The angel set his feet upon the world, as his footstool; by which position is emblematically signified his sovereign dominion over sea and earth.  And this is agreeable to his own plain teaching in the days of his public ministry:—­“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” (Matt. xxviii. 18.) He trod upon the billows of the ocean literally in the state of his humiliation, giving thereby evidence of his power over the mystical waters,—­“the tumults of the people.”  During the popular commotions signified by the trumpets, he said to the raging passions of men and their towering ambition, as to the waves of the sea,—­” Hitherto shall ye come, and no further; and here shall your proud waves be stayed.”  “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still;” and whether the nations of Christendom are at war or in peaceful tranquillity, he reigns over them as their rightful sovereign;—­“his right foot on the sea, and his left on the earth.”  In possession of universal dominion, he speaks with authority, “as when a lion roareth.”  Although a lamb slain, the victim for our sins; he is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah, ruling over his own people, restraining and conquering his own and their enemies.

The “seven thunders,” etc., give a premonition of tremendous judgments, the import of which is to be “sealed up” until it be demonstrated to all the world by the seventh trumpet and vial.

4.  And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write:  and I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

5.  And the angel, which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven,

6.  And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer.

7.  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

Vs. 4-7.—­The attitude assumed by the Angel of the covenant is very impressive, instructive and exemplary:—­“his hand lifted up to heaven.”  This is the external attitude of solemnity most becoming the jurant when performing the act of religious worship, the oath.  Abraham, in the presence of the king of Sodom, used the same form, appealing to the “Lord, the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth.” (Gen. xiv. 22.) “Kissing the book” has no example in all the Bible; hence it is unquestionably of heathen, and so of idolatrous origin and tendency.  No Christian can thus symbolize with heathens, without so far “having fellowship with devils” as really as in eating in their temples. (1 Cor. x. 21.)