But beside the symbolic Lamb we find the Four Living Ones acting a part in connection with the first four seal-periods. They are not introduced into the drama as mere drapery and ornament; but as representative of a class of agents performing a very important part in association with the Lamb during the first four seal-periods. Aggregately they are the symbols of the "ONE BODY" -- of "the Ecclesia which is His body" (Eph. i. 22-23; iv. 4). When encircling the throne, they represent the one body of the redeemed after their appearance at the judgment seat of Christ; but in these seals they are emblematic of the general assembly and ecclesia of firstborns, who have been enrolled for heavens (Heb. xii. 23) in their relation, or rather, opposition, to "the Prosecutor of the Brethren" enthroned in the heaven of Pagan Rome (xii. 7-10). This power, symbolized by "the Dragon in heaven," was continually assailing them with accusations of blasphemy and atheism, and of hatred to mankind in general; and unrighteously subjecting them to the cruelest pains and penalties of despotic and arbitrary power. But, energized by the Lamb, "they loved not their lives unto the death"; and "by the word of their testimony" withstood their enemy until at length "they overcame him."

The Lamb and the Four Living Ones in the first four seals symbolize, then, what may be styled in popular phrase, "the church militant" -- such as the ecclesia of the Deity was in the time of the apostle John. The Lamb was then in the midst of the seven golden lightstands, in which burned the seven flames of fire. In other words, the apostolic ecclesias were all in the Spirit’s Mouth, from which they were not "spued," or ejected, until after the fifth seal. The Lamb and the Four Living Ones were One Body -- "the Father in Jesus, and Jesus in the Father, and they, the true believers, in them," a Divine Unity. This was a power too strong for the Dragon-power of Rome. It was the spirit of the Deity in intellectual and moral activity contending in flesh and blood "against principalities, against powers, against the worldrulers of the darkness of the aion, against the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" of Daniel’s fourth beast (Eph. vi. 12). While the weapons of the Dragon’s warfare were carnal -- imprisonment, torture, confiscation, fire, and sword; the weapon of theirs was "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." It was not they who opened the seal-periods, but the Spirit-Lamb; and when he opened them in order, the voice of that same spirit, issuing from the corporate aggregations of eyes, which derived their intelligence from Him, invited John as a member of the body, and as the dramatic representative of his class in then present and after times, to "Come and see." "And," saith he, "I saw." The dethronement and death of Domitian were the thunder-voice of the opened first seal-period, which arrested the attention of all christadelphian eyes to behold what was next to "come." Their Ephesian vigilance required not to hear the mandate, "Come and see," for their eyes were full orbed upon the government; and anxiously and earnestly watching events bearing upon its policy with reference to themselves, and the conflict in which they were engaged.

The fall of Domitian, then was in itself a command to all the eyes of the One Body (and it was gemonta ophthalmon, "full of eyes" ch. iv. 8; Ezek. x. 12) to come "to the consideration of the event," and to "see," or discern, the unloosing of the seal.

And what did they see in the Dragon-empire consequent upon the tyrant’s fall? They saw a very remarkable change of times. The previous fifteen years of misrule and cruelty were immediately succeeded by a mild and beneficent reign of sixteen months and eight days. This was the short, but brilliant reign of Nerva, which was inaugurated by an act of the Roman Senate, which condemned Domitian’s memory, and rescinded his decrees. Nerva was one of the best monarchs permitted by the Lamb to occupy the Dragon throne. Under his mild administration of the laws, the people of the Roman Horse was everywhere contented and happy. He extended his clemency as "the minister of the Deity for good," to all who were imprisoned for treason; called home all that had been banished in Domitian’s time, except the tyrant’s own niece, Domitilla, whose freedman had assassinated him; restored all sequestrated estates; punished informers, and, to the utmost of his power, redressed the grievances of every description of his subjects. To christadelphians he allowed the freest toleration, not permitting any to persecute either them or the Jews, though the saints were generally regarded as Atheists, having no visible temples, altars, or sacrifice, which the pagans considered as essential to a profession of religion.