This, in symbolic form, is the real subject of this chapter. Wickedness shall be utterly and forever destroyed.

I. A GLORIOUS ANGEL PROCLAIMS THIS. (Cf. ver. 1 as to this angel.) Then such overthrow must be:

1. Righteous.

2. Blessed.

3. Divine.

Had it been possible for men to affect this, it would have been done long since.

II. GOD'S PEOPLE RECEIVE COMMAND.

1. To separate themselves from sin. From which we learn:

(1) That God's people may have to dwell in the midst of sin.

(2) That though where wickedness is, they are not to be partakers of it.

(3) That they shall one day be effectually separated from it.

2. To avenge themselves upon it. Resentment and wrath are passions given us by God. Our peril and propensity is lest we turn them in a wrong direction. We do so when we use them for private revenge. This is what our Lord forbids. But against the forces of sin they may, they should, be used. This the command here.

III. THE FRIENDS OF WICKEDNESS LAMENT.

1. Wickedness has friends. Those who find delight in it, who "live deliciously" in it (ver. 9). Those who make profit out of it. The merchants, etc. (ver. 11). And:

2. Their lament is loud and long. They weep, mourn, wail; say, "Alas, alas!" cast dust on their heads, etc. (vers. 11, 15, 16, 19).

3. But the lament is utterly selfish. They mourn not because of the wickedness; that does not trouble them. Nor even for Babylon's sufferings. But because the hope of their gain is gone (ver. 19).

4. And they do not go to her help (ver. 15). They stand afar off for the fear of her torment. Look well at these friends, for such are they that sin and sinners call friends. "There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother," but such Babylon never gets.

IV. ALL HEAVEN, ANGELS AND SAINTS, REJOICE. When we read over the subject of their joy, we find that:

1. It is not because in this Babylon there was noticing innocent or good. There was much. Vers. 22, 23 tell of what was lawful and right in any community. In the worst of men there is good. None are utterly bad. But:

2. That the main characteristic of her life was evil. And, therefore, her destruction was a matter of joy. She deceived all nations. She slew God's saints. Thus:

3. Justice was done. And:

4. It was completely done. See the symbol of the angel with the millstone (ver. 21). Nothing like this has ever been accomplished yet, but this prophecy is a sure promise that it will be. "Who shall live when the Lord doeth this?" Amongst whom shall we be found? Let us now "come out of her, that we be not," etc. (ver. 4). - S.C.

I. ONE OF THE CAUSES OF THE RUIN OF THIS BABYLON WAS HER EXTRAVAGANT LUXURY. The history of the world is full of solemn lessons concerning the enervating influence of luxury. It is scarcely too much to say that luxury was the chief destroyer of all the great empires of antiquity. But human nature is very slow to learn this lesson, though it has been written for us again and again in letters of blood and fire; and, in spite of all, we are constantly discovering a proneness to fall away into the ease-taking and self-pampering which ruined the great empires of ancient Babylon, of Media and Persia, of Greece and Rome. Self-indulgence prepares the heart to be the receptacle of all the errors of anti-Christ. Christ-like self-renunciation is a virtue which cannot grow in the soil of luxurious living. The immense sums which are spent in this country in merely tickling the palate with expensive and often injurious articles of food are simply appalling. A friend recently told me that one gentleman whom he had persuaded to sign the pledge told him that by so doing he had saved him £500 per year. What criminal waste! Yet there are many men in this country whose wine-bill far exceeds this.

II. IT IS TO THE TWO LAST ITEMS IN THIS EXTRAORDINARY INVENTORY THAT I WISH TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION, VIZ., SLAVES, AND SOULS OF MEN. As the margin informs us, the literal translation is "bodies and souls of men." In Greek literature the word "bodies" is often used to describe slaves when regarded as articles of merchandise, and that is why cur translators have rendered it "slaves." But inasmuch as it is here used in conjunction with the word "souls," it seems to me manifest that the apostle intended to employ it in its proper and ordinary sense, and to declare that the height of Babylon's sin is that she throws manhood, body and soul, into the common heap of merchandise in her market, and that she treats what God has redeemed with the most precious thing in the universe as a mere chattel to be bought and sold for money.

1. I very much fear, thanks to the cruel, heartless, atheistic political economy which this country learnt from Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and company, that very much of our commerce is practically a traffic in the blood, and bones, and nerves, and souls of men. The idea that any relationship between one man and another can ever be reduced to one of cash-payment is to be for ever and utterly denounced. All commerce based upon such an idea carries within itself the germs of ruin and desolation. The only true relations between man and man, be they commercial, or political, or what else, are those which are cemented by love.

2. The drink traffic, the opium traffic, and whoremongering are other manifestations of this awful trade in the bodies and souls of men. Surely it is wrong that adultery which by almost all heathen nations has been treated as a criminal offence should in a Christian nation be regarded as only a civil misdemeanour, and it is a crying abomination that there should not be equal laws for men and women on these matters. Our complicity, however, in this traffic in womanhood is most horrible in relation to our Indian Army. It is awful to think that the name of Christ should be blasphemed among the heathen through the diabolical provision deliberately made by the officials of a Christian nation to ruin poor Hindoo women for the gratification of the lusts of our soldiers. We Christian citizens ought to use all the influence we possess to put the speediest possible end to such shameful wickedness. Then in the matter of opium we are engaged in traffic in the bodies and souls of men. Our relation to the trade in China ought to make every Briton bow down before God in shame and confusion of face. At this moment we as a nation are manufacturing this drug not in a form prepared for medicinal purposes, but in a form deliberately prepared for vicious indulgence. And w-hat is the plea for all this? Oh! revenue, revenue! We are told that we cannot govern India without money derived from this shameful manhood traffic. Are we Englishmen going for a moment to tolerate this shameless doctrine, "Let us do evil theft good may come"? In the ramie of righteousness, if we cannot govern India without blood-money, let us give up governing it. Whatever comes we must not commit the crime of destroying men for money. Nay, our work as Christians is not to make merchandise of men but to redeem them, both in their bodies and souls, to redeem them, if need be, by the surrender of ourselves to death. This is the norm of Christian ethics (1 John 3:16, R.V.). If the Church would do her Master's work she must arise and be the champion of the poor, the enemy of all sweating, the inexorable foe of all manhood traffic. She must minister to the bodies of men, visiting them in prison, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and nursing the sick. She must, above all, care for their souls by doing all in her power to ward them off from vice, and to lead them into a pure, noble, and beautiful life.

(G. A. Bennetts, B. A.)

In the inventory which is given us of the merchandise of Babylon, the last entry is an item that you would legist of all have expected to find mentioned as an article of truffle; and that teaches us with terrible emphasis, how lawless and tyrannous a thing unprincipled commerce is — how it will invade the most spiritual sanctuary of humanity, and lay violent hands upon its sacred things. Having trafficked and made its gain out of everything else, it is here represented as bringing into the market and producing as an article of merchandise the souls of men. And it suggests to us as our appropriate inquiry the way in which modern commerce invades the domain of the spiritual in man; and not only makes its mart in the soul, but brings the soul itself into the mart, and deals with it as an article of merchandise, and estimates it as a thing or capability of profit and loss. Not only does it turn the merchant into a thorough worldling, and quench within him all the yearning energies of his own soul; but it makes of him a trafficker in the souls of others, a soul merchant, unhesitatingly sacrificing the spiritual interests of all around him, if they stand in the way of his bargaining, or impose a limit upon his gain. And we can hardly wonder at this — for if a man be so bent upon gaining the world, as virtually to give for it his own soul, it would be extremely unreasonable to expect that he would be hampered by any scruples about the souls of others. But that we may deal fairly with those whom we have to denounce, we observe —

1. That commercial greatness is not in itself a thing of evil or of moral condemnation: and that we are by no means to be understood as sympathising with the ascetic sentiment, that connects the highest forms of piety with abstinence from secular pursuits, and would drive a man out of this world in Order to purify him for the next. We are no advocates for "a cloistered piety." A healthy Christianity knows nothing of the pseudo pietism and moral effeminacy that would make a man a hermit, in order to make him a Christian. It is by no means the best way of being kept from moral evil to be taken out of society; on the contrary, it is simply exchanging the perils of social intercourse and activity for the probably greater perils of solitude. Christianity therefore preaches no crusade against so-called secular pursuits; it has no word to say against business activity and commercial prosperity in themselves considered — against the laudable desire to excel in the chosen walk of life, nor against the plying of "the diligent hand that maketh rich." Man's life is a whole, and earth and heaven are but the two great scenes of it; and he alone rightly lives who connects both, whose life on earth is the moral beginning of his life in heaven, and whose life in heaven is the proper moral issue of his life on earth. We best therefore prepare for the future, not by turning aside from the present, that we may deliberately anticipate its coming and adjust ourselves to it, but by earnestly engaging in the present and religiously doing the present work. If these principles be true therefore, there is no necessary evil in commercial pursuits.

2. A great deal of the moral evil of our modern commercial life is not to be attributed to commerce as the necessary cause of it. It springs rather from the common corruption of man's heart, and takes the forms it does, because commerce is the incidental occasion of it. It is just as it is with many other things, the common duties of life are to us as we are to them, spiritual or unspiritual, according to the temper in which we approach and apprehend them; but no man can carry his unsanctified heart into the midst of his business, and then, because he remains without holy feeling, and is guilty, it may be, of unholy doings, attribute it all to the essential secularity of business. It has a deeper root than this: his business, like affliction, would he but permit it to be so, would be a fine school for his virtue and nurse of his piety; but instead of this, it is the occasion of his bad tempers and the embodiment of his sin.

3. While commerce is in itself a lawful thing, and while much of the moral evil associated with it is to be attributed to the moral condition of human nature, that abuses and corrupts whatever it touches, yet we do in fact often see it overpassing its domain, and encroaching upon the province of the spiritual, and seeking ends and making use of methods that are utterly unholy. Within her own proper limits commerce, as the minister of man's material life, has her proper function always lawful, and possibly religious; but let her once overpass those limits, let her proffer her material good to the spiritual soul of man, or let her, as in the case the text describes, lay hold upon man's spiritual soul itself, and make it drag its chariot, or grind at its mill, or prostitute itself for gain, and commerce becomes an unqualified and unutterable curse; it is guilty of man's crowning sacrilege; it perpetrates his crowning folly. Whatever else may be a thing of traffic, the soul may not; its spiritual affections and inspirations may not be given to material things or for them; its spiritual interests are heavenly and supreme. God claims these exclusively for Himself and for moral good; they are beyond the power of any other man to claim, beyond the power of the man himself to surrender; there is an essential morality-and sacredness in the soul that imperatively demands to be preserved inviolate. When I speak of the soul of man, I mean that spiritual part of his complex nature that consists of moral affections and passions, in which the ideas of God and of virtue are implanted, and over which conscience has its proper supremacy; I mean that consciousness of intelligence and of morality which enables him to know the true and to choose the right, to admire the beautiful and to enjoy the good; I mean that consciousness of moral being and relationships, that puts an impassable gulf between man and all other animals, that enables communion with the great and spiritual Father, and that fills us with yearnings for His likeness and love; that consists in a deep and unutterable sympathy, a direct and ineffable intercourse between God and His creatures. And it is into this awful domain that commerce sacrilegiously intrudes; it is upon these mysterious thoughts, and feelings, and aspirations that it lays its irreverent hands; it interposes itself between these spiritual faculties and spiritual things; and it says, "Nay, but ye shall be my servants"; and it makes them its "hewers of wood and drawers of water." As we have said, a sordid and unspiritual commerce invades the soul in two ways — it takes possession of the soul of the merchant, and it constrains him to sacrifice his own spiritual interests to his gain, and it so far infatuates him that he does not hesitate, whenever he can command them, to sacrifice the souls of others. This latter impiety it perpetrates in two ways.

1. It is a traffic in souls, when a service is demanded by employers inconsistent with the principles of moral rectitude. And here we must, I fear, arraign many of the principles and methods of our modern commerce-the adulterations of manufactures, the methods of purchase and sale, the sophistries and subterfuges, the deceptions and concealments needful for efficiency as a shopman. Is not the false article often labelled as the true, the adulterated as the pure. Now, what is all this but trafficking in souls? first, and chiefly, in your own souls. Are you not bartering for a percentage of profit — your moral integrity, your conscience, your godly simplicity and moral sensitiveness, your purity and your peace? If you do not give your whole soul for the whole world, you give part of the one for as much as you can get of the other; you give its virtue and its peace, its prosperity and its purity. If you do not sell it, assuredly you put it in pledge, and can hope to redeem it only by your after repentance and reformation. But the point for our present emphasis is, that you throw into the bargain the souls of those whom you employ. You make these practices the condition of your employment, and bring to bear upon them a coercion that they may not have strength to resist. We talk of the enormity of dealing in the bodies of men; but it is trivial compared with this traffic in men's souls. It is worse than suicide for you to destroy the virtue of your own soul, and worse than murder for you to destroy the virtue of others, "when souls perish more than blood is shed." And yours is the deliberate destruction of these young men's souls; for the sake of your accursed gain you deliberately trample out every spark of conscience, and every struggle of spiritual life. Your merchandise, in its grossest form and directest sense, is the souls of men.

2. It is a traffic in souls when a service is demanded by employers incompatible with spiritual culture and religious duty. Here, therefore, we most seriously join issue with the present shop-keeping system in our large towns and cities; the protracted hours of business we hold to be not only a physical and social wrong, but one of the most serious religious evils and obstacles that exist amongst us. One of the most important, if not the most important, classes of society, is our young men; and one of the most vital points for the welfare of the Church, and the conversion of the world, is their efficient religious culture. And they are the victims of this social evil. The great mass of them utterly cut off from all means even of intellectual improvement, save during the jaded hours of their reduced and damaged Sabbath.

(H. Allan, D. D.)

? — The area of the earth is covered, we may almost say, with the ruins of extinct empires. The empires which have risen upon those ruins have no more inherent right and title to perpetuity than their predecessors had. The debris of the grandeur of Rome are around us and beneath us, even as we sit here. If the greatness of Rome collapsed and fell, why not England's? The life of a nation is a wonderful, a most complex, and a most subtle thing. First of all, there is that which is the most obvious and patent of all — its material prosperity, its command of the good things of this life. How high England stands amongst the nations in this respect we all know. There is no question as to her being the wealthiest nation of the world. Now this she might be, and yet the wealth might be so concentrated in a few hands as to add nothing to the welfare and well-being of the nation regarded as a whole. In England, however, at the present moment, this can hardly be said to be the case. The present tendency of things undoubtedly is towards a more equal distribution of the wealth of the community. The general rise of wages has had the effect of diffusing the comforts of life over a much wider area than formerly. And there is nothing as yet to indicate that this tendency has exhausted itself, or is likely in the near future to run in the contrary direction. The words from which we set out suggest a danger of a different kind — a gradual drying-up of the springs of industry through a gradual drying-up of the profits of capital, tending to a transfer of that capital to other countries and other employments. This, however, is still only a possible danger. There is nothing as yet to show that any such dangerous reaction has decisively set in. So far, then, as England's greatness depends upon her material prosperity there is nothing as yet to show that that greatness is on the decline. But then it must never be forgotten that to say this is not saying very much. "With thy wisdom and with thine understanding," writes Ezekiel of Tyre, in language which might be transferred without the alteration of a single letter to the case of England, "thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasuries: by thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches." And what then? Is all this wealth in the prophet's eye any pledge of permanent greatness, any guarantee against the decline of that greatness? On the contrary, the prophet's last word, in God's name, upon Tyre is this: "Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee; it shall devour thee," etc. Upon the whole, then, so far as England's material prosperity — its wealth, in the ordinary sense of the word — is concerned, though there may be cause for anxiety, there seems to be nothing to compel alarm. We may pass, then, now to the discussion of another element of a nation's life, which I may describe as the intellectual element. In the case of England, very little needs to be said about this; and that little has no right to be unhopeful or discouraging. The education of the masses has advanced of late years, and still continues to advance, with giant strides; and, however it may have been or may still in a measure be, it will certainly not be long before England will cease to be liable to the reproach of being backward amongst the nations in the race of intellectual culture. But what about those moral and religious elements which constitute, far above everything else, the vital forces of a nation's life? What about these — these, which are indeed that "soul," by which alone, according to the poet's most true words, "the nations" can be "great and free"? In that passage which I have already quoted from Ezekiel's Book there is a phrase which is not, I fear, without its sting for England now, as for Tyre then: "The iniquity of thy traffick." What the special iniquity of Tyre's traffic was, it is impossible at this distance of time, and indeed it is not for us, to say. But will any Englishman dare to maintain that there is not, nor has been, any iniquity in the traffic of England? For example, is not that word "business" used to cover a multitude of practices which, if carried beyond the circle of trade and commerce, would be at once stigmatised, in plain English, as false, counterfeit, hypocritical? And will it be urged that a lie is less a lie, and therefore less hurtful and demoralising to him who tells it, if told in the counting-house, or behind the counter, or in the workshop or factory, than if told in the domestic or social circle, or in the common intercourse of daily life? We are discussing, remember, the moral and religious aspects of our English life, with the object of ascertaining whether they indicate the decay of our national greatness, or not. That there are dangerous symptoms no one will deny. We trace them, unmistakably, in things so notorious as the vast dimensions of the liquor traffic — the spread of secularism and unbelief — and a mass of misery and wretchedness, due to improvidence and vice and violation of the sanctities of the home life. But as it is in the natural body, so it is also in the body politick. In both there are forces of decay and dissolution ever at work. And in both there are also forces of life and renovation ever at work until the actual moment of death supervenes. Indeed the life of the natural body has been defined, and very aptly defined, as "the sum of the forces by which we resist death." When, then, we would forecast the future, and shape an answer to the question, "Is England's greatness on the decline?" our question really amounts to this, "Which set of forces is at the present moment in the ascendant, those which tend to national decay and dissolution, or those which tend to national life, vigour, and health?" We can only say, "Thou knowest, Lord." But the difficulty, which is insuperable speculatively, yields at a touch practically. We can, at any rate, one and all, resolve that our lives shall be flung into the scale in which are the forces of national life and strength, and not into the opposite scale. First, by all means cultivate your minds; and not your minds only, but your bodies also. Next, by all means cultivate your citizen-life-your life as members of this great and noble commonwealth of England. Last of all, and above all, cultivate, with the utmost diligence and ardour, your home-life. Do everything that lies in your power for the comfort and welfare and happiness of your wives and children. And into your whole life — as men, as citizens, as husbands and fathers — let me beseech you ever to carry the thought of God, and an earnest desire and a loyal resolve to do His will.

(Canon D. J. Vaughan.)

JohnBabylonBabylon, Bird, Cage, Cried, Cry, Demons, Destruction, Detestable, Devils, Dwelling, Evil, Fall, Fallen, Foul, Habitation, Hated, Hateful, Haunt, Hold, Hole, Home, Kind, Loud, Mightily, Mighty, Prison, Saying, Shouted, Spirit, Spirits, Strong, Stronghold, Unclean, Voice1. Babylon is fallen.
4. People commanded to depart out of her.
9. The kings of the earth, with the merchants and mariners, lament over her.
20. The saints rejoice for the judgments of God upon her.

Revelation 18:2

     4131   demons, kinds of
     4132   demons, malevolence
     4195   spirits
     5196   voice
     6103   abomination
     6189   immorality, examples

Revelation 18:1-2

     4113   angels, agents of judgment

Revelation 18:1-3

     4938   fate, final destiny
     5541   society, negative

Revelation 18:1-5

     5004   human race, and sin

Revelation 18:1-8

     5305   empires

Revelation 18:1-10

     4125   Satan, agents of

Revelation 18:1-24

     4215   Babylon

Revelation 18:2-3

     1680   types
     5587   trade

Revelation 18:2-24

     5407   merchants

Death Swallowed up in victory
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory! D eath, simply considered, is no more than the cessation of life --that which was once living, lives no longer. But it has been the general, perhaps the universal custom of mankind, to personify it. Imagination gives death a formidable appearance, arms it with a dart, sting or scythe, and represents it as an active, inexorable and invincible reality. In this view death is a great devourer; with his iron tongue …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

The Northern Iron and the Steel
That being the literal meaning, we shall draw from our text a general principle. It is a proverbial expression, no doubt, and applicable to many other matters besides that of the prophet and the Jews; it is clearly meant to show, that in order to achieve a purpose, there must be a sufficient force. The weaker cannot overcome the stronger. In a general clash the firmest will win. There must be sufficient firmness in the instrument or the work cannot be done. You cannot cut granite with a pen-knife, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

War! War! War!
At the present crisis, the minds of men are exceedingly agitated with direful prospects of a terrible struggle. We know not whereunto this matter may grow. The signs of the times are dark and direful. We fear that the vials of God's wrath are about to be poured out, and that the earth will be deluged with blood. As long as there remains a hope, let us pray for peace, nay, even in the time of war let us still beseech the throne of God, crying, that he would "send us peace in our days." The war will …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

"If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. "
Rom. viii. 9.--"If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Seventh (And Last) vision "On Earth"
We must get a complete view of these in order to embrace them all and view them as a whole. The Structure shows their true sequence: E^7., xix. 17-- 15. The Seventh (and Last) Vision "on Earth." E^7 A^1 xix. 17-21. MEN. The Judgment of the Beast and the False Prophet. B^1 xx. 1-3. SATAN. The Judgment of Satan (Before the Millennium). A^2 xx. 4-6. MEN. The Judgment of the overcomers. The "rest of the dead" left for Judgment. B^2 xx. 7-10. …
E.W. Bullinger—Commentary on Revelation

The Sun Rising Upon a Dark World
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon then hath the light shined. C ontrasts are suited to illustrate and strengthen the impression of each other. The happiness of those, who by faith in MESSIAH, are brought into a state of peace, liberty, and comfort, is greatly enhanced and heightened by the consideration of that previous state of misery in which they once lived, and of the greater misery to which they were justly exposed. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Covenanting Adapted to the Moral Constitution of Man.
The law of God originates in his nature, but the attributes of his creatures are due to his sovereignty. The former is, accordingly, to be viewed as necessarily obligatory on the moral subjects of his government, and the latter--which are all consistent with the holiness of the Divine nature, are to be considered as called into exercise according to his appointment. Hence, also, the law of God is independent of his creatures, though made known on their account; but the operation of their attributes …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon
OF THE HOUSE OF THE FOREST OF LEBANON. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. That part of Palestine in which the celebrated mountains of Lebanon are situated, is the border country adjoining Syria, having Sidon for its seaport, and Land, nearly adjoining the city of Damascus, on the north. This metropolitan city of Syria, and capital of the kingdom of Damascus, was strongly fortified; and during the border conflicts it served as a cover to the Assyrian army. Bunyan, with great reason, supposes that, to keep …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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