The Apocalypse Lectures on the Book of Revelation

By Joseph Augustus Seiss

Lecture 13

(Revelation 6:9-11)

THE CHARACTER OF THE FIFTH SEAL—INDICATES BLOODY PERSECUTION—THE TESTIMONY FOR WHICH MEN SHALL BE SLAIN IN THE PERIOD OF THIS SEAL—DISEMBODIED SOULS—THEIR LIVING CONSCIOUSNESS—THEIR PLACE BENEATH THE ALTAR—THEIR CRY TO CHRIST—THE ANSWER THEY RECEIVE—COMMENTS ON THEIR CASE TOUCHING THE CONSUMMATION.

Rev. 6:9-11. (Revised Text.) And when he opened the fifth seal I saw beneath the altar the souls of those that had been slain on account of the word of God, and on account of the testimony which they held fast: and they cried with a great voice, saying: Until when, thou Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood from them that dwell on the earth? And there was given to each of them a white robe, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a little time, until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, shall have been completed, who are about to be slain as also they themselves [had been].

It is hardly worth while to occupy attention with the diverse and contradictory interpretations that have been given of this. seal. Though all are more or less intermingled with some truth, the principles upon which the Apocalypse is to be construed, and which have been followed in this exposition, lead us, with directness and certainty, to conclusions which brush away, as only so much rubbish, the most that has been written on the subject.

Professor Stuart takes this fifth seal as a mere artistic prelude to certain very simple results. He refers to Nelson's address to his squadrons, on the eve of the engagement which yielded England her greatest naval victory, as an illustration, in real life, of what he supposes John to be attempting in poetic fancy, as a preparation for the victorious conclusion; only that the hosts here are imaginary, and their inspiration, by the cry of the slaughtered saints, merely a lively poetic conception.

But if the array is mere poetry, we would naturally suppose that the vengeance and the victory are ideal also; and so the whole Apocalypse is turned into artistic fiction; which is about all it is in the hands of this writer. With him it is a book everywhere full of wondrously grand beginnings, exordiums, and proemial marshallings of poetic images; but when he reduces the results to literal and solid prose, what crowds John's twenty-two eventful chapters, might be more clearly stated in twenty-two well-written lines. The least to be said of such exposition is, the less of it the better.

According to an older commentator, "the scope of this seal is not prophetically to point out new events, and to relate to a particular time." But this is exactly the opposite of the truth. If the text means anything, "new events" are just what it is intended prophetically to point out, and "a particular time" is precisely that to which it does relate. As certainly as the Apocalypse is the book of the consummation of God's providence with this present world, and as certainly as the action under these seven seals is the action of judgment upon faithless Christians, usurpers, and rebels, just so certainly does this fifth seal refer to a particular stage and phase in these judicial transactions, and to a class of events which only then come to their full development. As the throne is a judgment throne, and the whole administration proceeding from it is an administration of judgment, every seal that is broken must lay open a phase of judgment, in one direction or another. All the seals, thus far, have been judgment seals; and the two that follow are judgment seals; capable of being identified, as such, from the nature of the events attending them. The symmetry of the whole would therefore be interrupted, and an unaccountable break made in the distinctly connected series, if this fifth in the list were to be taken in any other acceptation. The four horsemen are judgment powers. The earthquake, and the terrific commotions in earth and sky, under the sixth seal, are directly linked with the presence of judgment. The seventh seal, with its seven trumpets and seven last plagues, is nothing but judgment from beginning to end. And whatever peculiarities may attend the breaking of the particular seal now before us, it can be nothing other than judgment also.

The manifestations under the breaking of this seal differ, in some respects, from the four preceding. There is here no expression from the Living ones. There are no horsemen or horses. And the burden of the description is exhibited in the results rather than in the processes. Still, everything turns out as belonging to the same general category of trial and suffering. Under the first seal we have the picture of moral conquest, by means of the arrow of truth, sped by the power of sorrowful judgment. Under the second, we have war, disorder, strife, and bloodshed. Under the third, we have famine and distressing scarcity. Under the fourth, we have the combined fruit of all these,—pestilence, death-plague, and the living world largely overrun with the regions of the dead. And, under this fifth seal, we have added, bloody persecution of those who hold and testify to the truth. The entire population of the earth, at that period, being alike rejected from the company of those accounted worthy to escape these evil times, is alike made to feel the stripes of judgment. The good as well as the bad suffer the hour of trial. And though there shall be multitudes then brought to the knowledge of the truth, they will all be such as had failed to improve their more favourable opportunities in the preceding days of Divine long-suffering and forbearance; and hence, by way of judgment for their previous folly, their piety, at this late hour, becomes a thing of sore cost. Having been unbelieving, worldly-minded, and hypocritical, when they might have walked with God without serious risk, they now find the way of salvation judicially become a way of torture and of death. Evil and depravity will hold the sovereignty and power in this world unto the last. And it would be strange if the bad passions, which then are to reach their most aggravated intensity, should not also develop particular violence in the direction from which the Church, in every age, has suffered more or less.

Hence, this fifth seal is the picture of Persecution and Martyrdom. As soon as it was opened, John saw souls of people "slain on account of the word of God, and on account of the testimony which they held fast." It sets before us the solemn fact, that people who will not give their hearts to God now, when once these judgment times set in, if they ever get to heaven at all, will be compelled to go there through fire and blood.

There are no voices of command from heaven under this seal, and no messengers despatched from the throne; for the reason, that bloody persecutions of God's servants come from beneath—not from above. It is the devil who is the murderer from the beginning, and by him, and his seed, has all martyr-blood been made to flow that ever has flowed or ever will. It is the Dragon that makes war with the saints. Celestial powers are concerned in it no further than to permit the malignant butchery. It is not flashed forth from the sky, like the calamities with which the wicked and rebellious are overwhelmed; but it is left to develop itself from Satan's reign and domination in the hearts of his children, unmoved by any direct agency from heaven. The Living ones do not say, Go! for they are neither directly nor indirectly concerned in bringing suffering upon God's servants for their fidelity to the truth. No horses dash out upon the scene, because no Divine powers are employed in martyring the saints. The entire earthly part of the proceeding enacts itself by the powers already in sway among depraved mortals, and John beholds only the results. The seal opens, and the invisible world has a vast accession of souls of martyrs, slain on account of the word of God, and on account of the testimony which they held fast. They are not the martyrs of the past ages, for those, by this time, already have their crowns, and are seated on their heavenly thrones, and are with Christ in glorified form, as we saw in chapters 4 and 5. These are, therefore, martyrs of this particular period—martyrs who suffer the great tribulation which all preceding saints and martyrs escape—martyrs of the judgment times, who lose their lives for their faithful testimony during the sharp and troublous era in which God's judgments are in the earth.

In treating of them more particularly, we may notice,

I. THE CAUSE OF THEIR MARTYRDOM;

II. THEIR ESTATE AS JOHN BEHOLDS THEM;

III. THE CRY THEY UTTER;

IV. THE ANSWER THEY RECEIVE.

It is an old maxim: Non est mors, sed causa mortis qua facit martyr em. "It is not death, but the cause in which death is incurred, which constitutes a martyr." Millions upon millions perish under the preceding seals, but they are not therefore martyrs. The cause for which the persons mentioned here were slain, constitute them true martyrs. They "had been slain on account of the word of God, and on account of the testimony which they held fast." However sceptical, rationalistic, or unbelieving they may have been previous to the setting in of the judgment, the occurrences under the first four seals had quite cured them of their erroneous thinking and indifference. What they once held only in the coldness of mere speculative faith, or received only with much subtle refining, and rasping down to a materialistic philosophy, or disbelieved altogether, they had now learned, to their sorrow, to have been the literal and infallible word of God. The Bible they now read with new eyes, and received and obeyed with a new heart. Its literal teachings they now were brought to understand, appreciate, live, and proclaim as the unmistakable Revelation of the Lord God Almighty. There will still be plenty of unbelief, scepticism, and utter rejection of the Scriptures; and the dominant spirit of the times will be the spirit of rebellion against the Lord, and of contempt for his word. But that spirit will now have been quite cast out of the persons brought to view in this vision. Having learned to deny themselves, to crucify their self-seeking, to cease from their confidence in their own fancies, and to accept, live, and testify to the true will and word of God, they will have come to be genuine servants of the Most High. And this is one of the procuring causes of the world's hatred of them, and wish to have them put out of the way.

But there is something more special entering into the cause of their martyrdom. In addition to their close adherence to the Divine word, and as one of the most marked fruits of it, there was a particular "testimony which they held fast;" and on account of which, more directly, the world could not abide them. Many have regarded their whole testimony as nothing different from the common testimony of good and faithful men in every age. John says that he "was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ;" and the testimony of these martyrs is considered to be the same for which John was banished. But the phraseology is not the same, and seems to indicate something personal to these martyrs themselves. It was not the testimony of Jesus in general; but "τὴν μαρτυρίαν—that testimony, which they held fast"—some particular testimony specially in question in their times, and specially obnoxious to the then reigning spirit. And when we consider the character of the period in which they were called to testify; what it was that had operated to bring them into this attitude of zeal for the Divine word; what would naturally be uppermost in a mind enlightened as to the times on which they had fallen, and what would be most offensive to an unbeliever in those times, we can be at no loss to have suggested to us what the particular character of that testimony was. It was necessarily a testimony touching the judgment already begun; a testimony which interpreted all the plagues, disorders, and horrors around them, as the veritable inflictions of the Almighty, now risen up to pay off all the long-accumulating arrearages of his wrath upon transgressors; a testimony that the true elect had already been received up into glory, and that, in a few short years more, the whole mystery of God should be finished, and all his enemies cast down to irretrievable perdition; a testimony that swift and utter destruction now impended over all the governments, fabrics, powers, and hopes of this world; that the fires were then already burning which should never more be extinguished or repressed till everything of this world, and all its devotees, should be consumed from root to leaf; that Christ, the angry Judge, was then present in the clouds, ready to be revealed in all the terrors of his consuming power; that the day of grace was in its last darkening twilight of departure, after which nothing should remain but everlasting discomfiture and death; a testimony that the world was then already trembling in the agonies of its dissolution, and that the last hope of salvation was flickering in its socket, ready to expire.

In a modified degree, this is ever the testimony of the true people and ministers of God; but, at such a time, and in such surroundings as these martyrs testified, there would needs be an intensity, a certainty, and a pressing urgency in their convictions and utterances, such as had never before appeared. People who had been cool, complacent, and philosophic in their religion before, will then have been awakened to a state of warmth, and earnestness, and excitement, and zeal, a thousandfold more irrepressible and energetic than what they had previously regarded as sheer fanaticism, and piety run mad. Oh, there will be fervour then, and outspoken testifying for God then, and warnings with tears and entreaties then, and striking expositions of the prophecies then, and appeals and outpourings from the men of God more thrilling than the cries of Jonah in the streets of Nineveh! It will be more than the hardened hearts of scorning unbelievers can bear. And because of being besieged and pressed by the resistless arguments and fervency which then shall be brought to bear upon them, they will seize the witnesses of the truth, and punish them, and resort to all sorts of murderous violence, to silence them, and put them out of the world. Thus, then, because their days of indifference toward the Divine predictions have passed away, and because they now are faithful in standing to the truth as to what God has said, and as to what times they have fallen upon, and because they will no more keep silence touching the awful perdition about to break forth upon the guilty world, they are massacred and slain.

II. THEIR ESTATE AS JOHN BEHOLDS THEM.

They are "souls"—disembodied souls—souls in that state which ensues as the result of corporeal death.

Their slaying, then, is not the end of them. It is not the total interruption of their being in all respects. It makes them invisible to men in the flesh, in the natural state; but it does not hinder their living on as souls, or their being visible to heavenly eyes, or to the eyes of John in his supernatural and prophetic exaltation. The holy Apocalyptist tells us that he "saw" them, although they "had been slain;" and heard them speaking with loud voices, though their material tongues had been burnt to ashes, and their corporeal organs of speech had been stiffened in death.

It is altogether a wrong interpretation of the Scriptures which represents the dead in a state of non-existence, unconsciousness, or oblivion. I am not among those who think that "they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished," either forever, or for a limited time. There is such a thing as an intermediate state between death and the resurrection; but it is not a state of utter dilapidation and cessation of being. It is an abnormal and unsatisfactory state, far below what is to be gained by the resurrection; but it is not a state of vacancy and nothingness. However strongly the ruinous character and evil of death may be stated in some Old Testament passages, there are others in the Scriptures which, by all just and fair exegesis, prove and demonstrate that mental and psychical life continues under it, and continues in wakeful consciousness. And if any one has doubts upon this point, let him candidly consult and determine the positive meaning of the following texts:

Matt. 10:28: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The argument from this text is plain, unanswerable, and conclusive. If the soul dies, or goes into oblivion, when the body dies, then he that kills the body would, with the same stroke, kill the soul too. But our Saviour tells us that those who kill the body cannot kill the soul. And if it be said that this is meant only of the utter destruction of the soul, God having promised a resurrection to life again, then our Saviour might as well have denied that it is in the power of man to kill the body, because God certainly will raise it again at the last day. But our blessed Lord grants that the body may be killed by man, in the same sense wherein he denies that the soul can be; and therefore he is not speaking with reference to the resurrection at all. There is, then, a life which the death of the body cannot touch.

Luke 20:38: "He [the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him." So far as the righteous are concerned, we are here assured that, although they "sleep in Jesus," as regards the body, and are "absent from the body," as regards the soul, they still;" all live unto God." This the Saviour quotes from the Old Testament, where "Moses calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him." The argument assumed is, that a negation of existence dissolves all covenant relations. God cannot be called the God of beings who no longer exist, or the continuity of whose existence has been interrupted by a blank. Whatever else He may be, it is no property of His to be a God of nonentities. "He is not a God of the dead, but of the living." But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dead, and had been dead for centuries; and yet He proclaims Himself "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." The conclusion is thus deduced by the Saviour, that though Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dead, as to their bodies, they were still, in some sense, living unto God.

Very pertinent, also, was this argument to the question of the resurrection, in support of which it was produced. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, being still alive unto God, though corporeally dead, God's covenant with them still held—held because both parties were still in being; and because it still held, the promises which it included had yet to be fulfilled, which could only be in the resurrected state. In this text we accordingly have existence and life predicated of the righteous dead, and that existence and life put forward as the basis of the continued validity of the covenant, which covenant necessitates a resurrection, that its promises may not fail. And though this passage specifically refers to but one class of the dead, yet, by disproving the non-existence, and establishing the continued life of departed believers, it overthrows the doctrine of the oblivion of the dead in the abstract, and fastens very strong unlikelihood upon its truth in any case.

Luke 16:19-31: the case of the rich man and Lazarus. In this startling parable, if parable such an unveiling of the invisible world may be called (it is not called a parable in the Scriptures), we have not only principles on which to argue the non-oblivion of the dead, but literal instances and illustrations of the continued life and consciousness of departed souls of both classes—good and bad. That the scene of this narrative is laid in the state immediately succeeding death, and anterior to the resurrection, is indisputable. Hades is to be destroyed at the final resurrection; and it is not in Hades that the wicked are to have their ultimate portion. That is the Abyss, the lake of fire, the second death. (See Rev. 20:14.) But this rich man was in Hades—"in Hades (εν τω ἄδῃ) he lifted up his eyes, and seeth Abraham and Lazarus." And at the very time he is suffering in Hades, he still has relatives living in the flesh, whom he wishes to have warned, that they may not encounter similar sufferings. "He said, I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldst send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment." Either, then, there will be probation after the general judgment, and godless men living in the flesh upon the earth after the wicked are adjudged to their final punishment, or this picture must relate to the state intermediate between death and the resurrection. The first alternative is as unscriptural as it is absurd. The latter, then, must be the fact, and the whole scene necessarily fixes itself to the period immediately succeeding the death of the body. All the terms and relations of the narrative require this location of it. The received belief of the orthodox Jews was such that they could not otherwise understand it. And there is no show of right to accept the picture in any other relation.

Taking it, then, as we are in reason bound to take it, we have it settled, by Christ himself, that wicked souls have a life and consciousness which death does not interrupt, and that there is still a form of being for both good and bad between death and the resurrection.

Luke 23:43: "Verily I say unto you, To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." Language more clear and precise, as to the life and conscious happiness of a saved soul immediately after death, cannot be framed. All that Psychopannychists have been able to do with it on their theory, is, to say that the case of the penitent thief is so "peculiar," that we cannot infer from it what will be the lot of other men. But it concerned the dying Christ as well as the dying thief; and He certainly died as deep a death as any of His saints. And as both died that day, so they both went that day, and before the resurrection of either, into Paradise. Be that Paradise what it may, Christ and the thief were not yet in it while they lived on their crosses, and yet were in it before the day ended, and while their bodies yet hung upon those stakes. It was not a state of non-existence or oblivion, for it was the subject of consoling hope and promise, and the declaration embraced the idea of conscious presence and fellowship with each other, on reaching the blessed place. Being is affirmed—ἔση, thou shalt be. Communion is affirmed—μετ’ εμου, with me. Conscious happiness is affirmed—έν τω παραδείσα in Paradise. Time is specified, not the time of the resurrection,' or after a long and indefinite period of nothingness, but σημερον, this day—the very day they hung side by side on Calvary, and before the setting of the sun then sinking beyond the sea.

The case of Paul (Phil. 1:2) is also in point. If ever son of Adam lived a noble life on earth, it was this great apostle. To him to live was an unspeakable blessing to the Church, and to himself a zeal, and joy, and divinest fellowship with the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ. To him to live was Christ. And yet he adds, "To me to die is gain,"—gain even upon such a life. "Then, surely," as William Arthur puts it, "it was not to enter into nothingness, and to continue in nothingness while the world stands. From the life of an apostle to a state of torpor, is progress, not from glory to glory, but from glory to death—not gain, but blank and benumbing loss. Though his life here had many burdens, Paul proclaimed its joys to all; yet he had a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. He does not mean that the resurrection life is better, for it would not be delayed a day by his staying to profit the churches here, nor hastened by his departing. The better state he had in view is manifestly one which is postponed while he remains in the body, but which will open so soon as he goes hence. Is it, then, better to be nothing than to be an apostle? to miss days and years, than to improve them? to be as inanimate as water spilled upon the ground, than to be communing with God and serving man? Had Paul expected that, in departing, he would become inanimate, surely he would have regarded each moment added to his holy labours, not as a delay of a far better life, but as so much golden time rescued from emptiness. Who can reconcile to his heart the notion of Christ's great ambassador desiring to depart and be a blank? And, at last, that great soul stands on life's extremest verge, crying, 'I have finished my course.' A moment, and it is gone! And what now is it in its new dwelling? A dark and vacant thing, mere emptiness?" Then nothingness is gain on apostolic usefulness, and communion with God! Then to fie in oblivious death, is better than to hope, and pray, and praise, and live Christ Himself! Who can believe it for a moment!

Consider also the experiences of dying believers, and the consciousness which they sometimes manifest in their last moments, of the presence of a world which they, then, for the first time, see, and among the bright dwellers in which they feel themselves going to take their places as earth "recedes and disappears." Shall we say that these visions of a new-dawning life, and bliss, and conscious fellowship, is all hallucination, the mere fantasies of an outgoing being, the delusions of the holy soul bidding farewell to the universe and God, until the archangel's trump shall sound? Shall we draw the black line through all these cherished testimonies of those saints of God who have gone from us, and account them all meaningless, eccentric sparks of scattering existence, as it sinks to dark oblivion? Believe it who wishes; I have not so learned Christ, or the portion of His saints.

Nor ought it to be necessary for any one to go beyond the text itself, to be assured of the fact, that the death of the body is not the death of the soul. These martyrs were "slain," and yet John sees and hears them in living and speaking sensibility between their death and their resurrection. It will not answer to say that the whole thing is only a vision. It was a vision of the reality—a miraculous view, in advance of the facts, indeed, but of the facts themselves, as they are actually to transpire. The slaying of these martyrs was, likewise, nothing but a vision; but no one thinks of assuming that no literal martyrdom is in contemplation. Why then suppose that the asserted continuation of their soul-life, after their corporeal death, is not to be understood as equally a matter of literal reality? When an author gives us a thing as a matter of fact, that has occurred in his own experience, we must either accept what he says as true, or impeach his credibility or his competency. And when John tells us that he saw and heard "the souls of those that had been slain," either he is not to be believed, or he saw what had no manner of existence, or the souls of dead saints do live, and act, and speak, in a state of separation from the body.

John saw the souls of these martyrs "beneath the altar." Many regard this as "simply symbolical;" but I am not clear that it is so to be taken. No earthly altar is meant, for none such existed at the time of the vision, or shall exist at the time of its fulfilment; at any rate, none acknowledged of God. Nor is it exactly a material altar, as we are conversant with material things. It is something heavenly, and partaking of the same heavenly and spiritual nature of the scene out of which all these proceedings issue, and from which they are contemplated. There is a heavenly Temple, and everything that related to the earthly one, was patterned after the celestial one. There is a "true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man," of which that which Moses built was the material picture and copy. (Heb. 8:1-5; 9:21-24.) And this altar pertains to that heavenly sanctuary whence the "pattern" of the earthly was taken. It was at the altar of burnt-offerings that all bloody sacrifices were made. Under it there was a deep excavation in the solid rock, into which the blood of the slain victims was poured. The law commanded the officiating priest to "pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt-offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." (Lev. 4:7.) The ancient arrangement for the reception of this blood is still visible. I have myself stood in the opening, under the rock, on which the altar had its place, and stamped my foot upon the marble slab which closes the mouth of the vast receptacle, and satisfied myself, from the detonations, that the excavated space is very deep and large. And as the life of the animal was in its blood, this vast subterranean cavity was, naturally enough, regarded as the receptacle of the lives of the victims which there were slain. The Mahommedans, to this day, as I was told on the spot, regard it as the place where spirits are detained until the day of judgment. They call it The well of spirits. It is in the centre of the Mosque of Omar, whose interior had, for ages, been most rigidly guarded from the visits or eyes of any but Moslems, but, by firman from the government, can now be seen. And as the deep cavern under the earthly altar was the appointed receptacle of the lives of the animal sacrifices, so the souls of God's witnesses, who fall in His service, are received into a corresponding receptacle beneath the heavenly altar.

Some describe that altar as Christ, under whose protection and shade the souls of the martyrs axe preserved, free from all perils and evils, till their recall, in renewed bodies, by the resurrection. It denotes a near and holy relation to God; a place of sacred rest under the protection of Christ and His sacrifice, and a state of blessedness, to which, however, higher stages are to come. The idea of sacrifice also pervades the language of Scripture in general, respecting eminent devotion in the Divine service, especially when life is jeoparded or lost in consequence of it. Hence our bodies are to be offered a willing sacrifice unto the Lord. Hence Paul spoke of bis sufferings for Christ, and of his approaching martyrdom, as an offering in the sacrificial sense. All martyrs are contemplated as sacrifices to God. And as sacrifices to the heavenly altar, their souls pass into the sacred receptacle beneath that altar. It is precisely the place where we would most naturally expect them to be, and where they are most sacredly kept, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.

III. THE CRY THEY UTTER.

It is not a mere metaphorical cry, like that of the blood of Abel from the ground; but a literal cry of visible and conscious existences—an articulate cry, the voice of which is heard, and the utterances of which are in literal words. "Until when, Thou Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood from them that dwell on the earth?" It appears, from this, that their murderers are then still living. Consequently these crying ones are a specific class of martyrs, who had then very recently been slain. It is another item to fix the vision to this particular time.

The cry is addressed to the throne. It is not a vindictive cry, although it looks to the avenging of their blood. If the whole scene did not relate to the judgment period, it would be difficult to avoid attaching the idea of intense vindictiveness to this utterance. Such a cry would be out of season, except in this place. But it is the time of judgment. The judgment throne is set. The judgment proceedings have commenced. The years have come in which God had long ago promised that the principles of His righteous government should be enforced, to the recompense of His people, the vindication of their wrongs, and the overthrow of evil. They had every assurance that such was the Divine intention, and that this was the period for its fulfilment. They could not, therefore, understand why there should be delay. The thing had begun, why was it not at once carried to its consummation? They had sacrificed their lives to this particular testimony, and everything had appeared to them in the very article of the long-predicted fulfilment; how was it, then, that it now tarried? Even the titles by which they address the Lord, show that this was the feeling and spirit of their inquiry. It was not so much impatience that their blood was not avenged, as their perplexity about the hesitation which seemed to retard the ongoing of what they knew had commenced. They do not address Christ as the Saviour, but as ὁ Δεσπότης—the centre of irresistible power already in force—the holy and true Despot, now on His judicial throne. Their hearts are set, as they were in life, on the glorious consummation begun before they were slain. They had died for their testimony that the time for that consummation had come. And as it still delayed, and could only be realized in the visitation of vengeance upon the wicked hosts who had murdered them, they cry to the great and holy Avenger, to know why it tarried, and how long the suspense was to last. It was an utterance from the world of disembodied saints, somewhat akin, in feeling and meaning, to that which John the Baptist sent from his prison to the Saviour. (Matt. 11:2-10.) It shows us that the intermediate state is still an imperfect state, and that the proper hope of saints is connected with the resurrection of the body. Bede has remarked upon this passage, that "those souls which offered themselves a living sacrifice to God, pray eternally for His coming to judgment; not from any vindictive feeling against their enemies, but in a spirit of zeal and love for God's glory and justice, and for the coming of that day, when sin, which is rebellion against Him, will be destroyed, and their own bodies raised."

IV. THE ANSWER THEY RECEIVE.

Jehovah does not disdain to lend an ear to the cry of His faithful servants. He is concerned for their rest, comfort, and right information, even while they lie disembodied beneath His altar. The prayers of His people are always precious before Him, and their peace He will ever consult. He heard the appeal of His slain ones, and came to minister to their souls the requisite comfort. Living or dead, if we are faithful to God and His word, we shall not want any merciful grace and help appropriate to us. The Lord remembers us in our sufferings and trials on earth, and He will not fail to come to us under the altar, to comfort and establish us concerning His purposes and ways. He will not forget or disregard us when dead, any more than when living; and our necessities, apart from the body, are as graciously cared for as those in the flesh. Indeed, His promises overspan every possible contingency of our existence, in the body or out of the body, in time or in eternity. His word to us is, that He will never leave nor forsake us.

"There was given to each of them a white robe." Can lifeless shades and non-existences receive white robes? Can spilled blood, dead and absorbed in the earth, wear the livery of heaven? Yet these souls of slain ones received each the celestial stola, even while their resurrection delayed. And that stola was the symbol of their justification—the Divine assurance of the truth and acceptableness of their testimony—the cheering token from the throne that they were approved, and precious, and near to their Lord, and blessed with his favour, notwithstanding that what they hoped and testified was still deferred. White robes, in such connections, are always the emblems of Divine approval and blessed relationship with God. And the giving of them to these zealous and anxious souls under the altar, was the cheering proof of their preciousness in the Master's sight.

"And it was said to them"—... Mark; how could dead ashes hear and understand? Where was the use and meaning of speaking promises to unconscious dust, which knows not anything? Where is the sense or intelligibility of such a converse, if no living and wakeful beings are concerned? God does not speak his comforts and promises to nothings. And yet it was said to these souls of martyrs, in advance of their resurrection, "that they should rest yet a little time." This implies that they had been resting, and that their state was one of blessed repose and quiet, though imperfect. The dead in the Lord are not wandering, melancholy ghosts. They are experiencing the meaning of that sweetest word of our language—rest. And over their ashes, at least, we may confidently sing:

Happy the dead! they peacefully rest them,

From burdens that galled, from cares that oppressed them;

From the yoke of the world, and from tyranny,

The grave, the grave hath set them free,

The grave hath set them free.

But, after this rest, comes a brighter day, and a sublimer station. "Yet a little time," these slain ones are told, and then that day will come. The reason for the delay is also explained to them. Their number is not yet full, and the world is not yet quite ripe for its doom. Hence it was said to them, "that they should rest yet a little time, until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, shall have been completed, who are about to be slain, as also they themselves [had been]." John is made to hear these words, because they are a prophecy for the Church on earth, as well as an explanation to the souls waiting in heaven. They tell of continued persecution and bloody sufferings for God's witnesses among men. Many good people are wont to think the days for killing men, on account of their religious principles, have long since passed, never to return. They flatter themselves that the world has become too enlightened, too humane, too civilized, too much pervaded with a reasonable and forbearing spirit, ever to repeat such scenes as were enacted by Pagan rule, or in the dark ages of Christendom. But they are entirely mistaken. We may think the world has changed, but it still has that ancient murderer for its god and prince, and its malignity towards the Lord's people, especially when they come to be sifted out from their present adulterous intimacy with the world, will again head up into an intensity to which there has been no parallel in the past. This fifth seal is a revelation of nothing but slaughter for the saints, as regards this world, and the times to which it relates. It shows us slaughtered saints in heaven, and tells of the slaughter of many more. And elsewhere, in this book, we are advised of coming times, when an idol shall be the object of the world's adoration, and as many as will not worship it shall be killed. (Rev. 13:15.)

This might seem to be but poor consolation to these resting souls; and yet, a real consolation it was. It assured them that they were not alone in the sufferings they had experienced; that theirs was but the common lot of all faithful ones in those trying times; that, though they were dead, the cause in which they died still had representatives, who would stand to it unto death, as they had done; and that, though the consummation was delayed yet for a little while, their sufferings were over, and there was a flood of sorrow still to deluge the earth from which they now were free.

But, above all, was the assurance, pervading and implied in each particular, that what they had hoped and testified, was presently to be accomplished. Those white robes were the earnest of a sublimer life. Their martyrdom for their steadfast maintenance of the truth, was duly remembered, and, in a little while, should be fully requited to them, and to the godless hosts who had inflicted it. Their blood was not long to remain unavenged from them that dwell on the earth. The years of waiting and of suffering were now on the margin of their close. Yet a little time, and the consummation should be complete. Yet a little while, and the wicked should not be: yea, they should diligently consider his place, and it should not be. The thrones were already set; the work was really in progress; the time of the end had verily come; and, after a short space more, they would be able to say: "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree; yet he passed away, and lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." (Ps. 37:35, 36.)

Striking and impressive is the fact here brought to view, that that which the saints of all ages have been "looking for," and which has been their "blessed hope" in every time of earthly trial and adversity, even "the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. 2:13, 14), is also the chief comfort and stay of the pious dead in their heavenly rest. "Until when, Thou Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood from them that dwell on the earth?" is the cry which they utter "with a great voice" from beneath the altar. They rest, but their desire for the end still rises, and glows, and pleads. And the chief element of the consolation which they receive is, that that consummation cometh.

And if the holy martyrs, in their white robes under the heavenly altar, make so much of it, and find their chief comfort in the contemplation of its nearness, how unreasonable and unjust that we should be accounted enthusiasts and fanatics, for pointing to it as our hope and joy amid these earthly tribulations? Why should it be branded as lunacy, when we wish and pray, with departed saints, that sin's long war against the majesty of heaven were over—that the rending strife of spiritual evil, which has so long torn God's world, should come to an end—that the vast train of wrongs, with which Satan has been oppressing Heaven's sons and beautiful creations, should be done away? Would it really be for the peace, and piety, and consolation of the Church, that all such interest should cease, and that all such testimony should be silenced? Would it really be God's kingdom come, and His will done on earth as it is in heaven, if all prayer and prophecy of coming and nearing judgment were to be hushed from such a world as ours? Or, should we not rather be grateful that there are on earth, and will be, even in its darkest times, some to echo the spirit which thrills in the hearts of departed souls, testifying to an evil and adulterous generation, of a coming vengeance, in order to a completed redemption? Let men scowl, and mutter their ill-timed reproaches, if they will, and persecute, even unto death, those who hold it fast, there is in this theme what constitutes the true hope of the saints, whether suffering in the flesh or resting in heaven, and on account of which we may well ever

Thank God, there's still a vanguard

Fighting for the right!

Though the throng flock to rearward,

Lifting, ashen-white

Flags of truce to sin and error,

Clasping hands, mute with terror,

Thank God, there's still a vanguard

Fighting for the right!

Through the wilderness advancing,

Hewers of the way,

Forward! far their spears are glancing,

Flashing back the day.