Revelation 7

While duration rolls away its ages, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—the Lamb on the throne! And for us, saved by the blood, cheered by the presence, consoled by the love, blessed with the gifts, and enlightened with the glory of Jesus, is not such a heaven enough? “Worthy,” cry the mingled voices of saints and angels, “worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” “Worthy,” again cry his redeemed, in a song which angels may not sing, but in which, with holy ecstasy, we will join, “worthy art thou; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.” N. W. T.—We will embalm his name in our hearts. We will embalm it by a life savoring of his loveliness. We will embalm it by our praise, which shall be prolonged while we have breath, and sink away at last upon our dying lips. And we will embalm it among the songs of the upper world. While gratitude and truth remain, the name and the love of Jesus shall never be forgotten. It shall be the sweetest part of our heaven to see him on the throne—to see him bending with infinite delight over his beloved Church, to hear that shout of praise from all the redeemed, from all the angels, from all the holy creation. It shall be our heaven to bow with them and join the song. Griffin.

10. The four-and-twenty presbyters whose thrones compass the throne of God and of the Lamb represent the entire host of the redeemed. Twenty-four are selected for the whole, perhaps, because there were twenty-four courses of priests; and, under the present dispensation, all believers are priests and kings. G. B.

12-14. Everything we hear in that world is the voice of praise and thanksgiving—the universal burst of gratitude and wonder and love in songs of joy and transport, filling all its arches and making all its pillars tremble. What meethess, then, for heaven can he have who has no taste for the service and worship of God on earth? Alas! he knows not the meaning of the eternal song: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” Not a single note in that song can he sing, not a single sentiment can he adopt, not a single ecstasy can he feel. Love, love only, produces all this; and love he hath not. On him, heaven were a gift bestowed in vain. N. W. T.

6:1 AND I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 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 also came black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together: and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sit-

17 teth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

9. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

13. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

8:1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

Ir the mere conception of the reunion of good men, in a future state, infused a momentary rapture into the mind of Tully, what may we be expected to feel who are assured of such an event by the true sayings of God? How should we rejoice in the prospect—the certainty rather—of spending a blissful eternity with those whom we loved on earth, of seeing them emerge from the ruins of the tomb and the deeper ruins of the fall, not only uninjured, but refined and perfected, “with every tear wiped from their eyes,” standing before the throne of God and the Lamb in white robes and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, Salvation to God that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever! What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils of combat, and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amid the splendors and fruitions of the beatific vision! To that state all the pious on earth are tending: and if there is a law from whose operations none are exempt, which irresistibly conveys their bodies to darkness and to dust, there is another not less certain or less powerful which conducts their spirits to the abodes of bliss, to the bosom of their Father and their God. The wheels of nature are not made to roll backward; everything presses on toward eternity; from the birth of time an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men toward that interminable ocean. Meanwhile heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and divine, leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but the objects and the slaves of concupiscence; while everything which grace has prepared and beautified shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world to adorn that eternal city which hath no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. R. Hall.

The Lamb, alone found worthy, opens, one after another, the seals of the closed book or roll, so that when they are all opened, it may be unrolled and read. One point should be urged, which is very commonly passed over: viz., that the roll is never during the prophecy actually opened, nor is any part of it read. The openings of its successive seals are but the successive preparations for its contents to be disclosed: and as each is opened, a new class of preparations is seen in prophetic vision. When the seventh is loosed, and all is ready for the unfolding and reading, there is a symbolic silence, and a new series of visions begins. A.

The opening of each separate seal is not the opening of a portion of the roll, but a necessary preliminary to the opening of the entire roll. What the prophet sees, as each particular seal is broken, is not something in the roll itself, but something which occurs on the stage of vision at the moment when that step is taken toward the unfolding of God’s counsels. In the case of the first four seals, the act of breaking is followed by a loud utterance from one of the four living beings which represent the universe of animated creation. The vision which is thus introduced affects creation in some one of its great departments. The utterance itself consists of the single word, Come; not, as the ordinary reading gives it, Come and see. The latter would have been addressed to the prophet: the former is more probably addressed to the Lamb of God, whose coming in glory is the desire and expectation of the creation, and is in some definite manner promoted and advanced by that which the accompanying vision denotes. V.

Ch. 6. The roll of divine purpose, as unfolded in seven portions, seal by seal, produces the following results: 1. A figure of conquest on a white horse, white being the color of triumph (v. 2). 2. A figure of civil war on a red horse, taking away peace from the earth (v. 4). 3. A figure of death or scarcity on a black horse, black being a sign of mourning (vs. 5, 6). 4. A figure of devastation; death riding on a livid horse, with hades like a hearse, or moving, yawning grave following after (v. 8). This devastation proceeds under the four forms mentioned by the old prophets, war, famine, pestilence, and the ravages of wild beasts (compare Ezek. 14:21). These four judgments being directed against life on the earth, are successively announced by the four zea. Evidently they coincide with “the beginning of sorrows” foretold by our Saviour in his great prophecy or eschatological discourse, delivered on the Mount of Olives three days before his death. 5. The martyrs are to be avenged, but not yet. The Lord had said, in the discourse to which we have just referred, “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” When the fifth seal was broken John saw the souls of the martyrs, like the life blood of ancient sacrifices, poured out at the bottom of the altar. They cried, as once the blood of Abel cried to God from the ground; and they were clothed with favor, and bidden to rest awhile till the cup of persecution was full (vs. 9-11). 6. Universal panic. A great earthquake denotes the convulsion of society. Portents in the sky announce revolution and disaster (vs. 12-14). It is supposed by the terrified dwellers on the earth to be the great day of the wrath of the Lamb (vs. 15-17). D. F.—At the opening of the sixth seal we have reproduced the well-known imagery of our Lord’s discourse and of the Old Testament prophets, describing the very eve and threshold, so to speak, of the day of the Lord: the portents which should usher in his coming, but not that coming itself. For the revelation of this, the time is not yet. First (ch. 7) his elect must be gathered out of the four winds, the complete number sealed before the judgments invoked by the martyred souls descend on the earth, the sea, the trees. The Seer must be vouchsafed a vision of the great multitude whom none can number, in everlasting glory. The day of the Lord’s coming is gone by, and the vision reaches forward beyond it into the blissful eternity. Why? Because then, and not till then, shall the seventh seal, which looses the roll of God’s eternal purposes, be opened, and the book read to the adoring Church in glory. Then (8:1) we have the last seal opened, and the half-hour’s silence—the “beginning,” as Victorinus sublimely says, “of eternal rest.”

Thus far the vision of the seals necessarily reached onward for its completion. But there is much more to be revealed. God’s judgments on the earth and its inhabitants are the subject of the next series of visions. The prayers of the martyred saints had invoked them. Then follow the seven trumpet-blowing angels. A.

6. Four beasts.** The zoa, living creatures, are the heavenly representatives of all created life worshiping before the throne in heaven. T.

In verse 8, for “Hell,” substitute “Hades”; Hell is the place of punishment, as now understood, whereas the abode of the departed is here meant. A.—Hades is described here as the hearse of death, following to receive those whom death strikes down. Thus the first four visions have given us the various images of conquest, of civil war, of scarcity, and of mortality. Each of these is presented to the eye of a suffering and buffeted church, as one of those all things which are in the hands of God, and which are working together for eventual good to the cause of Christ on earth.

9. Bleeding souls** at the foot of the altar, as symbols in vision, are no incongruity. The Lamb as it was slain, is no incongruity. In vision everything assumes form and shape, as if it were material. M. S. 10. The righteous blood shed upon the earth, in the cause of Christ, is, if rightly understood, a sign, not of the discomfiture of his truth, but of the certainty of his coming to judgment. So Paul uses it (2 Thes. 1:4-10). And the opening of the sixth seal is followed by signs of this very result. We recognize in this passage much of the imagery of the Old Testament prophets.

9. Beneath the altar.** We have not yet had an altar described as part of the scene; but the transition to the imagery of the earthly temple, with its great altar of burnt-offering standing in front of the building, is easily and naturally made. The word here used for the souls of the martyred saints is that which expresses their natural life rather than their spiritual: their spirits are in the Paradise of the blessed. 10. Dost thou not judge and avenge our blood. It is not that saints in Paradise desire vengeance: it is the voice of their blood crying from the ground, and rising into the ears of a righteous Judge who can not suffer iniquity and cruelty to triumph as now for ever.

12. Whatever secondary fulfillments this opening of the sixth seal may have found in history—as in the fall of the Roman Empire, or in the destruction of idolatry, or in the demolition of any great persecuting and oppressing power in any age of the world—who does not feel as he listens to it that it has one, and can have but one, full and exhaustive accomplishment in the events which shall precede and usher in the second coming of our Lord himself for judgment? The key to its meaning is to be found, in every particular, in our Saviour’s great prophecy, and delivered in answer to the question of his disciples (Mat. 24). This 6th chapter, closing with the result of the opening of the sixth seal, stops just short of this actual coming of the Son of man. It is the ancient belief that the Book of Revelation was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, under Domitian, not under Nero. If this be so, remark that John, and he who taught and inspired John with the vision of truth, did not consider the prophecy of our Lord contained in the chapter referred to, to be completed and done with, as many would now tell us, when Jerusalem fell. The ruin of Jerusalem, and of the Mosaic and Levitical institutions with it, was a fulfillment, but not the fulfillment, of our Saviour’s words. Those words are manifold in their accomplishment. Wherever there is a church in a world; wherever there is a power of unbelief, ungodliness, and violence, throwing itself upon Christ’s faith and people, and seeking to overbear and to destroy: whether it be the power of Jewish bigotry and fanaticism, as in the days of the first disciples; or of pagan Rome, with its idolatries and its cruelties, as in the days of John and of the Revelation; or of papal Rome, with its lying wonders and its anti-Christian assumptions, in ages later still; or of open and rampant atheism, as in the days of the first French Revolution; or of a subtler and more insidious infidelity, like that which is threatening now to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect—wherever and whatever this power be, then, in each successive century, the words of Christ to his first disciples adapt themselves afresh to the circumstances of his struggling servants; warn them of danger, exhort them to patience, arouse them to hope, assure them of victory; tell of a near end, for the individual and for the generation; tell also of a far end, not for ever to be postponed, for time itself and for the world; predict a destruction which shall befall each enemy of the truth, and predict a destruction which shall befall the enemy himself whom each in turn has represented and served; explain the meaning of tribulation, show whence it comes, and point to its swallowing up in glory; reveal the moving hand above, and disclose, from behind the cloud which conceals it, the clear, definite purpose and the unchanging, loving will. Thus understood, each separate downfall of evil becomes a prophecy of the next and of the last; and the partial fulfillment of our Lord’s words in the destruction of Jerusalem, or of John’s words in the downfall of idolatry and the dismemberment of Rome, becomes itself in turn a new warrant for the Church’s expectation of the second advent and of the day of judgment. V.

16. The wrath of the Lamb.** The word, even in a context of vengeance and woe, still whispers mercy, grace, and peace. Even on the judgment-throne it is rich with the tender memories of Gethsemane and Calvary; even amid the dread solemnities of Omnipotent anger it speaks of a scene more sublimely divine than all their terrors. It utters the chosen title of crucified innocence, of patience unmurmuring, of love self-sacrificing. W.

A. B.—The wrath in God is as much more intensely revealed in the incarnate life and ministry of Christ, as the love is, or the patience, or any other character of God. Since he is the Lamb, in other words, the most emphatic and appalling of all epithets will have its place, viz., the wrath of the Lamb. Our Christ must be the real king—Messiah—and no mere victim; he must govern, have his indignations, take the regal way in his salvation. His goodness must have fire and fiber enough to make it divine. His character is weak, unkindly, unchristly, and it can not be more, till the wrath is added to the patience of the Lamb. As he has come into the flesh to unfold God’s human sympathy and tenderness, so, to maintain what is only fit proportion, he must needs be clothed in the rigors of judicial majesty. He, then, is to be the judge, as he himself openly declares, and before his judgment-seat all mankind, including all his rejecters, shall be gathered. He will separate them to their fit award. He will say, “ye did it not to me.” He will speak the “depart.” And this is the wrath, and this the day of wrath! H. B.—If we with our bodily eyes were to see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and were to hear that trumpet call, at which the dead shall arise, can we, can our consciences tell us what would be our feelings at that sight and sound? Should we be filled with fear to our inmost souls, as if certain death were coming upon us, or should we look up to him whom we beheld amid the blessed company of his saints and angels, as to one whom we had long known, long loved, long desired to see, so that, love casting out fear, we should be full of joy amid all the terrors of the perishing world, because our Saviour and Redeemer was come, and our trial was over, and our perfect rest and happiness was at hand? Should we say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us”? or should we say, rather, “Lo, this is our God! we have waited for him, and he will save us”? T. A.

17. If there were no other argument for a future life, sin would furnish one, never to be refuted. We need descend into no depths of abstreme reasoning here—the simplest notions are conclusive enough. There is a cause standing over between the impartial Judge and ourselves; and a time for the hearing and decision of it must certainly come. If indefinitely delayed and forgotten, all loyal orders must harbor dissatisfaction and fear; while all who have actually been called to account and punished, will protest against the partiality. If conscience be but awake, the transgressor, as he stands at the verge of the present life, may thus properly decide upon his own fate. “I have sinned and perverted that which was right. Let me hide myself in the darkness of the grave! No; for God’s ministers, and all beings—good and evil—shall demand me at the hands of death, and forbid I should be forgotten. The dust may not screen me—the clods may not cover me. Corruption may not say I am lost and gone. The highest tribunal is waiting my appearance; and, unless I am made there to stand, the honor of all government is blasted—the perfections of God impugned. True, I am insignificant; but yet am party in a cause in which the wisdom and purity and power of the eternal God are in question.” I. T.—God regulates the movements of conscience, and God allows of no apology for sin. He can forgive it; he can forget it; he can blot it out as a cloud and a thick cloud; he can bury it in the depths of the sea; he can carry it away, so that no, more mention shall be made of it; but he never, no, never can excuse it. And the man who rejects Christ now, and treats him with scorn, and, instead of forsaking his sins, extenuates and apologizes for them, may be sure, that if not before, he will be startled by the trumpet peal of judgment; and then all his sophistry will leave him, and all his apologies will vanish, and as the great white throne is set, and the Judge descends, there will be a cry of agony, “This is Jesus whom I crucified; hide me from the presence of the Lamb.” E. M.—If no immortal punishments were awaiting us, still the mere fact of being alienated from Christ, the gentle and the loving, who gave himself up to death for us, and suffered everything to rescue us from that punishment, and reconcile us, who were enemies by our transgressions, to his Father—this is greater than any punishment, and sufficient to arouse our souls, and induce us to be continually watchful. Chrys.

Ch. 7. Six seals have been broken; and the breaking of each has been followed by a certain sign witnessed on the stage of vision. It has been shown how each one of the great classes of human suffering is in reality under the control of God, and how each one is premonitory of and preparatory for the return of Christ in glory. The cry of creation which introduces each is the brief and significant Come, addressed to the Lamb that was slain, and expressing that earnest expectation of the creature itself, which is waiting, ever waiting, for the manifestation of the sons of God. There has been seen the white horse of conquest, and the red horse of discord, and the black horse of scarcity, and the pale horse of mortality; there has been seen, as the fifth seal was broken, the vivid image of Christian martyrdom; and at the opening of the sixth, the fearful representation of those last terrors which shall instantly precede the second advent of the Son of man. We were prepared therefore to expect the immediate opening of the seventh and last seal, and with it the arrival of the consummation of all things. But a whole chapter intervenes. Might it not be apprehended that amid convulsions so terrific as those described under the opening of the sixth seal the Church itself might founder? Who shall secure Christ’s servants against being involved in that catastrophe? Such is the misgiving to which the particular revelation now before us would minister.

1. The winds are symbols of judgment, and the four winds indicate the universality of that judgment. The angels are to be its executioners, so described in the verse which follows. But at present they are seen restraining the winds. 3. Until we have sealed. One alone actually impresses the seal: the rest concur and assist by restraining the operation of judgment until the sealing is accomplished. The image of the sealing is derived from the book of the prophet Ezekiel (9:2-6). There, too, are found the executioners of vengeance, in contrast with the one sealer.

And can we doubt, after proceeding thus far, what is the precise thing designated by the sealing? We have seen God’s judgments abroad in the earth; we have seen the train and procession of executioners starting with the sword of Roman conquest, and ending with the prognostications of the instantly impending advent. And we have traced the very same line of prediction through our Lord’s own prophecy of the things that should come, as written in the 24th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. We have seen there also the very same order and sequence; wars and rumors of wars; nation rising against nation; famines, pestilences, then martyrdoms; then, after those tribulations, the sun darkened and the moon withdrawing her light, and the sign of the Son of man already seen in heaven. He is, as it were, in act to descend. The sixth seal is opened, the seventh is trembling for its breaking. At that point the one prophecy says, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of final, devastating, desolating judgment; and I saw another angel rising from the east, and bidding them wait till he should have sealed, for distinction and preservation, the servants of his God and theirs; and the other prophecy says, The Son of man shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. What can be more precise, to the very letter, to the very end, than the coincidence of the two prophecies? What more evident, to one who will judge of Scripture by Scripture and ask the Holy Spirit who inspired both to interpret to him each by each, than that the sealed of the one are the elect of the other, and that the loving purpose and the preserving care in the one and in the other is the same, not less in the occasion of its exercise than in the nature of its operation? V.

9. The Scriptures do not intimate that in the ultimate winding up of things the aggregate of God’s people will be small. The Bible seeks to excite no tears, no lamentations, because so few will join in the chorus of redemption. It gives no intimation that the Father’s house will lack occupants, or that any of its apartments will stand vacant. The whole tone of the Bible, when it speaks of the final issue of time—the final results of all this world’s history—is one of jubilee and triumph, never of sorrow and despondency. There is no intimation that God will make a sad failure out of this enterprise of earth, or that he will lack hearts and voices redeemed from earth to praise him. There will be no thinness in the ranks, no poverty of hearts or voices, when all his people, the portion of the Lord, shall be gathered in. J. D.—And when we look at the numbers without number of the redeemed, and at the wonderful revelation of the glory of God, of his mingled justice and mercy, which is made, and shall be for ever, in every one of these, we see a result worthy of this strange scene of six thousand years, of its central figure, the cross of Christ, and of its closing scenes, the final conflagration, and the general judgment. M. H.

10-12. This we are told they do. They worship. They satisfy, it would seem, in perfection, that mysterious instinct of devotion—that inborn craving to look upward and adore, which, let false philosophy say what it will, proves the most benighted idolater to be a man, and not a brute—a spirit, and not a merely natural thing. They have worshiped, and so are blest. They have hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and now they are filled. They have longed for, toiled for, it may be died for, the true, the beautiful, and the good; and now they can gaze upward at the perfect reality of that which they saw on earth, only as in a glass darkly, dimly, and afar; and can contemplate the utterly free, the utterly beautiful, and the utterly good in the character of God and the face of Jesus Christ. They entered while on earth into the mystery and glory of self-sacrifice; and now they find their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and rejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole universe, even the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. C. K. —Every image which denotes the purest joy is introduced into this description of the ultimate blessedness of the redeemed. They are clad in white, the wedding garments of a great festivity. Music is the natural utterance of their delight. Nor is this a strained and artificial expression. It is full-toned chorus; it is hearty praise; it is jubilant adoration. And as that doxology of the Redeemer waxes louder and fuller, the very pillars and arches of heaven are tremulous with joy. Divested of all that is tropical and symbolical in form, the one idea conveyed to us is, that the climacteric of redemption is full, irrepressible, eternal joy. A religion which falls short of positive and unfailing pleasure, as the ultimate law of life, can not meet the necessities of humanity. Redemption is an advance on creation. It more than regains what was lost, more than restores what was original. The burden of that heavenly song is salvation, blessing, and thanksgiving. The second Paradise is better than Eden. The joy of man redeemed, restored, and perfected, is greater than that of man in the glory of his innocence. W. A.

What a brave encouragement is it for one that is come for grace to the throne of grace, to see so great a number already there on their seats, in their robes, with their palms in their hands and their crowns upon their heads, singing of salvation to God and the Lamb! And I say again—and speak now to the dejected—methinks it would be strange, oh, thou that art so afraid that the greatness of thy sins will be a bar unto thee, if among all this great number of pipers and harpers that are got to glory, thou canst not espy one that, when here, was as vile a sinner as thyself. Lock, man; they are there for thee to view them, and for thee to take encouragement to hope, when thou shalt consider what grace and mercy have done for them. Behold, tempted soul; dost thou not yet see what a throne of grace here is, and what multitudes are already arrived thither, to give thanks unto his name that sits thereon, and to the Lamb for ever and ever? And wilt thou hang thy harp upon the willows, and go drooping up and down the world, as if there was no God, no grace, no throne of grace, to apply thyself unto for mercy and grace to help in time of need? Hark; dost thou not hear them what they say? “Worthy,” say they, “is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.” And this is written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope; and that the drooping ones might come boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Bun.

11. Angels welcome them as partakers of their joy, and delight in their happiness. When man was created, “these morning stars sang together; these sons of God shouted for joy.” When he was redeemed, their bright hosts flew to earth, and sang, “Glory to God in the highest.” When a sinner repents, there is joy in the presence of the angels; and in the midst of all the sorrows and trials and temptations here below, they are ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. With warmth of affection will these holy beings welcome us to their blissful society above! With what transport will they lead us up to the throne of God and the Lamb, and point us to the surrounding glories of our eternal abode; with what joy will they relate, and we hear, the account of their embassies of love to us, while we were here training for heaven! And while we celebrate the grace that brought us through, and dwell on the wonders of redeeming love, though they sing not our song, yet with a voice as the sound of many waters and the voice of mighty thunderings, they will strike the chorus to our praises.

14-17. The description is highly figurative, but it conveys to us the clearest conception of unqualified good, and the total absence of all evil. There, and above all, sin shall be no more; there nothing that defiles shall enter. Every cause of sin will be removed: no enticing companions to seduce, nor carnal body to corrupt, nor deceitful heart to ensnare; no evil world to tempt, no Satan to deceive, no cessation of divine influence on the soul. All sufferings are forgotten, or remembered only to bless God, who counted them worthy to suffer for his name. From these hills of salvation, they shall look back on their passage through this troubled life, and—the winds and waves having ceased—shall enjoy the everlasting calm of heaven. Everything is done by infinite wisdom and goodness to banish the very elements of evil, to dispel the slightest shade of misery. With his own hand of mercy, their Father, God, hath wiped away all tears from their eyes. N. W. T.

17. The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne, appearing still as the Lamb of Calvary—for the scenes of that great sacrifice have left their enduring impression on all the life and joy of heaven—