terms of God's Revelation have been selected with precision, and whatever literal meaning men may attach to them, it is plain that they were intended to be the exponents of spiritual thought. The objects of nature are commonly made use of to signify things belonging to spiritual life, but so far as we have observed, the converse of this has never been adopted; spiritual things are never made use of to signify natural phenomena.[1] It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that the sign spoken of as appearing in heaven, is some remarkable display in the atmosphere of the earth.
In the following verse it is written, "And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Here again it seems plain that the whole statement is figurative of what is intended to be a spiritual occurrence. Who does not see that this must be the character of a narrative which speaks of angels going forth "with a great sound of a trumpet"? Whether the angels here referred to be considered as a race of intelligent beings more exalted than men, or as the spirits of just men made perfect, it seems plain that, in either case, they are separated from all visible connection with the natural world. It is clear that by the trumpet, the great sound of which is to arouse the attention of mankind, cannot be meant that musical instrument which the word naturally suggests to our minds. Certainly both the instrument and its sound must have been employed as the symbols of some spiritual phenomena. What else than a Spiritual idea can be the character of a statement which
- ↑ Moses was shown the pattern of the tabernacle in a vision on the mount (Exod. xxv. 40; Heb. viii. 5); but this was not the expression of one thing to signify another, but the actual pattern of the thing intended.
