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marking (Ezek. ix. 4), with the sealing (Rev. vii.); the slaying (Ezek. ix. 6), with the first earthquake (Rev. vi. 12, xi. 13); the fire (Ezek. x. 2, viii. 5, xiv. 18), the departure of the glory (x. 19), with the removal of the saints from the earth (Rev. xi. 18); and the destruction of Jerusalem (Ezek. xi.), with the final earthquake (Rev. viii. 5, xi. 19, xvi. 18), and to which, in fact, the sixth seal extends.

The trumpets have one feature common to all of them but the fifth, that they affect only the "third part of the earth," &c. This forces us to apply them to a portion of the earth different from that affected by the seals, in which series the "fourth part" (vi. 8) is the only locality given. The "earth" is the Roman empire before it was divided, sometimes called "the world," as Luke xi. 1. It was divided into three parts by Constantine, that he might give a portion to each of his sons. To his eldest, Constantine, he left Gaul, Spain, and Britain; to his second, Constans, he left Italy, Africa, and Illyricum; to his third, Constantius, he left all the eastern provinces, of which Constantinople was the capital. This division took place a. D. 337; and A. D. 340 Constantine was slain, and Constans became master of the whole Western Empire. We are therefore limited to these three years for the commencement of the trumpet series, as then only was the empire divided into three parts; and which of these parts it relates to is put beyond controversy by the sixth trumpet (ix. 14), which all commentators of judgment have agreed to interpret of the Turks, who overran and have held for centuries that third part of the Roman empire which was left to Constantius, the third son of Constantine the Great.In the interpretation of the trumpets, I have nothing to add to what has been already published, and therefore only enumerate them. The "hail, and fire mingled with blood," which follow the sounding of the first, denote those invasions of the northern barbarians by which the Eastern empire was continually harassed down to the time of Valens, A. D. 378. The "great mountain burning with fire," after the second trumpet, denotes Alaric the Goth, A. D. 400 to 410. The "falling star" of the third trumpet, is Nestorius, a. D. 430; whose heretical doctrines, especially concerning the person of our Lord, turned the streams of life into wormwood, and poisoned the souls of men. The fourth trumpet brings in that low and degraded state of things which continued in the East till the time of Heraclius, A. D. 610, and prepared the way for the woes which ensue. The fifth trumpet brings in the Saracens, A. D. 622; and the "falling star who opens the bottomless pit" is Sergius, who was the main cause of Mohammed's early successes, and who assisted him in composing the Koran. To the ravages of the Saracens alone no limitation of a third is given by which is intimated that they should pass beyond the

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bounds of the Eastern empire, and break in upon the West; as they did, in overrunning all the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and occupying the best part of Spain. To this invasion of Christendom the men which have not the seal of God on their foreheads" may refer; but its full meaning I do not understand. Some have supposed that it is connected with the sealing in chap. vii., and that we should therefore carry back the sealed tribes to this time of the Saracens. But the slightest examination shews that the two passages have nothing in common, but the mere mention of a seal. For vii. 1-3 shews that the trees are to be hurt as soon as the sealing has taken place, while in ix. 4 it is expressly "commanded that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree." And these have only power to torment men five months;" a very different idea from the consternation of the sixth seal. And this (ix. 12) is but the first woe, to which two woes more succeed; whereas in the sixth seal "the great day of wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" (vi. 17.) The sixth trumpet is the Turkish woe under its four sultanies, whose career of triumph was limited to an hour, a day, a month, and year, or 391 years and a fraction ;- -a time which I think capable of being fixed with the greatest accuracy, though I am unable to do so. Certain it is that they continued to be a woe till the French Revolution, the earthquake of xi. 13: immediately after which it is said, (ver. 14) “The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly;"-and certain it is, that the power of this "great river Euphrates is dried up" under the sixth vial (xvi. 12). Therefore we may be assured, from the wasting of the Turkish power which we daily behold, that the second woe is past, and that the way is preparing for the third woe, which cometh quickly. The trumpets differ from the seals, in being wholly of a penal character, and in having no corrective effect. In the judgment of the sixth seal, men are represented as seeking to "hide themselves from the wrath of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" (vi. 17.) These expressions indicate a belief in the existence of God and of the Lamb, and an expectation of a day of wrath and retribution; and look like signs of repentance about to spring up, if they be not its first symptoms. But under the trumpets they "repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts." (ix. 21). This I account for by there still being a church in the quarter of the earth to which the seals apply, while heresy has wholly overrun the East, where the judgment of the trumpets falls.

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Chapter X. 1-7, is the proem to the vials, and shews the important issues following their effusion. The vision is most magnificent, being a display of Christ himself, in this manifestation embodying the most remarkable of the symbols by which these his last actings had been represented in Holy Writ. And the issues are most stupendous: for these vials are "the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the wrath of God" (xv. 1) into this series also are gathered the conclusion both of the seals and of the trumpets; and in "the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets" (x.7). This "mighty Angel" is clothed with a cloud; alluding, I think, to the cloudy pillar which led the camp of Israel into the promised land; and I think it is also meant to intimate that this is not Christ's personal coming, but a manifestation of his power in providence. The "rainbow upon his head," designates him the Angel of the Covenant, and invests him with power to change that constitution of things whose continuance the rainbow guaranteed. His "face as the sun,' marks him the Sun of Righteousness, the Light and the Life of men. His feet as pillars of fire," reminds us of i. 15, ii. 18, where "his feet are like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace." These are Oriental symbols, and allude to threshing, which in those countries was performed by the feet of oxen. This figure is common in Scripture: as Micah iv. 13; "Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thy hoofs brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many people." The "fire" alludes to the burning of the tares, chaff, and stubble, which follows the harvest, being the last act of the present order of things, and immediately succeeded by the vintage, trodden in person by the Word of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords. (xix. 11.) He had in his hand a "little book open." This is the title-deeds of his inheritance (Jer. xxxii. 11-14), which as the goel the (next of kin) he now comes to claim it is also, I think, the seventh seal, that portion of the book which peculiarly reveals himself (Bibλapiov idior), since by the same one act he was worthy to take the book, to open the seals thereof, to redeem the inheritance, and to make his people kings and priests unto God. His "right foot on the sea and left foot on the earth," may signify taking possession of them both as his inheritance; but I rather prefer understanding them symbolically: the earth, the symbol of stability, as the church; the sea, the symbol of instability, as the world both of which he shall take under his controul before the vial series runs out. This action refers to Dan. xii. 7, where our High Priest declares, that at the expiration of the time, times, and a half, the scattering of the Jews shall be finished. He "cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth," denoting the

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time to be that of harvest, and Babylon's destruction (Isai. xxi. 8—10; Jer. xlix. 19; 1. 44). The "seven thunders" are the seven vials, not to be written here, because to be given at large xv. xvi. His "standing upon the sea and upon the earth" is repeated ver. 5, to shew that the action was continuous, and that the roaring of the lion, and the seven thunders, which come between 2 and 5, are also continuous actions. He sware that there should be time no longer;" shewing that Daniel's first times (xii. 7) are now run out; and intimating to the world and to the church that they have no further time to calculate upon, and that she should be always ready, " for in such an hour as they think not; the Son of Man cometh ;"—the seventh trumpet may now sound at any time; all the preliminary signs are accomplished; and " in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets" (x. 7).

This stupendous vision, in which the visible creation is exhausted to furnish emblems of dignity to the Person by whom such mighty works are to be achieved, unites also in itself the two preceding series, in the mention of the little book and the seventh trumpet; leading us to expect the same reunion of events under the vials, to which this vision is the preface. But the revelations now about to be given so peculiarly concern the church, both as foretelling her destination and regulating her conduct, that she is not stinted to the mere relation of the events of these last times, but prepared for rightly understanding and applying these events by a history of the church itself, the clue to the labyrinth of politics, the band of its discordant materials. This history is given under the three aspects, of-First (ch. xi.), prophesying, preaching, or calling out from the world, the first step towards a church: and under this aspect they are considered as individuals, and the word of God as their only confidence, as it is the chief external means of their difference from the world: "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God;"-Second (ch. xii.), the church as a body, persecuted by the dragon, but "keeping the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus" to the end (xii. 17);-Third, the antagonist of the church, to whom the dragon gave his power and seat and great authority for forty-two months, and who blasphemes the name of God and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven, during that time (xiii. 6); and the last infidel antagonist (xiii. 11, 18). The Apostle personates the church, as the receiver of the revelations now about to be given; and to qualify him for understanding them, he is commanded to eat the book which Christ holds in his hand. The same is done by Ezekiel (ii. 8-10, iii. 1—3), to qualify him for his prophetic office, after he has seen the vision: and Jeremiah (xv. 16)`com

pares the spiritual enjoyment of the word of God to the nourishment and exhilaration which food affords to the exhausted body: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.”—There is great beauty and propriety in the three series of the Apocalypse being addressed to the different senses of seeing, hearing, and tasting. The seals affect that portion of the earth in which the church was to be placed, and she would therefore see around her the changes brought on by the opening of the seals. But the trumpets relate to a remote land, and the church would therefore hear only their distant sounds. While these revelations, which prepare for the vials, and the vials themselves, intimately concerning the church itself and its conduct, the knowledge of them being its sustenance, life, and strength during this time of trial, the book is represented as its food, its daily bread; and throughout the vials allusions to the same sense are kept up: as, drinking the wine of God's wrath (xiv. 10), blood to drink (xvi. 6), golden cup full of abominations (xvii. 2—4, xviii. 3). In the mouth of the Apostle it was sweet as honey (x. 10): "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! sweeter than honey to my mouth" (Psalm cxix. 103): but in his belly it was bitter; involving sufferings of the church, in which every member sympathizes; oppositions and persecutions from without; and, what is still more bitter, unbelief and contradiction from the brethren: but still the church "must prophesy before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings." (x. 11.)

Chap. XI. is the history of prophesying from the Apostle's time till the translation of the saints. The Apostle is commanded to "measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein." In Ezek. xl. the Angel measures the temple, while the Prophet looks on; indicating that the Prophet would have no part in raising the temple which he saw in vision: but here the Apostle himself is the measurer; shewing that the temple denotes that church which he and the other Apostles had founded, which church continued to retain the temple of God (i. e. the tabernacle), and the altar (. e. the golden altar of incense), and them that worship therein (i. e. the daily offering of incense); but cast out the court without the temple (i. e. the court of the congregation) and all its contents-as the brazen altar and all the sacrifices offered thereon, the laver and all ceremonial purifications, the outer inclosure which separated the tabernacle from the camp-throwing open the church now, not only to the whole camp, but to every stranger that passed by. This is an exact and beautiful representation of the Christian church, as the substance or antitype which the tabernacle typified; "the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Heb. viii. 2). We direct our faith to the true holy of

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