as to leave
the world in no doubt respecting the nearness of Christ's second coming;
whereas it appears in the Scriptures that God has designed that it
should be a matter of considerable uncertainty, especially to the
unsaved. However, we can obtain no satisfactory explanation of the
things uttered by the seven thunders; for we can not identify positively
what John was commanded to "seal up."

This angel had in his hand a little book that John was required to take
and eat. In advancing and taking the book, John himself becomes an actor
in the symbolic scene, the same as was the book and the angel from whose
hand he took it. Therefore we must now consider John a symbol of
something in this vision. Some of the commentators have supposed that
this book signified the remainder of the book of Revelation. But John
was commanded to _write_ the Revelations, not to _eat_ them. And if he
ate them, how, then, could they constitute the remainder of the book?
Its true signification is undoubtedly the word of God. In making such an
application we do not necessarily make one book merely a symbol of a
larger one, as the Bible is, but of God's _revealed will_, just the same
as the sealed book of chapter V was the symbol of the divine purposes.
When we come to explain the resurrection of the witnesses in chapter XI,
it will be found that this is the time when the word of God is again
taught in all its purity, being restored for the first time, in its
perfect sense, since the morning time of this dispensation. A great
spiritual famine has for centuries overspread the earth. Since the time
the black horse of the third seal entered on his career, the people have
been starving for spiritual food. The few crumbs that have been dropped
during the reign of Protestantism have been eagerly gathered up by the
spiritually-minded; but, thank God! the time has now arrived when the
messengers appear with food from heaven, and the multitudes of earth's
starving millions can "eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the
name of the Lord God." Joel 2:26. Halleluiah!

In taking the book from the hand of the angel and eating it, John became
a symbol of the church, or people of God, who receive the Word from the
hand of his ministers. The sweetness of its taste signifies the
eagerness with which people receive it and the gladness experienced when
they first partake of the heavenly manna; while the bitterness resulting
therefrom probably symbolizes the