CHAPTER XIV.

THE FALL OF BABYLON.

REV. xviii.

ABYLON has fallen. We have now the Divine

BAB

proclamation of her fate, and the lamentation of the world over the doom to which she has been consigned :

After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and is become a habitation of devils, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird. For by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the nations are fallen, and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonness (xviii. 1-3).

At chap. xvii. I we read of one of the angels that had the seven Bowls. The angel now introduced is another, or a second. We shall find as we proceed that we have entered upon a new series of seven parts, similar to that in chap. xiv., where six angels and their actions, three on either side, are grouped around One higher than angels, and forming the central figure of the movement. The series is a long one, extending from chap. xvii. I to chap. xxii. 5, the central figure

1 Kliefoth seems to have been the first to point this out,

meeting us at chap. xix. II; and again, as before, the fact ought to be carefully noticed, for it has a bearing on the interpretation of some of the most difficult sections of this book. Meanwhile we have to do with the second angel, whose action extends to ver. 20 of the present chapter.

The description given of this angel is proportioned to the importance of his message. He has great authority; the earth is lightened with his glory; the voice with which he cries is mighty. It could hardly be otherwise than that, with such joyful tidings as he bears to men, the "glory of the Lord should shine round about him, and a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun." The tidings themselves follow, taken from the Old Testament accounts of the desolation that was to come upon Babylon: "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces."2 In words such as these, though. combined throughout both the present and following descriptions with expressions taken from the ruin of other famous and guilty cities of the Old Testament, we have the source whence the powerful and pathetic words of this chapter are drawn. The most terrible

Luke ii. 9; Acts xxvi. 13.

2 Isa. xiii. 19-22.

disasters of bygone times are but types of that wreck of all the grandeur of earth which we are now invited to behold, while Babylon's sinfulness is referred to that her fate may appear to be no more than her appropriate punishment.

At this point we are met by one of those sudden transitions, common in the Apocalypse, which so completely negative the idea of chronological arrangement. A cry is heard which seems to imply that Babylon has not yet fallen :

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, My people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not, of her plagues. For her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Render unto her even as she rendered, and double unto her the double according to her works in the cup which she hath mingled mingle unto her double. How much soever she glorified herself, and waxed wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning. Therefore in one day shall, her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God which judged her (xviii, 4-8).

The first words of this voice from heaven deserve peculiar attention: Come forth, My people, out of her; that is, out of Babylon, the degenerate Church. We are at once reminded of the striking teaching of our Lord in chap. x. of the fourth Gospel, where He compares Himself to the "door" of the fold, not the door by which the sheep enter into, but by which they come out of, the fold. We are also reminded of the blind man of chap. ix. of the same Gospel, whom our Lord "found" only after he had been "cast out" of the synagogue. In the midst of the blinded theocracy of Israel in the days of Jesus there was a faithful,

though small, remnant. It had been betrayed by the religious guides of the people, who had become "thieves and robbers," whom the true sheep did not know, and to whom they ought not to listen. Jesus came to call it out of the theocracy to Himself. Such was the spectacle which St. John had witnessed when his Master was in the world, and that experience is now repeated. The Church as a whole degenerates. Called to prepare men for the Second Coming of the Lord, and to teach them to live, not for the present, but the future, she becomes herself the victim of the present. She forgets that, in the absence of the Bridegroom, her days are days of fasting. She fails to realize the fact that until her Lord comes again her state is one of widowhood. And, instead of mourning, she sits as a queen, at ease and satisfied, proud of her pomp and jewellery. What is all this but a recurrence of the old events of history? The Apostle sees the future mirrored in the past; and he can only follow in his Master's footsteps, and call His Christian remnant out of Babylon.

The words are in the highest degree important for the interpretation and understanding of the Apocalypse. We have already found in more than one passage distinct traces of this double Church, of the true Church within the false, of the few living ones within the Body which had a name to live, but was dead. Here the distinction meets us in all its sharpness, and fresh light is cast upon passages that may have formerly seemed dark. "Many are called," "many" constituting the outward Church; but "few are chosen," "few" constituting the real Church, the Church which consists. of the poor, and meek, and lowly. The two parts may keep together for a time, but the union cannot last;

and the day comes when, as Christ called His sheep out of the Jewish, so He will again call His sheep out of the Christian "fold," that they may hear His voice, and follow Him.

Having summoned the true disciples of Jesus out of Babylon, the voice from heaven again proclaims in a double form, as sins and as iniquities, the guilt of the doomed city, and invites the ministers of judgment, according to the lex talionis, to render unto her double. The command may also be founded upon the law of the theocracy by which thieves and violent aggressors of the poor were required to make a double repayment to those whom they had injured, or it may rest upon. the remembrance of such threatenings as those by the prophet Jeremiah, "I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double." 2

Judgment is next supposed to have been executed. upon Babylon; and the Seer proceeds to describe in language of unexampled eloquence the lamentation of the world over the city's fall:

And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep, and merchandise of horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits which thy soul lusted after are gone from thee, and all things that were dainty and sumptuous are perished from thee, and

1 Exod xxii. 4, 7, 9.

2 Jer. xvi. 18.