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REVELATION CHAPTER 8
Rev_8:1 The seventh seal opened.
Rev_8:2 Seven angels receive seven trumpets.
Rev_8:3-5 An angel presenteth the prayers of the saints with incense
on the golden altar before the throne.
Rev_8:6-13 Four of the angels sound their trumpets, and great
plagues severally follow.
And when he; that is, the Lamb, mentioned Rev_5:7, who took the book out of the hand of him that sat upon the throne, the book of God’s counsels, and had now revealed mysteriously to John what should come to pass (under all the pagan emperors) to the church of Christ, until the time of Constantine the Great, who, (as was said), about the year 325, had settled the Christian religion, and shut up all the idols’ temples, having conquered the apostate Licinius.
Had opened the seventh seal; he cometh now to open the seventh seal, that is, to reveal to John what should be in the succeeding time of the church to the end of the world.
There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour: but before the great evils should break out, which were to come to pass in this time, there was in the church a rest for a small time; for from the year 317, when Constantine bare the greatest sway in the empire, or 325, when he had got a full victory over Licinius, the church had a great peace for a little time, till 339, when the empire being divided, and Constantius having the eastern part, and Constans the western, (both sons of Constantine), Constanius, being an Arian, (who denied the Godhead of Christ), began again to persecute the Christians; and after him Julian, who apostatized to paganism. But after him they had a little further respite to the year 395, when Theodosius died, and the Christians’ quiet died with him. I rather choose to interpret this thus, than with those who understand the
silence in heaven, of a silence in the third heavens, in allusion to the Jewish order; who, though they sung during the time of the sacrifice, and played upon instruments of music all that time, yet kept silence while the incense was offering. For (as divers have noted) it seemeth hard to judge, that in this Revelation there should be no mention of that short truce which the church had during the reign of Constantine, and for a small time after.