Revelation 12

12 : 1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.13 : 1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them:

8 and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. 10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. 14 : 1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile; for they are without fault before the throne of God. 6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveeth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. 14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

ONLY “they who die in the Lord” are here accounted blessed; it can not possibly be gain to die till Christ has first been made the life of the soul. Where this becomes our matebless privilege, in the way of faith and penitence, we may expect a state of bliss, not merely after centuries have rolled over our dust, but even from the moment of our departure from this life. “Henceforth,” said the Spirit, “the dead in Christ are blessed.” And in this rest “their works do follow them,” that is to say, from every seed of faith and love, strewed here below with unwearied hands, the harvest is to be expected there. Mark well, it stands not that their works precede them, in any wise to open for them heaven’s portals; but that their works do follow them, where hidden good treads forth at once to view. Van O.

We rest on this, “I go to prepare a place for you.” A place is prepared for each one of us; a place fitted to our distinct character, a separate work fitted to develop that character into perfection, and in the doing of which we shall have the continual delight of feeling that we are growing. Our ideals shall become more beautiful, and minister continually to fresh aspiration. Feelings for which we found no food here shall there be satisfied with work, and exercised by action into exquisite perfection. And this shall be shall be in a father’s home, where all the dearest dreams of home-life shall find their happy fulfillment; in a perfect society, where all the charming interchange of thought and giving and receiving of each other’s good which makes our best happiness on earth, shall be easier, freer, purer, more intimate, more spiritual, more intellectual; and binding all together, the omnipresent Spirit of love, goodness, truth, and life, whom we call God, and whom we know in Jesus Christ, shall abide in us, and we in him, “for he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.” S. A. B.

Chs. 12-14. We have seen in the Book of Revelation thus far, and we shall see in it hereafter, not so much one continuous stream of prophecy, starting from the times of John, and carrying down the fortunes of the Church with historical precision till they are finally lost in the great ocean of eternity: but rather a number of parallel streams, each marked by some definite purpose and principle, and each ending only with the end of time, even with that last discomfiture of the opposing powers of evil which shall introduce the universal reign of Christ, and usher in the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We shall not be surprised therefore to observe in the section now to be opened a return to a very elementary point in the history of the Church of God. The general subject of the three chapters which form this section is the enemies, the three enemies, of Christ’s Church. We shall find that this also is a passage complete in itself, and ending only with the same catastrophe of the powers of evil which we have already observed as the termination of the vision of the seals in the 1st verse of the 8th chapter, and of the vision of the trumpets in the last verse of the 11th. V.

12:1-17. And now opens the great prophetic course of visions regarding the Church. Her identification in the eyes of the seer is first rendered unmistakable, by the scene opening with the appearance of the woman and the serpent, the enmity between him and her seed, the birth of the man-child who should rule over the nations—his ascension to heaven and to the throne of God. The flight of the woman into the wilderness, the casting down of Satan from heaven no longer to curse the brethren there, his continued enmity on earth, his persecution of the remnant of the woman’s seed, these belong to the introductory features of the great vision which is to follow, and serve to describe the state in which the Church of God is found during the now pending stage of her conflict.

13:1-10. What follows carries out the description of the war made by the dragon on the seed of the woman. A wild beast is seen rising out of the deep, uniting in itself the formerly described heads and horns of the dragon, and also the well-known prophetic symbols of the great empires of the world: representing, in fact, the secular powers antagonistic to the Church of Christ. To this wild beast the dragon gives his might and his throne; and notwithstanding that one of its heads—the pagan Roman empire—is crushed to death, its deadly wound is healed, and all who are not written in the Lamb’s book of life worship it. 11-18. The further carrying out of the power and influence of the beast is now set before us by the vision of another wild beast, born of the earth, gentle as a lamb in appearance, but dragon-like and cruel in character. This second beast is the ally and servant of the former: makes men to worship its image and receive its mark, as the condition of civil rights and even of life itself. Here, in common with very many of the best interpreters, I can not fail to recognize the sacerdotal persecuting power, leagued with, and the instrument of, the secular: professing to be a lamb, but in reality being a dragon, persecuting the saints of God, the inseparable companion and upholder of despotic and tyrannical power. This in all its forms, pagan, papal, and in so far as the reformed churches have retrograded toward papal sacerdotalism, Protestant also, I believe to be that which is symbolized under the second wild beast.

14:1-20. Next, the apocalyptic vision brings before us the Lamb on Mount Zion with the first-fruits of his people, and the heavenly song in which they join—as prefatory to the announcement, by three angels, of the prophecies which are to follow, so full of import to the people and Church of God. These are, first (vs. 6, 7), the proclamation of the everlasting gospel as previous to the final judgments of God; next, the fall of Babylon (v. 8), as an encouragement for the patience of the saints; third (vs. 9-11), the final defeat and torment of the Lord’s enemies. After these (vs. 11, 12) is heard a voice proclaiming the blessedness of the holy dead. Then follow, in strict accord with these four announcements, 1, the harvest and the vintage of the earth (vs. 14-20), and the seven last plagues, symbolized by the outpouring of the vials (15:1; 16:1-21); 2, the ample details of the fall and punishment of Babylon (chs. 17, 18); 3, the triumph of the Church in the last defeat of her Lord’s enemies (19:11-21); 4, the millennial reign (chs. 20-22); and finally, the eternity of bliss. There is reason to interpret the harvest (14:15, 16), of the ingathering of the Lord’s people: the vintage (14:18, 19), of the crushing of his enemies; both these being, according to the usage of this book, compendious, and inclusive of the fuller details of both, which are to follow. The vintage is taken up and expanded in detail by the series of the vials (ch. 16); seven in number, as were the seals and the trumpets before. These final judgments, specially belonging to the Church, are introduced by a song of triumph from the saints of both dispensations, and are poured out by angels coming forth from the opened sanctuary of the tabernacle of witness in heaven (15:2-8). A.

Ch. 12. One of the prime objects of this entire chapter is manifestly to put the devil in his true light as the chief persecutor, the arch-traitor and rebel against the throne of God—the chieftain who heads all the sin and all the war against God and goodness which appear in the universe. Let all Christians know their enemy; let them know his past history, his present designs, his determined antagonism to the Messiah and to his Church and people; and his certain defeat and shameful fall in the end. H. C.

1-6. Some leading facts in relation to the Saviour’s entrance into the world and exit from it are obviously glanced at here. The reader can not avoid calling to mind the birth of Christ, the massacre at Bethlehem by Herod, the character of him who was to “rule over the nations” as disclosed in Psalm 2, the temptation of Christ by Satan, the ascension of the Redeemer to heaven after he had risen from the dead, and finally the persecution of the Church with the protection vouchsafed to it on the part of Heaven. That Satan is here presented as following the ascended Redeemer with the design of annoying him must strike every well-informed mind as a lively symbol of the malignity and bitterness with which the enemy of God and man pursued Jesus and his disciples at all times and on all occasions. M. S.

1. The woman clothed with the sun, and having on her head a crown of twelve stars, is the Church of God; the Church regarded as one whole from the days of Abraham, perhaps we may say from the day of the fall itself, under whatever special dispensation placed—the Patriarchal, the Israelite, or the Christian.

3. The dragon represents in various passages of the prophets of the old testament that great Egyptian power which had been the first oppressor of the Church of Israel. And thus with equal fitness it becomes in this Book of Revelation the title of that prince of this world whose deep and bitter hostility to God and his Christ prompts all the efforts and frames all the machinations by which the world seeks to undermine the influence of the Saviour and of his people. The dragon is henceforth another name for the devil or Satan.

Seven heads and ten horns. Notice that though there is a unity of persons in the arch-enemy of God, he is yet in his operations a many-headed power; he exercises his influence through many channels; every phase of the ungodly, antichristian world is one of his manifestations; and further, the power which is thus various and thus multiplied is also a strength; it possesses ten horns, the scriptural emblem of vigor and force. We can not despise the power of evil, though we may forebode its downfall.

5. Caught up unto God.** The years of infancy and boyhood, of youth and of manhood, the workshop of Nazareth, the journeyings to Jerusalem, the call of disciples, the labors of teaching and of healing, the cruel mocking and scourging, the bitter cross and the quiet grave, all are passed over: he who declares the end from the beginning speaks here but of birth and of ascension, and tells us only that, while the dragon stood in readiness to devour the child which should be born, the child was caught up unto God and to his throne.

The woman flees into the wilderness. Like Israel of old fleeing from the wrath of Pharaoh, the Church of God, whose Lord and Master has been taken up from her, finds a dwelling-place in her desolation in the wilderness. There, like Israel of old, she has food provided for her of God. The period of her abode is described in figures now familiar to us. The 1,260 days are the same period during which God’s two witnesses prophesy clothed in sackcloth. It is the same period, otherwise described as one of forty and two months, during which the holy city is trodden under foot of the Gentiles (11:2, 3). It is the same period, otherwise described as one of three years and a half, of a time and times and half a time (v. 14), during which our Lord’s own ministry upon earth was protracted, and after which the spirit of life from God entered into the two dead witnesses and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies beheld them (11:11, 12). It is, in short, that period, of the three and a half, the half seven, the broken and imperfect as opposed to the complete and sacred whole, which is again and again the designation of the reign of evil, of the humiliation of God’s truth and of God’s Church, as contrasted with that endless triumph of the cause of holiness and of Christ which shall comfort the sufferings of Zion and redress the wrongs of the saints.

9. That spiritual enemy with whom our struggle and our warfare lies, is (1) the great dragon; the prince of this world; the leader and commander of the aggressions of the world upon the Church of Christ, upon the people of God. He is (2) the ancient serpent; the very person who in the earliest days of our race, having himself fallen yet earlier from his original uprightness, appeared as the tempter of man, and through his bodily appetite seduced him from his Maker. He is (3) the slanderer and the adversary, the devil and Satan; he who, as we read in the opening of the Book of Job, and again, more briefly, in the 3d chapter of Zechariah, calumniates and slanders before God those whom he has first deceived and overthrown below. He is the slanderer, or calumniator, as well as the adversary. He first seduces man, and then tells of him! And thus (4) he is described as the misleader of all the world; he who leads astray all the world. He was cast out into the earth. The real thing spoken of is the breaking of Satan’s power by the Redemption. The devil is like one who has been thrown from a great height, and falls upon the earth bruised and humbled. He is no longer master. If any one still serves him, it is his own fault.

11. We shall best regard the words as anticipative and prophetic in their tone; as describing the victory which has been won by Christ’s servants, one after another, and age after age, under the dispensation of the gospel; and of which the completion of Christ’s work by ascension contained not the promise only, but the power. They conquered him, it is written of these, as one by one they have finished their course and accomplished their warfare, him the deceiver and the slanderer, him the tempter and the accuser, owing to the blood of the Lamb. This was the secret of their strength. They overcame him, too, through (owing to) the word of their testimony: that is, the word or message which they attest; of which they are witnesses. And they loved not their life unto death. They carried their life’s devotion even to the length of death. They overcame the devil by a self-sacrifice which stopped not short of death. The three weapons by which the Christian victory is won, as described for us in the song of triumph in heaven over the downfall of the great enemy of man, are these: the atonement made for all sin in the death of Christ; the word or message of God, to which all true Christians bear in act and in endurance a firm and intelligible testimony; and that spirit of entire self-devotion and self-surrender which perseveres even unto death, and stops not short (if God so require) of the sacrifice of life itself for Christ. V.

In the martyr ages of the Church we behold a vast array of active genius and power, that could not be permitted to spend itself in works of benefaction to the race, but was consecrated of God to the more sacred and more fruitful grace of suffering. The design was, it would seem, to prepare a Christly past, to show whole ages of faith populated with men who were able, coming after their Master and bearing his cross, to suffer with him and add their human testimony to his. And so it has been ordered that the Church of God shall know itself to be the child of suffering patience. The scholars, the preachers, all the great and noted characters, who have served the Church by their labors, pass into shade, we think little of them; but the men of patience, the holy martyrs, these we feel as a sacred fatherhood, charging it, oh, how seriously and filially! upon our souls, to be followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Who that feels the power of these martyr ages descending on him, can ever think, even for a moment, that the passive virtues of the Christian life are sterile virtues, and that action is the only fruitful thing? H. B.

17. The description here given of the true seed is twofold. They keep the commandments of God, and they hold the testimony of Jesus. Either of these without the other must be, for us at least—we enter not into the question as it may affect past ages, or nations still sitting in darkness—an incomplete, nay, a fallacious test of true membership, of true worship. It is the old combination; faith and works; a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, and a life suitable to one who loves God. That is salvation. That is redemption. Not the liberty to keep the testimony of Jesus without keeping the commandments of God. Not the liberty to use words of love and faith toward Jesus, and go forth in works to deny him. V.

18 : 1-7. Out of the sea, i. e., from the midst of troubled nations, emerged a wild beast before the eyes of the seer; a dreadful monster, having the agile frame of a leopard, the paws of a bear, and mouth of a lion, with seven heads and ten horns. It combined all the bestial forms seen by Daniel; and must be understood as recalling and condensing in one formidable power all the old-world despotisms that oppressed the Israel of God.

The beast took up the persecution of the saints which the dragon instigated. Therefore it can be nothing else than that Roman imperialism which sent the apostle John himself into exile for his faith, and became throughout all the known world a merciless tyrant to the Christians. All world-tyranny, all use of brute force to repress spiritual life and movement, in whatever age, falls under the same symbol of the wild beast. D. F.

2. The deadly wound indicates some blow struck, with apparently fatal consequences, at the power of the ungodly and antichristian world. Such a blow was the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to the faith of Christ, and the establishment of a nominal Christianity as the religion of the great Roman Empire. It might have seemed as though the trials of the Church, collectively at least, were then for ever ended. But the deadly wound was healed. Not yet had the kingdoms of the world really become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; the nominally Christian empire could persecute as well as the openly idolatrous; he that was born after the flesh was still the natural enemy of him that was born after the spirit; and papal Rome in later ages too often resumed the sword which pagan Rome had dropped. But let it call itself what it may, pagan or Christian, popish or Protestant, the world is still God’s enemy; still hates the light; still is not subject to the law of God; still is offended in Christ, first for his humility, and then for his holiness; still looks coldly upon, still casts out, still, if it dares—and it does dare—will persecute those who by act and word testify of it that its works are evil! V.

7. It was given unto him to overcome them. As of old, so now, those to be persecuted by the beast in various ways have their trials severally appointed them by God’s fixed counsel. Fausse!—The afflictions, therefore, that the church in the wilderness has met with, these cups of gold, are of more worth than are all the treasures of Egypt; they are needful and profitable, and praiseworthy also, and tend to the augmenting of our glory when the next world shall come. They are also a means by which men are proved to be sound, honest, faithful, and true lovers of God; to be those whose graces are not counterfeit, feigned, or unsound, but true, and such as will be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And this has been the cause that the men of our church in the wilderness have gloried in tribulation, taking pleasure in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. Bun.

10. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. In these coming, these predicted, these inevitable sufferings under the power of the second enemy of the Church, a large demand will be made upon the submission and upon the faith of God’s saints.

11. And I saw another wild beast rising out of the earth. The third enemy—we may gather, I think, from the marks affixed to him—is the ungodly antichristian wisdom, as the second is the ungodly antichristian power, of the world. It is that false philosophy, that science falsely so called, that speculative and skeptical opinion, that reason without humility and without God, which, with all its professions of elevation and of independence, has ever been the real ally of the world and the bitterest enemy of revelation and of the Church. This it was which propped up a system of idolatry in which it had itself no vestige of faith. This it was which united with the coercive power of a heathen state in running down and making havoc of the new religion and the young Church of Christ. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. The brute force of the second enemy were powerless without this intelligence of the third. Sometimes the two may work together in one ruler; the demoniacal acuteness, and the animal cruelty. Sometimes, more often perhaps, they are found disjoined, and the only link of union is a common godlessness. That is the combining and cementing sympathy. That is the one characteristic which the second enemy shares with the third. Both of them look earthward; neither can lift up his eyes to the God above. Therefore they are one in their work, one in their aim, and one in their end.

14:1. And I saw—the usual opening of a new vision—and behold, the Lamb standing on the mount Zion. Not a Lamb, but the Lamb. By this time the figure of the Lamb is so familiar to the readers of the book in its application to Christ the Saviour and Redeemer that it may be introduced without comment or explanation. Sion, which was properly one of the group of hills forming the metropolis of Israel, became in the language of prophecy the name of that heavenly city which is to be the everlasting abode of the Saviour and of His redeemed. And I heard a sound out of the heaven—not a sound from Mount Zion, but from above, out of heaven—as a sound of many waters and as a sound of a great thunder; and the sound which I heard was as of harpers harping on their harps. The combination of fullness, of majesty, and of sweetness, in the sound heard, is expressed by bringing together the three comparisons thus indicated. And they, the heavenly harpers, sing a new song before (in presence of) the throne and before (in presence of) the four living creatures, representatives of creation, and the elders, representatives of the universal Church; and no one was able to learn the song, except the hundred and forty and four thousands, even they who have been purchased from the earth. The heavenly song, though sweet and glorious in its general sound to the ear of the prophet who is still in flesh, can be learned only by those who are no longer clogged with mortality, but have already passed through death into incorruption and glory.*

4.5. The character of the redeemed is here set before us under the four heads, of purity, of obedience, of unworldliness, of truthfulness; and their heavenly state, as one of safety, of rest, of happiness, of converse and communion with Christ. V.

They are the redeemed from among men. They are the first fruits unto God and the Lamb. They are the subjects of his regenerating love and grace. They were once creatures of sin and children of wrath. Now they are before the throne of God in his likeness. Before the throne of God without fault. Before the throne of God in glory! And therefore, a faultlessness infinitely perfect, a glory and a blessedness unchangeable and everlasting, and boundless as the perfection of God! G. B. C.

6. The everlasting gospel.** It is called “the gospel of his grace,” because it flows from God’s free love; “the gospel of the kingdom,” as it treats of the kingdom of grace and of glory; “the gospel of Christ,” because he is the author and subject of it; “the gospel of peace and salvation,” as it promotes our present comfort, and leads to eternal nal glory; “the glorious gospel,” as in it the glorious perfections of Jehovah are displayed; “the everlasting gospel,” as it was designed from eternity, is permanent in time, and the effects of it are eternal. Buck.

12. We can not be useless while we are doing and suffering God’s will, whatever it may be found to be. And we can always do that. If we are bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, we are not useless. And we can always do that. If we are increasing in the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, we are not useless. And we can always do that. While we pray we can not be useless. And we can always do that. God will always find us a work to do, a niche to fill, a place to serve, nay, even a soul to save, when it is his will, and not ours, that we desire to do; and if it please him that we sit still for the rest of our lives, doing nothing else but waiting on him, and waiting for him, why should we complain? Here is the patience of the saints. A. W. T.

13. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; blessed from henceforth; blessed from the moment of their death, blessed yet more as the end of all things draws near. Then shall the condition of repose be exchanged for a condition of glory; the unclothed soul for the soul clothed upon with that spiritual, that resurrection body, which Paul describes as its house from heaven. For action, for those blessed works of unwearied ministration, for which God, we doubt not, destines his saints in the ages of an eternal existence, the soul will need the presence of that body which shall be restored to it at the resurrection of the just. For rest, for repose after the storms of life, for thankful reminiscence, adoring praise, and glorious anticipation, the soul divested of the body will suffice: Verily I say unto thee, To-day shall thou be with me in paradise. Blessed, from henceforth, are the dead which die in the Lord: Even so, saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors.

And their works follow with them. Not one act honestly done for Christ—done in humility, done in sincerity, done in earnestness, done in unselfishness—shall fail or be forgotten when the joyful summons shall be heard at evening, Call the laborers and give them their hire. It is not for man to anticipate the reward of his deeds on earth: he knows that the very best of them needs itself to be forgiven, needs to be washed in tears of repentance and sanctified through a more availing blood. This is well. Nevertheless the word of God standeth sure. They shall rest from their labors: and their works follow with them. V.

The Condition of Souls between Death and the Resurrection.—That this state will be something other than that which follows the final judgment is evident. The work of redemption will not be complete till death is swallowed up in victory, and the resurrected bodies of the saints rehabilitate their waiting spirits and both are glorified together. Neither will any soul in the future life be fully conscious of the measure of its desert till the influence which survives as all has borne its fruit in time; nor the glory of Christ in his mediatorial work be complete till all enemies are put under his feet. Moreover, it is clearly intimated of that glorious array of faithful souls, illustrious patriarchs, martyrs, and men of renown mentioned in the eleventh of Hebrews, that they have not yet attained all that they sought; and that one believing age is not to be per-

fected, except in connection with every other, in that glorious consummation at the end of the world, after which will come the icons in which God will show “the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”