Were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.—Methodism damaged the Anglican communion as much as it did the Truth.
9:3. And there came out of the smoke locusts.—An immense number of followers.—Judges 7:12.
Upon the earth.—Among order-loving people.
And unto them was given power.—To attend an old-time Methodist meeting and witness the “getting the power” was to see the sight of a life-time.
As the scorpions of the earth have powers.—“A well-known injurious insect of hot climates, which is shaped very much like a lobster. They are carnivorous in their habits, and move along in a threatening attitude with the tail elevated. The sting, which is situated at the extremity of the tail, has at its base a gland that secretes a poisonous fluid, which is discharged into the wound by two minute orifices at its extremity. The scorpion makes a painful wound in men and beasts which produces fatal results unless speedy remedies be provided such as scarifying the wound or sucking out the poison.”—McC.
9:4. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth.—Men of independent thought.—Rev. 8:7.
[Neither any green thing.] Neither any tree.—Saint.—Rev. 8:7.
But [only] those men.—The unconverted.
Which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.—Methodists understand that to be converted from being a sinner means to have the seal of God in one's forehead. All the energies of that church are devoted to gathering in goats to the sheepfold.
9:5. And to them it was given that they should not kill them.—No such sane and merciful sentence as “The wages of sin is death” has any place in Methodist theology. Wesley was born at a time when the original meaning of the word “Hell” had become hidden, and was saturated with the later teachings that it signifies a place of torment. He threw his whole heart into the work of spreading this error throughout the earth.