Standing beside the Lamb upon Mount Zion, there are _a hundred and forty and four thousand, having the Lamb's name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads_, in token of their priestly state. We cannot avoid asking, Are these the same hundred and forty and four thousand of whom we have read in chap. vii. as sealed upon their foreheads, or are they different? The natural inference is that they are the same. To use such a peculiar number of two different portions of the Church of God would lead to a confusion inconsistent with the usually plain and direct, even though mystical, statements of this book. Besides which they have the mark or seal of God in both cases on the same part of their bodies,--the forehead. It is true that the definite article is not prefixed to the number; but neither is that article prefixed to the "glassy sea" of chap. xv. 1, and yet no one doubts that this is the same "glassy sea" as that of chap. iv. Besides which the absence of the article may be accounted for by the fact that the reference is not _directly_ to the hundred and forty and four thousand of chap. vii. 4, but to the innumerable multitude of chap. vii. 9.[385] We have already seen, however, that these two companies are the same, although the persons composing them are viewed in different lights; and the hundred and forty and four thousand here correspond, not to the first, but to the second, company. They are in full possession of their Christian privileges and joys. They are not "in heaven," in the ordinary meaning of that term. They are on earth. But the two companies formerly mentioned meet in them. They are both sealed, and in the presence of the Lamb. The character of the hundred and forty and four thousand next claims our thoughts. 1. They were _not defiled with women, for they are virgins_. The words cannot be literally understood, but must be taken in the sense of similar words of the Apostle Paul, when, writing to the Corinthians, he says, "For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one Husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ."[386] Such "a pure virgin" were the hundred and forty and four thousand now standing upon the mount Zion. They had renounced all that unfaithfulness to God and to Divine truth which is so often spoken of in the Old Testament as spiritual fornication or adultery. They had renounced all sin. In the language of St. John in his first Epistle, they had "the true God, and eternal life." They had "guarded themselves from idols."[387] 2. They _follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth_. They shrink from no part of the Redeemer's life whether on earth or in heaven. They follow Him in His humiliation, labours, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension. They obey the command "Follow thou Me"[388] in prosperity or adversity, in joy or sorrow, in persecution or triumph. Wherever their Lord is they also are, one with Him, members of His Body and partakers of His Spirit.