The _responsive thunders_, unlike the single voice of the angel, are multitudinous and discordant; and consequently symbolize errors. Their _following_ so immediately on the shout of the angel, shows the proximity of their promulgation to the utterance of the truths to which they are responsive. JOHN’S _readiness to write_ what the seven thunders uttered, shows that what they uttered was _professedly_ in harmony with the truths previously announced, and that men would be liable to be deceived, by their promulgation. His being _forbidden_ by the cloud-robed angel, to write what they uttered—while he was commanded to “seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book” (22:10),—shows that their utterances were not heaven-inspired, and constituted no part of “the word of GOD, and of the testimony of JESUS CHRIST,” which JOHN bare record of. The _subsequent oath_ of the angel, by Him who liveth forever, that “the time is not yet,” shows that those thunders, however erroneous in their form manner and connection with other errors, had respect to some great event foretold in Scripture; but which the thunders had _antedated_ and presented in an _unscriptural_ form. His further announcement that it would be fulfilled under the sounding of the “seventh trumpet,” and that then the mystery of GOD should be finished in the manner foretold to his servants the prophets, shows that the great event, the time of which was “not yet,”—_i.e._, under the sixth trumpet, was the coming of the kingdom of GOD—the fifth universal empire; that at a period anterior to the time when it might rationally be expected, it would be proclaimed in a form repugnant to the teachings of the prophets; and that when thus heralded, it would be met by the party uttering the heaven-inspired truths, with the denial that the time had arrived, and by arguments to show its true nature and epoch, under the seventh trumpet. The command to take and eat the little book, shows that its contents were such as the soul might feed on; which should be sweet to the believer’s taste, but would subject him to bitter persecution. And the announcement that they were to prophesy _again_ before many nations and peoples and tongues and kings, marks this as the commencement of an era when the Gospel should again begin to go forth into distant lands. All of the above particulars harmonize in the time of the reformation of LUTHER in the sixteenth century, and with no other epoch. The great truths then promulgated, of which “justification by faith” was the cardinal one, electrified the whole world, as the loud roaring of a lion would startle the passer-by. These were immediately responded to by the multitudinous errors of the Anabaptists and others, who thought to set up the kingdom of GOD in _this world_, and _before the resurrection_, by putting to death the ungodly and sparing only the saints.