Or it may be perhaps inferred, with greater probability, from the nature of the subject which presented itself to the Prophet, in his vision, that some solemn office of the real substantial and heavenly service, of which the fabric of the Temple, with its decorations and service, were but types and shadows,240 was visibly displayed to his enrapt imagination. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which 'stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another Angel came and stood ́at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God ' out of the Angel's hand. And the Angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, ⚫ and cast it into the earth; and there were voices, ' and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the 'seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound."241 The analogy between this description, and the service of the Temple, upon one of the most solemn festivals of the Mosaic ceremonial, is so obvious, that 241 Rev. viii. 1—6. 240 Heb. viii, 5. x. 4. 6 it has often excited the attention of the antiquary and scholar.242 And that the resemblance arises not merely from accident but intention, seems to be not less plain from the internal evidence of the Apocalypse itself, than from the nature of the Levitical service, externally regarded. The repeated allusions of the inspired author to the appearance of a structure in heaven, resembling the building which was consecrated to religious purposes in Jerusalem, add no small confirmation to the supposition. Among the objects which presented themselves in his vision on one occasion, he describes the Temple of God as opened in heaven; ' and that there was seen in his Temple the ark of his testament; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.243 And on another occasion he observes, in like manner, And after that I looked, ' and behold the Temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened, and the seven angels ⚫ came out of the Temple.24 In the part of the Evangelist's vision which is immediately under our view, the allusion to the altar,' from whence the incense ascended up before God,' sufficiently proves that the scene of the incident which it 6 6 242 Braun Select. Sacr. Lib. II. cap. ii. § xiii. Newton ut supr. p. 214. represents occurred within the precincts of the same celestial structure. But there are circumstances in the description. which seem to intimate, that we are to look much higher than the offering of incense, which formed a part of the daily service, for the correspondent observance to the solemn rite which was beheld by the Evangelist, in his vision of the glory of heaven. The same ceremony formed a part of the highest festivals of the Temple service, and was celebrated with peculiar solemnity upon the great day of Atonement. 245 And from a variety of autho rities, which have been collected from the Jewish commentators in illustration of that office, the most exact similarity may be established between the office which the Apostle beheld, and the service which was performed, on that great festival, by the high priest, in the holiest place of the Temple. In the relative gradations of sanctity which the Jewish service ascribed to different places and times, 246 we must however ascend to a still higher degree, for a closer object of comparison, to the celestial office of which the Evangelist was a witness. The solemn festival of the Atonement, as forming a constant part of the service of every year, in which it was celebrated in the seventh 245 Braun ut supr. § xxxv. lxvii. lxxxii. 247 248 249 month, necessarily formed a part of the service of those years which were accounted peculiarly holy, and were kept with higher ceremonies and greater devotion. With reference to the first institution of the sabbath, and its final celebration in heaven, the festivals of the Levitical service were divided into septenaries, which, according to their scale and gradation were held in different degrees of sanctity. Besides their sabbaths of days, of weeks, and of months, on the last of which the great festival of the expiation occurred; they had their sabbaths of years, and a great sabbath of these septennial periods." This last festival, which was termed the Jubilee, commenced with the great day of Atonement, when the offering of incense was made with peculiar solemnity; and the year was ushered in with the sound of trumpets.251 Now as each of these festivals, and more eminently the last, was considered a type of that great sabbatism to which we give the name of the Millennium;25 the exact correspondence between these ceremonies of the earthly Temple, and of the Temple of God opened in heaven,' leaves us little room to doubt, that from the high festival of the 247 Lev. xxiii. 27. 249 Ibid. 3. 15. 27. 251 Ibid. 9. 250 248 Burnet ut supr. p. 210. 250 Ibid. xxv. 3, 4. 8. 252 Leusden ut supr. p. 7. n. 15. Jubilee year, the vision of the seventh seal derives the truth and propriety of its descriptions.253 In the ceremonies by which the great day of Atonement was celebrated, we discover all the circumstances of the Evangelist's description so clearly identified, as to leave no room for doubt, as to the purport of the images in which he has clothed it. In the relation which it is given to the Jubilee, as a festival by which that great day was succeeded in a particular year, it has a different and further significancy; which has arisen from the character of this festival, as more eminently sabbatical. To investigate its mystic import, in this 253 Although Braun appears to me to err, in explaining the offering of incense, Rev. viii. 3. by the rite as daily observed in the Temple; he has yet justly associated the opening of the 'seventh seal' with the fall of Antichrist, and triumph of the Church under the Messiah. Select. Sacr. § xi. Septimum ' autem hic dicitur aperiri sigillum. Quemadmodum non dubitamus, quin septem sigilla' significant septem diversa fata Ecclesia Novi Testamenti, ita nobis constare videtur, septimum sigillum' notare ultimam periodum, sive septima fata... Quam periodum initium habere putamus circa integrum Anti'christi lapsum, per Regnum Christi gloriosum, Ecclesiæque pacem usque ad consummationem sæculorum.' Id. ibid. § xix. Beda, Anselmus aliique [per silentium semihorii] intelligunt ' pacem Ecclesiæ post interfectum Antichristum, usque ad diem ultimi judicii, quod futurum erit spatio quadraginta quinque 'dierum à quâ sententiâ, non admodùm alienus est Hieronymus in Danielem, cap. ii.' 6 |