cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled: and after that, he must be loosed a little
season.

Vs. 1-3.--"And I saw an angel." This angel is the Lord Christ, (ch. x.
1.) The key is the symbol of authority. (Is. xxii. 22; chs. i. 18; iii.
7.) The dragon had been previously cast down from heaven, (ch. xii. 9;)
by the Reformation, and during the "short time" of his liberty, he
persecuted the woman and the remnant of her seed, on the earth. Now,
however, his career is arrested. "Seizing, binding, casting into the
abyss, shutting up, and setting a seal upon that old serpent," (ch. xii.
9,) are strong figurative expressions, by which his secure confinement
is signified. Thus is the devil to be restrained from deceiving the
nations for a "thousand years." That this period is to be taken in a
proper, and not in a mystical sense, appears thus. If we multiply one
thousand by three hundred and sixty, as some fancifully do, the
resulting number of years, three hundred and sixty thousand, would be
out of all proportion to the past duration of the world, as well as the
well-defined period of 1260 years. Add to this, that when by Daniel and
John definite duration is symbolically mentioned, it is by "months,
days; time, times and a half a time," or "the dividing of time,"--never
by "years."

At the expiration of the thousand years, Satan will be loosed a "little
season,"--_little_, as compared with the thousand years; so little, as
not to be deemed worth estimating.

4. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given
unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the
witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped
the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their
foreheads, or in their hands: and they lived and reigned with Christ a
thousand years.

V. 4.--"And I saw thrones." Here there is no mention of _heaven being
opened_. Nothing henceforth obstructs John's vision. "The darkness is
past, and the true light now shineth."--"At evening time it shall be
light." (Zech. xiv. 7.)--"And they sat on them." Who?--There is here
what may be termed a remarkable chasm in the language of the text. There
is no visible or proximate antecedent. Who are they who "sit on
thrones?" Did Millenarians only put this question, and patiently search
for