rs according to the promise." When John was afterwards giving
a description of the holy city, he even saw the names of the twelve tribes
of the children of Israel inscribed on the twelve gates. This agrees with
the description in the 7th chapter, and makes a perfect harmony when we
understand that this vision was sixty years after the introduction of the
gospel, when the church was the whole Israel of God. The other view would
give the literal seed of Jacob full possession of the city; the gates
being theirs by the titles on them. This would make a division wall there,
and God would be a respecter of persons. The gentiles could have no claim
there; thus their joint heirship with Christ would fail and so would this
Revelation; for John was directed to "show (us) things which would shortly
come to pass."--i: 1; and to "write the things which thou _hast seen_, and
the things which are, and the things which _shall be hereafter_" in the
churches, in the future.--xxii: 16. So we see this vision was all of the
present and future; besides the tribes of _literal_ Israel had before this
been rejected and were to "be trodden down until the times of the gentiles
were fulfilled."

To make the 14th chapter more plain, in respect to the 144,000, we will
try to give an exposition of the 7th. "And after these things, I saw four
Angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds
of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the _earth_, nor on the
_sea_, nor on any _tree_. And I saw another angel ascending from the east
having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the
four angels to whom it was given to hurt the _earth_, and the _sea_;
saying hurt not the _earth_, neither the _sea_, nor the _trees_ till we
have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads."--1-3. I believe
the general view of these four angels being the four leading governments
[see 9th chapter 14, 15 verses,] is correct with the exceptions of Prussia
or Rome, because neither of those nations have any maritime force on the
sea. Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States of North
America, possess this power over all seas, and the most part of
Christendom. Our not being a party in the great christian alliance at the
downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1815, neither in 1840, at the fall of
the Ottoman Empire, will not, I think, effect this point; but being one of
these four messengers, will make it clear, at least s