he received through revelation, was the gospel. In Eph. 3: 3, he calls it the mystery made known to him by revelation, as he had written before. The epistle to the Galatians was written in A. D. 58, and that to the Ephesians in A. D. 64.

In view of these testimonies, few will be disposed to deny that the mystery of God is the gospel. It is the same, then, as if the angel had declared, In the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the gospel shall be finished. But what is the finishing of the gospel? Let us first inquire for what it was given? It was given to take out from the nations a people for God's name. Acts 15:14. Its finishing must, as a matter of course, be the close of this work. It will be finished when the number of God's people is made up, mercy ceases to be offered, and probation closes.

The subject is now before us in all its magnitude. Such is the momentous work to be accomplished in the early days of the voice of the seventh angel, whose trumpet notes have already been reverberating through the world nearly forty years. God is not slack; his work is not uncertain; are we ready for the issue.?

VERSE 8. And the voice which I heard from Heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. 9. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 10. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate

it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.

In verse 8 John himself is brought in to act a part as a representative of the church, probably on account of the succeeding peculiar experience of the church which the Lord of the prophecy would cause to be put on record, but which could not well be presented under the symbol of an angel. When only a straightforward proclamation is brought to view, without including the peculiar experience which the church is to pass through in connection therewith, angels may be used as symbols to represent the religious teachers who proclaim that message, as in Rev. 14. But when some particular experience of the church is to be presented, the case is manifestly different. This could most appropriately be set forth in the person of some member of the human family; hence John is himself called upon to act a part in this symbolic representation. And this being the case, the angel who here appeared to John may represent that divine messenger who, in the order which is observed in all the work of God, has charge of this message; or he may be introduced for the purpose of representing the nature of the message and the source from which it comes.

There are not a few now living who have in their own experience met a striking fulfillment of these verses, in the joy with which they received the message of Christ's immediate second coming, the honeylike sweetness of the precious truths then brought

out, and the bitterness and sorrow that followed when the disappointment, and not the Lord, came, at the appointed time in 1844. A mistake had been made which apparently involved the integrity of the little book they had been eating. What had been so like honey to their taste, suddenly became like wormwood and gall. But those who had patience to endure the digesting process, soon learned that the mistake was only in the event, not in the time, and that what the angel had given them was not unto death, but to their nourishment and support. See the same facts brought to view under a similar figure in Jer. 15: 16–18.

VERSE 11. And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.

John, standing as the representative of the church, here receives from the angel another commission. Another message is to go forth after the time when the first and second messages, as leading proclamations, ceased. In other words, we have here a prophecy of the third angel's message, now, as we believe, being fulfilled. Neither will this work be done in a corner; for it is to go before "many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”

Chapter XI.

THE TWO WITNESSES.

VERSE 1. And there was given me a reed like unto a rod; and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. 2. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles; and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

We here have a continuation of the instruction which the angel commenced giving to John in the preceding chapter; hence these verses properly belong to that chapter, and should not be separated by the present division. In the last verse of chapter 10, the angel gave to John, as a representative of the church, a new commission. In other words, as already shown, we have in that verse a prophecy of the third angel's message. Now follows testimony showing what the nature of that message is to be. It is connected with the temple of God in Heaven, and is designed to fit up a class of people as worshipers therein. The temple here cannot mean the church; for the church is brought to view in connection with this temple as "them that worship therein." The temple is therefore the literal temple in Heaven, and the worshipers the

true church on earth. But of course these worshipers are not to be measured in the sense of ascertaining the height and circumference of each one in feet and inches; they are to be measured as worshipers; and character can be measured only by some standard of right, namely, a law or rule of action. We are thus brought to the conclusion that the ten commandments, the standard which God has given by which to measure "the whole duty of man," are embraced in the measuring rod put by the angel into the hands of John; and this is the very thing which, in fulfillment, has been put under the third message, into the hands of the church. This is the standard by which the worshipers of God are now to be tested.

Having seen what it is to measure those who worship at the temple, we inquire further, What is meant by measuring the temple? To measure any object, requires that we give especial attention to that object. So doubtless the call to rise and measure the temple of God, is a prophetic command to the church to give the subject of the temple or sanctuary a special examination. But how is it to be measured with the measuring rod given to the church? With the ten commandments alone we could not do it. We do do it with the message. Hence we conclude that the measuring rod, taken as a whole, is the special message now given to the church, which embraces all the truths peculiar to this time, including the ten commandments. By this message, our attention has been called to the