The Pergamian with all its evils merging into the worse Thyatiran degree of apostasy. Christians so-called, as intensely nominal and worldly as sectarians of the nineteenth century. The prophetess Jezebel, and "the Satan," their representatives in the third century (Apoc. ii. 20,24).

ACT III. -- SEAL-PERIOD THIRD

Apoc. vi. 5,6.

The Greco-Latin horse, black with lamentation, mourning and woe.

A.D. 212

"And when he opened the third seal, I heard from the third living one, saying, ‘Come and see.’ And I saw, and behold a Black Horse, and one sitting upon him holding a Balance in his hand. 6. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living ones, saying, ‘A choinix of wheat a denarius; and three choinices of barley a denarius; but the oil and the wine thou mayest not act unjustly by’."

1. The Spirit not yet Withdrawn

Such is the expressive hieroglyphic by which the Spirit "signified" to "his servants" the nature of the situation which should succeed the period in which they would "slay one another," and "a great machaira" would appear to aggravate the strife. The Lamb also opens this third seal. It is an opening, not to give exit to blessedness upon Roman society; for that is not the nature of a seal; but, to loose those evils upon the world, which would be calamitous to pagan, Jew, and Jezebel-professors of christianity, in all the empire. Though the evils would be general, "the Brethren," or as many as had not the Jezebel doctrine, would, doubtless, not suffer so severely as others; for in the time of the first four seals, it was certainly a ministration of Spirit in which retribution came upon ecclesias "according to their works." It was, I say, a ministration of Spirit, though not so amply manifested as when Paul wrote 1 Cor. xii, xiii and xiv. The presence of the Four Living Ones, and the emanation of voices from them, as a part of the symbolization, proves this. When the fifth seal is opened, there is no invitation from a Living One to "come and see." Yet the Spirit still lingered among the Lightstands, as may be inferred from the saying, "it was said unto them."

The third Living One is the symbol of the ecclesia of the Deity in its Pergamo-Thyatiran declension. Its face was that of a man, and "full of eyes before and behind." The reader will remember, that in the apocalypse these four living ones are related to two states -- the state of suffering in the flesh; and the state of glory in the resurrection; and that they are only introduced in the prophetic drama where there is direct and potential ministration and manifestation of Spirit.