an exposition of revelation IV.-XXII PART I.-(Continued.)

The Last Three Seals (Rev. 6:9-17; 8:i).

The first four seals have thus shown to us judgments poured out upon the earth,-judgments which are the necessary result of the rejection of Christ, now completed by the refusal of the gospel for so many centuries of divine long-suffering. The fifth opens to us a very different scene:here are beheld "under the altar, the souls of them that were beheaded for the word of God and for the testimony which they held." Persecution has broken out against the people of God ; for such there are still upon the earth, though the saints of the present time are with the Lord in glory. Heaven being filled, the Spirit of God has been at work to fill the earth with blessing ; and here, as we know, God's ancient people are the first subjects of His converting grace. The remnant of that time could be fitly represented by those disciples of the Lord to whom He addressed the great prophecy of His coming, Jewish as they were still in conceptions and in heart; and to these, after such warnings as had been fulfilled in the former seals, He says, " Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation, and shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all the nations (the Gentiles) for My name's sake." The two passages agree with one another and with nature.

Woe unto those who in a day of wrath upon the world for the rejection of Christ go into it to insist upon His claim ! And that is what is meant by " the gospel of the kingdom " which the Lord tells us " shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all the nations, and then shall the end come" (Matt. 24:14). "Glad tidings" though it may be that the kingdom of righteousness at last is to be set up, and the King Himself is at hand,-to those who reject Him, it is the announcement of their doom. And we see under this fifth seal what will be the result. The Word of God will again have its martyrs, but whose cry will not be with Stephen, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge ! " but with the martyrs of the Old Testament, "The Lord look upon it, and require it!" "And they cried with a loud voice, ' How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge, and avenge our blood on them that dwell upon the earth ? ' "

The cry is now in place, as is the pleading for grace in a day of grace. Judgment is indeed to come, and the time when God "maketh inquisition for blood" (Ps. 9:12); but though at hand, there is yet a certain delay, for, alas! even yet, the measure of man's iniquity is not reached. "And white robes were given unto every one of them ; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants and their brethren, who should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."

Two seasons of persecution seem to be marked here, though with no necessary interval between them ; though the crash that follows under the sixth seal, with the terror thus (if but for awhile) produced, might well cause such a cessation of persecution for the time being. Whether this be so or not, the two periods are surely here distinguished. A much later passage (chap. 20:4) similarly distinguishes them, while it enables us to recognize the latter of these periods as that of the beast under his last head :"And I saw thrones, and they sat on them "- those already enthroned in chap. 4:and 5:,-"and the souls of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God,"-those seen under the fifth seal,-" and such as had not worshiped the beast, nor his image, and had not received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands"-here are their "brethren that were to be slain as they were,"-"and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

The distinction between these two periods proves the introductory character of the seals, at least as far as we have gone. The time of the great tribulation is not come; just as, in Matt. 24:9, the persecution prophesied of precedes it. Thus the martyrs here, while owned and approved, have yet to wait for the answer to their prayer. Some answer, it need not be doubted, the next seal gives; but plainly, it cannot be the full one :there are decisive reasons for refusing the thought entertained by many, that it is really the " great day of the Lamb's wrath" which is come. Men's guilty consciences make them judge it to be this; but that is only their interpretation, not the divine one.

A terrible break-up of the existing state of things it is :"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great convulsion; and the sun became as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood ; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, as a fig-tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind. And the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains ; and they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of Their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand ? "

Well may it seem to be so; and just such physical signs are announced in Joel (2:31 and 3:15) before "the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come." Just so also the Lord speaks of what shall take place after the tribulation :" Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven ; and then shall the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. 24:29, 30).

The sixth seal precedes the tribulation, however, as we have seen ; except this could occur between the fifth and sixth, and were passed silently over. This would be a very violent supposition in view of what we have already seen, and of what follows the sixth seal itself, as we may see presently. The rolling up the heavens as a scroll, moreover, goes beyond the language of Joel or of the Lord, carrying us on, indeed, to the passing away of the heaven and earth which precedes the coming in of that "new heavens and earth in which dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. 3:13). But this is impossible to be thought of as occurring in this place. The only other practicable interpretation, therefore, must be the true one,-the language is figurative, and the signs are not physical, though designedly given in terms which remind us of what indeed is swiftly approaching, though not yet actually come.

And in this way the general significance is not difficult to apprehend. The heavens in this way represent the seat of authority. Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that the "heavens rule" (Dan. 4:26). And they represent figuratively rule also on the part of man. In the Old-Testament prophets, we have similar pictures to that before us here (Isa. 13:10; 34:4), where the context shows that national convulsions are prophesied of. Here, it is evidently the collapse of governments, the shaking of all that seemed most settled and secure. All classes of men, -high and low, rich and poor, are involved in the effect of it, and their stricken consciences ascribe it as judgment to the wrath of God and the Lamb. In their alarm, they imagine He is just about to appear; but He does not, and the panic passes away. A new state of things is introduced, of which the features unfold themselves.

When we might now expect the opening of the seventh seal, we find instead the parenthetic visions of the seventh chapter; and there is a similar interruption in exactly the same place in the trumpet-series:the vision of the little book and the two witnesses comes in between the sixth and seventh trumpets. This exact correspondence claims our attention. One result of it is, to make the septenary series an octave, and to give, therefore, to the last seal and the last trumpet alike the character of a seventh and yet of an eighth division. Let us inquire for a moment into the significance of these numbers in this connection.

The numbers are, in their scriptural meaning, in some sense opposite to one another. "Seven" speaks of completion, perfection, and so cessation. Seven notes give the whole compass in music. On the seventh day God ended all His work which He had made, and rested. The eighth day is the first of a new week,-a new beginning. The eighth note is similarly a new beginning. The essential idea attaching to the number in its symbolic use in Scripture is that of what is new, in contrast with the old which is passed away,-as the new covenant, the new creation. As outside the perfect seven, it adds no other thought.

Now if we will remember the character of these seals, that they keep the book closed, it follows of course that the seventh seal opened opens for the first time really the book itself. This in fact introduces us therefore to what is a new thing. We were up to this time in the porch or vestibule merely. Immediately the last door is opened we are in the building itself.

Does not this account for the fact that on its opening there is simply a brief pause-" silence in heaven for the space of half an hour,"-and then come the trumpets? This is exactly according to the seven-eight character of the closing seal. One period is over, and with this we begin another. The last seal is open, and this discloses, not a bit more introduction, but the book itself.

The seventh trumpet will be found in these respects very like the seventh seal. It too is brief; and while closing the trumpet-series of judgment-in fact the three special woes,-opens into another condition of things, not woe at all, but the time long looked for, when "the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever " (chap. 11:15). Thus the seven-eight structure justifies itself in both series, of seals and trumpets.

But before the seventh seal comes a parenthetic vision, which is not a part of the seals really, but a disclosure of what is in the mind of the Lord, His purpose of grace fulfilling steadfastly amid all the strife and sorrow and sin which might seem to prevail every where. Let us now give it our careful attention.

(To be continued.)