accordance with the last eight years' peculiar labor
in their experience, and will be completed and approbated by God in the
agonizing time of Daniel's and Jacob's trouble, and proclaimed to the
world by God's roaring out of Zion, and uttering his voice from Jerusalem;
then he will be the hope of his people; (see Joel iii.) then their
atonement will be finished, the Sanctuary cleansed,--16th and 17th verses;
"Zion's captivity turned;" "their mouths filled with laughter;" "the
jewels made up," and the wise will understand the time of their coming
deliverer.(3)

_The four Angels._--How does the sealing angel, or messenger, ascending
from the east, cry with a loud voice to these four angels or governments
of messengers, to "hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees,"
&c. In the first place, I understand that symbolic prophecies have literal
statements interspersed, which serve as a key for the rest: i. e. they
have a mixed character; for instance, earth and sea here, literal;
_trees_, symbolical; meaning those that are _marked_, or _sealed_; the
professed people of God--followers of Jesus. See the clear proof under the
sounding of the fifth trumpet by the Turks, in ch. ix: 4th verse: "they
were not to hurt any tree, but only those MEN which have _not_ the _seal_
of God _in their foreheads_." This proves the trees to symbolize the
followers of God; see also Hosea xiv: 8. Again, it is said that these four
messengers were to "hold the wind from blowing on the _earth_, _sea_, or
any _tree_." By the _wind_, I understand as Paul teaches the Eph. iv: 14,
"every wind of doctrine and cunning craftiness, and slight of men to
deceive, and lead nations into carnage, war and bloodshed;" see also ii:
2, "being led by the Prince of the power of the _air_, working in men
disobedience, according to the course of this world." After the last great
battle of nations at Waterloo, in 1815, then these blood-thirsty,
conquering crowned heads, formed themselves into what they called a
christian alliance, showing that there was now peace with all the world;
since which time they and our own government have been petitioned or
prayed to by those who professed to be the followers of the Prince of
Peace, to abolish the wicked practice with themselves, and thereby
restrain all other nations. Now let us learn the difference between the
trees, (professors or followers of the Prince of Peace,) and _servants of
God_ which are now to be sealed, viz.