"but few shall be saved." And in the same book we are told, "There be many more of them that perish than of them which shall be saved." And in the second book of Maccabees, the fourth martyred brother thus addresses the persecuting Antiochus: "Thou shalt have no resurrection to life (2 Esdras viii. 3; ix. 15; 2 Maccabees vii. 14). Such are the general declarations of the Apocrypha. They reject any idea of universal restoration. We ask Mr. Cox to point out a single passage in them which favours his view.

And now, what do they say as to the two other theories of future punishment? We are reminded by the length of our paper that we have reached the limits of an article for the RAINBOW, and therefore must be brief. We will say, then, that unless it may be drawn from the condemnation of the Epicurean doctrine in Wisdom ii. 1-4, that the writer held the theory of eternal torments, we have not been able to ascertain that the Augustinian theory is ever taught in the Apocrypha (Wisdom ii. 1-4). Our own view of the final and utter destruction of the ungodly is frequently asserted (2 Esdras vii. 31; viii. 54, 55). And so, from the writings of Josephus and the Apocrypha, we are led to a conclusion the direct opposite to that arrived at by Mr. Cox, viz., that if we are to interpret our Saviour's meaning for Gehenna by the meaning attached to it before and at His time, we will not be led by it to suppose that, in His mind, Gehenna is a place or state of restoration. The truth we believe to be this, that Jewish opinion was so divided upon the subject that we cannot reason from it. We must allow Christ to be the interpreter of the word He has chosen for the scene of future retribution. Our helpers towards the elucidation of His meaning will not be the Rabbis, but the apostles and the prophets. HENRY CONSTABLE.

"A

NOTES ON THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST.

No. VI.

THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES (Rev. xiv.-xvi).

ND I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads (Rev. xiv. 1). These, I consider to represent the elect that had been gathered out during the long reign of the beast's dominion. They are a proof that although to mortal eye the saints were oppressed and persecuted, they were really, by means of that very oppression and persecution, raised to a higher rank than that of the angels.

Verse 4.-"These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins." That is, I think, they had not been carried away by votion to churches or creeds as human systems, but had been like

children in their loving obedience and trust in Christ, and in Him alone. If the woman' sitting on a beast represents a church, then it seems fair to conclude that the women spoken of here are also churches. In their lifetime these elect ones may have been members of some of the external churches, but their hearts were never in their various systems, their first and only love was to their Lord. The word 'virgin' seems to imply that in their fresh, early love, there was no room for attachment to a church or a system of doctrines. To them Christ was everything, the church to which they belonged being a very secondary consideration. When men become churchmen they are very apt, as Dean Alford remarks, to place the church first and Christ next, just as when men join together in a guild or society they are extremely apt to put attachment to that society in the first place. My country or my church, right or wrong, is too often the motto of patriots and churchmen or chapelmen. Now, this sort of love, though often compatible with a true love to Christ, is not giving Him the first place in their affections, and it is obviously only those who do who are worthy to "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."

Verse 5.-"And in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God." We, of course, cannot tell with anything like certainty who these saints were; but I am certainly inclined to think (with great reverence) that one of them is described in Motley's History of the United Netherlands. His name is not, I think, given; but that is of no consequence-he will possess a new name before God. Motley relates that among the victims of one of the autos dá fè, in the reign of Philip the Second of Spain, was a young man of unreproachable life, who was burned together with his father for so-called heresy. When led to the stake the young man prayed with ecstasy: "Accept, most merciful Father, the sacrifice of our lives as a tribute of our love and devotion to Thee." As the flames rose round him he cried out to his father, "Look, father, look! I see all Heaven opened, and the angels of God coming down.” Surely God thus rewarded the fresh beautiful love of that noble young heart with a sight of the glory that awaited him.

After the elect of the 1260 years have been gathered out, there then follows a period in which the everlasting Gospel is to be preached to all nations. I cannot but think that we are at the present day living at the commencement of this period. Perhaps the marvellous development of railways and telegraphs may have for one of its purposes, that of spreading more rapidly the Gospel of Jesus Christ; for, as our Lord says, this Gospel must first be preached among all nations. This missionary spirit is, at the present day, very general; more or less it is common to all the subdivisions of the churches, and now that the means of travelling and locomotion are so much extended it is almost certain that every nation will, at all events, hear the great truths of Christianity proclaimed. By the expression, "the everlasting Gospel," is, perhaps, meant that now the Gospel in its entirety, and not in the one sidedness of other ages, is it to be preached. Indeed, it may almost be said the Gospel, in its simplicity and purity, never has been preached since the Apostolic age.

After this "preaching of the everlasting Gospel," an angel announces the fall of Babylon-" that great city!" This is the first passage in the

Revelation in which allusion is made to Babylon, but the full and explicit prophecy of her doom is reserved for a later part of the vision. At present all that is announced is the fact of her fall, and that because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Verse 9.-The third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever."

This highly symbolical passage being one of the great texts on which the advocates of eternal punishment rely, I shall endeavour to show that it has no reference to that awful and utterly incredible dogma. The expression, then, "which is poured out without mixture" (aкpárov), is clearly a quotation from Psalm lxxv. 8, " For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture (aкpàrov); and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." Now this Psalm, no one for a moment imagines has anything to do with eternal punishment, but simply and solely alludes to the temporary chastisement of the ungodly and the ultimate destruction of the hardened sinner; for, in the next verse but one, it plainly alludes to "the horns of the wicked being cut off," i.e., destroyed.

The above passage in the Revelation then goes on to explain what is to be the nature of the punishment of those who (persistently) worship the beast and his image, viz., that "the smoke of their torment (Bagároc) goeth up for ever." This, like all the images in this remarkable book, is taken from the Old Testament, where similar and almost identical expressions are applied to the destruction of cities and places (compare e.g., Gen. xix. 28). "Abraham looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Again, in Isaiah xxxiv., where the prophet is speaking of the chastisement which should come upon all the nations, and especially upon Idumea, it states, "The land thereof shall become burning pitch, it shall not be quenched day nor night, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever and ever." Yet, immediately after, we are told "the owl and the raven shall dwell therein, and the cormorant and the bittern-it shall be an habitation for dragons. There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay and hatch." In this passage it is plain that what the prophet means is that after the burning of the city by fire it should be so utterly deserted and waste that wild beasts should make their habitations in it. The highly figurative character of the passage is also shown by the words, "none shall pass through it for ever and for ever;" where it is merely intended to state that for a long period the place should be avoided and shunned.* But probably the best explanation of the passage in Revelation is that in which the literal Babylon is spoken of by Isaiah (xiii. 19), "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God

*In Isaiah xxxiv., where the Heb. has it, "None shall pass through it for ever and for ever." The lxx. have, "for generations and for a long time."

overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." Hence, we are justified in concluding that the punishment of the literal Babylon is the same in character as that of the spiritual Babylon; but just as Sodom and Gomorrah are spoken of as suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, and yet Ezekiel tells us they are one day to be restored, so we must conclude that the Apostle here means to declare to the people of God that utter destruction should fall on the spiritual Babylon; that her children should either leave her or share her punishment, but it has certainly no reference at all to everlasting existence in suffering.

Immediately, or very shortly, after the destruction of Babylon the time for the reaping of the harvest of the earth approaches, i.e., the last ingathering of God's elect takes place. It is for their sakes and on their account that the present state of things exists; and notwithstanding the presence of tares among the wheat, the latter goes on ripening, but as soon as ever the wheat is fit for cutting, the harvest will be gathered in, and thus apparently the saints of God will be taken away from the evil to come. The awful and terrible sight is now, therefore, seen; that, viz., of the earth deprived of the saints and left to itself. What can possibly come of such a state of things but that the Lord Himself should shortly appear and execute judgment on a world in arms against Him? The command is therefore given to the angel to gather the clusters of the vine of the earth and cast them into the great winepress of the wrath of God. "The winepress was trodden without the city"-probably implying that the saints were entirely delivered from this plague-"and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles," showing the terrible nature of this plague and its great extent and far reaching results.

We are next shown "the sea of glass mingled with fire," and are permitted, as it were, to gaze and, if we will, to join in the shout of praise and triumph raised by the saints, of the long night of the beast's duration. We are shown, too, that they now see, understand, and fully applaud the mysterious ways of the Almighty; teaching us the great lesson that if we only have faith and patience as these had, we also shall be permitted to see how just and true are all God's ways. These saints recognise in their fulness the words of the psalmist: "Though clouds and darkness are round about Him, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.' They, after all, only echo St. Paul's words: "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God." The chief delight, however, of these saints seems to be that now "all nations will come and worship God," and they rejoice even in the judgments of God, because they know that they will now produce the desired result.

Chap. xv. 5.-"The temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened." This proves to us that even in the midst of wrath God remembers His everlasting mercy, and we may, I think, fairly infer from ver. 8, that, when the plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled, the temple will be again opened. Notwithstanding this, we must ever remember, as these plagues show us, that it is indeed an evil thing and a bitter to forsake the Lord.

Chap. xvi. 2.-"The first went and poured out his vial upon the earth, and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which

had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." I conclude from this that now not simply is the light of Divine truth to a great extent removed, but spiritual anguish and mental misery begin to be felt in greatly increased force in the professing Christian world.

"The second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died in the sea." We here see the greatly increased force of the curse. In the case of the angel sounding the trumpet, only the third part of the creatures that were in the sea, and had life, died; but here it is every living soul. Now, apparently, the living truths of Christianity are all but completely cut off, and, instead of producing an improvement on the heathenism of the world, they rather make it worse.

"The third angel poured out his vial on the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood." The very truths of Christianity, now perverted and distorted, seem only to corrupt, instead of cleansing, the earth. Now, it appears, the professing Church is at the culmination of its external power; it had become a terrible persecutor, and had shed the blood of saints and martyrs in abundance, and, as a consequence, its doctrines and professions of faith have become sources of intense spiritual misery. It has been well said that, "As we make creeds in order the better to judge one another's faith, God frowns on our devices by confounding our language, so that the very words we use become snares in which we are broken, and snared, and taken." And just so is it here, when the Church brings forward texts of Scripture to justify persecution, these very texts become the channels of misery and suffering, and they darken instead of lightening the gloom that hangs over our lives.

The Church was being now made to feel the iron bonds of spiritual despotism; a despotism so fierce, so cruel, that one could scarcely call one's soul one's own. All independent, honest thought and wisdom was banished and found only, so to speak, "in dens and caves of the earth." "The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and men were scorched with great heat." The sun, the source of light and heat to the earth, being now made so terribly powerful, seems to indicate that none of the natural and beautiful spiritual fruit that the Church ought to have been blessed with, was obtainable. Spiritual life was now sustained with great difficulty, and men being no longer able to bear the full light of truth were given over to various delusions and errors. Yet, even so, they would not recognise the hand of God in these things, and continued, no doubt, as their fathers did, to ask counsel of departed (so-called) saints, and would not go out to see the blessed light of truth.

"The fifth angel poured out his vial on the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain." This seems to imply that now, instead of a too great brightness and heat, almost total spiritual darkness supervened. This, perhaps, relates to the period when indulgences were openly sold and bought, and when by the confession, alike of friend and foe, the professing Church was in a condition of gross spiritual darkness and misery. Still, however, in spite of the attempts at reform by the calling together of the Council of Trent, the Romish Church would not give up her gross superstitions and errors and repent of her crimes. Whether we look within or without we discover nothing but horrors and cruelty. The success of Protestantism itself