Act V.—Seal-Period Fifth
Apoc. vi. 9, 10, 11.
A period of great resistance unto blood on the part of the arrowless Bowman engaged in the conquest of the paganism of the Fourth Beast.
A. D. 303.
“And when He opened the Fifth Seal, I saw underneath the Altar the souls of them who had been slain on account of the word of the Deity, and on account of the testimony which they held. 10. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Until when, O thou who art the Despot holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them who dwell upon the earth? 11. And to them each were given white robes, and it was answered to them that they should repose yet a short time while both their fellow-servants and their brethren should be filled up, who are about to be killed even as they.”
1.—Why the Four Living Ones do not Appear
This fifth seal comes in between the expired political judgments of the fourth and the renewed judgments of the sixth. While, in the previous four seals, the Roman heathen were the subject acted upon in their visions, in this, the fifth, it is those who profess the faith of Christ who are the object against which the seal-judgment is directed. The horses and their riders have disappeared from view, and, what is more remarkable, the four living ones also. John no more hears a voice from them inviting him to “Come and see.” He is not called upon to “see” or contemplate the judgments of the Lamb upon the heathen people. He had been invited to “see” the fourth seal; and he might still see the result of those calamities working evil upon “that which hindered,” and preparing for it the last struggle which would eventuate in casting it out of “the p. 211 heaven.” This was an object to be beheld by one of the eyes of the fourth living one—an object external to itself; but, in the fifth seal, those “brethren” and “fellow-servants,” of which he was a representative, were the subject of its judgments, and therefore an object to be beheld, and not spectators of the scene.
As already remarked, it is remarkable that neither of “the Four Living Ones full of eyes” is introduced into the imagery of the fifth and sixth seals. In the first four seals, they occupy a conspicuous place; but in the fifth and sixth they are not found. This peculiarity is certainly not accidental. The omission must be significative of something real in the situation of affairs pertaining to those engaged in “conquering” that which hindered the manifestation of the Man of Sin-power. We know, that the Four Living Ones are symbolical of the Heavenly Encampment, the imperium in imperio, the aggregation of the company separated from among the Gentiles for the Name; as opposed, or in active hostility, to that other encampment, or imperium, represented by the four horses under divers colors. The heavenly camp was the habitation of the Deity by his Spirit; not that his spirit was in all the individuals of the encampment; but that His Imperial Pavilion was in their midst, as the tent of the commanding general was in the midst of the Roman military camp. The Seven Asiatic Ecclesias as representative of all the militant ecclesias in the Greco-Latin Habitable, constituted this Heavenly Camp, with its divinely appointed standards of the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle faces; and, I doubt not, that in the whole period of the first four seals, a period of two hundred and five years, “the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus,” understood that their body, nation, community, or militant association, in the general, was “signified” by those four remarkable figures. I am strengthened in this conviction by the following notable passage in a letter from the presbyters of the church, or ecclesia, in Rome to Cyprian and his brethren in Carthage. “Let us pray,” say they, “that those who have fallen (or lapsed from the faith) may become sensible of the greatness of the crime . . . and that they may not disturb the yet fluctuating state of the Ecclesia—lest they should appear to aggravate our distresses by exciting internally seditious and inflammatory commotions. Let them knock at the doors, but not break them. Let them go to the threshold of the Ecclesia, but not leap over it. Let them watch at the gates of the Heavenly Camp, but with that modesty which becomes those who remember they have been deserters. Let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of humility, and resume that shield of p. 212 faith which they dropped through fear of death; but so that they may be armed against the Devil, not against that very Ecclesia, which laments over their fall.” This was written in the middle of the third century, and in the fourth seal-period. The writers regarded the Ecclesia throughout the Roman world as “the Heavenly Camp” with gates. This idea they would derive from Apoc. xxi. 12, where “the gates” are revealed as twelve in number, and emblematic of the “twelve tribes of the children of Israel.” These gates are grouped in threes, according to the encampment of the tribes, four square, each three symbolized by the standard of Judah, Ephraim, Reuben, and Dan; or, the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle, as exhibited in the Four Living Ones full of eyes. They regarded this Ecclesia-Camp as militant, and all its combatants as armed with “the shield of faith,” which those who became apostates, or “deserters,” threw away.
But, why is this Heavenly Camp not symbolized in the fifth seal? First, I conceive, because its work was done at the expiration of the fourth seal; secondly, because its unity had been destroyed under that seal; and, thirdly, because in default of that unity, the Deity no longer resided in it by his Spirit.
First, the work of the Spirit through the undivided Christ in convincing pagans of “the truth as it is in Jesus” was finished. The agency employed in separating the heathen from the Roman superstition, consisted of philosophical disquisitions on idolatry, and denunciations of the terrors of the law upon them. They were exhorted to “believe and live;” and at the same time told to “even in the very exit of life pray for remission of sins, and implore the only living and true God with confession and faith: pardon is granted to him who confesses his sin; and saving grace from the divine goodness is conferred on the believer; and thus may a man pass from death to immortality in his very last moments.” This extract is from a letter of Cyprian, a model christian of the fourth seal-period, to Demetrian, a persecuting pagan in the Roman Africa; and given by Milner approvingly, as a specimen of his preaching to men, although profane and unconverted. Such preaching would do very well for the conversion of pagans to the Laodiceanism of the third or nineteenth centuries; but it would be of no use in regard to “the great salvation”—it could put no one in possession of the faith; and through the obedience of faith, of a right to eternal life in the kingdom of God. Such preaching might do for a cathedral, church, or conventicle, pulpit of our times; but not for preaching to be endorsed by the Spirit. The Spirit could not sanction such p. 213 eloquent trash, and therefore he withdrew from the camp, and left it in the gloom of its own darkness. For this cause, the symbol of the Heavenly Camp is not found in the fifth seal. The Spirit had withdrawn from it as no longer fortified with the truth. The untraditionized word was not taught; and it had become the synagogue of the Satan, “after whose energy, and with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness,” the Lawless One was to be developed. Where the truth is not, there the Spirit is not; for “the Spirit is the truth.” This is the reason why the Spirit is not now with “the names and denominations of Christendom” in whole or part. They are destitute of the truth. It is not preached among them, nor known to them; and therefore not believed and obeyed. Hence, the churches of Christendom could not be represented by the Four Living Ones, as under the four seals. They do not constitute a Heavenly Camp; but “the Great City” to be besieged and taken when the Four Living Ones shall plant their standard-faces against it, in the resurrection and regeneration. They brought the Great City to ruin—to pale-horse distress, in the period of the four seals; and again, under the Seventh Vial, the same “great city” under its papal and ten-horn constitution, will be demolished by them, and finally superseded by their Heavenly Camp, from which there will then be no deserters who have dropped the shield of faith; and none within to be more zealous for traitors, than the truth.
Secondly, the symbol of the Spirit in the midst of the saints does not appear in the imagery of the fifth seal, because the unity of the camp had been broken up in the fourth seal period. In this period there were several severe persecutions of the christians; and also, prosperous intervals in a worldly sense. In peaceful times, multitudes forsook the temples of the gods, and joined the ecclesias under the influence of their families, and of such preaching as Cyprian’s. Some, doubtless, through study of the scriptures, and the aid of faithful men, came to an intelligent faith and obedience. These were the “few names” of the fourth seal period, on account of whom, and with whom, the Spirit still occupied the encampment. They were the salt by which the lump was seasoned; and in whose absence the camp was no longer tenable by the Spirit.
The multitudes who forsook the gods very much resembled the multitudes who forsake the world (!) when, in modern times, they “get religion,” and become papists, protestants, and sectarians. The one and the other forsake not the gods and the world with the intention of enduring torments, or of holding on to their profession p. 214 at the cost of liberty, chattels, or life: but so long as it is safe and pleasant, or not too inconvenient, they are willing to rejoice in a more reasonable and decent calling, than in a declining and vulgar superstition like the Roman, or in the wickedness of what they call “the world.” The persecutions of Maximin, Gallus, and Valerian, all occurred under the fourth seal. When any of these befel the encampment, multitudes turned traitors and deserted to the enemy. They dropped the shield of faith, and were pierced by the fiery darts of the wicked. The emperors ordered all who had become christians to sacrifice to the gods, and to renounce and curse the Lord Jesus; or to be tormented and put to death, if they refused. This was a trial multitudes were unequal to. The ecclesia in Carthage was numerous. At the beginning of the Decian persecution Cyprian says, “It stands firm in the faith in general;” but when it was over its declension was most deplorable. It had been sifted by the storm so much that the greatest part of its professors had apostatized. The case of Carthage will exemplify that of very many other ecclesias. The apostates were innumerable; they forsook the Heavenly Camp in crowds, and sought safety and protection in the pardon offered by the magistrates to all who should recant.
But, when peace was restored to the Heavenly Camp, multitudes of these deserters besieged its gates for readmittance. Within the camp, there were two classes of professors; one, consisting of “the few names in Sardis which had not defiled their garments;” the other, consisting of all the rest, who “had a name that they were living, but were dead”—Apoc. iii. 4, 1. The latter class was favorable to the readmittance of the deserters, or “lapsed;” the minority was determinedly opposed to it. The head of the majority was Cornelius the bishop of the ecclesia in Rome; and the leader of the “few names” in the Sardian state, was Novatian, who was elected bishop in Rome in opposition to him about A. D. 251. He is acknowledged by his opponents to have been no heretic; and to have excelled in genius, learning, and eloquence. No immoralities have been proved against him, though he did not escape the evil speeches and maledictions of the majority; though it is certain, that while he continued a presbyter of the ecclesia in Rome, his fame was not only without a blot, but very fair in the camp. He was put to death for the faith in the reign of Valerian.
It will be well here to sound in the ears of the reader the voice of history concerning the state of the majority which the Spirit says had a name that it was living, while it was really dead; and the division of which is charged upon Novatius as a crime.
p. 215 “The most respectable writers of that age,” says Mosheim, “have put it out of the power of an historian to spread a veil over the enormities of ecclesiastical rulers. For, though several yet continued to exhibit to the world illustrious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue (these were “the few names even in Sardis”), yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness; puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition; possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy professors and ministers. In many places the bishops assumed a princely authority, particularly those who had the greatest number of churches under their inspection, and who presided over the most opulent assemblies. They appropriated to their evangelical functions the splendid ensigns of temporal majesty. A throne, surrounded with ministers, exalted above his equals the servant of the meek and lowly Jesus; and sumptuous garments dazzled the eyes and the minds of the multitude into an ignorant veneration for their arrogated authority. Presbyters followed their example, neglected their duties, and abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. Deacons imitated their superiors, and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order.”
In support of this statement, we have the testimony of Eusebius, who was contemporary with what he describes. “Through too much liberty,” says he, “the Christians grew negligent and slothful, envying and reproaching one another—waging, as it were, civil wars among themselves, bishops quarrelling with bishops, and the people divided into parties. Hypocrisy and deceit were grown to the highest pitch of wickedness. They were become so insensible, as not to think of appeasing the divine anger, but, like atheists, they thought the world destitute of any providential government or care, thus adding one crime to another. The bishops themselves had cast off almost all concern about religion; they were perpetually contending with one another, and did nothing but quarrel, and threaten, and envy, and hate one another; they were full of ambition and tyrannically used their power.”
Such was the state into which the ecclesias had fallen in the second half of the third century, against which Novatian protested. Many, in all the Roman empire—Christadelphians, in contrast to “Christians,” a name disgraced then as now—united with him in bearing a noble testimony against the prevailing corruption in the camp; and by so doing acquired the name of Novatianists. They were p. 216 also termed Puritans, or in Greek, Cathari—a name bestowed on them by their adversaries, who reproached them for what they considered their excessive severity of discipline and exclusiveness.
The ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, says that “Novatius separated from the Roman Church because Cornelius the bishop received into communion believers who had sacrificed during the persecution which the emperor Decius had raised against the ecclesia. Having seceded on this account, on being afterwards elevated to the episcopacy by such prelates as entertained similar sentiments, he wrote to all the ecclesias insisting that they should not admit to the sacred mysteries those who had sacrificed; but exhorting them to repentance, leave the pardoning of their offence to God, who has the power to forgive all sin. These letters made different impressions on the parties in the various provinces to whom they were addressed, according to their several dispositions and judgments. The exclusion from participation in the mysteries (Lord’s Supper) of those who after baptism had committed any sin ‘unto death,’ appeared to some a cruel and merciless course; but others thought it just and necessary for the maintenance of discipline, and the promotion of greater devotedness of life. In the midst of the agitation of this important question, letters arrived from Cornelius the bishop, promising indulgence to delinquents after baptism. On these two persons writing thus contrary to one another, and each confirming his own procedure by the testimony of the divine word, as it usually happens every one identified himself with that view which favored his previous habits and inclinations. Those who had pleasure in sin, encouraged by the license thus granted, took occasion from it to revel in every species of criminality. The Phrygians, however, appear to be more temperate than other nations, and are seldom guilty of swearing. The Scythians and Thracians are naturally of a very irritable disposition, while the inhabitants of the East are addicted to sensual pleasures. But the Paphlagonians and Phrygians are prone to neither of these vices; nor are the sports of the circus nor theatrical exhibitions in much estimation among them even to the present day (A. D. 445). And this will account, as I conceive, for these people, as well as others of a similar temperament and habit in the West, so readily assenting to the letters written by Novatius. Fornication and adultery are regarded among the Paphlagonians and Phrygians as the grossest enormities; and it is well known that there is no race of men upon the face of the earth who more rigidly govern their passions in this respect.”
p. 217 This testimony of Socrates shows that morality and virtue were on the side of the Novatians; and even their catholic adversaries did not accuse them of unsoundness in the faith. Cornelius, the bishop of the church in Rome, styles Novatius, “that artful and malicious beast;” and denounces him in his letters for his artifice and duplicity, his perjuries and falsehoods, his dissocial and savage character. But this proves nothing against Novatius or his friends, and is prima facie evidence that the spirit in him, Cornelius, was the spirit of the flesh, which afterwards became so rampant in his successors the Popes. From Eusebius’ account, Novatius and his adherents appear to have been excommunicated by a council assembled in Rome; and the course pursued against him there evinces more of party malignity than of zeal for the truth in faith and discipline. But it did not succeed in suppressing the Novatians, who prospered in Rome considerably. Socrates says, that A. D. 421, Cornelius’ representative was one Celestinus. “This prelate,” says he, “took away the churches from the Novatians at Rome also, and obliged Rusticula their bishop to hold his meetings secretly in private houses. Until this time that sect had flourished exceedingly in the imperial city of the West, possessing many churches there, which were attended by large congregations. But envy attacked them also, as soon as the Roman episcopate, like that of Alexandria, extended itself beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of priesthood, and degenerated into the present state of secular domination. For thenceforth the Roman bishops would not suffer even those who perfectly agreed with them in matters of faith, and whose purity of doctrine they extolled, to enjoy the privilege of assembling in peace, but stripped them of all they possessed. From such tyrannical bigotry the Constantinopolitan prelates kept themselves free, inasmuch as they not only permitted the Novatians to hold their assemblies within the city, but treated them with every mark of Christian regard.”
The position assumed by the Novatians was perfectly scriptural. Sins unto death disqualify for inheritance in the kingdom of the Deity, and therefore for fellowship with those who are “the Heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to them who love him,” or obey him; which is the same thing, for “love is the fulfilling the law.” There can be no sin more deadly than that of a christian sacrificing to other gods, and cursing Christ, for the sake of present ease and comfort. Paul settles this clearly enough to the minds of all who receive the word as the end of all controversy. “If they who were once enlightened,” says he, “shall fall away, it p. 218 is impossible to renew them again unto a change of mind—εις μετανοιαν, seeing they crucify again for themselves the Son of the Deity, and expose him to public shame.” This is bearing thorns and briars; and such, Paul saith, “is rejected, and nigh to cursing; whose end is to be burned”—Heb. vi. 4-8. For an enlightened man to sacrifice to the gods of Greece and Rome, was for him to “sin wilfully”—a sin for which no sacrifice is provided in the system of righteousness devised by the Deity. It is therefore “a sin unto death;” and for that—for pardon of that, John discountenanced all petition: “there is a sin unto death; I say not that ye shall pray for it”—1 John v. 16. Of sins of this sort, Paul says: “If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of the Deity, and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace”—Heb. x. 26. The christian who sacrificed to the gods of the Gentiles, in so doing, “trod under foot the Son of the Deity, and counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing.” The gospel of the kingdom has no good news for such. They have denied Christ; and Paul saith again, “If we deny him, he also will deny us”—2 Tim. ii. 12; and Jesus himself says, “Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven”—Mat. x. 33.
It is clear, then, in relation to “the lapsed,” apostates, or deserters from the Heavenly Camp, the Novatians were in the right, though they were in the minority. Cornelius and his Council who excommunicated them, in so doing, turned the truth into the streets a houseless wanderer. Having ejected Christ, who, when on earth, said, “I am the truth,” the Spirit who spoke to the ecclesias, forsook them, and left them to their own waywardness. Having things now all their own way, they received again into the bosom of what they called “Mother Church,” apostates, adulterers, drunkards, lovers of pleasures, &c., upon profession of sorrow, but without amendment of life. Well might the Spirit say to such “churches:” “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” The institutions and worship of such a dead body could be of no worth. The “few names in Sardis,” called Novatians, were satisfied p. 219 of that, and therefore they rejected the baptism, and ordination of the so-called “Mother.” They repudiated Jezebel and all her ordinances; so that they reimmersed and reordained all who came over to them from the majority, which now began to designate itself the HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Here then were two leading and rival divisions in antipagan society, both claiming the christian name, with the addition of Catholic and Puritan, as the names distinguishing their several hosts in the long warfare waged between them. These antagonist camps were in active conflict during the fifth seal; how then could the Four Living Ones, who symbolized the undivided heavenly camp, be introduced into the imagery of the fifth seal, inasmuch as in that and the sixth seal period, the original organization of the camp no longer obtained? The time was rapidly advancing after the close of the fourth seal, when the Spirit would fulfil his threat of spuing them out of his mouth; and of organizing a new advocacy of the truth—a protest, not so much against paganism, as against Laodiceanism incorporated in the Synagogue of Satan, styled in the language of the Apostasy, THE HOLY APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC CHURCH—Mother and Mistress of all the churches of Antichristendom.
Thirdly, the unity of the Heavenly Camp having been broken by this great schism, the blame of which before the Lamb would rest on them who sympathized with the deserters who denied him, and who excommunicated the friends of purity and good morals, the Deity could no longer reside in it by his Spirit; the symbol of the four living ones consequently could not be introduced into the imagery of the fifth seal. But though as a community they were dead, yet we learn from the epistle to Sardis, that “even” in that dead community there were a few living ones who had not defiled their garments. These were Christadelphians. The Deity walked in these. His spirit was in them, because Christ was in them by faith. “Know ye not,” saith the apostle, “that Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates,” or without judgment. “I am the truth,” saith Jesus. “Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith,” saith Paul: from all which it is manifest that every real christian has Christ in him; and that he has Christ in him when he intelligently believes the truth, and by obeying that truth, puts on Christ, and walks in him by walking in the truth. Now, as “the spirit is the truth,” and “my words are spirit and life,” it follows that the spirit of the Deity resides in all in whom the truth and His words influentially reside. In this sense, the spirit may have dwelt in a few among the Sardian dead, who did not actually separate themselves with p. 220 the Novatians. As the Spirit had not till the sixth seal-period spued the ecclesias out of his mouth, there would till then continue to be some living among the dead; and according to the proportion and quality of these living, would be the spirit-possession of each ecclesia. The Sardian state under the fifth seal merged into the Philadelphian; and the “few names” of the former, became the “little strength” of the latter. This little strength was derived from the truth believed, as before explained. For there to be a little strength in the Philadelphian state was for there to be a little spirit still; for there is no christian, spiritual, or moral strength where there is no spirit or power. The gospel is the power of the Deity for salvation; but it is not power to numb or deaden the pain of torment inflicted upon the bodies of the saints when tortured by the cruel pagans, and afterwards by the more savage Laodiceans. It is probable that with the “little strength” there was also a little physical power still possessed by the subjects of that little strength by which the torture they were called on to endure was deadened. The only evidence of the spirit being possessed in the fifth seal-period in any other than a doctrinal sense as before explained, is the question and answer it contains. Had the four living ones been in the imagery, we should have known that the Spirit, or “the Lamb,” still occupied the camp, plaguing from thence the Roman Horse, and fortifying the bodies of his servants to the patient endurance of the most cruel torments inflicted upon them in the good fight. But they are not there; so that we can only infer that His “grace” was not entirely withdrawn, and was still sufficient for the emergencies of the few, who, in the fifth seal period “kept his word, and denied not his name.”
I may remark here, that in the first four seals, the four living ones were all present in the arrangements of each, though only one is specially indicated by ordinal number. This presence of all the four in each seal is intimated in the first verse, “I heard from one out of the four living ones, saying;” and though only one is named in the second seal, yet in the third a voice is said to be sounded in the midst of the four about the taxation of wheat and barley. They were all four present in reality; and the Lamb, or Spirit, was in the midst of them, attacking the Roman people and empire with sword, taxation, famine, pestilence, and beasts of the earth. And the pagans were not altogether unaware of this, for they charged the miseries of the times upon the christians. And they had unquestionably to do with them as being associated with the Lamb who opened and supervised the seals. Cyprian, in his letter p. 221 to Demetrian, a heathen, endeavored to persuade him of the unreasonableness of the charge. But there was more reason in it than Cyprian knew; and if he had known, he might have made a powerful argument in favor of christianity, on account of so reasonable a fact.
Treating of the first eighteen years of Diocletian’s reign, and therefore the eighteen concluding years of the fourth seal-period, Milner says, after Eusebius: “During this period he was extremely indulgent to the christians. His wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria, were christians in some sense secretly. The eunuchs of his palace and his most important officers were christians; and their wives and families openly professed the gospel. Christians held honorable offices in various parts of the empire; innumerable crowds attended christian worship; the old buildings could no longer receive them; and in all cities wide and large edifices were erected.”
The rider of the first seal was still “conquering” paganism; and a state of things had obtained indicating that the time was not far off when the coronal wreath, or stephan, would adorn his brow. If the strength and beauty of christianity were to be measured by secular prosperity, here might be fixed the era of its greatness. “But, on the contrary, the era of its actual declension must be dated in the pacific part of Diocletian’s reign. During the whole third century the work of God, in purity and power, had been tending to decay. The connection with philosophers was one of the principal causes. Outward peace, and secular advantage completed the corruption. Ecclesiastical discipline was now relaxed exceedingly. Bishops and people were in a state of malice. Endless quarrels were fomented among contending parties; and ambition and covetousness had in general gained the ascendancy in the christian church. Some there were who mourned in secret, and strove in vain to stop the abounding torrent of the evil.” These were the “little strength,” and “the brethren” of the fifth seal. For the space of thirty years no bishop, or priest, among the catholics appeared eminent for piety, zeal, or labor. Eusebius, indeed, mentions the names and characters of several bishops; but he extols only their learning and philosophy, or their moral qualities. “Notwithstanding this decline, both of zeal and of principle; still christian worship was constantly attended; and the number of nominal converts was increasing after the fashion of our time; but the faith of Christ itself appeared a mere ordinary affair. And “here terminated,” says Milner, “or nearly so, as far as appears, that great first effusion of the Spirit of God which began at the day of Pentecost. Human depravity p. 222 effected throughout a general decay of godliness; and one generation of men elapsed with very slender proofs of the spiritual presence of Christ with the church.”
2.—The Altar
John informs us, that when the Lamb opened the fifth seal he saw THE ALTAR and souls underneath it. There are two apocalyptic altars pertaining to the apocalyptic temple—the θυσιαστηριον of the priests’ court, and of the Holy Place. The one seen by John in this seal was the thusiasterion of the Court of the Priests, where sacrifices were burnt, and the blood thereof poured out at the altar’s base.
A thusiasterion was a structure of earth, unhewn stone, or brass, elevated in an area, upon which the bodies of slain animals were burned. The burned bodies consumed into smoke were whole burnt offerings; and typified, or represented the utter destruction of Sin’s Flesh, which sin had been condemned in the flesh of the victim, by the abstraction therefrom, or the pouring out of the soul of the flesh in the slaughter of the victim. “The soul of the flesh is in the blood.” The blood covers upon the soul, or life; therefore in pouring out the blood, the soul, or life, of the animal was poured out unto death; and the blood being poured at the base of the altar, the soul was there, and the altar was considered as covering it; hence the phrase “underneath the altar the souls of the slain.” The only difference between soul and blood sacrificially, is blood flowing in the veins and arteries; and blood in the sacrificial bowl. In the latter, it is a coagulated mass unfit for the purposes of the body; in the former, it is a fluid maintained in fluidity by the electro-nervous, or vital, energy generated by the processes of digestion and respiration. When the blood is shed it soon loses its fluidity. The electro-nervous energy, soul, or life evaporates, and the blood becomes solid, or concrete. It is physiologically decorous, therefore, in hieroglyphic writing to make a distinction between soul and blood, and to give the intellectuality of the scene to the soul, as in the fifth seal.
In patriarchal and Mosaic times, when things instituted possessed a typical significance, altars were designated by divine and highly expressive titles. In Gen. xxxiii. 18-20, we learn that Jacob erected one at Shalem, and called it AIL-ELOHAI-YISRAAIL—the Strength of the Mighty Ones of Power’s Prince. As Jacob did not consider the work of his own hands was this STRONG ONE; in its being testified that he called the altar by this name, we are instructed that p. 223 the prophet (and Jacob was a prophet as well as Abraham and Isaac) erected it as a type, or symbol, of Him the Strength or Power, who promised him such great things with his Seed—the Mighty Ones of Jacob.
Again, Moses built an altar after the battle with Amalek at Rephidim, and named it, Yahweh-nissi; “and he said, Because his hand is against the throne of Yah, there is war for Yahweh with Amalek from generation to generation”—Exod. xvii. 15. Here, the altar’s name is He shall be my banner. Who shall be? He who shall be the Deity manifested in flesh, the Mighty One of Jacob. He shall be Israel’s Banner against all the Powers that lift the hand against כֹּס יָהּ[?] kais Yah, the throne of Him who shall be; for there shall be war against such till their thrones become the conqueror’s.
But, in the building of altars the will of the Deity was that they should be of earth; or if of stone, that the stone should not be hewn. “An altar of earth thou shall make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings . . ; in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon—Exod. xx. 24. The permanent altar was made of wood, overlaid with brass; and when cleansed, anointed, and sanctified, it was Most Holy; and whatsoever touched it was holy.
Now, all this was significant of the substance; Christ, who was “the end of the law.” The Holy Spirit signified something that he regarded important in his system of wisdom, in commanding an altar to be made of earth, or of unhewn stone; and in forbidding a tool to be lifted upon it. The things commanded were “a parabola for the time then present”—a riddle, the meaning of which would be found in the realities developed in the Christ. He is declared by Paul to be the christian altar. “We have an altar,” says he in Heb. xii. 10, which in being cleansed by the blood of Jesus is made identical with him. He was the altar of earth, or of unhewn stone; and in his making, or generation, he was begotten, “not of blood, nor of tho will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the Deity.” To affirm, that in his generation he was begotten of Joseph, is to “pollute him.” In admitting his altarship, and at the same time affirming his paternity to be of Joseph, and not of the Deity, as related in Luke; is to make Joseph the builder of an altar of hewn stone—a polluted altar, upon which a man’s nakedness had been discovered.
p. 224 Jesus being set forth by the Deity a propitiatory for the remission of sins that are passed through faith in his blood, (Rom. iii. 25) exhibits him in relation to the believer of the truth as an Altar—the real Ail-elohai-Yisraail and Yahweh-nissi. The Word made Flesh was at once the victim, the altar, and the priest. The Eternal Spirit-Word was the High Priestly Offerer of His own Flesh, whose character was without spot—“holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;” “who knew no sin;” yet whose nature was in all points like ours—“sin’s flesh,” in which dwells no good thing—Heb. ix. 14; vii. 26; 2 Cor. v. 21; Rom. viii. 3; vii. 18; Heb. ii. 14-17. The Flesh made by the Spirit out of Mary’s substance, and rightly claimed therefore in Ps. xvi. 8; Acts ii. 31, as His flesh, is the Spirit’s Anointed Altar, cleansed by the blood of that flesh when poured out unto death “on the tree.” This flesh was the victim offered—the sacrifice. Suspended on the tree by the voluntary offering of the Spirit-Word (Jno. x. 18), “sin was condemned in the flesh,” when the soul-blood thereof was poured out unto death. The Spirit-Word made his soul thus an offering for sin (Isai. liii. 10); and by it sanctified the Altar-Body on the tree. It was now a thusiasterion—an Altar Most Holy; and all that touch it are holy; and without touching it none are holy.
This then is the Altar that decorates the Court of the Priests in the temple-system of apocalyptic symbols. It is the mystical Christ-Altar, to the horns of which the sacrifice is bound—Ps. cxviii. 27. The magnitude of this altar is equal to the One Body of which the Lord Jesus is the head; so that all who are “in him” “wait at the altar, and are partakers with the altar,” because they “eat of the sacrifice”—1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 17, 18:—they “eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood; which is meat indeed, and drink indeed.” This eating and drinking is intellectual. What we read, or hear and understand, and believe, we eat, and digest, and assimilate, and grow thereby. “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,” saith Jesus, “dwelleth in me, and I in him”—John vi. 56. Here is a mutual indwelling between Christ and the believer. When the enlightened believer has got into Christ, he dwelleth in him, and feeds upon his flesh and blood—he is within the Altar, and partaking with it. He has touched the Most Holy, and is therefore holy, or a saint.
But, how doth a sinner get into the Altar so as to be within it, and to be a worshipper therein?—Apoc. xi. 1. The only way is by his “believing the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of the Anointed Jesus;” and, if he believes these p. 225 things with a “faith that works by love” and “purifies the heart,” by being immersed into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—Acts. viii. 12; Mat. xxviii. 19. In passing through this process, the sinner, who is by nature “dead in trespasses and sins,” is quickened by the word understood and believed; word-life, or a new spirit, has entered into him, which is the spirit of a ready and willing obedience to all that is commanded; and the first command for such an enlightened sinner is, “be immersed upon (επι) the name of the Anointed Jesus into (εις) remission of sins.” In doing this, his love-working faith is counted to him for repentance and remission of sins, and he is inducted into the Altar. In passing through the water he passes through the Laver to the Altar; and in the passage, he becomes sprinkled in heart by the blood of sprinkling, which is the blood of the Altar-Covenant, through the faith which he has in the doctrine concerning it—Heb. x. 22; xii. 24; 1 Pet. i. 2; ii. 24. Such an one is no longer a sinner because he has touched the Altar; and “whatever toucheth it is holy,” or a saint. Now, to saints within the altar the apostle saith, “all sons of Deity are ye in the Anointed Jesus through the faith; for as many as into Christ have been immersed, have put on Christ . . . and if ye be Christ’s, then ye are Abraham’s Seed, and heirs according to promise—Gal. iii. 26-29. They are in the Altar-Name. There is a remarkable sentence in one of Ignatius’ epistles, indicative of this subject being better understood in the reign of Trajan, A. D. 107, than contemporary with the fifth seal, or now. “Let no one,” says he, “mistake; if any man is not within the Altar, he is deprived of the bread of the Deity;” which is equivalent to saying, if any man be not in Christ—if Christ be not the covering of his nakedness, he cannot obtain eternal life in the kingdom of God.
From these premises, then, the reader will easily comprehend the phraseology of the fifth seal concerning “souls underneath the Altar.” When “the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus,” and therefore “within the Altar,” die, and return to their parent earth without violence, they are “underneath the Altar,” “sleeping in Jesus,” “dwelling in the dust,” “sleeping in the dust of the earth:” but if they are made to lie “underneath the Altar” by the blood-shedding cruelty of the enemy, their souls are said, as in the language of the fifth seal, to cry with a great or loud voice for judicial vengeance on the murderers, who poured out their soul-blood unto death. Abel’s blood shed by Cain is said to have a voice, and to speak—“the voice of the bloods of thy brother cry to me from the ground”—Gen. iv. 10; and the blood of Jesus, shed by his brethren of the p. 226 flesh, “speaks better things than the blood of Abel” speaks. It speaks according to the teaching of the revealed mystery, pardon to the guilty, and life eternal to the pardoned; but the blood of Abel only speaks of vengeance against Cain, not of pardon even to him. Now, if this about Abel had been hieroglyphically represented as in this seal, “the voice of the bloods” would have been styled “the soul of Abel who had been slain, saying, until when dost thou not judge and avenge my blood upon Cain?” John, with the eyes of his understanding enlightened by the Lamb’s messenger, two hundred and five years before the seal, saw the souls of them that had been slain, lying underneath the Altar, and heard their great voice. This, of course, was a shadowy representation of what would be; for multitudes of the souls had no existence when he saw the vision. The voice of their blood was great, for, contrary to Gibbon’s supposition, their number was great, who had “resisted unto blood striving against the sin” of apostasy in sacrificing to the gods and in denying Jesus.
3. “Until When?”
The souls underneath the Altar, though really dead and therefore unconscious (for “the dead know not anything”—Eccl. ix. 5), are represented as speaking. They are supposed to utter a demand for vengeance upon their enemies, whose death-dealing power had, after a long interval of peace, broken out against the “partakers with the Altar” afresh. “UNTIL WHEN, O Despot, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, on them that dwell on the earth?” They desired to know the time when he that went forth conquering with the bow should be stephaned with conquest over the “Great Red Dragon” in the heaven; “red” with the blood of them “slain for the word of the Deity, and for the testimony which they held” against paganism, and the corruptions in the world through lust. The religious war between their Camp and the Dragon had continued over two hundred years since John’s exile; how much longer, they are hieroglyphically supposed to inquire in the interest of their camp, was the sanguinary conflict to endure before “the Dragon and his Angels,” who rent them with his “Iron teeth,” and “Brazen Claws,” should be ejected from “the heaven?” How long till their travailing community should appear in “the heaven?” to give the stephanizing blow to the blood-stained adversary, that, being bruised, he might no more send souls with cruel violence underneath the Altar? Their inquiry had no reference p. 227 to the time when the Lord Jesus should destroy the Man of Sin-power with the spirit of his mouth, and with the brightness of his presence; for it was not believed by those living in the first five seal-periods, that the Man of Sin-power had yet been born of the Woman. Their supposed anxiety was about the issue of the conflict, which had placed them “as souls slain” underneath the Altar—the fall of political paganism, and the substitution of a power that would feed and nourish them in civil, ecclesiastical, and social prosperity and peace. They called for divine vengeance “on them who dwelt on the earth,” in the period of the fifth seal; not on those who dwelt in Persia, Germany, or in other countries beyond the Euphrates, Rhine, and Danube; for these were beyond the limits of “the earth” at that stage of apocalyptic development. It was the Dragon’s earth, or territory, that was pre-eminently the arena of their conquering unto victory; and they sought hieroglyphically to know for the encouragement of the living saints, when that victory would be? The answer they received was truly encouraging to all at the time, who, in studying the seals, were able to “see,” or discern, the signs of the times. The purpose of the Dragon authorities during the fifth seal-period was to extinguish the name of christianity. Indeed, so satisfied were they that they had given it its quietus, that two pillars were erected in Spain, on one of which was the inscription: “Diocletian Jovian, Maximian, Herculæus, Cæsares Augusti, for having extended the Roman empire in the East and West, and for having extinguished the name of Christians, who brought the Republic to ruin.” On the other thus: “Diocletian, &c., for having adopted Galerius in the East, for having everywhere abolished the superstition of Christ, for having ended the worship of the gods.” The idea of these emperors was, that the terrible calamities that had befallen the Roman people in the years previous to the celebration of their triumph commemorating their success in rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants and barbarian “wild beasts,” Nov. 20, A. D. 303, styled by Gibbon “that memorable era,”—they judged, I say, that the pale-horse ruin had been brought upon the State by the christians. And, when we consider into what extreme degeneracy of faith and practice—as appears from the seven epistles descriptive of as many states typified by each ecclesia, and by history already quoted—they had fallen; it is not at all unlikely, that multitudes of them had plunged into the roaring waters of Dragon politics, and by their influence, like the equally demoralized abolitionists of our day, increased the confusion of the times. These p. 228 emperors regarded them as a sort of copperhead faction among politicians, who only waited a favorable opportunity to seize sovereign power, when they would abolish the worship of the gods, to which they were themselves devoted. This was, no doubt, a correct view of their political relations. They had become like our modern pietists—political pietists. The professors of our day all pretend to be christians, yet they are as intensely devoted to politics as the old heathen. What popish, protestant, and sectarian politicians now are, the professed christians were in the fifth seal-period under these emperors. Of course, we except from this remark, the “Little Strength” that “kept the word, and denied not the name” of the Spirit, who addressed the ecclesias. Of this sort there are none, and from the very constitution of modern names and denominations of pietists, there can be none, among papists, episcopalians, lutherans, presbyterians, methodists, and such like. These are all Sardian and Laodicean. They have a name among themselves that they are living, and are dead; in fact, they never were anything else but dead—“dead in trespasses and sins;” they say, “they are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;” though with hypocritical words in the exercise of their stereotyped formalism, they claim brotherhood with every criminal they inter, and confess that they are “miserable offenders” in whom “there is no health.” There is not an atom of life or strength in such “christians” so-called as these. During the fourth and fifth seals professors of this type abounded in the military and civil service of the Dragon; and their presence there was a source of irritation and annoyance to those emperors, who were fanatically devoted to the gods. They persecuted them, and sought to exterminate the hated name they bore; and if we were to believe the Spanish pillar-inscriptions, and that of the Diocletian medal “no mine christianorum deleto,” we should conclude, that the judgments of the fifth seal had accomplished the sanguinary work. But, they did succeed in turning multitudes to the gods, and so extending their worship; and, in a like sense to the extinguishing the name of Whig from the executive, legislature, and armies of the North; so the name of christian was extinguished from the court, and military, and civil service of Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius. Whigs and Democrats became Federals and Abolitionists according to the safety and profitableness of the change; so the servants of these emperors, became Jovians and Herculeans, worshipping the fortunes of their imperial masters, rather than incur the dangerous liabilities p. 229 that pertained to a loyal and faithful adhesion to the “Despot” who is “holy and true.”
But, the souls underneath the Altar, slain, and reposing in the dust—those of the slain in previous times who were in very deed saints and faithful in the anointed Christ-Altar, and who had been killed by the Dragon authorities—“them dwelling upon the earth;”—are hieroglyphically represented as desiring to know, “until when” the sanguinary conflict was to continue undetermined—that conflict, in which they had been “conquering” though they had fallen in the war, but in which their camp had not yet succeeded “to conquer?” This question is figuratively suggested in fulfilment in the period of the ten day-years tribulation succeeding, A. D. 303—Apoc. ii. 10. This has to be remembered that the reply may be appreciated. It was not how long from the time of John’s exile in Patmos; but how long from the termination of the fourth and the opening of the fifth seal to the judicial avengement of their blood upon the Dragon and his angels then in the heaven of Daniel’s Fourth Beast; and making such sanguinary havoc upon those within the Altar, but not then as yet underneath it, as to cause three Dragon imperial friends aforesaid, to declare that “the name of the christians was extinguished.” “It was answered to them,” says the Spirit, “that they should repose yet a short time, χρονον μικρον, while, ἕως οὐ, both their fellowservants and their brethren should be filled up, who are about to be killed even as they.” This indicates that from the opening of the seal there was to be a period of soul-blood shedding by the Dragon power; and that when this sanguinary work should be over—a work that would be finished in “a short time,” then the judicial vengeance should be manifested. History shows that this “short time,” reached to A. D. 312-13, when this severest of all persecutions of christians by the power of the pagan government of the Fourth Beast, was put an end to, by the deposition and death of Maxentius and Maximin by the victorious Constantine and Licinius.
4. White Robes
“And there were given to them each white robes,” says John, στολαι λευκαι. These were symbolically given to the souls already slain, and reposing underneath the Altar of Sacrifice. They were stoles, or external vestments reaching to the feet, like to that with which the Son of Man was invested, when John saw him in tho midst of the Seven Lightstands burning with spirit-oil—Apoc. i. 13; p. 230 Dan. vii. 9; and like to those holy garments worn by the High Priest in which he appeared before the Ark in the Most Holy Place. Kings and priests were arrayed in white robes “for glory and for beauty;” they are therefore symbols of worthiness on the part of those who receive them; of their being exalted to kingly and priestly honors and glory; and consequently, in the case before us, of the deliverance of these symbolical souls from prostration underneath the Altar, by resurrection, and of an incorruptible investiture, when they shall be “clothed upon with their house” or white robe “which is from heaven . . that mortality may be swallowed up of life”—2 Cor. iv. 2-4.
This was especially promised to the “few names in Sardis,” because they had “not defiled their garments”—“they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy”—Apoc. iii. 4. This shows that the white is symbolical of the worthiness of the clothed. And again, in the same place, “He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment”—showing that the white robe is emblematical of victory. Hence, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory? Thanks be to the Deity who giveth us the victory,” or white robe, “through our Lord Jesus Christ”—1 Cor. xv. 55, 57. When, therefore, in the Apocalypse, personages are emblematically clothed with white raiment, it signifies that they represent persons who have been raised from among the dead to incorruptibility and life, which have become to them the “spiritual body” of the eternal state. Thus, the twenty-four elders sitting upon their thrones are “clothed in white raiment”—ch. iv. 4. These are a symbolical twenty-four; and among those they represent are the souls underneath the Altar to whom the white raiment is promised, and therefore emblematically given. A soul underneath the Altar and a soul sitting upon a throne, though one and the same person, is that soul in two different states and in times far apart. A soul, whose blood is poured out at the bottom of the Christ-Altar of sacrifice in the fifth seal period, to whom a white robe is dramatically given, fifteen or sixteen hundred years after, as we may suppose, is seen by John alive again and reigning with Christ a thousand years—ch. xx. 4; and this conjunction of souls with Christ in preparation to assert their rights, and to take possession of their millennial thrones, is symbolized by the twenty-four presbyters in white, in association with the Heavenly Camp, as “signified” by the Four Living Ones full of eyes.
These same souls and elders are represented in Apoc. vii. 9, as “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and p. 231 kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.” In this scene, the emblematic and acted-promise of the fifth seal is fulfilled. They are actually clothed, and, as the “palms” indicate, have gotten the victory over all their enemies. They are in full possession of the great salvation, to which they have attained through great tribulation. Their robes are made white by washing in blood, and that not their own blood, but the blood of the Lamb. In their soul-body existence, or life-time, they believed the promises covenanted to the fathers and “the faith” which came by Jesus—in other words, in “the things concerning the name of Jesus Anointed,” among which, the cleansing from sin by his sprinkled blood, the blood of the Abrahamic covenant, holds an indispensable and prominent position; they believed this gospel, and were immersed in water into Christ, and so put on their holy garments, which are therefore said to be “washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb”—ch. vii. 14. “Therefore are they before the throne of the Deity, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters; and the Deity shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Such is the white-robed “holy nation” of the Deity—“the Israel of God,” sealed by his truth to eternal glory.
Concerning this holy and mighty people, Paul says: “All things are for your sakes”—2 Cor. iv. 15. “Ye are the holy temple of the Deity. . . . . . All things are yours; whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come: all are yours; and ye are Christ’s and Christ is the Deity’s”—1 Cor. iii. 16-23. This is all said to the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus; and it shows what an important and honorable people they are considered to be by the Deity who are christians of the ancient and original stamp—Christadelphians. There are very few of them to be found in the year of grace 1864—so few that one would be justified in saying almost none; for, certainly, these bloodshedding parsons and their flocks, who are on both sides of the line, hounding on chaplained armies of their fraternal potsherds to mutual slaughter and devastation, committing all kinds of depredations and profligate abominations upon the helpless and unoffending victims of their lusts, can have no scriptural claim to the name christian. What are they but heathen of the blindest species! Assuredly they are not the holy p. 232 temple of the Deity. Though they have got the world—for they are the world—the world is not theirs; nor is any thing that exists for their sake. No; it is for that poor and despised company—that “contemptible few,” who are “rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which the Deity hath promised to them;” it is for the sake of these that all things consist.
This important testimony, that all things are for the sake of the true believers, is presented symbolically throughout the Apocalypse. Because the things represented in the seals were for the sake of believers of the original Abrahamic type, the Lamb and the Four Living Ones are introduced as the ruling spirit of the scenes. The Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, all-seeing and all-powerful, was superintending and working together all things for the good of them who love the Deity, and who are the called according to his purpose; so that, suffering with him when that purpose is effected, they may all be glorified together—Rom. viii. 28, 17. The Lamb, the Spirit, opened the seals and worked their invisible machinery for the good of these sufferers unto death, if need be, represented by the Eyes of the Four Living Ones. He subverted the pagan constitution of Daniel’s Fourth Beast for their good and his own glory, and made a present of its dominion to those degenerate adherents who had fought against it, who, though they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, as modern papists and protestants almost, were an improvement upon the blind and dissolute worshippers of the gods. He gave the beast’s dominion to the self-styled and self-glorifying “catholics,” who said they were “rich, and increased in goods, and had need of nothing;” but, to the true and faithful, who doctrinally, and not in mere form or sacrament, kept the word and denied not his name, he gave no part in that dominion, but, emblematically, gave them the glorious and beautiful “white robes” of the Royal Priesthood, which shall inherit “under the whole heaven” a more magnificent dominion, when its holy kings and priests shall have destroyed the Fourth Beast with the burning flame of divine fury, even the dominion of all nations, enlightened, regenerated, and truly civilized, for a thousand years.
Furthermore, as with the seals so with the trumpets. The judgments of these fell not upon the worshippers of the Greco-Latin gods, nor upon “the servants of the Deity, sealed in their foreheads” with the truth, but upon the Laodiceans of “the Holy Catholic Church,” the enemies and persecutors of the faithful and true, since they had succeeded pagans in the sovereignty of the Dragon. The trumpet-judgments were for the sake of the sealed p. 233 servants of the Deity; the machinery of them was engineered by the Lamb for their good. The prayers of all these saints ascended as a cloud of incense for divine intervention in their behalf. The Deity heard their cry, and answered them by casting fire from the golden altar into the Greco-Latin Catholic earth. The voices, thunderings, lightnings, and earthquake which ensued, and the trumpets which sounded afterwards, in their results, were all for the good and for the sake of the Woman and her seed, who kept the commandments of the Deity and had the testimony of Jesus Christ—Apoc. viii. 3; xii. 17.
And when, again, we descend to later times, the period of the first six vials, the contemporary existence of faithful ones is admitted by the exhortation addressed to them in ch. xvi. 15. They are represented by the Spirit as watchers with garments well kept—watching the Vial-Signs, and preparing, by trimming their lamps, for the thief-like incoming of the Ancient of Days. “All things” enacted in the vial-periods “are for their sakes.” Not, certainly, for the sakes of papists, Mohammedans, and protestants, upon whom the wrath is poured out, but for the sake of “the saints and prophets,” and of those within the Altar of Sacrifice, alluded to in verses 6 and 7. Devotees of the various “names and denominations” of religiondom—the “names of blasphemy,” of which the scarlet-colored politico-ecclesiastical beast is “full”—these are not within the Altar, neither are they watchers with garments well kept. They are all fast asleep, snoring in midnight darkness. Nothing is being done for their sakes; only for the sake of those who obtain a change of raiment in putting off the filthy rags of their theological factions, coming out from among them, and putting on Christ as their white robe of righteousness, through an intelligent induction by faith and immersion. By doing this they join the Heavenly Camp, and become “eyes” in the Four Living Ones, for whose sake every thing is done. For this cause it is, that, in ch. xv. 7, one of the Four Living Ones is represented as giving the seven vials full of the wrath of the Deity to the seven angels. This signifies that the outpouring of the seven vials is for the sake of those represented by the Four Living Ones, some of whom are contemporary with all the vials, and all of whom, to whom “white robes” shall be given, will be engaged in the execution of the seventh, which exhausts in their destruction the indignation of the Deity against Babylon the Great Mother, the National Ecclesiastical Harlot, and all the Sectarian Abominations of the Earth, which have directly or indirectly sprung from their adulterous commerce with the world.
p. 234 For further remarks upon the white robes of the faithful, the reader is referred to Vol. I., pp. 169, 356, and to what will be said hereafter when treating of the Bride of Apoc. xix.