Summary
End of the “rest for a little season,” when the “Despot Holy and True” avenges the blood of the souls under the altar, upon them that dwell upon the earth. A great earthquake inaugurates this day of vengeance. The woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, appears in the Roman Heaven invested with imperial dignity and glory. Her son, having triumphed over the Great Red Dragon, which sought to destroy him, becomes the sovereign ruler of the nations.
The Spirit “spues” her Laodicean element “out of his mouth,” and a remnant of her seed, as the woman fugitive, is found in the wilderness.
War ensues in the Roman Heaven between the powers there, which results in the ejection of the great Draco-Serpent Devil and Satan from thence. The “Brethren” and “Fellow-servants” of the souls under the altar rejoice at his expulsion. But woe betides the inhabiters of the earth and sea, where the Dragon retains power for a “short time” longer; and persecutes the constituents of the woman dwelling in his dominion.
The woman being in the wilderness is protected there for a period of 1260 days; and in her flight thither is pursued by the Serpent, which seeks to sweep her away; but the Earth helps her, and defeats p. 3 her enemy. The Dragon is wroth with her; and resumes the war with the remnants of her seed.
Translation
Apoc. xii.
1. And a great sign appeared in the heaven; a woman who had been invested with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a wreath of twelve stars. 2. And being pregnant she cries being in pangs and straining to bring forth.
3. And there appeared another sign in the heaven, and behold, a great fiery-red Dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems: and his tail draws the third of the stars of the heaven, and he casts them into the earth. And the dragon stood in the presence of the woman about to bring forth, that when she may have brought forth, he might devour her offspring.
5. And she brought forth a male child, who is about to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre: and her son was forcibly carried up to Deity and his throne. 6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place that had been prepared of the Deity, that they may sustain her there a thousand two hundred and sixty days.
7. And there was war in the heaven. The Michael and his angels waged war against the Dragon; and the dragon waged war and his angels. 8. And they prevailed not; neither was their place found any longer in the heaven. 9. And the great dragon, the old Serpent, surnamed Diabolos, was cast forth; and the Satan which deceives the whole habitable was cast into the earth; and his angels were cast forth with him.
10. And I heard a great voice saying in the heaven, Now is the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our Deity, and the dominion of His Anointed; for the prosecutor of our brethren, who accused them in the presence of our Deity, day and night, has been cast down. 11. And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life unto death. 12. On account of this let the heavens rejoice and those who tent in them.
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and the sea, because the Diabolos has fallen among you having great wrath, foreseeing that he hath a short time.
13. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast into the earth, he pursued the woman who brought forth the male. 14. And the two p. 4 wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, in which she is sustained there a time and times and half of a time, out of the sight of the serpent.
15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a flood, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16. And the earth ran with help for the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17. And the dragon was enraged against the woman, and went away to wage war with the remnants of her seed who keep the commandments of the Deity and have the testimony of the Anointed Jesus.
Introductory Remarks
By Which the Second and Third Volumes Are Connected
1.—“The Time of the End”
The end of the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse conducts the reader into what Jeremiah styles, “the time of Jacob’s trouble,” out of which he shall be saved—ch. xxx. 7—a time in which there are “lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.”—Apoc. xi. 19. This is that “TIME OF THE END” of which Daniel prophesied, saying, “There shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time.” This is that time which certain chronologists term “an unchronological period;” that is, a period which is left scripturally undefined, having no revealed commencement nor termination: so that it may be a moment exemplified by a flash of lightning, a year, or several years, for anything that is, or can be, known.
But to such a conclusion as this, it it impossible that any one intelligent in the word can come. It is, on the contrary, a period well and clearly indicated. Its commencement is synchronical with the ending of “the time of the vision” seen by Daniel “in the third year of the reign of King Belshatzar;” for, it is written, “to the time of the end the vision” — l’eth kaitz hĕ khāzon — ch. viii. 17. Now in ananswer to the question, “How long the vision? it was replied, “for an evening-morning of two thousand four hundred.” This, according p. 5 to what time has proved to be the best reading, is the time of the vision—a period of 2400 years; which, having expired A. D. 1860, brings us to the time of the end, in which “the holy shall be vindicated” from the violence and injury resulting from so long a period of subjection under the feet of the Gentiles.
The world must therefore now be in the eighth year of the Time of the End. The termination of the 2400 years, and the synchronical beginning of the time of the end, were both signalized by the outbreak of the American civil war, which in its development proved to mankind, that with all their boasted science, civilization, and religion, they are not one whit in advance of the beasts that perish.—Psal. xlix. 12, 20. The time of the end thus portentously begun continued to unfold itself in the events of the Franco-Mexican war, and in those of the Russo-Polish, and Prusso-Austrian Danish, and Prusso-Austrian Italian wars. By the American civil war several millions of Southerners have been subjected to an ignoble military despotism, and social degradation and ruin; while the fanatics used by Providence in its judicial visitation upon the South, have blasted the prosperity of the North, filled its families with lamentation and death, and laid the foundation of trouble that will only be finally assuaged in the absorption and obliteration of the so-called United States in the NEW UNIVERSAL EMPIRE of the Ancient of Days.
The invasion of Mexico by France, England, and Spain, resulted in the fall of a republic—a corrupt and worthless popular sovereignty; and in the provisional establishment (for it will prove to be nothing more) of a Franco-Austrian imperiality, which has this redeeming quality, that it is hostile to the Papacy, and inimical to the priests. These events in Mexico are, it is most likely, only preparatory elements of the situation being now organized in the providence of the Deity. They are preparing for a future complication, by which the trouble of the latter days will pervade not Europe and Asia only, but America as well.a
The Russo-Polish war was most ferocious. In the ratio of its extent it was as savage a conflict as the American civil war, though of shorter duration. It was a contest between Russo-Greek and Polish-Latin, in which the Greeks, “the worshippers of the Dragon,” destroyed the Polish nationality of the Latins, “the worshippers of the Beast.” Poland was blotted out from the political geography of the world. It became a monument of the dead, whose epitaph forewarns the nations of the fate that awaits their kingdoms and republics when judgment shall be given to the saints, and the time p. 6 comes that they shall possess the dominion under the whole heaven.—Dan. vii. 22, 27. In devouring Poland, “Gog, the Prince of Rosh, Mesech, and Tobl,” has prepared, and become a guard to so much of “Gomer and all his bands” as it contains. Nor has the Prince of Rosh, whom we style the Autocrat of All the Russias, been negligent of his mission in the direction of “Togarmah of the north quarters and all his bands.”—Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 6, 7. Since the end of the 2400 years, he has advanced his frontier so as to include Khokan and Bokhara, so that there is now but one state between him and British India, namely, Afghanistan, all of whose sympathies are in accord with the enemies and rivals of British rule in India. Thus “Gog of the land of Magog,” the great king of the north, who is to figure so conspicuously “in the time of the end”—b’aith kaitz, styled by Ezekiel “the latter years” and “the latter days,” is standing almost face to face with “Sheba, and Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish;” whose young lions ere long will need all their strength and prowess for the repression of the further aggrandizement of the Russo-Assyrian power in the East.
Nor is the alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Germany, the two-horned beast of the earth, against Denmark, for the possession of Schleswig and Holstein, without significance in this eventful time of the end. It is a question pregnant with trouble; and a necessary complication of a situation in which “the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable” will be engaged in an angry and sanguinary conflict,a preparatory to “the war of the great day of AIL-Shaddai,” when their thrones will be cast down, and the Ancient of Days shall sit.—Apoc. xvi. 14; Dan. vii. 9.
And besides all this, not to dwell upon the increase of taxation, financial embarrassment, pestilence, destruction of mankind and their fellow-beasts, and all the minor evils by which humanity is grieved, there is the all-important and inevitable Roman Question. This is pre-eminently the question of the time of the end. It can only be solved in the final and complete abolition of the Papal Kingdom. This result, however, can not be developed by the action or policy of France, Italy, or the Roman people. They are blindly preparing this consummation; and will doubtless develop for “the Great Harlot that sitteth upon many waters” a hatred of the European Powers, that shall cause them yet more than ever to “make her desolate and naked, and to eat her flesh and burn her with fire.”—Apoc. xvii. 1, 16. But the final and complete destruction of the Papacy is an p. 7 honor decreed for a more noble and powerful class of agents than these. It is a glory reserved for “the Heirs of the Kingdom which the Deity has promised to them that love him.”—James ii. 5. These are the destroyers of the Papacy in the time of the end. They are the Avengers of the Holy—the avengers of the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus, and of all slain upon the earth in defence of righteousness and truth.—Apoc. xviii. 6-8, 20, 24. It is from these proceed the lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquake, and great hail.”—Ch. xi. 19.
The Roman is a question that cannot be evaded or postponed. A policy must be pursued towards the Pope that will cause his government to use all its influence to enlist the powers in his defence against the Red Republicanism of the Italians and their allies. The cry of these is “an united Italy with Rome for its capital, or death!” To give effect to this would be the expulsion of Austria from Venetia;a and the incorporation of the States of the Church with the kingdom or Commonwealth of Italy. If Red Republicanism can acquire the ascendancy in Italy, it will assuredly adventure the experiment of giving effect to its cry. In this event an appeal to arms would be inevitable. First, because Austria will never consent to the surrender of Venetia without a struggle; and secondly, because the spiritual influence of the Pope, which is still great in all the ten kingdoms of the beast, would go forth with all its unclean and demoniac activity to stir up war in his behalf. In this array of belligerents the combinations will be for a trial of strength between the expiring feudality of the middle ages, and the revolutionary principles of 1789—a sanguinary and final conflict between the adherents of Church and State Absolutism, and the partizans of popular sovereignty as “the voice of God.”
Thus, by the intervention of the Roman and Eastern questions, a situation is created in the time of the end in exact accordance with the description of it in the prophetic writings. These questions create a trouble for all the nations and governments symbolized by the four beasts seen by Daniel arising out of the great sea.—Ch. vii. They are all questions affecting the vested interests of the Image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream. This great image, whose brightness is excellent, and its form terrible, appears in all its majesty and power in the time of the end. In the terminal epoch of the sixth vial, which obtains after the advent of the Ancient of Days, the great Russo-Assyrian Gogian Image stands prepared for conflict with “the p. 8 Prince of Princes,” whom Daniel styles “Michael, the Great Prince.”—Ch. viii. 25; xii. 1. When the image stands thus in the time of the end the crisis will be of the most troublesome and exciting character. “The nations” will have been “made angry;” nor will their anger subside henceforth until the image shall be utterly broken, and all its fragments ground to powder. This result, however, will be beyond their power to accomplish. No combination short of the mighty angel clothed with cloud and rainbowed (Apoc. x. 1) can shiver it to pieces, reduce these to chaff, and sweep them away that no place shall be found for them.—Apoc. ii. 27; Ps. ii. 8, 9; Dan. ii. 35.
The time of the end, which is notably chronological, commences with the termination of the 2400 years, and ends with the exhaustion of the Seventh Vial. Hence the time of the end embraces part of the sixth and the whole of the seventh vials. It embraces so much of the sixth as pertains to the development of the Roman Question after 1860; the events attendant on the coming of the Ancient of Days; and those consequent on His appearing to the beginning of the seventh vial. Here are three epochs—the present, characterized by the three wonder-working, unclean, frog-like demon-spirits, proceeding out of the mouth of the papal false prophet; the adventual epoch, characterized by the visible presence of Christ in Southern Asia; and the third, or terminal epoch, characterized by the gathering of the military forces of the powers into the Holy Land for that signal discomfiture, which constitutes the place of slaughter the apocalyptic Armageddon. The events of the sixth vial in the aggregate prepare “the way of the kings” which arise in the light of the Sun of Righteousness. The way of these kings is the career of judgment marked out for them in the full development of the seventh vial, which is at once the consummation of the Seventh Trumpet, and the Seventh Seal; and the filling up of the wrath of the Deity upon the nations. The angriness of these, the coming of divine wrath, and “the time of the dead that they should be judged and rewarded,” are series of events which synchronize with the adventual epoch of the sixth vial. In this epoch, the dead in Christ, both just and unjust, are caused to stand upon their feet again among the living. This αναστασις, or standing again, precedes the destroying of them “who destroy the earth.”—Apoc. xi. 18. The honor of executing the judgment written belongs to all those saints whose names may, in the judgment which begins at the house of Deity, be found registered in the Lamb’s book of life.—Apoc. xx. 15; Ps. cxlix. 9; Dan. vii. 22. Hence, resurrection must precede the setting in of judgment; p. 9 and this must begin at the house of the Deity; “and if it first begin there, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of the Deity?”—1 Pet. iv. 17. It will be “destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”—2 Thess. i. 9.
The destruction issuing from this glorious presence, is styled in Apoc. xiv. 10, “tormenting with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.” The end of the eleventh chapter expresses this torment in the words, “lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.” Hence the conclusion of the eleventh chapter, with which the second volume of this exposition is concluded, is synchronous with all of the fourteenth chapter from the beginning to the end. I say from the beginning of it, because all the things therein represented are subsequent to the saints standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion. Now, when Christ comes, as I have shown in my second volume, he does not come direct to Zion. Moses, in his prophetic blessing of the sons of Israel, says, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose up from Seer unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran; and he came with ten thousands of saints.”—Deut. xxxiii. 2. He comes to Sinai before he can come from Sinai; and to Seer and Paran before he can rise up and shine from them. He comes to Sinai in the adventual epoch of the sixth vial; and to Mount Zion consequent upon the Armageddon overthrow, by which the Sixth Vial is closed, and the Seventh Vial period is inaugurated.
The time of the Seventh Vial is that portion of the time of the end chronologized in the words of Micah, “according to the days of Israel’s coming out of the land of Egypt”—ch. vii. 15. It requires no proof that these days were a period of forty years. Hence, in the vindication of the Holy from injury and violence after the termination of the 2400 years, a judicial period of forty years will be manifested. The object to be attained in the vindication of the holy, is the deliverance of the holy and the host from the treading under foot—“the transgression of desolation”—to which they have been subjected for 2408 years to the date of this work: in other words, the putting an end, or accomplishing, to scatter the power of the people of the holy—יד־עם־קדשׁ yad-am-kodesh—Dan. viii. 13, 14; xii. 7. The full import of these words is the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, in building again the tabernacle of David, that it may be as in the days of old; with the additional glory of Christ and his Brethren, the glorified Israel of the Deity, in possession of the throne—Amos xi. 11; Acts xv. 16; i. 6; Mat. xix. 28; Luke i. 32, 33.
p. 10 The work then of the seventh vial will be the setting up of the kingdom by the ELOAHH of the Heavens—Dan. ii. 44. This work cannot be fully accomplished until the now widely scattered tribes of Israel are concentrated in the Holy Land, and restored to the independence they enjoyed under David and Solomon. No prosperity in the “breadth of the Great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt,” can compensate the loss of this. They must be brought out of this Egypt in the seventh vial section of the time of the end, as was the generation out of the literal Egypt in the days of Moses, “with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out”—Ezek. xx. 33. In other words, the seventh vial is the exodal period of Israel’s return from their enemies’ lands; and of the punishment of all peoples who have burdened themselves in any way with the Holy City—Zech. xii. 2, 3; Apoc. xi. 2. In the accomplishing to scatter the power of the people of the holy in this second exodus of the nation, the Spirit, who will co-work with the saints in their seventh vial execution of the judgment written, says in the testimony already cited from Ezekiel, “I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face; like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel.” But concerning Israel cleansed from the rebellious; and, by continuing no longer in unbelief, prepared for the blessedness promised in Abraham and his seed, he saith, “in mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the heighth of Israel, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first-fruits of your oblations, with all your holy things. I will accept you with your sweet savour when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the nations. And ye shall know that I (the Anointed Jesus) am YAHWEH when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up my hand to give it to your fathers.”
This regeneration of the twelve tribes of Israel, and resettlement, p. 11 of them in the Holy Land, is a grand and important result of the seventh vial outpouring of judgment. When it is consummated, “Yahweh’s servant David will be a Prince among them, and be their Shepherd.” They will have stood upon their feet an exceeding great army in their enemies’ lands; and from thence have opened for themselves a way by divine co-operation into the land of Israel, upon the mountains of which they will be, for the first time since the fourth year of Rehoboam, B. C. 982, one nation, and one kingdom, under one king. “They shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.” The sanctuary will be in the midst of them, and the tabernacle also; and Yahweh will be their Elohim, and they shall be his people—Ezek. xxxiv. 23; xxxvii. 10, 11, 12; 22-27. This restitution of all things pertains to the seventh vial, which embraces “the times of” that “restitution of all things which the Deity hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the days of Moses”—Acts iii. 21. Jacob is saved out of his trouble; the yoke of Esau is at length broken from off his neck; and the first dominion, the kingdom, has come to the daughter of Jerusalem—Gen. xxvii. 40; Mic. iv. 8. The vindication of the holy is complete.
Now, as the reader may well suppose, this wonderful and mighty operation of Deity becomes an affair of world-wide interest and importance. It will not be a work of peace. The Frog-Dominion has been proclaimed to be peace—l’empire c’est la paix: but not so the kingdom proclaimed in the gospel. This kingdom, in the period of its establishment, is not peace; but war, until it has broken in pieces and subdued the four beasts of Daniel; and planted itself without a rival in all the earth. Such an enterprise as this may be planned and prepared, but cannot be executed in secret. It is therefore testified that “the nations shall see and be confounded at all Israel’s might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of YAHWEH our Elohim, and shall fear because of thee”—Mic. vii. 16. This testimony of Micah is developed in the forty years of the time of the end immediately preceding the Millennium, as the result of the Seven Thunders, by which, not the earth, but those who corrupt the earth, are destroyed—Apoc. xi. 18.
2. The End, though last in Development, first Revealed
In studying the Apocalypse, the student cannot fail being impressed with a notable peculiarity, frequently illustrated, of its p. 12 structural arrangement. The peculiarity is that of stating in the beginning first, that which is to be executed last. Thus, in the first chapter, the coming of Yahweh in clouds is announced; and his presence is symbolically exhibited: but it is not until the preterminal epoch of the sixth vial that He actually appears. So that it takes all “the things that shall be hereafter” exhibited in all the six seals, and so much of the seventh seal as is contained in the six trumpets; and so much of the seventh trumpet as is contained in all the five vials, and at least half the sixth, to develop the Advent. “The apocalypse of the Ancient of Days, or his manifestation in his kingdom, is the end proposed in the prophecy. It is therefore first announced. It is the grand proposition to be illustrated and proved by the logic of events. The end divinely purposed is not stated first because it is to be first established, as the first thing to come to pass, after John had the vision; and because all “the things that shall be hereafter” are to happen after it. The logical order of a prophecy in statement or fulfillment is, first state, then illustrate, and afterwards prove. “Behold, He comes, and every eye shall see him.” This is a proposition, or purpose, stated; but after eighteen hundred years, not yet proved by its coming to pass. By what course of events will that coming be developed? By the events coursed out in the seals, trumpets, and vials, which are the illustration of how the end proposed is to be made identical with the proof. Hence, the end, though first in purpose, and therefore first verbally stated in the prophecy, is the last in development; and consequently not to be looked for as the first event of a prophetic series. The Son of Man in the midst of the lightstand-embodiment of the Spirit is the symbolical prefix to the prophecy of the seven epistles; but the actual manifestation of the Spirit’s presence in the midst of the redeemed is not revealed until he occupies the throne in the time of the ending of the Laodicean state—ch. iii. 20, 21.
Again; this peculiarity is exhibited in the fourth chapter. Here the whole is occupied with a symbolical exhibition of the Spirit in covenant-manifestation. The throne and kingdom of David, termed Yahweh’s by the prophets, have been covenanted to Jesus and his Brethren, who are to possess them when “glorified together.” This purpose, or end proposed, is first represented to John; not because it existed then or since; but because all to be shown him, called “the things which shall be hereafter,” are to result in the development of that revealed purpose. It would be a great mistake to look for the subject-matter of the fourth chapter as extant in heaven or upon earth while John was in Patmos. There was no counterpart to p. 13 them. The figuration was simply a symbolic vision, showing, that at some future time not specified in the chapter, there should be a throne established in the air, or firmament, of the Romano-Dragonic Universe, which should be possessed by an Omnipotent Theocracy, from which should “burst forth lightnings, and thunderings and voices;” and having thereby established its sovereignty, should rule with universal dominion. But, though so early exhibited in the scroll, it is not until the seventh trumpet period that the announcement is made of its actual development, saying, “The kingdoms of this world are become Yahweh’s and His Anointed’s”—ch. xi. 15. Thus the end, though first in purpose is in development the last; and we are taught that to establish this throne of omnipotence will require, according to the divine predetermination, the full development of all the events prefigured in the seals, trumpets, vials, and thunders.
Another notable instance of this structural characteristic of the apocalypse is found in the eleventh chapter. It occurs in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth verses. In these is announced the end purposed in the complete sounding of the seventh and last trumpet. They reveal the consummation of this trumpet, and therefore the consummation of the seventh seal; or, as it is expressed in ch. x. 7, the finishing of the mystery of the Deity, as he hath declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets. This is finished εν ταις ἡμεραις ὁταν μελλη σαλπιζειν, in the days when he (the Seventh Angel) shall sound; not “when he shall begin to sound,” as in the Common Version; nor while he is sounding; but when he shall have finished sounding, then the mystery shall be finished in the kingdoms of this κοσμος, or constitution of things, the unmeasured court of the Gentiles becoming Yahweh’s and his Anointed’s. The sounding being over, and the wrath of Deity, consequently, all expended, the mission of the FOUR LIVING ONES FULL OF EYES is completed: the “lightnings” flash no more, the “voices” are hushed, the “thunderings” burst forth no more from the throne, the vibrations of the “earthquake” have ceased, and the “hail” falls no more out of the heaven upon men. In other words, the “judgment given to the saints” has accomplished its work in putting them in possession of “the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven”—Dan. vii. 27. For this cause, therefore, in the ascription of thanks to YAHWEH AIL-Shaddai, the four belligerent Living Ones are withdrawn from the figuration; and the four and twenty elders only are in prostration before the Everliving One. The reader is aware that the saints are symbolized both by the Four Living Ones p. 14 and the Elders, only in different relations. The Four represent them in their militant antagonism to the powers that rule the nations; while “the elders” represent them as victorious kings and priests in the glorious and peaceful possession of their conquests. When “the war of the great day of AIL-Shaddai” is over, and peace obtains in all the earth, there is no more pre-millennial work for the saints to do as the “Four Living Ones full of eyes.” As militants they have “gotten the victory,” and their community is wreathed with the coronals which “they cast before the throne.” These are cast there when the cause of thanksgiving, rejoicing, and prostration has been developed. Hence, ch. iv. 10, is parallel with ch. xi. 16. The saints, no longer belligerent, give thanks because YAHWEH AIL-Shaddai has acquired great power on the earth and reigned. When this thanksgiving was dictated to John in Patmos, it was the revelation of a purpose—an end which Deity had predetermined. The “great power” had not been taken, nor the reign commenced, when the apocalypse was given to John. Nor have they yet; nor will they be till the end of the seventh trumpet. Hence, the eighteenth verse of the eleventh chapter does not treat of what is to ensue after the reign mentioned in the seventeenth verse has commenced. “The nations are angry,” not when the divine wrath is fulfilled, but when it comes. “The nations were made angry, and thy wrath came.” This arrival of the divine wrath is synchronous with the advent of Christ, and with the operation of the Frog-Power in the final development of its working upon the Papal False Prophet, as prefigured in the sixth vial—ch. xvi. 14, 15. The arrival of the divine wrath in the advent of the YAHWEH-NAME from far with anger burning (Isaiah xxx. 27) is at the epoch of the resurrection of the saints. It is from this epoch that ch. xi. 18 originates a series of events, which ultimate in the destruction of the destroyers of the earth, and in the conquest and appropriation of their kingdoms by the Four Living Ones constituted of the prophets, the saints, and the venerators of the divine name, small and great. So that the order of the prophecy according to its succession of events is first verse 18, then 19, and after this verses 15, 16, 17: but, as a verbal revelation, the last event which crowns the whole series is first indicated; and then an outline is given of the series which ultimates in the victorious consummation.
This structural characteristic of the primordial statement of the end, is illustrated also in ch. xiv. In this the primordial statement is contained in the first verse. It specifies a great predetermined end—the occupation of Mount Zion by the Son of the Divine Father, together with those upon whom He has previously written the name p. 15 of his Deity—ch. iii. 12. But this predetermined end is not the first thing executed. On the contrary, it is the last. The redeemed get possession of Mount Zion consequent upon the effect of the “voice out of the heaven” indicated in verse 2—the voice of a belligerent multitude, even the roaring voice of the Rainbowed and Cloud-invested Angel, who takes victorious possession of the City where David dwelt.
Thus, the end, first in purpose, is the last developed, but first revealed in the prophecy. Not attending to, or ignorant of, this structural peculiarity, some have committed grievous errors in their efforts at interpretation and exposition. It has led them to affirm, that the apocalypse is all to be fulfilled after the advent of Christ; while others declare that its revelation has been fulfilled long ago. Both these extremes meet in absurdity, where they embrace and kiss each other. They are mere assumptions, and too ridiculous for a serious refutation. The former theory is very convenient for the ignorant and the indolent; for if the apocalypse as yet is none of it fulfilled, nor even to begin to be fulfilled till after the advent of Christ, all are upon one low, common level respecting it. He that knows much of doctrine and history is at equal disadvantage with him who knows nothing of either, and thus ignorance is strengthened and consoled.
There are others again who think that much of the apocalypse is fulfilled, but have not discernment enough in things past and present to draw the line between the future and the past. Some of these have taken up a notion that all the vials are poured out after the advent of Christ! This imagination has been conceived in a misunderstanding of the fifteenth chapter. They have not perceived that the whole chapter is declarative of the end purposed to result from the outpouring of the vials. It is declarative of the victory of the saints over the constituted authorities of the nations; and the subjection of these to the King of Kings because of manifested national judgment. They err also in supposing, that “the seven last plagues” are identical with “the seven vials.” The seven vials contain “the seven last plagues;” but the plagues and the vials are not severally synchronical. On the contrary, the seven last plagues are synchronical only with the seventh vial; and so much of the sixth as obtains between the advent of Christ and the opening of the judgments of the seventh, is the epoch when One of the Four Living Ones gives the plagues to the angels. The seven last plagues are identical with the Seven Thunders; and as they are comprehended in the seventh vial, the giving of the plagues is represented in the presentation of the “seven golden vials.” These vials contain much p. 16 more than the “seven last plagues.” They contain first plagues, styled “these plagues” in ch. xvi. 9, as well as last plagues. The plagues of the vials exhibited in this chapter are separated by the thief-like advent of Christ. “Last plagues” imply others that are not the last. The former plagues precede the advent; and all developed after it are “the seven last plagues.” What extraordinary blindness to affirm that none of the vials are poured out till after Christ comes, while his coming is predicted under the sixth! This sixth-vial prophecy is subversive of the notion. The position it occupies as a speaking hieroglyphic shows, that five of the vials, and a considerable part of the sixth, were to be poured out before the advent. It is impossible therefore for the outpouring of all the vials to be delayed till that event. When it takes place, then in giving judgment to the saints recently raised, judged, and chosen, as signified by the “golden girdles” and “pure and white linen,” the golden vials are given to them; and they consummate in their seventh vial mission the work of the whole seven vials, which without their intervention would never ultimate in victory over the beast, his image, his mark, and the number of his name.
This structural feature appears in the prophecy of the seventh vial itself. This is given in the last five verses of the sixteenth chapter; while the result of the whole is briefly stated in three words of the first of them—“It is done!” It is done consequent upon the pouring out of the vial into the air. The mystery is finished. But this finishing results only when there is no more wrath to pour out upon the air. Before the end thus primordially stated is developed, the voices, thunders, lightnings, earthquake, and hail, must do their work upon the Great City, the cities of the nations, and their political islands and mountains. When these are all disposed of judicially, then, and not till then, will the consummation, primarily announced in the words “it is done,” be established.
3.—A Great Sign in the Heaven
“And a Great Sign appeared in the Heaven; a Woman who had been invested with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a wreath of Twelve Stars.”
Thus reads the text of Apoc. xii. 1. In the sixth verse this “great sign” is styled “a great wonder.” The word σημειον signifies “a work by which something is known.” A footstep in the sand is a mark by which it is known that a human being had been there. Hence the footstep is a sign, or mark with a signification; a mark by which something is signified. The mark is not the foot; but the impression p. 17 stepped by the foot—the sign of the foot. In a like sense is the sign of the text to be taken. This first verse exhibits a mark, or sign, by which something may be known. To constitute the sign there is a woman, the sun, moon, and stars, an investment, and a wreath. These are but lesser marks or signs of the “great sign.” The woman, and the luminaries in the great sign are no more, as some imagine, a real human being of the female sex, and the lights of the sky, than the step of the foot is the foot itself. They are merely signs of something else, between which and them there is an analogy, or resemblance. These lesser marks when grouped together, as in the text, constitute “a great sign,” which must, therefore, be regarded as representing a notable development, a wonderful appearance in the apocalyptic heaven.
The sun, moon and stars of this great sign, belong to the heaven in which the sign appears. It is the same heaven as that in which “silence, as it were a half hour,” supervened after the departure like a scroll of the heaven which preceded it—Apoc. viii. 1; vi. 14. These two apocalyptic heavens are evidently revealed in these texts. In my exposition of the sixth seal (see Vol. II. pp. 263, 278), I treated of the abolition of the former of these two heavens, in the taking out of the way that which hindered the revelation, or manifestation of the Anomos, or Lawless One—2 Thess. ii. 7. The removal of this obstacle is predicted apocalyptically in these words, “the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of the heaven fell into the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken by a mighty wind.” And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together. This prediction was fulfilled in the change of the constitution of the Roman Orb consequent upon the success of Constantine, crowned by the victory of Chrysopolis, A. D. 324. Until this epoch of eighteen years, “the heaven” of Daniel’s Fourth Beast styled apocalyptically the Dragon, had been in all its constituents pagan. The emperors were all worshippers of Jupiter, and his associate gods. The sun-light of their imperialism was reflected from the idol superstition, of which they were ex-officio the High Priests, or Supreme Pontiffs. This was the moon of the heaven shining by reflected imperial light. So long as the Roman constitution of the Fourth Beast continued pagan, none but pagans could constitutionally execute the functions of the imperial office; for none but a pagan could be Pontifex Maximus of the Roman Orb. But the victories of Constantine changed all this. He shook the Dragonic Fig-tree with a mighty wind, and caused the stars of the heaven to fall into the earth, as perished figs from the parent tree. He slew with p. 18 great and sanguinary defeats the adherents of the State Superstition; so that “the moon became as blood.” She no longer walked in the brightness of imperial favor, reflecting to the earth the glory of the Roman Sun. The testimony of Jesus Christ against idolatry, borne by his witnesses, had alienated the popular mind from Jupiter and the gods, though it had failed to convert it to the gospel. The priests of the idols having lost their hold upon the affection of the multitude, the way was prepared for the subjection of Roman Idolatry to the Catholic, or Laodicean Apostasy. The consummation was necessarily sanguinary; for the testimony of history, and present experience, show that a minority in arbitrary power can only be brought to abdicate by the arbitrament of the sword. This award was appealed to by the contending parties of the day. The issue was between the PAGANS and the CATHOLICS; or between a pagan minority in place and power, and a majority of anti-pagans of all varieties and shades, who desired a change in the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the Roman State. In their appeal to arms the power of the minority was broken. It could no longer bring an army into the field to defend the interests of the idols constitutionally vested in their priests; so that nothing remained but the favor of an infidel and alienated multitude, inconstant as the wind. The revolution was complete. The ancient order of things incorporated with the reigning idolatry was cancelled, and the scroll of its constitution rolled up out of the way. The pagan imperialty became black as sackcloth of hair. Since the death of Licinius, the last of Constantine’s rivals, only one worshipper of Jupiter has occupied the Roman Throne. The total eclipse of the pagan sun, the sanguinary obscuration of the brightness of the pagan moon, and the hurling of the pagan stars into the lowest walks of life among the people, finally and effectually signalized the departure of the pagan heaven as a scroll rolled up. We have witnessed the departure of a heaven as a scroll when it is rolled up, in the collapse of the Southern Confederacy. The dispersion of the southern forces resulted in the abolition of its civil constitution, and the consequent suppression of all things related to it; so that with the exception of the calamities entailed, it is as though it had never been. Such was the collapse of Roman Idolatry in its church and state constitution, or heaven. Its forces were overpowered and dispersed, and as the world never “wanders” after a sinking cause, but is always ready to worship success, it easily transferred its allegiance to the more powerful rival which had dethroned it.
Thus the idol-heaven of Daniel’s Fourth Beast-dominion was rolled out of the way by the judgments of the Sixth Seal to make p. 19 room for a new heaven with its own appropriate luminaries. This “heaven” was a church and state constitution of things, in which the Apostasy, foreshadowed in the epistle to the ecclesia at Laodicea, shone with all the brightness and glory an unscrupulous werld lying under the wicked could confer upon a system of delusion congenial to it. Its sun, moon, and stars shone brightly. Though a new constitution of the aerial was proclaimed, the sun was not abolished. The storm-clouds of a departing idolatrous institution had blackened it. It no longer shone in the splendor of pagan majesty which was totally eclipsed; still the supreme power continued to be a diademed imperiality. It was the same twelve-starred Sixth Head which was developed in the Augustan epoch of Daniel’s “dreadful and terrible” beast. When the half hour’s silence invaded the heaven, the “mighty wind” which had been rudely shaking the Roman Fig-tree for eighteen years, was calmed; and the sun of imperial power and majesty emerged again from the hair-sackcloth blackness of the darkening and sanguinary revolution by which it had been obscured. It emerged again to shine with an unclouded blaze upon an entirely new order of things—an order, such as the sun in the natural heaven had hitherto never shone upon since he was placed there to rule the day; an order, therefore, which, in the words of the apocalypse, might fitly be represented as “a great sign in the heaven.”
In the “great sign” of ch. xii. 1, the Roman Sun is no longer invested with blackness, but invests a sign-woman with a blaze of glory peculiar to himself—“a woman invested with the sun.” Whatever the woman may signify, this investiture symbolizes the clothing of the thing signified with supreme imperial authority; so that whatever might emanate from the woman would be by the sanction and co-operation of the highest orders of the state.
The woman, or Laodicean Community, could not have been invested with a more appropriate symbol than “the sun,” expressive of the imperial embrace, as well as of the particular emperor by whom she would be patronized. Gibbon informs us that Constantine had a particular veneration for Apollo, or the sun, to which Julian alludes in his orations. His words are, “The devotion of Constantine (while yet in embryo) was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a young p. 20 hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of that tutelar deity; and that either waking or in vision, he was pleased with the auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine; and the pagans might reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite in his becoming a Laodicean Catholic. Diocletian had chosen Jupiter, and Maximinian, Hercules; but Constantine preferred the sun before all the gods of his fathers, as his guardian and protecting deity.” When, therefore, Constantine came to occupy the Roman throne, and was manifested as Supreme Bishop of the Catholic Church, this Laodicean community might fitly be said to have been “invested with the sun.”
The position of the imperially invested woman in this “great sign” with “the Moon under her feet,” indicates that she occupies the former place of the Roman Moon. In the heaven which had departed as a scroll, there was no woman standing upon the moon. There was simply the moon-hierarchy invested with the light of imperialism by which it shone; and between this hierarchal moon and the throne of the Dragon power, nothing intervened. But the Constantinian Revolution, or “great earthquake” of the Sixth Seal, had baptized the idol-hierarchy in blood; so that “the moon became AS BLOOD.” The sun and moon were not annihilated, but only subjected to changed conditions consequent upon the great earthquake revolution. This popular convulsion exalted one from among the people, and placed her in the moon’s orbit. The light and glory of the imperial majesty fell upon her. The rays whose brightness had formerly glorified the priests of Jupiter, and conferred dignity upon his superstition, were now intercepted by a Hierarchy more favored by the state. This new hierarchy had been elevated by the earthquake above the old one; so that, in the “great sign,” their relative position is symbolized by the former moon being subjected, or placed under, the woman’s feet.
4. The Sun-Invested Woman
This ch. xii. 1 is the second place in the general prophecy where a figurative woman is introduced. The first place in which the Spirit speaks specifically of one is ch. ii. 20. In his epistle to the Star-Angel presbytery of the ecclesia in Thyatira he charges it with suffering, p. 21 or tolerating, teachers and seducers within its jurisdiction, whose traditions were destructive of those “servants” who received them. Those teachers and seducers constituted a class of men of which Balaam is a representative. They “ran greedily in the error of Balaam’s reward”—Jude 11. They were seducing spirits and demons who spoke lies in hypocrisy—1 Tim. iv. 1, 2:—false teachers privily bringing in destructive opinions, and denying the Despot who bought them. Through covetousness, with feigned words, they made merchandise of professors unstable in the faith, sporting themselves with their own deceivings. They had once known the way of righteousness, and by the obedience of faith it inculcates had become children of God. But they afterwards forsook the right way, and went astray. Their heart was exercised like Balaam’s with covetous practices; and without regard to the honor and interests of the truth, they zealously and volubly entertained their hearers with crotchety conceits and speculations. Their teaching and practices favored the wantonness and lusts of the flesh. The inconstant and unstable among the saints favored their traditions, which proclaimed a liberty in things which the word condemns. This licentiousness strengthened the flesh to which it is congenial; and as this was developed, the power of the word became impotent; their hold upon it was relaxed; they became entangled again in the pollutions of the world, and were overcome of their inordinate desires. Thus these teachers and seducers, with the disciples they had drawn away after them by the perverse things they taught, though they zealously contended for one God against the idolatry of the Roman State, adopted opinions and practices applauded by the profane. They “committed fornication, and ate things sacrificed to idols.” For this contemptible “mess of pottage” they sold their birthright; and not only ruined themselves, but caused the truth to be evil spoken of by those whom it was designed to benefit—2 Pet. ii.
Now teachers and seducers of the Balaam type either gained the ascendancy in the ecclesias, or not being able to maintain themselves therein, separated from them, and organized “churches” to suit themselves in which they could lord it over their flocks. But whether tolerated within the ecclesias, as in Thyatira, or separated in distinct and independent congregations, they were all prefigured by a woman. The character of this figurative woman is known to the faithful by the name she bears. She is in certain relations apocalyptically styled JEZEBEL, because of the analogy subsisting between the character of the infamous daughter of Ethbaal and wife of Ahab, and that of the teachers and seducers by whom the Laodicean Catholic Apostasy was organized and perfected within the Anti-pagan p. 22 Community. The original Jezebel essayed the utter abolition of Jehovah’s worship in Israel; and substituted the adoration of other deities, with the lascivious abominations which had formerly brought extermination upon the Canaanites. Her fate also made her a fit emblem of the apocalyptic Jezebel, whose children will be eaten by dogs in the day of Jezreel—Ps. lxviii. 23. The false teachers and seducers of the first three centuries, although they did not avow it as their purpose, effected completely what Jezebel aimed to accomplish in Israel. They utterly abolished “the doctrine of Christ” by their traditions; and if it had not been for “a little strength” found among a very small remnant that kept the Spirit’s word, and had not denied His name, “the Israel of the Deity” would have been entirely transformed into “the Synagogue of Satan.” The Star-Angel Presbytery of Thyatira was too tolerant of “the depths of Satan as they taught,” for the Spirit’s approval; for, after commending the angel’s love, service, faith, patience, and works, he adds, “Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.” In this toleration the Star-Angel or Eldership, was culpable. They ought to have silenced their false teaching, and to have permitted nothing to reach the ears of the flock not in harmony with the written word. This would have preserved “the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God;” and have prevented the development, out of the One Body espoused to Christ, of a self-complacent Catholic Jezebel, who in the epoch of the “great sign” was at once wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”—ch. iii. 17.
Such was the figurative antipagan woman we behold exhibited in the heaven invested with the sun’s majesty, and his ancient lunar idol-harlot made subject “under her feet.” The “great sign” represents her situation as it appeared to the outer world, for under another aspect of things, the “few names not defiled” of the same figurative woman are represented by “the remnants of her seed who keep the Commandments of the Deity, and hold the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Hence the figurative woman of ch. xii., invested with the Roman Sun, and fleeing from the Dragon, represents the whole ANTIPAGAN COMMUNITY; the vast majority of which answered to Jezebel and her children; while the remainder, with whom alone the doctrine of Christ was to be found, refused to have anything to do with a church in alliance with the “dreadful and terrible beast having seven heads and ten horns.” These two divisions of the antipagans, though opposed on the question of church and state alliance, were agreed in p. 23 their hostility to the ascendancy of the existing Imperial Idolatry, which grievously afflicted them all. The first ecclesiastical separation of these two divisions did not occur till after the birth of the woman’s son, who was to rule all the Greek and Latin nations with an iron sceptre. When this event transpired, the anti-state church party repudiated the desecrating alliance with emperors and their courts. They refused to recognize the emperor’s claim of being at once the representative of the Sixth Head of the Dragon, and Bishop of the Bishops of Christ. The truth was with this party. They seceded; and by their secession incurred the enmity and bitter hostility of the New Church imperially established. The secessionists became the subject of virulent persecution by this new power, which caused them to take refuge in the wilderness. In this flight they are prefigured by the woman, who therefore leaves behind her the sun and moon, and wreath of twelve stars.
But this transient appearance of the woman in the heaven characterizes the sun, moon and stars she had repudiated. They had become the catholic luminaries of a new heaven; which, under the sounding of the fourth wind-trumpet, are found ruling the day and the night of the Catholic Roman Orb. The transient standing of the woman upon the moon indelibly stamped the character of Jezebel upon it; and proclaimed it to be the lunar representative of the Laodicean Synagogue of Satan; which ever since has been allied, in some form or other, to the blasphemous and ferocious despotisms of the world.
But, though “the Lamb’s Woman” refused to be allied to the Roman State, and retired into the wilderness, the State-Church Woman, Jezebel, was not so scrupulous. As “the church by law established” she retained her place in the heaven; and became “the Great Harlot” of the world. Little notice is taken of her apocalyptically until she is exhibited in ch. xvii. 1., in all the enormity of her profligate career. In this scene, she appears in the wilderness, into which the Anti-State Church Woman fled. She is seen “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus;” and sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. She represents a “great city” or polity, “reigning over the kings of the earth.” Her name in the beginning was Jezebel; but in the crisis of her fate it is also “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the earth.” She reigns until the Ancient of Days is revealed, who “casts her into a bed, and them who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, and kills her children with death”—ch. ii. 22. This is the end of Jezebel in the day of Jezreel—Hos. i. 11.
p. 24 A different destiny, however, is apocalyptically indicated for the woman espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ. She entered the imperial presence, but soon found that it was impossible to enjoy imperial favor and protection, and maintain her honor and allegiance to her Divine Husband in purity and truth. She therefore fled from the sunshine of royalty, and left behind her the Jezebel of her communion, to whom the meretricious blandishments of courts were altogether congenial.
While her Jezebel counter-self remained invested with the Roman sun, and acquired and exercised dominion over the kings of the earth, she was sojourning in the wilderness; in which, however, Jezebel afterwards succeeded in establishing her blasphemous, licentious, and sanguinary rule. The Anti-Jezebel Woman dwelt in the wilderness as many months of years as Israel did years in the exodus from Egypt; and two months of years more. She remained there 1,260 years, or forty-two generations of years after her flight; and will continue trodden underfoot by the lovers and protectors of Jezebel until the end of another period of 1,260 years, when the Ancient of Days will come, and avenge the wrongs she has suffered, in the judgment which shall sit. At this crisis, she is married to the Lamb to whom she has been so long espoused. Her husband who is her head is Christ. In “the time of the dead,” having “made herself ready,” she is “arrayed in fine linen clean and white”—ch. xix. 7, 8. Her marriage with the Lamb establishes such a oneness between those she represents and Christ, as exists between him and the Father in heaven. She is then “the Holy and Great City, the New and Holy Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”—ch. xxi. 2, 10. When thus “glorified together with Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), the Jezebel-Synagogue of Satan will “be made to come and worship before her feet, and to know that Christ has loved her”—ch. iii. 9. Jezebel’s children will have been slain with death, and her communion and sovereignty abolished; and the only woman seen in the heaven will be the glorified fugitive of the wilderness; clothed with the sun of Righteousness, the moon of the Laodicean Apostasy under her feet, and upon her head a wreath of twelve Apostolic Stars.
What a remarkable contrast between these two apocalyptic women! The one, Jezebel, the Great Harlot and the Mother of Harlots; the other, the Lamb’s wife and the Mother of all the Saints. The former, sovereign in all the times of the Gentiles; the latter, trampled underfoot of the Gentiles in all their times; and persecuted with the utmost rancour and bitterness of hate: the former, “arrayed in purple and scarlet-color, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls, and reigning over the kings of the earth;” the latter, clothed p. 25 in sackcloth, and the habiliments of subjection: the former, the embodiment of ignorance, superstition, cruelty, blasphemy, hypocrisy, and vice; the latter, holy, harmless, undefiled, and without fault before the throne. Nor is the difference of their destiny less striking. Jezebel is first hated by her subject kings, who make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh and burn her with fire—ch. xvii. 16; and afterwards, having somewhat of intermission from this rough usage, she is utterly and forever destroyed out of the way by YAHWEH ELOHIM, who avenges on her the righteous blood she has caused to be poured out upon the earth. The world being thus freed from the accursed presence of the Jezebel-superstitions of “Christendom” so-called; the nations henceforth enlightened, regenerated, and saved, walk in the glorified fugitive’s light; who, for a thousand years, sheds the glory of the divine majesty with which she is invested upon all peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues; all of them blessed with faithful Abraham, in Abraham and his seed—Gal. iii. 7-9. This blessedness under the government of Christ and his Bride is the theme which concludes the Apocalypse given by the Deity to Jesus Christ.