Sylvester Bliss

“ Epistle to the Church in Smyrna.
“And to the messenger of the congregation in Smyrna, write: These things saith the First and the Last, who became dead and is alive: I know thy works, and affliction, and poverty (but thou art rich) ; and I know the reviling of those, who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Fear none of the things, which thou wilt suffer. Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye will have affliction ten days. Be thou faithful to death, and I will give thee the crown of life. ”

“ The superb attire of the woman, and the costly gems with which she is decked, denote the wealth, luxury, and regal splendor of the hierarchy which she symbolizes. The cup, and its abominations in her hand, denote the false doctrines with which she would seduce the nations. Her names describe her nature, and identify her with Babylon; and her intoxication with blood, indicates her blood-thirsty, persecuting character, and the delight with which she would exult over the slaughter of the saints.
The Roman hierarchy was not, however, always to retain her supremacy over the nations. ”

“ Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation ”

“ Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day ”

“ And I saw as it were a transparent sea mingled with fire; and those who had obtained the victory over the wild beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name, standing on the transparent sea, having harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and wonderful are thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, king of nations! Who should not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy; for all nations will come and worship before thee ”

“ To him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests to God even his father: to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye will see him, and those, who pierced him: and all the tribes of the earth will wail because of him. Yea, so be it! I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to be, the Almighty.”—Rev. 1:4-8. The seven churches to which John sends salutation, were those of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, 1:11. ”

“ And when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be loosed out of his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them to battle: the number of whom is like the sand of the sea. And they ascended on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the beloved city: and fire descended from God out of heaven, and devoured them. ”

“ The world must recognize it, because it will be accompanied with war; for politics are inseparably connected, all over the world, with religious systems. Religion will develop reason; but politics will impel the masses to unsheath the sword, and to stain the bosom of Nature with blood! ”

“ Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.... And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. ”

“ And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who shewed me these things. And he saith to me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and one of thy brethren the prophets, and one of those, who keep the words of this book: worship God. And he saith to me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book: for the season is near. He, who is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he, who is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he, who is righteous, let him perform righteousness still: and he, who is holy, let him be holy still. ”

“ The nations who are angry, will be the nations out from whom the righteous are taken, and who are left to the recompense of their reward;—“when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe,” 2 Thess. ”

“ The laws of symbolization require that symbols should not be representatives of their own order when there is any analogous order to be representatives of. In other places in the Apocalypse, these symbols are used, under circumstances where it is impossible to regard them as symbols of their own order. And here, as the kings of the earth call on the rocks and mountains to fall on them after the heaven has departed as a scroll and every mountain and island is moved out of its place, it is necessary to regard them as symbols of objects of analogous orders. ”

“ The Third Trumpet.
“And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on the third part of the rivers, and on the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died by the waters, because they were made bitter.”—Rev. 8:10, 11. The sounding of the third trumpet marks the advent of a third invader of the Roman empire. And such was Attila, the king of the Huns, who invaded Gaul A. D. 451. ”

“ And all, who dwell on the earth, will worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the slain Lamb, from the foundation of the world. If any one hath an ear, let him hear. If any one leadeth into captivity, he will go into captivity: if any one killeth by the sword, he must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”—Rev. 13:5-10. The mouth of the beast, must symbolize the agency by which utterance is given to the great things and blasphemies which are spoken by it. ”

“ These considerations point to the epoch of the REFORMATION, when the midnight darkness of the dark ages began to be scattered before the uprising and onward progress of truth and knowledge. Then appeared a body of religious teachers, aided by the newly discovered art of printing, who so brought the Scriptures out from their obscurity, opposed the pretensions of the Papal hierarchy, and, by the clear teachings of the word, so secured the spread of gospel light and liberty, that they might appropriately be symbolized by an angel coming down from heaven, and enlightening the earth with his glory. ”

“ The rest of the dead must then be understood as persons morally dead, which would be inconsistent with the idea of a converted world. Those who were raised being those who were previously converted, they must have been literally dead, and the only resurrection predicable of such is a literal resurrection.
The Bible teaches such a resurrection of the righteous prior to that of the wicked. Thus the Psalmist says of them: “Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.” ”

“ The same hour, is the time of the slaughter of the witnesses. Its epoch was to be marked by a great political revolution, which, in the Apocalypse, is symbolized by an earthquake. In the year in which Christianity was suppressed by France, they beheaded their king, abolished the monarchy, and entirely revolutionized the government. In the reign of terror following, the best blood of the nation was shed like water, and no man of influence could consider his life secure. ”

“ These, with many other striking resemblances, demonstrate that the Roman hierarchy, in all its great features, was a counterpart to imperial Rome—an image of, and belonging to, the seven-headed, ten-horned monster, whose deadly wound was healed.
Life was to be given to this image by the two-horned beast. The papal hierarchy is created when its supremacy over other churches is declared and sustained; and the power by which this is done, is that which gives life to it. This was done, according to the following history, by the Eastern empire. ”

“ In the 4th of Daniel, where the cutting down of a tree is used to symbolize the loss of the king's reason, there is no such disproportion between the duration of man's existence and that of a tree, as there is between the life of a beast and that of an empire. And therefore there is no incongruity if the time specified is a symbol of literal time, i.e., if a time is used to symbolize a year. ”

“ The early Christians chose death, rather than to deny their Saviour at the command of Jewish Sanhedrim or Roman emperor. When Peter and John were commanded “not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus,” their answer was, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than [pg 234] unto God, judge ye; for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” Acts 4:19, 20. In like manner, the Christians living at the epoch of this angel, were to be similarly tried, which is implied in the command, not to worship. ”

“ Several heads on the same beast, on this principle, must indicate the several forms of government to which the nation is subject. As these cannot be contemporary, like the divisions of a kingdom represented by the horns, they must be successive. To suppose they represent different governments, destroys the analogy, and makes them separate beasts, instead of heads of the same beast; and no government can be subject to more than one head at the same time. ”

“ The rich were impoverished, the nation was robbed, the business of the country was paralyzed, the obnoxious were slain, every species of misery and wickedness abounded, the males were subjected to military conscription, and hundreds of thousands of them were sent to subjugate surrounding nations. The countries they invaded were also devastated, and oppressed, and robbed by impoverishing taxations. These continued, though in a milder form, under the imperial rule, and all parts of the Roman earth felt the scorching effects of the devouring heat of French usurpation. ”

“ God said to Ariel, “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust,” Isa. 29:4. “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: (should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead!) ”

“ They encompass the camp of the saints, and the beloved city—showing that the city descends at the commencement of the thousand years—but there is no battle: before they are permitted to harm the saints, fire from heaven devours them; and the devil that thought to lead them against the holy city, is cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet were cast at the commencement of the millennium. ”

“ And those of the people, and tribes, and tongues, and nations, will see their dead body three days and a half, and will not allow their dead body to be put into a tomb. And those, who dwell on the earth, will rejoice over them, and exult, and send gifts to each other; because these two prophets tormented those, who dwell on the earth. And after the three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell on those, who saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them, Ascend here! And they ascended into heaven in a cloud ”

“ An Apostrophe is a digression from the order of any discourse, and a direct address to the persons of whom it treats, or to those who are to form a judgment respecting the subject of which it treats.—Lord. Example.—“Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom: give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.” Isa. 1:10.
32. An Allegory is a narrative in which the subject of the discourse is described by an analogous subject, resembling it in its characteristics and circumstances—the subject of which it is descriptive being indicated in its connection. ”