Vs. 9-14.—­This “angel” is probably the same who had shown John the mystic Babylon and her destruction, (ch. xvii. 1;) and who now proposes to show him the “bride of the Lamb” by way of contrast.—­Under the influence of the Spirit, who has access to the soul without the use of the bodily organs, (2 Cor. xii. 2,)—­John was “carried to a great and high mountain,” where the prospect might be sufficiently enlarged.  When the angel proposed to show him the “scarlet whore,” he “carried him into the wilderness,” intimating that such is the only position in which the “mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her,” can be clearly seen or perfectly understood. (2 Pet. i. 9.) Great indeed is the contrast.  Both objects are complex, and the combination of symbols, wholly incongruous in nature, admonishes the sober interpreter to beware of indulging his vain fancy by attempting to trace analogies in detail, where none are intended by the Holy Spirit.  The true church of Christ is compared to a virtuous and fruitful woman, (ch. xii. 5;) and the apostate church is symbolized by a fruitful but profligate woman, (ch. xvii. 5.) Then both are also represented by two cities, which are equally contrasted.  As the women differ in their outward adornment, (chs. xix. 8, xvii. 4,) so do the cities in the quality of population, commerce and employment, (ch. xviii. 4; xxii. 14.)—­The nuptials being consummated between the Lamb and his bride, and she being now “made perfect in holiness;” under the emblem of a city, she is illuminated with “the glory of God,” made “comely through his comeliness put upon her,” rendered beautiful and illustrious beyond conception or expression:  for the happiness of heaven results from conformity to the God-man, communion with him and communications from him. (1 John iii. 2.)—­“Her light” resembled the “jasper, clear as crystal.”  The knowledge of saints in heaven will be intuitive:  they will no longer “see through a glass darkly,” by word and sacraments; nor shall the glorious Bridegroom show himself as formerly “through the lattice;” (Song ii. 9;) but they “shall see him as he is.” (1 John iii. 2.)—­“A wall great and high” denotes the security of this city, which can never be scaled by an enemy.  The “twelve gates” are to admit the twelve tribes of God’s spiritual Israel,—­the sealed ones, (ch. vii. 5-8;) who “shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.” (Luke xiii. 29.)—­At the gates were “twelve angels,” as guards and porters.  The “foundations” of the wall, named after the “twelve apostles,” denote that all who enter the city, gained admission by “belief of the truth” as taught by the apostles,—­had “continued steadfast in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,” in the face of reproach, persecution and apostacy.  They were “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,”—­Old and New Testament believers saved by the blood of the Lamb:  for the twelve tribes, multiplied by the twelve apostles, make a hundred and forty-four; and these again, multiplied by a thousand, make the whole number who appeared with the Lamb on Mount Zion, (ch. xiv. 1;) the public witnesses of Christ, in the church militant during the great apostacy.