of the empire.  Then follow the judgments of the trumpets to vindicate the divine government, and alleviate from time to time the sufferings of true Christians.  While the two woe-trumpets are demolishing the fabric of idolatry and despotism in the east, the “deadly wound is healed” in the west, which had been inflicted by the first four trumpets.  Ten horns are developed upon the beast’s head, and another “little horn,” by all of which the saints suffer, as had been predicted by Daniel, (ch. vii. 24,) and of which we had intimation after the judgment of the second woe or sixth trumpet, (ch. ix. 20, 21.) All the “plagues,” which had been inflicted upon the people of Christendom under this trumpet left them still impenitent,—­“worshipping devils,” etc.  Surely we may now see where the object of the third woe is to be found,—­namely in the same Roman empire, now become antichristian more than ever before.  To describe this antichristian combination and present the unholy confederacy against the Lord and his Anointed, and so to justify the ways of God; it was necessary to digress from the narrative of the trumpets.  We now proceed with our observations on the eleventh chapter.

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.

Vs. 1, 2.—­This chapter, (vs. 1-13,) gives the contents of the “little book” delivered to the apostle; as in the tenth chapter.  It contains a brief description and prospective history of the true church of Christ for a period of 1260 years.  Her conflicts with Daniel’s fourth beast are here epitomized.  As the scene is laid in the temple and ministry all along in the Apocalypse, so there is probably a special allusion here to Ezekiel’s vision, (ch. xl. 5.) At all times the Christian church is to be organized, and all her ordinances to be administered by divine rule.  Accordingly we have here presented the actual condition of Christendom during the whole time mentioned above.  The command to John from the Angel, is to be understood as from the Lord Jesus, Zion’s only king to the gospel ministry.  Long before the time of the transactions here predicted, the apostle John had gone the way of all the earth.  The work here enjoined was to be performed by his legitimate successors.

The reed is the symbol of the word of God.  It is of the same import as Zechariah’s “measuring line.” (ch. ii. 1,) and to be used for the same purpose—­“to measure Jerusalem,” the temple; for both are emblematical of the church of God.  The “temple, altar and worshippers,” are emblems of the church, her doctrines, worship and membership, tried by the Scriptures—­the “reed.”  There are Gentiles who worship in the outer court, treading under foot both it and the city.  These are formal, immoral, idolatrous professors of Christianity.  They are rejected by God as reprobate, and by his command to be “cast out” from the fellowship of his people,—­authoritatively excommunicated by those to whom Jesus Christ has given the key of discipline.