French army in 1849, under the republican regime of Louis Napoleon, and reestablishment of the Pope at Rome. There is a curious heraldic fact accordant with this view, which (considering how frequently such national emblems have been had in view in the Apocalyptic figurations) I cannot permit myself to pass over in silence, though I wish by no means to insist much on it; namely, that, as the three spirits do each and all most assuredly energize in the French nation and priesthood, so their Apocalyptic symbol, the three frogs, are the old arms of France". He regards the spirits as "three unclean, or unholy principles, characteristic of the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, directed and speeded by spirits of hell; and resembling frogs, the well-known type of vain loquacious talkers and agitators, deluding and seducing the minds of men". The spirit from the Dragon's Mouth, he says, is "the principle of pagan-like infidelity and scepticism, with its proper accompaniment of blasphemy; and perhaps, too, of rebelliousness of spirit against rightful authority, alike human and divine, 'by which sin fell the angels'." The spirit from the Beast's Mouth he terms, "the pure direct principle of Popery, based on its fundamental anti-christian dogma of the Roman Pope being Christ's Vicegerent upon earth". The spirit from the False Prophet's Mouth, he styles "the spirit of an apostate priesthood". These three spirits he regards as the unclean spirits of daemons like frogs; and considers that the precise period marked out in the prophecy is to be regarded as the twenty years ending in 1850. Having laid these premises, he occupies about thirty-seven pages with the retrospective sketch of irrelevant matters, as foreign to the prophecy as if a frog had never passed before the mind of John.

Mr. Lord very properly rejects Mr. Elliott's speculation; but, instead of throwing light upon the subject, only substitutes another, if not equally absurd, only less so, because he has very little to say about it at all. "Unclean demon spirits", says he, "are demons or devils, which enter into human beings and excite them to lawless appetites and passions. But these spirits are clothed in forms, as appears from their being compared to FROGS, hideous, groveling, noisy, and amphibious". This is all he sees in the Frogs mere symbols of qualities. Mr. Lord wrote in 1847. Mr. Cunninghame regarded the frog-like spirits, as atheism, despotism, and popery. These are specimens of the ideas of what are regarded as the best writers of the day upon Apocalyptic themes. If these are the best, what must the worst be! Being "wells without water," then, it is useless to linger longer on the brink. We shall therefore take up our bucket and proceed.

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5. The Second Phase of the Frog-Sign

The evolution of the Frog-Sign is continuous with the existence of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet; and covers the whole period from 1848, till the gathering of the Powers in war with the Ancient of Days. When this result is consummated, "the Sign" will no longer be seen "in the heaven". When writing upon the subject in 1854, I remarked, that "manifestations from Austria and the Pope are yet wanting to complete the sign. Austria must come into collision with France at last". Five years after this the Frog-Sign entered upon the second phase in the going forth of the frog-excited unclean spirit from the Austrian Mouth of the Beast. Ever since the occupation of Rome by the French in 1849, Austria had also occupied Bologna and Ancona, important cities in the Papal States. However agreeable this might be to the Pope, it was exceedingly annoying to the Emperor of the Frogs, who desired the evacuation of the Roman States by the Austrian forces. It being a part of the mission of the Frogs, as time has shown, to deprive the False Prophet of the support of the Beast of the Earth, the Frog-emperor became restless and excited, and intolerant of the Austrians in Italy. On January 1,1859, he said to the Austrian ambassador, "I regret that our relations with your Government are not so good as they were; but I request you to tell the Emperor that my personal feelings for him are not changed". A high functionary of the French government remarked, that this conduct of the Emperor was incomprehensible. The abrupt proceedings was so extraordinary and uncalled for, that people seek for its cause in regions remote from politics. They cannot conceive that mere diplomatic disagreements would induce such an outburst of illtemper, and so complete an absence of courtesy.

The emperor of the Frogs not only required the withdrawal of the Austrians from the Roman States, but that His Apostolic Majesty should join with him in causing certain reforms in the administration of the government. The Austrian mouth expressed its readiness to recommend administrative reforms to the Papal Government, but it would never, even if a war should result from its refusal, co-operate in an attempt to enforce the execution of such reforms. In regard to the occupation of the Roman States, the Imperial Mouth declared that it would withdraw its troops from Bologna and Ancona at the same moment that the French should quit Rome and Civita Vecchia; but that the right of garrison in Commachio, Ferrara, and Piacenza, which was sacred to Austria by treaty, should be maintained.

These conditions were by no means acceptable to the Emperor of the Frogs, between whom and the Emperor of the Beast there was now

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considerable jealousy and ill feeling. Francis Joseph was resolved not to bear any part of the yoke which it was thought Louis Napoleon was trying to impose on his brother sovereigns. A perfectly well-informed person remarked, that "for the sake of peace, the Emperor of Austria is ready and willing to make any concessions which are consistent with his honor and dignity, but he will not recognize the claim of the Emperor of the French to be considered the sole arbiter of all European questions of importance. His Majesty is of the opinion that one power has no right to put a constraint upon the will of another, and he therefore declines to make those reforms which are considered necessary

This brings me to remark in further illustration of the Frog-Sign in entering upon its second phase, that at the Conference of Paris in 1856, the wrongs of Italy, as represented by the Sardinian plenipotentiary, had a hearing. The western allies sympathized, and remonstrated with Austria. But Austria would reform nothing, would promise nothing; and during the three years that afterwards elapsed, instead of ameliorating, she only aggravated, her despotic sway over Lombardy and Venetia. Italy was all the while growing more restless, and Sardinia, which assumed to be its champion, in like manner grew the more impatient to take up arms against the oppressor. The Frog-emperor, constitutionally jealous of the overshadowing Austrian influence in Italy, encouraged Sardinia in its hostile attitude; and through his cousin, Prince Jerome, formed a matrimonial conjunction with the House of Savoy. Thus the Frogs allied themselves with Italian liberty, and prepared the situation for the going forth of the unclean daemon spirit from the Mouth of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth; who, so long as he ruled in Italy, maintained the Image of the Beast in life, "that it should both speak, and cause that so many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed" (Apoc. 13:15). The 1260 years allotted to this constitution of things was hastening to a conclusion; and to the Frogs was committed the working of the political machinery whereby the speaking and power of the Image would cease to be fatal to those who refused to worship it. We have lived to see this accomplished in all the kingdom of the Beast. Even in Rome the Image ceases to cause men to be put to death who refuse to worship it. The Frogs are there, and will not permit it. They have worked Austria out of Italy and, as it were, placed the Pope under arrest upon the Seven Hills.

In the Herald of 1859, I remarked, "we are now waiting to see the Second Unclean Spirit of the Frog-Sign proceed out of the Mouth of the Beast in a declaration of war by Austria against Sardinia, and therefore against France. France has created the present crisis as she did the first under the inspiration of various collateral influences; but we do not

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expect the declaration of war from Paris. And it is extremely probable that, before this June number is received, war will be renewed". And so it came to pass. War was proclaimed by the Imperial Austrian Mouth of the Beast against Sardinia. On this occasion, the following words found utterance from this Mouth: "The second French empire," it said, "is about to realise its long-cherished ideas; for the Throned Power in Paris has informed the astonished world, that political wisdom will replace those treaties which have so longed formed the basis of European inter-national law. The traditions of the first Napoleon have been resuscitated, and Europe is not ignorant of the importance of the struggle which is about to begin".

Again, the Two-Horned Beast-emperor, said, "the overthrow of the things that be is not only aimed at by factions, but by thrones;" that is, by France, Sardinia and Russia. But he continued, "the sword which I have been forced to draw is sanctified;" and suiting the action to the word while discussing the proposition of the Frogs, laid his hand upon his sword, and exclaimed, "Let the Emperor Louis Napoleon be told that I am too young to abdicate; he wants to pluck the Austrian Eagle:better to try and cut its throat. One thing let him remember in the coming struggle, that the game is far from equal between us. I risk a province; he stakes his empire on the issue of the war. Our struggle, is a just one, and we begin it with courage and confidence. We hope, however, that we shall not stand alone in it. The soil on which we have to do battle was made fruitful by the blood lost by our German brethren when they won those bulwarks which they have maintained up to the present day. There the crafty enemies of Germany have generally begun their game when they have wished to break her internal power. The feeling that such a danger is now imminent prevails in all parts of Germany, from the cottage to the throne from one frontier to the other. I speak as a sovereign member of the Germanic Confederation, when I call attention to the common danger, and recall to memory the glorious times in which Europe had to thank the general and fervent enthusiasm of Germany for its liberation. God and Fatherland! FRANCIS JOSEPH."

Thus spake the Mouth of the Beast, whose heavy tramp upon the populations of Central Italy, extorted "a cry of anguish", which, reach-ing the ears of the king of Sardinia, caused him to unsheath the sword; and in concert with his "generous ally," the Frog-emperor, to flesh it in the vitals of the oppressors; whom he proposed to expel, and so free the country from the Alps to the Adriatic

The Frog-emperor informed the world, that "the object of the war was to restore Italy to herself". He said, that "the national and traditional policy of France is to maintain civilization;" and that although she

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had passed through a severe and bloody career of seventy years, "France had not, for all that, abdicated her task of civilization. Her natural allies had always been those who desired the improvement of the human race; and when she drew the sword it was not to dominate, but to liberate". Such a declaration as this was calculated to excite the liveliest expressions of good in the hearts of the downtrodden millions of Italy; and at the same time, the most dismal apprehensions of the False Prophet and his carrion birds of Rome. Therefore to keep their worshippers in France quiet, he declared that "he did not enter Italy to disturb the power of the Holy Father, whom France replaced upon the throne in 1849; but to remove from him the Austrian pressure, which weighed upon the whole peninsula, and to help to establish there order based upon legitimate satisfied interests".

All parties having thus declared themselves, the battle cry was raised of "An united Italy from the Alps to the

Adriatic, and Rome for the capital". Soon after the opening of the campaign, the battles of Magenta and Solferino were fought, and won by the Franco-Sardinian forces. The Austrians were compelled to evacuate Lombardy; but they were still in possession of Venetia and the Quadrilateral(*), and the fortune of war might still favor the recovery of lost ground. But whatever might be the cause "the dark and mysterious man" to the astonishment of all the world, without consulting his allies, made overtures to Francis Joseph, proclaimed an armistice, and signed the preliminaries of peace at Villa-franca. The campaign had lasted only two months, had cost the combatants about a hundred thousand lives, not less than a hundred millions sterling, and disappointed all expectations. The king of Sardinia hoped to be king of Italy, but had only obtained the annexation of Lombardy to Piedmont; the Frog-emperor promised to dry up the power of the Beast from the mountains to the Adriatic Sea, but had expelled its forces from Lombardy alone; the Garibaldini promised themselves the expulsion of the Austrians from the whole country, the downfall of the Pope, and a free and united Italy; but realized none of their hopes. The Roman False Prophet and hl:s priestly adherents, trembling for their worthless carcasses, were astonished to find their apprehensions unful

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(*) Some of the historical incidents presented in this section of Eureka have been overshadowed by

more significant events that have taken place since the death of its Author. He wrote of the eventful incidents current in his days, and whilst his deductions on the facts he observed are, in the main, incredibly accurate, the details are not necessarily always relevant to the present, though they undoubtedly are of great interest. Subsequent history has provided a wealth of prophetically significant material which Bro. Thomas woul have delighted to witness, and upon which he doubtless would have waxed very eloquent - Publishers.

§ The Quadrilateral was the name given to four fortresses in Italy, at Verone, Peschiera, Mantua

and Legnano to which the Austrian General Radetzky retired during the revolt in Milan in 1848.

- Publishers.

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filled, and the "Holy Father" the "honorary president" of a paper confederation! For the past ten years the pope had been a kind of captive in his own little kingdom, guarded by French troops, and nominal sovereign of rather more than three millions of unwilling subjects, by the favor of the Frog-emperor. During this disgraceful period, both France and Austria had made vast efforts to sustain the moral power of the Papacy for the

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Picture of Garibaldini not shown

The Garibaldini was the name given to the red shirted followers of revolutionary Guiseppe Garibaldi (1807 82) Gaibaldi was a native of Sardinia and an Italian soldier and patriot In 1848 his successful defence of the Roman Republic against the French made him a national hero In 1860 he victoriously led his 1,070 red shirts against the trained armies of Sicily and Naples and added the conquered kingdom to King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia Piedmont whom he acknowledged king of Italy Ganbaldi laid the foundation of a united Italy Previously central Italy was divided into Papal States under the rule of the Popes dating back to the times of Pepin and Charlemagne These states gave temporal power to the Papacy They were annexed by France between 1798 and 1809 but restored to the Papacy in 1815 only to be annexed by Italian forces in the unification movement of Ganbaldi In 1870 Rome fell to the revolutionaries military forces of the new united Italy and the temporal power of the Papacy was brought to an end It was restored when the Vatican was given its present status by agreement with Mussolini by the Lateran Treaty of 1929--Publishers

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sake of its influence in their respective dominions in behalf of the atrocious tyranny in the one, and the suspension of liberty in the other. The Concordat between Austria and the Pope surrendered powers to the latter which Hildebrand might have sought in vain, and every despotic ruler felt the necessity of paying an apparent homage to the most conspicuous symbol of moral slavery and intellectual darkness extant upon the earth. Pius IX had commenced his reign as a reforming pope; but the effort failed from the inherent impossibility of the thing; which, it has been truly said, "was like attempting to have a useful cholera, or a pleasurable small-pox".

The recent war left Pio Nono, in 1860, still in the hands of his troublesome nurses, Louis Napoleon and Francis Joseph, who made him both miserable and contemptible. The dominion of Austria, by its Venetian province, was still contiguous to the States of the Church; and could therefore at any convenient time, cross the Po in succor of the Papal Image of the Beast, should any unforeseen event turn up in Paris to give a quietus to the wonder-working of the meddlesome Frogs. These contented themselves with doing garrison duty in Rome, and in parleying with Austria at Zurich; leaving the Pope to do the best he

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could for himself with the aid of Naples, the Grand Dukes, and the disbanded soldiers sent to Austria as volunteers, and the ragamuffins he could recruit in Ireland, against the Garibaldini and Sardinians. At this crisis, Louis Napoleon confined himself to giving advice, being really not displeased at the renewed activity of the Revolution. On his visit to Bordeaux, he said to the Bishop of that city, "that the Government that was the means of restoring the Holy Father to the Pontifical Throne, would only give utterance to such respectful counsels as were dictated by sincere devotedness to the interests of his Holiness

As Garibaldi told his little army in the papal town of Bologna, "the hour of a new struggle approaches. The enemy is threatening, and perhaps will attack us before many days are over". Austria seemed to be delaying the Zurich settlement in hope of something turning up. The Pope was very desirous to recover the Romagna; and the kings of the Two Sicilies, and the Duke of Modena, and other foolish princes, "seemed resolved on a pleasant excursion to meet ruin half way". But, about the middle of the year, a change came over the dream of Austria, weakened by poverty and held in check by the discontent of Hungary and the Tyrol. She determined therefore to postpone the renewal of the struggle in Italy. Advises were sent to the Pope from Vienna, which entirely cooled his ardor for the fray. The Austrian cabinet discouraged his contemplated attack upon the Romagnas, as, owing to their internal dissensions, they could not profit thereby. Nor could the young king of Naples aid him in a war; for his forces had more than they could do to uphold his authority in his own kingdom. This was being shaken to its foundation. Garibaldi had landed in Sicily, and co-operating with the insurgents, had driven the Neapolitan troops out of the island. Thence, he crossed the Strait into the Peninsula. He defeated the king's troops, took possession of Naples, and caused the king to shut himself up for safety in the fortress of Gaeta; which, after sustaining a siege by the Piedmontese for a while, he surrendered to the king of Italy.

Such was the course of events, the miracles worked by the unclean Froglike daemon-spirit that issued forth from the mouth of the Beast, 2400 years after the first year of the sole reign of Cyrus, the anointed Shepherd of Yahweh (Isa. 44:28; 45:1; Dan. 8:14); and, in things connected with Babylon, and his people therein, as his Divinely given-name imports, so "Like the Heir". The first unclean daemon-spirit from the mouth of the Dragon, had prepared the way in the Conference of Paris of 1856, for the going forth of the second one from the Mouth of the Beast in 1859, which in its wonder-working evolved the situation of 1860. And what do we see at this crisis? We see the Image of the Beast, the Modern Belshatzar and his cardinals, hemmed in by the Revolution;

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and his nominal dominion reduced to about 750,000 unwilling and disaffected subjects. Tuscany and the Romagna on the north, lying between the Roman territory and his constitutional protector, the Austrian Beast; and Naples and Sicily on the south, all in the hands of the excommunicated Victor Emmanuel: and the Great political Euphrates on the east, lying between the Papal Capital in the hands of the Frogs, and Mount Sinai in Arabia, to which the Destroyer of the Roman Antichrist comes, "dried up:" is not this a situation of affairs remarkably significative of the nearness of the manifestation of the Son of Man, the antitypical Cyrus; and of the fall of Babylon the Great, the abolition of the Papal Dynasty, and the establishment of the Kingdom of the Heavens?

But, the Frog-Sign in 1860 was not as yet perfected in its second phase. The Beast was still a menace for Italy, and an element of hope to the Roman Prophet: in other words, the military power of Austria had not been sufficiently rolled back for the safety of Italy, and for the reduction of the Sick Man of Rome to the hopelessness of despair. So long as he had hope of cure from Austria, he would not take the physic prescribed by the Frogs. All he wanted of these was that they would drive out the forces of Italy and the Revolution from the Patrimony of St. Peter; restore their estates to his friends, the king of Naples, and the Italian Dukes; and, having taken themselves off to Paris, never to return, leave himself and the aforesaid princes, a happy Italian family, to the constitutional protection of His Apostolic Majesty of Austria. This was all the favor he asked of these dirty Frogs, who, with their revolutionary idees Napolioniennes, and fantastic "civilization based upon legitimate satisfied interests," came into his house, and into the house of his servants, and upon all the people of his estate his earnest entreaty to the Virgin, whom he decreed to be immaculate, was, "0 Queen of heaven, take away the Frogs from me, and from my people" (Exod. 8:2-15).

But, it is impossible for this petition to be granted. The plague of the Frogs will cleave to "the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt," until their policy has brought ruin upon it, from which there will be no redemption nor escape.

The quadrennial epoch signalizing the inauguration of "THE TIME OF THE END," having been completed, the crisis was at length formed for expelling the Beast from Venetia and the Quadrilateral; and thereby relieving Italy of the Austrian menace, and reducing the Pope to still deeper misery and distress. Austria and Prussia had broken into their neighbour Denmark's house, and stolen a portion of his goods, and like many other robbers, they quarreled over the division of the spoils. Prussia and Italy being both desirous of aggrandizement at the expense

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of Austria, entered into an alliance to attack her in Germany and Venetia, in June, 1866. This necessarily divided the forces of Austria, and weakened her on both points. She was signally and grievously defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa; and compelled to draw off her troops from Venetia to reinforce her discomfited hosts in Germany. Not being able to retain her hold upon this province, she ceded it with the Quadrilateral to the Frogs, who had taken no part in the war. These made a virtue of necessity, and promoting the civilization of legitimate satisfied interests, turned them all over to their ally the king of Italy; with whom the Frog-emperor had nearly two years before entered into convention, for the evacuation of Rome by the French troops in September, 1866. This arrangement was duly executed, and this remarkable year saw Italy delivered from both French and Austrians; the Pope left to his own resources in the midst of a disaffected people, and face to face with the Revolution and Italian government; and the "legitimate interests" of the Italians unsatisfied "Rome the capital of Italy" is now the popular

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Before the advent of Garibaldi, Italy was divided into different political segments, including the Papal States. Those possessions of the Papacy give it temporal power. The success of Garibaldi's revolt, and the consequent unification of Italy terminated the Papal Temporal Power in 1870. It was restored by agreement with Mussolini in 1929.

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cry. It remained to be seen now that the way thither was open and unobstructed by the foreigner, whether the provisions of a convention of doubtful interpretation would restrain the new nation from marching in and taking possession of their own. And here ends the Second Phase of the Frog-Sign, in the year of the cycle allotted to the Image to practice in treading underfoot, 1259 (*).

6. The Third Phase of the Frog-Sign

The third and last phase of the great "sign of the Son of Man in the heaven" is that in which the unclean Frog-like daemon-spirit goes forth out of the Mouth of the False Prophet. It is worthy of note, that this is the first place in the Apocalypse where the phrase "False Prophet" occurs. It is found in two other texts after this, namely, in ch. 19:20; and 20:10. In the first of these, his perdition and the manner of it' are predic-ed; and in the last, it is a mere reference to his fate.

A prophet, in the New Testament use of the word, is not confined to the idea of one foretelling future events. In the larger sense of the word, a prophet is a spiritual allocutionist; or one who speaks to others with authority upon spiritual subjects. It is therefore equivalent to a teacher who speaks to men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort (1 Cor. 14:3). But of teachers or prophets, there are two kinds; the one true; and the other, false. True and false teachers are styled spirits in 1 John 4:1, who saith, "Beloved, believe not every spirit; but try the spirits whether they be of the Deity; because many false prophets are gone out into the world;" and Peter refers to these in 2 Peter 2:1, saying, 'there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will privily bring in damnable heresies".

"Beware," said Jesus, "of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matt. 7:15): "and many false prophets shall arise and deceive many" (ch. 24:11). The rule laid down by John whereby the kind of teacher may be known by his fruits, is thus expressed in 1 John 4:6, we are of God;" that is, the apostles are the teachers he authorized:

"He that knoweth the Deity," he continues, "heareth us; he that is not of the Deity doth not hear us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error".

Tried then by this rule, we know that the whole clerical hierarchy of "Christendom" so called, are false prophets in the clothing of sheep,

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(*) The Papal States gave the Pope temporal power as head of a state. This was terminated by the revolutionary successes of Garibaldi. The "popular cry" became fact ; Rome was occupied. the Papal States abolished, and Papal temporal power brought to an end. Rome became the capital city of united Italy - Publishers.

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animated by the spirit of error, and deceivers of the people. They speak to the edification, exhortation, and comfort of all men, who, through ignorance of the Word, are unable to discern between good and evil, the false and the true. But, to those of knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding in the Truth, they are an "abomination of the earth;" more especially that section of clerical false prophets, having "the sign of the Beast's Name in their right hand, or in their foreheads" (Apoc. 13:16; 14:11), and who minister before the worshippers in the Latin service of the Daemonials. The Chief of this Pseudoprophet Body is the Spiritual Allocutionist, commonly styled the Pope. He is the Mouth-piece of the Beast's false prophets; the "Holy Father" of their Latinity.

The False Prophet Body is located in all the kingdoms of the Great City, where they make merchandise of the peoples with their sorceries, in pretense of curing their souls. The Mouth of this Body has been, for many dark and gloomy centuries, established in Rome. It is the executive and legislative authority there, which despotically and absolutely administers or controls the spiritual affairs of two hundred millionst of worshippers of the two-Lamb-horned Beast of the earth, and of the Ten Horns. When the first vial began to be poured out, it wielded a temporal power of formidable proportions. The Roman Mouth counted three millionst of subjects in its own Church-States; this was its primary dominion the elective monarchy of the Pope-king. But, besides this first dominion, he had great political authority in all the popish kingdoms of Europe; so that he ruled in Rome like one of the emperors of old. In these high times of tyrannical superstition, the Papal Constitution of things was "the Image" of the Beast's Sixth Head, that had the wound of the sword, and lived. It was a terrible image of imperial power, sustained by the despotisms of the world, the ignorance of the people, and the internal Inquisition. But, how is it with this Image in the spring of 1868? What is it now after passing through the scorching, ulcerating, darkening, and tormenting plagues of the vials thus far poured out? It has lost its temporal dominion, which has passed to the Frogs; and the Papacy is a mere '~False Prophet", or spiritual power, with its Mouth in Rome.

But, such a Frog-civilization" is not based upon "satisfied" Italian "interests," which they deemed perfectly "legitimate," the Convention of September 1864 to the contrary notwithstanding. Since the evacua-tion of Rome by the Frog-troops, affairs had continued provokingly quiet; and there seemed to be no prospect of the throne of the Italian kingdom being transferred from Florence to the Seven Hills. "Rome the Capital of Italy" was still nothing more than a national cry, which the Convention forbade to be made effectual. The city was garrisoned by

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(*) More like 500 million today - Publishers.

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several thousands of mercenaries, called the Antibes Legion, made up principally of volunteers from the French army, who had been permitted to serve the Pope, but, at the same time, ordered to remember that they were French soldiers. This was what the Frogs called "evacuation"

a mere substitution of a volunteer for the national force to be paid by the Papal instead of by the French, government. This arrangement made a show of temporal independence and power; and evinced that the Image still breathed the breath of political life, and could still speak, and cause that as many as would not worship it in its little territory, should be killed (Apoc. 13:15). Patriots within the walls did not rise; and false prophets by thousands came from far and near, to celebrate the martyrdom of the popish St. Peter, to witness the creation of new saints, and to pour into the papal treasury the contributions of its strong deluded worshippers. This was in 1866.

But, glorify themselves as they may, peace will not abide with the wicked. In 1867, the Revolution became impatient. Events did not progress fast enough for the Garibaldini and the Italian Government. Signor Ratazzi chief minister of State, colleagued with Garibaldi's friends for an attack upon Rome. These invaded the Roman territory, defeated the Pope's mercenaries, who retired within the walls, and put the "Holy Father" in great fear. The Frog-Emperort seeing that his power was gone; and that he could no longer defend himself; and that the Italian Government did not protect him, with the greatest dispatch sent a strong force to rescue him from impending ruin. It reached Rome in time to prevent it falling into the hands of the Garibaldini, who were in force at Mentana. Having encamped, they assumed the political and military direction of the city. They then proceeded to empty the prisons choked with the victims of papal tyranny, and to renew the war in the provinces. Six thousand papal mercenaries and French regulars, armed with the newly invented Chassepot rifle, encountered the Garibaldini at Mentana, whom they outnumbered two to one. The unequal conflict

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(*)The term ~Frog-Emperor" refers to Napoleon III of France, who as Louis Napoleon, became President of France in 1848 after the abdication of Louis Phillippe On the formation of the Second Empire in 1852, he appointed himself Emperor and took the title of Napoleon III. He was a nephew of Napoleon I, and hoped to gain popularity and power by the use of his family name and the nostalgic appeal to the "Napoleonic Legend His rule came to an end with the disastrous defeat of France at the hands of the Prussians in 1870 This like 1848 became another remarkable year" in which prophecy was dramatically fulfilled The success of the Prussians brought them to the forefront of the German nations and the Second Reich (Germany) came into existence The defeat of the French by the Prussians permitted the unification of Italy followed by the termination of the temporal power of the Papacy This was a terminal date for the 1260 year period (Dan 7 25) according to the Papal times. The Emperor Phocas in AD 607 610 gave power to the Papacy and 1870 saw the termination of its temporal power. Hitler established what he called the Third Reich which linked modern Germany with the past. The first Reich was the Holy Roman Empire; the 2nd was the Germany establish by the efforts of Bismarch in 1870, and the Third was that established by Hitler. So Germany took over from Austria the role of the Beast of the Book of Revelation. This was after the original publication of Eureko; but was anticipated by its Author -- Publishers.

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was decided against the revolutionists. The French conquered, and the Temporal Power passed into their hands.

The following extracts from Parisian journals show this. "Our Chassepot rifles have done wonders," says L'Opinion National, quoting the words of General Failly in his report of the fight. "It is, therefore, to the Chassepot rifle that the honor of the day at Mentana is due". Now we know the victor, but who was the vanquished? The vanquished was THE TEMPORAL POWER. The intervention of the French troops at the moment when the victory wavered between the Garibaldians the Papahans, has proved once more that the Pope-king was incapable of defending himself by his own strength. As the Journal des Debats says, by "sending our troops to the help of that power in distress, we have only furnished its adversaries with fresh arguments to show how impossible it is to restore life to it. Is it not Strange, that in order to safeguard him whose anathemas formerly made Europe tremble, it was necessary for modern invention to discover, just in time, the most murderous instrument? This is what the Papacy is now reduced to; it subsists because a rifle has been made which makes wounds larger, and more incurable than the old projectiles

“What do we see in Rome?" says the Journal des Debats. "It is no longer the Holy Father or his Ministers, it would appear, who exercise authority there, but a French general".

"For the sake of truth," says Ii Diritto, 'we must confirm the fact, that scarcely had the French arrived than the spirit of terrorism ceased, which the Papal Government had created in the country. The prisons in which three thousand suspected persons groaned are being emptied by order of the French, who have taken the political and military direction of Rome. We took up arms to put the Sovereign Pontiff in a state of command in his States, and yet it seems IT IS WE ALONE who exercise authority there".

It is then no longer a question of the Pope's temporal power. He is the SPIRITUAL HEAD of the worshippers of the Beast; and will so continue to be until he sinks into the volcanic abyss to come forth no more. His temporal power seems to have gone forever, and, true to its murderous antecedents, in its sanguinary departure, has signalized the last year of the 'forty-two months," or 1260 years, Divinely allotted to it to practise and prevail against its enemies. The revolutionary Frogs are in the very "Mouth," or government, "of the False Prophet," so that any spirit henceforth proceeding thence, must be, not only an unclean daemon-spirit, but also "like to a Frog". Doubt, then, is at length removed. We may now know that A.D. 607, is the true date of the confirmation of the papal institution by Phocas. The issue is now no longer

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between Italy and the Temporal Power; but between Italy and the Frogs. Shall Rome and its territory be, as now, a mere fief, or dependency of the French empire; or shall they become part of an united Italy? This is a question pregnant with great trouble to all concerned. M. Rouher, minister of state, has declared that the French government will not allow Rome to become the capital of Italy. This determination they are preparing to support by arms. They are at present engaged in making Civita Veechia an impregnable fortress for permanent occupation; and in storing up there abundant warlike materiel for whatever troops may choose to diverge thence upon Italian territory.(*)

A letter from Rome in the Correspondence Italienne, says: "Cardinal Antonelli, in his private conversations, expresses firm belief in approaching war. He says, that the great works which the French are executing are by no means intended to shelter Rome from a coup de main of Garibaldi, but to guarantee it against an attack of the regular Italian army. In the war which is preparing, he recently said, the French army will fight alone against Italy, and we shall keep our troops to hold in respect the Roman population. The Cardinal Secretary of State is also said to have remarked, that 'the Emperor Napoleon has lost all sympathy for Italian Unity ever since the discovery of the secret between Signor Ratazzi and Herr Bismark'."

My maturest conviction is that "Rome the Capital of Italy,"(t) is a vain cry. Eight recognized forms of government have reigned there since the foundation of the city. The Papacy is the ecclesiastical element of the Eighth Head, which is the last, and goes into perdition with the city. We read of no Ninth Head upon the Seven Mountains. If Italy gained Rome, and removed the throne from Florence thither, it would be

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* The French were compelled through their defeat at the hands of the Prussians in 1870 to with-draw from Italy thus paving the way for Italian independence - Publishers.

(t) Rome did actually become capital of Italy in 1870, when the French were forced to withdraw their troops from the city because of their disastrous defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. Italian revolutionaries then entered Rome and took the city, placing Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia on the throne. This, we believe, was prophetically necessary in order to provide a revolutionary political voice of intrigue to issue from the 'mouth of the false prophet" as required by The Apocalypse (Rev. 16:13). The horns associated with the revived Beast of the Sea, the Western European powers, are required to first hate the whore and make her desolate and naked and afterwards to "agree and give their kingdom unto the beast (Rev 17 16 17) In consequence at the epoch of its judgment at the hands of Chnst Babylon the Great is seen triumphantly riding the beast (Rev 17:3). The revival of a united Italy provided the means for this Following World War I Mussolini came to power in Italy, and in 1929 through the Lateran Treaty revived the temporal power of the Papacy by granting Papal autonomy over the Vatican After World War II the Common Market was brought into existence by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 providing the means whereby the horns of the West began to "give their kingdom unto the beast Today Europe is divided into two parts answering to the two feet of the Image seen by Nebuchadnezzar the Common Market is laying the foundation for the full manifestation of the “beast" of The Apocalypse, whilst the international influence and prestige of the Papacy are more widespread than at any time in its history. The Author of Eureka died on 5th March, 1871 So he did not see the remarkable political developments that have vindicated his interpretation of The Apocalypse - Publishers.

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the capital of a new form of government, and therefore the Ninth. There may be a struggle between France and Italy to decide the point. The unclean daemon-spirit about ere long to issue from the Mouth of the False Prophet will enlighten us still further in relation to it. Were the Italians to get the city, they could not retain it long; for apart from the reason, that no ninth form can be constitutionally recognized, is the fact that there is one standing at the door, whose mission it is to destroy the city that it may "be found no more at all" (Apoc. 18:21). This will effectually settle all controversy about Rome, and put a quietus upon the Roman Question forevermore.

Such is the manifestation of the third phase of the Frog-Sign as far as it has been displayed to this February, 1868. In a short time the last of the 1260 and 1335 years will have expired; at all events, these numbers of years will have elapsed since the issue of Justinian, the Dragon-emperor's, Decretal Epistle to the Bishop of Rome, A.D. 533, constituting him the Chief Seer, or Prophet, or Spiritual Head of the Ecclesiastical Body of the Roman world: and since the confirmation of this appointment by Phocas, A.D. 607, respectively. As we have seen, the three phases of the Frog-Sign have had three successive beginnings, each signalized by a war; the first began in 1853, resulting in the Crimean war; the second, in 1859, in the Italian war; and the third, in 1867, in the invasion of the Roman States. But the Frog-Sign is not yet complete. The prophecy seems to require "a simultaneous going forth" of all the three daemon-spirits to the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable: to convene them contemporaneously to encounter some great and urgent danger, that threatens, if not overcome, to subvert and destroy all their "legitimate interests". Among the influences brought into exceedingly prominent activity will doubtless be the Franco-Papal, or the unclean froglike daemon-spirit that issues from the Mouth of the False Prophet. When the crisis is formed, the Prophet of the Great City will be in high feather, exerting himself in the presence of the Beast, with all the spiritual influence he possesses over the millions of Antichristendom, to induce them to join in the crusade preached, as the grand rally of "the earth and the whole habitable" against the great and pressing terror of the situation (t).

The "kings of the earth" are the rulers of middle, eastern, and northern Europe; and those of "the whole habitable", western and southern Europe, with other outlying regions, whose powers are Apocalyptically symbolized. But, what is the Great Terror that throws the Dragon,

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(t) This has provided the means for the extension of political prestige and power on the part of the Pope, which is today a significant sign of the times. - Publishers.

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the Beast, and the False Prophet, into such tumultuous alarm, that their several governments should seek to excite the whole world simultaneously to war? The answer to this important question will form the subject of the third part of the prophecy of this Sixth Vial.

PART III.

1. The Thieflike Advent

"Behold, I come as a thief' Verse 15.

The position of this announcement of the thieflike advent in the prophecy, is remarkable. It stands between the going forth of the Frog-like Spirits, and the gathering of the kings into Armageddon. This indicates, that the Advent takes place before the gathering into that place or country.

But, who is it that comes as a thief? This must be answered Apocalyptically. This prophecy is introduced by directing the reader's attention to Ch. 1:4,8, to him, "who is, and who was, and who is coming". In this latter text, this august personage styles himself, ho pantokrator, the Almighty One: and in verse 13, "one like to a Son of Man," "he that liveth, and was dead, and is living for the aions of the aions" (verse 18). The Son-of-Man similitude, whose "voice is as the sound of many waters," or "the voice of a multitude," the ONE BODY of which the anointed Jesus is the Head, is the Omega and the End, "who is to come".

The Coming One, who makes his entrance stealthily, is not merely a single individual; but a body of individuals, consisting of the kings of the earth and their Prince (ch. 1:5) to prepare whose way, the Great River Euphrates has been dried up. It is the body of Earth's future kings, who will all be conformed to the Christ Image (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2). They constitute the Mighty Angel, heaven-descended, who had been clothed with cloud (ch. 10:1); and from whose glory the earth is illuminated (ch. 18:1). This angel-body of kings is constituently exhibited ch. 19:11-16. In this place, it is shown to be constituted of the hosts in the heaven accompanying their Commander in war. He and they together illustrate the name, "King of kings and Lord of lords" - the Seven Spirits of the Deity manifested in the Saints.

Such is "the Man who is the Angel" (ch. 21:17) who comes as a thief-the Man whose measure is 144 cubits. But, to whom is he to come as a thief? Certainly not to the constituents of his own body, which would be coming to himself. No; he comes upon the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, as a thief. He breaks in unexpectedly into the Great

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City by way of the dried up channel of the great Ottoman Euphrates. He plants himself in the limits of the Turkish territory, where he makes all necessary preparations for "the war of the great day of the Deity who is almighty". The exhausted condition of the Ottoman Power is favorable to this preparation of the way. It was dried up for this very purpose, namely, that after the drying up was sufficiently advanced, the way might be prepared to carry into effect what is to follow. This glorious and terrible man can make no progress until he is prepared. When he is created and perfected, he is the way prepared. "I am" said Jesus, "the way;" and this man with a mission, and therefore, man and angel, must be conformed to him as the model. But, if he be a man not yet created, who was that, who eighteen hundred years ago said in the text, "Behold, I come as a thief"? Who is indicated by the personal pronoun "I"? The answer to this is the ETERNAL SPIRIT. figuratively represented in Ch. 5:6, by "a Lamb as it had been slain, having Seven Horns and Seven Eyes" the Eternal Spirit, manifested in the glorified Jesus, who is to the One Body as the acorn to the oak. The Alpha, the First, the Beginning, is the Deity manifested in flesh justified by spirit, and called Jesus Christ; the Omega, the End, and the Last, is also the Deity manifested in flesh, justified by spirit, and styled, in Eph. 4:13, "the PERFECT MAN. the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ".

This Perfect man comes into Babylon the Great as a thief. A thief gets into the house as quietly and noiselessly as possible; and chooses a time when he supposes all the inmates are fast asleep, and consequently off their guard. Having opened a door, or effected an entrance of some sort, he prepares to carry off the spoil. All his preparations for this are done with great caution and carefulness, so as not to awake the sleepers; from whom, the little light he employs is averted, lest its stimulus should disturb their slumbers. This is as a thief comes, and exactly illustrates the coming of the "One like to a Son of Man". He does not come into Babylon like a descending balloon from the clouds, with all eyes fixed upon him, and wondering where he is going to alight! A thief does not come after this fashion.

Thus, "the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night: for when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren," continues Paul in 1 Thess. 5:3,4, "are not in darkness, that that day should over-take you as a thief". We see from this, the class upon whom the coming is as a thief it is upon them who are in darkness. While the Perfect Man is being developed, the Dragon, the Beast, and the Roman Prophet, will be saying, "Peace and safety;" and the last especially, as the organ of Catholicity, in heart saying, "I sit queen and no widow, and

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shall see no sorrow". These are all in the dark, doting upon speculations none of which Will be realized, but only the reverse.

But, when, where, and how, is the Perfect Man apocalypsed, or revealed? As to the when, the answer is, in the interval between the arrival of the Lord Jesus, and the coming in upon the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet as a thief, after the type of Cyrus and his companion kings. In this interval, the real Sons of the Deity are manifested, and separated from mere pretenders to Sonship. It is the interval termed inCh. 11:18, "the time of the dead that they should be judged"; and, in ch. 20:12,13, also referred to in the words, "I saw the dead, small and great, who had stood, hestotas, before the Deity; and the books had been opened; and another book had been opened, which is that of the life: and the dead had been judged by the things which had been written in the books, according to their works" hekastos, "every one:" parallel with which likewise is ch .22.12, In which it is written, "Behold, I come quickly: and my reward is with me to give back (apothounai) to every one as his work shall be" as his work shall on inspection be found to be. It is in this time, styled by Peter, in 1 Peter 2:12, "THE DAY OF INSPECTION,” hemera episkopes, that the Rainbowed Angel, or Perfect Man, is to be made manifest, and developed into being. "The apocalypse of the Sons of Deity" (Rom. 8:19), which is "the adoption" or "redemption of our body" (v.23), cannot occur in the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he is "the resurrection and the life"; and till he revisits the earth, there can be neither.

He is no longer simply the earthborn body that was crucified and buried. After he came forth from the tomb, which of itself under the law was defiling to the party buried, and to any living person who should touch him, Jesus was also upon the third day "justified by spirit," or "made perfect," in ascending by the power of the Spirit from the earth-born nature, to consubstantiality of substance with the Father, "who is spirit" (John 4:24). Thus freed from all earthiness, he became spirit, upon the principle he had laid down in his discourse to Nicodemus, that "that which has been born out of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). Hence, the perfected Jesus is the Spirit-Nucleus of the Perfect Man to be revealed, or apocalypsed. The Lord Jesus comes not as a thief to them that are watching. He is "the Lord the Spirit" for whom they are waiting and earnestly looking; knowing that he comes when the 1335 years are expired, "in the Time of the End", and before the gathering of the hosts of the nations in the field of Armageddon.

Such is in brief the answer to the inquiry when is the mighty angel-man to be apocalypsed, or developed into visible existence? The next question is where is his development to ensue? And here I may refer the

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reader to what I have already written in Vol. 3pp. 178-187. It would not be right to reproduce these eight pages in this place. It will be enough to refer to them, and to remark that the development of the Rainbowed Angel is the same thing as the development of the Perfect Man, whose constituents are "the kings from a Sun's risings". I would, however, remind the reader, that Habakkuk informs us, that "Eloah shall come in from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran; and that while he is in Teman, he will also be in Sinai, in the holy" (Psa. 68:17). "Yahweh, says Moses, "came in from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he caused to shine forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thou-sands of the holy". These localities are in the north-western corner of Arabia, and south of the Palestinian pachalik of the Little Horn of the Goat's Euphratean empire. Further to the northwest is Egypt, also a province of the Great River Euphrates. In this wilderness region of the South, bounded by the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea from the Gulf of Suez to the Gulf of Akaba, the Arabian Desert, and Palestine; situate and being in the land promised to Abraham and his Seed - it appears to me, from the testimony already in the hands of the reader, the KING OF THE JEWS will first manifest his presence, not to the world at large; which will not know of his being there, or, if told the fact, would not believe it; but to those, whom "the blood of the covenant" brings before his tribunal. This southern region of which as King of the Jews he is king, therefore, "King of the South," is the locality of that tribunal, or judgment seat (bema, not thronos), before which we must all stand that we may be made manifest. The locality of the Throne (thro-nos) is Jerusalem, about 280 miles in a straight line from Sinai. Mount Zion is the place of "THE GREAT WHITE THRONE" (ch. 20:11; 4:2). This is not ascended until the victorious King of the Jews and his Perfect Man of 144 cubits, or thousands, have wrested the city out of the hands of the Little Horn of the Goat (Dan. 8:9,11,23,25;. We have not now to do with this; but with the bema, or Supreme Court, the judicial bench, styled in Rom. 14:10, and 2 Cor. 5:10, "the Judgment Seat of Christ". All who have made a covenant with Yahweh by sacrifice, and in any way related to "the Covenants of Promise," will be gathered (Psa. 50:5) and stand before this; but it will only be the chosen few, "the called, and chosen, and faithful," who will be admitted to share in the honor, dignities, and glory of the name of Yahweh in Jerusalem enthroned (Jer. 3:17). Let the reader note well this distinction between the Throne and the Judgment Seat, their different localities, and the different times of their establishment. The transactions connected with each are different series of events; which, if mixed up together create inextricable confusion.

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The third question is, how is the Perfect Man, who is to descend upon Babylon's powers and populations "as a thief," to be apocalypsed, )r brought into existence? By the power of the Eternal Spirit, or Father, operating through the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the principles laid down in Paul's epistles. With a very few exceptions now existing among the living, the future constituents of the Perfect Man are nothing but incorporeal dust and ashes - dust without form or body. When living in the present state they were men and women, who understood, believed, obeyed, and walked, in the Truth, and thereby obtained registry in the Lamb's Book of Life (Mal. 3.16,17, Dan. 12.1, Exod. 32.32,33, Apoc. 20:15). In the resurrection epoch, dust is formed into bodies. They are then "the dead who are in the graves". The next thing is, they are caused "to hear the voice of the Son, who has the life in himself". On hearing this they then "come forth" from the graves by the momentum communicated to them by the earth which "casts them out". After this, their consciousness of a previously developed character being impressed upon them, the angels employed in the service, gather them together from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other, unto the Lord Jesus Christ; so that, if I have correctly expounded the testimony of Moses, David, and Habakkuk, the angels will gather them "unto him" in the South in the wilderness of Sinai. At this point the reader will please refer to the following texts (John 5:26-29; Isa. 26:19; Matt. 24:31; 2 Thess. 2:1).

This coming forth of the future constituents of the Perfect Man from the graves, restores them to an equality with the few among the living, who may attain perfection with them. In this co-equality they are intellectually, morally, and materially alike. That which is out of the earth, ek ges, is, and can only be, earthy, choikos. These coequals, who have all come from the earth directly or indirectly, are therefore "earthy;" and therefore also, until subjected to a further operation of Spirit, unfit to enter the kingdom of the Deity.

Furthermore, the grave is regarded in the Divine law as an unclean place, and defiling. Under Moses' law, if a man touched a grave, or a bone, or a corpse, he contracted a defilement, from which he could not be cleansed under a week. This was styled "filth of the flesh" (1 Pet. 3:21) and typified the real nature of all bodies coming forth from the grave. The "flesh" of these is that peculiar constitution of their substance which forms its earthiness. The subject of such a nature, however excellent a character he may be, or may have been, is materially defiled, or unclean. Therefore, nothing born of a woman is clean, even though it have been begotten in her substance by the power of the Spirit (Job 14:4; 25:4). Now, this is a principle of the knowledge revealed to us, and

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is of universal application. It obtains in relation to Jesus himself. In Gal. 4:4, Paul says, the Son of the Deity sent forth, "was made of a woman, made under the law". The body so made and born was therefore unclean materially and Mosaically; and could no more "enter heaven itself to appear in the presence of Deity for us" (Heb. 9:24) in that nature, than that flesh and blood should inherit his kingdom (1 Cor. 15:50). Would any one intelligent in the Word affirm that an unclean body, made yet more unclean by becoming a corpse, and therefore defiling to every one who touched it, becomes clean by being put into an unclean place, and lying there for three days, less or more? Would the simple fact of that corpse coming to life in a tomb which its presence had Mosaically defiled, and walking out of it, make it a clean body, or nature? If it be replied that it would, why then was not Lazarus, whom Jesus raised, clean of nature? If it be replied, "he was"; then Jesus was not the "first out of a resurrection of dead ones" (Acts 26:23).

But, passing through the grave cleanses no one. They who emerge thence, "come forth" with the same nature they carried into it; and therefore their coming forth is Resurrection. If the same kind of body did not come forth that was buried, it would not be Resurrection, but only surrection, as in the case of the first man. Jesus "rose AGAIN" (1 Cor. 15:4); his coming forth was therefore resurrection. He rose again the same Jesus that was buried, only that instead of being dead, he was alive again. He was buried under the curse of the law, which "made him a curse for" our benefit (Gal. 3:13): he came forth while that same law was in force and Operation. His coming forth upon the arena of his execution did not relieve him from the curse of that law, which sentenced him to continuous and everlasting death; so that, if they could have recaptured him, the Mosaic authorities would doubtless have returned him into death. That law regarded him as dead, and its authorities refused credence to the report, that he had come to life. After he had come forth he saw Mary, a Jewess, who mistook him for the gardener, so like other men did he appear. Having convinced her of her error, he checked the impulse of her affection by saying to her, "Touch me not!" It was defiling for Jews to touch a thing declared to be unclean by the law. Any thing from the grave was enacted to be unclean, in reference to him who should come out of the tomb, until that he should be 'revived" (Rom. 14:9) or "made a quickening Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45). Christ was "the end of the law," the substance or body of the shadow (Rom. 10:4; Col. 2:17); its lines concentred in the things pertaining to his body. The interdict forbidding it to be touched was indicative of its not then having been changed into spirit; and that it was still earthy and inferior to the substance of the Father. He gave the reason why he forbade his body to be

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touched; "for," he said, "I have not yet ascended to my Father". No one might touch him until that ascent had taken place. It did not occur till after Mary left him; but it had doubtless taken place before his walk with Cleopas and another to Emmaus; for they appear to have traveled very sociably together. The swallowing up of every particle of the earthiness of an earthy body, is an instantaneous operation; the work of "a moment, or the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51,52). It was one of the events that transpired in relation to Jesus on the third day. He "rose and revived" on the third day (Rom. 14:9). He not only rose on the third day, but he revived on the same day. Rising is one thing, reviving is an-other; and two different words are used by the apostle to express the different ideas. The Father who is Spirit, had "forsaken" Jesus upon the cross, and left him to die there. Having become a corpse and been laid in a tomb, that corpse was like all other corpses, utterly without intelligence and power; for "the dead know not anything" (Ecc. 9:5,10); and "the Lord (YAHWEH) is not the Deity (AlL, or Power) of dead, but of living ones, for they all live by him" (Luke 20:38). When this corpse, named Jesus, opened its eyes, stood upon its feet and came forth from the tomb, it "rose". At this point of time it was neither Lord nor Christ. The Father, who had forsaken him and left him to die, had not yet returned to him; for if he had returned to the corpse while in the tomb in causing it to stand and walk, that risen body after coming forth would not have said, "I have not yet ascended to my Father". This was equivalent to saying, I am an earthy, or natural, body just come forth from the unclean place; and have not yet been "made perfect," "justified by the spirit," or "made a quickening spirit". The Father hath not yet clothed me with my house which is from heaven; so that that which constitutes me earthy and mortal is not yet "swallowed up of life;" therefore, “Touch me not" until I have been "constituted Son of Deity in power, through Spirit of holiness, out of a resurrection of dead ones" (Rom. 1:4). I am now simply Jesus born of the tomb, "of the earth earthy;" but when my earthiness of body is instantaneously "swallowed up of life," I shall be Spirit; I shall be of equal and identical substance with the Father; and by this anointing, I shall become Christ, or the Anointed One, and "the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. 15:47).

This anointing with Spirit and Power was the revival in a greater degree of the former relations subsisting between the Father and the Son. He had been "anointed with holy spirit and power" after he had been born of water. This did not change his body into Spirit; it only invested the body born of unclean flesh, or "made of a woman," with the wisdom and power of the Father in heaven, who discoursed and worked through it (John 5:19,30; 6:38,63; 8:42,58; 10:30; 14:10,28). But when

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the body was anointed again with holy spirit and power, or "spirit of holiness," after it was born of the second unclean place, the tomb, it was not only endued and embued with wisdom and power as before, but it was itself transformed into an embodiment of eternal power, in which there is no weakness, or corruption, or principle of death at all. It was then "revived," anezese, as well as risen again, aneste. It became "the body of his glory," soma tes doxes autou (Phil. 3:21), "raised in glory" from the earthy body which is "without honor," en atimia (1 Cor. 15:43); and forty days after, "taken up in glory" (1 Tim. 3:16).

Such was the model, or "Heavenly Man," whose image, intellectual, moral, and material, all must bear who may become the future constituents of the Perfect Man, who comes upon the world as a thief. I have been rather particular in the exposition of the things connected with the body of Jesus, which being made subjectively to know orach chayim, "the way of lives," became "the Way" (John 14:6) illustrative of the manner in which all his brethren will experimentally pass from the humiliation of death to the exaltation of eternal life and glory. They, as he, come forth from the unclean house of death earthy, and, therefore, unclean bodies. As such, they are gathered together by angelic agency into the presence of the Judge, who awaits them in the wilderness of the South. There they pass their examination as candidates for companion-ship with him in the kingdom and glory about to be established and developed by the Eternal Spirit through the Perfect Man. The examination is the scrutiny of character made flesh. If the characters of the candidates for Divine honors be approved, then their "mortal flesh" as Paul terms it in 2 Cor. 4:11, becomes the subject of a spiritual operation, which, "in the twinkling of an eye," justifies, or perfects it, and thereby causes it to ascend from flesh to Spirit, which is equivalent to ascending from the low origin and level of an earthborn, to the Heavenly Father who is Spirit.

These transactions being finished whereby "they who have done good" are "made manifest," and separated from the refuse and the vile, like their model was, are "made higher than the heavens" (Heb. 7:26). They are the Perfect Man, whose constituents are all kings and priests the Yahweh Elohim omnipotent; the Wife of the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, married, or inseparably united, to the Spirit. Being Spirit, whatsoever they do the Spirit doth; so that all their great and glorious deeds in the subjugation and regeneration of the world, will be wrought in Deity.

Such, then, is the Spirit who saith, "Behold, I come as a thief". He comes from the far country, "the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens," in the time of the end, veaith kaitz; that is, after the ending of the

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2400 years, or, as the English Version has it, though I believe erroneously, 2300(t). Whichever number may be adopted, it is a satisfaction to be assured on good evidence, that the longer and the shorter periods are both in the past. The Time of the End consists of the years occupied in justifying or vindicating all that constitutes "the holy" - rectifying, or making it all right and straight, after so long a period of injury and violence wenitzdak kodesh, "then the holy shall be justified" vindicated or avenged (Dan. 8:14).

The Eternal Spirit incorporate in the Saints, to whom judgment is given, is the justifier, rectifier, vindicator, and redeemer of the holy land and nation. Habakkuk, in his vision of this time, saith in Ch. 3:13, "thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, for salvation with thine Anointed". This Anointed One is the Christ in fullness - the One Body consisting of the Lord Jesus and his brethren "glorified together". Developed in the South as a a body of kings, laying special claim to the land of Israel, and to the world in general, and commencing their enterprise for the conquest of their rights from Teman, they constitute a power, styled in Dan. 11:40 melech hannegev, "king of the south". Zechariah says in ch. 9:14, "Adonai Yahweh shall blow with trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of Teman". He goes forth thence for the salvation of his people "in the time of the end". In going forth thus, he "pushes at him," the Little Horn of the Goat, or power of Constantinople, "which distributes the land for a price" (Dan. 11:39). It is immaterial whether that power be then Turko-Greek, or Russo-Greek: the raised up Sons of Zion, as the sword of a mighty man, will operate against the Sons of Greece (Zech. 9:13). This sudden and unexpected attack of a hitherto unheard of power, will come upon the Dragon, the Beast, the False Prophet, the Kings of the Earth, and of the whole habitable "as a thief". The situation will be an astounding novelty in the "balance of power". The Christ in fullness in the Great City Babylon, and none suspecting even that the Lord Jesus had individually descended from heaven! Could any surprise be more complete! Here then is the Eastern Question in a phase not dreamt of in the philosophy of the worshippers of the Beast.

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See Vol.3, p.323 where this matter is discussed at length and reasons given for acceptance of the 2300 period. - Publishers.

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2. "Blessed He Who Watcheth"

"Blessed he who watcheth and keepeth his garments, that he walk not naked, and they see his shame".

The Apocalyptic benedictions are not mere ornamental figures of speech, thrown in, as it were, for the ventilation of pious feeling. They are substantial and joyous realities, promising present and future benefits. Thus,

"Blessed he that readeth and they that understand the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are Written therein: for the time is near" (Ch. 1:3). He that reads, understands, and keeps "the sayings of the prophecy of this book," thereby places himself in the blessed companionship of the apostle John, and of his brethren the prophets, one of whom (whether Enoch, Moses, or Elijah, we know not)($)was the bearer of the Apocalypse to him (Ch. 1:1; 22:7-10). The knowledge herein revealed, understood and kept, is an infallible preservative against all the wiles of the adversary, and all the delusions by which the worshippers of the Beast's Image are deceived, and made meet only for capture and destruction.

Again, blessedness is pronounced upon them who die in the Lord, in Ch. 14:13. These are the same as they who keep the sayings of the prophecy. This text informs us when they are blessed at the time, namely, when, as constituents of the Perfect Man, they rest from their arduous judicial labors.

But they are greeted with benediction as candidates for the high honor and glory of which he is the subject. This candidature is predicated upon "watching and keeping the garments"; not upon watching, or looking, only, but upon keeping the garments, as well. In this sense it is that the Christ personal shall appear with out sin to them who are look-ing for him for salvation (Heb. 9:28). They must first put on the garments, and then keep them from being soiled by the corruptions of the flesh and world. None can watch Scripturally, who do not "keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book;" for, without an understanding of them, it is impossible to know the signs of the advent, and whether it is

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($) The Author believed that these three faithful men are still living. and that one of them described as John's "fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book" (Rev. 22:9), was "the servant" used by the Lord to convey The Apocalypse to the early Ecclesias (Rev. 1:1). He did so on the grounds that of Enoch it is clearly stated that he "was translated that he should not see death" (Heb. 11:5); of Elijah, that he was taken from Elisha who permitted a search to he made for him, in addition to which he is styled "the servant of Yahweh", and that "a writing" came from him in the days of Jehoram many years after the prophet had been taken from his companion (2 Chron. 21:12); and of Moses. because he was raised from the dead at the Transfiguration. Some may differ from the Author in this, but they then need to explain how the terms used in Rev. 22:9 can relate to an angel. - Publishers.

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near or afar off. All the world sees the facts in regard to the Ottoman, Papal, Austrian, and French, powers; but it knows not what is indicated thereby, or whether anything is signified at all. This is the case also with many who profess that they are not of the world, but whose practice belies their profession. They talk glibly about the advent, but they are neither in the faith, nor do they know what it is. Such are "naked," and have no garments to keep; and all their professed looking for Jesus is not the "watching" of the text before us.

But they who are truly "watching and keeping their garments" are blessed in that they see "the Sign of the Son of Man in the heaven," by which they are warned to trim their lamps with "the knowledge of the Deity's will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding," that, when his arrival is announced, they may go forth to meet him with all confidence and joy. They are "blessed" in being able thus to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, in the wilderness of Teman; but more blessed still will they be when the account they are able truthfully to render of them-selves is accepted and approved; and they are pronounced by the Judge to be the blessed of his Father (Matt. 25:34); and are exalted to be sharers with him in his joy (Matt. 25:21). In this exaltation they will have attained to that perfected blessedness to which they were called in the gospel of invitation to "the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Ch. 19:9). Being adopted, by the transforming power of the Spirit, as constituents of the Perfect Man, they are "blessed and holy:" not blessed only, but holy likewise. "Be ye holy in all manner of conduct: because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy". This was their character in the days of their flesh; but, being now participants of the Perfect Man, they are the holy, in the sense of the incorruptible and immortal "Firstfruits" of the resurrection. On them, the Second Death will have no power; but they shall be priests of the Deity and the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years (Ch. 20:6).

Such is the blessedness which results from doing the commandments of "the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last". By obedience to his institutions, they obtain "the right," which, not being forfeited by misconduct, is realized in "the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body of us," "who are kept by the power of the Deity through faith for salvation, ready to be apocalypsed in the last time". As the blessed constituents of the Perfect Man, they are the Tree of Life, and the Great City, the holy Jerusalem, into which they have entered, and whose name is written upon each (Ch. 3:12). The door is yet open to all who aspire to so great and exalted a destiny; as it is written in ch. 22:14, "Blessed they who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in

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through the gates into the city".

The penalty incurred by neglecting to watch and keep the garments, is expressed in the words, "that he walk not naked, and they see his shame". When a body comes out of the dust of the ground, and there is impressed or written upon its organization a character previously developed in a former state, if that character be bad, such a person is said to "walk naked", even though he might be abundantly supplied with clothes. He is morally naked, and certain to be put to shame. Being morally naked, he will continue to walk naked, in the sense of not being "clothed upon with the house which is from heaven;" that is, his earthy body will not be transformed into an identity with the spirit-body of the Lord Jesus. He will be dealt with judicially after the example of the first man, who, after receiving sentence of death, was "driven" with shame from the Divine Presence, to live awhile in sorrow and pain, and then to die and rot in the dust from whence he came (Gen. 3:24). Such is the unhappy future of those "who profess to know God, but in works deny him;" and who, being "in Christ Jesus, walk after the flesh". After this order, "they come forth into a resurrection of condemnation," in which they reap of the flesh the corruption due to what they have thereunto sown.

But, the first man of the earth was put to shame before a plurality of Divine Personages. This is evident from the narrative, which records the saying of the Judge, who remarked, "Behold the man is as one of us, knowing good and evil". The "us" is indicative of the associates of the speaker, styled by Moses YAHWEH ELOHIM, These it was who, in the language of our text, "Saw his shame". This Court of Assize in Eden, which condemned the man of the earth to remain earthy unto death because of one offense, is the type, or example, of the future Court of Assize in Teman, where his earthy representatives, who come forth from the dust as he, will be tried, or scrutinized, and justified or condemned, "according to their works". As in the case of the first human pair, this justification and condemnation will be pronounced and carried into effect before a plurality of dignitaries. In relation to the condemned, this is indicated in the word bleposi "THEY see" his shame. If it be inquired, who are the "they," it must be admitted, that the words of ch. 16:15, do not inform us. The exposition, however, I have given, will supply this lack. The man of the earth condemned to walk naked in his shame, will stand in the presence of the Lord Jesus, of the angels of his power, and of the justified constituents of the Perfect Man, all of whom will be embodiments of the power or spirit of the Eternal Father. This "I" who comes "as a thief" upon the sons of night, is the "they" who see the shame of the earthborns, who are sentenced to condemnation with

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the world. And this interpretation is in harmony with the words of Jesus, who saith in Luke 12:8, "whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of the Deity, and before my Father who is in heaven;" and "whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory, and the Father's, and of the Holy Angels" (Luke 9:26): "I will deny him before my Father" (Matt. 10:33). So that what we confess, or deny, and do in the present state, will define our moral standing at the bar of the Divine Court of Teman; where "they who have been accounted worthy to obtain of that aion (the Resurrection-Aion) and of the resurrection from among the dead (which gives entrance into it) are equal to the angels:" all else are repudiated, or denied, and put to shame before all "his servants, both small and great," whether angels, or constituents of the Perfect Man.

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PART IV

The Gathering into Armageddon

"And he gathered them together into the place called Hebraistically, ARMAGEDDON" - Verse 16

Let it be noted by the reader, that a gathering of the Powers is the subject of the prophecy in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses. In the former, the daemon Froglike spirits are represented as the agencies so operating upon the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable, as to cause a gathering of them for the war of that great day of the Almighty Deity: but, from the sixteenth verse it would appear, that the daemon-spirits did not of themselves alone consummate the gathering; for it is here written "He gathered them". The case then appears to be this, that the Froglike Spirits begin a work in 1848, which they carry on for twenty or more years(*), during which, by their policy, they bring the powers of the world into such a situation regarding "the Dragon," or Eastern Question, and "the Beast and False Prophet," or Roman Question,(t) as to prepare them for a general move against any power, come from whence it may, that may intervene in the settlement of those questions contrary to their interests, and such a distribution and balance of power as they may approve. Every one may see that this is the present situation

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(*) This statement was based upon the Author's premature expectations of the coming of the Messiah. His anxiety for that event caused him to interpret the 1260, 1290 and 1335 days of Daniel 12 as all commencing from a different date, but terminating at the same epoch (see our comment, Vol. 2, pp. 10-11). He recognized that the 1260 year period of Bible prophecy was about to terminate in 1868-1870, dating it from the decree of Phocas (608-610 AD) in favour of the Pope and he hoped and believed that this would synchronize with Christ's second coming. or, at least. the epoch of forty years that would culminate with his manifestation to the world at large. He was correct in anticipating that the 1260 year period would witness a measure of judgment upon the Papacy, for the events that took place between 1868-1870 drastically weakened the influence of the Church, resulting in its loss of temporal power, so that the pope became "a prisoner of the Vatican". This was a culmination oi the revolutionary spirit which stemming from the French Revolution, swept Europe in 1848 and was given added impetus by the philosophy and writings of Karl Marx in that year. A measure of judgment was poured out upon the Papacy in that Rome was occupied by revolutionary forces, and the Pope lost his temporal power through the Papal States of Italy being abolished. The statement, therefore, is correct that the revolutionary spirit generated by "the frogs" in 1848 did continue for another twenty or 50 years, terminating the Papal temporal power. However, the Author's anticipation that Christ's return and Armageddon would follow within the compass of forty years from that date did not eventuate. The Froglike Spirits have continued their work; in 1917 Czarist Russia succumbed to their influence, and today the spirit of Communism permeates all nations, developing an antagonistic warlike attitude that has resulted in vast preparations for war: the "war of the great day of God Almighty". Publishers.

(t)The "Roman Question" relates to the problem of the relationship of the city of Rome, for fourteen hundred years the temporal possession of the Popes, to the movement for Italian unity. When Rome was eventually annexed to Italy and became its capital, the Popes refused to recognize the loss of their possessions and regarded themselves as prisoners in the Vatican, until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 settled the dispute by creating the Vatican City State thus freeing them from their" imprisonment" Publishers.

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of affairs. The Powers are all "armed to the teeth," with their hands upon their swords, and in a highly irritable or inflammable frame of mind, upon the Roman and Eastern Questions, and ready to do battle against any who might venture athwart the path of their policy or ambition They are conscripting the cultivators of the soil to a vast extent, and preparing them for war; as though war, and not agriculture, were the normal condition of mankind. Thus, they are beating their plough-shares into swords, and their scythes into spears; and the weak say they are strong; as an indispensable preliminary to the great conflict which is to follow (Joel 3:10).

But, the unclean daaemon-spinits like Frogs having prepared the situation; and the great river Euphrates being sufficiently dried up; who is He that gathers them into Armageddon? The Apocalyptic answer is, the "One Angel standing in the Sun" - ch. 19:17 - the One Angel-Body, invested with omnipotence and glory; the Perfect Man, constituted of "the kings of a Sun's rising;" (t)O prepare whose way "the water," or power, of the great Ottoman river has been dried up. This "One Angel," hena aggelon, whose "countenance is as the sun shining in his strength" (ch. 1:16; 10:1), has then command of the situation. He cries with a loud voice, "a voice as the sound of many waters;" or, "as when a lion roareth", making proclamation, and saying to all the fowls flying in midheaven, to whom judgment is given, "Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great Deity". The gathering of the birds of prey which lodge in the branches of the kingdom (Luke 13:19), implies the previous gathering of the hosts to be devoured; and also the presence of a power potent enough to give their carcasses to the birds. This is the power that "comes as a thief;" which, having clothed himself with a cloud of brethren, next proceeds to gather by the policy he develops, the armies of the Beast and Kings of the Earth for a conflict with the New Power of Teman (ch. 19:19).

Such is the Apocalyptic answer to the question, who is He that gathers them? And the testimony of the prophets is in harmony with it. In Isaiah 66:18, the Spirit saith, "It shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory;" and in Mic. 4:12, "Yahweh shall gather many nations as the sheaves into the floor" for threshing: "therefore wait ye upon me, saith Yahweh, until the day that I RISE UP to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy" (Zeph. 3:8). The Spirit of Christ also informs us of the place to which he will gather them. In Zech. 14:2, he says, "I wll gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be

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taken" and in Joel 3:2,14, "I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat the Valley of Threshing". These are sufficient to show that it is the Spirit in Apocalyptic manifestation who is the gatherer.

But these passages in context also show, that the Spirit in Son of Man, or One Angel, apocalypse, will not be in Jerusalem during the siege and capture of the city: for when it is in the hands of the enemy, he then "goes forth and fights against the assembled nations, as when he fought in the day of battle" he goes forth from Teman, and having been victorious at Botzra, "he stands upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east," and also before and above the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

Here then is a manifest interval of time and space; of space, between Teman and the Mount of Olives; and of time, between the completion of the development of the One Yahweh-Elohim Angel-Man ready for action and his arrival at the Mount of Olives. How does he occupy his time in this interval; and what means does he employ to cause "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable" to "come out as a whirlwind to scatter him" (Hab. 3:14)? In other words, how doth he put hooks into Gog's jaws, by which he brings him forth, and all his army, horses, and horsemen, against the mountains of Israel (Ezek. 38:4,8)?

It may be remarked here, that there will have been a considerable gathering of Israelites upon the mountains of Israel before the invasion of the country by Gog, and his capture of Jerusalem. This appears from the Spirit's address to Gog in the eighth verse of this chapter. In this place he says, "In the latter years thou shalt come into the land brought back from the sword, and gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been continually waste; but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them". Gog also is represented in the eleventh verse as admitting that it is a land of unwalled villages, whose inhabitants are at rest and in safety; for an evil thought comes into his mind, and he says, "I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell confidently, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land".

It is evident from these last words, that "the land brought back from the sword" is not the land according to the original Abrahamic grant; but only that "tenth part" of it which Isaiah was informed in ch. 6:13, "shall return and be grazed". This tenth in the midst of the land is the

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locality of Armageddon; and not at all connected with Teman, which lies considerably to the south of it. The return of security and prosperity to this tenth of the land, must either precede the development of the "One Yahweh" man; or be concurrent with the operation in the recesses of Teman: or it may be in progress both then and before. It seems to me that the movement of the Anglo-Indian Merchants of Tarshish upon Abyssinia~, and the formation of the Suez Canal, are preliminary to the return of the tenth. How long a time may elapse from the arrival of the Lord Jesus at Sinai, to the perfected development of the Echad Yahweh(*) "ONE YAHWEH" Name (Zech. 14:9; Deut. 6:4) does not appear from the record: the interval however, will I conceive, afford time enough for the development of the Divine purpose with respect to the tenth of the land. From the present occupation of Abyssinia to the finished preparation of the Lamb> Bride, whose perfected readiness for action is the subject of the "Hallelu-YAH" of her great constituent multitude (ch. 19:6-9) will afford all the time so facile an international arrangement, in these days of political and scientific miracles, may require. Sardinia became the kingdom of Italy in two months: the kingdom of Naples was annexed in less time; Austria was expelled from Venetia and the Quadrilateral in d few days: how soon, then, could a convention between England, Turkey, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia, for the sake of advancing a step in the peaceful solution of the Eastern Question, give population, security and prosperity to the tenth of the land.

Bearing upon some arrangement of this kind, is a remarkable passage in Isa. 43:3,4. The reader can take it as it stands in the English Version, or according to my rendering as follows: "I have given Egypt,

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(t) Abysinnia is a modern name for Ethiopia In Biblical times Ethiopia included all the area known today as Nubia, the Sudan and Abysinnia Towards the end of the 19th century Bntain was drawn into this area, and in 1898, it was brought into subjection by General Kitchener In 1899 an Ang]o Egyptian treaty was signed, and the Sudan became known as the Anglo Egyptian Sudan In 1956 it obtain its independence. Commercial links between modern Abysinnia and Britain were also strong, and for a time towards the close of the last century British forces temporarily occupied the counity. British interests in Egypt, the Sudan, and in northern west Afnca generally fulfill the requirements of Isaiah 43:3: "1 gave Egypt for thy ransom. Ethiopia and Seba for thee" The presence of Britain in these areas contributed to her sponsoring Jews returning to their ancient home land, as required by Bible prophecy Publishers

(*)There are two He brew words signifying one They are Yacheed and Echad The former relates to one in an absolute sense; the latter relates to one in a communal sense It is significant that in Zechariah 14:9, the word is echad one in a communal sense This explains the significance of the passage "In that day there shall be one Yahweh and His name one There will be one community, the multitudinous Yahweh Name Isaiah saw that Name moving towards Jerusalem as an army (Isa. 30:27); and Zechariah likewise saw the feet of Yahweh standing upon the mount of Olives (Zech, l4:3~4). The "feet" of the multitudinous Yahweh represent that portion of the saints set aside for the belligerent occupancy of the lands of the enemy, the "feet" that march forward in conquest bent. This is the "one Yahweh". It will constitute a multitude that no man can number (Rev. 7:9), yet united as one, and therefore the Echad Yahweh - Publishers.

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The building of the Suez Canal was a joint undertaking by the French and Egypt, then under control of Turkey. ~ It was officially opened at the close of 1869, but did not immediately prove to be the financial success anticipated, and which it afterwards became. The project was strongly opposed by Britain as she saw it as a threat to her then commercial supremacy. The Khedive (Turkey) forced by financial stress, offered its shares for sale, and they were purchased on behalf of Britain by Prime Minister Disraeli (of Jewish descent). In 1882, circumstances again forced Britain to reluctantly intervene in the Middle East, and to occupy Egypt, bringing Turkish domination to an end. In 1914-17 war, Turkey joined the Central Powers (Germany, Austria etc.) and Britain saw the desirability of a power friendly to its interests on the north-eastern side of Egypt and the Canal, and this, contributed to the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration inviting Jews to establish a national home in Palestine. So world politics and intrigue played their part in fulfilling the Divine purpose.

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Cush, and Seba, thy covering in return for thee; since that thou hast been precious in my eyes; thou shalt become renowned: and I have loved thee; I will therefore give men in return for thee, even to peoples in return for thy life". Here is the Giver, who, being the proprietor of the earth, and distributor of the nations upon it according to certain bounds (Acts 17:26), establishes a new relation of things in the East, in consideration of Israel's return undercover, or protection, of some particular power. Israel is, as it were, transferred to the Divine Purchaser, that is, to the midst of His land, by a power, whose sway is Providentially extended over Egypt, Cush, and Seba, or Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt; so that it obtains command of the Red Sea, from the Straits of Babelmandel to Suez; and from thence to the Mediterranean. Having thus command of both sides of the Straits, being already settled at Aden in Sheba, and possessed of Perim, the highway to India is controlled, and assured to the covering or protecting power.

But what country doth the Scripture indicate will extend the shadow of its political protection over the tenth, in the midst of the land of Israel'? Whatever land is therein indicated will, I conceive, obtain supremacy in the Abyssinian Ethiopian or Cush; Seba, or Nubia; and Mitzraim or Egypt; whereby it will find it to be promotive of its commercial and political interests to obtain the resettlement of the central tenth of the Holy Land under the guarantee, perhaps, by the great powers, of neutrality. This would be in the sense of the text, receiving Egypt, Cush, and Seba, in return for the resettlement of the tenth.

The answer to the question proposed is revealed in Isa. 18:1,2,7, which I translate thus: "Ho! land of widely o'ershadowing wings extend mg from beyond to rivers of Cush; which sendeth by sea whirling things even upon vessels of fleetness on the surface of waters! Go swiftly, ye fleet messengers, to a nation carried away and oppressed; to a people terrible from this and onward; a nation prostrate and trodden down, whose land rivers have spoiled. . . to the dwelling-place of the Name of Yahweh T'zvaoth, Mount Zion "- Herald, Vol.11!., p. J03.

A land of widely o'ershadowing wings is representative of a government of widely extended colonial dominion. It is hailed in the prophecy, which was delivered in Jerusalem, as a power located east of the rivers of Cush, or "extending from beyond;" and in its amplest Asiatic development, extending "to the rivers of Cash". The reader must bear in mind, that there are two separate and distinct regions known in Scripture by the name of Cush; the one, in Asia and now called Cushistan: the Other, in Africa, styled Abyssinia and Ethiopia. The latter is at the southwest extremity of the Red Sea; while the Cush of our text is at the

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north end of the Persian Gulf, where it is watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, and now lying partly in Persia, and partly in Turkey.

The overshadowing power is "from beyond" these rivers. By sea, the communication is direct from Hindostan to Cush, where there is well known to be a power, of widely extended dominion, whose navy is largely composed of fleet, or swift vessels propelled by "whirling things". Ezekiel styles this power "Sheba, Dedan, the Merchants of Tarshish, and all the young lions thereof" (ch. 38:13). This is the power to which Egypt, Cush, and Seba, the country of the Sabaeans, "men of stature" (Isa. 45:14) are given as the price for the resettlement of the tenth in the midst of the land. It is the British Indian Lion of Tarshish, which even now commands the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and is pre-pared for any advance northwestward towards Syria or Egypt, deemed necessary by the home government for the satisfying of its interests.

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Today the Arabian Peninsula is mostly and desert Christ will bnng fertility to this area, so that "the desert shall blossom as the rose" and "water in the desert shall spring forth" Arabia will then be a land of forests and verdure, and the Bedouin will dwell in settled habitations (Isa. 21:13) Whilst the Land of Promise will be reserved for Israel, Abraham's other descendants will be sent "eastward" into Arabia proper (Gen. 25:6) Publishers.

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How then doth "Yahweh, the Man of War," so styled by Moses in Exod. 15:3, occupy his time after his development as the "One Angel" is complete? Let the following testimonies enlighten us. "Behold," saith the Spirit of Christ in Isa. 43:19, "I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The living things of the plain shall glorify me, swift things and the daughters of voracious ones (the wild Arabs, figuratively "dragons" and "ostriches"): because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people I have created for myself: they shall show forth my praise". This implies the subjugation of the freebooters of the Arabian desert, and its fertilization, which will make its people glorify the conqueror, and sing for joy.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon (the cedar) shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall be the glory of YAHWEH, and the excellency of our Elohim" (Isa. 35:1,2). And again inch. 41:18-20, "Twill open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of waters, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together; that they may see, and know, and consider, that the hand of Yahweh hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it". And "Let the wilderness and the cities thereof exult, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit; let the inhabitants of the rocky country (Arabia Petraea) sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto Yahweh, and declare his praise in the habitable lands" (ch. 42:11).

Now it must be evident to every one, that before the wild, untamed marauders, who inhabit Arabia Deserta, Arabia Petraea, and Paran, Horeb, Sinai, and the tents and villages of the Kedarite Arabs, can glorify Yahweh, and rejoice with joy and singing, and become the intelligent, happy, and contented population of this newly created Paradise, they must have been subjected to the severe discipline of the sword; to subsequent instruction, as to the true character of the New Power so recently developed in Teman; and made witnesses of the wonderful transformation of their section of Asia from an arid, sandy and rocky wilderness, into a well-watered park of choice, odoriferous, trees and shrubs! And such is the testimony of the prophets. Isaiah, in speaking of the crisis of Messiah's accession to David's throne, declares it to be "a day of Midian". His words are "thou hast broken the yoke of his (the

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Assyrian's) burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of the oppressor upon him, as a day of Midian: for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood: but she shall be for a burning fuel of fire" -- the Bride shall be (ch. 9:4,5).

The original and appropriate district of the Midianites was on the east side of the Elanitic Bay of the Red Sea. They spread themselves northward along the desert east of Mount Seir, to the vicinity of the Moabites; and on the other side also, they covered a territory extending to the neighborhood of Mount Sinai. Midianites and Ishmaelites are different names of the same people. They are separated from "the tents of Cushan" by the northern extremity of the Arabian Desert.

Midian had a terrible day when, by a panic from Yahweh, they destroyed themselves in the presence of Gideon and his three hundred torch-bearing trumpeters. Another similar day is in reserve for Midian and Cushan, when "Eloahh shall come in from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran". ~'From before him shall go the pestilence, and flaming fire shall go forth from his feet. He stood, and shall shake the earth: he beheld, and shall cause the nations to tremble; and the mountains of antiquity shall be dispersed; the ancient hills were humbled; the ways of Olahm are for him". In consequence of this terrible manifestation of supernatural power, Habakkuk informs the reader, saying, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble". The lands of Cushan and Midian being within the limits of the land granted to Abraham are among the first to feel the sword of the King who begins his conquering career in Teman. Like his father David, he executes judgment upon the inhabitants of the South, before he obtains the sovereignty over the house of Judah in the midst of the land.

But, it cannot be supposed that, in our time of this, or the rising generation, when that ubiquitous personage "our own correspondent is peering and prying into all corners and by-ways of the inhabited earth, so extraordinary an Elohistic Power can have been developed; rejected candidates for constituency therein, cast forth and driven away into exile with shame and contempt into the countries ruled by the Devil and his Angels, to be there tormented with the world, until they have paid justice all it may demand (Matt. 18:34,35; 22:13; 25:41,46; 1 Cor. 11:32); 50 wonderful a transformation of the wilderness and desert section of the land promised to Abraham into a well-watered umbrageous paradise, can have been created; and the hitherto untamed and ferocious tribes of Midian, Kedar, Cushan and the Rocky Arabia, have become its enlightened, docile, and joyous, inhabitants: it cannot, I say, be supposed, that all this can have been developed in sight almost of that A

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grand and important work, the Suez Canal, and not have become the great and absorbing theme of speculative wonder in all the newspapers and Cabinets of the world. Among the latter, the Anglo-Indian Lion of Tarshish, as lord paramount of Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Cushistan, Sheba, Dedan, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and protector of the Tenth in the midst of the land, must be the first of the great powers to be directly affected by the epiphany of the Davidian Power in Arabia. The presence of this power would be, if in hostile activity, a very disturbing element of the situation; and eminently destructive of British interests in India and the East. It is impossible to speak with certainty of details not revealed. When we touch upon them, we speak only of what may probably be the course of things leading to a specified result. With this understanding, I may say, that the alternative before the British Government, consequent upon its maritime disasters visited upon it in the Red Sea (Psa. 48:7) will be that of peace, or war, with the New Arabian Power. If the British Sheba Cabinet have acquired accurate knowledge of its Divine Elohistic character, there is sufficient Millenarianism in high places, to counsel and to cause it to seek as a suppliant, the favor of the "greater than Solomon;" so that, as protector of the Tenth in the midst of the land, including the ancient territory of Tyre, it might be accepted, after the examples of Hiram of Tyre and the Queen of Sheba, as the humble servant and ally of "the Great King". This arrangement, of course only temporary, would fulfill Psa. 45:12, the daughter of Tyre with an offering, even the rich of the people, shall entreat thy favor" the offering, minchah, being the tenth in the midst of the land (Isa. 6:12,13); as the earnest, or installment, of that greater ingathering after the Armageddon overthrow. And again, in Psa. 72:10, 'the kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of She ha and Seba shall offer gifts" - offer the countries over which they rule. 'Yea, all kings shall bow down to him; all the nations shall serve him". Thus, "the merchandise of Tyre will be for them who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing" (Isa. 23:18).

Now, alliances between powers are often entered into and kept profoundly secret. The alliance between the Son of Solomon and the Anglo-Tyrian, may be unknown to the Mouth of the Dragon, the Mouth of the Beast, and to the Mouth of the False Prophet; that is, to "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable". Not knowing the true character of the power in Teman; nor the real nature of the relations subsisting between it and Britain; they will act blindly in their policy respecting it. They will doubtless hear of its making great demonstrations in the East; and of its setting up a New Religion, in its principles and institutions, intolerant and subversive of all other faiths. That it had cut off all com-

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munication with Mecca, to which it would allow no more pilgrimages; that the Anglo-Tyrian protector of Palestine seemed to favor its views; and had abolished the exercise of all Greek, Latin, and Mohammedan, religious rites in Jerusalem upon pain of death. It may be supposed, that the British government would not venture upon such a course as this, if it was not assured that there was an Almighty power prepared to sustain it. To abolish the Greek and Latin superstitions in Jerusalem, would set the Frogs into violent activity, inflame the two hundred millions of European papists with burning fanaticism, and throw the Autocrat of all the Russias into fierce and furious paroxysms of wrath. The reader will not forget, that the question, "what power shall repair the Holy Shrines in Jerusalem," involved Britain, France, Turkey, Sardinia, and Russia, in war for three years; if such a mighty calamity resulted from so light a cause, what might not be expected from the expulsion by protestant England of every thing from Jerusalem not agreeable to the terrible power of Teman? Would not the False Prophet of Rome make proclamation, that Antichrist had come at last; and that he was aiming like another Mohammed, to destroy the Catholic church, and to propagate a new religion by the sword! There is a tradition among papists, that within two years or so, Antichrist will appear, and try to destroy their church. When the true Christ comes, his mission is in part to destroy the Papacy and the Roman Prophet at the head of it. All, therefore, who acknowledge that the Pope is the real Vicar of the true Christ, will be sure to regard the Arabian of Teman as the Anti christ;(*) being assured that the true Christ would not seek to destroy his own Vicar. The Frog power, which has taken the Papacy into its special keeping, and has set itself up as the champion of Latinism in the East, would doubtless in its working upon the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, urge upon them all, the necessity of providing, by a concerted action, for their common interest; and against a danger that threatens all the states and institu-tions of Europe. Persuaded of this, an unclean daemon spirit would go forth from the Mouth, or government of each to all the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for a general crusade against the Arabian Antichrist; and for the deliverance ofjeru-salem and the Holy Shrines out of the hands of the infidels. By this time, probably, Russia will have made a movement against Constantinople;

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(*) The papal doctrine of Antichrist is also widespread among Protestant Churches today, being promulgated by the popular writings of H.Lindsay and others. They claim that Antichrist will lay claim to Jerusalem. seek to modify the Mosaic Law proclaim himself king. and commence to rebuild the Temple. Though claiming to be Christ, they teach in fact, he will be Satan or Antichrist. They attribute to "Satan" the very things that Bible prophecy declares the Lord will do. Therefore, the widespread doctrine of Antichrist today is preparing the nations to resist the Lord when he does lay claim to Jerusalem, and proclaim himself King. It will lead the European Catholic countries to fulfill the resistance predicted of them in Rev. 17:14. - Publishers.

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and being in the forefront of the line of march from Europe, and extending its dominion far into the north and east, it would be prepared to take the lead in the great movement of the west. As the Gog of the land of Magog, the Autocrat of nations will be prepared to marshal under his banner the forces of Persia, Cushistan, Phut, Gomer, and Togarmah of the north quarters, in addition to those of his hereditary domain of "all the Russias".

Such will be the formidable coalition developed through the agency of the unclean spirits like Frogs. "Tidings out of the East," from Jerusalem, Arabia, and Hindostan; "and out of the north," or, Britain; "shall trouble him" (Dan. 11:44)(t): "things that come into his mind and cause him to conceive a mischievous purpose: saying, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; to take a spoil and to take a prey; to turn my hand upon the desolate places now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land" (Ezek. 38:10-12). This will not be an idle threat. "They came out," saith the Spirit, "like a whirlwind to scatter ME, their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly" (Hab. 3:14).

But Gog does not go forth with the consent of the power under the shadow of whose wings the Tenth in the midst of the land has flourished in security and comfort. It sends forth its forces to meet the invader, who

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(t)These "tidings" reach Gog after he has invaded the land of Israel and taken possession of Egypt (Dan. 11:40-45). Jerusalem is north of Egypt and Sinai east. Could not the presence of Tarshish and her allies (the young lions) at Jerusalem comprise the tidings from the north, whilst the strange events that shall take place in Sinai and Arabia comprise those of the east? Leaving an occupying force in Egypt, Gog will take his main troops north to Jerusalem there to be destroyed by superhuman agency, Christ and the saints (Zech. 14:1-6). - Publishers.

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"goes forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many:" for "Sheba and Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say to him, Art thou come to take a spoil? Hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? To carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?" These inquiries are equivalent to a declaration from the protecting power, that such a spoliation would not be permitted. It occupies Edom, Moab, and part of Ammon, and Egypt; and we may suppose Jerusalem in strong force. But, the forces of the East are compelled to fall back, and evacuate Egypt; for "he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt". He now pours in upon the land of Israel like a flood; or, as Ezekiel expresses it, "he ascends and comes like a storm, like a cloud to cover the land;" with the exception of Edom, Moab and the chief of Ammon, which escape the storm. The headquarters of this storm cloud invasion from the north are between the Sea of Sodom and the Jordan on the east side, and the Mediterranean on the west; and surrounding Jerusalem; as indicated in Dan. 11:45, to wit, "he shall pitch the tents of his entrenched camp between the seas in the mountain of the glory of the Holy". In other words, he shall besiege Jerusalem; and to do this, he must occupy the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a narrow glen which runs from north to south, between the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and Mount Moriah, and through which flows the Kidron. Of this valley, it is said in Joel 3:2,12, "Yahweh will gather all the nations (that is, the forces of the nations) into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there". Yehoshaphat, in Hebrew, signifies the judgment of Yah. Joel also styles the glen, the Valley of Threshing: "Multitudes, multitudes," says he, "in the Valley of Threshing: for the Day of Yahweh is near in the Valley of Threshing". Apocalyptically, the same locality is styled ARMAGEDDON "And he gathered them together in a place called Hebraistically, Armageddon". Yahweh gathered them together without their perceiving the Hand that led them on to the slaughter -"I will," saith he, "gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle". Various derivations have been given of this mystical name; for such it is, inasmuch as there is no such name of a place in the land of Israel. Micah says, "Yahweh shall gather many nations as sheaves into the floor, that the Daughter of Zion may arise and thresh them" (ch. 4:11-13). The floor of threshing of which they are to be made the chaff (Dan. 2:35) is this Valley of Jehoshaphat. Under this aspect of things, they are a heap of sheaves, upon the threshingfloor; and this idea is represented by the word, Armah, the first two syllables of the name: the third indicates where this heap is to be, namely, in the gai valley; and the last syllable,

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for what purpose the heap is there, namely, for duwn judgment - Armagaidon, which in a Greek dress, is, Armageddon. The reason why the text states, that the place, or valley, is "Hebraistically" called, is to give us to understand in what country the place is situated - in the country to wit, the native language of which is the Hebrew tongue.

In conclusion of this exposition of the Sixth Vial, it may be remarked, that the crowning events of the series are the capture of the Holy City; the establishment therein of the Little Horn of the Goat, who thus "stands up against the Prince of princes" (Dan. 8:25; 11:45), as there-presentative of Nebuchadnezzar's Imperial Image (Dan. 2:31-35); and its being broken by the Stone not in hands; and no help for him (Dan 2:45; 11:45). Of the capture of the city there is no doubt. "The city shall be taken," saith Zechariah, "and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city". Such is the situation; the City of the Great King in the hands of the Greek and Latin Catholic crusaders, who cover the land like a cloud; and no safety for any but in Edom, Moab, and Ammon, on the east and south of the Dead Sea.

The career of the Rainbowed Angel already set forth in Vol.2 ch. 10, illustrates the crisis at which we have now arrived. "Yahweh shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle." "He shall go forth with whirlwinds of Teman". "He will march through the land in indignation;" and "tread down the people in his anger at Botzrah, and make them drunk in his fury, and bring down their strength to the earth". “All the men that are upon the face of the land shall shake at his presence". And his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which shall cleave in twain" - "And he will plead against Gog with pestilence and with blood; and rain upon him and upon his bands, and upon the many people with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone" - Thus shall Jerusalem and the

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Holy Land be delivered from "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable" confederate with Gog. They will fall upon the mountains of Israel, and upon the open field, and a sixth part of them only will escape. Thus " the Catholic and Protestant, and Mohammedan heathen will see the judgments executed upon them; and "the house of Israel will know that Yahweh is their Elohim from that day forward". Therefore "sing, 0 daughter of Zion; shout, 0 Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, 0 daughter of Jerusalem. Yahweh hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel Yahweh, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more" (Zeph. 3:14): "then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more" (Joel 3:17).(*)

'2. Act VII- The Seventh Vial

17. "And the Seventh Angel poured out his vial into the AIR:

and there came forth a great voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying, IT IS DONE!

18. "And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings: and there was a great earthquake such as was not since that men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

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6th Vial Summary

(*)Before concluding this section of the prophecy, it is important to summarize developments that have taken place since Eureka was first published. We have referred to some of these in footnotes:

such as the dramatic "drying up" of the political Euphrates as a result of the First World war, and the manner in which "the way of the Kings who are out of a sun's rising" is being prepared in the return of the Jews, the revival of the State of Israel; developments clearly anticipated by the Author of Eureka (see Elpis Israel pp.441-442 etc). The First World War, not only opened the way for the Jews to return, but also established in Russia a communist regime. This has succeeded in agitating all nations, with the call of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality that it took over from the French Revolution. Therefore, as anticipated by Eureka the "frog spirits" have continued to agitate The instability of the French Governments their unclean spirit of intrigue during the Twentieth Century have contributed largely to the two world wars that have taken place, as well as the international dissension that continues to plague Europe Further in the Common Market brought into existence by French support through the Treaty of Rome in 1957 there is emerging a latter day manifestation of the beast, required by the requirements of Rev 17 The tatter day Dragon must also be revealed. This will take place when Russia moves down into Istanbul (Constantinople) and establishes it as its military centre The mouth of the False Prophet has also become very vocal The independence of the Papacy was re(4uired for this to happen and It has happened as Apocalyptically anticipated. The Common Market, the Warsaw Pact and the growing Papal influence comprise three mouths that increasingly agitate in world politics. As a result there has developed an antagonistic, warlike spirit that is leading the nations to the Battle of the Great Day of God Almighty: World War III. Christ returns in the period of the 6th Vial; Armageddon takes place in the 7th.

Meanwhile, developments in the Middle East have been dramatically significant. The fall of Jerusalem to the British forces under General Allenby in 1917; the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration inviting Jews to return home; the revival of the Jewish State in 1948; and the occupation of Jerusalem by Israel in 1967 are but a few of the remarkable events that have taken place, all of which are the subject of Bible prophecy, and fully in accordance with the anticipations in Elpis Israel and Eureka. In view of such declarations as Psalm 102:13,16,19; Rom. 11:15 and other Scrip-tures, can any doubt that the End is in sight7 The Lord declared: “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:28)

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19. "And the Great City came into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the Great came into remembrance before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

20. "And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

2]. "And great hail as of a talent weight descended out of the heaven upon the men: and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great".

The Seventh Vial is the concluding period of the Seventh Seal, and of the Seventh Trumpet; in other words, the vial, the trumpet, and the seal, all terminate at the same time. The seal began With "the silence in the heaven about the space of half an hour" (ch. 8:1), A.D. 323; the trumpet, which is called in 1 Cor. 15:52, "the last trump, " began to sound With the issue of the Great Voice, A.D. 1790; but when, or at what date, the seventh and last vial shall begin to pour out its wrath, I am unable to say. This, however, may be assuredly affirmed, that it will not begin until after the resurrection period, or "time of the dead;" and the capture of Jerusalem by Gog's forces; and its recovery by YAHWEH ELOHIM, "the Great King". The casting out of the enemy from Jerusalem is followed by the establishment of the Nave, or Most Holy, and the Throne of David, therein. This must precede the outpouring of the wrath into the Air; because "a great voice" goes forth from the Nave-Throne, saying, "It is done;" which could not be if the throne had not already been set up.

The crowning events of the Sixth Vial put the Lamb with the 144,000 in possession of the Holy City. Their throne is "the great white throne" of the Yahweh Name, "from whose face, the earth and the heaven," by the judgments of the Seventh Vial, will be caused to "flee away;" for when the white throne receives its full dominion, no place, or room, "will be found for them" (ch. 20:11; Jer. 3:17) the Gentile"heaven and earth" will be made to give place to the "New Heavens and New Earth" in which Jerusalem will be a rejoicing, and her people a joy (Isa.65:17).

The Seventh Angel is the ETERNAL SPIRIT clothed with the white linen and golden-girdle company of splendid ones, Jesus and his Brethren; who, though incorruptible and deathless, do not let themselves out in their brightness, until they have accomplished the work of this seventh vial upon "the Air", I am led to affirm this upon the authority of the Spirit of Christ in Zech. 14:5,6,7, as follows in the original; "And Yahweh my Elohim shall come in; all the saints with thee. And it shall

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be in that day there shall be no brightness, the splendid ones drawing in; and it shall be one day that shall be known to Yahweh, neither day nor night; but it shall be at the time of evening there shall be brightness".(*) At the time of evening the day of glory begins. When the judgments of the seventh vial are all exhausted the time of evening will have come. All "the smoke from the glory of the Deity, and from his power" will have cleared away; and then the Saints who have been executing "the judgments written", will rest from the labors of the war of the great and terrible day; and no longer drawing themselves in, will "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13:43); or, as Daniel expres-ses it, "as the brightness of the firmament; and as the stars for the olahm and beyond" (ch. 12:3).

The judgments of the Seventh Vial are all in the future. They are the voices uttered by the Seven Thunders, which succeed the lion-roar of the Rainbowed Angel (ch. 10:3,4), and which issue from the throne (ch. 4:5). John was commanded not to write their utterances, but to seal them up. Apocalyptically, thunders are significant of wars. Hence, seven thunders are seven wars, which collectively make up "the war of that great day of the omnipotent Deity". The details of the seven thunders are not given; but the general results are specified in the prophecy of the seventh vial. The ecclesiastical and secular constitution of Anti-christendom is the obnoxious subject of Divine vengeance. The Powers that be having answered the purpose of their permitted existence, the time has arrived under this vial for their abolition. This can only be accomplished by Divine power; hence the war of the Deity, by which Babylon the Great, or the ecclesiastical constitution of the world; and "the Cities of the Nations," "the islands", and "the mountains," or king-doms, empires, and states of all sorts, are transferred to the Saints; so that the wicked who now sit in the heavenlies, are hurled from their thrones, and sent empty away (Luke 1:51-53).

1. The Air

"He poured out his vial into the Air".

The Air is the political firmament, or heaven, of the world. That air and heaven are regarded as synonymous, appears from Matt. 13:32, which speaks of "the birds of the air," as equivalent for what both Matthew and Luke style the birds, or fowls, of "the heaven". But better authority than James' Version informs us, that "the firmament" between the clouds and the earth's waters, which is the air, or ----_________________________________________________________________________________________

(*) This rendition is supported by the RV which translates 'tn that day, there shall not be light, the

bright ones shall withdraw (or contract) themselves" - Publishers.

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atmosphere, Elohim called "Heaven" (Gen. 1:6-8). When We look into this expanse we see the sun, moon, stars, and constellations, Which, though far beyond it, appear to be in the air or heaven. Now, the political world has its air as well as the natural. Like this, the political air, or firmament, "divides the waters," or peoples who rule, "from the waters," or peoples who are ruled; and whatever constitutes this division is the air or heaven. The governments of the world are in this air, and constitute the sun, moon, stars, and constellations of the air or heaven. If there were no air in the natural world, there would be no clouds, or "waters above the firmament;" but simply "darkness upon the face of the deep" - all waters would be commingled without order or distinction. Such would also be the case in the political world, if there were no political air or aerial. This air divides the ruling class from the common people or "waters," called also "the sea", and sometimes "the earth". The air, or heaven, is therefore that which divides; or in modern phrase, the constitution, or constituted order of things among the nations.

When the Saracens made their irruption into the Dragon, or Graeco-Roman Constantinopolitan empire in the seventh century "the Sun and the Air were darkened" (ch. 9:2) in all the countries they subdued. In other words, the political authority and constitution which placed them in subjection to the Byzantine Dynasty in Constantinople were eclipsed; as the kingdom of the Beast was "darkened" by the judgments of the Fifth Vial, but which afterwards became light again when the darkening power passed away.

Paul refers to the Air or Heaven of the Gentile world, or constitution of things, in Eph. 2:2, where he says, 'ye who were dead in trespasses and in sins, in time past walked according to the aion of this kosmos", or course of this order of things, "according to the chief of the authority of the Air, (which is) the Spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience". The spirit that works in the disobedient is the spirit offlesh, or King Sin. He is the chief, the ruler, or prince, of "the authority of the Air". The constituted authority of an empire, kingdom or republic, is "the authority of the Air" in those several dominions or states. The Powers that be are the Sin-Powers of the Air, styled by the apostle in Eph. 6:12, "principalities and authorities, the world-rulers of the darkness of the course of things (aion) the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies". These all belong to "the authority of the Air". The spirituals of the wickedness in his day were the civil, or secular, and the ecclesiastical, world-rulers, who Were either Jewish or Pagan; but in our day, they are emperors, kings, magistrates, popes, priests, and parsons, called "the clergy", of all orders and degrees, of imposture and blasphemy, pretending to be Christian. These spirituals of wickedness

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all, as the daemons, foul spirits, and unclean and hateful birds (ch. 18:2), are the ephemera which roost in the branches of the widespreading upas(*) which poisons the air of the Great City in which it grows.

This Air of the Seventh Vial is the air or heaven of Daniel's Four Beasts, or dominions. In his seventh chapter it is styled, kol shemayah, "all the heavens" (ver. 27) under which the kingdom, dominion, and greatness, exist, which are to be given to the chosen people of the saints. The Air of this vial comprehends all these heavens or aerials. It is the same air or heaven, in which a door is opened, and a new throne estab-lished (ch. 4:1,2). This door will be opened, and the throne set therein, when the Armageddon victory shall have cast out the enemy from Jerusalem, and have planted the Lamb and 144,000 on Mount Zion. The denouement of the Sixth Vial opens the door and sets up the throne. There is then a throne in the Air which the air or heaven does not contain at the present time. All other thrones will continue to exist in the air contemporaneously with this new throne, which is the Throne of David restored, until they shall all be taken possession of by the saints of the Most High; when "the kingdoms of the world become our Lord's and his Christ's" (ch. 11:15).

The Air of this Seventh Vial is "the Heaven" of ch. 20:11, which, in consequence of the wrath poured out into it, "flies away" with "the earth" that stands related to it. Both earth and heaven, as now constituted in church, state, and general society, will all be broken up and abolished; and a New Air, or firmament, constituted, in which will shine only "the Splendid Ones," the Sun of Righteousness and the kings of his rising, who obtain "the victory over the Beast, and over his Image, and over his Mark, and over the Number of his Name" (ch. 15:2). These will all meet together with the Lord in the Air, as the "New Heaven," styled also "the Heaven," in ch. 18:20, which rejoices over Babylon in the disaster of her fall. This New Air, I remark again, is the air in which, and for which, the chosen saints are convened. Paul tells us in 1 Thess. 4, that when "the time of the dead that they should be judged" arrives, the living saints will not anticipate the dead. That is, they will not be gathered together into the presence of Christ before them. When Christ comes, the living will have to wait, until the reproduction of the dead saints is complete. Be the time of this reproduction long or short, the how long is not revealed; this, however, is certain, that "the dead in

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(*)The "deadly upas tree" is a widespreading tree that grows mainly in Indonesia. It once was claimed that its poisonous breath was fatal to every living creature within ten miles or fifteen kilometers, but this has been proved a traveler’s fable. From this legend however, the term has been used figuratively for a system that spreads its poisonous influence beyond its literal boundaries. The real upas does have a milky-white juice with which natives used to tip their arrows in order to 'make them more lethal, for it is poisonous in its effect, akin to strychnine Publishers.

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Christ shall be restored (anastesontai) FIRST". He then tells us What is to happen next. "After that, We the living Who remain, together with them shall be hurried away in clouds for a convention of the Lord in an air (eis haera), and so (in that Air) We shall be always With the Lord". Thus the dead are the subjects of anastasis, or "restoration" to what they once were; and then, in company with their fellow earthborns in Christ of the generation contemporary with this great anastasis, they go to report themselves for better or worse at the Judgment Seat in Teman. All of them who are approved, or "accounted worthy to obtain that aion" (aion, course of things, or Air), are "clothed with the house from heaven;" and henceforth, appointed to be with the Lord always in the Air.

2. "It Is Done"

"And there came forth a Great Voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying It is done!"

The Nave of the Heaven is "the Bride, the Lamb's Wife". The Most Holy Community, the One Body, of which the Anointed Jesus is the Head, in the sense that the Head of Christ is the Deity". The Nave is the Spirit's Bride purified from every thing that defiles (ch. 21:9,27). She is represented inch. 4:4-11, by four-and-twenty elders and four living ones full of eyes within, before, and behind. These are before the throne, and round about the throne, occupied by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is likened to a jasper and a sardine stone. Hence, what proceeds from the Nave of the Air or Heaven, proceeds also from the throne established on Mount Zion, "the place of the Name of Yahweh Tz'vaoth," who reigns there and in Jerusalem, before his Ancients gloriously (Isa. 18:7; 24:23).

A voice proceeding from this throne in the midst of the Nave of the Heaven must needs be a great voice. And what voice can give utterance to a more important announcement than that all that had been predicted by the prophets is done, is all fulfilled. It reminds us of the words in Ezek. 39:8, "Behold, it is come, and IT IS DONE, saith Adonai Yahweh; this is the Day whereof I have spoken". That is, the day of the outpouring of the Seventh Vial is "the Great and Terrible Day of Yahweh". It is the day in which, after the fall of Gog upon the mountains of Israel, Adonai Yahweh will "send a fire on Magog, and among them who dwell confidently in the isles;" and which shall cause them to know that He is Yahweh. "So," saith he, "willI make my Holy Name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my Holy Name any more; and the nations shall know that I, Yahweh, am the HOLY ONE in Israel".

During "the great and terrible day," the Nave smokes with indignation against Gog's land, or Magog, and against Babylon the Great, and

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other more distant lands. In the Nave is embodied the glory and power of the Deity; so that His fiery indignation smokes from the Nave; and while, therefore, this is in a state of activity while "the day of trouble" continues, in which "they have no rest day nor night who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receives the sign of his name" no one engaged in the work of the Seventh Vial can rest from his labors; nor can the nations walk in the light of it (ch. 21:24). The smoke of torment must cease to ascend before the nations can be blessed in Abraham and his Seed, the Nave; and go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahweh Tz'vaoth, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem (Zech. 14:17). This is the worship of the Nave-State, into which "no man can enter till the seven plagues of the seven angels are fulfilled" -till the Seventh Vial, therefore, is all poured out; and the wrath of the Deity IS DONE. But, after "it is done," the Nave-Body will shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of the Father, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End; and mankind will be permitted to enjoy the light of it in peace; and to attain to a salvation with eternal glory, upon the conditions that then may be prescribed.

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars," who have been brought forth from Death's charnel house, the grave, and have been driven with shame and contempt from the Judgment Seat of Christ; together with all like characters among the living, "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:" in other words, shall be subjected to the plague of the Seventh Vial, which will bring him with torment to a termination of his existence: "which is the Second Death" (ch. 21:8). Thus, those who have held the truth in unrighteousness, and so walked after the flesh, "go away into aionian punishment," in suffering which, they are punished with the goat-nations that "make war with the Lamb" (ch. 17:14; Matt. 25). They suffer this in the fiery indignation poured out of the Seventh Vial. They are scrutinized and condemned under the Sixth Vial, and executed under the Seventh. And when the tares among the saints are separated, and commanded to "depart into the aion-fire" - to set out upon the hard road appointed for them to travel, towards the country of their penal servitude and death; the saints who are accounted worthy of the aion, are sentenced to enter into "the house from heaven" from which they shall 'go Out no more (ch. 3:12; 21:7). The sentence is executed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in "the mortal" being "swallowed up of life;" or what is equivalent, "the life of Jesus being made manifest in their mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4:11; 5:4).

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3. The Great Earthquake

"And there was a Great Earthquake, such as was not since that men were upon the earth so mighty an earthquake and so great"

When this earthquake shall occur, Yahweh Elohim will be enthroned in Jerusalem. This appears from Joel 3:16, where it is written, "Yahweh shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem" - the Great Voice of this vial: "and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Yahweh shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel".

This may be called the epoch of earthquakes; for the conclusion of the Sixth Vial is signalized by an earthquake that divides the Mount of Olives, and projects one half of the mount towards the north, and the other towards the south, and leaves a very great valley between. This shakes the earth while Gog is in the land, and accompanies the presence of Yahweh there, Who says, "all the men upon the face of the land shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the towers shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains", and so forth (Ezek. 38:19,20,21; Isa. 30:25). This will be an earthquake in the most literal sense; but it may also be accepted as the earnest of that more terrible and extensive political earthquake of the Seventh Vial, of which the Spirit speaks in Haggai 2:6,21, saying, "Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the khemdath of all nations uvahu, they shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth". In the English Version, kheimdath is rendered the Desire of; and some Lexicons tell us that the word has no plural. But if this be true, by what rule is it made the nominative of the plural verb vahu, "they shall come"? The Messiah is supposed to be the person desired by all the nations at his coming. But in what sense can he be said to be the Desire of the nations, when they are all to compass him about, and in the Name of Yahweh he will destroy them? Psa. 118:10; Apoc. 17:14. It seems to me that a letter has been dropped in transcription, and that the word should read khemdoth in the plural; as, "and the excellencies of all the nations shall come;" but if khemdath in the singular be correct, then the construction is to be accounted for upon the same principle that Elohim, plural, is so often construed vvith a verb in the singular - "the Excellency of all the nations they shall come," or as Zechariah expresses the same thing, "Yahweh Elohim he shall come in, all the Saints with thee"

- he and all the saints being the Excellency of all the nations.

"I will shake all nations". This is a nationquake whose shocks are

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world-wide and affecting the earth, the sea, and the dry land, of the whole political community of the globe. But the heavens are to be shaken likewise. Even the heavens and the earth of the Commonwealth of Israel were not 'to escape. Paul who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews while the temple was yet standing in Jerusalem, adduced this prophecy in Haggai, in evidence that the Mosaic Heavens, which had waxed old, were to be so shaken as to vanish away (Heb. 8:13; 12:26-29). Look then into the land of Israel, and "behold trouble and darkness, dimness and anguish; and all driven to darkness" (Isa. 8:22). This state of things has obtained for a long series of ages. There is no Mosaic Heavens and Earth there. All the institutions of Moses have vanished away; and Israel's Sun and Moon are darkened, and their stars have withdrawn their shining, as the result of the fire and pillars of smoke, the wonders shown in the heavens and the earth when they were shaken; and all this came to pass "before the great and terrible day of Yahweh," which is not yet quite "come" (Joel 2:30,31; 3:15).

What has thus befallen the kingdom of Israelis a striking illustration of what awaits the kingdoms of all the nations of the earth when they come to be shaken by the great earthquake of the Seventh Vial in "the great and terrible day of Yahweh". "I will shake the heavens and the earth"; and now behold the consequences of it in the following words: "and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his fellow". This is a decree against Gog, the Two-Horned Beast, the False Prophet, and the Ten Horns, with all their armies. Into their heaven the vial is to be poured, and its effect will be to shake them and their nations so terribly that there will be no more left of their dynasties, governments, and institutions in church and state, than there now is of Israel's in the land.

As a consequence of this shaking of all the nations, the Great City is resolved into thirds, and haipoleis, the cities, or states of the nations fall They fall, because in the shaking, the Lamb and his staff with their army cast them down. The idea is expressed by Daniel in the words, "the thrones were cast down" (ch. 8:9). In other words, the Lamb and they that were with him conquered the Ten Horns, and took possession of their kingdoms. The kingdoms of the world became Yahweh's, and His Christ's. As to the "three parts" into which the Great City Babylon is divided by the shocks of this great earthquake of nations, we are left Without positive information. From the subsequent parts of the prophecy, however, it would seem that the Dragon might be reckoned as one third; the Beast, the Ten Horns, and the False Prophet, the second

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third; and Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the East, the third. This eastern third would be the first to fall under the dominion of the throne in Zion: "unto the daughter of Zion shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem". And the Ruler come forth from Bethlehem shall be the peace, when the Assyrian (Gog) shall come into the land. Then the anointed ones shall waste Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof; thus shall He deliver Israel when the Assyrian invades their land (Micah. 4:7,8; 5:2-6). Then, after the conquest of Assyria and Egypt by the Saints, "there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve With the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land: whom Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance" (Isa. 19:23-25).

After this settlement of affairs in the Eastern Third, "Babylon the Great comes into remembrance before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath". This is the series of events which succeeds the proclamation of the Aion-Gospel in mid-heaven -in the Air - announcing that the Hour of Judgment upon Babylon had arrived, and which precedes the Second Angel's announcement that "Babylon is fallen" (ch. 14:8). As the result of this remembrance, the ecclesiastical system of Europe, in its Greek, Latin, and Protestant divisions of spiritual wickedness is abolished; and its ecclesiastical capital, ROME, destroyed from the earth, as fearfully and graphically exhibited in ch. 18.

The next result of the "very great earthquake" is the obliteration of all "islands" and "mountains" of the political world. A natural island is land entirely surrounded by water; a political island is analogous thereto inasmuch as it is a kingdom, or state, insulated from all other "waters," or peoples, by which it is surrounded. Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and so forth are political islands, insulated from each other, and from all other peoples by the political constitution peculiar to each.

In Jer. 51:25, the Chaldean emperor of Babylon is styled a "destroying mountain which destroyeth all the earth;" whose destiny was to be rolled down from the rocks, and to be made "a burnt mountain". The little Stone, or kingdom of Christ, "the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel" (Gen. 49:24) is to become "a Great Mountain," or empire, after it has smitten "the destroying mountain," in its latter day manifestation, and to "fill the whole earth", (Dan. 2:34,35). A mountain filling the whole earth will leave no room for any other mountains. To

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declare, consequently, that "the mountains were not found," is equivalent to saying that the empires of Turkey, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Britain and the United States, were all superseded and abolished, by the New Empire of Israel's King, then become "the King and Elohim of the whole earth" (Zech. 14:9; Isa. 54:5). The world to come, or future habitable, of which Paul spoke (Heb. 2:5), will admit of only one mountain, "the mountain of Yahweh's House, to be established on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills; that all" the regenerated nations may flow into it" (Isa. 2:2). No rival empires will be permitted to exist; for in that "economy of the fullness of the times," all things in the heavens or the air, and upon the earth, or the nations, will be gathered together under One Head (Eph. 1:10). The judgments of the Seventh Vial, executed by the Saints as the omnipotent ministers of the Spirit, will bring to pass this Divine Determination. They will chase away the fugitive islands, and hurl into the abyss the lofty mountains, that now so proudly and defiantly tower above the political earth and sea. They will accomplish this by tormenting with fire and brimstone "thc Devil and his Angels;" in other words, by encountering in war the Beast, and kings of the Earth, and their armies (ch. 14:9-11; 19:19; 17:14). No island or mountain powers will be able successfully to withstand them. Their armies will be in the midst of many peoples as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of goats: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver (Mic. 5:8). Thus, "the nations shall see, and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay the hand upon the mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of Yahweh EIohim. and fear because of thee" (Ibid. 7.16,17).

4. The Great Hall

"And Great Hail as of a talent-weight descended out of the heaven and upon the men; and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great

It is the Deity in the heaven from whom the hail-plague proceeds. In the heaven into which He introduced Himself, when He opened a door therein, and set up His throne. From the political heaven, into which the Seventh Vial is poured, and in which the throne of David is One among many, upon all of which it makes war, the great hail descends upon the men, who worship the Beast and his Image. Hail from a Political heaven would not be literally frozen waters; but rather something injurious set in motion against the enemies of the hailing power.

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When a government sends forth its armies to lay waste its adversaries and their countries with fire and sword, its troops are a storm, or plague, of hail; and every individual trooper is a hailstone of a certain weight.

Speaking of the Power that should destroy the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, Isaiah says, "Behold, Yahweh hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand" (ch. 28:2). And again, speaking of the time when "Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall come down and fight for Mount Zion," he says, "And Yahweh shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones". The hailstones are an element of the lighting down of the arm of Deity. In Ezek. 13:11, we read, "there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, 0 great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend the wall, daubed with untempered mortar". Sirach(*), commenting upon this, says, "Ezekiel made mention of the enemies under the figure of the rain". A hail-shower is the enemy of the men upon whom it descends. When the Saints, in the execution of their Third Angel mission (ch. 14:9-11), descend like a tempest upon the men who worship the Beast and his Image, they become an exceedingly great hail, whose average weight is respectively, according to tables in Calmet,(t) "a talent" of one hundred and twenty-five pounds troy. It is evident from Matt. 25:24, that a talent and an individual are relative things; and that the one is as fitly represented by the other, as a passenger by rail is by the ticket he bears. After the hail of talent-weights ceases the wrath of the Seventh Vial burns no more. The Beast and the False Prophet are destroyed, the Dragon is bound and shut down in the abyss, the Ten Horns are conquered, and nothing remains but the NEW JERUSALEM GOVERNMENT ruling in righteousness a world of regenerated nations, blessed in Abraham and his Seed for a thousand years.

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(*) Sirach was the father of the author of Ecciesiasticus, a book of the apocrypha which is also referred to by the name "Sirach". The author is said to have been Jesus, son of Sirach of Jerusalem, who flourished about two hundred years before Christ. He originally wrote in Hebrew and the work was translated into Greek by his grandson. The passages to which reference is made is contained in Ch. 49:10,11, which reads: "It was Ezekiel that saw the glorious vision, which was shewn him upon the chariot of cherubims. For he made mention of the enemies under the figure of rain, and of doing good to them that shewed right ways". In citing this book the Author of Eureka does not acknowledge its inspiration as if it has right to a place in Holy Scripture, but as being representative of the accepted opinion of a scholar during that early period of history. In fact, there is no claim made within the book to Divine inspiration. Aprologue written by the grandson states, "My grand-father, Jesus, after he had much given himself to a diligent reading of the law, and the prophets, and other books, that were delivered to us from our fathers, had a mind also to write something himself, pertaining to doctrine and wisdom; that such as are desirous to learn, and are made knowing in these things, may be more and more attentive in mind, and be strengthened to live according to the Law" - Publishers.

(t) Augustine Calmet was a French scholar and Biblical commentator who lived from 1672 to 1757.

He wrote a Dictionary of the Bible which was translated into English and was very well-known. -Publishers.

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CHAPTER 17

THE JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT HARLOT

TRANSLATION OF CHAPTER 17

1. And there came one of the seven angels having the seven vials, and talked with me, saying to me, Come along; I will show to thee the judgment of the Great Harlot that sitteth upon the many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication; and they who inhabit the earth have been intoxicated by the wine of her fornication.

3. And he conducted me away into a wilderness in spirit; and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast, full of Names of Blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4. And I saw the woman who had been arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls, holding a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication;

5. And upon her forehead a name had been written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS, AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

6.And I saw the woman intoxicated by the blood of the saints, and by the blood of the witnesses of Jesus: and beholding her, I marveled with great astonishment.

7. And the angel said to me, Wherefore didst thou wonder? I will explain to thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her. having the seven heads and the ten horns.

8. The BEAST which thou sawest, was, and is not: but is hereafter to ascend out of the abyss, and to go away into perdition: and they who dwell upon the earth, of whom there hath not been written the names upon the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, shall wonder when they behold the beast that was, but is not, although it is.

9. The mind having wisdom is this. The seven heads are seven mountains, where the woman is sitting upon them: they are also seven governments: the five have fallen, and the one is, the other is not yet come; but when it may have come, it is necessary that it continue a short time.

11. And the beast that was, but is not, even he is the EIGHTH, and he is of the seven, and goeth away into perdition.

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12. And the Ten Horns which thou sawest, are ten governments, which have not yet received kingdom; but they receive authority as kings one hour with the beast.

13. These have one purpose, and they shall deliver their power and authority to the beast.

14. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall conquer them, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those with him, called, chosen and faithful.

15. And he said to me, The waters which thou sawest, where the Harlot is sitting, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

16. And the Ten Horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the Harlot, and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire

17. For the Deity hath given into their hearts to execute his will, and to perform one purpose, and to deliver their kingdom to the beast, until the predictions of the Deity have been fulfilled.

18. And the woman which thou sawest, is that Great City having dominion over the kings of the earth.

EXPOSITION

"And there came one of the seven angels having the seven vials, and talked with me".

John was in Patmos nearly eighteen hundred years ago. Why are we informed that he was visited by one of the angels of the vial? Why was he not visited by one of the angels of the trumpets? Because the subject of this chapter is "the judgment of the Great Harlot;" and this judgment belongs to the vials. And which of the seven angels was he visited by? By the Seventh; because, "the judgment of the Great Harlot" is the grand catastrophe of the seventh vial (ch. 16:19) and therefore the seventh only of all the seven could show the judgment to John. If it had been decreed to be executed under the outpouring of the fourth angel's vial, the fourth angel would have visited the apostle; but being the specialty of the seventh, the seventh angel must be the interlocutor and actor in the scene.

Being, then, in company with John, he said to him "Come along!" The English Version translates deuro, come hither! This would be very well if John had not already informed us that the angel had come to him. Had the angel remained stationary at a distance, and called out deuro! come hither, would have been correct. But, it was John who was station-ary, so the angel came to him, and invited him to accompany him, and he would show him the judgment of the Great Harlot.

John was stationary. The seals, and trumpet, and vial, periods, as so many succeeding and passing scenes, had all to revolve until the sixth

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vial-period of the seventh seal and last trumpet, came before him. He would then be visited by the Sixth Angel, and feel his power in being "caused to exist incorruptible," for the dead are immortalized in the sixth vial-period. The judgment of the Great Harlot could not be shown to him by the sixth angel. He will have to wait until visited by the seventh angel. Then, being a living apostle, and one of those to whom it is given to execute the judgment written against the Great Harlot in the seventh vial-period, when that period arrives, he will go along with the Lamb, that is, with the Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit, and not only see the judgment, but take part in it, and rejoice over her catastrophe and fall (ch. 18:6,20). This is the import of the words, "I will show thee the judgment of the Great Harlot".

What John saw in Patmos, he saw "in Spirit". In his day, the Great Harlot to be judged under the seventh vial, had not been developed. Hence, he saw her "sitting upon the many waters" only in prophetic vision. In this sense, he was "inspirit", as he will be, in the highest sense, when he is incorruptible and immortal; and as a constituent of the seventh angel, rejoices over the Harlot-Mother and all her adulterous progeny, whom he contributes to destroy.

1. The Wilderness

Hence, in a vision, John was conducted away into a wilderness. The angel invited him to "come along," and he went. They travelled to-gether, so to speak, until they came into a wilderness - into what was a wilderness in his day, inhabited by wild and ferocious peoples, not at that time included within the limits of the Roman Habitable. It is no longer an untamed forest, peopled by roving savages; but a highly cultivated region, abounding in cities, towns, and villages, full of riches, and people of education and polish. Nevertheless, in a Scriptural sense, it continues to be a wilderness. Its educated and refined peoples of all classes, from prince to peasant, are wonderers after the Beast, and "intoxicated with the wine of the fornication of the Great Harlot". This is the great German, or Magogian, Wilderness, which in after ages came to be subject to the spiritual empire of the Harlot of the Seven Hills; and known in history as "THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE". The wilderness is coextensive with this dominion. Wherever the authority of the Great Harlot is recognized and supported by the States of Europe, there is the Wilderness in the largest sense of the word.

In this wilderness, uncultivated by gospel truth, John saw the heads, horns, and body of the Scarlet Beast; full of Names of Blasphemy: and an intoxicated prostitute sitting upon it. All this was seen in

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the wilderness; therefore the Wilderness, the Beast, and the Woman, may be regarded as parts of a great whole, the western, or Latin, section of the Laodicean Apostasy, Apocalyptically styled, “the Great City".

2. The Great Harlot

The most disgusting of womankind is chosen by the Spirit, as representative of the Ecclesiastical System in doctrine, institutions, and practice, approved and cherished by the peoples of Europe. It is compared to a drunken murderess and prostitute intoxicated with the blood of the holy and the faithful; whom she has destroyed by thousands and tens of thousands, for what she blasphemously styles 'Heresy". Her doctrine is represented by "a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications," which "all nations have drunk of;" and have consequently all been "made drunk". Such is the Apocalyptic view of "Christendom," so called its spiritual guides, its rulers, its politicians, and its peoples, all made drunk by blasphemous and filthy doctrine and superstition.

Pictures of medals not shown

Woman with cup from Rome, on reverse of medal. Medal struck by Pope Leo XII, I~25.

The Ecclesiastical Polity of Europe represented by this strumpet is imperial. This characteristic is indicated by the purple and scarlet with which she is arrayed; and the gold and precious stones, and pearls, with which she is bedecked. These colors and baubles are the decorations with which her officials, styled the "princes of the church," are distinguished and bedizzened. This Body of Antichrist essentially opposed to, and destructive of the Body of Christ, is apocalyptically labeled upon her shameless forehead, "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and the Abominations of the Earth". "MYSTERY" is the inscription that used to be worn as engraved upon the Pope's tiara, or triple crown; but removed by Julius III., when it came to attract Protestant attention as evidence that the wearer was no other than Antichrist - the

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Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Heads(t). Elliott, a son of one of the Harlots, and a grandson of their "Mother," remarks, that "the apocalyptic title, 'Mother of the Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth, is the very parody of the title Rome arrogates to herself "ROME, MOTHER, AND MISTRESS'." The words of the Tridentine Council are "Romana Ecciesia, quw omnium Ecciesiarum Mater est et Magistra"

- "the Roman Church which is the Mother and Mistress of all the Churches". Whence the common phrase "Our Holy Mother the Church".

Picture of coin not shown

From Roman Coin in the British Museum struck A D 69 70 Rome depicted on 7 hills.

Such is the Name Apocalyptically inscribed on the forefront of the Ecclesiastical Polity of Europe in allusion to the practice of some notorious prostitutes, who had their names written on a label upon their foreheads, as may be collected from ancient authors. The Great Harlot is notorious, and recognized as the Ecclesiastical Mother by all the world. But, she being the Mother, who are her Daughters? These are as easily discerned as the Mother herself. The Protestant State Churches are "the Harlots;" and the Dissenting, or Nonconformist, "Names and Denominations," are "the Abominations of the Earth". The genealogy of all of them is traceable to Rome; with whose dogmas they have more accord than with the principles of the doctrine of Christ. The Harlots and the Abominations are "the Names of Blasphemy," of which the Beast is said to be "full".(*) They are all injurious to, and subversive of, "the truth as

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(*) Gibbon (Ch. 47) historically links the teaching of Protestant Churches with the Papacy He wrote: "During the ten centuries of blindness and servitude Europe received her religious opinion" from the oracles of the Vatican and the same doctrine already varnished with the rust of antiquity was admitted without dispute into the creed of the reformers who dislaimed the supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still triumphs in the Protestant churches Publishers.

(t) Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Ch 51) uses the term Mystery in relation to the Roman Catholic Church. He refers to The creed of mystery and superstition which in the seventh century disgraced the simplicity of the Gospel. To the Hebrew, the name "Babylon" Confusion, but in the Chaldean language Bab and El compounded signifies The Gate of God. To Catholics the Church constitutes the Gate of God, but to those embracing the Truth it proclaims Confusion. Publishers.

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it is in Jesus;" which the following general outline and summary of the fiction they inculcate will sufficiently prove to all who are intelligent in the Truth. It may be presented under the caption of

3. The Wine of the Harlot's Fornication

"All the nations have drunk of the wine of the raging of her fornication," contained in "the Golden Cup, full of its abominations and filthiness".

The goblet presented to the lips of the people by their spiritual cup-bearers contains the following intoxicating ingredients, styled by an apostle "Damnable Heresies".

1. That the priests and parsons of "Christendom," so called are the"divinely called and sent ambassadors of Jesus Christ".

2. These "Ministers of Satan," or "Spirituals of Wickedness", styling themselves "Successors of the Apostles" (2 Cor. 11:14-15; Rev. 2:2) unscripturally affirm, that men are all born into the world with "souls" in their mortal bodies; and that these souls are incorruptible and deathless particles of the Divine Essence.

3. That these "immortal souls" are the subjects of spiritual cure; and that the clergy of all orders have been "called of the Deity as Aaron was," to cure the souls with the "divinity" they preach.

4. That "immortal souls" of every age, at death, go, according to "the Mother of the Harlots," to purgatory, over which she has control; but according to the ''Harlots'' and ''the "Abominations" to ''hell,'' the locality of which they know nothing about: or, if pious or repentant, direct to "heaven beyond the realms of time and space;" which is equivalent to nowhere!

5. In its practical application in the "cure of souls", their "divinity" teaches, that a man may be the most disgusting wretch that ever cursed society, yet he may be saved in "kingdoms beyond the skies," by the "consolations of religion" ministered by them in the article of death! (1 John 3:15). They hang men because society will not tolerate them; and send them to "heaven" from the scaffold to associate with saints and angels!

6. In speaking of the death of the soul, which they term a "never-dying soul," they teach that death is not death; but only a change in the mode of said "soul's" existence!

7. These "Grinders of Divinity" absurdly affirm, that when new-born babes and children die, their "precious immortal souls" become winged angels in heaven, and guardian spirits to their friends on earth!

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8. They teach, that, when sprinkled, or poured upon at the font by a priest or parson, and signed with "the Sign of the Cross" (which is "the Sign of the Beast" Rev. 13:16; 14:9,10), an infant is "regenerated by the Holy Spirit. and incorporated into his Holy Church!"

9. These traders in souls (Rev. 18:13) lyingly affirm that sprinkling or pouring is baptism. To affirm this is either the grossest ignorance, or inveterate untruthfulness. They ought to know that there is but "ONE BAPTISM;" and that nothing else is that baptism, but the immersion in water of an intelligent believer of "the truth as it is in Jesus".

10. These "Names of Blasphemy" affirm that sinners are "justified by faith alone;" that is, by faith in what they approve. Justification by faith alone is the dogma of "the Harlots" in opposition to the theory of their Mother Rome; but, in view of James 2:24,26, which declares the contrary, it is manifestly false.

11. Some of them say, that "all men will be saved," not omitting Judas; others, only "the elect of the Calvinian type.

12. Nearly all the Great Harlot's Family teach, and profess to believe, that there is a personal, black, IMMORTAL DEVIL, with horns, hoofs, and tail, who is omnipresent, and almost omnipotent; and the tormentor of "never-dying souls" eternally in hell, where he resides, and is enthroned; and that wherever it may be, it is a furnace of material fire burning with brimstone; and that, at the last day, said "never-dying souls" will be raised from death to judgment!

13. The drunken winebibbers of the Great Harlot's cup in their intoxication, send "immortal souls" to heaven or hell, and thousands of years after bring them back to be invested with bodies, and judged therein, and then send them whence they came, there to remain for ever! This they call resurrection and judgment!

14. Other theorists, intoxicated with the Babylonian wine, say, that there is no judgment for what they term "the saints," after death (Heb. 9:27); that they are giving account of themselves at the Judgment Seat of Christ now, and that at death the account closes; and that the decision of their case consists in their projection from the grave immortal!

15. The "divines" of the Harlot Family teach that the first day of the week, called Sunday, is the Sabbath, and hallowed by the Mosaic Law! - a tradition worthy of the blind leaders of the blind.

16. Instead of preaching "good will among men," they set them by the ears, and excite them to mutual destruction by war, in the name of "patriotism" and religion.

17. These ingredients of Rome's golden cup, imbibed by all alike, being their premises, the State and Nonconformist Spirituals inculcate

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"a spirit," and preach "a Jesus" and "a gospel" which the apostles of Christ did not preach, and which therefore convicts them of being the ACCURSED HIERARCHY OF SATAN - the manifested officials of Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Harlots, and of the Abominations of the Earth" (2 Cor. 11:4; Gal. 1:6-9; Rev. 17:5).

4. The Scarlet-Colored Beast

"The Beast which thou sawest, WAS, and is NOT, but is hereafter to ascend out of the abyss, and to go away into perdition.

After the exposition given of the Beasts in the thirteenth chapter of this work, it will be unnecessary for me to add more than a few words in this place.

The Beast before us is the Beast of the Sea with seven heads and ten horns, but with certain additional particulars. The Beast of the Sea in ch. 13, was the polity it represents, in its origin; but the Beast of the Abyss of ch. 17, is the same polity in the last thirty years, or "one hour," of its existence, and previous to its arrival at the "perdition" into which "it goes away".

In the days of John it did not exist, for the ten horns upon it had then received no kingdom. The territory upon which they now exist was then included in the western division of the Roman empire; but upon it, distinct horn-kingdoms, or toe-kingdoms, which are the same kingdoms, did not exist. In this sense, therefore, it is "the beast that is not".

But it was "hereafter to ascend," mellei anabainein, out of the abyss; that is, at a time subsequently to John's vision. Having arisen, and continued its appointed time, or aion, it is to "go away into perdition". When this perdition is consummated, it will then be "the beast that was;" and then also, "the beast that is not, although it is" to be when John saw.

The Great Harlot was seen to sit upon this Beast; and she was seen to Sit "upon many waters," which are interpreted in verse 15, to signify peoples and multitudes, and nations and tongues"; subjects of the debauched kings, or rulers, of the earth, who are all drunk with her wine; and have no part in the life and glory of the blessed (verse 8). Sitting upon these peoples and the Beast is equivalent to saying, that this Beast is the symbolic representative of the political society they constitute. They are the peoples of the ten horns and of the imperial head giving countenance, veneration, and support to the Great Harlot, as the ecclesiastical system of their several States by law established.

The Beast of the Sea in its origin could reckon up only seven heads upon the seven mountains; but this Beast of the Abyss can count the

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same seven with an additional head, which is styled "THE EIGHTH" -"the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth; and he is of the seven, and goeth away into perdition". The Eighth Head is the "Holy Roman Empire,'' under ''His Holiness'' and ''His Apostolic Majesty," forming a conjoint dynasty, as symbolized by Daniel's Little Horn with Eyes of a man and Mouth of blasphemy. This Eighth Head, with its spiritual emperor in Rome, and its secular emperor in Vienna, has ruled in the midst of the Ten Horns, during many centuries; but the time has not yet quite come when these deliver their power and authority to the Beast's eighth head for "one hour". When this event transpires, it will be consequent upon the operation of the Frog-Power causing the gathering of "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable" against the Lamb and his forces. "I saw," says John, "the Beast, and the Kings of

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Judgment is to be poured out upon Babylon the Great riding upon the Beast. The Beast of the Sea represents European powers welded together by a common policy The Common Market represents such a confederacy and significantly it was brought into existence by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. However, it would appear that some countries, such as Britain and Greece must be severed from the organization to enable the Catholic countries of the West to form one of the feet of the Image upon which the united structure is to stand. After the defeat of Gog, the Catholic countries of Europe will resist Christ's authority, only to be conquered by him. See Rev. 17:14

Publishers.

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the Earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him sitting upon the horse, and against his army" (ch. 19:19). This is the same hostile gathering referred to inch. 17:14- these (the Ten Horns) shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall conquer them for he is Lord of lords and King of kings; and they that are with him (Jesus and his Brethren, the Saints with the Spirit ch. 14:13) are called, and chosen, and faithful". The conquest of the Eighth Head and these Horns, which represent the Latin Catholic Europe, is the third angel judgment of the Seventh Vial; and results in these island-kingdoms fleeing away, and their mountain-empires being found no more (ch. 14:10,11; 16:20). The perdition of the Eighth Head and its Horn-Allies will also be the destruction of the False Prophet Power; or, under another figure, the Drunken Prostitute that rides the Beast, or sits upon the peoples of divers tongues.

Before the end of the Beast and Horn Polity is reached, the Horns "hate the Harlot, and make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire" (verse 16). This process has been going on for some time, but is not yet consummated. The Little Horn with Eyes, into whose hand the Saints were given 1335 years ago, was to lose his dominion, not all at once, but consumptively for a time, and after that to be destroyed without remedy "the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end" (Dan. 7:26): and Paul says, in reference to the same, "the Lord will consume the Lawless One by the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy him by the manifestation of his presence" (2 Thess. 2:8). The judgment has been sitting upon the Papacy and the secular imperiality that sustains it; that is, upon the Eighth Head, for the past seventy-five years, as shown in the exposition of the Vials. The effect of the judgment may be seen by comparing the Papacy and Austria as they were before the great French Revolution, with what they are at the present time. The Pope, the Emperor, and the Sultan, are the three sick men of Europe - in hospital, as it were, incurably sick. All his calamities have come upon the Pope and his Church by the powers occupying the territories of the Ten Horns, who have hated the Harlot, and made her desolate, and naked, and ate her flesh, and burned her with fire. Alison informs us, that the French ambassador writing from Rome to Buonaparte in 1797, remarked that "the payment of thirty millions stipulated by the treaty of Tolentino has totally exhausted this old carcass" (the Great Harlot, or Roman State): "we are making it consume by a slow fire". Ranke says that the losses of the Roman State were estimated altogether at 220 millions of livres. French occupation and oppression in Rome reduced its population from 180,000 to 90,000, and converted many villages into deserts.

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See also the spirit of hatred evinced on Feb.15, 1798, by the French soldiery, who arrested the Pope while sitting in "the temple of the god," and receiving the congratulations of his cardinals; tore from his finger the ring of his marriage to the Latin Harlot; rifled his palace; and carried him prisoner into France, where he died in exile shortly after.

In France, the Great Harlot still remains spoiled, impoverished, and legally only on a footing of equality with the other superstitions, whose adherents she used to murder as heretics. In Portugal, she was prohibited from resuming possession of her confiscated domains by decree of the secular authority in 1835. The national and ecclesiastical property then to be sold is stated at more than twelve millions sterling. Such a dilapidation of funds could not but sensibly affect the revenues of the Romish See. Even in "most catholic" Spain, the Harlot's flesh was eaten, and the confiscation of her immense property completed by queen Christina and Espartero. The papal apostolic letter states, that the ecclesiastical property in that country had been put up to sale, and the proceeds put into the public treasury; that all communication With the See of Rome was prohibited under severe penalties; that no Nuncio is ever to be admitted into the kingdom to grant favors and dispensations; that the ancient papal prerogative of confirming or rejecting bishops elected in Spain, was altogether abolished; and that the priests who seek confirmation, and metropolitans who solicit the pallium, or lambskin, from Rome, incur the penalty of exile. In 1844, Christina repented of this anti-Romish policy, and conjointly with Narvaez took measures for the partial re-endowment of the Harlot. The Times and Evening Mail, of April 16, speaks of "the signalization of her former government by the confiscation of Church property, burning of monasteries, desecration of churches, and massacre of monks, when the infidel party in her name, tore up the old ecclesiastical machinery of Spain, and shot down its adherents;" and then proceeds in these words, "the corruptions of the church have been beyond denial or apology. Friend and foe alike confessed and proclaimed them. Afiery ordeal was necessary for it; and a fiery ordeal it has had. It has emerged from the flames shorn of much of its paraphernalia. We may hope that it has been purified, as well as punished". (t)

On the same subject, the pope in his Allocution of March 2, 1841, Says, "as for the authors of these acts, who glory in being called children of the Catholic Church, we supplicate them to open their eyes on the wounds they have inflicted on their Mother and Benefactress". "We show you," he adds, "the patrimony of the Church almost entirely

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(t) Spain made a concordat with the Vatican in 1851 which was repudiated in 1931. and a new concordat was made in August 1953.

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usurped; as if the irreproachable Spouse of Jesus Christ had not in her primordial right the faculty of acquiring and possessing temporal goods". What a different view the pope takes of the Latin Church! He styles it "the irreproachable spouse of Jesus Christ;" while the Spirit exhibited it to John as a prostitute drunk with the blood of the murdered Saints and witnesses of Jesus!

With respect to Italy, which now represents Sardinia, Naples, Lombardo-Venetia, and the Duchies, pope Gregory XVI., in an encyclical letter bearing date Aug.16, 1832, mourned over a tempest of evils and disasters. He says, "this our Roman Chair of the blessed Peter, in which Christ has placed the main strength of the Church, is most ferociously assailed: a horrible and nefarious warfare openly and avowedly waged against the Catholic faith". And he closes with a prayer to the Virgin Mary, "who alone has destroyed all heresies, and is our greatest confidence, even the whole foundation of our hope". This was published in the days of the Carbonari, to whom Louis Napoleon belonged, and whose outbreak was put down by Austrian soldiery. But worse times have come upon the harlot in Italy since then. Throughout that country, with the exception of Rome and the little patrimony held by French protection, the Roman Harlot has been made desolate and naked; her flesh has been eaten, and she has been subjected to a fiery ordeal, that has thoroughly impoverished her. Her property has been confiscated to the use of the kingdom of Italy, to an amount equal to six hundred millions of dollars; which is being eaten up in preparations for the struggle, which, it is hoped, will consummate the desires and ambition of all patriotic citizens; that Rome shall be redeemed from the beastly tyranny of priests, and made the capital of a free, happy, and united Italy.

Thus the Ten Horns which John saw upon the Beast have hated the harlot, and made her desolate and naked, and eaten her flesh, and burned her with fire; for the Deity put it in their hearts to fulfill His will: and He will yet put it in their hearts 'to agree, and deliver their kingdom to the beast,"(*) during the "one hour" in which they are at war with the

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(*): In this paragraph the author anticipated a period f relief for the Papacy from the opposition trials it experienced at the hands of the Revolutionaries in I 703, 1848 and onwards. Those trials of the power and prestige of the Papacy tremendously. But in 1929 Italy made a concordat with the Papacy and restored its Temporal Power by constituting Vatican City a Papal State. Since then the Papacy has extended its influence throughout the world, particularly under the present Pope It will continue to do so. Revelation 17 becomes confusing if it is interpreted chronologically, as though one event followed on another as there set forth. That is not the ease The chapter describes the various elements that are to be subjected to judgment in the following order: (I) Babylon the great is described and shown at the epoch of her judgment vv. 1-6. (2) Next the beast is described and judged v.7. (3) The heads are then described, even though they are judged with the

beast in v 7 vv. 9-11 (4) The horns are then described - v'v. 12-14. (5) The waters are then described v.15. (6) Finally there is given a summary. the horns first hate the whore and burn her with fire, next they give their power to the beast for the purpose of the war described previously (v.14). and finally the woman is identified (v.18) Publishers.

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Lamb; that is, "until the predictions of the Deity have been fulfilled" (verse 17).

This seventeenth chapter, which contemplates so much of the judgment of the Great Harlot as pertains to her preadventual consumption finishes with the words,," and the Woman which thou sawest, is that "Great City having dominion over the kings of the earth". In the days of John, it was customary to represent the Roman State by a woman sitting upon seven projections piled upon one another, to typify the seven mountains. This device may be seen upon a coin in the British Museum struck in the reign of Vespasian. Sitting upon the Seven Hills with "Roma" under the base line, indicated that that Great City as it 'really was in those days, was the capital of the State. In John's time she ruled militarily "over the kings of the earth"; as in after ages she came to do spiritually and more despotically. On a medal struck in 1825 in the reign of Leo XII, the Roman State is represented by a woman holding a cross in the left hand, and a cup In the right hand extended, with the Inscription Sedet super Universam, She sits upon the Universe "which is equivalent to the Apocalyptic intimation, She sits upon the many Waters or "peoples and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," or 'She Sits upon the Beast," and therefore reigns over the kings of the earth

Map of Rome before 500BC not shown

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CHAPTER 18

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GREAT HARLOT

"Great Babylon came in remembrance before the Deity to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath" - ch. 16:19.

"And there followed another (or second) angel, saying, Babylon hath fallen, hath fallen, that Great city, because she hath caused all nations to drink of the wine of the raging of her fornication " -ch. 14.8.

TRANSLATION

1. And after these things I saw an angel descending out of the heaven, having great authority; and the earth was illuminated with his glory.

2. And he shouted in power, with a loud voice, saying, Babylon the Great hath fallen, hath fallen! For she hath become a habitation of da'mons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hated bird:

3. For she hath caused all the nations to drink of the wine of the raging of her fornication; and the kings of the earth have fornicated with her; and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the potency of her voluptuousness.

4. And I heard another voice from the heaven, saying, Come forth out of her my people, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

5. For her sins have followed until the heaven, and the Deity hath called to mind her iniquities.

6. Render to her as also she hath rendered to you, and double to her twofold according to her deeds: in the cup which she hath mingled, mingle for her double.

7. How much she hath glorified herself, and live profligately, so much torment and sorrow give to her; for in her heart she saith, I sit Queen, and am not a widow, and sorrow I shall not see at all.

8. On account of this her plagues shall come in one day, death, and anguish, and famine; and she shall be consumed in fire: for YAHWEH ELOHIM who judgeth her is powerful.

9. And the kings of the earth fornicating and luxuriating with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

10. having stood at a distance through the fear of her torment, exclaiming, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour thy judgment hath come.

11. And the merchants of the earth shall wail and lament over her, because no one buyeth their ships lading any more.

12. Lading of gold, and of silver, and of precious stone, and of pearl, and of fine linen, and of purple, and of silk, and of scarlet: and all thyme wood, and

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every ivory utensil, and every article of most precious wood, and of brass, and of iron, and of marble;

13. and cinnamon, and odors, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and grain, and cattle, and sheep, and horses, and of carriages, and of bodies, and souls of men.

14. And the fruits of the cupidity of thy soul hath departed from thee, and every dainty and sumptuous thing is departed from thee, and no more shalt thou find them at all.

15. The merchants of these things who have been enriched by her shall stand afar off through the fear of her torment, wailing and mourning,

16. and exclaiming, Alas, alas, that great city, which had been clothed with fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stone, and pearls! for in one hour so much wealth hath been destroyed.

17. And every shipmaster, and every company upon the ships, and sailors, and as many as ply the sea, stood afar off,

18. and cried, seeing the smoke of her burning, exclaiming, What was like to that great city?

19. And they cast dust upon their heads, and cried wailing and weeping, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, by which all having ships on the sea were enriched through her costliness; for in one hour she has been desolated!

20. Rejoice over her, 0 Heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for the Deity hath punished your condemnation by her.

21. And one mighty angel took up a stone like a great mill-stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence Babylon the great city shall be cast down, and shall be found no more at all.

22. And the voice of harpers and musicians, and pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and every craftsman of whatever craft shall be found no more at all in thee; and the sound of a mill-stone shall be heard no more at all in thee;

23. and the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the chief men of the earth; for by thy sorcery all the nations have been deceived.

24. And in her had been found blood of prophets and saints, and of all who had been slain upon the earth.

1. The Descending Angel

"And after these things I saw an angel descending out of the heaven having great authority; and the earth was illuminated with his glory".

After these things; that is, after the ten horns had made the Roman Harlot desolate and naked, and eaten her flesh, and burned her With fire (ch. 17:16); but not after those things indicated in the 14th verse. The descent of the angel upon Babylon takes place between the finishing of the Harlot's spoliation and consumption by the European Governments; and the conquest of these powers, or rather the commencement of their "war with the Lamb," which ends in their conquest by him.

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In ch. 7:2, John saw an angel that had ascended (anabanta) from the east from the sun's rising. This was not an angel in power and great authority. His mission of sealing the servants of the Deity in their foreheads, did not require it; for the sealing is a work effected by testimony and doctrine expounded, and reasoned into the understanding and affections.

The angel of this eighteenth chapter does not ascend. His career points in an opposite direction. John saw him descending, katabainonta, "having great authority;" and as authority is of no use in this rebellious world unsustained by power equal to its enforcement, the announcement of the greatness of the authority, implies that he descends also with great power, which is equal to the mighty enterprise of illuminating the earth with his glory.

His mission demands the possession of great power, which, indeed, shall be omnipotent; for, as Isaiah sets it forth, "he bringeth down them that dwell on high, he layeth the lofty city low; he layeth it low even to the ground; he bringeth it to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy" (ch. 26:5). He hath also to "raise up the Tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel and to be a light to the nations for salvation to the ends of the earth" (Isa.

49:6).

This mighty angel John saw descending. It is not without significance that he uses the present participle. There are stages in the descent from "the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens," to the so-called "Patrimony of St. Peter". In the outset of the descent, the justified and glorified Jesus, the Son of the Father's Handmaid, the Man at His right hand whom He hath made strong for Himself, "the Lord the Spirit" (Psa. 116:16; 80:17; 2 Cor. 3:18), descends to Sinai, in whose wilderness he unites himself to his body, the Bride, of whom he becomes the Head. Thus recruited and enlarged, he is the "One Angel", whose measure is "144 cubits" (ch. 19:17; 21:17). Having finished his work in Teman, "he marches through the land in indignation, and threshes the Gentiles" he encounters "in anger". Arrived at the Mount of Olives, he descends from thence into Jerusalem, the city of the Great King. There, "standing in the sun," he pauses in his descent upon the lofty city, Babylon, which he purposes to level with the dust. Before he invades her peoples with his troops (Hab. 3:12,16,3), he sends forth a voice from the heaven, announcing the judgment that impends. When this proclamation is fulfilled, he will then complete his descent upon Babylon, which he will not abandon until he hath abolished her from the earth.

"And the earth was illuminated with his glory". The development of his glory is in the overthrow of the Great Harlot; the destruction of the

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military and secular political organization or power, "the Beast that carries her," and the conquest of the European kings and their armies: and in the new order of things he establishes upon the ruin of the old. This will be great glory for the descending angel, whose constituents begin their career in poverty, and finish it in the possession of all the wealth and countries of the earth. It will have been a fiery ordeal for the nations, which will have labored in the very fire, and for very vanity; but as the result of the whole operation, "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh (of the Angel) as the waters cover the sea" (Hab. 2:13,14; Isa. 11:9; Num. 14:21; Psa. 72:19).

2. The Descending Angel's Shout

"And he shouted in power, with a loud voice, saying, Babylon hath fallen, hath fallen".

This descending angel is the same of whom Paul speaks in 1 Thess. 4:16, saying, "the Lord himself in command, with Archangel's voice, and with trumpet of Deity, shall descend from heaven". But he comes not alone; for in 2 Thess. 1:7, he tells us, he will be apocalypsed, or "revealed from heaven with angels of his power, with flaming fire, taking vengeance". Such is the voice, with which he shouts the Archangel's voice whose name in Dan. 12:1, is Michael, WHO-LIKE-DEITY. "the Great Prince who standeth for the children of Daniel's people". He is in command; for he is the Commander and leader (Isa. 55:4); and his mission is in the last of the trumpets of Deity, and in the seventh vial thereof. Paul did not specify details. He declared that he would descend from heaven with a mission against the Lawless One, the Son of Perdition; whom John connects with the Eighth Head of the Beast, that carries the Great Harlot.

The words used by the descending angel identify him with the second angel of ch. 14:8. These are the same angel in the second stage of his mission. The reason of the fall of Babylon is given in both places, only in ch. 18 the indictment is amplified. Because she is "a habitation of daemons, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hated bird;" and because the Great Harlot and the kings of Babylon have corrupted and destroyed the earth (ch. 11:18; 19:2) - therefore her destruction is proclaimed with a voice, whose echoes will convulse the nations to the ends of the earth.

3. Another Voice

"And I heard another voice from heaven".

But before the Archangel Michael "invades them with his troops," he remembers that he hath a people in Babylon to deliver, as well as a

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people to destroy. The people to be delivered are "the Tribes of Jacob, and the preserved of Israel" "the children of Daniel's people," eight thousand of whom are inhabitants of Rome. Every one knows the degradation of Israelites in the capital of the Great Harlot; and the oppression and contempt they have been subjected to by "the demons, foul spirits, unclean and hated birds", called popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests, who roost in that filthy habitation. This tyranny of the abjectest kind has left its indelible memorial upon the hearts of the denizens of the Ghetto, whose hope is the desolation of Rome, which they look for as the crisis of their own redemption; for Kimchi, one of their rabbis, Says in his comment on Obadiah, "this is the hope of the nation when Rome shall be desolated, then there shall be the redemption of Israel".

The vengeance of Michael is suspended until the safety of all his people of the stock of Abraham, who may be willing, is assured. The vengeance upon Babylon impends, while the first angel is making proclamation that "the Hour of his Judgment hath come" (ch. 14:6,7). Michael, as "the Lamb and the 144,000 with him," having established himself on Mount Zion, is prepared "to give great Babylon the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath" (ch. 16:19), but he is graciously willing to afford escape, not only to Israelites, but to Gentiles of "every nation, kindred, tongue, and people", upon whom the Harlot sits. He therefore sends forth a company of authorized heralds, qualified to authenticate their mission, after the old apostolic example, to announce good news to the well disposed; but terrible vengeance upon all "who know not the Deity, and obey not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ," as proclaimed by the Angel-Company "flying in midheaven;" or executing their mission with great dispatch.

In calling upon the well-disposed to "worship Him who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters," these Divinely called and sent preachers invite them to "come out of Babylon, that they be not partakers of her sins, and that they receive not of her plagues". This is not addressed to the saints as those referred to in the phrase "my people;" but to those who may become the Lord's people by obeying this "other voice from the heaven:" for this is a period in which, the Spirit saith, "Lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of the Daughter of Zion; and many nations shall be joined to Yahweh in that day, and shall be My' people" (Zech. 2:10,11). The saints cannot partake of her sins, and receive of her plagues; for, before this proclamation they have all been cleared out of Babylon by the gathering unto Christ in Teman; and by it having been given unto them to execute the judgment upon her and the four Beasts of the Sea (Dan. 7:22). They are the constituted

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avengers, and the avenged; and are then in no position to be addressed in the language of the voice.

"Her sins have followed her until the heaven". This is the reason assigned for her being plagued. The word ekolouthesan, signifies to be a follower. Her sins have been her followers. They have not been fitful, or occasional, attendants; but have been the invariable, and constant, and desperate, ruffians of her train, "until the heaven," achri tou our-apiou: that is, until the time arrived to establish the New Heaven. Had she repented of her deeds fifty-three years ago, when the darkness, or political eclipse, of the Beast's kingdom was removed by the fall of Napoleon the Great,(*) her sins would not have followed her "until the heaven". But her officials "blasphemed the Deity of the heaven, and repented not of their deeds" (ch. 16:11), but continued in the practice of all their abominations until now, and will do until sudden destruction comes upon them from which there will be for them no escape.

The Deity having called to mind her iniquities, the cause of her drunkenness, and abominable idolatries and profligacy: and the time allotted for preaching the Aion-Tidings of good, and their acceptance, fulfilled; the "other voice from the heaven" commands the commencement of hostilities against Babylon, in the words "Render to her as also she has rendered to you, and double to her twofold according to her deeds: in the cup which she has mingled, mingle for her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived profligately, so much torment and sorrow give her; for in her heart she saith, 'I sit Queen, and am not a widow, and sorrow I shall not see at all'." If the reader know the history of the Roman Ecclesiastical State, the Great Harlot, in her dealings with what her murderous and adulterous thieves, termed clergy and priests, stigmatize as "Heretics;" he will be aware of the "torment and sorrow" they have inflicted upon the saints, and upon Israel, and upon all the friends of civil and religious liberty, they have been able to shut up in their loathsome dungeons. This torment and sorrow appreciated, if he double it, he will then be enabled to form some feeble idea, far short of reality, of the terrible retribution and vengeance to be poured out upon the Satanic Hierarchy of the Seven Hills.

It is true, that she sitteth upon many waters, or peoples, who acknowledge Mistress Roma as the Queen City of the Ecclesiastical world. She is not without recognition as Queen even in America. But it is not true, that she will never experience the sorrow of widowhood. The widowhood of Jerusalem hath inured for many generations, and been to her a cause of reproach. Shall Rome, then, her fierce and relentless enemy, not become a widow? Jerusalem's Maker was the husband of

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(*) in 1815 Publishers.

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her youth, from whom she hath been divorced, but only for a time, after which He will have mercy upon her, and adorn her as His bride (Isa. 54:4-8; 61:10). When she becomes the married wife by the law that goes forth from Zion; when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be King in Israel on David's throne, shall Rome and the Roman State be the married wife of the Name of Blasphemy styling himself, and being styled, "the Vicar of Christ," and who undertakes to make Christ, in flesh and blood, by mumbling a few words over a wafer? Rome no widow! Always to have popes for husbands of the church! A strong delusion, which the judicial annihilation of the Harlot can alone dispel.

The following anecdote will throw some light upon the sense in which "I am no widow" is to be understood. It was blasphemously stated in the Tablet, a Romanist Paper, that about a month after Pio IX's accession, the Abbess of Minsk spent a whole night at Rome in prayer for the Catholic Church: and that while so occupied a voice (none other than that of the Saviour) addressed her thus: "Fear not, my daughter! I have not left my church a widow, I have chosen for her a Pontiff after my own heart".

4. One Day

"On account of this her plagues shall come in one day".

In the prophecy against the Chaldean Babylon, it is written, "thy day is come"; and in the next sentence, the exposition of this is given in the words, "the time that I will visit thee" (Jer. 50:31). Again, "Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed" (ch. 51:8). And again, "My people go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of Yahweh. And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumor that shall be heard in the land: and there shall come in a year the tidings, and after that in a year the tidings and violence in the land, ruler against ruler" (verse 45, 46).

Now this prophecy against the Chaldean Babylon, though having its own special fulfillment, which commenced in the time of Cyrus, and Belshatzar, the Lucifer of Isa. 14:12, was typical of the fall of the Roman Babylon; so that the language descriptive of the judgment of the ancient city and state, becomes the key of the figurative expressions in the Apocalyptic prophecy. I conclude, therefore, that it will be with the Roman Babylon as with the Chaldean; and that "her day, or time ," of judgment will come "suddenly," "as a thief in the night;" that there will be violence in Italy, "ruler against ruler"; that the tidings inviting people to emigrate will find the country in this anarchical condition; and that in the "next day," or "year", her plagues will commence, even "death, and anguish, and famine" death, or pestilence, and anguish, as the result

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of it, combined with famine. How long these calamities will continue after they have come into play, does not appear. Her judgment is consummated by a fiery overthrow "she will be consumed in fire". The foulness and filthiness of her abominations, and the similitude of the fate that awaits her, has caused the Great City and State to be "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt" (ch. 11:8). The punishment of Sodom will be Rome's, and perhaps, that also of the whole "Patrimony of St. Peter". This will consummate the plagues which begin her torment and sorrow in one and the same year after the Aion-tidings of good salutes the ears of Israel in Rome. But following upon "pestilence, and famine" is the twofold rendering of torment and anguish by the troops of Michael, the Great Prince, who invades her territory and becomes a smoking furnace of judgment, "a lake of fire burning with brimstone" (ch. 19:19). From this she never emerges, and therefore, like Sodom, suffers the vengeance of a fire which is eternal (Jude 7).

5. Yahweh Elohim

"YAHWEH ELOHIM, who judgeth her, is powerful".

In the English Version the name is "Lord God" - "strong is the Lord God who judgeth her". This judgment upon Babylon is part of the "judgment given to the saints" It is the Omnipotent Spirit who executes the judgment written; not as an abstract and naked power, but clothed with, and clothing, the saints Jesus and his Brethren. These all become Spirit, as Jesus is already "we shall be like him"; on the principle that "he who hath been born of spirit is spirit". The One Body spiritualized, and therefore spirit, is the "Lord God" of the text the Spirit, who imposed upon himself at the bush the name YAHWEH, manifested in flesh "justified by spirit," as the Elohim of Israel - YAH-WEH Elohim, He who shall be mighty ones, the Omnipotent "who was, and who is, and who shall be" manifested in power and great glory, "the First and the Last Ones," to resist whom will be certain destruction.

These Elohim are they addressed by the Spirit in the twentieth verse of this chapter, "Rejoice over her, 0 Heaven, and ye holy apostles, and prophets, for the Deity (the Yahweh-Spirit) hath punished your condemnation by her". She condemned the "heaven" to death; or, as it is expressed in ch. 13:6, "them who dwell in the heaven;" them who constitute the holy heavenly community in the generations embraced in the 1260 years; but who become the Most Holy Heaven-Community, or briefly, "the Heaven," preparatory to the judgment upon the Great Harlot. The judgment upon her is punishment for her blasphemy and maltreatment of the heaven in its primary constitution. The apostles and

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prophets belonged to, and were a part of, the heaven. The apostles were put to death by the power enthroned upon the Seven Hills, though not by the papal power; for this Eighth Head was not then developed in Rome. The apostles were put to death by the Sixth Head of the Beast; nevertheless, it was Rome who slew them, as it had previously slain the Lord Jesus; and for these slaughters she has to be finally destroyed. The prophets of the heaven for whose condemnation Rome is held responsible are not the old Testament prophets. Rome had no hand in their death. The prophets of the heaven are the "faithful men able to teach others" the doctrine of Christ, who were the true successors of the apostles. They are found among the witnesses who prophecy in sackcloth 1260 years, who were killed by the Roman Beast, and rose again politically in 1789-'90, and began the execution of judgment upon it. The present exigencies of the Great Harlot are the result of the judgment of the past seventy-five years. It has been in complete retribution for her condemnation of these prophets; and the earnest of what awaits her when the apostles and prophets shall be prepared to "rejoice over her". The prophets whom she condemned individually did not rise, but only the class to which they as witnesses against the Harlot, belonged. The resurrection of this class to execute judgment, was the earnest of the personal resurrection of its ancient members to finish the same judg-ment. This is implied in the exhortation, "Render to her as also she hath rendered to you, and double to her twofold according to her deeds;" and "rejoice over her, 0 heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets;" for how can they whom the powers of the Seven Hills condemned and executed in torments, render to that capital twofold according to her deeds, unless they are restored to life and endued with power for the work? The saints must first be caused to exist incorruptible and omnipotent, and then it will be competent for them to execute judgment upon the Harlot, and to rejoice over her, standing upon the crystal sea, no longer mingled with the fire of their fierce indignation (ch. 15:2).

6. The Consummation

"With violence shall that great city Babylon be cast down, and shall be found no more at all".

The plagues of Babylon are "death, anguish, and famine," consummated by her being utterly burned with fire. Death represents divers kinds of torments leading to that result. Whatever forms the torments may assume, they allow the subjects of them "no rest day nor night" during their operation (ch. 14:9-11). When all these restless days and nights are numbered, the consummation of their woes does not occupy

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long. The catastrophe is represented by a stone like a great millstone being let fall, or cast into the sea. The fall of the Chaldean Babylon was similarly illustrated. Jeremiah's prophecy in writing against Babylon was bound to a stone and cast into the Euphrates, accompanied with the words, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil I will bring upon her" (ch. 51:61-64). The earth did not open and swallow her up; but she sank from the rank of the Queen of the Nations, the capital of the greatest power of the world, to a city without power, and at length without inhabitants, and to such extreme desolation that no material for building should be found upon her site, as at this day (verse 26). From this depth she is to rise no more; although there are some in our day who affirm the contrary. But notwithstanding their fiat, the Spirit saith, "She shall not rise from the evil I will bring upon her". More than two thousand years have elapsed since this decree was registered. In all that time she has never risen, nor will she ever rise again "she shall be desolate forever"

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The Chaldean Babylon was brought to ruin for its sins against Yahweh in making his temple desolate, oppressing Israel, and intoxicating the nations. The Roman Babylon has done all this, and added to the offense in making herself drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus. The crimes of the Roman Babylon have far exceeded those of the Chaldean; her punishment will therefore be more tormenting and more signal. Hence, she is not simply to be in desolation upon the Seven Hills; but she is suddenly, "in one hour," to be "found no more at all". When "death, and anguish, and famine," have done their work, then YAHWEH ELORIM, after the example of the angels who visited Sodom, will send the Roman Sodom surging and crashing down into the volcanic subterranean. Pope and cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and nuns, "the temple of the god" they call St. Peter, basilicas, and churches, and all monastic "dens of foul spirits, and unclean and hateful birds," with all "the dainty and goodly things lusted after" by the beastly soul of the intoxicated harlot of the nations all will rush headlong, yelling and blaspheming, into the roaring and fiery abyss to "be found no more at all". Thus, with violence she reaches the depths of her low estate, and is no more found among the cities of the earth. Henceforth "the voice of harpers and musicians, and pipers, and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in her; and every craftsman of whatever craft shall be found no more at all in her; and the sound of the millstone shall be heard no more at all in her; and the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in her; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in her: for her merchants were the chief men of the earth; for by her sorcery all the nations were deceived".

7. The Survivors

'Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour thy judgment hath come".

The survivors of the consummation of the judgment of Babylon are the kings of the earth, the merchants of the earth and all interested in their traffic. These all bewail and lament for her. The kings bewail her because they have lost their favorite prostitute by whose witchery they were enabled to maintain their ascendancy over the deceived nations. The kings of the earth must be her survivors, or they could not lament for her. The merchants of the earth are the chief men of the earth. They are "the spiritual guides" of the peoples, of all ranks, orders, and degrees; together with "the lay lords," or nobles, and civil rulers of the states all who are represented in the phrase "Church and State" in the several streets, or kingdoms, of the great city. These, both kings and

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merchants, stand off in fear of the progressing torment, unable, or unwilling, to risk intervention in her behalf. Their sympathies are all with the Harlot; they bewail her, and blaspheme the tormenting power (ch. 16:21). The spiritual traders in souls bewail her "because no one buyeth their shipslading any more". The Roman State and Capital being all engulfed in the infernal abyss, papal wares cease to be of any value in the soul markets of the world, and all demand ceases. This is a grievous blow to all Romish Priests; who see before them only ruin and starvation. The reprobation of Heaven will be signally displayed in the total wreck of the ROMAN SHIP. If the Pope were really the faithful Vicar of Christ, and the Romish Church the true church of God, would Christ precipitate him and his church into the volcanic abyss, now in active preparation to receive them? This glorious catastrophe will open the eves of multitudes. Still the kings and priests, and their hosts of interested dependents, though seeing, will not perceive; for their hearts will be hardened, like Pharaoh's, that they and their armies may be destroyed

(ch. 19:21).

8. The Shipslading

"No one buyeth their shipslading any more".

The shipslading of a vessel is its cargo, which represents the revenues of the merchants, who own, or charter, or use, the ship. The Roman Ship has for many ages been freighted with wares, which have, through the trading of its importers, brought back to the State "lading of gold, and of silver, and of precious stones, and of pearl, and of fine linen, and of purple, and of silk, and of scarlet; and of all thyme wood, and every ivory utensil, and every article of most precious wood, and of brass, and of iron, and of marble; and cinnamon, and odors, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and grain, and cattle, and sheep, and horses, and of carriages, and of bodies, and souls of men". Hence these things come to represent the spiritual wares, which cause the revenues to flow in from all countries into the treasury of the Church; such, for instance, as masses for the dead, absolution for the living, indulgences for sin, consecrations of cemeteries, churches, sermonizings, reading Latin prayers, ordaining priests, consecrating bishops, sprinkling babies with "holy water," and putting the sign of the cross upon their foreheads, marriages, burials, canonization of saints, lying wonders, and so forth. These belong to the invoice of wares which are the stock in trade of the soul and body merchants of the Great Harlot and her Daughters and Abominations of the Babylonian World. All the State and Nonconformist Churches of Europe and America deal more

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or less extensively in the invoice. They do not all keep the same assortment of wares;(*) but they will be found to deal in some of the articles enumerated as the lading of the old Ship Babylon, whereby they are proved to belong to the "shipmasters, ships' companies, sailors, and traders upon the sea," who bewail, and lament the fall of their harlot-mother, "because no one buyeth their shipslading any more" - the clergy-craft is played out, hireling priests and parsons, alias "wolves in sheep's clothing," become a worthless and contemptible drug, esteemed by none. No man or woman will any longer give "carnal things" in exchange for their twaddling conceits, and religious consecrations, and consolations, which they now style their 'spiritual things Protestant-

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Tetzel's Procession for the Sale of Indulgences

John Diezel, or Tetzel, was a Dominican monk who in the early sixteenth century sponsored the wholesale sale of Indulgences Bearing a great red cross, he headed processions that would enter towns for the sale of indulgences, or the remission of punishment due for sins. In front of the procession, on a velvet cushion, was borne the Pontiff's bull of grace. The inhabitants of the town to be entered were told that "The grace of God and of the Holy Father was at their gates". A printed pardon was sold to those who were prepared to buy. On occasions, indulgences are still offered for sale by the Church, whilst other forms of merchandise are also engaged in. These include payment for the saying of Mass in order to ensure the speedy progress of the souls of the departed through the purging fires of purgatory; and so forth. See 2 Pet. 2.1-4 Publishers.

* Papal profiteering See Rev 18.12-15

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ism, in all its harlots and abominations, will be as defunct as its Romish-Mother. It will translate no more murderers from the scaffold, to "kingdoms beyond the bounds of time and space;" it will give no thieves and prostitutes the "consolations of religion" in the article of death; it will regenerate no more puling unconscious babes with prevenient or "subvenient," grace; it will consecrate no more Saint Bazaars (churches) and cemeteries for the dead it will no more befuddle the brains of silly women, and sillier men with its pulpit and vapourous inanities All this foolery, paid for in gold and silver fine flour grain cattle sheep," and so forth, in salaries tithes and church rates will be abolish ed by YAHWEH ELOHIM, who will permit no more lies to be preached in His name by Latin, Protestant, or Greek (Zech. 13:2,3,4). All these things will be substituted by the knowledge of His glory by which the nations of the earth shall be illuminated. They will then come to Him from the ends of the earth, and declare their conviction, that their Catholic and Protestant fathers "inherited lies, and things wherein there is no profit" (Jer. 16:19). These unprofitable and lying vanities, sold to them at an enormous price by spiritual impostors, for the cure of their souls, they will indignantly repudiate. The veil which is now spread over all nations being destroyed (Isa. 25:7), they will look back with astonishment upon their present degradation and insanity. Freed from existing spiritual slavery, they will rejoice in the liberty of the Truth, and wisely resolve to walk no more after the imagination of an evil heart (Jer. 3:17); but to walk in the paths of Yahweh the Elohim of Jacob (Isa. 2:3):who will turn to them a pure language, that they may all call upon the Name of Yahweh, to serve Him with one consent (Zeph. 3:9).

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Chapter 19

TRANSLATION

1 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in the heaven, saying, HALLELU YAH! The salvation and the glory, and the honor, and the power to YAHWEH our ELOHIM! 2. For true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot, who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he bath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

3. And a second time they said, HALLELU YAH!

And her smoke ascendeth unto the aeons of the aeons.

4~ And the twenty and four elders, and the four living ones fell down, and did homage to the Deity sitting upon the throne, saying, Amen; HALLELU YAH.

5~ And a voice proceeded from the throne, saying, Praise the Deity all of you his servants, and ye that fear him, both the small and the great.

6. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, HALLELU YAH! For Yahweh Elohim the all-powerful, hath prevailed! 7. We can rejoice and exult, and have given the glory to him; for the marriage of the Lamb hath come, and his betrothed hath made herself ready. 8. And to her it hath been given that she may have been clothed with fine linen pure and resplendent; for the pure linen is the righteous actions of the saints.

9. And he said to me, Write! Blessed are they who have been called to the feast of the marriage of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of the Deity. 10. And I fell before his feet to do homage to him: and he said to me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren who have the testimony of Jesus: do homage to the Deity; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of the prophecy.

1. After These Things

"After these things I heard a great voice of much people in the heaven".

The things here referred to are the events set forth in the eighteenth chapter. After these things, therefore, is a phrase indicating that what is about to be narrated in this nineteenth chapter was transacted after the

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Great Harlot's capital and government had been destroyed by YAH, the Seven-Horned Lamb, and those who were with him, the called, and chosen, and faithful.

The scene with which this chapter opens transfers our attention from Rome to Jerusalem, the place of Yahweh's throne. The news of Rome's catastrophe having arrived there, the much people in the new heaven gave utterance to a great voice, saying, "HALLELU YAH! The salvation, and the glory, and the honor, and the power" be ascribed, not to the called, and chosen, and faithful Elohim, but "unto YAHWEH" their strength, and to the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, their Elohim. These are the destroying and avenging power by which the saints obtain the victory over all their foes. To YAH, therefore, all the praise is due. The salvation of the nations from the continued corrupting influence of the great harlot, is solely due to Him; the glory of the deliverance, the honor of it, and the power to do it, are His alone; therefore, the great voice of the much people in the heaven," by whom the salvation, glory, honor, and power will be duly appreciated, will shout Hallelu Yah with an intensity of earnestness as never before gave utterance to the words.

This is the first place in the Apocalypse where these words are introduced. They are used four times in so much of the chapter as is now before the reader. They appear as one word in the Greek, Allelouia, which gives the unaspirated pronunciation of the Hebrew words, hal-'elu Yah, PRAISE YE YAH! They occur nowhere else in the Apocalypse than in ch. 19:1,3,4,6. Let the reader turn to Psalms 95, 96, 97' 98, 99, and 100, and he will there read predictions which find their accomplishment after the destruction of "the Throne of Iniquity", and in the time of this great Hallelu Yah celebration of the Apocalypse.

2. The Hallelu-Yah Celebrations

"And a second time they said, Hallelu Yah!"

The word deuteron, a second lime, implies a first time, with an interval between the first and second. There is doubtless something intended in the information that they, the much people in the heaven a second time, said Hallelu YAH. Why did they say it in the first instance? They tell us that it was because YAH had judged the Great Harlot, and had avenged the blood of His servants in destroying her; in other words, because of the successful issue of the Second Angel's mission announced in Apoc. 14:8. The Hallel was Praise to YAH, because he had caused the fall of the Great City Babylon, which had made all nations drink of the wine of the intenseness of her spiritual fornication.

But the judgment given to the saints, as the Elohistic agents of the

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all-powerful YAH, was not finished with the fall of the capital and government of the Roman Babylon. "The Remnant" still remained to be "slain with the sword of the King of kings" (ch. 19:21,16): "the kings of the earth", the merchants ruined by the wreck of their State-ship, and all its passengers and crew, who bewailed and lamented the harlot's destruction; and who could not, therefore, join in the celebration of her Destroyer's praise; but cordially hated and blasphemed Him in their anguish (ch 16:21) all these were yet unconquered. As hard of heart as the old Egyptian government, the greatest manifestation of power fails to subdue their pride and haughtiness, so long as they can arm their peoples, and marshal their hosts in the field of battle. "Their wickedness is great", too great to be forgiven. The Deity, therefore, hardens their hearts as vessels fitted for destruction; and thereby insures the execution of his purpose upon them. He puts it into their hearts to fulfill his will, until His predictions shall be fulfilled (ch. 17:7). This work of judgment has to be executed by the Seven-Horned Lamb and his companions, after they have said Hallelu YAH the first time, and before they say it the "second time". The mission of the Third Angel has to be discharged between the first and second Hallelu YAH. The third angel executes his vengeance upon the Harlot's survivors and sympathizers (ch. 14:9-11; 16:20,21; 17:14-the smoke of whose torment ascendeth unto the aions of the aeons (ch. 14:11; 19:3) - until the worshippers and sympathizers of the Beast, and the Governments of Europe are completely and thoroughly subdued; and their kingdoms have become the kingdoms of YAH and of his Anointed Bride (ch. 11:15).

It will be remembered that inch. 18:20, there is an exhortation, saying, "Rejoice over her, 0 heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for the Deity hath punished your condemnation by her". This exhortation is responded to by the "much people in the heaven". They are the "heaven"' that rejoices, and gives utterance with "a great voice" to the Hallelu YAH for the first time. They did not raise the great Hallelu Yah voice when they first established the throne on Mount Zion. Their great enemy, the Roman Babylon, is then unbroken. They had first to destroy her before they could praise YAH, and ascribe to him the glory, honor, and power of her desolation. And being destroyed, is there not great fitness in the celebration of the event in the Capital of the Great King? When Napoleon the Great fell from his high estate, all the capitals of the kings he had dethroned celebrated his catastrophe with joy. So also in Washington and other principal cities on the fall of Richmond and the Confederacy. How much greater will the rejoicing be in the Capital of the New Government, when they who, in the days of their flesh, were cruelly tormented and slain by the Roman Power, are able to say, "she

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is no more, and shall be found no more at all!" They will acknowledge that the judgments of YAH are true and righteous: and Himself entitled to the loftiest praise. The celebration will be grand, and the earnest of the second not far remote.

But before they can Apocalyptically say Hallelu YAR, a second time, all those things must be accomplished which are represented in this nineteenth chapter from the eleventh verse to the end. The four-and-twenty elders and the four living ones, the representatives of the saints before the throne, will then be able to say the Hallelu YAH, a second time; and to append to it the final "Amen!" for, it is written, "they fell down, and did homage to the Deity that sits on the throne, saying, AMEN; Hallelu YAH! "This fourth verse of our present chapter is synchronical with ch. 5:14, which points to the time when "every creature" shall say, in deed and in truth, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be to him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for the aeons of the aeons". To which the four living ones respond "Amen!" When this "Amen" is pronounced by them, "the war of the great day of the all-powerful Deity" will be ended. The judgment given to the saints will have been fully executed. The "it is done" of the seventh vial will have been attained. There will no longer be any Eighth Head and Ten Horns; the False Prophet will have disappeared in the fiery lake; the Dragon will have been chained in the abyss; and no dominions will be left to dispute the sovereignty of the King of kings, from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth - "all nations shall serve him; and call him blessed" (Psa. 72:11,17). All this is Apocalyptically implied in the "Amen" of the four-and-twenty elders, and the four living ones. They will co-join with it the Hallelu YAR in its second time utterance, because all these vast and glorious results are referable only to Him "who made the heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (ch. 14:7; Zech. 4:6).

But to the Hallelu YAH of our sixth verse, the voice of the great multitude, and the voice of the many waters, and the voice of the mighty thunderings do not prefix "Amen". Theirs is the utterance of the Hallelu YAH of the first time. There are no thunders connected with the "AMEN; Ha/lelu YAH;" for all that succeeds this celebration is "Glory to the Deity in the highest heaven, over the earth peace and good will to men". The Hal/elu YAH of the first time not only celebrates the ruin of the great harlot, and the prevailing of the Omnipotent, but gives the reason why they, the "heaven, and the holy apostles, and prophets" slain by her, are able to respond to the exhortation to "rejoice over her". They say, "we can rejoice and exult, and we have given the glory to him; for the marriage of the Lamb hath come, and his betrothed hath made herself ready And to her it hath been given that she may have been clothed

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with fine linen pure and resplendent; for the fine linen is the righteous actions of the saints". All this had been done in Teman, and before the Bride had been established upon Mount Zion. It is true that the English Version reads differently. It renders the verb chairomen and agalliome-tha, and domen, as imperatives instead of subjunctives; and elthe, as a present instead of a past tense: and peribaletai, a clothing to be effected that "she should be arrayed". But this is all incorrect, and anachronistic. The betrothed had made herself ready by deeds of righteousness; on account of which she had been married or united to the Lamb, in being invested with the clothing of incorruption. This enabled her constituents, "the heaven, and the holy apostles and prophets" to rejoice and exult; and they needed not to be exhorted to "give honor" to YAR; for, as they say, "we have given the glory to him". Their investment with the fine linen of incorruption, as the reward according to their pure and resplendent works, was preliminary to judgment being given them for execution upon the Great Harlot and the ten-horned Scarlet Beast that carried her. They had been clothed, and had thereby been made invincible; but it was not until the occasion of the first Hallelu YAR celebration, commemorating the destruction of the Great Harlot, that the prowess of the Omnipotent YAH, in concert with His previously prepared Bride, was celebrated by the "much people in the heaven".

This first Hallelu YAH will be a great festival. John was commanded to write, and to say, "Blessed are they who have been called," or invited, "to the feast of the marriage of the Lamb". There will be two classes that will be blessed; the first consisting of those who, having believed the gospel of the kingdom, been immersed, and thenceforth continued patiently in well-doing till death, have been restored to life; and subsequently, on account of the purity and brightness of their character in Christ, clothed upon with the fine linen of incorruption: and the second class consisting of the "many waters," or peoples, who may have already become joined to YAR as the subjects of his dominion. These, then, blessed in Abraham and his Seed, partake of "the feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined, made by YARWEH Tz'vaoth in Mount Zion". The destruction of the Great Harlot corrupter of the earth, will prepare many people for the reception of the light. The veil spread over them will be removed; and they will be able to "buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isa. 25:6,7; 55:1). Thus a new world will be in process of development, the heavens of which will be the blessed brethren of the Lord Jesus; and the earth thereof, the "many waters" of their dominion; the voice of each ascending in praise of YAHWEH Elohim, the all-powerful, because he hath prevailed (verse 6).

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"And he said to me," saith John, "these are the true words of the Deity" - these words delivered to John by the angel, at whose feet he prostrated himself to do him homage. But the angel, or bearer of the words, forbade the reverence, and said, "l am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: do homage to the Deity: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of the prophecy". These words are parallel with ch. 22:7-10, and refer to the time of the fulfillment of the promise, "Behold I come suddenly," or "as a thief'. John and the Angel in the scene personate the Brethren of Christ. They were the fellow-servants, brethren, and prophets, who keep the sayings of the Apocalyptic prophecy - who keep in memory the sayings, and who keep them in the sense of executing the judgments of the seventh vial. The angel's refusal of John's adoration was a direct rebuke of those professors who, in the days of the apostles, were beguiling themselves and others of their reward, in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels (Col. 2:18)-a rebuke which would make the Apocalypse itself quite distasteful to them. The angel's declaration in the scene, indicated that the class he represented was restored to life; for he says he was of them. John and he meet in "the time of the dead", and see and hear the things of the prophecy in their fulfillment, which they were before acquainted with only in vision when the Apocalypse was communicated in Patmos. John had not yet attained to the angelic nature; if he had he would not have dramatically prostrated himself before the angel to do him reverence. All who are "equal to the angels" fall down before the throne, and do homage only to the Deity after the example of their representatives, the twenty-four elders, and the four living ones in the fourth and fifth chapters, and in ch. 11:16,17 of this wonderful book.

TRANSLATION RESUMED

11. And I saw the heaven which had been opened, and behold a White Horse, and one sitting upon him, called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judgeth and makes war.

12. But his eyes are as it were a flame of fire; and upon his head many diadems: having a name which had been written, which no one knows but he himself.

13. And he had been clothed with a garment that had been dyed with blood; and his name is called, the Word of the Deity.

14. And the hosts in the heaven followed him upon white horses, having been clothed with fine linen white and pure.

15. And out of his mouth goeth forth a sharp long-sword, that with it he may have smitten the nations; and he shall govern them with an iron rod: and he treadeth the vat of the wine of the wrath and of the indignation of the all-powerful Deity.

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16. And he hath upon the garment, and upon his thigh the name which had been written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

3. The Scene

The principal figures in the scene before us are the King of kings, or YAHWEH; the Hosts in the heaven; and the White Horses upon which they ride. All these represent a power engaged in a righteous war with the nations, which are at length smitten, or conquered, and governed by the victors. The central figure of the group is the Faithful and True One, with eyes as it were a flame of fire, and upon his head many diadems. He is seen sitting upon a white horse, with a name inscribed upon him, and with a sharp long, or far reaching, sword issuing from his mouth. The scene is the amplification of ch. 17:14, which says, "the Ten Horns receive power as kings one hour with the (Eighth Head of the) Beast". These have one policy, and shall deliver their power and strength to the Beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, but the Lamb shall over-come them: for he is Lord of lords and King of kings: and they who are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful". These are the parties in the war the King of kings and his followers of the one part; and the Beast and kings of the earth, of the other. The war waged in righteousness by YAHWEH Tz'vaoth, (He who shall be hosts), the Faithful and True One, is "the war of the great day of the all-powerful Deity:" when "the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down; and YAHWEH alone shall be exalted" (Isa. 2:11). The result of the conflict will be the transfer of the "many diadems" from the Ten Horns (ch. 13:1) to the head of the King of kings; who will then be, not only King of Israel, but King of all the nations of the earth; whom he henceforth possesses as his inheritance, with none to dispute his claim (Psa. 2:8; Zech. 14:9).

4. The Time of the Scene

"And I saw the heaven which had been opened".

John directs our attention to "the heaven". If we look to the heaven, or Air, upon which the seventh vial is to be poured out, we can see nothing therein of a character hostile to the Powers that be, at all answering to the scene before us. The reason of this is, that the heaven hath not yet been opened. A few short years ago, the kingdom of Italy was a nonentity, and had no star shining among the constellations of the Gentile Heaven. A breach, however, was made; in other words, "a door was opened in the heaven" by successful war; and we now see the star of the kingdom of Italy for a short time shining among the other lights

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of the firmament. What was true of the Italian kingdom is also true of the kingdom of Israel and throne of David. These are at present nonentities; for no such kingdom and throne are seen among the kingdoms of the world. It is necessary that "a door be opened in the heaven," and that a Power enter through the breach, and set up its government therein To set up the throne of David in the heaven, Jerusalem, the place of the throne and capital of the Great King, must be wrested from the enemy - from Gog. This, as we have seen, is accomplished after the return of the Ancient of Days, and after his corporeal union with the Bride in Teman; and consequently upon the signal overthrow of the king of the north in the terminal epoch of the sixth vial. This having been transacted, John was able to look back upon the situation, and to say in ch. 4:1,2, "Behold a door had been opened, eneogmene, in the heaven; and a throne was set in the heaven". The throne of David had been re-established, and was occupied by David's Son and Lord; who was now prepared to make war in righteousness upon all the other thrones in the heaven, until he had cast them down, and transferred all their diadems to his own head.

The heaven thus opened is the same referred to in ch. 19:11. In this place he informs us, that the heaven in which he saw the white horse cavalry had been opened. If it had not previously been opened he would not have seen that body of horse therein. Hence, the time of the scene is subsequent to the opening of the heaven, and the appearance of the Lamb with the 144,000 upon Mount Zion, in the terminal epoch of the sixth vial.

5. The Name Written

"Having a Name which had been written, which no one knew but he himself'.

Before John saw the Faithful and True One in the heaven, a name had been written upon his garment and upon his thigh, indicative of the wearer of the garment in his glory and majesty No one knew the name but he himself;" yet the name is given in verses 16 and 13 as KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS" and the Word of the Deity This is the Blessed and only Potentate who Paul saith dwells in light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see (1 Tim 6:15,16). This name of the Invisible Deity had been written upon a garment dyed with blood and upon a thigh The thigh and garment had been filthy; but their filthiness had been purged or caused to pass away so thoroughly, that the garment was as raiment changed (Zech 3 3 5) The filthy garment was the Human Nature, which the Word of the Deity was clothed with in His flesh-manifestation. "Jesus Anointed" is ex-

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pressive of this idea. The garment of humanity became changed raiment by the transforming power of Spirit in the moment of its ascent to consubstantiality with the Father. In this instantaneous quickening on the third day, the name of King of kings and Lord of lords, the name of the Invisible Father, was written, or engraved, into the blood-stained substance, or veil, that was rent upon the cross. In this process of inscription, the humanity was transmuted into the Divine Nature, which in the scene before us, appears metonymically as a garment and thigh inscribed with the glorious, majestic, and all-powerful, name of the Invisible Blessed and Only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords; of which Spirit-manifestation, the appellation "THE LORD JESUS ANOINTED" is the concise and Scriptural expression.

But though the name can be read, and expounded, "no one knows the name but he himself'. The Father's name is written upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and upon all the "redeemed from among men" (ch. 14:1) but they are not therefore the Father. The only Personage in the universe that can answer to the name of the Invisible King of kings and Lord of lords is the Invisible Father Himself. He therefore only knows the name; it is truly representative of no one else. The personages in the scene are Spirit-manifestations of the Father, the Sons of the Deity upon whom His name has been written, (ch. 3:12) with One in their midst, in whom, it has pleased the Father, all fullness shall dwell; and that he shall have the pre-eminence among them in all things (Col. 1:18,19).

The pre-eminence is indicated by the name upon his thigh; and by the long-sword going forth from his mouth. The name written upon the thigh is elucidated by Psa. 45:3,4, addressed to the King: "Gird thy sword upon the thigh, 0 Mighty One, with thy glory and thy majesty: and in thy majesty ride prosperously in the matter of the truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things". Thus, he rides forth upon the white horse in the scene before us, followed by the hosts of the heaven, of whom he is the Commander-in-chief, as indicated by the sword in apposition with his mouth - "He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword" (Isa. 49:2): and "the Word of the Deity is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight" (Heb. 4:12). Such is the power to which the garment and the thigh belong, and upon which the name of the Blessed and the Only Potentate is inscribed. The rider of the white horse is the Image of the Invisible One, from whose mouth issues the command for the smiting of the nations; a command which is executed by the people who are his sword. He gives the

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word; they obey with alacrity and invincible effect. This is symbolized in the scene before us by a sharp sword as it were going out of the mouth of the principal figure of the group, who is also styled, "the Word of the Deity" - the Word made FLESH; and afterwards, in its ascent to the Father, "justified by spirit," and therefore SPIRIT. This all-powerful Image of the Invisible King of kings, having smitten the nations by his all-conquering hosts, assumes the government of them by right of conquest. The mythic "sovereignty of the people" is effectually and finally abolished from the earth, partial or universal suffrage is extinguished; and the rule of a Righteous Despot, who shall govern the nations by his own absolute will and authority, will be substituted in their stead; for, it is written, "he shall rule them with an iron rod". Every approved and accepted believer of the Truth, who shall have been made "like him," will participate with him in the administration of this iron and righteous despotism - iron because of its invincibility and strength: for "he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations; and he shall rule them with an iron rod" (ch. 2:26,27); "even as," saith he, "I have received of my Father".

6. The Hosts in the Heaven

"And the Hosts in the heaven followed him upon white horses, having been invested with fine linen white and pure".

These hosts being invested with the same clothing as the betrothed, indicates that they are the same persons. The fine linen investing the betrothed is declared to be representative of the righteous deeds, ta dikaiomata, of the saints. This is equivalent to saying, that the betrothed of the Lamb is constituted of the Saints. Hence the wearers of the fine linen, which is granted specially and exclusively to approved saints, whether on foot or "upon horses," are known to be saints by their uniform. The white and pure fine linen deeds shine forth resplendently in a pure and bright nature like that of the angels; for the saints are made "equal to the angels," when "the mortal is swallowed up of life". In the scene before us, they illustrate the name YAHWEH Tz'vaoth, which signifies in plain English, He who shall be hosts. The Eternal Spirit, who named himself YAHWEH at the bush, manifests himself in Jesus and his Brethren, who are the Commander and his Hosts of this remarkable scene. Each one of them is a distinct spiritual entity - an incorruptible and immortal flesh-and-bones organization, which is Spirit-body, or a man like to the Lord Jesus after he had been "revived" or quickened (Luke 24:39; Rom. 14:9). The first man Adam is multiplied into thousands and tens of thousands of millions, by a natural law, so "the second

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Adam the Lord from heaven," who is "the Lord the Spirit",(*) multiplies himself into hosts of immortals after his own image (1 Cor. 15:49) by the creative operation of his almighty power. These tz'vaoth, or hosts, in the heaven, cannot be computed; for they are "a multitude which no man can number," taken out from among "all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues," by the belief and obedience of the truth; and who "stand before the throne and before the Lamb," whom "they follow whithersoever he goeth," "upon white horses," "clothed with white

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(*) It is worthy of note here, that Jesus having just emerged from the sepulchre, refused to allow himself to he touched; and gave as a reason for the interdict, that he "had not yet ascended to his Father" (John 20:17); or been "revived," anezese, as it is in Rom. 14:9. But on the evening of the same day he appeared in the midst of the eleven apostles, and invited all present to touch, or handle him and see, that he was not a terrifying thing (Luke 24:37-39). In the evening the cause no longer existed that obtained in the morning, why he should not be touched or handled. He had doubtless been the subject of the ascent to the Father, and therefore they might handle him; but if he had not, the same objection to touching him would have been in force in the evening as in the morning.

But, when they saw him in the evening, at what were they in consternation and affright? Luke says, according to the Common Version, "they supposed they had seen a spirit". Although they were engaged in talking about the Lord Jesus with certain who had seen and eaten bread with him some hours before, when Jesus himself stood in their midst, they were in such consternation at his unexpected apparition, that they failed to recognize him, or to discern whether what they saw in human shape were substantial "flesh and bones," or an unsubstantial spirit. It seems to have been a question with them of substance or shadow. If not substance, what might he the disposition of the invisible original towards them who cast the shade, or spirit. was the spirit apparent for good or for evil towards them? They evidently concluded that it was an evil spirit they thought they saw, for they were in consternation and affright.

Luke's words in the Greek are edokoun pneuma theorem, "they seemed to themselves to behold a pneuma," or spirit. But this word pneuma is made to signify many things. Before me are over thirty applications of the word to things. Among them is given "the human soul after its departure from the body, a spirit". The Pharisees believed in such apneuma; but their opponents the Sadducees denied that there was any such thing (Acts 23:8). Apneuma of this sort was aphantasma or phantom of the popular mind of the first century, as it continues to be of the nineteenth. The Eleven did not see a disembodied human soul; but "they seemed to themselves to behold" some-thing equivalent to it, popularly styled "a ghost", orpneuma - a terrifying thing by which men, women, and children, have been scared in all ages.

The lord Jesus had been mistaken for a terrifying pneuma, or unsubstantial shade of evil, before. He appeared to his

disciples in their ship, in the fourth watch of the night, walking on the sea. This is related by Mark in ch. 6:49, and by Matthew ch. 14:26. In narrating the incident they both testify that they cried out in consternation, exclaiming that what they saw was aphantasma. They mistook him for the same thing, on the sea before, and in Jerusalem after, his resurrection; and with the same terrifying accompaniments: I conclude, therefore, that Luke's pneuma, and Matthew and Mark's phantasma, are the same sort of aphantom) and that the reading of phantasnia for pneuma in Luke 24:37, adopted by Griesbach (a German Hebrew and Greek scholar who specialized in the text of Scripture) is correct. The thing signified is the same, so that any dispute is a mere strife of words.

The sense of pneuma in verse 37, fixes its signification in verse 39, because the pneuma in the fortieth verse, is the subject of criticism in the latter. Speaking of such a pneunia, the Lord Jesus said, "a pneuma bath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having". He had ascended to the Father, or they would not then be invited to handle him; nevertheless, he was not a phantasmial pneuma, but still substantial flesh and bones, only incorruptible and deathless - incorruptible and undying flesh and bones which is "spirit", pneuma hagiosunes, in contrast with flesh, blood and bones, which is "flesh", and therefore corruptible and mortal. what Jesus was on that evening of the third day, he is now. He is "the Lord the Spirit," substantial, incorruptible, deathless and omnipotent flesh and bones, which now "flourish as an herb," and which say, "0 Yahweh, who is like unto thee, who delivereth the poor from him that was too strong for him?" It is "of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," the faithful are the "members;" for what he is now in respect to body, flesh, and bones, they hope to be when he shall appear to make manifest the hosts of the heaven in the scenes of this chapter.

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robes;" and when "the war of the great day" is over, holding "palms in their hands," the emblem of victory (Apoc. 7:9; 14:4).

But, though no man can compute the number of these heavenly hosts, they are symbolically represented by the number of their nationality, and measured by its cubical contents; or by 144,000, and 144 cubits, respectively (ch. 14:1; 21:17). They are the kings and lords, the official companions of the Great King, who accompany him in all his enterprises against the nations. They are the third angel, and the angels of the harvest and vintage scenes of ch. 14; Joel 3:13: they tread "the vat of the wine of the indignation, and wrath of the all-powerful Deity," without the city, by the space of a thousand, six-hundred furlongs; or during the forty years of the seventh vial judgments upon "the Air".

7. The white Horses

"I saw the heaven opened, and behold a White Horse".

THE Commander-in-Chief, the real Commander of the Faithful, the Captain, who leads many sons to glory, was seen by John, sitting upon a white horse in the opened heaven; and all his "called, and chosen, and faithful", hosts, sitting upon white horses likewise. They are themselves the heaven that rejoices over the fall of the Great Harlot; the horses they ride upon are therefore Apocalyptically regarded as in the heaven also.

The white horse upon which the Commander of the Hosts of the heaven rides, is not representative of that symbolized by the white horse of ch. 6:2. This is the Roman Horse of the first seal period. The white horse of the scene before us, is the Hebrew Horse; and all the other horses upon which the faithful hosts who follow him sit, are horses of the same race. A clue to the signification of the horse in this place is found in Zech. 10:3, where the Spirit saith, "Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds (kings of the earth), and I punished the goats;" and the exposition given, showing how and when they were punished, is added in the words, "for YAHWEH Tz'vaoth hath visited his flock the House of Judah, and hath made them his GOODLY HORSE in the battle. And they shall be as mighty ones who tread down as in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them," "and shall be seen over them" (ch. 9:14). The House of Judah will then be not only the horse to be ridden, but it will be made a goodly horse, before YAHWEH Tz'vaoth will condescend to ride them in his wars. Zechariah tells us, that "He will save the tents of Judah first" (ch. 12:7): He will save them from Gog; and He will save them from their sins, which is an essential part of his mission. When He hath delivered Jerusalem, The

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governors of Judah will say heartily, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in YAHWEH Tz'vaoth their Elohim the 144,000 (ch. 12:5). They will have looked upon him whom their ancestors pierced, and repented (v.10); and so find access to the fountain opened to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness (ch. 13:1). Thus they will become nationally white, or "goodly," being "washed in the blood of the Lamb" (Apoc. 7:14). They are by this process grafted into their own olive, and become fit for the master's use, as soldiers of the rank and file in the holy and righteous war.

When Habakkuk saw "Eloahh come from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran," he had a glimpse of the military armament of Apoc. 19. He inquires in ch. 3:8 saying, "Was YAHWEH displeased against the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea that thou didst ride upon thy horses, thy vehicles of salvation? Thou didst march through the sea with thine horses, through the mire of great waters" (verse 15). The time of this movement against the nations he terms "the Day of Trouble", and prays that he may rest in it; and adds concerning it, "when he cometh up against the people, he will cut them in pieces with his troops".

Moses also, in Deut. 33:26, alludes to the same military display of power, saying, "there is none like the AlL of Yeshurun riding the heavens in thy help, and in his majesty the clouds. A refuge is the Elohim of old, and underneath the powers of Olahm; and He shall thrust out the enemy; and shall say, Destroy!"

Here then we have a complete army exhibited for the conquest of the nations, and the salvation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel the Lord Jesus Christ the Commander; "the called, chosen, and faithful" his brethren and companions, filling all the offices of the army; and the men of the Hebrew race the goodly soldiery of the kingdom. The heavenly hosts, or immortal saints, are "the heavens" ridden by the Ail of Yeshurun; while these heavens ride upon their goodly Hebrew horses to the destruction of all the governments of the world. An armament like this, in which every soldier of the ranks shall be able to "chase a thousand, and to put ten thousand to flight" (Deut. 32:30; Lev. 26:8) - an army of Samsons cannot but be invincible. It will be just the force the necessities of the situation demand- These soldiers of the king of Israel will not only be the goodly horses ridden by the Saints, but they will be the long, or far reaching, sword of their Commander, and his bow and arrow, battle axe, and new sharp threshing instrument with teeth. "I declare," saith the Spirit, "that I will render double to thee; when I have bent Judah for me, and filled the (Judah) bow with (the) Ephraim (arrow), and raised up thy sons, 0 Zion, against thy sons, 0 Greece,

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and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. And YAHWEH shall be seen over and his arrow (Ephriam) shall go forth as lightning and Adonai YAHWEH shall blow the trumpet, and his arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning: and whirlwinds of Teman" (Zech. 9:13). And in Isa. 41:14, "Fear not thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel, I will help thee, saith YAHWEH, and thy redeemer the Holy One of Israel. Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in YAHWEH, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel". Such is the means employed for the fulfillment of Apoc. 16:20,21, by which we are informed, that "every island fled away, and the mountains were not found;" and that "there fell upon men a great hail out of the heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent"

a plague of meteoric stones from the Hebrew hosts of the New Heaven that will be "exceeding great".

TRANSLATION RESUMED

17. And I saw one angel who had stood in the sun: and he shouted with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls flying in mid-heaven, Come hither, and assemble together for the banquet of the powerful Deity, 18. that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of chieftains and the flesh of mighty ones, and flesh of horses and of those sitting upon them, and the flesh of all, both free and bond, and small and great.

19. And I saw the Beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies which had been gathered together to make war with him sitting upon the horse, and with his host.

20. And the Beast had been taken, and with him the False Prophet who had worked the wonders before him, with which he had deceived them who received the sign of the Beast, and who worshipped his Image. The two had been cast alive into the lake of the fire burning with brimstone.

21. And the rest had been killed with the long-sword of him sitting upon the horse, which sword proceedeth from his mouth: and all the fowls had been satiated with their flesh".

8. The One Angel

"I saw One Angel who had stood in the sun".

In the original text it is not simply angelos, an angel, but emphatically hena angelon one angel. This angel is particularized as one that had stood, hestota, in the sun. The English Version renders this perfect participle by the sign of the present, standing. I have preferred to adhere to the literal, however true that this one angel comes at length to "shine as

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the sun in the kingdom of the Father". It is doubtless not accidental that the Revelator said to John, that the angel had stood in the sun. This reference to a past position of the angel would afford a clue to his identity, and enable the reader to distinguish him from the many other angels of the Apocalypse.

The only place in the previous chapters where a body of people having a mission are found "in the sun," is in the twelfth chapter. This angel-body is there styled "a woman", who is said to "have been clothed with the sun". A community clothed with the sun is "standing in the sun" so long as it continues so invested. But this angel-woman did not continue to stand in the sun; for "she fled into the wilderness" where she remained 1260 years. It could therefore be said of her that she had stood in the sun; but has never stood there since. It was a great military success that placed her temporarily "in the sun" the conquest of the pagan Dragon-government by her deliverer Constantine, who, in this particular, was a type of her greater and eternal deliverer, the King of kings and Lord of lords, whose conquest of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, will place her in the sun, to enlighten the earth with glory.

9. The Loud Voice

"And the one angel shouted with a loud voice

THIS loud voice of the one angel is one of the voices of the Seventh Vial (ch. 16:18): preparatory to Ephraim being shot forth like lightning from the Judah-bow, in the hand of YAHWEH Elohim. It is the loud voice of the rainbowed angel as of a lion roaring. This had been preceded by a loud voice, announcing in all the midheaven, or "Air", into which the Seventh Vial will be poured, that the Hour of Judgment, so long threatened, had actually arrived (ch. 14:6). This is a voice of peace, and friendship, and good will, to all who shall obey it; but terrible in its consequences to those who shall neglect or reject it. The angel who proclaims this loud voice, or message, to the nations, "flies in midheaven"- in the Apocalyptic "midheaven," which is peopled by Birds of Prey, then ready to take wing when the loud voice of the one angel shall reach them. It is the same angel who makes proclamation in midheaven, that invites the fowls of the midheaven to assemble to the Deity's banquet of slaughtered kings, military offices, chaplains, soldiers of all ranks, and so forth. The angel-proclaimer in both cases is of the Woman, then no longer a down-trodden and afflicted fugitive, but "the Holy City, New Jerusalem, prepared as a Bride, who had been adorned for her husband" (ch. 21:2). The state, the church, and the army of the kingdom are then all in the hands of the saints; who will tolerate no other states, churches, and armies, than their own. The man or people, who will not

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accept their absolute sovereignty in secular and spiritual affairs must be tormented, and suffered to enjoy no rest day nor night (ch. 14:10,11). They offer peace on condition of unqualified submission; otherwise there is no escape from being devoured by the Birds of Prey.

10. The Birds of Prey

"The One Angel shouted with a loud voice saying to all the fowls flying in midheaven, Come hither, and assemble together for the banquet of the powerful Deity, that ye may eat the flesh of kings".

The proclamation of good news in midheaven by the Saints (and there is none else to do it) is not only to warn the nations of what is about to break forth upon them, but so to operate upon the scattered Israelites, as to make them willing to acknowledge Jesus as David's Son and Lord, and to place themselves at his disposal; so that whatever he, as the Prophet like unto Moses, may command to be done, they will readily and zealously obey under the direction, orders, and superintendence of those of his Brethren he may appoint. The saints will have, not only to make proclamation, but to consummate such a military organization as will make Israelites and the "mixed multitude" who accept their proclamation, bodies of efficient soldiers in all the countries where such may be found. The means developing this result will be "a noise," and "a shaking," whereby the very dried bones of Israel shall come together, bone to bone, and flesh and sinews shall come upon them, and they shall live politically, and stand upon their feet an exceeding great army (Ezek. 37).

This standing up of Israel upon their feet is the political resurrection predicted by Balaam, and recorded by Moses in Numbers 23:24,saying, "Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion; he shall not lie down until he eat the prey, and drink the blood of the slain. His King shall be higher than Agag (or Gog), and his kingdom shall be exalted. AlL brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn; He shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows" (ch. 24:7,8).

When all the necessary preparations shall have been completed, the time will have arrived for the Star of Jacob to set these forces into motion, for the purpose of "destroying him that remaineth of the city"; and in the work of destruction, of hewing their way out from the wilderness of the peoples into the land of Israel. In the development of this work, "it shall come to pass" that they will be an united people: "the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut

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off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly upon (as birds of prey) the shoulders of the Philistines westward; they shall wholly spoil the children of the east" (Isa. 11:13,14). Thus, it will be seen by these expressions, "eating the prey and drinking the blood of the slain," "eating up the nations his enemies," and "flying upon their shoulders," applied to Israel in the time of their political resurrection, and under the leadership of the Four Living Ones full of eyes, one of whom hath the face of an Eagle, and another of a Lion, that they are aptly represented Apocalyptically as "the fowls flying in midheaven". Israel will do valiantly under the Saints, and are the instruments in their hands by whom the kings and their armies will be devoured. As then Cyrus was styled "a ravenous bird from the east" in coming against Babylon to destroy it; and the powers hostile to Israel were termed birds (Isa. 46:11; Jer. 12:9); so Israelites are symbolized by flesh-devouring fowls, when they shall be summoned into activity against the "unclean and hateful birds" of Babylon the Great.

The Apocalyptic banquet for the fowls of the midheaven, is the last period of judgment upon the worshippers of the Beast and his Image. The loud voice of the one angel calls them to the work of slaughter. Babylon having fallen, the work of the third angel has now to be executed upon her sympathizing survivors, the kings of the earth and their armies. John saw them already gathered in battle array; and he saw the fowls gathered who were to devour them - the ravenous birds of him who rides the goodly horse, and his hosts of the heaven. In the two concluding verses of this chapter, he informs us of the result of the conflict. The secular and ecclesiastical Organizations styled the Beast and the False Prophet, the European Constitution of the nations in church and state, is abrogated, and finally destroyed, in the burning fire, issuing as a fiery stream from before the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:9,10): while the armies in the field are cut up and dispersed by the Israelitish Sword of the Mighty One, who continues the kingdoms of the world, but appropriates their diadems as the spoil of the victor (ch. 11:15).

11. The Lake of Fire

“The two had been cast alive into the Lake of Fire burning with brimstone".

A lake is a tract of standing water. The lake into which the Beast and the False Prophet are to be cast, is not, however, of water, but of fire. A lake of fire is a tract of land in a state of fiery ignition. A tract of land may be in a state of conflagration, or it may not. When a country is in its normal state, it is Apocalyptically neither a lake of water nor of

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fire, but simply "the earth," out of which the Beast came; but, if that country be thrown into a state of destructive conflagration, it becomes Apocalyptically a lake of fire. Hence, the lake into which the Beast and False Prophet are cast, is all that tract of country upon which they exist as the secular and ecclesiastical constitution of the inhabitants. To cast such into the lake of fire in which they are destroyed, is to kindle an intense conflagration in the territory of their dominion, which is not extinguished, or quenched, until they are consumed; and the remnant of their subjects, who survive the fiery ordeal, transfer their allegiance to the tormenting and conquering power.

The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, with their officials, are the symbols of what the Lord Jesus in his discourse recorded in Matt. 25., styles "the Devil and his Angels;" for whom to pur to aionion, the fire of the aionian judgment has been prepared. The Beast and the False Prophet are symbols of relation, and comparatively modern developments upon the original Dragon-territory. Their essential spiritual attributes are the same Sin-Flesh Iniquity in secular and ecclesiastical manifestation upon the Roman Habitable. This is the Apocalyptic arena, with a dominion, however, considerably augmented in modern times. The title, "the Devil and his Angels" is, in effect, inscribed upon the Dragon in the words, "the Dragon, the old Serpent, who is Devil and Satan". His origin is enrooted in rebellious human nature, and therefore he is "Devil;" and being always, in whatever form he may exist, the enemy of the Truth and righteousness of the Deity, and the adversary of its adherents, he is "Satan". Upon these principles, the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, with their Horn-appendages, are "the Devil and his Angels". These are the fuel of the fiery lake, or "TOPHET ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; YAHWEH hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of Yahweh, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (Isa. 30:33). The effect of the fire upon the Dragon-king, or power, is its suppression for a thousand years; upon his horns, the appropriation of their kingdoms by the Saints, and the destruction of all armies; but upon the Beast and False Prophet organizations, their utter annihilation and eternal extinction.

The things represented by these symbols, however, are not the only wood, or fuel, of the lake of fire. The reader will remember that before the Judgment Seat of Christ in the wilderness of Teman, there were two classes of saints in Christ Jesus constitutionally; the one class consisting of "the called, the chosen, and faithful;" or as Paul styles them in 1 Cor. 3 12, "gold, silver, and precious stones," which are made manifest as such in the day when things are revealed by fire; and the other class con-

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sisting of "the called," but not "chosen," because not "faithful;" or, as Paul styles them in the same place, "wood, hay, and stubble". The constitution and destiny of these two classes, though originally built upon the same foundation, is widely divergent. The gold, silver, and precious stones, of the New Jerusalem community, are fire proof. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they can dwell with devouring fire, and with the burnings of Olahm; fire having no power over their bodies to singe a hair of their heads, nor to leave its smell upon them. Not so, however, the wood, hay, and stubble. They cannot continue to exist in fire, being in nature destructible. The judicial inspection of his house-hold, having separated the refuse and the vile, from those "accounted worthy to obtain of the aion, and of the resurrection;" the rejected, by virtue of the sentence pronounced upon them by Christ, saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into the aionian fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels," forthwith enter upon their journey to the place of exile or torment; or, in the words of Jesus, "they go away into ajonian punishment;" while the righteous, by their being quickened, enter into aionian life.

It may be well to remark here, that aionian punishment, is so called, not as expressive of its duration, but of its epoch of execution. The epoch of judgment is the forty years of the Seventh Vial, which precede the commencement of the thousand years. These forty years are the course of time, or aion, constituting the epoch in which punishment is inflicted upon resurrected individuals, and the living worshippers of the Beast and his Image. It is therefore styled aionian, or the punishment pertaining to the aion of judgment.

Neither is aionian life so called because of its duration, but because it is the life pertaining to a course, or aion, which circles around the kingdom of the Deity. Of this there is to be no end (Luke 1:33); so, therefore, the course will be always circling. The life is, consequently, eternal; not because the word aionian signifies essentially unlimited duration; but because the thing to be possessed, and to which the course belongs, is declared to be endless. Hence, aionian life is life pertaining to the aion, or course of the kingdom into which the Saints, approved and immortalized at the tribunal, go away and enter upon, in its dispensational developments, when they have established the kingdom (*t)

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(*)Aionian life, like aionian judgment and aionian fire does not of itself denote the duration of the life, judgment or fire, even though the word has been rendered eternal and "everlasting". Rather it indicates that the things denoted (judgment, fire or life) are those relating or pertaining to the aion or age defined. For example, it is said of Sodom and Gomorrah that they are "set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire" (Jude 7). But that fire is not still burning. It burned, and continued to burn until its work, was accomplished in the age of judgment incidental to it, and the cities were entirely consumed. So with the "everlasting judgment" and "everlasting fire" and "everlasting punishment" of the future (Matt. 25:41,46): the word in each case is aionion, and (continued on bottom page 317)

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When the wood, hay, and stubble, as unprofitable servants, are cast into outer darkness, they disperse themselves over the countries of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet; which, by the judgments coming upon them through the second and third angels, are to be kindled into a lake of fire. Thus the fuel of the fiery lake is increased. "Now will I rise, saith YAHWEH; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself. And the people shall be as the burnings of lime; as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire" in the European lake of fire (Isa. 33:10-17). Because of poverty, famine, pestilence, war, and the consciousness of what they have lost by their unfaithfulness, they will find there only "weeping and gnashing of teeth;" and though they may call upon Abraham to send a Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool their tongues, tormented in the flame; were Abraham to reply to them he would not grant their request; but addressing them as sons, would say, Remember that in your lifetimes ye received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and ye are tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence" (Luke 16:24). Abraham being in the kingdom when this answer is returned, shows that the place of torment is not accessible at will, nor territorially continuous with Palestine; in other words, the Mediterranean Gulf separates the Lake of Fire countries from the kingdom of Israel. They are the countries invaded by the King of kings upon the white horse with his hosts of the heaven, styled, inch. 14:10, "the holy angels and the Lamb;" in whose presence the countries are kindled into flame; and the resurrected exiles, and the worshippers of the Beast, are all tormented with fire and brimstone; and made to drink of the unmixed wine of the wrath of the Deity, poured out into the cup of his indignation. Thus "Death and Hades," or the condemned resurrected exiles, are cast into the lake of fire, which is to them

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denotes the fire, punishment or life, "pertaining to the age". The judgment will continue until all are brought into subjection to Christ; the fire will burn until all that is to be consumed is destroyed, but the life of the age will never end because it is immortal. Paul wrote: "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality (shall be given) eternal life", or the life of the age which will be immortal. or everlasting life. where the present tense is used as indicating the present possession of life the same principles should be observed. Those who perform the will of Yahweh and His Son have it in the sense that it is promised by God who will perform, and whose promise is so sure (and eternal life is a matter of promise 1 John 2 25) that He "calleth those things which be not as though they were (Rom 4 17) Therefore such expressions as John 17:3: "This is life eternal that they might know Thee .......can signify this is the basis upon which life eternal will be granted Similar forms of expression are found in the word Example "This is condemnation, that light is come into the world and men love darkness This is the basis of condemnation etc. Again This is the work of God that ye believe on him Rather this is the basis upon which the work of God will proceed that ye believe on him Again John 12 50 "His commandment is life everlasting His commandment is the basis upon which life aionian will be given. Some have advocated that ajonian zoe, eternal life, is today possessed in some way, and in pressing this theory beyond the limits of Scripture, have made havoc of faith. See further comments in Vol. ~, p.365 - Publishers.

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"the Second Death;" for by the fiery judgments of the lake, death and corruption overtake them a second time, and their "sorer punishment" is consummated according to their works (ch. 20:13-15; 21:8; Heb. 10:26-29).

Such is the locality and the fuel of the lake of fire; the fire itself that consumes the wood, hay, and stubble, or "the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars" (ch. 21:8), is the burning anger of YAHWEH'S Name, as it appears in Isaiah 30:27, saying, "Behold, the Name of Yahweh cometh from far, his anger burning, and the burden heavy; his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire. And he shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones". As Paul, therefore, truly saith, "our God is a consuming fire".

Such is the fire the anger and indignation of the Deity, descending with consuming effect upon the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, in the form of pestilence, famine, and war. The furnace from which this stream of devouring fire is poured forth, is the capital of the Great King, "whose fire" saith the prophet, "is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem". From thence, when he hath established himself there, "he will send a fire into Magog, and among them that dwell confidently in the isles; and they shall know that I am YAHWEH" (Ezek. 39:6). He that rides the white horse, and the hosts of the heaven riding the same troops, are "the Angel having power over fire" (ch. 14:18), whose face is as it were the sun, and his feet, planted upon the sea and upon the earth, are as pillars of fire (ch. 10:1,2) which he mingles with the sea (ch. 15:2). Thus, "the beast is slain, his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame" (Dan. 7:11).

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CHAPTER 20

Translation

1. And I saw an angel descending from the heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a great chain upon his hand.

2. And he laid hold of the Dragon, the old serpent, who is Devil and Satan, and he bound him a thousand years, 3. and east him into the abyss, and shut him up, and set a mark over him, that he might deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years had been finished: and after these it is necessary that he be loosed a short time.

4. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment had been given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of the Deity, and who had not worshipped the beast, nor his image, and had not received the sign upon their forehead, and upon their hand: and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

5. But the rest of the dead ones lived not again until the thousand years had been finished.

6. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he having part in the first resurrection: upon these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of the Deity and of the Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.

7. And when the thousand years shall have been finished, the Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8. and he shall go forth to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, the Gog and the Magog, to gather them together for war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9. And they ascended over the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the city which had been beloved: and fire from the Deity descended out of the heaven, and devoured them. 10. And the Devil who deceived them had been cast into the lake of the fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet, also, shall be tormented day and night unto the aeons of the aeons.

11. And I saw a Great White Throne, and him sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and no place had been found for them.

12. And I saw the dead, small and great, who had stood before the Deity, and books had been opened; and another book had been opened, which is of the life; and the dead had been judged out of the things which had been written in the books, according to their deeds.

13. And the sea had given up the dead in it, and death and the grave had gien up the dead in them; and every one had been judged according to their deeds.

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14. And death and the grave had been cast into the lake of the fire. This is the Second Death.

15.And if any one had not been found written in the book of the life, he had been cast into the lake of the fire.

1. The Descending Angel

"And I saw an angel descending from the heaven".

The angel descending from the heaven with the key and chain is the same angel that descends, and illuminates the earth with his glory (ch. 18:1). In this place, he is said to have "great power", which he exerts in causing Babylon to fall; and after this, in laying hold of the fourth Beast of Daniel in his Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, manifestations: the last two of which he destroys, so that similar political organizations never again appear upon the earth; while the Dragon, in consequence of flesh and blood nature being still the constitution of the subject nations, is only shut up and bound, waiting its opportunity to reassert its independence of the Divine government of the Saints. The Blessed and only Potentate upon the white horse, with the hosts of the heaven, marching at the head of his army, from his capital against the kings of the earth and their forces, is the Apocalyptic angel katabainonta, descending with key and chain to arrest, imprison, and destroy, the powers of the world. He descends "out of the heaven," in which he opened the door, when he set up the throne in Jerusalem. When potentates leave their capitals on warlike expeditions, they are said to descend upon the countries they invade: so with this angel, he descends from the heaven of his habitation and government upon the territories of "the Devil and Satan," to convert them into a lake of fire burning with the brimstone of torment and destruction, inflicted by his terrible and invincible hosts.

2. The Key and Chain

"Having the Key of the Abyss, and a Great Chain upon his hand".

The word abussos, is rendered in the English Version by the fancy phrase "bottomless pit". The Seventy (*)render the Hebrew word, tzulah, deep, by abussos, abyss, in Isa. 44:27; the great sea, or aggregation of nations acknowledging the sovereignty of Babylon. For like reasons,

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(*)That is, the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, the name deriving from the fact that it was translated by a group of 72 Heilenistic Jewish scholars into Alexandrian Greek for Ptolemy Philadeiphus. It is also suggested that the work was completed in 72 days. "Septuagint" is Latin for "70"

- Publishers.

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abyss in the prophecy before us, is representative of the aggregate of the nations occupying the Dragon-section of the inhabited earth.

A key is representative of power to open and shut. To have the key of the abyss, is to possess the power of developing political organizations, after the example of the first Napoleonic Empire; and of su-pressing them, as in the same instance. In 1815, this empire was laid hold of, and cast into the abyss, and shut up there and bound there for thirty-seven years; but when these years were finished, it was loosed for a short time under Napoleon III. This that was accomplished by mere human agents, will illustrate what is meant by the descending angel laying hold of the Dragon-Power, and keying him up, and chaining him in the abyss. The Allied Powers of Europe held the key and chain in the case of the first Napoleon; but in the case of the Dragon, the Saints to whom "judgment is given," will be the holders of the key and chain, and do with him, and place him in the same abyss, but for a longer time, and with more terrible manifestations, as did the Allies the dominion of the Corsican. This mere human power is to remain in the national abyss without dominion; Sin's flesh is to be turned out of office, and to exist only in absolute subjection to Spirit, as manifested in Jesus and his Brethren, all the glorified sons of the Deity, ruling the habitable in righteousness for a thousand years. To keep Sin's flesh, so long accustomed to rule and revel in its own lusts and superstitions, in subjection, will require a government strong as iron. The necessity is provided for; for it is written, "He shall rule the nations with an iron rod;" so that no deceivers will be permitted to ply mankind with their sorceries, causing them to err from the way of truth and righteousness. The clerical sorceries of the Great Harlot and her Daughters will all be destroyed with the False Prophet by the judgments of the fiery lake. This signal destruction of all existing ecclesiastical establishments will effectually alienate the nations from their professional prophets, who now deceive and bewitch them with sorceries and lies in the name of the Lord; so that "when any (parson, priest, or rabbi) shall yet prophesy, then his father and mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of Yahweh and his father and mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth And it shall come to pass in that day that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision when he hath prophesied or preached neither shall they wear a rough garment," or clerical vestments to deceive (Zech 13 3 4) The time for all this hypocrisy and grimace will have passed for no one buyeth their merchandise any more At present their sorcery and lies are in considerable repute; and to be a "prophet", or clergyman, is regarded by the deceived, and strongly deluded populations of "Christ-

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endom," as a highly respectable profession. But when Daniel's fourth Beast shall have been slain and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame; and the other three Beasts have their dominion taken away, the descending angel will have bound the Dragon; the vocation of the false prophets will be abolished; there will be no hypocrites to keep the people in ignorance for the support of the church and state; and to subserve the interests of political adventurers and political factions; all this soul and truth-destroying machinery will have been broken up, and the nations shall be deceived by it no more for a thousand years.

But after the thousand years are passed, the restraint, represented by the great chain in the angel's hand, will be relaxed. A generation of flesh and blood will then be living, whose men and women will have been born in times of peace and great prosperity. They will know nothing personally and practically of war: for, to use an expression of Homer, Mars will have been bound with a strong chain, for a thousand years. It is very different with us. The governments are wasting their revenues on standing armies; but then the government of the world will not have a single soldier in its pay! Its subjects will remember the binding, or suppression, of the Dragon-power a thousand years before, as our generation remembers the overthrow of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. But this remembrance will have as little moral influence upon them, as Pharaoh's overthrow has upon the Pope and the kings of the earth in our time. Some ambitious men, who would "rather reign in hell than serve in heaven," will think the season favorable to the recovery of the lost independence of Sin's Flesh, or the Devil. They will conspire against the best government the sun ever shone upon; for they are styled the Satan, which signifies adversary". They commence to agitate and plot in the national abyss; and at length their secret society emboldened by numbers constantly increasing, proceeds more openly to preach revolt. Multitudes will be deceived with false hopes of glory, honor, and power, in the proposed new dominion of the Devil and Satan. Sin's Flesh under the rule of the Saints is ineligible for office. Under their iron rod and chain, men and women are only permitted to serve. This is a yoke too galling to the pride of human nature, and hence a determination to destroy the existing government, not doubting the enterprise might easily succeed. Their emissaries go forth among the nations of the old Dragon territory, which before the Dragon was bound, and in the time of his binding, was occupied by "Gog of the land of Magog, Rosh prince of Meshech and Tubal," and therefore styled "the Gog and the Magog". These agents of insurrection will be marvelously successful in deceiving the Gog and Magog nations. They call them to arms, and in response they forsake the plow, seize their

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weapons, and gather together for war. The rebellion is widespread, and the insurgents numerous as the sand of the sea. Their numbers make them bold and confident. Their commander-in-chief, and his council of war, whoever they may be, do not wait to be attacked; but assume the offensive, and order the invasion of the Holy Land, which is the Camp of the Saints. Their aim is to possess themselves of Jerusalem, the city that had been beloved, but now hated. To capture "the joy of the whole earth," and to dethrone the government, and to destroy, or imprison, the saints in the abyss, as they had served the Dragon-Power a thousand years before, would be the crowning success of the rebellion. But the reasoning of the carnal mind deceives them. They forget, or choose to disbelieve, that Jerusalem is Yahweh's furnace; and that He is unto her a wall of fire round about, and the glory in the midst of her (Zech. 2:5). They approach the place of devouring fire with reckless infatuation. The King of kings who could have crushed the rebels as the moth in their own lands, permits them, as a trial of faith and loyalty, to have great success to a certain point. They are in sight of the Holy City, and as confident and defiant as Sennacherib of old; or as Gog when the city was wrested from him a thousand years before. But, like the Beast and False Prophet then, the ground they occupy becomes the arena of a fiery destruction:

and, although the locality and time of their judgment are not the same; yet, in coming to their end similarly, the postmillennial Devil and Satan combination of nations, is said to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, by fiery judgment descending from the Deity out of the heaven, and devouring them.

This is the epoch of the consummation of the mission of the Son of the Deity. In 1 Cor. 15:24, Paul styles it "the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Deity, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign until He (the Father) 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 (Psa. 8:6). But when He (the Father) saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that He (the Father) is excepted who 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 (the Father) that put all things under him, that the Deity may be the all things in all".

The mission of the Lord Jesus Christ was to "destroy that having the power of death, which is the devil;" or Sin's Flesh; in other words, to "take away the Sin of the world;" and to "destroy the works of the devil," or of Sin (Heb. 2:14; John 1:29; 1 John 3:8). In consummating this "the Woman's Seed bruises the Serpent's head". The "short time" at the end of the thousand years is the epoch when the work is finished.

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It hath been Divinely purposed that the earth shall be inhabited by flesh and blood for seven thousand years; but beyond that period its presence will not be tolerated. The postmillennial rebellion against the benign government of the Saints is the consummation of its iniquity, and the crisis of its fate. Symbolically speaking, the Devil is devoured by the fire of the Deity, in the lake of fire and brimstone, into which he is cast, as were the Beast and the False Prophet, who shall be tormented day and night, by the third angel (Ch. 14:11; 19:20; 20:10) to the aions of the aions; or beginning of the thousand years.

3. The First Resurrection

"Blessed and holy is he who hath part in THE FIRST RESURRECTION."

The spirit and life words uttered by the Father, say, "I am the Resurrection and the Life" (John 6:63; 11:25). Here are two distinct things, the Resurrection, anastasis, and "the Life,"the zoe. The life pertains to the thousand years, styled in Dan. 7:18, ad-ahlmah, wead ahlam ahlmaiyah; and in the English Version, for ever, even for ever and ever:

but literally "during the hidden period, even during a hidden period of the hidden periods, the Saints shall possess the kingdom". This preeminent hidden period is termed in Dan. 7:12, "a season and a set time;" it is the COURSE OF TIME which reaches to "the end," when the Saints shall deliver up the kingdom, as mediatorially constituted, to the Father. In John's report of the discourses of Christ Jesus, this hidden and future course of time is termed aion; and in the Apocalypse, revealed to be of a thousand years duration; and the things related to it, such as "the life," and the kingdom, are termed aionian. The formula in Dan. 7:18, is equivalent nearly to the Apocalyptic form of words hoi aiones ton aionon, the Aions of the Aions; to the commencement of which, the Beast and the False Prophet are to be tormented by the Saints "day and night" (Apoc. 20:10).

There are two remarkable Aions contained in Daniel's one hidden period, or Ahiam, which is sometimes pointed at by the addition of the words waed, and beyond. The two Aions are first, the course of a thousand years, or "season and set time;" and second, the indefinite and interminable period which circles its course coevally with the absence of death from the earth, as expressed in the phrase, "There shall be no more death" (ch. 21:4). The life which is aionian, belongs to these two courses of time; so that he who, living under the Mosaic Law, and in the Times of the Gentiles, is justified by faith, and through the faith (Rom. 3:30), and patiently continues in well-doing (Rom. 2:7), will attain to

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the life of the thousand years' period, and consequently, of the endless period which is beyond it. But those who come forth from their graves, and therefore live, but are commanded away to share in the torment of the Beast and False Prophet, "the Devil and his angels", are not permitted to enter upon the thousand years, and fail therefore of reaching Life in the Aion.

In that remarkable discourse recorded in John 6, the speaker says, "I am the bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live in the Aion" eis ton aiona (Ver. 51,58); and inch. 4:14, "whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall not thirst in the Aion" - eis ton ajona. Hence, the reader will perceive, that it is not living by resurrection simply that determines a man's destiny; this depends upon the resurrected being "accounted worthy of the Aion:" if at the Judgment Seat, they are accounted worthy to obtain of that, they are quickened by the Spirit; and become the children of the Deity, and the children of the resurrection, and equal to the angels (Luke 20:35,36). Such will not die in the Aion; nor will they hunger or thirst any more (Apoc. 7:16).

"The hour is coming," saith Jesus, "in the which all who are in the graves shall come forth". This coming hour is Apocalyptically styled "The time of the Dead Ones that they should be judged". He informs us. that the all who are to live and come forth, will consist of two classes, characterized by their deeds in a previous life. The two classes come forth in the same hour; and are defined as "they who have done the good things;" and "they who have committed the evil things". These are all resurrected in the same hour; but they are nevertheless, not all the children of the resurrection; nor will they all be permitted to "live in the Aion". They all "come forth unto" something good or evil. Some of them come forth to a good thing a good thing which they have not got when they come forth. This good thing is styled by Jesus, "a resurrection of life". The resurrected good saints do not attain to this "resurrection of life," until he hath heard and judged them, and "quickened whom he will:" for he saith, "as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just".

But some of the resurrected come forth to an evil thing an evil thing which they have not in possession when they come forth. This evil thing which is before them is termed by the judge, "a resurrection of condemnation". The resurrected evil doers do not attain to this "resurrection of condemnation" until they have been heard. They are allowed to state their own cases, and to make the best of them. Some will tell the judge that he is "a hard man, reaping where he hath not sown, and gathering where he has not strawed"; in other words, that he exacted more from his servants than he had a right to; and that, if they returned

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to him just what they had received from him, he ought to be satisfied, and account them honest and good. Others will claim admission into the life, glory, and kingdom of the Aion, because they have acknowledged him as Lord, and prophesied, or preached, in his name; and even done many wonderful works in it. But “in that day” he will declare to them, and to all such, that he never acknowledged them; and will command them, saying, “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. Here is a certain end to which they came forth from the graves; and it is this end to which they attain that characterizes their coming forth as “a resurrection of condemnation”. Hence, it will be perceived, that the aggregate coming forth of this mixed multitude is not “the First Resurrection;” for all the subjects of the first resurrection are “blessed and holy,” and cannot be funerealized by the Second Death: “upon these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of the Deity and of the Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years”. “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the Second Death” (ch. 2:11). All such living ones believing the doctrine of Christ, “shall not die in the Aion” (John 11:26).

It will be seen, therefore, that this mixed multitude comes forth at the same hour, for two separate and distinct ends, or destinies — the one sort, to die again, and reap of the flesh corruption, before the Aion of the Thousand Years begins; the other sort, to be “clothed upon with their house from heaven,” (when all “the mortal” in their grave-developed nature, will be “swallowed up of life,”) and to live in the Aion and beyond, possessing the kingdom of the Aion, with eternal glory. Hence, this mixed multitude is separated into two resurrections, for a short time contemporary the one with the other. The one resurrection consists of all the just who have emerged from the graves; the other resurrection, of all the unjust who have “come forth”. The just and unjust are all mixed up together in their coming forth; hence the necessity of some arrangement whereby the two classes may be respectively separated the one from the other. This is provided for in the institution of the Judgment Seat of Christ in Teman. Before this, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and saints, whether good or bad, great or small, are all to be gathered for manifestation. Through the account each will be able to render of himself, it will appear who he is, and what he is (Rom. 14:10,12). The judge hears, that he may judge; and according to what he hears from each, so will he decide, making the words and principles of the open books the standard whereby the things laid before him will be determined to be right or wrong, good or bad. All this John saw in vision; and taking his stand at the opening of the Millennial Aion, when the Second Death had been consummated, he says, “I saw the dead, small and great, who had stood before the Deity, and books had been opened; and

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another book had been opened, which is of the life; and the dead had been judged out of the things which had been written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea had given up the dead in it, and death and the grave had given up the dead in them; and every one had been judged according to his deeds” (ch. 20:12,13). This is nearly parallel with what is written in ch. 11:18, “the time of the dead hath come, that they should be judged, and that the reward be given to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them who fear thy name, both small and great”. This testimony states, that the time had arrived for the judgment to “begin at the House of Deity;” and to give the promised reward to the approved: and the passage in ch. 20, declares that the work had been accomplished with diversified results.

These diverse results of the judgment of the Divine household according to the deeds of its members, in the light of the things written, is thus stated Apocalyptically. “In a great house,” says Paul, “there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor and some to dishonor” (2 Tim. 2:20). So it is with the great house of the Deity. Inch. 20:14, the vessels of wood and of earth, the earthy vessels that come forth from the unclean charnel-house of the dead; and who are not accounted worthy of promotion to honor; and therefore remain in the earthiness with which they come forth; are symbolically represented by the phrase, “Death and the Invisible”, ho thanatos kai ho hades. This represents them collectively. The several classes of character comprised in this dishonorable and unworthy crowd, who, at the judgment, had been refused permission to “eat of the Tree of Life, and to enter through the gates into the City” (ch. 22:14) are styled in ch. 21:8, “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers and idolators, and all liars;” and in ch. 22:15, “without the city are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolators, and whosoever loveth and inventeth a lie”. These are the characters who are the children of Death and the Grave; and have no part in the Life of the Aion. The fearful and unbelieving are a numerous class of professors of godliness, “who say Lord, Lord”, but neither believe what he says, nor do what he commands them. They acknowledge their ignorance of the prophetic writings; but refuse to be taught by them who are able to enlighten them. Jesus says, “I say unto you, that every injurious word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in a day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. 12:36); but the unbelieving, who love and invent lies, when their attention is directed to these words, reject them; and say they “don’t believe a word of it”. They say, that there is no judgment for

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the saints when they have come forth from the graves; and that the only judgment day for them is the time of their existence between immersion and death. In this time, they would have the simple believe, they are standing before the tribunal of Christ and giving an account of themselves; and that at death the account closes: so that in their coming forth from the charnel-house of corruption, sentence is executed; and they will know their acceptance before they even see Christ! Such is the latest invention in the department of lies, which the inventors, with good words and fair speeches, seek to impose upon the hearts of the simple.

But to these unbelieving lovers of lies, though they may say Lord, Lord, and prophesy in his name, Jesus says, “he that receiveth not my words, hath that which judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day”. To receive his words is to “believe on him”. They do not believe on him who receive not his words; but of them who do, he saith, “I will raise him up at the last day”. This shows that judgment by the Word is to be in the day of resurrection: concerning which Paul saith, in Rom. 2:12, “as many as have sinned without law shall perish without law; and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged through law in the day when the Deity shall judge the secret things of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel”. These sayings of Christ Jesus and Paul, expound the Apocalyptic idea of “the dead” being “judged out of those things written in the books, according to their deeds”.

“Death and the Grave,” then, represent those who come forth from the house of corruption, are tried before Christ “the Judge of all,” found guilty of cowardice, faithlessness, devotion to lies, and so forth, and are condemned. Though they “come forth” in the same “hour of judgment” with all well-doers, they are not “the first resurrection;” but simply heirs of the inheritance styled “Death and the Grave,” whence they came, and to which they are consigned again with shame, and the contempt of angels, and of those whose honor and privilege it is to “eat of the Tree of Life, and to enter through the gates into the city” (Dan. 12:2; Apoc. 3:5; Matt. 10:33; Luke 12:9).

The result of this denial before the Father, the angels, and the unreprovable (Col. 1:22), will be a terrible consummation of contempt. Not having kept their garments, they walk naked in shame (Apoc. 16:13), they “depart from” before the Judgment Seat with “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and are cast into the lake of fire, which is to them the second death. This disposal of them is Apocalyptically represented by the saying, “Death and the Grave were cast into the lake of fire. This is the Second Death”. Others are also cast in the same lake, who had never died before. Such are the rejected vessels of wood and of earth in the

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House of Christ living in the time of his appearing; together with the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, and the receivers of the sign upon their foreheads, and in their hands; in short, all who have not been found written in the book of the life of the Aion; all these are cast into the lake of fire with the Devil and his Angels: so that the same fire becomes the first death to those who do not survive its judicial torments.

Perceiving, then, that “the First Resurrection” does not consist of the indiscriminate mingled people, who come forth from the graves in the hour of judgment; we proceed now to attend to what John declares the first resurrection is. He says, “I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of the Deity, and who had not worshipped the beast, nor his image, and had not received the sign upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived . . . This is the First Resurrection”, that is, the first resurrection consists of those who “come forth to a resurrection of life;” of the 144,000 redeemed from the earth, having the Lamb’s Father’s Name written in their foreheads; of the redeemed from among men, THE FIRST FRUITS unto the Deity and to the Lamb; in whose mouth is found no guile, and who are without fault before the throne of the Deity (Apoc. 14). These virgins, undefiled by the ecclesiastical woman of the Laodicean Apostasy — the Mother of Harlots, the State Harlots, and Nonconformist, or Dissenting, Abominations of the earth — with lamps well trimmed with the oil of the Truth (Matt. 25:4,7), together with the living who remain, and though mortal do not die (1 Thess. 4:17; 1 Cor. 15:51), these all, being “the firstfruits unto the Deity,” are apocalyptically styled “the First Resurrection”. It is not so styled in relation to a second or third resurrection; but because it is THE RESURRECTION OF THE FIRSTFRUITS. “Christ is the firstfruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s in his presence” — en ten parousia autou; and are “planted in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:5) are resurrection-firstfruits also; and not only live, as “Death and the Grave” live before they are cast into the lake of fire; but, their names having been written in the book of the life of the Aion from the foundation of the world (ch. 13:8; 17:8), “they reign with Christ a thousand years”. Therefore “blessed and holy is he that hath part in the Firstfruits-Resurrection: on such the Second Death hath no power; but they shall be priests of the Deity and of the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

4. “The Rest of the Dead”

“But THE REST OF THE DEAD ONES lived not again until the thousand years had been finished”.

The Apocalypse was showed to John, not alone for the benefit of

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the servants of the Deity in the Times of the Gentiles; but also for the same class among the subjects of the Millennial Kingdom. Eighteen hundred years ago, John wrote of the dead of the First Resurrection, multitudes of whom had not then been born; yet, he says concerning them, “I saw the dead small and great stand before the Deity”. Upon the same principle he speaks of “the Rest of the Dead,” who had not come into existence either in, or before, the time he wrote, or in the Times of the Gentiles, or before the resurrection of the Firstfruits. The “rest” is the remainder of a whole number of certain dead ones, to whom eternal life is to be imparted by the Son. The Firstfruits are only the earnest of the harvest to be gathered in. The Millennial Generations will have the, happy assurance that, though the resurrection of a Firstfruits had passed, there would be a resurrection of a remainder to complete the whole number originally given by the Father to the Son.

This whole number of the dead is the subject of great solicitude and affection to Christ, who speaks of it in the following Scriptures in this wise: “Thou, 0 Father, hast given the Son power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him”. “I pray not for the world; but for them whom Thou hast given me; for they are Thine. Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me” (John 17:2,8,24). “All that the Father giveth to me, shall come to me. And this is the will of the Father who sent me, that everything which He hath given to me, I should lose nothing of it, but raise it again in the last day” (John 6:37-40). He styles this whole number given to him by the Father, the sheep of whom he is the Good Shepherd, and says, “I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this (Mosaic) fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd. Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall not perish in the Aion, eis ton aiona; neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand. My Father who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John

10).

In these testimonies we see, that the whole number is a gift bestowed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he must bring, and upon whom he is to bestow eternal life; so that, when they die before the Aion, they may have part in the resurrection of Firstfruits; and if they die in the Aion, they may not perish in the Aion; but live again when the thousand years are past. Hence the whole number of the dead is a collection of persons taken out from mankind from the time of Abel to the

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end of the thousand years. Seven thousand years inhabitation of the earth by flesh and blood subject to death, is the Aion of Mortality:

through all of which progresses the work of taking out a people from the race, who shall attain to incorruptibility and life upon the principle of a loving and faithful obedience to the Truth. These are given to the Son for Brethren by the Father; who bestows upon them the earth, in a finished and paradisaic perfection, as their inheritance and abode for ever. The manifestation of this whole number “redeemed from among men,”

is assigned to two notable and extraordinary epochs; the first, the beginning of the thousand years: the second, the end thereof. The first epoch precedes the Millennium, and is illustrated by the Resurrection of the Firstfruits; the second epoch after the Millennium is passed, is celebrated by the manifestation in life of “THE REST OF THE DEAD” given by the Father to the Son to complete the fold — “One fold and one Shepherd” — “the Deity the all things in all”.

5. The Great White Throne

“And I saw a GREAT WHITE THRONE, and him sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven had fled away; and place had not been found for them”.

In connection with this Great White Throne, John saw other thrones. “I saw thrones,” saith he, “and they sat upon them, and judgment had been given unto them” — a principal throne encompassed by other thrones. His vision of the thrones is more fully described in ch. 4. They are the thrones of the House of David occupied by “the Firstfruits unto the Deity and the Lamb,” who “sit with the Son on his throne” (ch. 3:21). It is the throne of the new kingdom ruling over all without a rival. John’s position in the vision when he saw this great throne of the redeemer, and the redeemed, who had “washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” and therefore communicated whiteness in vision to all things identified with them — is when he and they had “executed the judgment written” and “given to them;” and were able to “rest from their labors” (ch. 14:13). “Judgment had been given, edothe, to them sitting upon the thrones” he saw; and as the result of its execution by the means represented in the military array of ch. 19 they had cast down the thrones of the kings of the nations, and had appropriated their “many diadems” to themselves (Dan. 7:9; Apoc. 19:12). The thrones were now theirs who had conquered them; “and they sat upon them” ruling the subject nations (ch. 2:26,27). And so thoroughly and absolutely had they overcome “the kings of the earth and their armies,” that there remained no place, space, or country,

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where they could hold their own. The earth was conquered to the ends of it, and all the nations were inherited by the King of kings and Lord of lords (Psa. 2:8). ln the words of the Seventh Vial, “every island had fled away, and the mountains were not found” — the kingdoms and empires of the world had disappeared as completely as the empires of Alexander and Napoleon I.

The establishment of the Great White Throne of Christ and his Brethren changes the face of the entire world. The Gentile Constitution of Society in Church and State is entirely abolished; and all the sinners, the “miserable sinners,” as they truly declare themselves to be, or “the spirituals of wickedness”, as Paul styles them, who constitute the hierarchies, aristocracies, and office-holders, of the body politic, will be abolished with it, being “scattered,” “put down.” and “sent empty away” (Luke 1:51-53). Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Parsons, and all other sorts of superior and inferior dealers in “sorcery” and “lies;” emperors, kings, cabinets, diplomatists, officers of state, military and naval commanders, parliaments, congresses, and all sorts of legislative bodies — these all will be chased into the darkness of annihilation, and historical contempt, as “the Devil and his Angels,” who for ages were “them who destroy the earth” (ch. 11:18). All these constituted things, with the peoples, nations, and tongues, in their political aggregation, are the Gentile “Heavens and Earth,” or Body Politic. Its complete supersession by the world-wide dominion of the Saints, is Apocalyptically represented by the saying, “the Heaven and the Earth fled away; and place had been found for them no more.” The manner of their flight is symbolically illustrated in Dan. 2:34,35, where, as elements of Nebuchadnezzar’s political image, they are smitten by the Stone Power, and “broken to pieces together, and become like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them; and the Stone that smote the image become a GREAT MOUNTAIN, and filled the whole earth”.

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CHAPTER 21

TRANSLATION

1. And I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away; and the sea is no more.

2. And I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, descending from the Deity out of the heaven, having been prepared as a bride who had been adorned for her husband.

3. And I heard a great voice out of the heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of the Deity with men, and he will dwell with them: and they shall be his peoples, and the Deity himself will be with them, their Deity.

4. And the Deity shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; nor shall there be sorrow, nor crying, nor pain any more: for the former things have passed away.

5. And he that sitteth upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith to me, Write: for these are true and faithful words.

6. And he said to me, It is done. lam the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be Deity to him, and he shall be to me a son.

8. But to the fearful, and unbelieving, and to those who have been detestable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolators, and to all the liars, their part shall be in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the Second Death.

9. And there came unto me one of the seven angels having the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and he spake to me, saying, Come hither, I will show to thee the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.

10. And he carried me away in spirit to a great and high mountain, and he showed to me that Great City, the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of the heaven from the Deity, having the Glory of the Deity. And the brightness of it was like to a stone most precious, as to a jasper stone, clear as crystal.

12. And it had a great and high wall, having twelve Gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names had been written thereon, which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. 13. On the east, three gates; on the north, three gates; on the south, three gates; on the west, three gates.

14. And the wall of the city had Twelve Foundations, and on them the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb.

15. And he that spake with me had a golden reed, that he might measure the city, and its gates, and its wall.

16. And the city lieth foursquare, and its length is as much as also the

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breadth: and he measured the city with the reed at twelve thousand furlongs:

the length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal.

17. And he measured the wall of it a hundred forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is of an angel.

18. And the structure of its wall was jasper: and the city was pure gold, like to clear crystal.

19. And the foundations of the wall of the city had been embellished with every precious stone. The first foundation a jasper; the second, a sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, a sardonyx; the sixth, a sardius; the seventh, a chrysolite; the eighth, a beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates severally was of one pearl: and the broadway of the city pure gold, as it were transparent crystal.

22. And I saw in it no nave for the Lord the all-powerful Deity is the Nave of it, and the Lamb.

23. And the city hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they shine in it; for the glory of the Deity hath lightened it, and the lamp of it is the Lamb.

24. And the nations of them who are being saved shall walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.

25. And its gates shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there.

26. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.

27. And there shall in nowise enter into it any thing unclean, and working abomination, and falsehood: but they who have been written in the book of the Lamb’s life.

EXPOSITION

1. The Former Heaven and Earth

“The Former Heaven and the Former Earth had passed away”.

YAHWEH Tz’vaoth having punished the host of the high ones in the heavenlies, and the kings of the earth upon the earth (Isa. 24:21); and having established the Great White Throne in the heaven without pope, emperor, or king to dispute his supremacy and sovereign will; the Moon is effectually confounded, and the Sun put to shame. Reigning on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, before his Ancients, the twenty-four elders and the four living ones, gloriously, there is developed in the world a new constitution and order of things, ecclesiastical, secular, and spiritual. In the prophetic style, this “economy of the fullness of the times” (Eph. 1:10) in which “all things in the heavens,” thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, and “all things upon the earth,”

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peoples, nations, and languages, are gathered together under one head, anakephalaiosasthai, is termed “A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH”.

Now the heavens of this new economy are the successor of those that fled from the Elohistic forces of the Eternal Spirit sitting upon the Great White Throne in Zion; and for which no vacant spot is found upon earth for their continued existence. In the new heavens nothing can find place but Elohistic Spirit; for flesh and blood, which are corruptible, cannot inherit the kingdom of the Deity, which is indestructible, ever-continuing, and to be left to no other people, as successors of those who establish it in the hour of premillennial judgment (Dan. 2:44; 1 Cor. 15:50). These Heavens, which destroy and rejoice over Babylon the Great, and transform the constitution of “the Air” upon which the terrific judgments of the Seventh Vial exhaust themselves, are bright with the glory of the Deity, which radiating from Zion, enlightens the world. In them the Sun of Righteousness is the orb of perpetual day; and his Bride, the Moon and Constellations, which reflect his splendor. In these heavens there is “glory to the Deity in the highest;” nor is there anything unclean, or that worketh abomination, or loves and invents a lie. On the contrary, “they declare the glory of Ail; and the expanse showeth the work of his hands”. They that be wise are the bright expanse; and they that turn many to righteousness, the stars of olahm and beyond (Dan. 12:3). Their happiness and honor will be to “show forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9): so that as children of the light, and of the day (1 Thess. 5:5) “day unto day will utter speech; and night unto night will show knowledge. There will be no speech, and no words, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out in all the earth; and their words to the ends of the world. Among them he hath set a tent for the Sun; and he, as a bridegroom coming out from his chamber, will be joyful as a mighty man to run the course. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unto the ends thereof; and there is nothing hidden from his heat” (Psa. 19:1-7). Paul quoted from this beautiful passage in his letter to the saints in Rome, ch. 10:18, and applied the fourth verse as predictive of the universality of the apostolic proclamation. But this was not all that the prophecy intended. How much more fully will it be accomplished when Christ and all the prophets, apostles, and saints, accepted and approved of him, shall have brought all nations into the blessedness of Abraham and his Seed.

The New Heavens and New Earth, styled Apocalyptically “the Former Heaven and the Former Earth,” and termed in ch. 21:4, “the Former Things passed away,” are the Second Israelitish Heavens, reckoning the Mosaic as the First; the destruction of which is treated of in

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2 Pet. 3; Heb. 8:7-13. But though the Mosaic Heavens were to be fired, and dissolved, and their elements melted with the fervency of the heat, he consoled his brethren of the circumcision who believed with the assurance that they would be succeeded in the appointed time by “New Heavens and a New Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”. These are the Millennial Heavens, to establish which is an important element of the work to be performed by Christ at his appearing in power. “I have put my words in thy mouth,” saith the Eternal Spirit to him in whom He would afterwards manifest Himself; “and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant THE HEAVENS, and lay the foundations of THE EARTH, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people”. When this work is accomplished, Zion will have put on her strength, and Jerusalem, the Holy City, her beautiful garments; and thenceforth there will no more come into her the uncircumcised and the unclean (Isa. 51:16; 52:1). When the Lord Jesus and his Brethren come to be enthroned, the King and Princes of the State, Jerusalem’s widowhood will be ended; and she will no more be the afflicted and the tossed with tempest, and the uncomforted. They will be the precious stones of her foundations; and the constitution of the kingdom restored again to Israel will be the New Heavens and the New Earth; and “the former (Mosaic) shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for, behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die a hundred years old; but the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of YAHWEH, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith YAHWEH; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of YAHWEH. as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 65:17-25; 11:9).

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2. The New Heaven and New Earth

“And I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth, and the Sea is no more”.

The reason given why a New Heaven and a New Earth are introduced is “because the Former Heaven and the Former Earth had passed away”. The Millennial Constitution of the World, as may be perceived from Isa. 65, is not perfect. It will be a great advance upon both the old Mosaic, and the Times of the Gentiles; but it will fall far short of the constitution and order of things beyond the Thousand Years.

We learn this from Paul in his reference to the visions and revelations granted to him, as it would seem, for his own exclusive benefit, for he would not, could not, or might not, communicate what he had seen and heard to others (2 Cor. 12:1). Speaking of himself, he says, “I have known a man in Christ fourteen years ago (whether in body, I know not; or without the body, I know not: the Deity knew), such an one suddenly transported unto a THIRD HEAVEN. I have known such a man, that had been transported in the PARADISE. and had heard secret things, which it is not lawful for the man to utter”. This third heaven, or paradise in full manifestation, is John’s New Heaven and New Earth, in which “there is no more sea”. In the “Former Earth” which passes away, there is sin, and generation, and death; and because of the existence of sin, and flesh and blood, and death, there are mediatorship, and priesthood, and ruling with an iron rod, in the “Former Heaven”. These things are not to continue permanently. Sin, which is the transgression of law, must be wholly and finally suppressed; flesh and blood must be exterminated from the earth; disease and death, which are “the wages of sin,” abolished; mediatorship, and priesthood, necessary in the offering to the Deity of gifts and sacrifices for the sins of the erring and the ignorant (Heb. 5:1,2) “delivered up to the Father;” and religion, which is a Divinely appointed remedy for an existing breach between the creature and the Creator, superseded, as having answered its purpose, and being therefore no longer necessary. All these things pertaining to the former, or Millennial, Heaven and Earth, John saw had “passed away”. In the final annihilation of the Devil by the judicial fire of the Deity in the destruction of the postmillennial Gog and Magog rebellion against the government of the Saints, the bruising of the Serpent’s Head by the Woman’s Seed, is consummated. Henceforth, the earth, not burnt up, but perfected, and rendered the paradisaic arena of all the unutterable joys and beauties and ecstatic things beheld and heard of Paul, becomes a fitting habitation of Deity in unmediatorial intimacy with the humblest of mankind; for then the Father will be “the all things in all men”.

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How truly great, then, is the voice John heard out of the heaven, saying, “Behold the tabernacle of the Deity with men, and he will dwell with them; and they shall be his peoples, and the Deity himself will be with them, their Deity”. They shall all of them be Divine people, like to the Saints then the rulers of the nations for the past thousand years. Having come forth from the graves, they become, together with the living who suffered not themselves to be deceived by the Devil and Satan, and seduced from their allegiance to the King of kings, in the Gog and Magog revolt, the postmillennial harvest of the dead and living, of which Jesus and his Brethren are the Firstfruits. “The Rest of the Dead” being thus added to these, the whole number given by the Father to the Son, is complete. “And the Deity shall wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall be no more death; nor shall there be sorrow nor crying, nor pain any more: for the former things have passed away”. “And there shall be no more curse” (ch. 22:3).

Such is the consummation of the Divine purpose in the creation of the heavens and the earth. He formed it to be inhabited (Isa. 45:18): to be a tabernacle for Himself with men. He could, had it pleased Him, have created it perfect, and filled with immortal inhabitants, at the beginning. To have done this would have prevented all the crime and misery that blot and crimson the record of the past; but then the world would have been a characterless automaton; and unfit for association with the Governor of the Universe, whose attributes are moral, as well as intellectual and potential. He desired a society for our planet consisting of tried and faithful friends, such as Abraham, who loved Him better than his dearest son. He proposed to develop it upon the principle of belief in His promises and obedience under trial; and to crown the whole with incorruptibility and life. Having prepared such a society as this, and concentrated it from all ages and generations into one glorious community, He would then put His hand to the final completion of its dwelling-place, as he declared to John, saying, “Behold, I make all things new”. When these true and faithful words are fulfilled, “IT IS DONE”. Everything is finished by the Alpha Spirit, Who began the work in the week of days: and, as the Omega Spirit, the Beginning and the End, completed it in the week of thousands of years. The invitation to a participation in the sublime inheritance is liberal, and worthy of Deity, who saith, “I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh, shall inherit all things, and I will be Deity to him, and he shall be to me a son”.

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3. No More Sea

“And THE SEA is no more”.

The sea referred to in this oracle is that Apocalyptic confluence of “many waters,” or “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” a restless, troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt (Isa. 57:20), out of which the dominions arose represented by the Beast with seven heads and ten horns, which was turned into “a Lake of Fire burning with brimstone”, when mingled with fire; and which became “before the throne, a sea transparent like to crystal” when the Saints stand upon it as conquerors, celebrating their victory over the beast and his Image, and over his sign, and the number of his name; and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb (Ch. 4:6; 15:2). For a thousand years this sea of flesh and blood continues transparent as crystal, and unruffled by the tempests of human passion, ambition, and wickedness. In all this period the sea of nations is calm; and “every creature in the sea, saith, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be to him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for the aions of the aions” (ch. 5:13). Being “blessed in Abraham and his Seed,” they have access to the healing leaves of the Tree of Life, which breathe forth an odor, or savor, of life unto life (2 Cor. 2:15,16) by which multitudes of them “are being saved” — ta ethne ton sozomenon Ch. 21:24; 22:2.

But flesh and blood, or Sin’s flesh, is radically bad. When Paul subjected the nature he possessed in common with all the race of men, to an enlightened scrutiny, he declared that “in his flesh dwelt no good thing”. He felt that he bore about a loathsome, leprous, nature, which he styled “a vile body;” so that it caused him to exclaim, “0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:18,24; Phil. 3:21). Such a nature is incurable. It is essentially turbulent, rebellious, and prone to evil; and can only be controlled by the power of Divine principles, or an iron despotism. When either of these are relaxed, it becomes presumptuous, and hostile to authority in doctrine and government. Nations that in the beginning of the Millennial Aion had been “joined to Yahweh and became his people,” will be represented in the end of that Aion, by a generation practically unacquainted with the torment of the judgment hour, when their sea was mingled with fire. Seducers will arise among them, and lead them into revolt. This creates a crisis, in which flesh and blood nations are annihilated; and caused to cease for ever from the earth: whereby is at length fulfilled the saying addressed to Israel in Jer. 30:11, “though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee”. When this full end is made, the immortal inhabitants of the earth will be able to say, in the words of this prophecy, “the sea is no more”.

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When the sea of nations, then, is made a full end of, but one nation remains the eternal occupant of the earth. Flesh and blood having been abolished in the destruction of “the last enemy Death,” that one nation must be a nation of immortals. It continues eternally a Body Politic under the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Saints; for the promise concerning him is, “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and YAHWEH Elohim shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and he shall reign over the House of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be NO END” (Luke 1:32,33). David understood the promise made to him as well as to Mary in this sense; for Yahweh said to him “I will make his throne as the days of the heavens. His throne shall endure as the sun before me, it shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in the heaven” (Psa. 89:29,36,37). Hence, the Body Politic will be an everlasting Israelitish kingdom, all the subjects of which will be incorruptible and deathless; and its Kings and Princes, the glorious immortals who had already twice conquered the world, and between their conquests, ruled it for a thousand years.

But, in view of this, what becomes of Paul’s saying in 1 Cor. 15:24, “then cometh the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Deity, even the Father?” There is no contradiction between Paul, Gabriel, and David. The delivering up is in the sense of that “subjection,” or subordination, to the Father, implied in the abolition of Mediatorship. Hitherto, no one could have access to the Father, but through the Son; for “the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son; because he is a son of man” (John 5:22,27). But, when “the sea is no more;” when there cease to be men of flesh and blood upon the earth, this reason ceases to have any force. The Father resumes His position of direct relation to all, seeing that he is then “the all things in all”, the dwellers upon earth, who are spirit, or consubstantial with Himself. The delivering up is the change of the constitution of things, made necessary by the destruction of the Devil and his works —the destruction of Sin’s flesh and all pertaining to it. If there had been no sin, there would have been no Mediatorship. Man could always have stood naked in the presence of his Maker without being ashamed. But when “the sea is no more,” the breach between the Deity and man is thoroughly and completely repaired; and the kingdom is placed under a new constitution, or heaven and earth, suited to the altered condition of the world. There being no more judgments to execute, nor gifts and sacrifices to offer for ignorant and erring mortals, the High Priesthood of the Melchisedec Order is vacated, and the priestly office of the Saints abolished; while pre-eminence of rank is continued to them and the Captain of their salvation, as long as the sun and the moon endure.

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4. The Holy City, New Jerusalem

“And I John saw THE HOLY Cm’, NEW JERUSALEM, descending from the Deity out of the heaven, having been prepared as a Bride who had been adorned for her husband”.

The apostle informs us in the ninth verse, that he was presented with a view of the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, that great city, the Holy Jerusalem, by “one of the seven angels having the seven vials full of the seven last plagues”. The reason of this reference to the vial-angels here, is because the manifestation of the Bride belongs to “the time of the dead” when they are judged, and the approved and chosen receive the reward. This is the time of the Bride’s adorning, and investment with the fine linen of incorruption, clean and bright, in recompense according to her deeds. And as this adorning transpires at the coming of the Ancient of Days, which occurs under the outpouring of the vial upon the Euphratean Power in preparation of her way, that is, under the sixth; so it would be the sixth angel that shows John the bride. He is quite emphatic in stating what he saw; unusually so. He is not content to say, “I saw;” but he must say. “I John saw”. And he may truly say this; for when the Bride is manifested in the time of the dead, he, John, the beloved disciple himself, will see her with his own eyes; for he will be one of her constituents in glory, as he was formerly “in tribulation and patience” (ch. 1:9).

The sixth angel, then, shows him the Bride. He hears his voice, saying to him, “Come hither! I will show to thee the Bride, the wife of the Lamb”. And in obedience to this call, John will come forth from the house of death; and be carried away to see the Bride descending out of heaven from the Deity upon a great and high mountain. When he arrives in Teman, he will again behold the Lord Jesus, whom he last saw on Oh-vet; and before him a crowd gathered by the angels of his power “from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31). This mixed multitude is not “the Great City, the Holy Jerusalem,” although all the prophets and all the apostles, and all the saints, are there; for “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing unclean, and working abomination, and falsehood”. The whole crowd, except “the living who remain,” are recently emergent from the place of skulls, and bones, and corrupting carcasses; and therefore, from the necessity of the thing, are all “of the earth earthy,” and consequently of an unclean nature or body, upon the principle that not one can bring a clean thing out of an unclean (Job 14:4). And beside this condition common to them all, there are many whose deeds in previous life will consign them to condemnation, to the sea mingled with fire, and to second death. Hence, a

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separation must be effected; and all deemed unworthy of the Holy Jerusalem, compelled to depart away.

And when they are gone, and “the called, and chosen, and faithful,” continue as they were, they are still not the New and Holy Jerusalem; for this Great City is said to “descend from the Deity out of the heaven,” not to ascend to the great and high mountain out of the earth. What then, is the solution of this mystery? If the approved and accepted saints be the Bride, and the New and Holy Jerusalem; and they by resurrection come out of the earth; how can the Great and Holy City be said to descend from the Deity out of heaven? If in coming forth from the graves, the prophets, apostles, and saints, all emerge thence immortal, perfect, and thoroughly furnished, ought not the Bride the Lamb’s wife, to be styled the New Jerusalem ascending from the tomb? Upon what principle then, is it, that John declares, that he saw the Great City, the Holy Jerusalem descending from the Deity out of heaven?

In answer to this question, I remark, that the Holy Jerusalem is a spiritual body corporate; that is, it is a community of people, every one of whom is spirit, or an incorruptible, deathless, and powerful, individual. Their nature, or bodily substance, is clean, pure, holy, and divine:

and it is such, because “it is born from above,” gegenflemeflon anothen. That which is clean, pure, holy, and divine, is not produced from the earth; but, if the things produced from the dust become so, it must be made clean, pure, holy, and divine, by being born of the Spirit from above; and then the thing born, made, created, or developed, is properly and truly said to be “from heaven,” or to “descend from the Deity out of the heaven.”

This principle is taught in the conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus, and afterwards illustrated in his own person. “Except a man,” saith he, “be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of the Deity”. No; such a birth being wanting in his case, if he come forth from the grave, he will be cast into “the sea mingled with fire,” and tormented in that fiery lake without rest day or night, to the beginning of the thousand years. He cannot become part of the New and Holy Jerusalem; nor enter into the kingdom of the Deity. Flesh and blood cannot inherit, or possess, that indestructible and incorruptible kingdom; but only that which hath been born out of spirit; for “that which hath been born out of Spirit is spirit:” therefore, said Jesus, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born from above. The Spirit breathes where he will, and thou hearest his voice; but thou hast not known whence he is come, and whither he goes away: so is every one that hath been born of the Spirit” — thou hast not known whence such an one cometh, nor whither he goes away (John 3:3-8).

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LOGOS PUBLICATIONS

THE SEVENTH TRUMPET, OR THIRD WOE

8. Theone Angel 311

ACT VI- SIXTH VIAL

Chapter 14

1. The Lamb upon Mount Zion

"And I looked, and behold, a Lamb stood upon the Mount Zion, and with him 144,000, having the Name of his Father, which had been written upon their foreheads " - Verse l

2. The Sound of Many Waters

"And I heard a sound from the heaven as a sound of many waters, and as a sound of loud thunder."

3. The Harpers Harping With Their Harps

'And I heard a voice of harpers harping with their harps; and they sing as it were a New Song in the presence of the throne, and in the presence of the four living ones, and of the elders; and no one was able to learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth" - Ver. 2,3.

4. The New Song

"No one was able to learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth".

5. The Character of the 144,090 Firstfrults

6. The Angel-Proclamation in Midheaven

8. The Third Angel

"Here is the patience of the saints; here, they who keep the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus" - Verse 12.

"And I heard a voice from the heaven, saying to me, Write! Blessed the dead dying in the Lord from this time. Yea, saith the

14. "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like to a Son ofMan, having upon his head a golden stephan, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

2. The Glassy Sea

"And I saw as it were a glassy sea, which had been mingled with fire" - Verse 2.

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of the Deity".

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

THE SEVENTH TRUMPET, OR THIRD WOE

1. The Great Voice

"And the first angel went forth, and poured out his vial upon the earth: and there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image" Verse 2.

"And the Second Angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as it were ofa corpse; and every living soul died in the sea" Verse 3.

4. Act III. The Third Vial

"And the Third Angel poured out his vial into the rivers, and into the fountains of the waters: and there was blood.

5. Act Iv The Fourth Vial

"And the Fourth Angel poured out his vial upon the SUN; and it was given to him to scorch the men with fire. And the men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of the Deity who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him" - verses 8, 9.

7. Act V The Fifth Vial

2. "Like to Frogs"

4. The First Phase of the Frog-Sign

5. The Second Phase of the Frog-Sign

6. The Third Phase of the Frog-Sign

1. The Thieflike Advent

The Apocalyptic benedictions are not mere ornamental figures of speech, thrown in, as it were, for the ventilation of pious feeling. They are substantial and joyous realities, promising present and future benefits. Thus,

PART IV

6th Vial Summary

1. The Air

"He poured out his vial into the Air".

"And there came forth a Great Voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying It is done!"

3. The Great Earthquake

"And there was a Great Earthquake, such as was not since that men were upon the earth so mighty an earthquake and so great"

4. The Great Hall

"And Great Hail as of a talent-weight descended out of the heaven and upon the men; and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great

CHAPTER 17

THE JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT HARLOT

"The Beast which thou sawest, WAS, and is NOT, but is hereafter to ascend out of the abyss, and to go away into perdition.

1. The Descending Angel

"And after these things I saw an angel descending out of the heaven having great authority; and the earth was illuminated with his glory".

2. The Descending Angel's Shout

"And he shouted in power, with a loud voice, saying, Babylon hath fallen, hath fallen".

3. Another Voice

"And I heard another voice from heaven".

4. One Day

"On account of this her plagues shall come in one day".

5. Yahweh Elohim

"YAHWEH ELOHIM, who judgeth her, is powerful".

6. The Consummation

Chapter 19

TRANSLATION

1. After These Things

2. The Hallelu-Yah Celebrations

5. The Name Written

CHAPTER 20

"Blessed and holy is he who hath part in THE FIRST RESURRECTION."

“But THE REST OF THE DEAD ONES lived not again until the thou­sand years had been finished”.

“And I saw a GREAT WHITE THRONE, and him sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven had fled away; and place had not been found for them”.

CHAPTER 21

Page 361

Subject Index For Volume 5

“But THE REST OF THE DEAD ONES lived not again until the thousand years had been finished”.