Page:Darby - Notes on the Book of Revelations, 1839.djvu/80

 events, which, in fact, will be brought out in the last three years and a half manifestly.

These two points of view are in no way inconsistent; for the last crisis is a bringing to a head and manifestation, these very sources of action, in manifested agents and direct collision of action. On the contrary, none can understand the crisis that takes place, unless they enter into the sources, principles, and moving of (in some sense, we may say, interested) agents, which are here unveiled from the beginning; and, on the other hand, the workings of these agents and principles, and their results, are never clearly seen until brought thus out at the end in their very results, though faith may discern their principles long before. Thus the Lord says, in the first displays of his power, “I beheld Satan, like lightning, fall from heaven:” and His great apostle reveals to us, that the mystery of iniquity did already work, only there was a letter, till he should be taken out of the way; and then the wicked should be revealed, whom the Lord would destroy. The unveiling, then, of these hidden, but real agents, was just the unfolding of what would be brought into crisis: and the crisis is the actual manifestation of these agents in their true character, no longer under the cover of mysteries. Hence