part, but in the third, as having its own importance.
But there was a feature in this not yet noticed: mixed, as they might be, in a certain sense in spite of themselves, with the world, the prayers of the saints had not ceased, and much incense was given to the angel of the altar to add to them, or give them savour and efficacy with God.[1] The High Priest himself wears the angelic character here: the nearness of relationship, and completeness of all in heaven as governing on known principles (known by man in the Church as his own to go upon) were gone.
This is the first mention we have of the altar of incense. The souls were under the altar of burnt offering as whole burnt offerings. Now, it was the whole resourse of the saints to cry to God. The answer was judgments from the holiness of God against evil: and the definite course of disasters prepared to pursue its progress. We have, thus, at the close or at the beginning of the periods, an ac- count of the state of the saints during the period,
- ↑ Hence I apprehend in the crisis this would be the intercession of the High Priest for those left on the earth—saints after (as we have been before led to see) the rapture of the Church—saints then connected with the condition of the earth.
