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"AND when he opened the seventh Seal, there was silence in heaven' about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God: and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came, and stood at the altar, having a golden censer: and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints, upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angels hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth. And there were voices, and thunderings, &c.
.... And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound." Apoc. 8:1-6.
So began the SECOND PART, or ACT, of the great Apocalyptic Drama. In the sealing Vision, just preceding, intimation had been given to St. John that almost immediately after the dissolution of the Roman Pagan Empire, and its conversion into one professedly Christian, there would appear in it the rapid development of an antichristian apostasy. But could it so be without judgments from heaven following? To this question the associated figuration of threatening tempest angels, prepared to desolate the Roman earth, even then gave answer. It is the evolution of that figuration of the tempest-angels, the symbol of barbarian invading hosts, that constitutes the Act of the Drama now opening. The scenic representation which heads the present chapter was its introduction.
THE HALF-HOURS SILENCE IN HEAVEN
I " And when he opened the seventh Seal, there was silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour." What might be the meaning of this half-hour's silence in heaven, is here the inquirer's primary question.
Of course, noticed as it is in connection with the seventh or last Sears opening, Expositors have regard to their own several theories of the structure of the Apocalypse, in the explanations that they offer of it.-Of those who suppose the Book to consist of a triple series of prefigurative visions, (chronologically parallel with each other, and each reaching to the consummation,) correspondingly with the three septenaries of the Seals, the Trumpets and the Vials, the one class, viewing the seventh Seal and its figuration of the half hour's silence as the ending of the first series, expound this silence to signify the millennial rest of the Church, following on the final convulsions and revolution designated, as they presume, by the earthquake, &c. of the receding sixth Seal. So, for example, Vitringa.1 But how can we suppose a repetition, after the seventh Seal's opening, of that which had been depicted, as they judge, in the palm-bearing vision before its opening? Or, I again, how can we suppose a half-hones silence in heaven to figure the joyous active rest of the Church on earth in the Millennium?
Another class of the advocates of a triple parallelism of structure,-who, however, make the first series to end with the visions of the sixth Seal, those of the sealing and palm-bearing inclusive, and the seventh Seal to comprehend the seven Trumpets, and so, with its opening vision, to begin a new and second series,-these, I say, explain the silence as a pause in the heavenly representations; a pause simply significative of this break of separation between the two parallel series of prophecies. So Dean Woodhouse, Mr. Cuninghame and others.2 But surely in such case the silence ought to have occurred before, not after, the opening of the seventh Seal; before, not after, the commencement of the new series: besides that, in that case, there ought to have been a similar pause of silence elsewhere also, to mark the break between the second and the third series.
I pass to those expositors (as Mede, Daubuz, and Bishop Newton) who adopt what I conceive to be the correcter view of the Apocalyptic structure; i. e. who not only regard the Trumpet septenary of visions as included in the seventh Seal, but also regard this new septenary as chronologically consecutive on that of the six Seals preceding. Their view is to the effect that the half-hour's silence in heaven figured the Church's silence in prayer before the Trumpet's sounding, during the incense-offering by the angel-priest, noticed in a verse that follows : stating, in support of this view, that the Jews were wont to pray silently in the court without, while the priest (like Zechariah, Luke 1:10) went within the temple to offer incense. But the silence is not represented as distinctively accompanying, and connected with, the angel-priest's offering the incense. It is represented as begun at least before that latter action; there being depicted the act of the seven angels that stood before God having the seven Trumpets given them, as one to intervene. Besides that the expression "silence in heaven," if used with reference to what past in the Apocalyptic Temple, ought rather surely to signify a silence in the Holy of Holies, which here distinctively figured the heaven of God's presence; not a silence in the temple-court, simply and alone. 3
3And what then the meaning of the symbol? As regards the silence in heaven, it really does not seem to me that we need have much difficulty. The word heaven is a word often used in scripture, and elsewhere, of the aerial firmament; 4 as well as of the invisible heaven, the seat of God's manifestation. Indeed, in the immediately preceding vision of the sixth seal it had been pretty much so used by St. John. Again, silence is a word used often also to designate the stillness of inanimate nature.
Which being so, the complex phrase silence in heaven might fitly, should the context suit, be interpreted to mean stillness from storms in that firmamental region. In fact Pliny, St. John's cotemporary, so uses the self-same phrase "silente coelo; nor does the usage of the Hebrew scriptures disagree. And does not this idea of the thing suit with the firmamental state of things, as figured and left in the preceding vision?
Precisely so. For in it we were told of the four winds being authoritatively restrained from blowing; in other words, (to use Pliny's phrase,) of there ensuing thereon silence, though but for a brief interval, in the firmamental heaven? Surely then this may without hesitation be here taken as the simple natural meaning of the symbol.' To use the words of our own great poet,
'Twas as we often am against some storm.
A silence in the heaven*; the rack stand still
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death : anaon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the regions. 5
It was the stillness before the storm.
But what the half-hour's predicated duration of the silence, or rather the " as it were half-an-hour's? I incline to consider St. John's "as it were," as meaning that it appeared to and affected him, as the half-hour's stillness before a storm might do in common life. At the same time the alternative seems open to him who prefers it, while explaining the silence to mean stillness from the threatened tempests, as before, yet to interpret the half-hour on the prophetic year-day scale, as but a very short interval, even as of a few days. 6 So that in any case the interval between the opening of the 7th Seal, and the first outbreak of the tempest of barbarian invasion, was indicated as but very small.
For on the half-hour's ending, the previous check upon the threatened tempests, and the spirits riding them, was evidently to be withdrawn. Just accordant with which (if I may anticipate for a moment) is the record of history. Theodosius died in Jan. 395; the epoch, I conceive, of the 7th Seals opening; and " before the winter ended," says Gibbon, "the Gothic nation was in arms: that " tempest of barbarians," as he elsewhere calls it, "that was to subvert the foundations of the Roman empire." And so too Mr. Hallam: "The fourth century set in storms."
But why the specification of so minute an interval of respite? Just, I conceive, in order to the exhibition of a scene of temple-worship, characteristic of the precise epoch that answered to it: a scene such as to suggest the reason of God's proceeding to execution of the before threatened judgments of the tempest-angels, even as against an empire in which that last term of respite was unimproved, and the already hinted sin of apostasy unrepented of and in progress: at the same time that occasion was given thereby at once to note prominently that distinction in Roman Christendom between the sealed and the unsealed, the saints and the men of this earth, which would exist and be recognized by God throughout all the coming Trumpet judgments; the Sealing Angel himself, we may see reason to suppose, having in the meanwhile just given in his report.-This temple-scene is the next point to consider, and a most important one. And, as before, we must, in order to its right understanding, first analyze the vision itself, then trace the fulfillment in history.
INCENSE-OFFERING
II 1. The scenic vision, then, was as follows. "And another Angel came,"-i. e. after the delivery of the seven trumpets to the seven trumpet-angels,-" and stood at the altar having a golden censer. And there was given to him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne.
>And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the Angel' s hand." After which follows: "And the Angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightning's and an earthquake."Such was the vision. And to understand that its significance was to the purport that I stated, it only needs that we attend carefully to three points: viz. the Angel-priest ministering;-his position at the altar receiving the incense;-and the persons described as offering incense through Him, in contrast with others who did it not.
First, the Angel-priest ministering. And whom can we scripturally suppose to be hereby intended but the Lord Jesus? or He is "the great High Priest over the house of God, passed into the heavens." In that character He was expressly represented as acting on the mystic temple scene, at the opening of the Apocalyptic visions. Nor is the angelic-title here ascribed to the ministering priest inconsistent with our supposition; seeing that this priesthood was but one of the functions of Christ as Angel of the Covenant. 7 An argument confirmatory of this interpretation is derived by Sir I. Newton 8 and others, from the specification of the censer as a golden one that was used by the angel priest.
For the state, from the Rabbis, that the High Priest alone used a golden censer in the Jewish ritual; the common priests using one of silver. Besides which there is yet another confirmatory argument, and which I cannot pass over in silence, deducible from the vision in Ezekiel 9: a vision of which the first part was noted by me as strikingly parallel to the Apocalyptic vision of the sealing; and of which the concluding part is as strikingly similar to that we are now considering.
In Ezekiel it is the same person, clothed in the linen garb of the priesthood, that bad been previously marking God's servants on their foreheads,9 who is described as afterwards coming into the sanctuary, to make report of the fulfillment of his commission; and then taking the fire from between the cherubim, and scattering it over the apostatized city Jerusalem. What then the natural inference, but that here, too, (immediately consequent as the present incense offering vision is on that of the Sealing,) the Angel who now goes into the Holy Place, and afterwards takes of the altar fire to scatter over the apostatizing land of Roman Christendom, must be the same as the sealing Angel of the former vision, whom we saw reason to conclude was the Lord Jesus: He having past into the sanctuary, we may suppose, from acting out one of his characters before St. John, in the illumination and sealing of his own People; and, ere he scatter fire on the earth, stopping in another, viz. in his priestly and mediatorial character, (still before St. John,) to receive and present the prayers of his people. 10
The next thing to be here noted and explained is the Angel's representation, at the opening of the vision, as standing with his censer beside the altar, to receive the incense of the people offering; i.e. beside the great brazen altar of sacrifice in the temple court. "He stood," it is said, "at the altar, and much incense was given him." The position was that of the officiating priest under the Levitical law, when about to exercise the same ministration: and it arose out of the divine ordinance, that forthwith, on receiving the incense of the worshiper, he should take burning as from off the altar, place them on his censer, and carrying them at the same time as the incense into the sanctuary, apply the sacred fire to the incense to make it burn, after laying it on the golden altar before the veil.
The which particular in the ritual was insisted on as most important, indeed essential. Other fire than this in the ministration was called "strange fire:" and, for offering incense with such strange fire, Nadab and Abihu, though sons of Aaron, were struck dead by God upon the spot The true reason for all which particularity was, that a deep and holy mystery was shadowed forth in this 'Ordinance of the Mosaic ritual; viz. that except by association with the meritorious atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and the application to them of its purifying and propitiatory virtue, the prayers and praises of his people could never rise up acceptably before the mercy-seat.
Now then in the symbolic vision before us, the Angel's standing by the altar, and receiving the incense of such as offered it, indicated that in their case this essential, in order to acceptableness, was attended to. There was the association of Christ with their offering, in his two-fold antitypical character and office,-of sacrifice and of priest. Just as the true Christian's privilege is elsewhere stated; "We have an advocate (an intercessory priest) with the Father, Jesus Christ 'he righteous; and He is the propitiation (the propitiatory, sacrifice) for our sins."
And thus we are led to inquire, thirdly, who were, and who were not, the offerers that gave Him incense ? This is a question soon answered. It was "the saints" that offered it ; i.e. the 144,000, the sealed ones. It was these, "all these," we read, and (let this be marked) these alone. There is evidently an allusive contrast here (just as before in the sealing vision) to those that were not the Lord's saints ; as pointedly not present, and not partaking in the action. Indeed the inhabitants of the earth, generally, (for "the earth," mentioned in verse 5 as the object of God's wrath and judgment, implies its inhabitants,) may be almost said to be expressly noted in contrast, as not participating.
But how not participating? Was it to be inferred that they had forsaken the altar-court, and virtually at least renounced the offered privileges of Christ's atoning sacrifice and Christ's mediatorship? Such in truth seemed the meaning of the symbol; a meaning fully confirmed by a subsequent and most notable use of the same symbol in the same sense in a later chapter.
Indeed, as the vision depicted what passed in the altar-court, the scene of what used to be visible in the ancient Jewish public worship, it seemed implied that this forsaking of the altar-fire and the High Priest of the altar, by the mass of the inhabitants of Roman Christendom, would be characteristic, not of their private worship and devotions only at this time, but of their public worship also:- insomuch that, even publicly, Christ's saints would be now peculiar in availing themselves simply and sincerely of his mediation, and of his propitiatory atoning sacrifice.
But how, and for what, could they thus have forsaken Him? For the answer to this question we must recur, as proposed secondly under this head, to history.
2. And indeed the history of the times at once answers the inquiry. For it tells how the invocation of saints and martyrs, and new means of propitiating God, had now come into vogue among the inhabitants of the Roman world; and how they were thus quick relapsing, though under the Christian name and profession, into a Christ-renouncing idolatry.
This was in fact the second great step of the anti-Christian APOSTASY: and it was one that specially deserved observation, as being that whereby the invisible world itself became allied with the visible in strengthening it. Hear Dean Waddington's account of the strange lapse of the professing Church into it. The Christians of the ante-Nicene Church, he says, shunned with horror every approach to the abomination of idolatry.. "So definite and broad was the space which in this point separated between Christianity anti Paganism, that it seemed impossible that . . a compromise could ever be effected between principles so fundamentally hostile.
Yet the contrary result took place: and a reconciliation, which in the beginning of the fourth century could not easily have been imagined, was virtually accomplished before its termination. Enthusiasm [respecting the martyrs] easily passed into superstition.
Those who had sealed a Christian's faith by a martyr's death were exalted above the condition of men, and enthroned among superior beings. Superstition gave birth to credulity. Those who sate among the powers of heaven might sustain by miraculous assistance their votaries on earth. . . . . Hence the stupid veneration for bones and relies. It was inculcated that prayer was never so efficacious as when offered at the tomb of some saint."
And, as to the kind of public worship resulting, take the graphic sketch of Gibbon. "If in the beginning of the fifth century Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the Church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of the incense, 11 the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers; which diffused at noon-day a gaudy, superfluous, and in their opinion a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd: consisting for the most part of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast, and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and perhaps of wine.
Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saints, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. They frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in hope of obtaining from their powerful intercession every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal blessings . .[In case of the fulfillment of their wishes] they again hastened to the martyrs' tombs, to celebrate with grateful thanksgiving their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons.
The walls were hung round with symbols of the favors which they had received; eyes and bands and feet of gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotions, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint."
Such is Gibbon's graphic sketch. It occurs in a chapter thus significantly headed, "Destruction of Paganism"; Introduction of the worship of saints and relics among the Christians:" and which, I beg the reader to observe, is placed, in exact chronological accordance with our in. cense-vision, between the epoch of Theodosius' death, A.D. 395, with which epoch, as I suppose, the seventh Apocalyptic Seal opened, and that of the Gothic revolt and first irruptions A. D. 395, 396, the fulfillment, I further conceive, of the immediately following earthquake, lightnings, &c. of the Apocalyptic vision. Nor, I am persuaded, will he who candidly consults the most authentic memorials of the times fail to acknowledge, that whether as regards the main fact asserted of saint and martyr-worship having now come in, (even as of beings who both chiefly exercised the intercessory office between man and God, and constituted moreover God's chief executive to favor the supplicants addressing them) or as regards the relics and images through which that worship was paid, 12 the fictitious miracles that supported it, 13 or the pilgrimages and the reveling with up it was accompanied 14 which I say in respect of all these points the candid investigator will, I am persuaded, be forced to acknowledge that Gibbon's historic sketch is here, as usual, literally correct.
And, let it be observed, that it was not a mere few of the population, or simply the lower and less instructed, that thus deserted Christ Jesus, the one only appointed Mediator between God and man, for other and imaginary mediators and intercessors. The highest and most influential of their bishops and doctors, Pope Damasus, Gregory Nyssen, Paulinus, Sulpitius, I (may I not add Jerome? these led, and the multitudes followed. And when (not to speak of certain discerning and scriptural Christians, of whom more presently,) alike the Manichean heretic, and the Pagan sophist, (of which latter class still a few remained,) objected and ridiculed the heathenish character of the new worship, when, in sequence of the apostate Julian somewhat earlier, 15 Eunapius the Pagan exclaimed in A. D. 396, "These are the gods the earth now a days brings forth, these, the intercessors with the gods, men called martyrs; before whose bones and skulls, picked up and salted, the monks kneel, and lay prostrate, covered with filth and dust," 16 and the Manichaean Faustus, A. D. 400, "You have but exchanged the old idols for martyrs, and offer to the latter the same prayers as once to the former," "-what was the defense put forth for the Church by its chief and most influential champions, such as the monk St. Jerome 17
He did but, while most loudly disclaiming the charge of idolatry, both admit, and indeed contend for, just such a veneration and view of dead saints and martyrs, as was essentially anti-christian. For throughout the whole of his two treatises, in answer to the charge of saint-worship and martyr-worship, while not one word was said about Christ's being our great mediator and high priest, not one word expressive of jealousy for his honor, or to show that He was not to be superseded in the office, 18 the whole strength of this church-advocate's oratory was expended in magnifying the dead saints and martyrs in question: asserting, as he did, their ubiquity, 19 influence with God,20> and power to hear and answer supplicants, even to the extent of miracle-working in their behalf;21 as also to punish neglectors, and torture demons. 22 In short he asserted a relation between men and them, which, if not that of worshippers and the worshipped, was yet that of clients and patrons; patrons invested with the chief intercessory and mediatorial, as well as chief ministering functions, between God and man.
A view this which could not but involve practically the supercession of Christ, in his character of the one Mediator, to whom was given all power for the help of his saints, alike in heaven and earth: as well as in that also which could not be separated from the former, (and which was also most unequivocally noted in the Apocalyptic vision,) of the propitiatory meritorious sacrifice; whereby alone sinful man's incense-offering could be purified, and made acceptable before God. I say which could not be separated from the former. For how was Christ a prevailing Advocate with the Father, except as being Christ the righteous, who had made atonement for our sins?
And how, in the counter-system, could departed saints be supposed successful mediators, except as having a stock of merit, sufficient to propitiate God? Besides which, human merit was now needed of such kind as might propitiate the saints ; (for an anti-Christian system of merit like this, once begun, knew no ending;) especially of ritual devotion (or rather rioting) at their tombs, and of church-gifts and alms-deeds. So that it was all strange fire now with the offerings. God's own ashes of the altar fire, as well as God's own High Priest, were, according to the Apocalyptic figuration, forsaken by the mass in Roman Christendom.
Oh I sad apostasy of the Church from that which was its proper and glorious office, (I mean the directing each sinner's soul to personal communion with Christ as its Mediator, atonement, righteousness, and Saviour,) into a system whereby it became more and more the instrument of interposing itself and each sacred thing between Christ and the soul; whether the sacraments,' or church-ritual, or tradition; or the dead saints, or the living priests! Surely I had but God's holy written word, construed in the simple unperverted sense,23 been taken for its guide and rule, neither example, nor church authority, 24 nor traditional observances, 25 would have availed so to lead it wrong. -No doubt the seeds of martyr-worship were early sown. They were sown as innocently as unconsciously. What more allowable, as well as natural, than that when the early under the enemies of the faith, their remains be regarded as precious, and their remembrance be kept up annually, on the returns of those their birthdays into eternal life? 26
Again, what more innocent, as well as natural, than the solemn commemorative services at their tombs? And then what more natural than the inquisitive searching into their actual state in the world of spirits; and the persuasion that they were not only still living and conscious, but with the same affectionate interest about surviving Christian friends, which erewhile on earth prompted them on their behalf to intercessory prayer? Once more what more natural (but ah! here began the danger of speculating on things secret, here the trenching on the great Mediator's office) than the speaking to and asking their prayers? -Alas! nature's was no safe guiding. What said the Scripture?
Was it not just such a stealthy rise and growth, from earliest beginnings, that had been predicted of the great apostasy? "The mystery of iniquity," said St. Paul, "doth even now work." 27 And were not ominous words spoken in Scripture about the worship of demons, or deified dead men, as one marked feature that would characterize the unfolded apostacy? 28 As it was, these holy warnings were neglected; and as might be expected, whatever other and human checks there might be to the grosser excesses of the incoming superstition, proved also vain.
Perhaps there might seem to be a grave check in the canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbad the worship of angels. But in truth it was almost beside the mark, and quite ineffectual : for those the people now chiefly invoked as intercessors, were departed saints, not angels. And herein indeed appeared the master-hand of Him that was from the first, and ever after, directing the course of man's corruption, though under a Christian profession, into the great Apostasy.
The angels, having nothing material about them, could not be so well visibly connected with certain particular ecclesiastical localities,29 as the dead saints, whose bodies must needs have each their own place of sepulture; nor consequently so associated with the priestly functionaries of the martyrium, or church built over the martyr's tomb. 30 On the other hand, in the latter case, and supposing the saint to be the effectual intercessor with God, who so effectual a helper to the saint's favor as the priest that watched the saint's relies? Hence a partnership in the anti-Christian apostasy, as now unfolded at the closing in of the fourth century; a partnership between the visible world and the invisible, the earthly priest, and the heavenly martyr.
So that indeed the priests came even thus early, as well as the departed saints, to be viewed as and entitled mediators. And hence too, more and more, a superstitious awe among the people of the clerical body; and a regard to them and to the monks, not only as the specially holy and elect,31 but as those who had the dispensing of the favor and the wrath of heaven. 32 Not to add, what could not but follow also, an awful increase of pride and vanity among the clerics; 33 of pride altogether the most contrary to their Master's spirit, and their Master's charge.
So had the Apostasy advanced, just as pre-intimated in the vision before us, yet another and a mighty step in its anti-Christian course. And here let the reader again stop and think whether he can imagine to himself an emblematic vision that could more exactly suggest by allusive contrast, the characteristic error of the time, as well as more truly the contrasted faith of the saints, than this in the Apocalypse. Point by point the parallelism might be drawn out by us, just as before. But indeed Gibbon has saved us the task. It needs but to put his lately cited picture of the professing world's worship at this epoch, and the Apocalyptic picture of the saints' worship, side by side, to be struck with the perfectness of the contrast.
So this error was now established: and, like the former, or baptismal error, it was abiding. Well then might the prophecy speak henceforward of the mass of the inhabitants of Roman professing Christendom under the self-same title as of its heathen population previously,-"the inhabitants of the earth." For Heathenisin had indeed now joined with Judaism' by its idolatry, as before by its philosophy, in corrupting the Christianity that had overthrown it. Alike the infidel Gibbon, and the Christian Bishop Van Mildert, speak of heathenism as revived in the empire. And so too the Christian philosopher Coleridge: "The pastors of the church had gradually changed the life and light of the gospel into the very superstitions they were commissioned to disperse; and thus paganized Christianity in order to christen Paganism."
But all had not thus become blinded to, and forsaken, their only true and divine High Priest and Intercessor. Far from it. There was given to the Angel much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne." So the prefiguration.
And does not history verify this its direct picture, as well as its allusion? "Whom shall. I look to as my Mediator," said Augustine, A.D. 400, just when all this forsaking of Christ was manifested at Rome and Nola, at Primulac and Bethlehem; "Whom shall I look to as my Mediator? Shall I go to Angels? Many have tried this, and deserved to be the sport of the illusions that they loved. A mediator between God and man must have the nature of both.
The true Mediator, whom in thy secret mercy thou hast shown to the humble,34 the man Christ Jesus, hath appeared a mediator between mortal sinners and the immortal Holy One; that by his divine righteousness he might justify the ungodly. He was shown to ancient saints, that they might be saved by faith in his future sufferings; and we by faith in the same sufferings already past. 35 How hast thou loved us, 0 Father, delivering up thy Son for us: for whom he, our priest and sacrifice, (our priest because our sacrifice,) was subjected to death. We may my hope be strong in such an Intercessor."
Yes! it is no doubt true that Augustine was not altogether uninfected with the prevalent superstitions about departed saints: for he credulously believed in miracles wrought by their relics, and even joined in the established commemorative services, in which mention was made of their praying for the living. 36 Alike his humility and his charity made him credulous. The living authority of the Church, the opinions and practices of friends, and ritualistic tradition handed down even from men like Cyprian, 37 so far swayed him.
But what he did was with such views, and such explanations to his people and the public, as showed his regard to Christ, as the Christian's only and all perfect mediator, to be just as clear, direct, and influential as our own. When consulted by Paulinus on the state of the departed saints, their knowledge, and the functions they might exercise in behalf of those they had left behind, he stated explicitly that he did not believe they were present at their shrines, or knew what passed on earth at the time; excepting only what they might hear from other souls more recently departed from earth, or by communication from God: moreover, as to miracles said to be done by them, that these might probably be by angelic ministration, even though under the martyr's semblance.
Between which confessedly doubtful and restricted views, as to the saints knowing, hearing, and acting, and the views of Paulinus and Jerome, what a contrast! and how comparatively innocuous in such case the belief that whilst in the separate state departed saints pray for men; I mean innocuous as to diverting the eye from Christ.
And thus, when any question arose about the mediator and High Priest that was to make man's offerings acceptable to God, we have seen how clear he was, and how strong. In his sermons on the saints' commemorations he still as expressly stated the same opinion. In his answer to Faustus the Manichean, (while allowing much evil in the matter that the Church unwillingly tolerated)38 he added with regard to the honor judged due by him to departed saints, that it was but of the same nature as was paid to them when alive, though warmer in degree; and that the saints' themselves would repudiate any-higher worship, as more hateful to them than even drunkenness itself at their feasts.
So that in this, as in every other point, the holy Augustine was as eminently and essentially Christian, as eminently with the eye and heart directed to Christ, as the alone mediator, propitiatory sacrifice, and High Priest, as the prevailing system was eminently and essentially anti-Christian. It was a subject indeed which he delighted to dwell on. And he declared that whosoever directed men to another mediator might be considered Antichrist. >39
Nor was Augustine as yet so singular in his views and feelings. "There was much incense given to the Angel." Multitudes doubtless under his influence, as well as others elsewhere under other teaching, united in offering the incense of their prayer and praise simply through the mediation and propitiatory atonement of Jesus. May we not trust that the promoters of the Laodicean Council, however timid and partial in their restriction of the crying evil, were yet influenced by sincere regard to Christ? Again of Jovinian may we not hope the same? Aye, and even of not a few clouded on this point, and superstitious?
Most of all we must note "the Protestant of his age" Vigilantius: one that was more prominent than Augustine himself in the direct act of protesting against the prevalent superstitions; and whom we may well believe Dr. Gilly to have done this, not as himself seeing, and worshiping through, the true one. 40
And what the result of their so offering? It was indicated in the vision. The Covenant-Angel received their offering: and the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up (accepted) before God out of the Angel's hand." Yes! they might, some at least, like Vigilantius, be cast out as heretics by their fellow men: but they were accepted before God. But on the rest, the earthly ones in Roman Christendom, and neglectors of Christ the Saviour, judgment must follow." The Angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it (the fire) upon the earth: and there were thunderings, and lightnings, and voices, and an earthquake. -And (then) the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound."
THE TRUMPET-SOUNDINGS
III. Reserving my explanation of the historical fulfillment of the thunderings, lightnings, and earthquake, here spoken of, to the next chapter, let me, in what remains of the present, add a few observations on the probably intended significance of the trumpet-soundings now preparing; trumpet-soundings under which, in sevenfold succession, the judgments fore-doomed were about to be represented to the Evangelist. For, since we are told that it was by God's own appointment that trumpets were made and used in the ancient Israel, as also that their uses were all expressly defined by Him, and these uses of them to be made in the Jewish temple, by priests that "stood before God'" and since in the apocalyptic visions the temple was similarly the locality of the trumpet-blasts, and the trumpet angels similarly designated as those that stood before* God, -therefore we seem warranted in supposing an analogy between the two cases; and that a significance attached to the trumpets in the latter case not dissimilar from what attached to them in the former.
Now under the Levitical law the uses of the priestly trumpet were of a twofold character. first, and as regarded the Israelites, its use was to proclaim to them the epochs of advancing time, the sabbaths, the new moons, the new years, and annual or other festivals; on these summoning the congregrations for praise and prayer: besides that it served also, whilst they sojourned in the wilderness, to proclaim each forward movement of the camp, and thus to note their advancing steps towards the end of their pilgrimage. Secondly, during war-time, and as regarded their enemies, its use was to proclaim war against those enemies, as from God Himself: the trumpets blown by his priests against them being a declaration that the LORD had taken up Israel's cause as his own cause, and that He would fight for Israel.
And it seems to me that of these two kinds of uses, we may apply not the one only, but both, to the emblematic trumpet-soundings in the Apocalypse. To his own Israel, to the 144,000, emerged indeed out of the Egypt of Pagan oppression, but having still the tribulation and long pilgrimage of the wilderness to pass through, each trumpet angel's sounding, like the hour strikings on a chronometer, might be regarded as a chronological epoch in the Prophecy, a note of advance towards the consummation.
Such, for instance, is the chronometrical use made of them in the vision of Apoc. 10: in which vision the sun-beaming Angel, that descended and stood with his feet on land and sea, when he would distinguish the true time of the consummation from the wrong, thus expressed his meaning; "He sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that," not in the days of the sixth Trumpet-angel, under which his descent took place, but "in the days of the seventh, the mystery of God should be finished."
This, I say, was one thing signified to St. John by the successive trumpet soundings. And just as to him by the figurative trumpet clangs, so to the saints from time to time living, in so far as understanding on the subject might be given them, by the voices of the actual events prefigured; as one, and then another, they pealed upon a startled world.
Further, since during all this time there was a state and a people in open opposition to the truth and the true Israel, therefore the successive trumpet-soundings might be considered, also, as the repeated proclamations of war from the Lord Himself against them. Indeed this is the meaning most prominently marked in the trumpet-soundings of the Apocalypse; as it is the use most frequent of the figure in other scriptures. Let me just add that, supposing the trumpets to have been blown in the temple of vision, like those in the ancient temple of Jerusalem, "over the burnt offering and peace-offerings" on the great altar,' then it must have looked like an intimation that the cause, thus espoused by God, was espoused as the cause of those who had made a covenant with Him by sacrifice; and as against them specially that had forsaken that holy covenant.
There were to be seven Trumpets sounded, and under the seventh Trumpet seven Vial poured out. The numeral resemblance of these to the seven trumpet-blasts sounded on seven successive days against the ancient Jericho, and which were followed on the seventh day by seven compassings of its wall, till on the last the wall fell down, and entrance was given to Israel into that first city of the promised Canaan, this interesting resemblance, I say, has been noted by Ambrose Ansbert in old times, and in more modern times by Vitringa, and other apocalyptic commentators after him. It almost seemed as if some power were marked out hereby as the New Testament Jericho; whose domination opposed, and whose overthrow would introduce, the saints' enjoyment of the heavenly Canaan.
And- if so, what power but that of the now nearly dominant antichristian apostasy? It is observable, and perhaps confirmatory of this view, that in the ancient Israelite Feast of Tabernacles there was kept up a constant commemoration of the above-noted manner of the fall of the ancient Jericho; and this with a certain reference to the' future, in the ritual, as well as to the past. On seven successive days, (according to the divine ordinance,) a palm-bearing procession, with trumpets blowing, were then wont to visit the Temple; and, on the last of the seven, seven times to compass the altar, still sounding the trumpets, and chanting Hosanna!
Now as the cry Manna was, as I think I have elsewhere had occasion to observe, supplicatory, signifying Save Lord, it seemed to refer to some enemy yet to be conquered by Messiah for his people, some Jericho yet to be overthrown. Many a time must St. John himself have witnessed the celebration of this ceremonial. And thus when he saw prefigured an earthly anti-Christian power, to which the duration meted out was that of the seven trumpet-soundings, and under the seventh trumpet the seven vials out-pouring, the remembrance of it, and the application, could scarce fail to strike him.
Of the fall of the first, or Canaanitish Jericho, the commemoration was in that Israel's Feast of Tabernacles of which I was just speaking. Of the fall of the second, the celebration was to be in the anti-typical heavenly Feast of Tabernacles, yet future: that same festival that St. John had a little while before seen figured anticipatively in vision; and to which the eyes of the saints have ever since been directed, as the destined term to all the evils of the wilderness, and to the persecutions and opposition of every enemy.