ich 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.

4. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to
write: and I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Seal up those
things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.