Pharaoh who in his hardheartedness made himself a type of all obstinate rebels :—“ Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more. . . . And Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more."

"Clothed in pure and white linen "-in the Revised Version: "Arrayed with precious stone, pure and bright."— This latter translation, strange to my unlearned ears, set me to search whether I could find in the Authorized Version any other instance of an angel being described in so many words, and beyond question as clad in linen: I have failed to find one, and though this may merely prove my ignorance it suggests a thought.

In the Prophecy of Ezekiel (xxviii. 13, &c.) the King of Tyrus is twice designated by the word cherub, and in the same passage we read concerning him: "Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold." Robed in these or in such as these, including gold ("girded with golden girdles"), it may haply be that these seven angels came forth; themselves and their vestments alike in the flawless perfection of direct Divine workmanship, upright, unimpaired, as at the beginning. Even so was it with the first Tables of the Law: "The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables."

If thus we may deem of elect Angels, it leaves linen for the appropriate vestment of redeemed men. Christ wears it, for He is not ashamed to call us brethren; and after Him and with Him all saints wear it. Linen differs essentially from jewels inasmuch as it is a manufacture, needing human agency whereby to be steeped and bleached and wrought finely, and to have harshnesses and coarsenesses discarded from the web as this grows into beauty. God indeed provides the flax, the skill, the patience, and all else that comes into requisition; but still man it is who must sow and reap, steep and bleach, weave and finish that fine linen which is the righteousness of saints.

If Angels who inherit no weak points need girding for their work; how much more man who is made up of weak points, and who has for incitement to gird himself and run Christ's All-Holy Example: "Righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins." Truth is man's girdle, "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth"; gold the Angels': by faith man apprehends and

cleaves to truth, and comparing faith with gold, St. Peter awards the preference to faith: "The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire."

Now the gold of that land we know is good, while what it may signify we know not; and well we know that man in his mortality ranks lower than angels. Yet weighing the preciousness of his allotted girdle here below, he may well lift up his heart unto the Lord, and thanking God take courage: "For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle."

7. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, Who liveth for ever and ever.

"Wisdom is justified of all her children."

Every celestial creature subserves the Will of its Creator, approves His decree, executes His behest, forwards His work. So faithfully do the elect reproduce His Image, that to fall into their hands becomes a fearful thing to any to whom it is fearful to fall into His hands. Point after point in this awful Revelation presses home the conviction that, cost what it may, and to whom it may, God and His elect will in heaven be of one heart, and one mind, and one will. Implicitly it has been so in time, explicitly it will be so in eternity.

Man's perversity has made gold the occasion and instrument of so much sin, that no wonder it one day reappears as vials full of Divine wrath. Happy will he be at the last who with St. Peter has had neither silver nor gold, with St. Paul has coveted no man's gold; he miserable who made gold his hope, or against whom hire fraudulently kept back crieth.

From sordid self-ruin, Good Lord, deliver us.

Seven vials hold Thy wrath: but what can hold
Thy mercy save Thine own Infinitude
Boundlessly overflowing with all good,
All lovingkindness, all delights untold?
Thy Love, of each created love the mould;
Thyself, of all the empty plenitude;

Heard of at Ephrata, found in the Wood,
For ever One, the Same, and Manifold.
Lord, give us grace to tremble with that dove
Which Ark-bound winged its solitary way
And overpast the Deluge in a day,

Whom Noah's hand pulled in and comforted:
For we who much more hang upon Thy Love
Behold its shadow in the deed he did.

8. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of

God, and from His power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

When the Mosaic Tabernacle was finished and set up, "Then a Cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the Cloud abode thereon, and the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle." So likewise at the Dedication of Solomon's Temple: "It came to pass, when the priests were come out of the Holy Place, that the Cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the Cloud for the Glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord."

If these two historical incidents may be viewed as prefiguring this of which we read in St. John's vision: "The Temple was filled with smoke from the Glory of God, and from His power; and no man was able to enter into the Temple. . . .": then perhaps without rashness I may here think to discern a token of Christ being pleased in His own good time to fulfil and end His Mediatorial Kingdom, His perpetual Intercession. For not only (ver. 5) has "the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony" been opened, without the Ark of the Testament (so far as is stated) becoming visible; but that "no man should be able to enter into the Temple suggests that Christ Himself has ceased or is nigh ceasing to appear in the Presence of God for incorrigible offenders; so that thenceforward, to quote St. Paul's phrase, God (as God) wills to be All in All.

That such a termination impends seems certain. That the point has been reached in St. John's Revelation appears conjecturable when, as now by looking forward, we mark one unbroken course of punitive judgments untempered by any answering sign of repentance. Of this we have an appalling type in the history of Joshua's war against the accursed nations: "It was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them. utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them." Yet first doubtless they had hardened themselves, according to the inspired Proverb: "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

"A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said

he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down."

"Every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under His feet. But when He saith, all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”

"And the Temple was filled with smoke. If this "Smoke" corresponds with the Ineffable Cloud of the Divine. Presence, then we surmise here an intimation of the Double Procession of God the Holy Spirit, "Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son": inasmuch as the Smoke proceeded from "the Glory of God" and from "His Power."

And one step further. If simultaneously with a plenary Effusion of the Holy Spirit the day of grace will terminate, we are thus reminded of that most awful declaration : "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."

Thank God, that when the Seven Plagues are over, the Temple shall be reopened to man: where Christ is, there shall also His servant be. "When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death: Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers."

CHAPTER XVI.

1. And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

"Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send Mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come."

Seven offences had not sufficed to draw down this sevenfold judgment, nay, nor seventy times seven, had man but turned and said, I repent. For certainly God All-Holy proposeth not to any a higher standard than His own (see St. Matt. xviii. 21, 22).

Nor may I so frame my thoughts as to represent God as like the forgiving man: it is the forgiving man who faintly, feebly, inadequately, amid flaws and shortcomings is in his degree like God. The antitype determines the type, not this that. If such a distinction might seem purposeless, I come to perceive its purpose when (for instance) Divine Truths having first been confounded with heathen myths are interpreted as on a par with them; as if all alike symbolized various processes, phases, of nature. It is pious to contemplate autumn, winter, spring, summer, as emblematical of our dear Lord's death, burial, resurrection, ascended glory; but to treat these as if they were a parable of those, is to deny the faith.

2. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.