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with death, whereby pestilence may be intended; 4thly, with the beasts of the earth. Each of these seems to admit of a distinct and appropriate signification. 1st. The sword is the emblem of war and persecution, killing the body. 2d. Hunger may denote spiritual famine, even greater than that of the preceding seal. 3d. Death or pestilence may import the pestilence of error and idolatry slaying the soul. 4th. The beasts of the earth may signify those swarms of ravening wolves in sheep's clothing, who were let loose by the papal power, the various orders of monks, especially the Dominicans, the great actors in the bloody scenes of the Inquisition, and afterwards the Jesuits. The whole description is applicable to the papal power, in the ages which intervened between the establishment of that dreadful tribunal, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantz. I apprehend also, that it is only applicable to the papal power, for it is not given to any secular princes to destroy with the literal pestilence. This is a weapon which belongs to God only. Therefore the pestilence or death of this seal is symbolical, signifying that deadly poison of error slaying the soul, and all history testifies that the papacy did send forth this pestilence.

THE FIFTH SEAL.

"I saw under the altar the souls of them that "were slain for the word of God, and for the testi66 mony which they held; and they cried with a loud

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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

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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, and their "brethren that should be killed, as they were, "should be fulfilled."*

The language and imagery of this seal, appear to be of a mixed character. The Apostle sees the souls of the slain martyrs of Jesus lying under the altar of burnt offerings, crying for vengeance against their persecutors. This imagery is at once literal and symbolical. The souls of the slain saints are a real object which we are not permitted (in the primary sense of the vision) to symbolize. But the place under the altar where they lie is evidently a symbol. It denotes that place under the earth where the saints bow the knee to Jesus,† or, in other words, that compartment in Hades where dwell the spirits of the just. The whole of this imagery is explanatory of the nature of the slaughter perpetrated under the former seals, and particularly the fourth; and it shows that the church of Christ was the peculiar object, against which Death and Hades in that seal had directed their dreadful weapons of destruction. It therefore confirms the application of that seal, and all the prior ones, to the history of the Church, and strengthens the arguments by which I have endeavoured to prove that they have no relation to the secular affairs of the Roman empire.

* Rev. vi. 9-11.

† Philip. ii. 10.

The foregoing imagery displays to us, in the next place, the consequences of the persecutions under the former seals. It seems descriptive of the aspect of the Church immediately before the dawn of the Reformation. About the commencement of the fifteenth century, history represents the Roman Pontiffs as having slumbered in a state of perfect tranquillity, entirely unconscious of the storm that was approaching. The Albigenses and Waldenses had been almost extirpated. The feeble remnants of these intrepid witnesses for the Gospel of Jesus Christ were reduced to total silence; and the Roman See appeared to reign in undisturbed and uncontrollable sovereignty over the Christian world. To such a state of things the hierogly

* Mosheim, Cent. XVI. Hist. of Reformation, chap. i. Milner's Hist. of the Church, Cent. XVI. chap. i. Fleming, in his Discourse on the rise and fall of papacy, p. 42, gives the following account of the state of the Church at the end of the fifteenth century.-" Comenius tells us, that about the year 1467, the Waldenses in Austria and Moravia had complied so far as to dissemble their religion and turn to popery, in profession and outward compliance. The Taborites, upon their refusing to do so were so destroyed, that it was much that seventy of them could get together to consult about continuing their church, and finding some qualified person to be their minister, for they had none left. These Taborites (called also Speculani from their lurking in dens and caves) sent out four men to travel; one through Greece and the East-another to Russia and the North-a third to Thrace and Bulgaria-and a fourth to Asia, Palestine and Egypt. These messengers returned to their brethren with this sorrowful news, that they found no Church of Christ that was pure and free from the grossest errors, superstition and idolatry. This was in the year 1498, and when they sent two of their number two years after

phical representation with which the seal opens seems appropriately to belong. The true Church having as it were vanished and been extirpated from the earth, the prophetic scene is transferred or shifted to Hades. There the mystic vision offers to the view of the apostle John, the souls of the slain martyrs as being at that time the most prominent object; all, as it were, that remained visible to his eyes of the Church of Christ. The whole scene bore the stillness of death, interrupted only by the loud cries of the slaughtered saints.

To these slain witnesses white robes were given, which are emblematical of innocence, purity, and justification, through Christ. They were told also

wards, Luke Prage and Thomas German, into Italy, France and other places, to see if there were any of the old Waldenses left; they returned with the melancholy news, that they neither could find nor hear of any remaining, only they were informed of the martyrdom of Savanarolla (who suffered in the year 1498), and they were told of some few remains of the Piemontois that were scattered and hid among the Alps, but no one knew where. A few years after this, even the few remains of the Taborites were found out and persecuted, hardly any escaping; so that A. C. 1510, six suffered together publicly, and the year following, that famous martyr, Andreas Paliwka, who, I think, was the last of that period; from whose death, in the end of the year 1511 or beginning of 1512, to the dawning of the Reformation, by the first preaching of Carolstadius and Zuinglius, (who appeared at least a year before Luther, as Hottinger and others tell us,) there was only about three years and a half, which answers as near as can be to the three days and a half of the unburied state of the witnesses." In the above quotation I have somewhat abridged the style of Dr. Fleming. It will be seen afterwards, also, that I differ from his view of the death of the witnesses.

to rest yet a little season, till their fellow-servants also and their brethren, which should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. Then shall their blood be avenged; and then shall they receive the crown of glory. This clause I however conceive to be also capable of a symbolical interpretation. The white robes given to these saints may be an emblem of that improved condition of the Church on earth, which was the consequence of the Reformation, when the protestants in a considerable part of Europe obtained not only a complete toleration, but were acknowledged as a religious body; and in England, Scotland, and other countries, gained even a more signal victory over the Romish Church. But yet it is intimated that this state, however improved, was one of hope and expectation, rather than of joy. The cause of the Church was yet unavenged. The promises of her future glory remained unaccomplished, and it was therefore necessary that the servants of God should arm themselves with the faith and patience of the saints, during the remaining period of trial allotted to them before the triumphant reign of their Lord. The second part of this seal thus explained seems to fill up the interval between the Reformation and the Sixth Seal and Seventh Trumpet, when the cries of the martyred saints are completely answered, and the overwhelming judgments of God are poured forth on their enemies.*

* The learned Vitringa gives an explanation of this seal very similar to the above.

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