[179] Chaps. xiii. 16, 17; xiv. 9; xvi. 2; xix. 20; xx. 4. [180] The writer has treated this subject at considerable length in _The Expositor_ (2nd series, vol. iv.). [181] Comp. John xvii. 12. [182] Isa. xl. 26. [183] Isa. xii. 3. [184] John viii. 12. [185] _The Apocalypse_, p. 126. [186] Professor Gibson, in _The Monthly Interpreter_, vol. ii., p. 9. [187] Isa. xlix. 10; xxv. 8; Zech. xiv. 16. [188] John iv. 13, 14; vii. 37, 38. [189] John i. 14. [190] Heb. xii. 22, 23. [191] Chap. xxi. 3, 4. [192] Comp. on the general thought Brown, _The Second Advent_, chap. vi. [193] John xiv. 27; xvii. 13. [194] Luke x. 21. [195] John iii. 29. [196] Matt. xxviii. 20. CHAPTER VI. _THE FIRST SIX TRUMPETS._ REV. viii., ix. The two consolatory visions of chap. vii. have closed, and the Seer returns to that opening of the seven Seals which had been interrupted in order that these two visions might be interposed. Six Seals had been opened in chap. vi.; the opening of the seventh follows:-- And when He opened the seventh seal, there followed silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should give it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound (viii. 1-6). Before looking at the particulars of this Seal, we have to determine the relation in which it stands to the Seals of chap. vi. as well as to the visions following it. Is it as isolated, as independent, as those that have come before it; and are its contents exhausted by the first six verses of the chapter? or does it occupy such a position of its own that we are to regard the following visions as developed out of it? And if the latter be the case, how far does the development extend?