Principalities and powers

With reference to Ephesians 3:10,11—Such was the symbolic scene beheld by Zechariah after his symbolic resurrection -- two antagonistic powers; the one the Spirit, the other, the mountain-dominion of the world. But, had we no more light thrown upon the subject than granted to the prophet, the truth symbolized would be as inscrutable to us as it was to him. But, happily for them who are "the servants of the Deity sealed in their foreheads" with his seal, the hidden mystery hath been apostolically and apocalyptically revealed. The apostles, whose teaching consisted largely of "the revelation of the mystery hid from the aions and generations," have supplied that which the angel carefully concealed from Zechariah. They have taught us, that the Golden Lightbearer of the Spirit is the "One Body," of which the Lord Jesus is the head, or globular reservoir of the oil, anointed with the holy oil of truth; for "the spirit is the truth," says John. This is the stem, and the bowl, and the seven tubes branching from the top, and the seven burners, and the two pipes; through which flows the spirit-oil of the truth, that it may "shine before men." This one body, or lightbearer, is "the light of the world" (Matt. v. 14-16). It has been set up in the world to "give light unto all that are in the house," that they may see the good works of them who are burners of the spirit-oil, and "glorify the Father who is in heaven." It is through them that the Spirit operates in enlightening mankind, in "opening their eyes, and turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan (which is ignorance) to the Deity;" and in "pulling down of strongholds, and casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the Deity’s knowledge, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the Christ" (Acts xxvi. 18; 2 Cor. x. 5). In doing this, the seven Eyes of the Deity shine like lamps of fire from the burners of the lightstand. In apostolic times, they stood before the principalities and powers in the heavenlies making known to these rulers of the earth the manifold wisdom of the Deity, according to an exposition of the aions which he made concerning Jesus their anointed Lord (Eph. iii. 10,11). Without this lightbearing body, the world in all the ages and generations from apostolic times until now, would have been in lightless outer darkness. The One Body has been the golden seven branched lightbearer in all the gloomy period of the times of the Gentiles. "Their testimony," which is their light, is not only enlightening to the understanding of the ignorant, but it is tormenting to the adherents and advocates of the traditions and sophistries of the catholic and protestant apostasy (Apoc. xi. 7,10). It vexes and annoys them; and especially when the eyes of the common people are sufficiently opened, if not to see the truth so as to be saved by it, at least to discern the imposition practised by those who would be their spiritual guides; but whose guidance they reject as mere quackery, and certain to precipitate all who trust it into the ditch. This effect of the light-burning stirs the gods of the earth up to inextinguishable wrath and causes them to make war upon the lightburners and to try to put out their light by breaking their lightbearing body to pieces (xi. 7; xiii. 7). But "the earth helps the Woman," who is indirectly nourished and cherished by the democratic and revolutionary adversaries of arbitrary power in church and state. These are her helpers, though not members of her body; and owe their political existence to the leavening influence of the divine principles she irradiates. They are her fire and sword by which her enemies are killed and devoured (Psa. xvii. 13; Apoc. xi. 5,6): and, but for whose chivalrous devotion to what they style "the rights of man," she could in no wise have withstood for ages the exterminating efforts of the enemies whom her testimony hath tormented and provoked.