2.—Second General Division of the Scroll
The Seventh Seal, Seven Trumpets, and the Six Vials to the appearing of Christ “as a thief;” exhibiting the development of the Ten Horns of Daniel’s Fourth Beast in the wounding of the Sixth Head and establishment of the Seventh;a the subversion of the Greek Catholic Dynasty of Constantinople;b the rising of Daniel’s episcopal eleventh horn, or Eighth Head, that speaks blasphemies, and “as a Dragon;”c the war of the saints with this power; their subjugation, death, resurrection and ascension to the heaven at the ending of the Sixth Trumpet,d judgments upon their enemies, the Horns, Eighth Head and Image;e and the preparation of their way.f
Time of Events
From A. D. 324 to the Fall-Seasons of A. D. 1864-8, or thereabout.
Translation
Apoc. vii.
1. And AFTER THESE THINGS, I saw four angels standing at the p. 280 four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth, that a wind blow not against the earth, nor against the sea, nor against any tree.
2. And I saw another angel having ascended from sun’s rising, having a seal of the living Deity: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given for them to injure the earth and the sea: 3. Saying, Injure ye not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, while that we may seal the servants of our Deity upon their foreheads.
4. And I heard the number of them who had been sealed—a hundred and forty-four thousands having been sealed out of every tribe of Israel’s sons.
5. From Judah’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Reuben’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Gad’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Asher’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Nephthalim’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Manasseh’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Simeon’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Levi’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Isachar’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Zebulon’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Joseph’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed; from Benjamin’s tribe, twelve thousands having been sealed.
9. AFTER THESE THINGS, I saw, and behold, a great multitude, (which, that it be numbered, no one was competent to do) out of every nation, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, who had been standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, having been clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; 10. And vociferating with a loud voice, saying, “The salvation be ascribed to him who sits upon the throne of our Deity, and to the Lamb!” 11. And all the angels stood in the circle of the throne and of the elders, and of the four living ones; and they fell before the throne upon their face, and did homage to the Deity; 12. Saying, “So let it be! The blessing, and the glory, and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honor, and the power, and the majesty, be to our Deity for the cycles of the cycles! So let it be!”
13. And one from among the elders was speaking, saying to me, “These who have been clothed with white robes, who are they, and whence came they? 14. And I answered him, “Sire, thou hast known.” And he said to me, “These are they who came out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. 15. On account of this, they p. 281 are before the throne of the Deity, and they shall minister to him day and night in his temple; and he that is sitting upon the throne shall pitch his tent over them. 16. They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun smite them, nor any heat. 17. Because the Lamb in the very midst of the throne shall tend them, and lead them to living fountains of waters, and the Deity shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
1.—Of Things Written on the inside of the Scroll
The arena upon which the predicted operation of sealing the servants of the Deity was to be performed was “the earth and sea.” The reason given why the four angels were to restrain the four winds from blowing to the injury of these, is proof of this. The blowing of the winds upon the earth and sea, by injuring them with the tempests they were capable of exciting, would have rendered the work of sealing impossible. Greece, Italy, Britain, France, Spain, Africa, the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, the countries of the Danube, the Rhine, and the heights and valleys of the Alps and Appenines—these constituting the western Roman empire, were “the earth and sea” upon which the apocalyptic tempests were forbidden to blow until the work of sealing should have been complete. At the four corners of the terrestrial of this arena, stood four angels, or restraining powers, having a certain mission to execute in favor of the inhabitants of the earth and sea. In the period of the sixth seal, the Devil had come down to them with great wrath, knowing that he had but a short time—ch. xii. 12; but that time had passed with the termination of the seal period, A. D. 324; and now a period of tranquillity was granted them, for the sake of those who might be separated among them as the sealed ones of the Deity.
History shows us that the first “wind” began to blow upon “the earth” A. D. 396. Hence, the interval between A. D. 324 and A. D. 396, a period of three score years and twelve, must be regarded as the time allotted for the work of “sealing the servants of the Deity in their foreheads.” There can be no doubt of the sealing period commencing after the sixth seal, and not contemporary with it, as some suppose, inasmuch as this seventh chapter begins with the words μετα ταυτα, after these things; and the only things that can be intended, are those recited in the sixth seal which immediately precede the chapter. I suppose the notion of the sixth seal including the sealing arises from the position of the chapter between the p. 282 prophesy of the sixth seal and the intimation of the opening of the seventh in ch. viii. But the truth is, that the sealing is the opening event of the Seventh Seal, concurrent with “the silence in the heaven.” It does not terminate with the breaking of the silence, but continued long after. The seventy-two years of the sealing were the first seventy-two years of the seventh seal-period; and though the Laodicean Catholic Apostasy imperialized in the heaven, richly deserved all the judgments restrained by the four angels, its adherents were spared the infliction for the sake of the servants to be sealed. The first seal-period was peaceful and prosperous for the idolatrous empire under Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines; not for the sake of the pagans, but for the sake of the work the Holy Archer had to perform in the period: so in this opening period of the Seventh Seal, judgment was restrained, not for the sake of the Laodiceans, but on account of the sealing angel’s work.
2.—The Sealing Angel
But, beside the four angel-powers standing at the four corners of the earth restraining the four winds thereof, John saw a fifth, or “another angel.” Of this angel, he says, αναβαντα απο ανατολης ἡλιον, having ascended from sun’s rising. He did not see him, as the English version would lead us to suppose, in the act of ascending from sun’s rising; but having ascended at some previous epoch not indicated in this scene, he sees him at the expiration of the sixth seal, in possession of a certain seal, and about to make use of it in all the period the winds are restrained from blowing upon the arena of his operations. The word anabanta, rendered in the English Version ascending, as if it were the present participle, is really the second aorist participle; and signifies a past action, the effect of which, may or may not be in operation. Having once ascended, is the force of the tense or time of anabanta. When John saw him he was up. He was not down east, and about to set out on his ascent. John did not in this scene catch sight of him there, and then see him ascending westward; but he saw him in the west—“having ascended from sun’s rising.” His back was therefore towards the sun rising, and his face consequently westward. His ascending from east to west had been completed when John saw him in this scene. The phrase quoted shows this. The exact rendering of anabanta relieves us of a great difficulty. On the hypothesis of John seeing him start from the east, and beholding him p. 283 travelling an ascending course until he had gained his highest altitude in the west, we must have sought for something in the history of the times immediately succeeding the expiry of the sixth seal answerable to the symbolization; but we should have sought in vain; for there is no testimony in history ecclesiastical or profane that gives anything analogous to it. There was nothing remarkable transpiring in the east connected with “a seal of the living Deity” in any part of the three score years and twelve succeeding the expiration of the sixth seal. The seal for sealing was inoperative there at that time, and has continued so even to this day. No symbolic angel was seen there commencing a sealing work, and ascending in that work until he had established himself and his labors in the west. We might seek for this, but we should not find it. Not so, however, our search for an ascended angel in the west. There we find one in activity who had already arrived from the east. We find him there, too, just at the right time—the time the Woman turned her back upon the emperors and courts and fled into the western wilderness, where she had henceforth two wings of the Great Eagle—a place which had been prepared of Deity, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days—ch. xii. 6, 14. We find him effecting her transition from imperial sunshine, and developing her as the Mother of the Servants of the Deity being sealed in their foreheads; and thus, by the sealing, constituting them “the remnant of Her seed, who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of the Anointed Jesus”—ch. xii. 17. In other words, the persecuted woman and the remnant of her seed, are identical in time, place, and persons, with the sealed ones, or 144,000.
But this sealing angel was not a single individual. He was neither, according to the Rev. Mr. Elliott’s notion, “The Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus;” nor, according to the Rev. P. Allwood’s, “evidently Constantine the Great.” He was a symbolical personage representative of a class of agents engaged in the work of sealing. This is manifest from the terms of the proclamation put into his mouth by Him who invented the hieroglyphic. In his address to the four angels, he commands them not to injure any thing, “while that WE may seal the servants of OUR Deity in their foreheads.” Here, the “we” and the “our” are indicative of a plurality associated in the sealing operation upon the foreheads of men. The agency divinely appointed for the carrying on of this work when the apostles and their inspired colaborers should have been withdrawn from the scene, was that enjoined by Paul in 2 Tim. ii. p. 284 2, where he says to his son in the faith, “The things which thou hast heard of me with many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.” Were there any faithful men competent to teach the faith once delivered to the saints, contemporary with the establishment of the “Holy Apostolic Catholic Church” as the religion of the Roman Dragon? Where were those “few names even in Sardis;” the “little strength” of the Philadelphian State? Were there none in the Laodicean state of Apostasy now fully developed, and firmly established, who had escaped the general lukewarmness; who heard the voice of Him standing at the door and knocking, and opened to him? To these inquiries we may confidently reply, that there was extant at this time a class of true believers, or Brethren of Christ, Christadelphians, who refused to identify themselves in fellowship with those “Fellowservants,” who now styled themselves the “Holy Apostolic Catholic Church;”—a class which included the “few names,” the “little strength,” and the “loved, convinced, and instructed,” who still lived to witness the Jews after the flesh, and the heathen humiliated, and compelled to do homage to “the Galilæans.” Only twenty one years had elapsed since the beginning of the emblematic cry of the symbolic souls underneath the altar. In this sanguinary period, some of their number had been killed by the enemy; but he had not succeeded in exterminating them all. There were many survivors of the Christadelphian class, styled “the Brethren;” yet, compared with contemporary “Fellowservants,” they were what would now be called “a contemptible few.” But few and contemptible as they may have been in the judgment of “the Synagogue of the Satan who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie,” they were the enlightened few, beloved, convinced and instructed by the Lamb. They were those of the fourth century who had responded to the counsel of the Spirit in Apoc. iii. 18-20. They had bought of Him “gold tried in the fire,” that they might be “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” promised in verse 21: they had bought of Him also, “white raiment that they might be clothed, and that the shame of their nakedness appear not;” and they had “anointed their eyes with eye salve, that they might see.” The effort made in the Diocletian and Galerian persecution of the fifth seal period to destroy every copy of the Holy Scriptures that could be found, while it failed, served to endear these writings to the faithful, and to stir them up to a more diligent study of their contents. The Satan perceived, that “the truth as it is in Jesus” could not be extinguished so long as a single copy of the writings of the apostles p. 285 and prophets remained in circulation. It has been the satanic policy, therefore, of all the ages and generations, either to suppress the scriptures, by destroying them, or forbidding people to read them; or to persuade readers of them, that their true meaning is too recondite and obscure to be “seen” by any, but a highly educated and learned few. This has been the policy of pagan, catholic, papist, and protestant; a policy, that has been circumvented by “the Brethren” by all means within their reach. They are devoted students of the scriptures themselves, and earnest in their endeavors to induce all within the sphere of their influence to study them also, and to enable them to understand them that they may believe and obey the truth; for they believe with full assurance of faith, the saying of Paul, that “Every scripture divinely inspired is also profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for the instruction in righteousness; that the man of the Deity may be perfect, completely fitted for every good work”—2 Tim. iii. 16.
There was, then, in this sealing period, a class of men “completely fitted” by scripture study, for the “good work” of sealing those of their contemporaries who were teachable. They were Paul’s “faithful men, able to teach others;” and who in this crisis of Laodiceanism, heard the voice of the Spirit, who had come into them, and supped with them, and they with Him—ch. iii. 20. These repudiated the alliance of “Church and State” with indignation and disgust; and would have no fellowship with such an abomination. It could hardly be styled a fellowship of righteousness with unrighteousness; or a communion of light with darkness; or a concord of Christ with Belial; for the thing called “Church,” that could ally itself with “the Powers that be,” or accept their patronage and donatives, as do catholics, papists, protestants, and dissenting sects, is already Belial, in utter darkness and unrighteousness. THE ECCLESIA of the Deity, in this sealing period, would have no fellowship with “THE CHURCH” of the Dragon; but protested against it as antichristian, and rejected all its institutions and traditions as mere will worship, after the commandments and doctrines of men—Col. ii. 8, 18-23.
Now, in the apocalypse, THE ECCLESIA is symbolized by a persecuted woman; by the 144,000; by the temple of the Deity and the Holy City; and by the Lamb’s wife made ready—ch. xii 6; vii. 4; xi. 1, 2; xix. 7: while “the Church” so-called, is styled “the Synagogue of the Satan;” “the Court of the Gentiles without the temple;” “the Great City, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt;” “a woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and p. 286 upon her head a crown of twelve stars;” “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth,” and “Names of Blasphemy”—ch. ii. 9; iii. 9; xi. 2, 8; xii. 1; xvii. 3, 5. Between these two institutions, there has been since their contemporary development irreconcileable “enmity.” So long as the Brethren of the Ecclesia are faithful to the Word of the Deity, there can be nothing else; for they are “the Seed of the Woman,” who “keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ”—Gen. iii. 15; Apoc. xii. 17: while “the Church” is “the Seed of the Serpent;” and between these two seeds, the Deity has put an “enmity,” which can only cease by the destruction of one or the other party, or by apostasy from the truth.
The enmity between these hostile institutions is amply illustrated in the apocalypse. Thus, the Church, or Court of the Gentiles, treads under foot the Ecclesia, or Holy City, forty and two symbolical months; and the Church again, becomes “drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” But though the Church prevails against the Ecclesia for a symbolic “time, times, and a half,” this period has an end; and in that end, the Church, is humbled in the dust at the feet of the Ecclesia; as it is written: “I will make them of the Synagogue of the Satan who say they are Jews (or christadelphians) and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.”
This state of things, however, in connection with the Body of Christ, did not obtain in the beginning. There were then no rival bodies, each claiming superiority over the other “There is,” says Paul, “one Body;” and that body he styles “the Ecclesia;” of which the Head is Jesus; and the foundation, the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief corner—Eph. iv. 4; i. 22, 23; ii. 20. In the beginning, the members of this body were brethren, the sons of the Deity; and consequently, the brethren of Jesus Christ. There were no sects, nor any Catholic or Protestant churches. But all the brethren were of one mind and disposition; or, in the words of Luke, “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul;” an original unity to which the Brethren of the Ecclesia in all ages and generations, are earnestly exhorted, both by their Elder Brother and Lord, and his apostles. “Holy Father,” said he, “keep through thine own name those (the apostles) whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are: sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. I pray for them also who shall believe on me through their word; that they p. 287 all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us . . . that they may be made perfect in one”—Jno. xvii. And Paul says: “The Deity of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another after Jesus Christ; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify the Deity”—Rom. xv. 5, 6; and in 1 Cor. i. 10, he says; “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment.” Like passages might be also quoted, but these are enough to show the mind of Christ.
But, though things were thus in the beginning, the Spirit expressly predicted the development of division and factions among the professors of the faith; and that they would be originated by “grievous wolves” speaking perverse things in the very eldership of the body; and for the purpose of drawing away disciples after them. These “evil men and seducers” were those whom Jude declares, “crept in among them unawares;” and set up to be Clergy, and lords over “the flock.” They were the founders of “the Church,” or Kingdom of the Clergy; and by all of their communion, are styled and revered as “THE FATHERS.” Hence, the Spirit through Jesus and the Apostles founded the Ecclesia; and “the Fathers,” the Church. But a divinely formal separation between the two classes did not ensue until the Clerical Apostasy was consummated in its alliance with the Dragon power. The Spirit had forewarned them by John, that He would “spue them out of his mouth.” This is a very remarkable and forcible expression. The word εμεω, to spue, is used metaphorically by Eunapius in the fourth century, in the sense of to throw up a flood of bad words. Hence, in the metaphorical phrase above quoted, we are to understand the Spirit as threatening to “throw forth from his mouth words of evil against them.” “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee, μελλω σε εμεσαι, out of my mouth.” The time had now arrived for this work—the vomiting forth a testimony against the Clerical Adulteress, in the sealing of the servants of the Deity in their foreheads.
As I have already remarked, there was a class of enlightened believers, who were able to discern the signs of their times, and who had in their understandings and affections, “the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Armed with this, they were prepared as the Spirit’s Mouth, to fight against the clerical Nikolaitanes and children of Jezebel with his sword. By the possession of the testimony, they p. 288 were completely fitted for the good work of unmasking the Laodicean Apostasy; and, having full assurance in what they understood, they were stirred up by the testimony, as a few are in our time, to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” “Having the very spirit of the faith, as it has been written, ‘I believed, and therefore have I spoken;’ we also believe, and therefore speak.” They had been sanctified by the truth, and they boldly stepped into the arena of the west, to do battle for it against the Apostasy, as in former times they had combated against paganism to the death.
In the symbolization before us, this intelligent and enterprising class of believers are dramatized by the “Angel who had ascended from sun’s rising.” They had a seal of the living Deity, whom they claimed as “our Deity,” and thereby, in effect, repudiating the right of their adversaries to any relationship with him. Having been themselves sealed, as are all the faithful in all ages and generations, they went forth in all the region of the “two wings of the Great Eagle.” The third wing was not included in the scene of their labors. They had ascended from this, and, in the early years of the Seventh Seal, were engaged in organizing a community whose mission should be to witness for the truth against “the Church” that “worshipped demons, and images of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood”—images of saints—“which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk; and which repents not of its murders, nor of its sorceries, nor of its fornication, nor of its thefts”—Apoc. ix. 20. The apostasy in the third division of the Great Roman Eagle was abandoned to its own corruption. In this it was allowed to perish. John did not see the Angel sealing in the East. Syria and Egypt were beyond the limits of his mission. Empire, for many ages, was destined to proceed westward; and this would be the empire of the Apostasy. It was deemed necessary, therefore, in view of the end, to antagonize it with a living organized testimony. We can now see that such a testimony in the Asiatic provinces of the Dragon would have been for ages past of no use, Mohammedanism having there tormented it and then suppressed it. Hence, it was in the west that John saw him sealing—an operation the effect of which is still felt by the populations of that section of the earth.
But, though John did not see these Angel-sealers in the East and ascending, their class had executed a like mission there, and had been ascending thence toward the Roman Metropolis and throne, during the previous period of nearly three hundred years. They commenced operations at “sun-rising,” both in a doctrinal and p. 289 natural sense. Doctrinally, they began the sealing when the Sun of Righteousness had risen from beneath the horizon of life. They could not begin it before, because it was indispensable that He should rise, that justification of life might be proclaimed through his resurrection—“He was raised for our justification.” They proclaimed the rising of a Sun, ανατολή ἡλιον, whose rays would shed life and vigor, with endless glory, upon all who should be warmed by them. From this Sun’s rising they took their departure. No one could be sealed who did not believe that the Deity had raised him from the night of the invisible, and had placed him in the heavens to rule the day. The death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are essential and indispensable elements of the faith that seals the intellects of men. Believe every thing else, but reject these facts and their doctrinal signification and no such professor can be saved—he is unsealed with the seal from a sun’s rising. In a natural sense, these Angel-Sealers took their departure from the sun’s rising. They were commanded to “begin at Jerusalem,” and from thence to proceed to the ends of the earth. This commission they had executed—they had preached the gospel to every creature under heaven—Col. i. 23—and had therefore “ascended;” and now, in this scene, John, seeing them thus, also sees their class prepared for a new effort against a new enemy in the West—against the self-styled “Holy Apostolic Catholic Church,” the unholiest and least apostolical community that can be conceived.
In dismissing this part of the symbolization, it may be remarked that the phrase απο ανατολης ἡλιον is rendered in the translation as literally as our language will admit. It is destitute of articles and I have inserted none. From sun’s rising is a formula that leaves the subject of discourse to determine whether it be the natural sun or the Sun of Righteousness whose rising is intended. Although it is true that the apostolic sealers began in the geographical east, I believe that the symbolization has more especial reference to the rising of the Sun of Righteousness as the doctrinal point of departure; in other words, that the Angel-Sealers, in their new western enterprise against the Laodicean Apostasy, labored to bring back the minds of their contemporaries to “the Revelation of the Mystery,” based on the rising of the Christ-Sun, as it was originally proclaimed by the apostles on the Day of Pentecost. They were, therefore, in every sense, Messengers from Sun’s rising.
But, in Apoc. xvi. 12, “the East” is again in the English Version made the substitute for a similar formula. There the phrase reads ἡ ὁδος των βασιλεων των απο ανατολων ἡλιον, literally, “the way of p. 290 the kings which (are) from risings of sun.” There is doubtless a good reason for ανατολων here being substituted for ανατολης, as it is in ch. vii. The one is genitive plural, the other is genitive singular. In ch. vii. there is but one rising; but in ch. xvi. 12, we have a plurality—as many risings, in fact, as there are kings. In other words, every king is an individual rising emanating from the Sun. The formula is the symbolization of the oracle in Mal. iv. 2—“Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do, saith Yahweh Tz’vaoth.” Here this Sun is a rising and a healing to every one that fears his name. Symbolically, he is a sun’s rising, and where there are many they are sun’s risings.
3.—The Seal and the Foreheads Sealed
John says, the angel who had ascended had a seal. It was a remarkable seal, and pertained to “the living Deity,” as opposed to all other deities flourishing in those times which had no life in them. Of course, it was a symbolical seal he saw, and represented something capable of making an impression upon the sealed. Seals were anciently, as in modern times, engraved with devices, that when pressed upon a softened surface the device might be transferred thereto, as the mark of the owner of the seal. The Deity has a device which he has himself engraved upon his own seal, the counterpart or mark of which is transferred to the hearts of those who are impressible, and they become his sealed servants. It is written in Job xxxiii. 16, “The Deity openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction.” From this we may learn that sealing has to do with teaching; and, consequently, as the seal of the Deity is applied to a surface capable of thinking, his seal is that which impresses his ideas, or “thoughts and ways,” upon the brains of his creatures.
Now, all the true servants of the Deity are thus “sealed in their foreheads,” which, hieroglyphically, are symbolical of their intellects and affections. The Chief of these servants, the Messiah or Christ, was himself to be sealed. This predetermination was revealed by the Spirit to Daniel the prophet, in ch. ix. 24. In that place we are informed that, within the Seventy Weeks, prophetic time, “the Vision and PROPHET” should be sealed—לחתם חזון ונביא, lākhtom khāzon wĕnāvi; and, besides this, “the Holy of holies” should be “anointed”—למשח קדש קדשים, limshoakh kodesh kodashim. p. 291 Within the period prescribed, Jesus was manifested, and put in his claim to be THE PROPHET; and, from the New Testament, we learn that he was both anointed and sealed. “The Deity,” says Peter, “anointed Jesus of Nazareth with holy spirit and power”—πνευματι ἁγιω και δυναμει—Acts x. 38; and, speaking of the Son of Man, Jesus says, “him hath the Father, the Deity, sealed.” Now, as sealing has to do with instruction, we find Jesus was not only able to do works of power, in “healing all that were oppressed of the devil,” but he could speak words of spirit and life which the sealed only can do. “The words I speak unto you,” said he, “are spirit and life.” And, again, he said: “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.” “I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak.” “I am in the Father and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself.” Hence, the discourses of Jesus must be received as the discourses of the Deity or Spirit in him. What he gave utterance to was “the word,” or teaching of the Spirit—the things sealed or impressed upon his brain by the Deity. To be sealed is, therefore, to be taught of the Deity; and, in regard to those who in very deed come to Christ, it is written in the prophets, “they shall be all taught of the Deity.” “Every man, therefore,” saith Jesus, “that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” The Father teaches men by what he causes them to hear, that they may learn it. “I have told you the truth which I have heard of the Deity.” “I speak to the world those things I have heard of him.” These things spake Jesus. He was sealed by what he heard; and the things spoken to him were the seal of the Deity by which he was impressed.
The seal of the Deity, then, is divine teaching. This may be sealed or impressed upon the brains or “foreheads” of men directly or indirectly. Jesus was sealed directly. He heard in his sensorium what no one heard but himself. “How knoweth this man letters not having been taught?” said the Jews. “He knew what was in man,” says John. This was inspiration. Select ones alone were sealed thus. “The Revelation of the Mystery” was sealed upon the foreheads of the apostles in the same way. “I have yet many things to say unto you,” said Jesus to the apostles, “but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak, and will declare to you the things coming. He shall glorify me.” And, on another occasion, he said to them: “When they deliver you up, take no thought how p. 292 or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given to you in that very time what ye shall speak: for it is not ye who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father which is speaking by you.” This was divine sealing direct, without the intervention of any human agency. The Father could have sealed or taught all men in this way. There can be no question of his ability so to do; but it did not so please him. It would have saved mankind a great deal of trouble, and might have saved them from much error. It would have been a system of infallible sealing or teaching, which would have left them nothing to think out; so that, for want of use, their brains might have become enervated and imbecile. Thus, extremes meet. Imbecility from knowing all the truth without mental effort, and imbecility from knowing nothing about it, as in the case of our contemporaries who have sold themselves to the clerical soul-merchants of the world—Apoc. xviii. 13. But, except in the class of cases adduced, the Father requires men to use “their foreheads” upon what he causes to be presented to them for faith. He requires them to listen and to understand what the Spirit saith. He hath created them with ears for the purpose of hearing what he hath to say, that by the hearing they may learn the truth and believe it. “Faith comes by hearing the word of the Deity,” says Paul; and it matters not how the hearing gets into our “foreheads” so that the word heard effects a lodgment there.
In the case of Jesus and the Apostles, there were no writings from which they could learn the mystery hidden from the ages and the generations. The knowledge of this had to come by direct sealing. There was ample material for them to exercise “their foreheads” upon in the scriptures of the prophets, so as to sharpen them by reason of use. But they had to speak things about which all antiquity was silent, and this required direct sealing or teaching by the Deity himself.
When men are sealed they are sanctified; and it is written, “Sanctify them by thy truth; thy word is truth;” and John says: “το πνευμα εστιν ἡ αληθεια, the Spirit is the truth.” To be sealed, then, by the truth is to be sealed by the Spirit; and to be sealed by the Spirit is to be sealed by the truth; and he that is ignorant of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, which was in strict harmony with the prophets, is not sealed at all, however pious or religious he may feel. The feelings are blind, and excitable by any and every kind of foolishness; so that pious and religious feeling may, and does, result from faith in the dogmas of Confucius, of Mohammed, and of all classes of so-called “divines” in all the realm of the catholic p. 293 and protestant Laodicea. Hence, pious feeling is no evidence of a person being one of the sealed servants of the Deity. The New Man these sealed ones put on is “made new by exact knowledge—εις επιγνωσιν—after the likeness of him who created him;” for “they are the Deity’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works”—Col. iii. 10; Eph. ii. 10. Ignorance of the truth in its effects and consequences is the reverse of all this. Gentiles of mere pious and religious feeling “walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened (their foreheads, in other words, unsealed), being alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them, because of the insensibility of their heart”—Eph. iv. 17.
The symbolical seal of the Deity, then, John saw in the possession of the Angel-sealers who had ascended, was something to be exactly known; in other words, it represented the truth—“the word of the truth of the Gospel.” This is the seal of the Deity—“his power for salvation to every one who believes: for therein is his righteousness, by faith revealed for faith; as it has been written, The just shall live by faith”—Rom. i. 16; so that, in writing to Jews and Gentiles in Corinth, who, having heard from him “the Word of the Kingdom,” “believed and were immersed” (Acts xviii. 8), Paul says to them, in 2 Cor. i. 21—“Now he who stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is Deity; who hath ALSO sealed us, AND given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” Here the sealing is additional to “the anointing” and “the earnest.” The three thousand on the day of Pentecost were first “sealed in their foreheads,” and when, as an evidence thereof, they inquired what they should do, they were commanded to “change their minds, and be immersed upon the Name of Jesus Christ into the remission of sins,” and then promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, or “anointing” and “earnest.” Where “the gift” was received (for it was not given to every one who was immersed, but only to such of certain qualifications, who were selected for “prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers”—1 Tim. iii. 1-7; Eph. iv. 11), they were sometimes said to be “sealed with the holy Spirit of the promise,” as, “Ye trusted in Christ after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom, also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of the promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, for redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.” Here the sealing with Spirit is preceded by sealing with the gospel teaching. The power of the truth taught caused them to believe and trust; and after these results were evinced, p. 294 which showed that they had been “sealed in their foreheads,” they were sealed with holy spirit, as promised, and could exercise gifts which none have had access to since the Apostasy was enthroned. They could use these sealed gifts or “spirits,” or abuse them, for “the spirits of the prophets” were “subject to the prophets.” They were, therefore, exhorted to “grieve not the Holy Spirit of the Deity by which they were sealed for a day of redemption”—1 Cor. xiv. 32; Eph. i. 13; iv. 30. The exhortation, however, was not generally heeded. They abused “the Spirits” or spiritual gifts, and therefore the consequences threatened were manifested in the withdrawal of the Spirit, or, symbolically speaking, on “removing the lightstand out of its place,” by which they were left in the “outer darkness” of the kingdom of “the Spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies” of the world.
The reader will perceive from these premises, that the traditions of “the Church” (in which we include all “the Names and Denominations of Christendom” that practise baby-sprinkling; and all others which practise immersion of adults, without their being first “sealed in their foreheads” with the gospel Paul preached as “the seal of Deity”) are altogether contrary to scripture. “The Church” has substituted sacramentalism for Christ. This was especially the feature of the times concurrent with the ministry of the Angel-Sealers. The Rev. Mr. Elliott, himself a baby sprinkler and signer of the cross upon their unsealed and unsealable foreheads, speaking of these times, says: “But what of the neophytes’ personal looking in faith to Jesus, as the soul’s life and light, whereby alone to secure the spiritual blessing shadowed out in the sacramental rite (baptism)? Of this and of the doctrine inculcating it, we read little. On the other hand, it is scarce possible for a student of the church history of the times not to be struck, as he reads, with the exaggerated and unscriptural notions then widely prevalent of the virtue attached to the outward baptismal rite as if in itself sufficient to secure them: that is, when duly performed by the ministering presbyter; or, as in Levitical phrase, and with Levitical functions attaching, he was now generally called, the ministering ἱερευς, sacerdos, or priest? Throughout the whole of the preceding (third) century, and even earlier, a preparation had been making for these views by the accumulation of titles of honor on it (baptism). Besides its earlier title of the λουτρον παλιγγενεσιας (‘laver of regeneration’—Tit. iii. 5) it was now denominated, as Bingham tells us, the σφραγις seal, καρακτηρ κυριου, the Lord’s mark, φωτισμος, the illumination, φυλακτηριον, phylactery or preservative, αφθαρσιας ενδυμα, p. 295 the investiture of incorruption, σωτηριον, the salvation. In the language of an eminent (catholic) bishop of that day (Cyril): “It was the ransom to captives, the remission of offences, the death of sin, the regeneration of the soul, the garment of light, THE HOLY SEAL indissoluble, the chariot to heaven, the luxury of Paradise, the procuring of the kingdom, the gift of adoption.’ . . . A magical virtue, as it has been expressed, was too generally thought to attach to the rite; and that not only were all sins ipso facto washed away by it, but all evils, as by an amulet, averted. The ceremonies now superadded to the simple form prescribed and practised at its original institution, added to this impression. The custom is recorded how the candidate turned to the West, while priestly words of exorcism were uttered, by which it was supposed that he was now at length delivered from the dominion of the Prince of Darkness; then to the East, as to receive, together with the baptismal immersion (Elliott’s own phrase, and equivalent to immersional immersion) the illumination of the Spirit. And then he was enrolled in the church-register, as being of the number of THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. A crown was borne by him, in token of his victory over sin and the world; a white dress put upon him, as on one washed from sin, and robed for immortality: and moreover, as Gregory Nazianzen tells us, he was led up before the altar in token of the beatific vision of the life to come; and received with psalmody, as in foretaste of the hymnings of the blessed.”
Such was the ritualistic initiation of crowds renouncing idolatry into the catholic church in the days of Constantine, who figured in all the sixth seal, and in the half hour silence of the seventh. They claimed to have been marked with the Lord’s Seal and Mark upon their foreheads. But it was Mother Church’s seal, “impressed on them,” says Elliott, “by the officiating presbyter, and perfected by the chrism of the confirming bishop; this last being deemed an essential point:” and he might have added, constituting “the mark” which “the Beast” afterwards required all to receive upon pain of death if refused—Apoc. xiii. 16. The presbyter only baptized by permission of the bishop. The bishop’s confirmation, of which anointing was the sign, was then administered soon after baptism, or immersion; but now years after sprinkling, but without the oil. This was the origin of the idea of baptism being a christening, or anointing.
Thus, the sealed foreheads of the Church, were foreheads wetted with water, and greased with oil, by presbyters and bishops. This sealing, however, did not get below the skin. It did not reach the intellect and affections; and therefore effected no spiritual good.
p. 296 The Laodiceans thought otherwise. “The neophyte emerged from the waters of baptism,” say they, “in a state of perfect innocence. The dove (Holy Spirit) was constantly hovering over the font, and sanctifying the waters to the mysterious ablution of the sins of the past life. The water itself became, in the vivid language of the church, the blood of Christ”—Milman, Hist. Christ. With such “Holy Water” what need of understanding and belief? The church administers to its devotees its “sacraments” without regard to their quality. Though the seal of the Living one teaches, that “without faith it is impossible to please Him,” the Church pays no regard to the principle; but sacramentalizes all sorts, the only disqualification being, to be “sealed in the forehead by the seal of the living Deity,” which all her officials denounce as heresy not to be tolerated or endured. Thus, sacramentalism substitutes mere water, oil, bread, wine, and priestly ministration, for the faith that comes by hearing, and understanding the gospel Paul preached. According to the Church, a babe, or an idiot, is regenerated by sprinkling its face with sanctified water. The spirit held in solution by the water mysteriously ablutes original and actual sin. Hence, faith is superfluous; and if babes and idiots may be regenerated by sanctified water, and saved from the flames of hell, why may not benevolent and well meaning people, go up to heaven at death, who, like the quaker pietists, make no use of water at all? Yes, why not? And because the Church sees no valid objection, it recognizes these pious deists as christians! Thus, the Church having lost sight of the faith; having transmuted baptism of believing adults into rhantism of unconscious babes; and substituted priestism for the word; she was repudiated by the Spirit as an unbaptized apostate, “wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” As, therefore, she was no longer competent to teach “the words of eternal life;” and that He might still have a light in the world—a “name” and a “tabernacle,” in which heavenly place his sealed ones might dwell (Apoc. xiii. 6); and that an enlightened agency might be organized for the developing from succeeding ages and generations those, “whose names had been written (γεγραμμενοι) in the book of life”—He stirred up faithful men to an active and energetic testimony against “the Church,” who unveiled its imbecility and folly; and showed their contemporaries of the fourth century a more excellent way. They went forth mighty in the word with their faces westward, convincing and converting catholics from the error of their superstition; teaching them “the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and the name of Jesus Christ;” and p. 297 then immersing the taught “both men and women”—Acts viii. 12. Thus, many Laodiceans bought gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, and anointed their eyes with eyesalve, and became rich, clothed, and seeing; they heard the voice of the Spirit in having the word preached, and opened to them, and “he dwelt in their hearts by faith”—Eph. iii. 17: and thus, with this potent seal, they were sealed in their foreheads as the servants of the Deity to the number, symbolically expressed, of “144,000 of all the tribes of the sons of Israel.”
Between “the Church,” then, and the Ecclesia, an antagonism was established by the sealing, direct, uncompromising, and irreconcilable, on all points of faith, practice, discipline and policy, which has continued to this day; and will continue till “the Church” is abolished by the Ecclesia; and the homage of emancipated and enlightened nations be willingly and joyfully given to Jesus and the sealed. Had it not been for the sealing of the 144,000, at the period under consideration, real christianity would have soon become extinct. But by this divine interposition, the Ecclesia was extricated from her great peril; and enabled to maintain a testimony for the truth for many ages after.