: woman's Seed, bringing him into sorrow, and laying him in the deeps and darksome caves of the lower parts of the earth. It remaineth that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; and this is what we look for, and have been taught instantly to expect in these our times; but first his head must be revealed in all its power of evil, which is the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, gathering the nations at his call, and prostrating them before his footstool. When thus revealed in the confederated strength of the invisible and visible world, the Seed of the woman shall be revealed over against him in the faithful servants of the Lord, sealed with the Father's name on their foreheads; and right speedily shall Satan be bruised under their feet, as was Pharaoh and the realm of Egypt under the rod of Moses the witnesses shall make havock of him for an appointed season. The spiritual wickednesses in the high places shall quail before these followers of the Lamb, with that awful and terrible name stamped on their foreheads, the characters of which shall flame out like the forked lightning, and shiver the rocks and the ragged rocks where they vainly seek a shelter. Scared shall be the eye that looks on them in battle; withered the hand that lifteth weapon against them. It is but for the short season of three years and a half that the fiery words of these sackcloth-harnessed men have power. Men of trouble, and of grief, and of sorrowful aspect, they be; having a heart to save, and no heart to destroy; fit repositories of the power and grace of Almighty God, for whom they strike, and not for themselves; for they be still one flesh with men, preachers of the Gospel, and heralds of salvation. Against whose course doth a mountain of embattled pride lift itself up? it shall become a plain before Zerubbabel," not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Opposition shall perish, and the hearts of Antichrist and his devil-possessed band shall die within them. Harder than Pharaoh's shall their hearts be, and more unwearied their holding out against the rod of the Lord; for the devil is in them, annealing their hearts to the temper of hell. Stroke of judgment shall follow stroke of judgment, and shrieking woe shall fill the world; for God will not fail his men, nor shall his chosen men belie their God; over mountains and over deeps shall they tread their forward path; the palaces of kings shall they enter, and from the strong hold shall they not be holden back; the ministry of mighty angels shall be at their bidding, and the powers of nature at their call. Nor shall they sleep harmless in their airy dwellings, as those legions that waited on the merciful footsteps of Jesus; because the time is come to put on vengeance like an helmet, and to be clad with zeal as with a cloak: and as once upon a time when the zeal of his Father's house came upon him, the thronged temple fled amain from his face; so in these days of revenge and recompence for the controversy of Zion, shall the sword of the Lord, furbished and bathed in heaven, come down upon the people of his curse like an overflowing deluge and an overwhelming hail, and the strong city shall be broken down, and lie low in a low place. These things, which I feebly pourtray, flesh and blood can neither reveal nor yet receive; and so I rest, with the declaration of my sure and stedfast faith that the Lord hath given the word of them, nor will cease to accomplish them until every jot and tittle have been fulfilled. "These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth" (leadeth)-Having no mind of their own; having eyes, but seeing not; having ears, but hearing not; all given up to faith, and surrendered to the guidance of the Lamb; as it is written: "Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind, but my servant; or deaf, as my messenger that I sent ? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant?" Followers they are of the Lamb, as the Lamb was the follower of God; who did not his own will, but the will of Him that sent him; who had eyes, but judged not after the sight of his eyes; who had ears, but reproved not after the hearing of his ears; who was of a quick understanding (scent, smell, or discernment) in the fear of the Lord, but not from the spirit of a man that was in him—not from natural sagacity, circumspection, or prudence; nor from common sense tutored by man's tradition, or even by God's written word, though he meditated upon God's law night and day-but he had that quick sense in the fear of the Lord from the Spirit of the Lord that rested upon him, "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord." The Lord God gave him the tongue of the learned (learner), that he should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakened morning by morning, he wakened his ear to hear, as the learned the Lord God did open his ear, and he was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Such blind following of the Lamb shall be given to the sealed ones, because they love him, being his chaste and virgin spouse; and well know they that he is a husband of loves, who asketh nothing which is not good to obey: and what communication of the Holy Ghost went on daily and hourly between God and the Lamb in the days of his flesh, and goeth on still; the like, the same, the very same, shall go on between the Lamb and his trusty followers; who are one with him, even as he is one with the Father-yea, one in Him and the Father: "as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee." These blind eyes shall see out of obscurity visions of God, and these deaf ears shall be unstopped to hear the voice of God and of the Lamb. Yea, it is even now so found in the church whereof I am the pastor, in the midst of whom the voice of Jesus is heard continually, say ing, "This is the way, walk ye in it;" and when the tempter cometh, as come he ever will to a church baptized with the Holy Ghost, our true Shepherd lifteth up his voice, and warneth us that the wolf is coming. He fleeth not, because he is the true Shepherd, and not an hireling; and though we have been a stiffnecked and rebellious people, he breaketh us in with bit and bridle, and prepareth to make us the war-horse on which he shall ride prosperously for meekness, truth, and righteousness, and his right hand shall teach him terrible things. They shall follow the Lamb whithersoever he leadeth, for he will lead them unto living fountains of waters, and bring them by a way that they know not unto the habitation of his holiness. His path is in the mighty waters, and his footsteps are not known; nevertheless it is he who led his people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Oh that we may be found obedient to his voice! oh that we might choose his ways! then will he subdue our enemies under us; he will feed us with the finest of the wheat, and give us the pure blood of the grape to drink. Oh for a willing people in the day of his power! He shall make them the rod of his great strength to subdue the nations, and to break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. These virgins follow the Lamb; these harmless ones, who stand on the holy hill of Zion. But those locusts, who have faces as the faces of men, and crowns upon their heads, pretending to be the crowned ones of God; and hair like unto women, pretending to be of the true church; do follow another king, even Abaddon and Apollyon; and ascend out of the bottomless pit, the hollow unfathomable lie and mystery of Antichrist. Floating in uncertain doubts, the numerous servants of Antichrist lie waiting until the time of God's forbearance is spent ; and, being giving up to the power of demons, they flock forth, to sting into madness, the children of men; who in those days shall seek death and not find it; shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. While thus the army of Antichrist go forth, stinging and deluding and destroying all men, they shall also attempt these followers of the Lamb, these sealed ones; but the name of terrible power which flameth from their foreheads shall strike through their hearts, and scatter these mock kings and spoil their armies, and the women that remain at home shall distribute the prey; for the locusts are commanded to hurt only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. Ah me! while I meditate these things, what sorrow and compassion fill my heart, to think of the stratagems of hell, and the powers of darkness, with which the church of the living God is ready to be assailed! Woe is me! for fearful things have been declared in mine ears from the Lord of Hosts! Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. O thou gracious Lamb of God, thou good Shepherd of the, sheep, what thanks are due to Thee, who hast broken silence betimes, and warned the church and the world; who, alas! give little heed to thy warning voice, because they are filled with the strong drink of self-conceit and natural understanding; seeking after eloquence which hath no voice of God, building up arguments which have no foundation of truth, and following men that have no knowledge nor discernment of the way of safety. O thou reader! if thou hast any bowels of compassion, if thou hast any foresight of future things, be melted into tears before the Lord, and lift up strong cryings and supplications for thy brethren, who are stumbling upon the dark mountains, and ready to be taken in the pit, and the snare, and the fear. Do I write to entertain thee? do I write to astony thee? I write to awaken thee from thy callousness, and to burden thee with apprehension of coming woe, that thou mayest gird up thy loins like a man, and stand before the Lord thy God, and fill thy mouth with arguments, and plead with agony of spirit, and sigh with the breakings of thy loins, for the children of the daughter of thy people. This book of the Watchman, in which I write, was devised in the longings of a few men's souls after their strayed and lost brethren ; it was launched in prayer, and devoted to the Lord: and may the Lord bless it to the awakening of his host, and the guiding of them to the battle! Arise, ye men of God; why will ye linger by the sheep-folds? Stand up, ye parched bones, and let the body of Christ appear. The Lamb calleth you; he hath spoken: he hath called us to faith; to the shutting of the eye, of the ear, of the understanding, of the heart; to the opening of faith, and to the fellowship of the sorrows and sufferings of Jesus. Awake, ye followers of the Lamb, and obey his voice; betake yourselves to faith; cast yourselves upon his faithfulness; cease from man, for what is he to be accounted of? and from your many inventions cease, and from your confederacies cease, and from your schemes and little erections cease; take footing on Mount Zion, the Rock of ages, and follow the Lamb. Has the intercourse between Jesus and his people ceased? is their union, strong as the union of the Father and the Son, broken? that ye should not choose to commit your way unto Him, but must fence yourselves about with your canons, and your articles, and your confessions, and your establishments; which being trusted in, are so many offences and insults to the worthy and honourable Son of God. What mean ye, ye under-shepherds, that ye will not take orders from the Shepherd of Israel, that dwelleth between the cherubims? What are the Reformers to you, or ye to the Reformers? the Evangelicals to you, or ye to the Evangelicals; that Jesus of Nazareth should have ceased to be your Lord and your God, your leader, and your commander? Begone with your insolent selfdefences against those rights of Jesus, which I, in his name, do bind upon you. Follow Him, and Him alone; do Him homage, and Him alone; or perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. "These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb."-Above they are said to have been redeemed from the earth, in reference, as I take it, to these words, Rev. vii. 3: "Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." Here they are said to be redeemed from men, in reference, as I think, to the passage quoted above (ix. 4) concerning the locusts: "And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads." For the whole scope of the ixth chap. concerneth men, as distinguished from the earth; not only the woe of the locusts, but also the woe of the horsemen, concerning which it is said (ver. 18), "By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths." And not only so, but the third and last woe-trumpet is also upon the men, in anticipation of which it is said, that "the rest of the men, which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not." And when that woe cometh (xi. 13), it falleth "And the same upon men: hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven." These three woe-trumpets are all upon the men of the earth; whereas the four former were not upon the men, but upon the earth, the sea, the fountains of waters, and the lights of the firmament of heaven ;-a distinction which I take to stand in this, that whereas the first four trumpets fall upon communities, the last three fall upon persons: the first four striking, successively, the settled productive constitution of society; then its troubled, disturbed, tumultuous, revolutionary, agitated people; then its priesthood; and finally its form of power and government: the last three striking baptized men, named, and numbered, and known unto God-(wherefore, xi. 13, they are called “ names of men"). That is to say, these three trumpets of woe fall upon men who had been numbered with the people of God, but whose names are blotted out of the Lamb's book of life, and left to perish in their apostasy. Ah! it is a thing whereof the world hath no conception, being the direful retribution of God upon every believer in Jesus who refuseth to be sealed with the Holy Ghost, and calleth that stamp of God |