p. 586Act. II.—The Sixth Trumpet; or Second Woe
Western Part
Apoc. xi. 1-13
Summary
The woman in the wilderness and the remnant of her seed (ch. xii. 6, 14, 17) as the nave of the Deity, the altar, and the worshippers therein, measured by John. These (as the Holy City, and posterior to their measurement), are trodden under foot forty and two months by the Lion-Mouth Gentiles of the unmeasured outer court; that is, until the Ancient of days come—Dan. vii. 21, 22.
But, “the Earth helps the Woman” from the time of her flight into the wilderness of the Two Wings of the Great Eagle, where she is protected for a time, times, and half a time. To “the Earth,” as the two witnesses against the woman’s persecutors, power is given to maintain their testimony in sackcloth 1260 days. In the exercise of their mission, they smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will. At length the Lion-Mouthed Beast of the sea (ch. xiii. 7) effects their subjugation and political extinction. But after three days and a half they stand upon their feet again, and ascend to the heaven in sight of their enemies. At this crisis, an earthquake overthrows a tenth of the city Babylon the Great: titular distinctions within the sphere of the convulsion are abolished, and many of those who rejoice in them slain: the rest are terror-stricken; and give glory to the Deity of the heaven—Apoc. xi. 1-14.
During the testifying, or prophesying, of the witnesses the Ten p. 587 Horns, the Two-horned Beast of the earth, and the Image of the wounded sixth head of the beast, appear upon the arena,
Time of Events
From A. D. 312 to A. D. 1794, a period of 1482 years.
Third Section of the Seventh Seal
Act III.—The Seventh Trumpet; or Third Woe
Judicially Affecting Both East and West
Apoc. xi. 15-19
Summary
The events aforesaid being accomplished, the Seventh Trumpet begins to sound; and ends in the casting down by the Angel of the Bow of the thrones, and the setting up of the kingdom of the Deity; who, as the measured nave, altar, and worshippers therein, commences His reign. The casting down is preceded by the revelation of divine wrath in a time of international belligerency; and by the resurrection of the saints; who, as the nave and containing Ark of the Covenant, are manifested in the heaven; and with lightnings, voices, thunderings, earthquake, and hail, destroy the corrupters of the nations—Verses 15-19.
Time of Events
From A. D. 1794 to A. D. 1905, a period of 111 years.
See Tabular Analysis, pp. 104, 105.
Translation
Apoc. xi.
1. And there was given to me a reed like to a rod: and the angel stood saying, Rise up, and measure the nave of the Deity, and the p. 588 altar, and those worshipping in it. 2. And the court which is outside of the nave cast away out, and measure it not, for it has been given to the nations; and the Holy City they shall trample forty-two months.
3. And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, having been clothed with sackcloths.
4. These are the two olive trees, and two lightstands, which have stood before the god of the earth. 5. And if any will to injure them, fire bursts forth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any will to injure them, in this way must he be put to death.
6. These have power to shut the heaven, that rain may not fall in their days of the prophecy: and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they may have willed.
7. And when they may have finished their testimony, the beast ascending out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and put them to death.
8. And their corpses shall lie upon the breadth of the Great City styled spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. 9. And they shall see their corpses among the peoples, and tribes, and tongues, and nations three days and a half, and they shall not suffer their corpses to be put into tombs. 10. And they who dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and be exultant: and they shall send gifts to one another; because these two prophets tormented them who dwell upon the earth.
11. And after the three days and a half, spirit of life from the Deity broke in upon them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon those who beheld them.
12. And they heard a great voice from the heaven, saying to them, “Ascend hither!” And they ascended into the heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
13. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth of the city fell, and there were destroyed in the earthquake seven thousand names of men: and the rest were terrified, and gave glory to the Deity of the heaven.
14. The second woe has passed; behold the third woe comes immediately.
The Third Woe
15. And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices p. 589 in the heaven, saying, the kingdoms of the world have become our Lord’s and his Christ’s, and he shall reign for the aions of the aions.
16. And the twenty and four elders sitting upon their thrones in the presence of the Deity, fell upon their faces, and did homage to the Deity, saying, We give thanks to thee, O Lord, the almighty Deity, who is and who was and who art THE COMING ONE, because thou hast assumed thy great power, and reignest.
18. And the nations were made angry, and thy wrath came; and the time of the dead to be judged, and to give the reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, even to those who fear thy name, to the small and to the great; and to destroy those who corrupt the earth.
19. And the nave of the Deity was opened in the heaven, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his nave: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and earthquake, and great hail.
Exposition
1.—Zechariah’s Symbolism
In the fourth chapter of Zechariah there is a very remarkable symbolic prophecy concerning Zerubbabel and the “great mountain.” In this there is contained a hidden mystery—wisdom concealed, which the prophet confessed he did not understand. The exposition of the eleventh chapter of the apocalypse cannot be satisfactorily unfolded irrespective of Zechariah’s prophecy; for this portion of John’s is a symbolical revelation of the mystery therein contained. We shall therefore briefly look into what the spirit said to Zechariah about Zerubbabel.
First, then, the prophet was symbolically awakened by an angel out of a symbolic sleep, to show that what was about to be revealed would, in its consummation, be manifested after he should rise up from among the dead.
Being thus figuratively introduced into the resurrection state, he saw therein a group of symbols representative of post resurrectional Spirit-manifestation. The one group consisted of a golden lightstand with a hollow ball, or bowl, upon the top, from which projected seven tubes and burners. On each side of this was an olive-tree, one on the right, and the other on the left; and from a branch on each tree a golden pipe connected with the bowl. When the prophet beheld the lightstand and the two trees, he inquired p. 590 of the angel what it meant; or what was the solution of the mystery? But, instead of a definition of the symbols with an analytic exposition of the truth, he was told in very general terms, that the group represented the Spirit in manifestation, prepared to level the Great Mountain, and to establish the Head Stone triumphantly—verses 2-7.
This “great mountain” is the mountain out of which the Head Stone is cut without hand—Dan. ii. 45; and symbolizes “the kingdom of men” as existing at the epoch of its final overthrow, when “the kingdoms of this world become the Lord’s and his Christ’s.” “Before Zerubbabel” it becomes “a plain.” The HEAD STONE is the Spirit in olive-tree and lightstand manifestation, and surnamed Zerubbabel—scattered in Babylon. “They shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel those seven, which are the Eyes of Yahweh”—ver. 10. This is the “one stone of seven eyes” surnamed Zerubbabel. It is the Spirit head Stone so named, constituted, not of one individual only, but of a number of individuals, “which no man can number,” with one individual at the head of them, named Jesus the Anointed.
But, Zechariah in looking more narrowly at the symbolic group discerned two remarkable olive branches, one upon each of the olive trees; and he saw besides two golden pipes, one proceeding from each olive branch to the golden globe of the lightstand. He perceived, that the pipes were for the conveyance of the golden colored oil from the olive branches into the globe of the lightstands, that it might be combusted in the seven burners at the end of the seven tubes projected from the top of the golden globe. But he did not see into the truth or meaning of the mystery of the two olive branches, and the two golden pipes; he therefore asked the angel what they represented? He gave him, however, very scanty information. He simply replied, “these are the two Sons of Oil standing before the Lord of all the earth”—ver. 14.
2.—The “One Body” the Golden Lightbearer of the Spirit
Such was the symbolic scene beheld by Zechariah after his symbolic resurrection—two antagonistic powers; the one the Spirit; the other, the mountain-dominion of the world. But, had we no more light thrown upon the subject than granted to the prophet, the truth symbolized would be as inscrutable to us as it was to him. But, happily for them who are “the servants of the Deity sealed, in their foreheads” with his seal, the hidden mystery hath been p. 591 apostolically and apocalyptically revealed. The apostles, whose teaching consisted largely of “the revelation of the mystery hid from the aions and generations,” have supplied that which the angel carefully concealed from Zechariah. They have taught us, that the Golden Lightbearer of the Spirit is the “One Body,” of which the Lord Jesus is the head, or globular reservoir of the oil, anointed with the holy oil of truth; for “the spirit is the truth,” says John. This is the stem, and the bowl, and the seven tubes branching from the top, and the seven burners, and the two pipes; through which flows the spirit-oil of the truth, that it may “shine before men.” This one body, or lightbearer, is “the light of the world”—Matt. v. 14-16. It has been set up in the world to “give light unto all that are in the house,” that they may see the good works of them who are burners of the spirit-oil, and “glorify the Father who is in heaven.” It is through them that the Spirit operates in enlightening mankind, in “opening their eyes, and turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan (which is ignorance) to the Deity:” and in “pulling down of strongholds, and casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the Deity’s knowledge, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the Christ”—Acts xxvi. 18; 2 Cor. x. 5. In doing this, the seven Eyes of the Deity shine like lamps of fire from the burners of the lightstand. In apostolic times, they stood before the principalities and powers in the heavenlies making known to these rulers of the earth the manifold wisdom of the Deity, according to an exposition of the aions which he made concerning Jesus their anointed Lord—Eph. iii. 10, 11. Without this lightbearing body, the world in all the ages and generations from apostolic times until now, would have been in lightless outer darkness. The One Body has been the golden seven branched lightbearer in all the gloomy period of the times of the Gentiles. “Their testimony,” which is their light, is not only enlightening to the understanding of the ignorant, but it is tormenting to the adherents and advocates of the traditions and sophistries of the catholic and protestant apostasy—Apoc. xi. 7, 10. It vexes and annoys them; and especially when the eyes of the common people are sufficiently opened, if not to see the truth so as to be saved by it, at least to discern the imposition practised by those who would be their spiritual guides; but whose guidance they reject as mere quackery, and certain to precipitate all who trust it into the ditch. This effect of the lightburning stirs the gods of the earth up to inextinguishable wrath; and causes them to make war upon the lightburners, and to try to p. 592 put out their light by breaking their lightbearing body to pieces—xi. 7; xiii. 7. But “the earth helps the Woman,” who is indirectly nourished and cherished by the democratic and revolutionary adversaries of arbitrary power in church and state. These are her helpers, though not members of her body; and owe their political existence to the leavening influence of the divine principles she irradiates. They are her fire and sword by which her enemies are killed and devoured—Ps. xvii. 13; Apoc. xi. 5, 6: and, but for whose chivalrous devotion to what they style “the rights of man,” she could in no wise have withstood for ages the exterminating efforts of the enemies whom her testimony hath tormented and provoked.
The apostles have also taught us that the Spirit-Lightstand, or one light-bearing body, is constituted of two classes of mankind, which are fitly represented by Two Olive Trees; the one, “a wild olive tree,” and the other, “a good olive tree”—Rom. xi. 17, 24. The former, we are taught in this chapter, represents the non-Israelitish portion of mankind; while the latter is representative of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the Zechariah-group of symbols, these two olive trees are united to the light-bearing body by the two golden pipes extending from a branch of either tree. This intermediate union of the two trees is allegorical of the union of Israelites and Gentiles in one body through Jesus Christ. In the apostolic allegory, the union of the two classes is represented by grafting branches taken from the wild olive tree among the branches of the good olive tree, whose root and fatness supply wholesome nourishment to the grafts. In other words, the engrafting is done by “the word of truth,” which is therefore styled “the engrafted word received with meekness, which is able to save the soul”—James i. 21. This word received with meekness by wild-olive men, makes them intelligent believers of “the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ;” and, by causing them to be immersed into the Christ-Name, they become members of the one body. By adoption, or engraftment, through Christ Jesus, they become good olive-men; and being “cut out” of the wild olive in all “the times of the Gentiles,” during which blindness afflicts Israel, they supply the place of the Jewish branches broken off because of unbelief.
This transfer of branches from the wild to the cultivated olive, is the reason of there being two olive trees in the symbolic group. In the first few years of the apostolic era, there had been no breaking off of branches from the good olive tree; and no grafting in of wild olive branches in their place. The engrafted word was preached and p. 593 received by Israelites alone; for, until Peter was taught to “call no man common or unclean” (Acts x. 28), the gospel was not preached to the Gentiles; so that the one body consisted only of believing and immersed Jews. But, when it was found experimentally that Israelites were fast becoming deaf and blind to the word, it was propounded to the Gentiles, from among whom a rich fulness has been separated. As faith decayed in Israel it grew vigorously among the Gentiles. The natural branches of the good olive became sapless; and were broken off with violence, when the Little Horn of the Goat received a host against the daily because of transgression, and cast down the truth, in its Mosaic representation, to the ground—Dan. viii. 9-12. A. D. 70.
But the One Body is destined to flourish in two states. The Zechariah-symbolic group represents it in the state inaugurated by the resurrection. John saw it in this state, as “a Son of Man in the midst of Seven Lightstands,” invested with all the attributes of omnipotence—Apoc. i. 12-16. Being in the midst of the seven, he occupies the same relation to the light-irradiating ecclesias that the seven tubes of Zechariah’s group do to the golden bowl, and the seven horns do to the Lamb—ch. v. 6. The whole group of John and Zechariah is symbolical of the Omniscient and Omnipotent Spirit in post resurrectional corporeal manifestation—the “One Body” perfected and glorified in all its members.
But, before the One Body thus symbolized can stand in the presence of the nations to “enlighten the earth with his glory” (ch. xviii. 1), it must preēxist in all “the times of the Gentiles;” that is, in the interval between the breaking off of the natural branches of the good olive tree, say from A. D. 70, to “the time of the dead when they should be judged, and a reward given to the prophets and saints”—ch. xi. 18. This state of being, Paul styles, “the present evil world;” we term it commonly, “this world,” and “the present state,” in contrast with “the future state,” or “the other world,” or “the world to come.” Seeing, then, that the One Body, a great multitudinous unity, Jesus and his Brethren, is related to these two states, it is interesting to know—
I. What position it occupies in respect to the nations of the earth?
II. What its mission while so placed? and,
III. How long is that position to be held?
A correct answer to these questions will furnish us with the solution of the mystery contained in the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse.
p. 594I.—Position of the One Body in the Present State
Zechariah does not aid us here. He was briefly informed, that the two olive branches emptying the golden oil through the two golden pipes into the bowl, were “the two Sons of Oil standing before the Lord of all the earth.” They represented Sons generated by the Golden Oil, or “word of truth”—the “unction from the Holy One, which teacheth of all things, and is the truth”—1 John ii. 20, 27. They stand before the Lord, על־אדוֹן, ăl-ădon, or before the Ruler of all the earth. True; but who is the ruler here referred to? Is it the Spirit-King, Yahweh Tz’vaoth, Isaiah saw?—ch. vi. 1, 5. Is it he exclusively, or is there a truth concealed, indicating some other ruler as well? The answer to this question must be deferred until we come to the exposition of Apoc. xi. 4. We shall proceed now to the consideration of the first verse of this chapter.
1.—“Rise Up!”
In this we find John in a like situation with Zechariah. They are both in the presence of an angel, and both asleep. That John was lying down asleep, appears from a voice saying to him, εγειραι awake, or rise up! When John had the vision of the One Body, as related in the first chapter, he “fell at his feet as dead,” and from this symbolic death was restored again by the Spirit who spoke to him; so, in this eleventh chapter, being in the same presence, namely, of the Rainbowed Angel, of whom he says, “the Angel stood,” he was prostrate in symbolic death, from which he was commanded, not by the angel, but by the voice of the power that developes the angel, to “Awake,” or “Rise up.” The angel is placed there, very much to the perplexity of the grammarians and commentators, who have proposed to abolish him from the text altogether, as an inconvenient superfluity—as the representative of the One Body in the post-resurrectional period; as indicated by the symbolical resurrection of John, who, when awake or risen up, sees him standing—“the Angel stood.”
But why was John made the subject of a symbolic resurrection when he was about to transact business having regard to the position and mission of the One Body in the times antecedent to “the time of the dead?” The answer is, because the business he had to transact would ultimate in the resurrection of the One Body, of which, in its awaking or rising up, he was the dramatic representative. p. 595 The literal resurrection of the dead saints developes the angel he saw standing when he opened his eyes to see. The things revealed in this eleventh chapter ultimate, as any one may see, in the resurrection of the saints, and the establishment of their kingdom. They are the Spirit’s dead men, and they arise as his dead body. This is a grand consummation in regard to them. They now “dwell in dust,” where they are fast asleep; but they shall “awake and sing,” as the climax of their position and mission in this present evil world—Isa. xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. 2.
This is a notable feature in all prophetic oracles, namely, the primary statement of the end to be established as the result of, or consequent upon, the details immediately to follow. There is another striking illustration of this in the fifteenth verse of this chapter. Here, the end resulting from the finished judgments of the seventh trumpet is summarily stated before the details of the trumpet are specified. A neglect of this peculiarity would lead the reader to suppose that “the kingdoms of this world became the Lord’s” at the first blast of the seventh trumpet. This, however, would be a great mistake; for subsequent specifications show that such a notable and world-astounding result is not to be expected until the sounding is about to cease. But, of this apocalyptic characteristic I need adduce no further examples, for it must be obvious enough to all.
2.—“A Reed like to a Rod”
This being so, I proceed further to notice, that the power commanding John to rise up, gave to him “a reed like to a rod.” The use he was ordered to make of it shows that it was a measuring reed. “Rise up,” said the voice of the Spirit, “and measure the nave of the Deity, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” When we consider the things to be measured, it is clear that the reed must be a rule of faith, a rule of practice, a rule of time, or all of these; not a material rule, such as a builder would use. It was “a reed like unto a ραβδος.” In writing to the saints in Corinth, Paul says to them: “What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rabdos, or with love, and a spirit of meekness?”—1 Cor. iv. 21. This shows that a rhabdos is something different from love and meekness in expression. The use of it in this chapter of the apocalypse is evidently representative of the same idea as in Paul’s inquiry. The scope of the prophecy shows this; for the two olive trees are to “prophesy 1260 days, having been clothed in sackcloths”— p. 596 ver. 4, 3; and to be overcome and denied a burial—ver. 7, 9. This unhappy fate was a rhubdos—a severe infliction. Hence, the measuring reed was like to severe infliction. But, how long? The answer to this question is the reed—1260 days. The reed then was a rule of time, indicating a period of severe trial; and therefore “like to a rod;” and upon the principle of loving chastisement—“whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourgeth every son whom he receives”—Heb. xii. 6.
It is to be noted here, that John, and not the angel, is the measurer. The measuring, therefore, is different from the measuring of chapter xxi. 15. In this place, it is one of the seven angels of the vials, the seventh, that is the measurer. John has a reed, and this angel has a reed; but the reeds differ in this, that John’s is “like a rod,” and the angel’s is “a golden reed.” Being different reeds or rules, they are used for different kinds of measurements. The reed like a rod measures the nave still in connection with altar-worship; while the angelic golden reed measures “the great city, the holy Jerusalem,” in which there is neither nave nor altar.
There was great symbolic decorum in appointing John to be the measurer, in giving the reed like a rod to him. “Rise up and measure!” was the voice of the Spirit. The measuring is here connected with the rising up; in other words, John’s symbolical resurrection was the limit of the measuring; at all events, of his measuring; for, where his correctional mensuration ends, there the angelic measuring by the golden rule begins.
3.—The Altar
The altar in the text is the altar of sacrifice. Had it been the altar of incense it would have been specified, as in ch. viii. 3, “the golden altar before the throne.” The altar John measured was the altar under which the saints lie, who are slain for the word of the Deity, as in ch. vi. 9. In this place, the symbolic souls are represented as “crying with a loud voice, saying, How long?” But the measurement of this was not revealed. They were told that it was “for a little season;” but the number of days contained in this short period was not measured off for their information. Not so, however, in John’s measuring. He gives in symbolic days the period of altar-worshipping; that is, the period during which the saints would be liable to death at the hand of their enemies because of their testimony. In all “their days of the prophecy” they were an afflicted people. As the Spirit had foretold in Dan. vii. 21, the p. 597 Little Horn with Eyes and a Mouth of blasphemy was to make war upon the saints, and to prevail against them till the Ancient of Days came. The saints being in Christ Jesus, the altar, they “worship therein,” and are “partakers with the altar” in altar-sufferings; in other words, “they are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, they may be also partakers of that, and be glad with exceeding joy”—1 Pet. iv. 13; v. 1.
But, was this altar to be deluged with the blood of victims in all the period elapsing from A. D. 70 to the coming of the Ancient of Days? John’s measuring answers this question in the negative. The worshippers in the altar were to be slain, and to rise again, and to ascend to power, and to strike terror into their enemies; and, though not free from tribulation because of the word, their sufferings are not represented as unto death as aforetime. They are prevailed against till the Ancient of Days comes, but not under the same sanguinary conditions.
4.—All not of the “One Body” Excommunicate
John’s measuring was restricted to the One Body, the mystical body of Christ, the saints. He was expressly commanded to excommunicate all the Gentiles not of the One Body. “The Court,” said the Spirit-Voice, “that is outside of the nave, εκβαλε εξω, cast away out, and measure it not;” and the reason given for this excommunication is, “because it hath been given to the nations.” Hence, the apocalyptic court is the Court of the Gentiles; and the antitype of the Court of the Gentiles under the Mosaic constitution. It may be remarked here, that in Solomon’s building there were three courts; first, the outmost court of all, into which the Gentiles might enter; next, the Court of Israel, for native Israelites, if clean according to the law, otherwise admission was denied even to them. Between these two courts, there was a “middle wall of partition,” upon which were notices forbidding Gentiles to pass beyond it on pain of death; and, third, the Court of the Priests, where the brazen altar of burnt-offerings, and the brazen laver for washings, stood, and where the priests and Levites exercised their ministry. Israelites, who offered sacrifices, might bring their victims to the inner part of this court, but could not pass a certain separation which divided it; they withdrew as soon as they had delivered their sacrifices and offerings to the priest, or had made their confession, with laying their hand upon the head of the p. 598 victim, if it were a sin-offering. Beyond the Court of the Priests was the temple proper, subdivided within into the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place, or Nave. These two Holies were divided from each other by the Veil or curtain. In the Holy Place were the golden altar of incense, the show-bread table, and the seven-branched lightstand, in whose seven burners was consumed the light-giving golden oil of olives. Into this place, the priests, if purified by blood and water, and invested with the holy garments, might enter at all times; but were forbidden to enter into the Most Holy beyond the Veil. Into this, the Aaronic High Priest alone could enter, but not at all times, nor without blood, on pain of death. When within the nave, he stood, as “the angel stood”—ch. xi. 1, before the throne of Yahweh, whose power dwelt in a cloud between the Cherubim, made of the Olive Tree, and overlaid with pure gold; and above the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, or coverlid of the ark, styled the Ark of the Covenant, because it was a chest containing the stone tables of the law, cut and engraved in heaven, and delivered thence by angels to Moses on the mount. Within were also contained the pot of manna, the bread that came down from heaven, and Aaron’s dead rod that budded into life and bore fruit. Such was “the House made with hands”—an interesting fabric of the Mosaic parable foreshadowing certain “things of the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ.”
As we have seen elsewhere, these temple arrangements have been incorporated into the structure of the Apocalypse. The text before us appropriates the apocalyptic outside court to the Gentiles. “The middle wall of partition” having been broken down, by nailing the threatening handwriting of ordinances to the cross—Eph. ii. 14; Col. ii. 14; no Court of Israel is introduced into the apocalypse. Israelites and Gentiles not of the One Body, are constituents simply of the unmeasured court. Their position in relation to the Nave and the Golden Altar, and the Altar of Sacrifice, is that of excommunicate outsiders. In the aggregate, they are “the court outside of the nave cast away out, and not measured.” They are therefore, without remission of sins, and consequent right to the tree of life; they cannot offer acceptable prayer and praise to the Deity; nor have they any intercessor within the veil. Their court is wholly occupied by Daniel’s Fourth Beast. There is not a foot of its area which is not so occupied; so that there is room within its limits for no other beast; for this beast is resolved, apocalyptically, into the dragon, the beast of the sea, the beast of the earth, the image of the beast, and the scarlet colored beast and its rider. In other words, p. 599 the Unmeasured Court is Christendom, so called, in its civil and ecclesiastical constitution—“Babylon the Great.”
The altar, which in the first verse includes the Court of the Priests, and the Holy place, because the constituents of the altar are constituents also of the court and the holy, is surrounded by the Court of the Gentiles; that is to say, the One Body in the present evil world, is a pilgrim and a sojourner in the midst of its enemies. It is surrounded on every side by the children of “the Great Harlot;” whose ecclesiastical institutions are apocalyptically labelled, “the Mother of Harlots, and of all the Abominations of the Earth.” This ecclesiastical family of adulteresses belong especially to “the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss, and makes war upon the saints, and overcomes, and kills them”—ver. 7; xiii. 7. They are the defiling women of ch. xiv. 4; with whom “the Virgins,” or Altar-worshippers, have nothing to do, except to prophesy against them, and to torment them with their testimony.
In this Court of the Gentiles, “the spirituals of the wickedness in their high places” are rampant revellers in tradition and blasphemy. Their court is illustrated by one great “Name of Blasphemy”—ch. xiii. 1; which towers in pride and arrogance (“its look more stout than his fellows”—Dan. vii. 20) above all the other blasphemous “Names and Denominations,” of which it is so “full” as scarcely to afford space for novelty in this department of iniquity, transgression, and sin—ch. xvii. 3. These Names and Denominations of Blasphemy fill up the Court; a fact expressed in the text quoted, by the words, “a scarlet-colored beast, full of the Names of Blasphemy.” Those of them in alliance with the civil powers of the court, are styled “Harlots;” these can be counted upon the fingers; as, the Church of England and Ireland, the Church of Scotland, the Lutheran Church, the Calvinian Church of Switzerland, and the Gallican Church. These are the Harlots, who have sold themselves for gain to work the will of them who keep them. They are ecclesiastical incorporations of “all that is in the world, the” sanctimonious “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life;” and therefore “not of the Father”—1 Jno. ii. 16. Their diversities are but the diversities of mere human speculation and views of expediency. The same substratum of blasphemy and scripture-nullifying tradition, pervades them all. They teach nothing aright; for their divinities and theologies, are the mere fleshly thinkings of the natural man. Though their spirituals claim to be “ministers of the gospel,” and “ambassadors of Jesus Christ,” and “successors of the apostles;” their claims are stamped spurious p. 600 and their high pretensions ignored, by the command given to John not to measure their court, but to “cast it away out.” They are a denounced apostasy, as far removed from the One Body as the east from the west. Ministers of the gospel indeed! How can men minister that of which they are profoundly ignorant in letter and spirit. If ministers of anything, it is of “the wisdom from beneath; which is earthly, soulish, and demoniac.” By their fruits they are known to the One Body which alone has spiritual intelligence to discern their true character. This measured community knows, that they are a base counterfeit that can only be made to pass current among those who are ignorant; and who mistake brass for the fine gold of the temple. The spiritual institutions of their unmeasured and excluded court, have no vitality in them; and can therefore save no one. Their way is the way of death—the wide gate and the broad way leading to destruction.
These Harlot-Churches of the Court are the leading novelties of modern times. They had no place in the Court four hundred years ago. Then the court was wholly occupied by Greek and Latin catholic idolatry; the Latin section of which they ignorantly acknowledge as the true church; and the common “Mother of All Churches.” This is true. The state churches are all her bastard progeny, begotten of her adulteries with the kings of the earth—ch. xviii. 3. Hence, her apocalyptic name, “MOTHER OF HARLOTS.”
But, beside these harlot daughters, whose presence in the court she is too drunk and feeble to prevent—“drunk,” not so much with wine as with folly, and “with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus”—ch. xvii. 6—she has a multitudinous brood of young serpents, styled “All the Abominations of the Earth.” These are the Anti-State churches of the Court—churches, not allied to the state, but holding dogmas, which are a mere dilution of the traditions of the Harlot Mother of Christendom. They pervade all the British isles and possessions, under the general denomination of “Protestant Dissenters;” and all the original United States, north and south. In the American section of the Court of the Gentiles, as there is no Harlot “by law established” with privileges from which her sister-prostitutes are excluded, “the Abominations” are not styled “Dissenters” and “Nonconformists.” In this section of the court they are all equal before the world’s law; but not equally respectable and orthodox in the world’s esteem. Wealth, classical (or pagan) scholarship, and numbers are the criteria of their relative respectability and orthodoxy. The rulers and politicians of the “Model Republic,” players all upon the world’s boards, are the honored p. 601 members or patrons of “all the Abominations of the Earth;” so that from the stage to the pulpit, and from the pulpit to “the floor of the House,” there is no wider step than from the sublime to the ridiculous and profane. The legislators and executives of the protestant sections of the Court are the incarnations of the profanities and blasphemies inculcated by the spiritual craftsmen who live by “the Abominations,” or “Denominations” of the earth. Hence, their legislation and rule are devilish and oppressive; and calculated to bring down upon them catastrophy and judgment, as at this day, but more intensely and generally hereafter.
An enlightened spectator, contemplating the festering abominations of the European and American papal and sectarian sections of the Court of the Gentiles, might wonder at the long suffering and forbearance of the Deity, whose Name and Tabernacle they so grievously blaspheme. He might exclaim, “How long, O Yahweh, wilt thou not avenge thine own cause!” But, to him it might be replied, that the Deity remains silent, not because he is not indignant at the blasphemies, corruptions, and cruelties perpetrated against his dignity, and the well-being of his two witnesses or prophets; but because the Antichristian Court is “cast away out, and not measured.” For this reason, the Gentiles have liberty to set up any, and all kinds of abominations in their court, or area of operation, without being subjected to immediate judgment for their crimes. Hence, polygamous Mormonism, and adulterous Romanism, courtezan state-churchism, and hypocritical sectarianism, all flourish in their several spheres of abomination. They are permitted to do as they please, until the measure or limit of the One Body’s sackcloth probation is attained—a measure indicated by John’s symbolic resurrection from the death-sleep. John’s rising up measured the altar worshipping of the nave, or saints of Deity. When these rise from the dust, and he with them, “the Angel stands” prepared to “finish the mystery of the Deity as he hath announced the good news to his servants the prophets”—to break up the court, and to level the Great Mountain of human dominion and corruption, with which it is filled. There will then be no more Court of the Gentiles, and no more apocalyptic altar-worshipping for the One Body. All “the Abominations of the Earth,” mere lies, vanities, and “things which are of no profit,” will then be swept away with the besom of destruction; and nothing will survive, but the victorious and glorified community, symbolized by Zechariah as the Seven Branched Lightstand, and Olive Trees. These will then burn the golden oil in the kingdom of their Father; and enlighten the subject nations with their glory.
p. 602 Such is the position of the One Body in the present altar-worshipping state. It is down-trodden—trampled upon by the “miserable sinners” of the Court of the Gentiles—“the Holy City,” said the Spirit-Voice, “shall they tread under foot.” This is their present fate, in common with Israel after the flesh, who, for an evening-morning of 2400 years past, according to the lxx., have also been trodden under foot by the Gentiles of the Court—Dan. viii. 13, 14. The One Body, or “Holy City” is essentially antagonistic to the Sin-Powers of the Court, by what symbol or names soever they may be represented; for it is the Woman and her Seed in opposition to the Serpent and his Seed; two parties between whom there is irreconcilable hostility, which can only cease with the utter destruction of the Serpent-Powers of the Court—Gen. iii. 15.
In the apocalypse, the Holy City occupies a conspicuous and interesting position. The Holy City measured by John, and the Holy City measured by the Angel, are the same Holy City in two different states—in the preresurrectional; and in the postresurrectional, states. Every immersed believer of the gospel of the kingdom and name, is an adopted citizen of the Holy City. Paul writing to such believers says: “Ye are come to Mount Zion, and unto the City of the Living Deity, the Heavenly Jerusalem,” “the Mother of us all”—Heb. xii. 22; Gal. iv. 26. “Ye are come;” that is, not personally; but by faith; because “we walk by faith, not by sight.” All that is promised concerning the future glory of the “barren Jerusalem that beareth not,” and is now trampled upon by the Fourth Euphratean, or Ottoman, Angel-power, they heartily and affectionately believe: and believing these “exceeding great and precious promises,” together with the things concerning Jesus, and the apostolic revelation of the mystery, they are reckoned by adoption through immersion into Christ, as if they had been royally born in the Asiatic city; and consequently entitled to share officially in all its good fortune when it shall break forth into singing, because her light is come, and the glory of Yahweh is risen upon her—Ps. lxxxvii. 5, 6; Gal. iv. 27; Isa. liv. 1; lx. 1. The true believers in the present altar-worshipping state are collectively the Holy City, the Municipality elect, and divinely appointed to rule in the restored Jerusalem, when it shall have been delivered by the Angel of the Bow from the Serpent-Power of the unmeasured court by which it is now “trodden under foot.”
p. 6035.—The Holy Polity Trampled Forty-two Months
The Holy Body Politic is measured—the period of its down-treading by Gentile barbarism is measured. The Court of the Gentiles will continue to exist a longer time than their trampling of the Holy City. Not being measured, it does not appear how much longer it will continue; but as the Holy Polity is to destroy the Court and its sin-powers, it follows necessarily, that the altar-worshipping and sackcloth prophesying of the Body, must come to an end before judgment is given to it. This limit of tribulation had been revealed to Daniel in the words of the oracle: “The Horn shall make war upon the saints, and prevail against them until the Ancient of Days come, and judgment be given to the saints”—ch. vii. 21, 22; and in verse 25, “they shall be given into his power until a time and times and the dividing of time.” In other words, at the end of this period the Ancient of Days will come; and then the saints will no longer be prevailed against, or “the Holy City be trodden under foot.” This coming of the Ancient of Days is the limiting event of the down-treading measured off by John with “the reed like to a rod” given to him by the Spirit. In the record of his measurement, he turns Daniel’s “time and times and the dividing of time,” into “Forty and Two months.” He says: “The nations shall trample the Holy City forty and two months”—ch. xi. 2. Hence, at the termination of these months the trampling is to cease in the advent of Christ and the resurrection of his brethren—“the time of the dead”—xi. 18. Now he comes “as a thief” under the sixth vial, while the Franco-Frog power is in active operation—ch. xvi. 12-15; hence, the “forty and two months” must terminate then; an end that must be exceedingly near.
But, are these forty and two months simply months of days; or are they symbolic months of days, each day signifying a year? To affirm that they are months of days and nothing more, would be a violation of all decorum. To have evolved a scriptural exposition of the reed, the rod, the angel, the nave, the altar, the court, and the city; and to have shown that John and his actions were representative; and then to affirm, that the time related to these things is to be expounded upon an entirely opposite principle—that the time is literal months and no more, is irrational, contrary to the analogy of scripture, incongruous to the subject treated of, and contrary to historic fact. Nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since John saw the vision of the eleventh chapter. When he saw p. 604 it, the One Body was in the altar-worshipping and sackcloth situation. It was then warred upon by the pagan Roman power, the Little Horn with the Eyes of a Man, and a blaspheming Mouth, having then no existence in the Court of the Gentiles. But, instead of being “prevailed against,” “overcome and killed,” the One Body “overcame the great red Roman dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony”—Apoc. xii. 3, 9-11. It was not “trodden under foot” of pagan Rome; but Rome pagan is placed under its feet, under the symbol of “a Woman with the Moon under her feet”—ch. xii. 1. Hence, there is no sense in which it could be then said of the One Body, “the Holy City shall the Gentiles trample forty and two months” of days, and days only: for history shows that the trampling was the reverse of this; and that the conflict between the pagan dragon and the Holy City was neither forty and two months nor 1260 days, nor 1260 years; but the much shorter period of 226 years from the time John measured the Holy City until “the dragon was cast out into the earth.”
Now, the historic fact is, that over two hundred years after the pagan dragon was overcome by the saints, the Eyes and Mouth of the Little Horn were constitutionally established as “the God of the Earth”—ch. xi. 4. The Little-Horn power that had destroyed the Asiatic Jerusalem, disregarded the god of his fathers, called Jupiter; and this new god, whom his pagan predecessors knew not, he honored, and legally established in his estate, or empire—Dan. xi. 37, 38. This was the Little Horn ecclesiastical element, into whose hand, or power, Daniel was told that the saints should be given, until the elapse of “a time and times and the dividing of a time”—ch. vii. 25. Many periods of forty-two literal months elapsed in these two hundred years; in all of which the saints were untrampled by the nations. But when this New God came up in the midst of their court, the situation of the Holy City was entirely changed. Forty and Two months of years have nearly elapsed since then; and in all this time the Holy City has been in the altar-worshipping and sackcloth prophesying measurement of time. Shall we ignore this remarkable fact and say, “Oh, that is nothing at all!” and, for the sake of reducing all students of the prophecy to one common low level of ignorance, affirm “that the fulfilment of what is written in the book of The Revelations, from chap. iv. inclusive, is still future?” For men to affirm this, is proof their entire and gross ignorance of the whole subject. But many people, who are lost in the night of Egypt, desire to be thought as p. 605 wise by others as they are in their own conceits. In regard to the apocalypse, they feel poignantly and painfully their deep and ineradicable ignorance; they can make nothing of it, and being too self-conceited to be taught, or envious and hateful of those who are able to teach them, they aim to allay their vexation by the comforting delusion, that its events and times are all in the future, and “in close connection with the appearing of Christ;” so that, of course, the most intelligent and the most ignorant in the word and history, are equally in the dark concerning it. This is very consoling to the envious, who love darkness rather than light, if the light proceed from any but themselves. The Apocalypse all in the future except the first three chapters!! If the reader have followed our exposition from the beginning of the fourth to the present writing, we believe he will find it impossible to endorse such “a foolish notion.” He will be able to say boldly, that the dogma of the futurists is a mere old wife’s fable; and utterly unworthy of the grave consideration of a true believer—a servant of the Deity sealed in the forehead with the seal of the living God—ch. vii. 2, 3.
In my exposition of the ninth chapter, I have shown that “months” there can only signify periods of thirty years—verses 5, 10, 15. The word signifies the same period of time in the text before us. “Forty and Two months” of symbolic time are as many years as they contain days. Forty and two months are 1260 days; so that, on the principle of a day for a year, as in chap. ix., the Holy City is trampled to the end of 1260 years. This One Body has been altar-worshipping, and “clothed with sackcloth,” in nearly all this time; during which “the great harlot that” still “sits upon many waters,” whose polity is symbolized by “a scarlet-colored beast full of names of blasphemy,” has become drunk with their blood—ch. xvii. 1, 3.
There are no data in the first and second verses of this eleventh chapter to show at what epoch these “forty and two months,” 1260 years of trampling begin. We are informed that they shall end at John’s rising up, which is the terminal measure of their continuance. This, as I have shown, is the import of the command to him, “Rise up and measure.” But, the same Spirit told Daniel, that the time was the period of the saints being in the hand of the Little Horn with Eyes and Mouth; if, therefore, it can be ascertained when they were turned over by authority to the ecclesiastical horn-power, the commencement of the “forty and two months” will be determined.
The words of the oracle are, “they shall be given into his hand.”
p. 606 This implies a giver—one having power, by which he would be able to place the saints under the jurisdiction of him who should “wear them out, and think to change times and laws”—Dan. vii. 25. This powerful giver was unquestionably the Sixth Head of the Dragon; or “the king that shall do according to his will, and shall honor a god whom his fathers knew not.” The throne of this dragon-king is Constantinople. It was removed here from Rome by Constantine “the Great;” a removal, that prepared the way for the manifestation in Rome of this new god, who would speak great things against the Most High. The principal bishop of the catholic idolatry in Rome was developed into “the God of all the earth” by the legislative favor of the imperial Constantinopolitan power. This development was legislative and circumstantial, and therefore progressive. He was no meteoric upstart in the Seven-hilled city; but a bastard deity, who had been begotten in the Roman Mother by the adulterous embrace of the imperial power. Rome was pregnant with this blasphemous deity during a gestative “set time” of two hundred and eighty years—nine months and ten days being the physiological period of human incubation. From A. D. 324 to A. D. 604-8, was this “god of guardian saints” in the embryo, or fœtal, state. He was quickened into political life as a future imperial element of the fourth beast dominion of the Court, by Justitian’s Code, A. D. 529, and his Decretal Epistle, A. D. 533; which affirmed the Roman Bishop’s universal supremacy in spiritual affairs. Seventy-five years after this quickening, he was born God of the Roman earth by Phocas, the Dragon emperor, acknowledging the supremacy of his See, A. D. 604; in grateful commemoration of which, and other benefits, the New Deity caused to be erected by the exarch of Italy a Corinthian fluted column of Greek marble, standing on a pyramid of eleven steps, on the top of which was a gilt statue of Phocas. The date of the pillar was A. D. 608; and the occasion of the honor is stated in the inscription to be, “Pro innumerabilibus Pietatis ejus Beneficiis, et pro Quiete procuratâ Italiæ, ac conservatâ Libertate.” Surely, the birth of “the God of the earth” was an event to be celebrated in grateful honor upon the imperial creator! Perhaps a baser wretch than Phocas never wore the dragon-crown; but the baser the more worthy in the estimation of the new god. By the murder of the imperial family, the usurper had given absolute liberty and supremacy to the Roman bishop; besides bestowing liberal donations upon the Roman churches. He was therefore entitled “His Piety;” and the pillar was erected “For the innumerable benefits of His Piety, and for the quiet procured to Italy, and the preservation of liberty.”
p. 607 Thus, by this development of the Roman bishop into the irresponsible “god of the earth,” all spiritual things were “given into his hand” by imperial authority and power. He was constituted the Lord Spiritual of all christians, who were denounced as heretics fit only for fire and sword, if they dared to question his divinity. Under his supremacy they were adjudged to the flames, had their tongues cut, out, denied “christian burial,” as he styled it, and deprived, not only of the benefits of society, but of the common birthright of men. Such was the iron yoke forged by the decrees of the Greco-Dragon emperors, who gave all their subjects into the hand of the God they set up in the pre-Constantinian seat of their dominion; thus, “giving him his power, his seat, and great authority”—ch. xiii. 2: that “he might as God sit in the temple of the god, showing himself that he is a god”—2 Thess. ii. 4.
This epoch, then, of the four years between A. D. 604-8, in which the Roman Bishop was set up for the supreme deity of the Court of the Gentiles—above all civil rulers; or, as Paul expresses it, “above all that is called a god, or that is worshipped;” is the only one that I can discover in history in harmony with the word, as the epoch of commencement for the “forty and two months” of years, or 1260 years, for the trampling of the Holy City by the nations. The terminal epoch, of course, upon this basis will be between the end of the years A. D. 1864 and 1868. In these terminal four years ending in the spring of ’69, it may therefore be expected, that “the time of the dead” to rise up, as prefigured by John, will have arrived; when the forty and two months being ended, the trampling of the Holy City will be no more.
II.—The Mission of the One Body in the Altar-worshipping and Sackcloth-prophesying Situation of Its Affairs
The third verse of this chapter testifies as follows: “And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, having been clothed with sackcloths.” Here is a proposition plainly stated. There can be no mistake, one would think, as to the personage who makes the statement. The “I” is, doubtless. the Spirit who speaks to the ecclesias, and who said to John, “Rise up and measure the nave of the Deity.” He gave John power to do this in giving him the “reed like to a rod,” the symbol of the measurement. John, on awaking, no doubt, p. 608 obeyed the order; and having accomplished the work, the Spirit added, “And I will give to my two witnesses” a certain mission to perform. The measuring was John’s work; the prophesying, theirs; and with this John was to have nothing to do, in person, until he shall “rise up” in “the time of the dead,” and rejoin his classmates, as a constituent of the Angel of the Bow; and with one foot upon the sea, and the other upon the earth, prophesy with the voice of Boanerges in the utterances of Seven Thunders, “before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings”—ch. x.
The Spirit styles them “my two witnesses.” They are therefore the Witnesses of the Spirit, styled in ch. xvii. 6, οι μαρτυρες Ιησου, the witnesses of Jesus—of Yah the Saviour. A witness is one who gives testimony to the truth at the hazard of liberty, estate, and life. The Spirit’s witnesses are witnesses of this kind. They testified to “the truth as it is in Jesus,” in opposition to “every high thing that exalteth itself against the Deity’s knowledge;” consequently, they were conspicuous in testifying against the catholic worshipping of the dæmonials and idols; and all the other abominations they encountered in the Court of the Gentiles. Many of them incurred the loss of all things—“they loved not their lives unto the death”—ch. xii. 11; therefore they are described in “the time of the dead,” as “the souls of them who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of the Deity, and who had not worshipped the Beast, neither his Image, neither had received the mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands;” and to show that these witnesses are the Saints, it is added, “and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years”—ch. xx. 4.
To these witnesses something was given—“And I will give to my two witnesses,” saith the Spirit. What was this that was given? It could be nothing else than the gift of prophecy; for it is immediately added, as the result of the gift received, “and they shall prophesy.” Now, the nature of the gift is determined by what, as prophets, they were to accomplish. They were to devour their enemies by fire bursting forth out of their mouth; to shut the heaven that it rain not; to turn the waters into blood; and to smite the earth with every plague—verses 5, 6. These effects were to result from their testimony delivered “in their days of the prophecy;” for when those days were expired, “their testimony was finished,” and they could neither prophesy, nor do any of these terrible things. Their tormenting power was gone, and the agency by which it was executed was silenced in death—verses 7-10.
The nature of the prophetic gift bestowed upon these formidable p. 609 witnesses was divine. It was a divine power imparted to them, which none of their adversaries of the unmeasured Court could gainsay or successfully resist. It had been given to them when the angel, who had ascended from the east, sealed them in their foreheads with the seal of the Living Deity—ch. vii. 2, 3:—A. D. 325, and onwards. As the result of this sealing, the word of the Deity dwelt in them richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; and as “the word of the truth of the gospel” is a great unfulfilled, as well as partially fulfilled, prophecy, the sealed, in vocalizing its testimony before the ignorant, are “prophets,” whose inspiration is the word understood and believed. For this reason it is, that the saints are said to “prophesy,” when they state, illustrate, and prove the truth. “He that prophesieth,” saith Paul, “speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort”—1 Cor. xiv. 3; and “he that prophesieth edifieth the ecclesia”—ver. 4; therefore he saith in another place, “despise not prophesyings.”
The essential difference between the prophets of antiquity, and “the two prophets” of this eleventh chapter, is not as to the matter given, but the manner in which that matter was imparted. The ancient prophets and apostles received the subject matter they proclaimed by revelation direct from Deity; while the apocalyptic prophets receive it by hearing expounded, and reading the writings in which the direct revelation is contained. A merely natural man is an empty earthen vessel. He contains none of “the golden oil.” What he knows, he knows only as a natural brute beast; and like other animals, obeys only the impulses of his “inner consciousness.” Such a human creature is utterly destitute of inspiration; and the efforts to enlighten him prove fruitless, he is fit only for capture and destruction. The unmeasured Court of the Gentiles is the aggregate of such; and in the midst of so dark and dangerous a community, the Spirit’s Witnesses were appointed to operate for a testimony against them.
These witnessing prophets were inspired by the truth; and the truth is declared to be “the power of the Deity for the salvation of every one that believes it”—Rom. i. 16. “Power belongeth unto him;” and “he giveth strength and power to his people;” and the truth is his power by which his witnesses are able to do, what mere naturals are utterly impotent to effect. But the truth in His witnesses is the power of the Deity to work intellectual and moral results; and is “the savor of life, ending in life” to those who believe; and of “death ending in death” to those who do not. Hence, it divides the peoples in the Court into two general divisions, believers p. 610 and unbelievers; between whom the truth generates implacable hostility; for as in the days of Isaac, “he that was born after the flesh persecuted him born after the Spirit, even so it is now,” “in all their days of the prophecy”—Gal. iv. 29. This state of feeling is the “enmity” put between the two seeds by Divine Power—Gen. iii. 15; so that a man’s foes are often those of his own house.
But the truth in the Spirit’s witnessing prophets is not uniform in its effects. The character of these depends materially upon the nature of the soil into which the incorruptible seed is sown—Matt. xiii. 19-23. In this parable, there are no less than six varieties of product from the same sowing—the way side, the stony, the thorny and the good; and three varieties even of the good. These all received the word sown into their hearts, even with joy; but it was only those who, with honest and good hearts, understood it, brought forth fruit unto endless life. The good soil believers are the Spirit’s witnessing prophets; while the other soil believers, not sufficiently evangelized for their own personal salvation, are too much enlightened to accept the dogmas of the Great Harlot, of her Harlot-Daughters, and of the Denominations, alias, the Abominations, of the earth; or to conform to their ordinances and institutions. Hence, the Court of the Gentiles, besides containing the Harlots and Abominations, has a numerous class of nondescripts, who are not professors of any of the superstitions of the Court. These are variously styled by the spirituals of the world, “infidels,” “liberals,” “revolutionists,” “disorganizers,” “democrats,” and so forth; but apocalyptically they are termed, “THE EARTH”—ch. xii. 16.
In the way previously explained, this apocalyptic earth is a creation of the truth ministered by the Spirit’s witnessing prophets, “who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” It is not a homogeneous rabble such as may be found in all ages and generations of the world. It is, on the contrary, a heterogeneous company of divers sorts and conditions of men, as appears from Gen. vi. 12, where the phrase is applied to “all flesh;” as, “the Earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted Yahweh’s way upon the earth;” and again, “Hear, O Earth, the words of my mouth!”—Deut. xxxii. 1. But relatively to the Spirit’s witnessing prophets, “the earth” is used in a more restricted sense. “The Earth that helps the Woman” is all those upon whom her testimony or principles, or both, have made a favorable impression. Though they may not at all be influenced by her moral and doctrinal p. 611 precepts for salvation, they incorporate her principles of “civil and religious liberty,” and what they call “the rights of man,” which were abolished by the edicts of the Imperial Dragon, when he subjected the nations of his dominion to the absolute sovereignty of the Episcopal God of the earth, A. D. 529. No one imbued with the principles of civil and religious liberty could forbear to testify against arbitrary power in Church and State; and when natural men become impregnated with such principles, they become impetuous and impatient of oppression, which is said to drive even a wise man mad; and in their fury organize resistance, and seek the overthrow and destruction of the oppressor. Such an “earth” as this did not exist in the ages and generations of Rome pagan. The Woman then had no Earth devoted to religious liberty to interpose itself between her and the arbitrary ferocity of “the great red dragon;” the whole brunt of this sanguinary despotism fell directly upon her unprotected self. It was not till after the establishment of that worse than pagan superstition—that “dreadful and terrible” blasphemy, surnamed the Holy Catholic Church, that “the Earth” in its witnessing relations appeared upon the arena. When aroused to action in the unmeasured Court, it was a terror to the oppressors of the saints. It tormented them with all the plagues of war; and devoured them with fire and sword, as its own peculiar testimony against “the God of the earth,” and the Sin-powers that sustained him.
An arrangement of this sort was absolutely necessary for the preservation and protection of the One Body, witnessing for the truth against “the worshipping of the dæmonials and idols,” in the midst of the nations, and “before the God of the earth;” the weapons of whose warfare were civil disabilities, and the infernal tortures of anti-heretical crusades and inquisitions. The One Body, of which Christ is the Head, is commanded by him, not to avenge itself; not to take any other sword than “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of the Deity;” not to resist evil; if smitten upon one cheek to turn the other; and many other precepts, of which his own individual conduct when in the hands of his enemies, was an unmistakable illustration. In view of these commands, how was such a Polity to devour its enemies with fire, to turn waters into blood, and to smite the earth with plagues? Manifestly such a work of death and destruction was incompatible with obedience to such precepts of non-resistance. War and desolation are no part of christian duty. “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all.” This principle faithfully and duly observed by p. 612 all the Lord’s servants in his absence, will prevent them from avenging their own wrongs; or lending themselves as instruments in the quarrels of others, be they individuals or nations. No degradation more ignominious can befal a servant of the Lord than that of being a bloodshedder in the service of any of the Sin-powers of the unmeasured Court. To be employed in such a service, is to be a servant of the Lord’s enemies. “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” This is the duty of all soldiers—they must labor to please their owners. Hence, the world’s soldiers must please the world, who is their lord and master; and “if I please men,” says Paul, “I should not be the servant of Christ;” for Christ himself says, “that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of the Deity”—Luke xvi. 15; Gal. i. 10. The saints cannot serve two masters, Christ and Sin. If they “endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ;” and “fight the good fight of faith” scripturally, they cannot at the same time “serve Sin” in the armies of “the God of the earth”—the armies of the nations of the Court. Their mission is to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints;” which protests against all the wars and fightings of the Gentiles as emanating from their unhallowed and unbridled lusts. What has the Holy City, trampled by the Gentiles, to do with what they deem great, sacred and good? What is the judgment of these worth in the premises? Doth not the word testify that they are all fools and drunk? And shall saints, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, lose their savour in the service of such, and be darkened by the fog of their delusions?
Thus were organized in the unmeasured Court of the Gentiles two powerful antagonisms—civil and religious despotism, on the one hand; and civil and religious liberty, on the other. The adherents of the despotisms, in their civil and ecclesiastical organization, were the Dragon, the Ten Horns, the God of the earth, the Great Harlot, her Daughters, and the Abominations of the earth—a blind, corrupt, and cruel host; while opposed to these, were the One Body and its unconscious instrument, “the Earth”—unconscious that it was the divinely appointed and divinely energized agent for the aid, nourishment, and vindication of the Spirit’s witnessing prophets against their enemies.
Here, then, were two coöperative organizations against the Catholic Apostasy of the Court: Without any treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, and without any direct mutual understanding, p. 613 the ages and generations of the past found them standing side by side in witnessing and prophesying with tormenting effect against the blasphemies and abominations of “them who dwell upon the earth.” Each witness had its own specialty. Christ’s brethren testified the gospel, and laid before the Court the way of salvation. They showed men what they must believe and do for the remission of all their past sins; and for the obtaining a right to the tree of life in the Holy City, when it shall be measured by the angel of the golden reed—ch. xxi. 15; xxii. 14. In doing this, they did their utmost to neutralize the teaching of the Jeromes, Augustines, Ambroses, and Martins, of the apostasy; and to turn the hearts of the peoples from their profane fables to “the engrafted word which is alone able to save their souls.” In this work they were eminently successful. They filled the Court with their doctrine, which inflicted great torment of mind upon the clerical and ministerial craftsmen, whose pride, arrogance, and flesh, fattened upon its superstitions and delusions.
Such torment, of course, could not fail to arouse all the bitterness and animosity of sin’s flesh. The firm of the Jeromes, Augustines, and company, perceived that their episcopal craft was in danger; and that if they left this witness alone, the evil might become so great, that they might not be able to hold their own. Something, they concluded, must be done for the preservation of their fables and traditions. It had not yet become the custom for catholic to burn heretic; although the tendency to that orthodox solution of inconvenient questions was becoming rife. In A. D. 385, the blood of Priscillianists had been shed by catholic ministers; but this was not the rule. When the Christadelphians, or Brethren of Christ, undertook to protest against practices which they regarded as superstitious and unscriptural, they were then, as now, assailed with every expression of contumely and rancor. But the wordy passion and invectives of their enemies broke no bones, and destroyed no lives. These witnessing prophets of the Spirit were not to be deterred by hard words. They continued to contend earnestly for the “one body one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Deity;” and to admit of no truce or compromise with anything that rendered one or all of these of none effect. Their course was onward by the light of the word, and by that only; so that by the time the Roman Bishop was primarily developed into “the God of the earth” by Justinian’s Decretal Epistle, A. D. 529, they had become a numerous and influential community in all the nations of the West.
p. 614 But, when this “Name of Blasphemy, speaking great things,” had received political life; and had been set up as a living Image of Imperial Power, styled “the Image of the Beast” in ch. xiii. 14; a change for the worse came over the situation of affairs. “All, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,” were commanded to worship this image upon pain of death; and “to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their forehead; and that no man might buy and sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” This pressed with great hardship upon the One Body; and upon those who were pledged to the antipapal principles of civil and religious liberty. Multitudes preferred death to submission to this decree; and determined to draw the sword in defence of “conscience and the rights of man,” thus violently assailed by the new “god of all the earth.” This Moloch of the Seven Hills was not backward in affording them scope for the development of their prowess in all the nations of the court. He proclaimed crusades against them; and called upon his worshippers to gather their hosts, and to take the field against them, and to slay them with utter and exterminating slaughter. “The Earth,” the Spirit’s other witness, embraced the conflict, undismayed by the power and ferocity of the foe. With fire and sword, which was their testimony practically administered, they tormented the minions of the oppressor. The prophesying of “the Earth” that “helped the Woman,” was not to be despised by the priests and rulers of the nations. They devoured their enemies in war; and shut the heaven of the Court, that there should be no peace “in their days of the prophecy.”