Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851 edition. Excerpt: ... two last groups, to which the others served only as preparatory visions, and that the mediation of the angel is here ascribed to the whole from being so specially connected with the most important part. One might also conceive that the prologue was added by John after he had finished the whole, while the action of the angel was still fresh in his mind. But we can hardly feel satisfied with this, as the angel even at first seems to form a necessary link in the chain; and we may rather suppose that the agency which belongs to the angel throughout the whole was employed so as in the first instance to raise John from the common to an ecstatic condition, and then at ch. xvii. to put forth another and more special operation. If the spiritual sense in John was first opened by the angel and kept awake, then he was the mediating agent of the message for him. A revelation is of no use for one whose mind is not prepared to receive it; the indispensable condition is, that the seer be in the Spirit, i. 10, iv. 2. It is in favour of this supposition that the mediating angel in the two prophets, whom John more especially followed, Daniel and Zechariah, is a pervading one, and that a leading characteristic intimation in each of them is their announcing, that it was thus they were raised into the ecstatic condition. In Dan. x. 16 Gabriel touches Daniel's lips, and thereby inspires him with the powers of a higher life, comp. ver. 10, viii. 17. On Zech. i. 9 I have already remarked in my Christology, " that the words, / will make you see what these are, refer to the opening of the spiritual eye and ear of . the prophet. Only when this had been done by the angelus interpres, could the prophet apprehend the declaration of the angel of the Lord, and the...
