to be a
closed and sealed book, and the people are permitted to have free access
to them.

His _position_--one foot resting on the sea, and one on the land--attests
the universality of the movement which is to date from that epoch.

His lion voice, must symbolize the manner in which would be announced the
great truths, at which the whole world would be startled.

The _singleness_ of his cry, is also symbolic of the simplicity of the
truth, which is never symbolized by discordant multitudinous sounds.

The _responsive thunders_, unlike the single voice of the angel, are
multitudinous and discordant; and consequently symbolize errors. Their
_following_ so immediately on the shout of the angel, shows the proximity
of their promulgation to the utterance of the truths to which they are
responsive.

JOHN'S _readiness to write_ what the seven thunders uttered, shows that
what they uttered was _professedly_ in harmony with the truths previously
announced, and that men would be liable to be deceived, by their
promulgation.

His being _forbidden_ by the cloud-robed angel, to write what they
uttered--while he was commanded to "seal not the sayings of the prophecy of
this book" (22:10),--shows that their utterances were not heaven-inspired,
and constituted no part of "the word of GOD, and of the testimony of JESUS
CHRIST," which JOHN bare record of.

The _subsequent oath_ of the angel, by Him who liveth forever, that "the
time is not yet," shows that those thunders, however erroneous in their
form manner and connection with other errors, had respect to some great
event foretold in Scripture; but which the thunders had _antedated_ and
presented in an _unscriptural_ form.

His further announcement that it would be fulfilled under the sounding of
the "seventh trumpet," and that then the mystery of GOD should be finished
in the manner foretold to his servants the prophets, shows that the great
event, the time of which was "not yet,"--_i.e._, under the sixth trumpet,
was the coming of the kingdom of GOD--the fifth universal empire; that at a
period anterior to the time when it might rationally be expected, it would
be proclaimed in a form repugnant to the teachings of the prophets; and
that when thus heralded, it would be met by the party uttering the
heaven-inspired truths, with the denial that the time had arrived, and by
arguments to show its true nature and epoch, under the seventh trumpet.

The command to take and eat th