Then, the Supreme authority smitten; but this in a confined sphere with all dependant or subordinate light or authority.
There is then a term introduced, not previously used, save in the address to the Church of Philadelphia, “Woe to the inhabiters of earth!” an expression, I apprehend, taken from Isaiah xxiv., and used in the Apocalypse in contrast with dwellers in heaven, i.e. persons within the range of the prophetic earth, or scene of God’s immediate moral dealings, but not a stranger or sojourner
water (not exactly living water) is doctrine, and in a good sense the word; but waters are peoples, tongues, nations and languages, and the sea the unformed mass of them. Hence rivers seem the different compartments of them, as “whose land the rivers have spoiled.” But I take it, water is always viewed as under active moral influences of some sort, when living (it may be) in power; when the sea, it may be acted on merely; when fountains, it may be the spring of their influences, as the rivers would be their course; and therefore, according to the form of its use it would be the source of, or effects of these moral influences on the mass of the population, what we call the people: and hence, the moral popular condition as a whole, the respective form of water indicating its particular character. The springs of waters, the sources of this influenced condition:—“From the fountain of Israel,” looked at Israel as the source of the whole nation. Thus he stamped their relative character on all that flowed from Him: and hence, it might be applied perhaps directly to a teacher, or rather existing set of teachers—fountains of waters: for where they are, they characterise the people. As men say “Like people like priest.”
