Page:Darby - Notes on the Book of Revelations, 1839.djvu/52

 ceased to be in a suffering state. Of the seventh seal nothing could be directly said—heaven could say nothing—man perhaps much; but his thoughts are not as God’s thoughts. The owning of Christianity could not be condemned—the putting the Church into the world, its real effect, could not be celebrated. There was silence in heaven. But on this state of things, which heaven could not own at all, secret providence soon began to act. The angels began sounding. It was an action, then, ab extra in the providential state of things by angelic ministrations of providence, not in the known relationship of a suffering Church, and the world opposed, as it had crucified the Head. The growth of apostasy is traced, not in this second