Revelation 7:17

17. In the midst of the throne In the central point of the circle comprehended in the more extended sense of the word throne. For the term seems to mean not the seat only, but the entire royal space.

Feed them Will shepherd them, performing all the office of a shepherd to guard, protect, guide, fold, fodder, and water them.

Living fountains of waters Greek, ζωης πηγας υδατων , life’s fountains of waters. In the New Jerusalem, Revelation 22:1, there flows “a river of the water of life… proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” But in the rural regions of the “new earth” are many springs of the water of life, where the Lamb shall shepherd his flock, watering them at the fountains of immortality.

All tears When the fountain of immortality is opened the fountain of tears is closed. For, as in Revelation 21:4, where this promise is repeated, with death all pain, all sorrow disappear, and the eye forever forgets to weep. And he who thus forever banishes our tears is no less than our loving Father, God.

The application of this chapter to the establishment of Christianity under Constantine in the Roman empire, as made by the over-historical interpreters, as Newton and Elliott, seems scarce to need a refutation. It appears inapplicable, both in position and in nature. In position, for there is nothing in the train of the narrative to bring us to the event. The four first seals are plainly correlative, and, though following in time-order, are not chronological. Equally unchronological is the martyr-cry of the fifth seal, or the mundane dissolution of the sixth. We have no bridge to carry us over to the age of Constantine. Nor in nature, for it is a heavenly, not an earthly, scene. It is in the spirit-world, before the divine throne, and not at the court of Constantine. Standing where it does, if it be made to figure any earthly event, it is so little specific that it might just as well figure any other period of religious triumph as the age of Constantine; as, for instance, the Reformation, or Wesleyan and Whitefieldian revival. As a counter picture to the dark scenes of the six seals it has its perfect place and nature. Far distant in time as its literal fulfilment is, it is ever present to the eye of vivid faith. Amid the gain-sayings of a profane world and the trials of our earthly life, this vision dawns directly before the eye of our soul, with its consolations and its glory.

Thy saints in all this glorious war

Shall conquer, though they die;

They see the triumph from afar,

By faith they bring it nigh!