Vs. 1-3.--The majestic description of this Angel agrees to no creature. It is proper to God-man only. It is partly the same display of the Mediator's glory which we had in ch, i. 15. Especially is this the case as to his _face_, his _feet_ and his _voice_. The "rainbow" is still the sign of the everlasting covenant. "In wrath he remembers mercy." This "book" differs from the _sealed_ book as a part from the whole, or a codicil from the will to which it is appended. Also, it is distinguished from the former as being _little_ and _open_. They do therefore greatly err here, who would make this little book comprehend all the remaining part of the Apocalypse, which would make it larger than the sealed book. The little book is _open_, because it is part of the large one, from which the last seal had been removed by the Mediator. But another reason why the little book is represented as being open, is the fact that the most of the events to which it refers, had transpired prior to the sounding of the seventh trumpet. That trumpet had been without its appropriate object, as presented in any preceding part of the prophecy. To present that object is the special design of the little book. All the events predicted in this book of Revelation are not successive in the order of time, but some are coincident; and the inspired writer of the Apocalypse, on several occasions goes back, as we shall see, in order to explain at greater length, what had been but briefly and obscurely narrated. The angel set his feet upon the world, as his footstool; by which position is emblematically signified his sovereign dominion over sea and earth. And this is agreeable to his own plain teaching in the days of his public ministry:--"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." (Matt. xxviii. 18.) He trod upon the billows of the ocean literally in the state of his humiliation, giving thereby evidence of his power over the mystical waters,--"the tumults of the people." During the popular commotions signified by the trumpets, he said to the raging passions of men and their towering ambition, as to the waves of the sea,--" Hitherto shall ye come, and no further; and here shall your proud waves be stayed." "He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still;" and whether the nations of Christendom are at war or in peaceful tranquillity, he reigns over them as their rightful sovereign;--"his right foot on the sea, and his left on the earth." In possession of universal dominion, he speaks with authority, "as when a lion roareth." Although a lamb slain, the victim for our sins; he is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah, ruling over his own people, restraining and conquering his own and their enemies. The "seven thunders," etc., give a _premonition_ of tremendous judgments, the import of which is to be "sealed up" until it be demonstrated to all the world by the seventh trumpet and vial.