I apprehend that this Christian belief respecting the discontinuance of revelation came into existence as the an excuse offered for the absence of revelation. Ministers of apostate churches found themselves without communication with God, either through the visitation of angels or direct revelation. Finding themselves without these powers so abundantly possessed by the servants of God in the early age of the church, they attempted a defense of their own powerless state by saying these things were no longer needed. They were extraordinary powers only to be employed at the commencement of the work of God, in order to establish it in the earth, and afterwards to be put aside as childish things. In support of the theory that the volume of revelation is closed forever, the following passage in the Book of Revelation is usually quoted: "I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." [10] As this passage occurs in the last book of the New Testament--and also the last book of the Bible--in the last chapter, and the last but two of the closing verses of the chapter, it has been argued that it is a formal closing up of God's revelation to man. No more is to be added--nothing is to be taken from it, it is completed and sealed up, and therefore no more revelation is to be given after that.