The “few names” which had not defiled their garments, were used by a metonymy to signify persons. When an apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas, “the number of the names together were about one hundred and twenty,” Acts 1:15. Purity of raiment is significant of purity of character: “Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments,” 16:15. White is an emblem of purity. To the “bride,” it “was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints,” 19:8. Those who came out of great tribulation, had “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” (7:13); and therefore they were symbolized as standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms of victory in their hands, 7:9. To be clothed in white raiment, is therefore to be accepted of the Saviour. To blot one’s name out of the book of life, is to erase his title to heaven. The figure seems to be an allusion to the ancient custom of enrolling in a book the names of all free citizens. If their names were confessedly written there, they were entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship; but if blotted out, they had forfeited these. “They that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is,” 17:8. Moses said, if God would not forgive Israel, “blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written,” Ex. 32:32. Of his enemies, David said, “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous,” Ps. 67:28. Those only enter the New Jerusalem, “which are written in the Lamb’s book of life,” 21:27. The church in Sardis, has long been utterly extinct; and what remains of the city is a miserable Turkish village. Epistle to the Church in Philadelphia.