Vol. 1, pp. 428, 439

The Pergamian with all its evils merging ink) the worse I'hyatiran degree of apostasy. Christians so-called, as intensely nominal and worldly as sectarians of the nineteenth century. The prophetess Jezebel, and “the Satan," their representatives in the third century — Apoc. 2:20,24.

A.CT 111. — SEAL-PERIOD THIRD
Apoc. 6:5 ,6

Commodus, the imperial sword-bearer of the Roman empire, was not poinarded, but strangled to death. He was succeeded by Pertinax, the praefect of Rome, a senator of consular rank, and conspicuous for his merit. He was chosen emperor by the Praetorian Guards, whose praefect, Laetus, had procured the murder of Commodus, and his election by the military. The election was ratified by the Senate, A.D. 193, which at the same sitting branded the memory of Commodus with eternal infamy.

“It was given to him (the rider) to take the peace from the earth. ” “The earth" in this place cannot be the earth wherever men dwell, comprehending what we term Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia. The last two were unknown to the ancients; and may therefore certainly be excluded from “the earth" having relation to events being transacted in their time.

“And there was given to him (the rider) a great dagger.” So I render the words, kai edothe auto machaira megale. In the English Version, machaira megale is rendered a great sword. My objection to this is, that in the symbolization of the Fourth Seal the sword<

John refers to the rider by the phrase “him who sits upon him.” This equestrian is a symbolical personage, not representative of an individual man, but of a class of agents blindly executing retribution upon those obnoxious to the Lamb’s displeasure. He evidently repre­sents a class of agents endued with the power of the sword, and who could wield it in the cause of peace or war.

In the first seal the horse was white — it was in peace and prosperity; but the horse in the second seal appears under an adminis­tration that “takes away the peace from the earth.” Hence the redness of the horse — a horse dyed with blood — with arterial blood the life of the flesh, and therefore its fiery rather than a purple hue.

When the Lamb opened the first seal, John’s attention was called to the fact by a voice “as of a voice of thunder;” but in the opening of the second, he hears a voice of the same import, only without the thunder. There was no hurling of the tyrant Marcus Aurelius Antoni­nus into the shades of death by the hands of an assassin, and the revo­cation of his edicts, and declaring his memory infamous, by the decrees of an indignant Senate, as in the case of Domitian.

In my previous exposition I have shown that the Bowman of the first seal is emblematic of the spirit of the heavens manifested in the “we all” who had "come to a perfect man," who was engaged in an earnest contention for the faith against the superstition and infidelity of the world. This was that one styled by the Spirit in David, in Psa.

Vol. 1. p. 428,436

The Epheso-Smyrnean State of the Ecclesias degenerates into the Pergamian. The doctrine of Balaam and the Nikolaitanes gaining the ascendancy. Celsus, a heathen opponent of the word, objects, that Christians were now so split into sects, that the name, Christian, only remained to them in common.

ACT II. — SEAL-PERIOD SECOND Apoc. 6:3,4

In concluding this section, 1 remark, that it is not within the scope of this exposition to occupy its pages in stating and examining the multitude of opinions and theories that have been broached by the many and various writers that have preceded me in attempts, all of which have proved futile attempts, at apocalyptical interpretation.