be found very important in harmonizing the whole scheme of interpretation contained in this work, and the subject will be treated at greater length, in a subsequent chapter.

P

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF THE APOCALYPSE.

"AND I looked, and lo a Lamb stood on the "Mount Sion, and with him an hundred and 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 living creatures 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 first-fruits "unto God and to the Lamb; and in their "mouth was found no guile, for they are without "fault before the throne of God."

In the interpretation of this passage, I am compelled to differ from most expositors of the Apocalypse. Bishop Newton and Mr. Faber both apply the vision of the Lamb with the one hundred and forty-four thousand, to the state of the true spiritual Church during the reign of the Beast.

"After this melancholy account of the rise and reign of the Beast, the spirit of prophecy delineates, by way of opposition, the state of the true Church during the same period, its struggles and contests with the Beast, and the judgments of God upon its enemies."*

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By these one hundred and forty-four thousand, I understand peculiarly the depressed Church in the wilderness previous to the time of the Reformation."+

Believing that both the above writers have erred in their view of this vision, I remark, that their mistake (if it be one) is a natural consequence of their erroneous explanation of the sixth seal. They apply that seal, and the sealing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand, mentioned in the seventh chapter, to the revolution in the time of Constantine, and the peace of the Church which was consequential thereto. They, therefore, consider this mystical number of one hundred and forty-four thousand, as continuing to represent the true Church from the times of Constantine to the dawn of the millennium. Archdeacon Woodhouse has adopted the same explanation of this vision. In doing so, however, he certainly seems very inconsistent with himself. The learned Archdeacon,

we have seen, applies the earthquake of the sixth seal to the great revolution which precedes the establishment of the reign of the Messiah ; and he interprets the sealing of the one hundred

Bishop Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies, in loco. Faber's Dissertation on the 1260 years, chap. x. sect. 5.

and forty-four thousand, in the seventh chapter, to signify the preservation of the righteous in the great day of the Lord and yet he unaccountably supposes the one hundred and forty-four thousand in the fourteenth chapter, having the name of the Father, written on their foreheads, (which is the same as their being sealed with the seal of the living God,) to denote the true persecuted and suffering Christian Church, which, throughout the reign of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, refuses to worship the Image, and receive the mark of the Beast.

Now, it is evident, that if the sixth seal refer to the mighty revolution, which is to usher in the great day of the Lord; and if the sealing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand do not take place till the period of the sixth seal, then the vision of the fourteenth chapter, which exhibits them to us as already sealed, cannot relate to a time which is prior to the opening of the sixth seal, i. e. to the time when they were sealed. The contrary supposition includes in it a positive contradiction. It makes the one hundred and forty-four thousand to be sealed, and not sealed at one and the same time. Therefore, as I have followed Archdeacon Woodhouse in his interpretation of the great earthquake of the sixth seal, and of the sealing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand in the seventh chapter, I must also, in consistency with that interpretation, refer the vision of the Lamb with the one hundred and forty-four thousand on Mount Sion, to the period of the sixth seal, and of the

seventh trumpet and seven vials, which are synchronical with that seal.

In effect, the description given in the passage before us, of the state of these followers of the Lamb, does not at all agree with the condition of the Church during the reign of the Beast.

At that time the Church is symbolized by two witnesses clothed in sackcloth, the garb of mourning. She is also represented as being fled into a secret retreat in the wilderness, where she is concealed from the face of the serpent that seeks to destroy her. On the contrary, the one hundred and forty-four thousand, in this passage, stand upon Mount Sion, a station of the most conspicuous elevation, and the most opposite to a state of concealment in the wilderness which can well be imagined. The voices heard by the Apostle from heaven, like the noise of many waters, and of thunder, and the voice of harpers playing on their harps, are also the emblems of triumphant songs of thanksgiving, which it were quite incongruous to suppose applicable to the condition of the depressed Church in the wilderness, before the Reformation. There is mention made of voices in heaven, in three other passages of this mysterious book, but they are all indicative of the triumphs of the Church. The first place, in the order of chronology, is on the fall of Satan from heaven to the earth, and the victory of Michael;* the second is at the sounding of the seventh trumpet ;† the third is on the destruction of Babylon.‡ Now, to suppose the same * Rev. xiii. 10. + Rev. xi. 15. Rev. xix. 1, 6.