This is surely a striking combination of symbols, and the way they are arranged would indicate that their fulfilment occupied a considerable period of time.  First we have a great earthquake, afterwards the darkening of the sun and the moon, with the falling of the stars, and finally the dissolution of the heavens themselves, with the sweeping away of mountains and islands.  This description covers the same period as that described under the seven last plagues, beginning with certain fearful revolutions in which the nations that had slaughtered the millions of God’s people were given “blood to drink,” and ending finally in “the great day of his wrath” that shall sweep them from their positions eternally.  The full explanation of these events can not at present be appreciated by the reader, therefore I reserve it for the future, to be more fully developed under other symbols.

In these six seals we have a vivid outline of mighty events, political and ecclesiastical, extending from the earliest stage of Christianity to the end of time.  This description in advance was no mere human production.  No human foresight would have detected, and no mortal mind would have conceived, events so wonderful and so farreaching in their character.  Any other history would sooner have been imagined.  It takes divine wisdom to understand the true position of the church in the present, and she can scarcely read her past history by natural wisdom alone, much less outline the future.  First the establishment of Christianity is symbolized, then the violence of the Pagan party, the apostasy, and final establishment of the “man of sin,” until the millions of earth are crushed by the spiritual tyranny or by the arm of civil power, and the cry of the martyrs goes up “How long, O Lord?” But they are told to rest “a little season,” when they shall witness the hand of God laid upon these persecuting nations of earth, convulsing them in the most fearful revolutions, and ending finally in their complete overthrow in that last “great day of God Almighty.”

CHAPTER VII.

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

    2.  And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the
    seal of the living God:  and he cried with a loud voice to the
    four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea.

    3.  Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees,
    till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

    4.  And I heard the number of them which were sealed:  and there
    were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the
    tribes of the children of Israel.

    5.  Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand.  Of the
    tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand.  Of the tribe of Gad
    were sealed twelve thousand.