him, he sees the Golden Candlesticks. So, often, as in the judgment of the woman, the chief part of the description is of the beast.
The addresses to the Churches are not part of the things that are, properly; they come in by the by, and designedly so: “Unto the Angel, &c. write,” and “he that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.” Yet the existence of the Churches themselves and the stars, constitute the things that are, and are of all importance, as shewing the transition from the state in which Christ, according to Eph. iv, was the head of the one body, making it grow by that which every joint supplied (in which its original state was connected with, and presented in, its theory and mystic perfectness—the results of which shall be. manifested in that day when it shall be manifested as one with him), to the state of ruin and apostasy into which it actually fell, so as to be cut off and spued out of his mouth: as a dispensation—a state of transition—in which He was not filling the one body with gifts, but correcting details in the several corporate bodies, in different places, and judging the evil inconsistent with the moral design of the Church, maintaining a character absolutely necessary to their recognition as His—as Churches at all.
